History for ready reference, Volume 3, Greece to Nibelungen
Date: 2022-06-13T00:00:00+00:00
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Title: History for ready reference, Volume 3, Greece to Nibelungen

Author: J. N. Larned

Release date: June 13, 2022 [eBook #68302]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United States: C. A. Nichols Co, 1895

Credits: Don Kostuch

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY FOR READY REFERENCE, VOLUME 3, GREECE TO NIBELUNGEN ***

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History For Ready Reference, Volume 3 of 6

From The Best Historians, Biographers, And Specialists

Their Own Words In A Complete System Of History

For All Uses, Extending To All Countries And Subjects, And Representing For Both Readers And Students The Better And Newer Literature Of History In The English Language.

BY J. N. LARNED

With Numerous Historical Maps From Original Studies And Drawings By Alan C. Reiley

In Five Volumes

Volume III—Greece To Nibelungen Lied

Springfield, Mass. The C. A. Nichols Co., Publishers

MDCCCXCV

Copyright, 1894. By J. N. Larned.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

List Of Maps.

Map of India, about the close of the Sixteenth Century, and map of the growth of the Anglo-Indian Empire, To follow page 1708.

Two maps of Italy, at the beginning of the Seventh Century, and A. D. 1492, To follow page 1804.

TWO maps of Italy, A. D. 1815 to 1859, and 1861, To follow page 1864.

Four maps of the Empire of Alexander the Great and his successors, To follow page 2061.

Map of the Mongol Empire, A. D. 1300, On page 2223.

Logical Outline, In Colors.

Irish History, To follow page 1754

Chronological Tables.

The Seventh Century, On page 2073

The Eighth Century, On page 2074

{1565}

----------GREECE: Start----------

[Footnote: An important part of Greek history is treated more fully under the heading "ATHENS" (in Volume 1), to which the reader is referred. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65306]

GREECE: The Land.

Its geographical characteristics, and their influence upon the People.

"The considerable part played by the people of Greece during many ages must undoubtedly be ascribed to the geographical position of their country. Other tribes having the same origin, but inhabiting countries less happily situated—such, for instance, as the Pelasgians of Illyria, who are believed to be the ancestors of the Albanians—have never risen above a state of barbarism, whilst the Hellenes placed themselves at the head of civilised nations, and opened fresh paths to their enterprise. If Greece had remained for ever what it was during the tertiary geological epoch—a vast plain attached to the deserts of Libya, and run over by lions and the rhinoceros—would it have become the native country of a Phidias, an Æschylos, or a Demosthenes? Certainly not. It would have shared the fate of Africa, and, far from taking the initiative in civilisation, would have waited for an impulse to be given to it from beyond. Greece, a sub-peninsula of the peninsula of the Balkans, was even more completely protected by transverse mountain barriers in the north than was Thracia or Macedonia. Greek culture was thus able to develop itself without fear of being stifled at its birth by successive invasions of barbarians. Mounts Olympus, Pelion, and Ossa, towards the north and east of Thessaly, constituted the first line of formidable obstacles towards Macedonia. A second barrier, the steep range of the Othrys, runs along what is the present political boundary of Greece. To the south of the Gulf of Lamia a fresh obstacle awaits us, for the range of the Œta closes the passage, and there is but the narrow pass of the Thermopylæ between it and the sea. Having crossed the mountains of the Locri and descended into the basin of Thebæ, there still remain to be crossed the Parnes or the spurs of the Cithæron before we reach the plains of Attica. The 'isthmus' beyond these is again defended by transverse barriers, outlying ramparts, as it were, of the mountain citadel of the Peloponnesus, that acropolis of all Greece. Hellas has frequently been compared to a series of chambers, the doors of which were strongly bolted; it was difficult to get in, but more difficult to get out again, owing to their stout defenders. Michelet likens Greece to a trap having three compartments. You entered, and found yourself taken first in Macedonia, then in Thessaly, then between the Thermopylæ and the isthmus. But the difficulties increase beyond the isthmus, and Lacedæmonia remained impregnable for a long time. At an epoch when the navigation even of a land-locked sea like the Ægean was attended with danger, Greece found herself sufficiently protected against the invasions of oriental nations; but, at the same time, no other country held out such inducements to the pacific expeditions of merchants. Gulfs and harbours facilitated access to her Ægean coasts, and the numerous outlying islands were available as stations or as places of refuge. Greece, therefore, was favourably placed for entering into commercial intercourse with the more highly civilised peoples who dwelt on the opposite coasts of Asia Minor. The colonists and voyagers of Eastern Ionia not only supplied their Achæan and Pelasgian kinsmen with foreign commodities and merchandise, but they also imparted to them the myths, the poetry, the sciences, and the arts of their native country. Indeed, the geographical configuration of Greece points towards the east, whence she has received her first enlightenment. Her peninsulas and outlying islands extend in that direction; the harbours on her eastern coasts are most commodious, and afford the best shelter; and the mountain-surrounded plains there offer the best sites for populous cities. … The most distinctive feature of Hellas, as far as concerns the relief of the ground, consists in the large number of small basins, separated one from the other by rocks or mountain ramparts. The features of the ground thus favoured the division of the Greek people into a multitude of independent republics. Every town had its river, its amphitheatre of hills or mountains, its acropolis, its fields, pastures, and forests, and nearly all of them had, likewise, access to the sea. All the elements required by a free community were thus to be found within each of these small districts, and the neighbourhood of other towns, equally favoured, kept alive perpetual emulation, too frequently degenerating into strife and battle. The islands of the Ægean Sea, likewise, had constituted themselves into miniature republics. Local institutions thus developed themselves freely, and even the smallest island of the Archipelago has its great representatives in history. But whilst there thus exists the greatest diversity, owing to the configuration of the ground and the multitude of islands, the sea acts as a binding element, washes every coast, and penetrates far inland. These gulfs and numerous harbours have made the maritime inhabitants of Greece a nation of sailors—amphibiæ, as Strabo called them. From the most remote times the passion for travel has always been strong amongst them. When the inhabitants of a town grew too numerous to support themselves upon the produce of their land, they swarmed out like bees, explored the coasts of the Mediterranean, and, when they had found a site which recalled their native home, they built themselves a new city. … The Greeks held the same position relatively to the world of the ancients which is occupied at the present time by the Anglo-Saxons with reference to the entire earth. There exists, indeed, a remarkable analogy between Greece, with its archipelago, and the British Islands, at the other extremity of the continent. Similar geographical advantages have brought about similar results, as far as commerce is concerned, and between the Ægean and the British seas time and space have effected a sort of harmony."

E. Reclus, The Earth and its Inhabitants: Europe, volume 1, pages 36-38.

"The independence of each city was a doctrine stamped deep on the Greek political mind by the very nature of the Greek land. How truly this is so is hardly fully understood till we see that land with our own eyes. The map may do something; but no map can bring home to us the true nature of the Greek land till we have stood on a Greek hill-top, on the akropolis of Athens or the loftier akropolis of Corinth, and have seen how thoroughly the land was a land of valleys cut off by hills, of islands and peninsulas cut off by arms of sea, from their neighbours on either side. {1566} Or we might more truly say that, while the hills fenced them off from their neighbours, the arms of the sea laid them open to their neighbours. Their waters might bring either friends or enemies; but they brought both from one wholly distinct and isolated piece of land to another. Every island, every valley, every promontory, became the seat of a separate city; that is, according to Greek notions, the seat of an independent power, owning indeed many ties of brotherhood to each of the other cities which helped to make up the whole Greek nation, but each of which claimed the right of war and peace and separate diplomatic intercourse, alike with every other Greek city and with powers beyond the bounds of the Greek world. Corinth could treat with Athens and Athens with Corinth, and Corinth and Athens could each equally treat with the King of the Macedonians and with the Great King of Persia. … How close the Greek states are to one another, and yet how physically distinct they are from one another, it needs, for me at least, a journey to Greece fully to take in."

E. A. Freeman, The Practical Bearings of European History (Lectures to American Audiences), pages 243-244.

GREECE: Ancient inhabitants. Tribal divisions.

See PELASGIANS; HELLENES; ACHAIA; ÆOLIANS; and DORIANS AND IONIANS.

GREECE: The Heroes and their Age. "The period included between the first appearance of the Hellenes in Thessaly and the return of the Greeks from Troy, is commonly known by the name of the heroic age, or ages. The real limits of this period cannot be exactly defined. The date of the siege of Troy is only the result of a doubtful calculation [ending B. C. 1183, as reckoned by Eratosthenes, but fixed at dates ranging from 33 to 63 years later by Isocrates, Callimachus and other Greek writers]; and … the reader will see that it must be scarcely possible to ascertain the precise beginning of the period: but still, so far as its traditions admit of anything like a chronological connexion, its duration may be estimated at six generations, or about 200 years [say from some time in the 14th to some time in the 12th century before Christ]. … The history of the heroic age is the history of the most celebrated persons belonging to this class, who, in the language of poetry, are called 'heroes.' The term 'hero' is of doubtful origin, though it was clearly a title of honour; but, in the poems of Homer, it is applied not only to the chiefs, but also to their followers, the freemen of lower rank, without, however, being contrasted with any other, so as to determine its precise meaning. In later times its use was narrowed, and in some degree altered: it was restricted to persons, whether of the heroic or of after ages, who were believed to be endowed with a superhuman, though not a divine, nature, and who were honoured with sacred rites, and were imagined to have the power of dispensing good or evil to their worshippers; and it was gradually combined with the notion of prodigious strength and gigantic stature. Here, however, we have only to do with the heroes as men. The history of their age is filled with their wars, expeditions, and adventures, and this is the great mine from which the materials of the Greek poetry were almost entirely drawn."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 5 (volume 1).

The legendary heroes whose exploits and adventures became the favorite subjects of Greek tragedy and song were Perseus, Hercules, Theseus, the Argonauts, and the heroes of the Siege of Troy.

GREECE: The Migrations of the Hellenic tribes in the Peninsula.

"If there is any point in the annals of Greece at which we can draw the line between the days of myth and legend and the beginnings of authentic history, it is at the moment of the great migrations. Just as the irruption of the Teutonic tribes into the Roman empire in the 5th century after Christ marks the commencement of an entirely new era in modern Europe, so does the invasion of Southern and Central Greece by the Dorians, and the other tribes whom they set in motion, form the first landmark in a new period of Hellenic history. Before these migrations we are still in an atmosphere which we cannot recognize as that of the historical Greece that we know. The states have different boundaries, some of the most famous cities have not yet been founded, tribes who are destined to vanish occupy prominent places in the land, royal houses of a foreign stock are established everywhere, the distinction between Hellene and Barbarian is yet unknown. We cannot realize a Greece where Athens is not yet counted as a great city, while Mycenae is a seat of empire; where the Achaian element is everywhere predominant, and the Dorian element is as yet unknown. When, however, the migrations are ended, we at once find ourselves in a land which we recognize as the Greece of history. The tribes have settled into the districts which are to be their permanent abodes, and have assumed their distinctive characters. … The original impetus which set the Greek tribes in motion came from the north, and the whole movement rolled southward and eastward. It started with the invasion of the valley of the Peneus by the Thessalians, a warlike but hitherto obscure tribe, who had dwelt about Dodona in the uplands of Epirus. They crossed the passes of Pindus, and flooded down into the great plain to which they were to give their name. The tribes which had previously held it were either crushed and enslaved, or pushed forward into Central Greece by the wave of invasion. Two of the displaced races found new homes for themselves by conquest. The Arnaeans, who had dwelt in the southern lowlands along the courses of Apidanus and Enipeus, came through Thermopylae, pushed the Locriams aside to right and left, and descended into the valley of the Cephissus, where they subdued the Minyae of Orchomenus [see MINYI], and then, passing south, utterly expelled the Cadmeians of Thebes. The plain country which they had conquered received a single name. Boeotia became the common title of the basins of the Cephissus and the Asopus, which had previously been in the hands of distinct races. Two generations later the Boeotians endeavoured to cross Cithaeron, and add Attica to their conquests; but their king Xanthus fell in single combat with Melanthus, who fought in behalf of Athens, and his host gave up the enterprise. In their new country the Boeotians retained their national unity under the form of a league, in which no one city had authority over another, though in process of time Thebes grew so much greater than her neighbours that she exercised a marked preponderance over the other thirteen members of the confederation. Orchomenus, whose Minyan inhabitants had been subdued but not exterminated by the invaders, remained dependent on the league without being at first amalgamated with it. {1567} A second tribe who were expelled by the irruption of the Thessalians were the Dorians, a race whose name is hardly heard in Homer, and whose early history had been obscure and insignificant. They had till now dwelt along the western slope of Pindus. Swept on by the invaders, they crossed Mount Othrys, and dwelt for a time in the valley of the Spercheius and on the shoulders of Oeta. But the land was too narrow for them, and, after a generation had passed, the bulk of the nation moved southward to seek a wider home, while a small fraction only remained in the valleys of Oeta. Legends tell us that their first advance was made by the Isthmus of Corinth, and was repulsed by the allied states of Peloponnesus, Hyllus the Dorian leader having fallen in the fight by the hand of Echemus, King of Tegea. But the grandsons of Hyllus resumed his enterprise, and met with greater success. Their invasion was made, as we are told, in conjunction with their neighbours the Aetolians, and took the Aetolian port of Naupactus as its base. Pushing across the narrow strait at the mouth of the Corinthian Gulf, the allied hordes landed in Peloponnesus, and forced their way down the level country on its western coast, then the land of the Epeians, but afterwards to be known as Elis and Pisatis. This the Aetolians took as their share, while the Dorians pressed further south and east, and successively conquered Messenia, Laconia, and Argolis, destroying the Cauconian kingdom of Pylos and the Achaian states of Sparta and Argos. There can be little doubt that the legends of the Dorians pressed into a single generation the conquests of a long series of years. … It is highly probable that Messenia was the first seized of the three regions, and Argos the latest … but of the details or dates of the Dorian conquests we know absolutely nothing. Of the tribes whom the Dorians supplanted, some remained in the land as subjects to their newly found masters, while others took ship and fled over sea. The stoutest-hearted of the Achaians of Argolis, under Tisamenus, a grandson of Agamemnon, retired northward when the contest became hopeless, and threw themselves on the coast cities of the Corinthian Gulf, where up to this time the Ionic tribe of the Aegialeans had dwelt. The Ionians were worsted, and fled for refuge to their kindred in Attica, while the conquerors created a new Achaia between the Arcadian Mountains and the sea, and dwelt in the twelve cities which their predecessors had built. The rugged mountains of Arcadia were the only part of Peloponnesus which were to escape a change of masters resulting from the Dorian invasion. A generation after the fall of Argos, new war-bands thirsting for land pushed on to the north and west, led by descendants of Temenus. The Ionic towns of Sicyon and Phlius, Epidaurus and Troezen, all fell before them. Even the inaccessible Acropolis which protected the Aeolian settlement of Corinth could not preserve it from the hands of the enterprising Aletes. Nor was it long before the conquerors pressed on from Corinth beyond the isthmus, and attacked Attica. Foiled in their endeavour to subdue the land, they at least succeeded in tearing from it its western districts, where the town of Megara was made the capital of a new Dorian state, and served for many generations to curb the power of Athens. From Epidaurus a short voyage of fifteen miles took the Dorians to Aegina, where they formed a settlement which, first as a vassal to Epidaurus, and then as an independent community, enjoyed a high degree of commercial prosperity. It is not the least curious feature of the Dorian invasion that the leaders of the victorious tribe, who, like most other royal houses, claimed to descend from the gods and boasted that Heracles was their ancestor, should have asserted that they were not Dorians by race, but Achaians. Whether the rude northern invaders were in truth guided by princes of a different blood and higher civilization than themselves, it is impossible to say. … In all probability the Dorian invasion was to a considerable extent a check in the history of the development of Greek civilization, a supplanting of a richer and more cultured by a poorer and wilder race. The ruins of the prehistoric cities, which were supplanted by new Dorian foundations, point to a state of wealth to which the country did not again attain for many generations. On the other hand, the invasion brought about an increase in vigour and moral earnestness. The Dorians throughout their history were the sturdiest and most manly of the Greeks. The god to whose worship they were especially devoted was Apollo, the purest, the noblest, the most Hellenic member of the Olympian family. By their peculiar reverence for this noble conception of divinity, the Dorians marked themselves out as the most moral of the Greeks."

C. W. C. Oman, History of Greece, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: M. Duncker, History of Greece, book 2 (volume 1).

C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, introduction, and book 1, chapters 1-5.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 3-8 (volume 2).

See, also, DORIANS AND IONIANS; ACHAIA; ÆOLIANS; THESSALY; and BŒOTIA.

GREECE: The Migrations to Asia Minor and the Islands of the Ægean. Æolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies.

See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES.

GREECE: Mycenæ and its kings. The unburied memorials.

"Thucydides says that before the Dorian conquest, the date of which is traditionally fixed at B. C. 1104, Mycenae was the only city whence ruled a wealthy race of kings. Archaeology produces the bodies of kings ruling at Mycenae about the twelfth century and spreads their wealth under our eyes. Thucydides says that this wealth was brought in the form of gold from Phrygia by the founder of the line, Pelops. Archaeology tells us that the gold found at Mycenae may very probably have come from the opposite coast of Asia Minor which abounded in gold; and further that the patterns impressed on the gold work at Mycenae bear a very marked resemblance to the decorative patterns found on graves in Phrygia. Thucydides tells us that though Mycenae was small, yet its rulers had the hegemony over a great part of Greece. Archæology shews us that the kings of Mycenae were wealthy and important quite out of proportion to the small city which they ruled, and that the civilisation which centred at Mycenae spread over south Greece and the Aegean, and lasted for some centuries at least. It seems to me that the simplest way of meeting the facts of the case is to suppose that we have recovered at Mycenae the graves of the Pelopid race of monarchs. It will not of course do to go too far. … It would be too much to suppose that we have recovered the bodies of the Agamemnon who seems in the Iliad to be as familiar to us as Caesar or Alexander, or of his father Atreus, or of his charioteer and the rest. {1568} We cannot of course prove the Iliad to be history; and if we could, the world would be poorer than before. But we can insist upon it that the legends of heroic Greece have more of the historic element in them than anyone supposed a few years ago. … Assuming then that we may fairly class the Pelopidae as Achaean, and may regard the remains at Mycenae as characteristic of the Achaean civilisation of Greece, is it possible to trace with bolder hand the history of Achaean Greece? Certainly we gain assistance in our endeavour to realize what the pre-Dorian state of Peloponnesus was like. We secure a hold upon history which is thoroughly objective, while all the history which before existed was so vague and imaginative that the clear mind of Grote refused to rely upon it at all. But the precise dates are more than we can venture to lay down, in the present condition of our knowledge. … The Achaean civilisation was contemporary with the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty (B. C. 1700-1400). It lasted during the invasions of Egypt from the north (1300-1100). When it ceased we cannot say with certainty. There is every historical probability that it was brought to a violent end in the Dorian invasion. The traditional date of that invasion is B. C. 1104. But it is obvious that this date cannot be relied upon."

P. Gardner, New Chapters in Greek History, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: R. Schliemann, Mycenæ.

C. Schuchhardt, Schliemann's Excavations, chapter 4.

GREECE: Ancient political and geographical divisions.

"Greece was not a single country. … It was broken up into little districts, each with its own government. Any little city might be a complete state in itself, and independent of its neighbours. It might possess only a few miles of land and a few hundred inhabitants, and yet have its own laws, its own government, and its own army. … In a space smaller than an English county there might be several independent cities, sometimes at war, sometimes at peace with one another. Therefore when we say that the west coast of Asia Minor was part of Greece, we do not mean that this coast-land and European Greece were under one law and one government, for both were broken up into a number of little independent States: but we mean that the people who lived on the west coast of Asia Minor were just as much Greeks as the people who lived in European Greece. They spoke the same language, and had much the same customs, and they called one another Hellenes, in contrast to all other nations of the world, whom they called barbarians … , that is, 'the unintelligible folk,' because they could not understand their tongue."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Greece (History Primers), chapter 1.

"The nature of the country had … a powerful effect on the development of Greek politics. The whole land was broken up by mountains into a number of valleys more or less isolated; there was no central point from which a powerful monarch could control it. Hence Greece was, above all other countries, the home of independence and freedom. Each valley, and even the various hamlets of a valley, felt themselves possessed of a separate life, which they were jealous to preserve."

E. Abbott, History of Greece, part 1, chapter 1.

See AKARNANIANS; ACHAIA; ÆGINA; ÆTOLIA; ARCADIA; ARGOS; ATHENS; ATTICA; BŒOTIA; CORINTH; DORIS AND DRYOPIS; ELIS; EPIRUS; EUBŒA; KORKYRA; LOCRI; MACEDONIA; MANTINEA; MEGALOPOLIS; MEGARA; MESSENE; OLYNTHUS; PHOKIANS; PLATÆA; SICYON; SPARTA; THEBES; and THESSALY.

GREECE: Political evolution of the leading States. Variety in the forms of Government. Rise of democracy at Athens.

"The Hellenes followed no common political aim. … Independent and self-centred, they created, in a constant struggle of citizen with citizen and state with state, the groundwork of those forms of government which have been established in the world at large. We see monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, rising side by side and one after another, the changes being regulated in each community by its past experience and its special interests in the immediate present. These forms of government did not appear in their normal simplicity or in conformity with a distinct ideal, but under the modifications necessary to give them vitality. An example of this is Lakedæmon. If one of the families of the Heracleidæ [the two royal families-see SPARTA: THE CONSTITUTION] aimed at a tyranny, whilst another entered into relations with the native and subject population, fatal to the prerogatives of the conquerors, we can understand that in the third case, that, of the Spartan community, the aristocratic principle was maintained with the greatest strictness. Independently of this, the divisions of the Lakedæmonian monarchy between two lines, neither of which was to have precedence, was intended to guard against the repetition in Sparta of that which had happened in Argos. Above all, the members of the Gerusia, in which the two kings had only equal rights with the rest, held a position which would have been unattainable to the elders of the Homeric age. But even the Gerusia was not independent. There existed in addition to it a general assembly, which, whilst very aristocratic as regards the native and subject population, assumed a democratic aspect in contrast with the king and the elders. The internal life of the Spartan constitution depended upon the relations between the Gerusia and the aristocratic demos. … The Spartan aristocracy dominated the Peloponnesus. But the constitution contained a democratic clement working through the Ephors, by means of which the conduct of affairs might be concentrated in a succession of powerful hands. Alongside of this system, the purely aristocratic constitutions, which were without such a centre, could nowhere hold their ground. The Bacchiadæ in Corinth, two hundred in number, with a prytanis at their head, and inter-marrying only among themselves, were one of the most distinguished of these families. They were deprived of their exclusive supremacy by Kypselus, a man of humble birth on his father's side, but connected with the Bacchiadæ through his mother. … As the Kypselidæ rose in Corinth, the metropolis of the colonies towards the west, so in the corresponding eastern metropolis, Miletus, Thrasybulus raised himself from the dignity of prytanis to that of tyrant; in Ephesus, Pythagoras rose to power, and overthrew the Basilidæ; in Samos, Polycrates, who was master also of the Kyklades, and of whom it is recorded that he confiscated the property of the citizens and then made them a present of it again. By concentrating the forces of their several communities the tyrants obtained the means of surrounding themselves with a certain splendor, and above all of liberally encouraging poetry and art. {1569} To these Polycrates opened his citadel, and in it we find Anacreon and Ibycus; Kypselus dedicated a famous statue to Zeus, at Olympia. The school of art at Sikyon was without a rival, and at the court of Periander were gathered the seven sages—men in whom a distinguished political position was combined with the prudential wisdom derived from the experience of life. This is the epoch of the legislator of Athens, Solon, who more than the rest has attracted to himself the notice of posterity.

See ATHENS: B. C. 594.

He is the founder of the Athenian democracy. … His proverb 'Nothing in excess' indicates his character. He was a man who knew exactly what the time has a right to call for, and who utilized existing complications to bring about the needful changes. It is impossible adequately to express what he was to the people of Athens, and what services he rendered them. That removal of their pecuniary burdens, the seisachtheia, made life for the first time endurable to the humbler classes.

See DEBT, LAWS CONCERNING: ANCIENT GREEK.

Solon cannot be said to have introduced democracy, but, in making the share of the upper classes in the government dependent upon the good pleasure of the community at large, he laid its foundations. The people were invested by him with attributes which they afterwards endeavored to extend. … Solon himself lived long enough to see the order which he established serve as the basis of the tyranny which he wished to avoid; it was the Four Hundred themselves who lent a hand to the change. The radical cause of failure was that the democratic element was too feebly constituted to control or to repress the violence of the families. To elevate the democracy into a true power in the state other events were necessary, which not only rendered possible, but actually brought about, its further development. The conflicts of the principal families, hushed for a moment, were revived under the eyes of Solon himself with redoubled violence. The Alemæonidæ [banished about 595 B. C.—see ATHENS: B. C. 612-595] were recalled, and Æthelred around them a party consisting mainly of the inhabitants of the seacoast, who, favored by trade, had the money in their hands; the genuine aristocrats, described as the inhabitants of the plains, who were in possession of the fruitful soil, were in perpetual antagonism to the Alemæonidæ; and, whilst these two parties were bickering, a third was formed from the inhabitants of the mountain districts, inferior to the two others in wealth, but of superior weight to either in the popular assemblies. At its head stood Peisistratus, a man distinguished by warlike exploits, and at an earlier date a friend of Solon. It was because his adherents did not feel themselves strong enough to protect their leader that they were induced to vote him a body-guard chosen from their own ranks. … As soon, however, as the first two parties combined, the third was at a disadvantage, so that after some time sentence of banishment was passed upon Peisistratus. … Peisistratus … found means to gather around him a troop of brave mercenaries, with whom, and with the support of his old adherents, he then invaded Attica. His opponents made but a feeble resistance, and he became without much trouble master both of the city and of the country.

See ATHENS: B. C. 560-510.

He thus attained to power; it is true, with the approbation of the people, but nevertheless by armed force. … We have almost to stretch a point in order to call Peisistratus a tyrant—a word which carries with it the invidious sense of a selfish exercise of power. No authority could have been more rightly placed than his; it combined Athenian with Panhellenist tendencies. But for him Athens would not have been what she afterwards became to the world. … Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Peisistratus governed Athens absolutely, and even took steps to establish a permanent tyranny. He did, in fact, succeed in leaving the power he possessed to his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus. … Of the two brothers it was the one who had rendered most service to culture, Hipparchus, who was murdered at the festival of the Panathenæa. It was an act of revenge for a personal insult. … In his dread lest he should be visited by a similar doom, Hippias actually became an odious tyrant and excited universal discontent. One effect, however, of the loss of stability which the authority of the dominant family experienced was that the leading exiles ejected by Peisistratus combined in the enterprise which was a necessary condition of their return, the overthrow of Hippias. The Alcmæonidæ took the principal part. … The revolution to which this opened the way could, it might seem, have but one result, the establishment of an oligarchical government. … But the matter had a very different issue," resulting in the constitution of Cleisthenes and the establishment of democracy at Athens, despite the hostile opposition and interference of Sparta.

L. von Ranke, Universal History: The oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks, chapter 5.

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 510-507, and 509-506.

GREECE: B. C. 752. The Archonship at Athens thrown open to the whole body of the people.

See ATHENS: FROM THE DORIAN MIGRATION TO B. C. 683.

GREECE: B. C. 624. The Draconian legislation at Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 624.

GREECE: B. C. 610-600. War of Athens and Megara for Salamis. Spartan Arbitration.

See ATHENS: B. C. 610-586.

GREECE: B. C. 595-586. The Cirrhæan or first Sacred War.

See ATHENS: B.C. 610-586; and DELPHI.

GREECE: B. C. 500-493. Rising of the Ionians of Asia Minor against the Persians. Aid rendered to them by the Athenians. Provocation to Darius.

The Ionic Greek cities, or states, of Asia Minor, first subjugated by Crœsus, King of Lydia, in the sixth century B. C., were swallowed up, in the same century, with all other parts of the dominion of Crœsus, in the conquests of Cyrus, and formed part of the great Persian Empire, to the sovereignty of which Cambyses and Darius succeeded. In the reign of Darius there occurred a revolt of the Ionians (about 502 B. C.), led by the city of Miletus, under the influence of its governor, Aristagoras. Aristagoras, coming over to Greece in person, sought aid against the Persians, first at Sparta, where it was denied to him, and then, with better success, at Athens. Presenting himself to the citizens, just after they had expelled the Pisistratidæ, Aristagoras said to them "that the Milesians were colonists from Athens, and that it was just that the Athenians, being so mighty, should deliver them from slavery. {1570} And because his need was great, there was nothing that he did not promise, till at the last he persuaded them. For it is easier, it seems, to deceive a multitude than to deceive one man. Cleomenes the Spartan, being but one man, Aristagoras could not deceive; but he brought over to his purpose the people of Athens, being thirty thousand. So the Athenians, being persuaded, made a decree to send twenty ships to help the men of Ionia, and appointed one Melanthius, a man of reputation among them, to be captain. These ships were the beginning of trouble both to the Greeks and the barbarians. … When the twenty ships of the Athenians were arrived, and with them five ships of the Eretrians, which came, not for any love of the Athenians, but because the Milesians had helped them in the old time against the men of Chalcis, Aristagoras sent an army against Sardis, but he himself abode in Miletus. This army, crossing Mount Tmolus, took the city of Sardis without any hindrance; but the citadel they took not, for Artaphernes held it with a great force of soldiers. But though they took the city they had not the plunder of it, and for this reason. The houses in Sardis were for the most part built of reeds, and such as were built of bricks had their roofs of reeds; and when a certain soldier set fire to one of these houses, the fire ran quickly from house to house till the whole city was consumed. And while the city was burning, such Lydians and Persians as were in it, seeing they were cut off from escape (for the fire was in an the outskirts of the city), gathered together in haste to the market-place. Through this market-place flows the river Pactolus, which comes down from Mount Tmolus, having gold in its sands, and when it has passed out of the city it flows into the Hermus, which flows into the sea. Here then the Lydians and Persians were gathered together, being constrained to defend themselves. And when the men of Ionia saw their enemies how many they were, and that these were preparing to give battle, they were stricken with fear, and fled out of the city to Mount Tmolus, and thence, when it was night, they went back to the sea. In this manner was burnt the city of Sardis, and in it the great temple of the goddess Cybele, the burning of which temple was the cause, as said the Persians, for which afterwards they burnt the temples in Greece. Not long after came a host of Persians from beyond the river Halys; and when they found that the men of Ionia had departed from Sardis, they followed hard upon their track, and came up with them at Ephesus. And when the battle was joined, the men of Ionia fled before them. Many indeed were slain, and such as escaped were scattered, every man to his own city. After this the ships of the Athenians departed, and would not help the men of Ionia any more, though Aristagoras besought them to stay. Nevertheless the Ionians ceased not from making preparations of war against the King, making to themselves allies, some by force and some by persuasion, as the cities of the Hellespont and many of the Carians and the island of Cyprus. For all Cyprus, save Amathus only, revolted from the King under Onesilus, brother of King Gorgus. When King Darius heard that Sardis had been taken and burned with fire by the Ionians and the Athenians, with Aristagoras for leader, at the first he took no heed of the Ionians, as knowing that they would surely suffer for their deed, but he asked, 'Who are these Athenians?' And when they told him he took a bow and shot an arrow into the air, saying, 'O Zeus, grant that I may avenge myself on these Athenians.' And he commanded his servant that every day, when his dinner was served, he should say three times, 'Master, remember the Athenians.' … Meanwhile the Persians took not a few cities of the Ionians and Æolians. But while they were busy about these, the Carians revolted from the King; whereupon the captains of the Persians led their army into Caria, and the men of Caria came out to meet them; and they met them at a certain place which is called the White Pillars, near to the river Mæander. Then there were many counsels among the Carians, whereof the best was this, that they should cross the river and so contend with the Persians, having the river behind them, that so there being no escape for them if they fled, they might surpass themselves in courage. But this counsel did not prevail. Nevertheless, when the Persians had crossed the Meander, the Carians fought against them, and the battle was exceeding long and fierce. But at the last the Carians were vanquished, being overborne by numbers, so that there fell of them ten thousand. And when they that escaped—for many had fled to Labranda, where there is a great temple of Zeus and a grove of plane trees—were doubting whether they should yield themselves to the King or depart altogether from Asia, there came to their help the men of Miletus with their allies. Thereupon the Carians, putting away their doubts altogether, fought with the Persians a second time, and were vanquished yet more grievously than before. But on this day the men of Miletus suffered the chief damage. And the Carians fought with the Persians yet again a third time; for, hearing that these were about to attack their cities one by one, they laid an ambush for them on the road to Pedasus. And the Persians, marching by night, fell into the ambush, and were utterly destroyed, they and their captains. After these things, Aristagoras, seeing the power of the Persians, and having no more any hope to prevail over them—and indeed, for all that he had brought about so much trouble, he was of a poor spirit—called together his friends and said to them, 'We must needs have some place of refuge, if we be driven out of Miletus. Shall we therefore go to Sardinia, or to Myrcinus on the river Strymon; which King Darius gave to Histiæus?' To this Hecateus, the writer of chronicles, made answer, 'Let Aristagoras build a fort in Leros (this Leros is an island thirty miles distant from Miletus) and dwell there quietly, if he be driven from Miletus. And hereafter he can come from Leros and set himself up again in Miletus.' But Aristagoras went to Myrcinus, and not long afterwards was slain while he besieged a certain city of the Thracians."

Herodotus, The Story of the Persian War (version of A. J. Church, chapter 2).

See, also, PERSIA: B. C. 521-493; and ATHENS: B. C. 501-490.

GREECE: B. C. 496. War of Sparta with Argos. Overwhelming reverse of the Argives.

See ARGOS: B. C. 496-421.

GREECE: B. C. 492-491. Wrath of the Persian king against Athens. Failure of his first expedition of invasion. Submission of 'Medizing' Greek states. Coercion of Ægina. Enforced union of Hellas. Headship of Sparta recognized.

{1571}

The assistance given by Athens to the Ionian revolt stirred the wrath of the Persian monarch very deeply, and when he had put down the rebellion he prepared to chastise the audacious and insolent Greeks. "A great fleet started from the Hellespont, with orders to sail round the peninsula of Mt. Athos to the Gulf of Therma, while Mardonius advanced by land. His march was so harassed by the Thracians that when he had effected the conquest of Macedonia his force was too weak for any further attempt. The fleet was overtaken by a storm off Mt. Athos, on whose rocks 300 ships were dashed to pieces, and 20,000 men perished. Mardonius returned in disgrace to Asia with the remnant of his fleet and army. This failure only added fury to the resolution of Darius. While preparing all the resources of his empire for a second expedition, he sent round heralds to the chief cities of Greece, to demand the tribute of earth and water as signs of his being their rightful lord. Most of them submitted: Athens and Sparta alone ventured on defiance. Both treated the demand as an outrage which annulled the sanctity of the herald's person. At Athens the envoy was plunged into the loathsome Barathrum, a pit into which the most odious public criminals were cast. At Sparta the herald was hurled into a well, and bidden to seek his earth and water there. The submission of Ægina, the chief maritime state of Greece, and the great enemy of Athens, entailed the most important results. The act was denounced by Athens as treason against Greece, and the design was imputed to Ægina of calling in the Persians to secure vengeance on her rival. The Athenians made a formal complaint to Sparta against the 'Medism' of the Æginetans; a charge which is henceforth often repeated both against individuals and states. The Spartans had recently concluded a successful war with Argos, the only power that could dispute her supremacy in Peloponnesus; and now this appeal from Athens, the second city of Greece, at once recognized and established Sparta as the leading Hellenic state. In that character, her king Cleomenes undertook to punish the Medizing party in Ægina 'for the common good of Greece'; but he was met by proofs of the intrigues of his colleague Demaratus in their favour. … Cleomenes obtained his deposition on a charge of illegitimacy, and a public insult from his successor Leotychides drove Demaratus from Sparta. Hotly pursued as a 'Medist,' he effected his escape to Darius, whose designs against Athens and Sparta were now stimulated by the councils of their exiled sovereigns, Hippias and Demaratus. Meanwhile, Cleomenes and his new colleague returned to Ægina, which no longer resisted, and having seized ten of her leading citizens, placed them as hostages in the hands of the Athenians. Ægina was thus effectually disabled from throwing the weight of her fleet into the scale of Persia: Athens and Sparta, suspending their political jealousies, were united when their disunion would have been fatal; their conjunction drew after them most of the lesser states: and so the Greeks stood forth for the first time as a nation prepared to act in unison, under the leadership of Sparta (B. C. 491). That city retained her proud position till it was forfeited by the misconduct of her statesmen."

P. Smith, History of the World: Ancient, chapter 13 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: G. W. Cox, The Greeks and the Persians, chapter 6.

G. Grote, History of Greece, chapter 36 (volume 4.)

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 501-490.

GREECE: B. C. 490. The Persian Wars: Marathon.

The second and greater expedition launched by Darius against the Greeks sailed from the Cilician coast in the summer of the year 490 B. C. It was under the command of two generals,—a Mede, named Datis, and the king's nephew, Artaphernes. It made the passage safely, destroying Naxos on the way, but sparing the sacred island and temple of Delos. Its landing was on the shores of Eubœa, where the city of Eretria was easily taken, its inhabitants dragged into slavery, and the first act of Persian vengeance accomplished. The expedition then sailed to the coast of Attica and came to land on the plain of Marathon, which spreads along the bay of that name. "Marathon, situated near to a bay on the eastern coast of Attica, and in a direction E. N. E. from Athens, is divided by the high ridge of Mount Pentelikus from the city, with which it communicated by two roads, one to the north, another to the south of that mountain. Of these two roads, the northern, at once the shortest and the most difficult, is 22 miles in length. … [The plain] 'is in length about six miles, in breadth never less than about one mile and a half. Two marshes bound the extremities of the plain; the southern is not very large and is almost dry at the conclusion of the great heats; but the northern, which generally covers considerably more than a square mile, offers several parts which are at all seasons impassable. Both, however, leave a broad, firm sandy beach between them and the sea. The uninterrupted flatness of the plain is hardly relieved by a single tree; and an amphitheatre of rocky hills and rugged mountains separates it from the rest of Attica."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 36 (volume 4).

The Athenians waited for no nearer approach of the enemy to their city, but met them at their landing-place. They were few in number—only 10,000, with 1,000 more from the grateful city of Platæa, which Athens had protected against Thebes. They had sent to Sparta for aid, but a superstition delayed the march of the Spartans and they came the day after the battle. Of all the nearer Greeks none came to the help of Athens in that hour of extreme need; and so much the greater to her was the glory of Marathon. The ten thousand Athenian hoplites and the one thousand brave Platæans confronted the great host of Persia, of the numbers in which there is no account. Ten generals had the right of command on successive days, but Miltiades was known to be the superior captain and his colleagues gave place to him. "On the morning of the seventeenth day of the month of Metagitnion (September 12th), when the supreme command according to the original order of succession fell to Miltiades, he ordered the army to draw itself up according to the ten tribes. … The troops had advanced with perfect steadiness across the trenches and palisadings of their camp, as they had doubtless already done on previous days. But as soon as they had approached the enemy within a distance of 5,000 feet they changed their march to a double-quick pace, which gradually rose to the rapidity of a charge, while at the same time they raised the war-cry with a loud voice. {1572} When the Persians saw these men rushing down from the heights, they thought they beheld madmen: they quickly placed themselves in order of battle, but before they had time for an orderly discharge of arrows the Athenians were upon them, ready in their excitement to begin a closer contest, man against man in hand-to-hand fight, which is decided by personal courage and gymnastic agility, by the momentum of heavy-armed warriors, and by the use of lance and sword. Thus the well-managed and bold attack of the Athenians had succeeded in bringing into play the whole capability of victory which belonged to the Athenians. Yet the result was not generally successful. The enemy's centre stood firm. … But meanwhile both wings had thrown themselves upon the enemy; and after they had effected a victorious advance, the one on the way to Rhamnus, the other towards the coast, Miltiades … issued orders at the right moment for the wings to return from the pursuit, and to make a combined attack upon the Persian centre in its rear. Hereupon the rout speedily became general, and in their flight the troubles of the Persians increased; … they were driven into the morasses and there slain in numbers."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).

The Athenian dead, when gathered for the solemn obsequies, numbered 192; the loss of the Persians was estimated by Herodotus at 6,400.

Herodotus, History, book 6.

ALSO IN: E. S. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles, chapter 1.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 14 (volume 2).

G. W. Cox, The Greeks and Persians, chapter 6.

Sir E. Bulwer Lytton, Athens: Its Rise and Fall, book 2, chapter 5.

GREECE: B. C. 489-480. The Æginetan War. Naval power of Athens created by Themistocles.

SEE ATHENS: B. C. 489-480.

GREECE: B. C. 481-479. Congress at Corinth. Hellenic union against Persia. Headship of Sparta.

"When it was known in Greece that Xerxes was on his march into Europe, it became necessary to take measures for the defence of the country. At the instigation of the Athenians, the Spartans, as the acknowledged leaders of Hellas and head of the Peloponnesian confederacy, called on those cities which had resolved to uphold the independence of their country to send plenipotentiaries to a congress at the Isthmus of Corinth. When the envoys assembled, a kind of Hellenic alliance was formed under the presidency of Sparta, and its unity was confirmed by an oath, binding the members to visit with severe penalties those Greeks who, without compulsion, had given earth and water to the envoys of Xerxes. This alliance was the nearest approach to a Hellenic union ever seen in Greece; but though it comprised most of the inhabitants of the Peloponnesus, except Argos and Achæa, the Megarians, Athenians, and two cities of Bœotia, Thespiæ and Platæa, were the only patriots north of the Isthmus. Others, who would willingly have been on that side, such as the common people of Thessaly, the Phocians and Locrians, were compelled by the force of circumstances to 'medize.' From the time at which it met in the autumn or summer of 481 to the autumn of 480 B. C., the congress at the Isthmus directed the military affairs of Greece. It fixed the plan of operations. Spies were sent to Sardis to ascertain the extent of the forces of Xerxes; envoys visited Argos, Crete, Corcyra, and Syracuse, in the hope, which proved vain, of obtaining assistance in the impending struggle. As soon as Xerxes was known to be in Europe, an army of 10,000 men was sent to hold the pass of Tempe, but afterwards, on the advice of Alexander of Macedon, this barrier was abandoned; and it was finally resolved to await the approaching forces at Thermopylæ and Artemisium. The supreme authority, both by land and sea, was in the hands of the Spartans; they were the natural leaders of any army which the Greeks could put into the field, and the allies refused to follow unless the ships also were under their charge. … When hostilities were suspended, the congress re-appears, and the Greeks once more meet at the Isthmus to apportion the spoil and adjudge the prizes of valour. In the next year we hear of no common plan of operations, the fleet and army seeming to act independently of each other; yet we observe that the chiefs of the medizing Thebans were taken to the Isthmus (Corinth) to be tried, after the battle of Platæa. It appears then that, under the stress of the great Persian invasion, the Greeks were brought into an alliance or confederation; and for the two years from midsummer 481 to midsummer 479 a congress continued to meet, with more or less interruption, at the Isthmus, consisting of plenipotentiaries from the various cities. This congress directed the affairs of the nation, so far as they were in any way connected with the Persian invasion. When the Barbarians were finally defeated, and there was no longer any alarm from that source, the congress seems to have discontinued its meetings. But the alliance remained; the cities continued to act in common, at any rate, so far as naval operations were concerned, and Sparta was still the leading power."

E. Abbott, Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, volume 1, appendix 4.

GREECE: B. C. 480. The Persian War: Thermopylæ.

"Now when tidings of the battle that had been fought at Marathon [B. C. 490] reached the ears of King Darius, the son of Hystaspes, his anger against the Athenians," says Herodotus, "which had been already roused by their attack on Sardis, waxed still fiercer, and he became more than ever eager to lead an army against Greece. Instantly he sent off messengers to make proclamation through the several states that fresh levies were to be raised, and these at an increased rate; while ships, horses, provisions and transports were likewise to be furnished. So the men published his commands; and now all Asia was in commotion by the space of three years." But before his preparations were completed Darius died. His son Xerxes, who ascended the Persian throne, was cold to the Greek undertaking and required long persuasion before he took it up. When he did so, however, his preparations were on a scale more stupendous than those of his father, and consumed nearly five years. It was not until ten years after Marathon that Xerxes led from Sardis a host which, Herodotus computes at 1,700,000 men, besides half a million more which manned the fleet he had assembled. "Was there a nation in all Asia," cries the Greek historian, "which Xerxes did not bring with him against Greece? Or was there a river, except those of unusual size, which sufficed for his troops to drink?" By a bridge of boats at Abydos the army crossed the Hellespont, and moved slowly through Thrace, Macedonia and Thessaly; while the fleet, moving on the coast circuit of the same countries, avoided the perilous promontory of Mount Athos by cutting a canal. {1573} The Greeks had determined at first to make their stand against the invaders in Thessaly, at the vale of Tempe; but they found the post untenable and were persuaded, instead, to guard the narrower Pass of Thermopylæ. It was there that the Persians, arriving at Trachis, near the Malian gulf, found themselves faced by a small body of Greeks. The spot is thus described by Herodotus: "As for the entrance into Greece by Trachis, it is, at its narrowest point, about fifty feet wide. This, however, is not the place where the passage is most contracted; for it is still narrower a little above and a little below Thermopylae. At Alpeni, which is lower down than that place, it is only wide enough for a single carriage; and up above, at the river Phœnix, near the town called Anthela, it is the same. West of Thermopylæ rises a lofty and precipitous hill, impossible to climb, which runs up into the chain of Œta; while to the east the road is shut in by the sea and by marshes. In this place are the warm springs, which the natives call 'The Cauldrons'; and above them stands an altar sacred to Hercules. A wall had once been carried across the opening; and in this there had of old times been a gateway. … King Xerxes pitched his camp in the region of Malis called Trachinia, while on their side the Greeks occupied the straits. These straits the Greeks in general call Thermopylæ (the Hot Gates); but the natives and those who dwell in the neighbourhood call them Pylæ (the Gates). … The Greeks who at this spot awaited the coming of Xerxes were the following:—From Sparta, 300 men-at-arms; from Arcadia, 1,000 Tegeans and Mantineans, 500 of each people; 120 Orchomenians, from the Arcadian Orchomenus; and 1,000 from other cities; from Corinth, 400 men; from Phlius, 200; and from Mycenæ 80. Such was the number from the Peloponnese. There were also present, from Bœotia, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. Besides these troops, the Locrians of Opus and the Phocians had obeyed the call of their countrymen, and sent, the former all the force they had, the latter 1,000 men. … The various nations had each captains of their own under whom they served; but the one to whom all especially looked up, and who had the command of the entire force, was the Lacedæmonian, Leonidas. … The force with Leonidas was sent forward by the Spartans in advance of their main body, that the sight of them might encourage the allies to fight, and hinder them from going over to the Medes, as it was likely they might have done had they seen Sparta backward. They intended presently, when they had celebrated the Carneian festival, which was what now kept them at home, to leave a garrison in Sparta, and hasten in full force to join the army. The rest of the allies also intended to act similarly; for it happened that the Olympic festival fell exactly at this same period. None of them looked to see the contest at Thermopylæ decided so speedily." For two days Leonidas and his little army held the pass against the Persians. Then, there was found a traitor, a man of Malis, who betrayed to Xerxes the secret of a pathway across the mountains, by which he might steal into the rear of the post held by the Greeks. A thousand Phocians had been stationed on the mountain to guard this path; but they took fright when the Persians came upon them in the early dawn, and fled without a blow. When Leonidas learned that the way across the mountain was open to the enemy he knew that his defense was hopeless, and he ordered his allies to retreat while there was yet time. But he and his Spartans remained, thinking it "unseemly" to quit the post they had been specially sent to guard. The Thespians remained with them, and the Thebans—known partisans at heart of the Persians—were forced to stay. The latter deserted when the enemy approached; the Spartans and the Thespians fought and perished to the last man.

Herodotus, History (translated by Rawlinson), book 7.

ALSO IN: E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 1.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 40 (volume 4).

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 480-479.

GREECE: B. C. 480. The Persian Wars: Artemisium.

On the approach of the great invading army and fleet of Xerxes, the Greeks resolved to meet the one at the pass of Thermopylæ and the other at the northern entrance of the Eubœan channel. "The northern side of Eubœa afforded a commodious and advantageous station: it was a long beach, called, from a temple at its eastern extremity, Artemisium, capable of receiving the galleys, if it should be necessary to draw them upon the shore, and commanding a view of the open sea and the coast of Magnesia, and consequently an opportunity of watching the enemy's movements as he advanced towards the south; while, on the other hand, its short distance from Thermopylæ enabled the fleet to keep up a quick and easy communication with the land force."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 15 (volume 1).

The Persian fleet, after suffering heavily from a destructive storm on the Magnesian coast, reached Aphetæ, opposite Artemisium, at the mouth of the Pagasæan gulf. Notwithstanding its losses, it still vastly outnumbered the armament of the Greeks, and feared nothing but the escape of the latter. But, in the series of conflicts which ensued, the Greeks were generally victorious and proved their superior naval genius. They could not, however, afford the heavy losses which they sustained, and, upon hearing of the disaster at Thermopylæ and the Persian possession of the all-important pass, they deemed it necessary to retreat.

W. Mitford, History of Greece, chapter 8, section 4 (volume 2).

GREECE: B. C. 480. The Persian Wars: Salamis.

Leonidas and his Spartan band having perished vainly at Thermopylæ, in their heroic attempt to hold the pass against the host of Xerxes, and the Greek ships at Artemisium having vainly beaten their overwhelming enemies, the whole of Greece north of the isthmus of Corinth lay completely at the mercy of the invader. The Thebans and other false-hearted Greeks joined his ranks, and saved their own cities by helping to destroy their neighbors. The Platæans, the Thespians and the Athenians abandoned their homes in haste, conducted their families, and such property as they might snatch away, to the nearer islands and to places of refuge in Peloponnesus. The Greeks of Peloponnesus rallied in force to the isthmus and began there the building of a defensive wall. Their fleet, retiring from Artemisium, was drawn together, with some re-enforcements, behind the island of Salamis, which stretches across the entrance to the bay of Eleusis, off the inner coast of Attica, near Athens. {1574} Meantime the Persians had advanced through Attica, entered the deserted city of Athens, taken the Acropolis, which a small body of desperate patriots resolved to hold, had slain its defenders and burned its temples. Their fleet had also been assembled in the bay of Phalerum, which was the more easterly of the three harbors of Athens. At Salamis the Greeks were in dispute. The Corinthians and the Peloponnesians were bent upon falling back with the fleet to the isthmus; the Athenians, the Eginetans and the Megarians looked upon all as lost if the present combination of the whole naval power of Hellas in the narrow strait of Salamis was permitted to be broken up. At length Themistocles, the Athenian leader, a man of fertile brain and overbearing resolution, determined the question by sending a secret message to Xerxes that the Greek ships had prepared to escape from him. This brought down the Persian fleet upon them at once and left them no chance for retreat. Of the memorable fight which ensued (September 20 B. C. 480) the following is a part of the description given by Herodotus: "Against the Athenians, who held the western extremity of the line towards Eleusis, were placed the Phœnicians; against the Lacedæmonians, whose station was eastward towards the Piræus, the Ionians. Of these last, a few only followed the advice of Themistocles, to fight backwardly; the greater number did far otherwise. … Far the greater number of the Persian ships engaged in this battle were disabled, either by the Athenians or by the Eginetans. For as the Greeks fought in order and kept their line, while the barbarians were in confusion and had no plan in anything that they did, the issue of the battle could scarce be other than it was. Yet the Persians fought far more bravely here than at Eubœa, and indeed surpassed themselves; each did his utmost through fear of Xerxes, for each thought that the king's eye was upon himself. … During the whole time of the battle Xerxes sat at the base of the hill called Ægaleos, over against Salamis; and whenever he saw any of his own captains perform any worthy exploit he inquired concerning him; and the man's name was taken down by his scribes, together with the names of his father and his city. … When the rout of the barbarians began, and they sought to make their escape to Phalêrum, the Eginetans, awaiting them in the channel, performed exploits worthy to be recorded. Through the whole of the confused struggle the Athenians employed themselves in destroying such ships as either made resistance or fled to shore; while the Eginetans dealt with those which endeavoured to escape down the straits; so that the Persian vessels were no sooner clear of the Athenians than straightway they fell into the hands of the Eginetan squadron. … Such of the barbarian vessels as escaped from the battle fled to Phalêrum, and there sheltered themselves under the protection of the land army. … Xerxes, when he saw the extent of his loss, began to be afraid lest the Greeks might be counselled by the Ionians, or without their advice might determine, to sail straight to the Hellespont and break down the bridges there; in which case he would be blocked up in Europe and run great risk of perishing. He therefore made up his mind to fly."

Herodotus, History (edited and translated by Rawlinson), book 8, sections 85—97 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 4 (volume 4).

W. W. Goodwin, The Battle of Salamis (Papers of the American School at Athens, volume 1).

GREECE: B. C. 479. The Persian Wars: Platæa.

When Xerxes, after the defeat of his fleet at Salamis, fled back to Asia with part of his disordered host, he left his lieutenant, Mardonius, with a still formidable army, to repair the disaster and accomplish, if possible, the conquest of the Greeks. Mardonius retired to Thessaly for the winter, but returned to Attica in the spring and drove the Athenians once more from their shattered city, which they were endeavoring to repair. He made overtures to them which they rejected with scorn, and thereupon he destroyed everything in city and country which could be destroyed, reducing Athens to ruins and Attica to a desert. The Spartans and other Peloponnesians who had promised support to the Athenians were slow in coming, but they came in strong force at last. Mardonius fell back into Bœotia, where he took up a favorable position in a plain on the left bank of the Asopus, near Platæa. This was in September, B. C. 479. According to Herodotus, he had 300,000 "barbarian" troops and 50,000 Greek allies. The opposing Greeks, who followed him to the Asopus, were 110,000 in number. The two armies watched one another for more than ten days, unwilling to offer battle because the omens were on both sides discouraging. At length the Greeks undertook a change of position and Mardonius, mistaking this for a movement of retreat, led his Persians on a run to attack them. It was a fatal mistake. The Spartans, who bore the brunt of the Persian assault, soon convinced the deluded Mardonius that they were not in flight, while the Athenians dealt roughly with his Theban allies. "The barbarians," says Herodotus, "many times seized hold of the Greek spears and brake them; for in boldness and warlike spirit the Persians were not a whit inferior to the Greeks; but they were without bucklers, untrained, and far below the enemy in respect of skill in arms. Sometimes singly, sometimes in bodies of ten, now fewer and now more in number, they dashed forward upon the Spartan ranks, and so perished. … After Mardonius fell, and the troops with him, which were the main strength of the army, perished, the remainder yielded to the Lacedæmonians and took to flight. Their light clothing and want of bucklers were of the greatest hurt to them: for they had to contend against men heavily armed, while they themselves were without any such defence." Artabazus, who was second in command of the Persians, and who had 40,000 immediately under him, did not strike a blow in the battle, but quitted the field as soon as he saw the turn events had taken, and led his men in a retreat which had no pause until they reached and crossed the Hellespont. Of the remainder of the 300,000 of Mardonius' host, only 3,000, according to Herodotus, outlived the battle. It was the end of the Persian invasions of Greece.

Herodotus, History (translated by Rawlinson), book 9.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 42 (volume 5).

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 16 (volume 1).

G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1).

{1575}

In celebration of the victory an altar to Zeus was erected and consecrated by the united Greeks with solemn ceremonies, a quintennial festival, called the Feast of Liberty, was instituted at Platæa, and the territory of the Platæans was declared sacred and inviolable, so long as they should maintain the appointed sacrifices and funeral honors to the dead. But these agreements did not avail to protect the Platæans when the subsequent Peloponnesian War broke out, and they stood faithfully among the allies of Athens. "The last act of the assembled army was the expedition against Thebes, in order, according to the obligation incumbent upon them, to take revenge on the most obstinate ally of the national enemy. Eleven days after the battle Pausanias appeared before the city and demanded the surrender of the party-leaders, responsible for the policy of Thebes. Not until the siege had lasted twenty days was the surrender obtained. … Timagenidas and the other leaders of the Thebans were executed as traitors against the nation, by order of Pausanias, after he had dismissed the confederate army."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).

GREECE: B. C. 479. The Persian Wars: Mycale.

The same day, in September, B. C. 479, on which the Greeks at Platæa destroyed the army of Mardonius, witnessed an almost equal victory won by their compatriots of the fleet, on the coast of Asia Minor. The Persian fleet, to avoid a battle with them, had retreated to Mycale on the narrow strait between the island of Samos and the mainland, where a land army of 60,000 men was stationed at the time. Here they drew their ships on shore and surrounded them with a rampart. The Greeks, under Leotychides the Lacedæmonian, landed and attacked the whole combined force. The Ionians in the Persian army turned against their masters and helped to destroy them. The rout was complete and only a small remnant escaped to reach Sardis, where Xerxes was still lingering.

Herodotus, History (translated by Rawlinson), book 9.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 16 (volume 1).

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 42 (volume 5).

GREECE: B. C. 479-478. Athens assumes the protection of Ionia. Siege and capture of Sestus. Rebuilding and enlargement of Athens and its walls. Interference of Sparta foiled by Themistocles.

See ATHENS: B. C. 479-478.

GREECE: B. C. 478-477. Reduction of Byzantium. Mad conduct of Pausanias. His recall. Alienation of the Asiatic Greeks from Sparta. Their closer union with Athens. Withdrawal of the Spartans from the war. Formation of the Delian Confederacy.

"Sestos had fallen: but Byzantion and the Thrakian Doriskos, with Eion on the Strymon and many other places on the northern shores of the Egean, were still held by Persian garrisons, when, in the year after the battle of Plataiai, Pausanias, as commander of the confederate fleet, sailed with 20 Peloponnesian and 30 Athenian ships to Kypros (Cyprus) and thence, having recovered the greater part of the island, to Byzantion. The resistance here was as obstinate perhaps as at Sestos; but the place was at length reduced, and Sparta stood for the moment at the head of a triumphant confederacy. It was now in her power to weld the isolated units, which made up the Hellenic world, into something like an organised society, and to kindle in it something like national life. … But she had no statesman capable, like Themistokles, of seizing on a golden opportunity, while in her own generals she found her greatest enemies." Pausanias "was, it would seem, dazzled by Persian wealth and enamoured of Persian pleasures. He had roused the indignation of his own people by having his name inscribed, as leader of all the Greek forces, on the tripod which was to commemorate the victory of Plataiai: and now his arrogance and tyranny were to excite at Byzantion a discontent and impatience destined to be followed by more serious consequences to his country as well as to himself. On the fall of Byzantion he sent to the Persian king the prisoners taken in the city, and spread the report that they had escaped. He forwarded at the same time, it is said, … a letter in which he informed Xerxes that he wished to marry his daughter and to make him lord of all Hellas." Xerxes opened negotiations with him, and "the head of this miserable man was now fairly turned. Clad in Persian garb, he aped the privacy of Asiatic despots; and when he came forth from his palace it was to make a royal progress through Thrace, surrounded by Median and Egyptian life guards, and to show his insolence to men who were at least his equals. The reports of this significant change in the behaviour of Pausanias led to his recall. He was put on his trial; but his accusers failed to establish the personal charges brought against him, while his Medism also was dismissed as not fully proved. The suspicion, however, was so strong that he was deprived of his command. … All these events were tending to alienate the Asiatic Greeks and the islanders of the Egean from a state which showed itself incapable of maintaining its authority over its own servants." Even before the recall of Pausanius, "the Asiatic Greeks intreated Aristeides the Athenian commander to admit them into direct relations with Athens; and the same change of feeling had passed over all the non-medising Greek states with the exception of the Peloponnesian allies of Sparta. In short, it had become clear that all Hellas was divided into two great sections, the one gravitating as naturally to Sparta, the great land power, as the other gravitated to Athens with her maritime preponderance. When therefore a Spartan commission headed by Dorkis arrived with a small force to take the place of Pausanias, they were met by passive resistance where they had looked for submission; and their retirement from the field in which they were unable to compel obedience left the confederacy an accomplished fact."

G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 8 (volume 2).

This confederacy of the Asiatic Greeks with Athens, now definitely organized, is known as the Confederacy of Delos, or the Delian League. "To Athens, as decidedly the preponderant power, both morally and materially, was of necessity, and also with free good-will, consigned the headship and chief control of the affairs and conduct of the alliance; a position that carried with it the responsibility of the collection and administration of a common fund, and the presidency of the assemblies of delegates. As time went on and circumstances altered, the terms of confederation were modified in various instances; but at first the general rule was the contribution, not only of money or ships, but of actual personal service. … We have no precise enumeration of the allies of Athens at this early time, but the course of the history brings up the mention of many. {1576} … Crete was never directly affected by these events, and Cyprus was also soon to be left aside; but otherwise all the Greek islands of the Aegean northwards—except Melos, Thera, Aegina, and Cythera—were contributory, including Euboea; as were the cities on the coasts of Thrace and the Chalcidic peninsula from the Macedonian boundary to the Hellespont; Byzantium and various cities on the coasts of the Propontis, and less certainly of the Euxine; the important series of cities on the western coast of Asia Minor—though apparently with considerable exceptions—Aeolian, Ionian, Dorian, and Carian, as far as Caunus at least on the borders of Lycia, if not even round to the Chelidonian isles. The sacred island of Delos was chosen as the depository of the common treasure and the place of meeting of the contributors. Apart from its central convenience and defensibleness as an island, and the sanctity of the temple, … it was a traditional centre for solemn reunions of Ionians from either side the Aegean. … At the distinct request of the allies the Athenians appointed Aristides to superintend the difficult process of assessing the various forms and amounts of contribution. … The total annual amount of the assessment was the large sum of 460 talents (£112,125), and this perhaps not inclusive of, but only supplementary to, the costly supply of equipped ships."

W. W. Lloyd, The Age of Pericles, chapter 14 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: E. Abbott, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 6 and 8.

GREECE: B. C. 477-462. Advancing democracy of Athens. Sustentation of the Commons from the Confederate Treasury. The stripping of power from the Areopagus.

See ATHENS: B. C. 477-462.

GREECE: B. C. 477-461. Athens as the head of the Delian League. Triumph of Anti-Spartan policy at Athens and approach of war. Ostracism of Cimon.

"Between the end of the Persian war and the year 464 B. C., Sparta had sunk from the champion of the whole of Hellas to the half-discredited leader of the Peloponnese only. Athens, on the contrary, had risen from a subordinate member of the league controlled by Sparta to be the leader and almost the mistress of a league more dangerous than that over which Sparta held sway. Sparta unquestionably entertained towards Athens the jealous hatred of a defeated rival. By what steps Athens was increasing her control over the Delian League, and changing her position from that of a president to that of an absolute ruler will be explained. …

See ATHENS: B. C. 466-454.

She was at the same time prosecuting the war against Persia with conspicuous success. Her leader in this task was Cimon. In the domain of practice Athens produced no nobler son than this man. He was the son of Miltiades, the victor of Marathon, and by heredity and inclination took his stand with the conservative party in Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 477-462, to 460-449.

He succeeded here to the leading position of Aristides, and he possessed all that statesman's purity of character. … It was as a naval commander, and as a supporter of a forward policy against Persia, that Cimon won his greatest renown. But he had also a keen interest in the domestic development of Athens and her attitude to the other states of Greece. To maintain friendship with Sparta was the root of all his policy. His perfect honesty in supporting this policy was never questioned, and Sparta recognised his good will to them by appointing him Proxenus in Athens. It was his duty in this capacity to protect any Spartan resident in or visiting Athens. His character and personality were eminently attractive. … Under his guidance the Athenian fleet struck Persia blow on blow. … In 466, near the mouth of the Eurymedon in Pamphylia [see ATHENS: B. C. 470-466], the Persian fleet was destroyed, and after a fierce struggle her land forces also were defeated with very great slaughter. It was long before Persian influence counted for anything again on the waters of the Mediterranean. Cimon, with the personal qualities of Aristides, had obtained the successes of Themistocles. Opposition to Cimon was not wanting. The Athenian democracy had entered on a path that seemed blocked by his personal supremacy. And now the party of advancing democracy possessed a leader, the ablest and greatest that it was ever to possess. Pericles was about thirty years of age. … He was related to great families through both father and mother, and to great families that had championed the democratic side. His father Zanthippus had prosecuted Miltiades, the father of Cimon. … To lead the party of advanced democracy was to attack Cimon, against whom he had hereditary hostility. … When in 465 Thasos rebelled from Athens, defeat was certain unless she found allies. She applied to Sparta for assistance. Athens and Sparta were still nominally allies, for the creation of the Delian League had not openly destroyed the alliance that had subsisted between them since the days of the Persian war. But the Thasians hoped that Sparta's jealousy of Athens might induce her to disregard the alliance. And they reckoned rightly. The Spartan fleet was so weak that no interference upon the sea could be thought of, but if Attica were attacked by land the Athenians would be forced to draw off some part of their armament from Thasos. Sparta gave a secret promise that this attack should be made. But before they could fulfil their promise their own city was overwhelmed by a terrible earthquake. … Only five houses were left standing, and twenty thousand of the inhabitants lost their lives. King Archidamus saved the state from even more appalling ruin. While the inhabitants were dazed with the catastrophe, he ordered the alarm-trumpet to be blown; the military instincts of the Spartans answered to the call, and all that were left assembled outside of the city safe from the falling ruins. Archidamus's presence of mind saved them from even greater danger than that of earthquake. The disaster seemed to the masses of Helots that surrounded Sparta clear evidence of the wrath of the god Poseidon. … The Helots seized arms, therefore, and from all sides rushed upon Sparta. Thanks to Archidamus's action, they found the Spartans collected and ready for battle. They fell back upon Messenia, and concentrated their strength round Mount Ithome, the natural Acropolis of that district. … All the efforts of their opponents, never very successful in sieges, failed to dislodge them. At last, in 464, Sparta had to appeal to her allies for help against her own slaves; and, as Athens was her ally, she appealed to Athens. Should the help be granted? … Cimon advocated the granting of Sparta's demand with all his strength. … But there was much to be said on the other side, and it was said by Ephialtes and Pericles. {1577} The whole of Pericles's foreign policy is founded on the assumption that union between Athens and Sparta was undesirable and impossible. In everything they stood at opposite poles of thought. …. Cimon gained the vote of the people. He went at once with a force of four thousand heavy-armed soldiers to Ithome. Athenian soldiers enjoyed a great reputation for their ability in the conduct of sieges; but, despite their arrival, the Helots in Ithome still held out. And soon the Spartans grew suspicious of the Athenian contingent. The failure of Sparta was so clearly to the interest of Athens that the Spartans could not believe that the Athenians were in earnest in trying to prevent it; and at last Cimon was told that Sparta no longer had need of the Athenian force. The insult was all the more evident because none of the other allies were dismissed. Cimon at once returned to Athens. …

See MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD.

On his return he still opposed those complete democratic changes that Pericles and Ephialtes were at this time introducing into the state. A vote of ostracism was demanded. The requisite number of votes fell to Cimon, and he had to retire into exile (461). … His ostracism doubtless allowed the democratic changes, in any case inevitable, to be accomplished without much opposition or obstruction, but it also deprived Athens of her best soldier at a time when she needed all her military talent. For Athens could not forget Sparta's insult. In 461 she renounced the alliance with her that had existed since the Persian wars; and that this rupture did not mean neutrality was made clear when, immediately afterwards, Athens contracted an alliance with Argos, always the enemy and now the dangerous enemy of Sparta, and with the Thessalians, who also had grounds of hostility to Sparta. Under such circumstances war could not be long in coming."

A. J. Grant, Greece in the Age of Pericles, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: Plutarch, Cimon; Pericles.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 17 (volume 3).

E. Abbott, Pericles and the Golden Age of Athens, chapters 5-6.

GREECE: B. C. 460-449. Disastrous Athenian expedition to Egypt. Cimon's last enterprise against the Persians. The disputed Peace of Cimon, or Callias. Five years truce between Athens and Sparta.

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

GREECE: B. C. 458-456. Alliance of Corinth and Ægina against Athens and Megara. Athenian victories. Siege and conquest of Ægina. The Spartans in Bœotia. Defeat of Athens at Tanagra. Her success at Œnophyta. Humiliation of Thebes. Athenian ascendancy restored.

Crippled by the great earthquake of 464 B. C., and harassed by the succeeding Messenian War, "nothing could be done, on the part of Sparta, to oppose the establishment and extension of the separate alliance between Athens and Argos; and accordingly the states of Northern Peloponnesus commenced their armaments against Athens on their own account, in order to obtain by force what formerly they had achieved by secret intrigues and by pushing forward Sparta. To stop the progress of the Attic power was a necessary condition of their own existence; and thus a new warlike group of states formed itself among the members of the disrupted confederation. The Corinthians entered into a secret alliance with Ægina and Epidaurus, and endeavored to extend their territory and obtain strong positions beyond the Isthmus at the expense of Megara. This they considered of special importance to them, inasmuch as they knew the Megareans, whose small country lay in the midst between the two hostile alliances, to be allies little deserving of trust. … The fears of the Corinthians were realized sooner than they had anticipated. The Megareans, under the pressure of events, renounced their treaty obligations to Sparta, and joined the Attico-Argive alliance. … The passes of the Geranea, the inlets and outlets of the Doric peninsula, now fell into the hands of the Athenians; Megara became an outwork of Athens; Attic troops occupied its towns; Attic ships cruised in the Gulf of Corinth, where harbors stood open to them at Pegæ and Ægosthena. The Athenians were eager to unite Megara as closely as possible to themselves, and for this reason immediately built two lines of walls, which connected Megara with its port Nisæa, eight stadia off, and rendered both places impregnable to the Peloponnesians. This extension of the hostile power to the boundaries of the Isthmus, and into the waters of the western gulf, seemed to the maritime cities of Peloponnesus to force them into action. Corinth, Epidaurus, and Ægina commenced an offensive war against Athens—a war which opened without having been formally declared; and Athens unhesitatingly accepted the challenge thrown out with sufficient distinctness in the armaments of her adversaries. Myronides, an experienced general and statesman, … landed with an Attic squadron near Halieis (where the frontiers of the Epidaurians and Argives met), and here found a united force of Corinthians, Epidaurians, and Æginetans awaiting him. Myronides was unsuccessful in his campaign. A few months later the hostile fleets met off the island of Cecryphalea, between Ægina and the coast of Epidaurus. The Athenians were victorious, and the struggle now closed round Ægina itself. Immediately opposite the island ensued a second great naval battle. Seventy of the enemy's ships fell into the hands of the Athenians, whose victorious fleet without delay surrounded Ægina. The Peloponnesians were fully aware of the importance of Ægina to them. Three hundred hoplites came to the relief of the island, and the Corinthians marched across the Geranea into Megaris to the relief of Ægina. It seemed impossible that, while the fleet of the Athenians was fighting in the land of the Nile, and another was lying before Ægina, they should have a third army in readiness for Megara. But the Peloponnesians had no conception of the capabilities of action belonging to the Athenians. True, the whole military levy was absent from the country, and only enough men were left at home for the mere defence of the walls. Yet all were notwithstanding agreed that neither should Ægina be given up nor the new allies be left in the lurch. Myronides advanced to meet the Corinthians with troops composed of those who had passed the age of military service or not yet reached it. In the first fight he held his ground: when the hostile forces returned for the second time, they were routed with tremendous loss. Megara was saved, and the energy of the Athenians had been most splendidly established. {1578} In attestation of it the sepulchral pillars were erected in the Ceramicus, on which were inscribed the names of the Athenian soldiers who had fallen in one and the same year (Ol. lxxx 3; B. C. 458-7) off Cyprus, in Egypt, Phœicia, Halieis, Ægina, and Megara. A fragment of this remarkable historical document is preserved to this day. While thus many years' accumulation of combustible materials had suddenly broken out into a flame of the fiercest war in Central Greece, new complications also arose in the north. The Thebans, who had suffered so deep a humiliation, believed the time to have arrived when the events of the past were forgotten, and when they could attain to new importance and power. In opposition to them the Phocians put forth their strength. … After the dissolution of the Hellenic Confederation, and the calamities which had befallen the Spartans, the Phocians thought they might venture an attack upon the Dorian tetrapolis, in order to extend their frontiers in this direction. … For Sparta it was a point of honor not to desert the primitive communities of the Dorian race. She roused herself to a vigorous effort, and, notwithstanding all her losses and the continuance of the war in Messenia, was able to send 11,500 men of her own troops and those of the confederates across the Isthmus before the Athenians had time to place any obstacles in their way [B. C. 457]. The Phocians were forced to relinquish their conquests. But when the Spartan troops were about to return home across the Isthmus they found the mountain-passes occupied by Athens, and the Gulf of Corinth made equally insecure by the presence of hostile ships. Nothing remained for the Lacedæmonians but to march into Bœotia, where their presence was welcome to Thebes. They entered the valley of the Asopus, and encamped in the territory of Tanagra, not far from the frontiers of Attica. Without calculating the consequences, the Athenians had brought themselves into an extremely dangerous situation. … Their difficulties increased when, contemporaneously, evil signs of treasonable plots made their appearance in the interior of the city. …

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

Thus, then, it was now necessary to contend simultaneously against foes within and foes without, to defend the constitution as well as the independence of the state. Nor was the question merely as to an isolated attack and a transitory danger; for the conduct of the Spartans in Bœotia clearly showed that it was now their intention to restore to power Thebes … because they were anxious to have in the rear of Athens a state able to stop the extension of the Attic power in Central Greece. This intention could be best fulfilled by supporting Thebes in the subjugation of the other Bœotian cities. For this purpose the Peloponnesians had busily strengthened the Theban, i. e. the oligarchical party, in the whole of the country, and encircled Thebes itself with new fortifications. Thebes was from a country town to become a great city, an independent fortified position, and a base for the Peloponnesian cause in Central Greece. Hence Athens could not have found herself threatened by a more dangerous complication. The whole civic army accordingly took the field, amounting, together with the Argives, and other allies, to 14,000 men, besides a body of Thessalian cavalry. In the low ground by the Asopus below Tanagra the armies met. An arduous and sanguinary struggle ensued, in which for the first time Athens and Sparta mutually tested their powers in a regular battle. For a long time the result was doubtful; till in the very thick of the battle the cavalry went over to the enemy, probably at the instigation of the Laconian party. This act of treason decided the day in favor of Sparta, although patriotic Athenians would never consent to count this among the battles lost by Athens. The Spartans were far from fulfilling the expectations of the party of the Oligarchs. As soon as they knew that the passes of the Isthmus were once more open, they took their departure, towards the fall of the year, through Megara, making this little country suffer for its defection by the devastation of its territory. … They reckoned upon Thebes being for the present strong enough to maintain herself against her neighbors; for ulterior offensive operations against Athens, Tanagra was to serve as a base. The plan was good, and the conjuncture of affairs favorable. But whatever the Spartans did, they did only by halves: they concluded a truce for four months, and quitted the ground. The Athenians, on the other hand, had no intention of allowing a menacing power to establish itself on the frontiers of their country. Without waiting for the return of the fair season, they crossed Mount Parnes two months after the battle, before any thoughts of war were entertained in Bœotia; Myronides, who was in command, defeated the Theban army which was to defend the valley of the Asopus, near Œnophyta. This battle with one blow put an end to all the plans of Thebes; the walls of Tanagra were razed. Myronides continued his march from town to town; everywhere the existing governments were overthrown, and democratic constitutions established with the help of Attic partisans. … Thus, after a passing humiliation, Athens was soon more powerful than ever, and her sway extended as far as the frontiers of the Phocians. Nay, during the same campaign she extended her military dominion as far as Locris. … Meanwhile the Æginetans also were gradually losing their power of resistance. For nine months they had resisted the Attic squadron. … Now their strength was exhausted; and the proud island of the Æacidæ, which Pindar had sung as the mother of the men who in the glorious rivalry of the festive games shone out before all other Hellenes, had to bow down before the irresistible good fortune of the Athenians, and was forced to pull down her walls, to deliver up her vessels of war, and bind herself to the payment of tribute. Contemporaneously with this event, the two arms of walls [at ATHENS] … between the upper and lower town were completed. Athens was now placed beyond the fear of any attack. … The Peloponnesian confederation was shaken to its very foundations; and Sparta was still let and hindered by the Messenian revolt, while the Athenians were able freely to dispose of their military and naval forces."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 2 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 9 (volume 2).

Thucydides, Peloponnesian War (translated by Jowett), book 1, sections 107-108.

{1579}

GREECE: B. C. 449-445. Quarrel of Delphians and Phocians. Interference of Sparta and Athens. Bœotian revolution. Defeat of Athenians at Coroneia. Revolt of Eubœa and Megara. The Thirty Years Truce.

In 449 B. C. "on occasion of a dispute between the Delphians and the Phocians as to which should have the care of the temple and its treasures, the Lacedæmonians sent an army, and gave them to the former; but as soon as they were gone, Pericles led thither an Athenian army, and put the Phocians in possession. Of this the Lacedæmonians took no notice. The right of Promanty, or first consulting the oracle, which had been given to Sparta by the Delphians, was now assigned to Athens by the Phocians; and this honor was probably the cause of the interference of both states. As the Athenians had given the upper hand to the democratic party in Bœotia, there was of course a large number of the opposite party in exile. These had made themselves masters of Orchomenus, Chæroneia, and some other places, and if not checked in time, might greatly endanger the Athenian influence. Tolmidas, therefore, led an army and took and garrisoned Chæroneia; but, as he was returning, he was attacked at Coroneia by the exiles from Orchomenus, joined by those of Eubœa and their other friends. Tolmidas fell, and his troops were all slain or made prisoners. (Ol. 83, 2.) [B. C. 447.] The Athenians, fearing a general war, agreed to a treaty, by which, on their prisoners being restored, they evacuated Bœotia. The exiles returned to their several towns, and things were placed on their old footing. … Eubœa was now (Ol. 83, 3) [B. C. 446] in revolt: and while Pericles was at the head of an army reducing it, the party in Megara adverse to Athens rose and massacred all the Athenian garrisons except that of Nisæa. Corinthians, Sicyonians, and Epidaurians came to their aid: and the Peloponnesians, led by one of the Spartan kings, entered and wasted the plain of Eleusis. Pericles led back his army from Eubœa, but the enemy was gone; he then returned and reduced that island, and having expelled the people of Hestiæa, gave their lands to Athenian colonists; and the Athenians, being unwilling to risk the chance of war with the Dorian confederacy, gladly formed (Ol. 83, 4) [B. C. 445] a truce for thirty years, surrendering Nisæa and Pegæ, and withdrawing a garrison which they had in Trœzen, and ceasing to interfere in Achaia."

T. Keightley, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 1.

"The Athenians saw themselves compelled to give up their possessions in Peloponnesus, especially Achaia, as well as Trœzene and Pagæ, an important position for their communication with the peninsula. Even Nisæa was abandoned. Yet these losses, sensibly as they affected their influence upon the Grecian continent, were counterbalanced by a concession still more significant, the acknowledgment of the Delian League. It was left open to states and cities which were members of neither confederacy to join either at pleasure. These events happened in Ol. 83,3 (B. C. 445)—the revolt of Megara and Eubœa, the invasion of Pleistoanax, the re-conquest of Eubœa, and the conclusion of the treaty, which assumed the form of an armistice for thirty years. Great importance must be attributed to this settlement, as involving an acknowledgment which satisfied both parties and did justice to the great interests at stake on either side. If Athens renounced some of her possessions, the sacrifice was compensated by the fact that Sparta recognized the existence of the naval supremacy of Athens, and the basis on which it rested. We may perhaps assume that the compromise between Pericles and Pleistoanax was the result of the conviction felt by both these leading men that a fundamental dissociation of the Peloponnesian from the Delian league was a matter of necessity. The Spartans wished to be absolutely supreme in the one, and resigned the other to the Athenians."

L. von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks, chapter 7, section 2.

ALSO IN: Sir E. B. Lytton, Athens: Its Rise and Fall, book 5, chapter 1.

GREECE: B. C. 445-431. Splendor of Athens and greatness of the Athenian Empire under the rule of Pericles.

See ATHENS: B. C. 445-431.

GREECE: B. C. 440. Subjugation of revolted Samos by the Athenians. Spartan interference prevented by Corinth.

See ATHENS: B. C. 440-437.

GREECE: B. C. 435-432. Causes of the Peloponnesian War.

"In B. C. 431 the war broke out between Athens and the Peloponnesian League, which, after twenty-seven years, ended in the ruin of the Athenian empire. It began through a quarrel between Corinth and Kerkyra [or Korkyra, or Corcyru], in which Athens assisted Kerkyra. A congress was held at Sparta; Corinth and other States complained of the conduct of Athens, and war was decided on. The real cause of the war was that Sparta and its allies were jealous of the great power that Athens had gained. A far greater number of Greek States were engaged in this war than had ever been engaged in a single undertaking before. States that had taken no part in the Persian war were now fighting on one side or the other. Sparta was an oligarchy, and the friend of the nobles everywhere; Athens was a democracy, and the friend of the common people; so that the war was to some extent a struggle between these classes all over Greece."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Greece (History Primer), chapter 5.

"The Peloponnesian War was a protracted struggle, and attended by calamities such as Hellas had never known within a like period of time. Never were so many cities captured and depopulated—some by Barbarians, others by Hellenes themselves fighting against one another; and several of them after their capture were re-peopled by strangers. Never were exile and slaughter more frequent, whether in the war or brought about by civil strife. … There were earthquakes unparalleled in their extent and fury, and eclipses of the sun more numerous than are recorded to have happened in any former age; there were also in some places great droughts causing famines, and lastly the plague which did immense harm and destroyed numbers of the people. All these calamities fell upon Hellas simultaneously with the war, which began when the Athenians and Peloponnesians violated the thirty years' truce concluded by them after the recapture of Euboea. Why they broke it and what were the grounds of quarrel I will first set forth, that in time to come no man may be at a loss to know what was the origin of this great war. The real though unavowed cause I believe to have been the growth of the Athenian power, which terrified the Lacedaemonians and forced them into war."

Thucydides, History (translated by Jowett), book 1, section 23.

The quarrel between Corinth and Korkyra, out of which, as an immediate excitement, the Peloponnesian War grew, concerned "the city of Epidamnus, known afterwards, in the Roman times, as Dyrrachium, hard by the modern Durazzo—a colony founded by the Korkyreans on the coast of Illyria, in the Ionic gulf, considerably to the north of their own island." {1580} The oligarchy of Epidamnus, driven out by the people, had allied themselves with the neighboring Illyrians and were harassing the city. Korkyra refused aid to the latter when appealed to, but Corinth (of which Korkyra was itself a colony) promptly rendered help. This involved Corinth and Korkyra in hostilities, and Athens gave support to the latter.

E. Curtius, History of Greece, volume 3, book 4.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapters 19-30.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 47-48 (volume 5).

GREECE: B. C. 432. Great Sea-fight of the Corinthians with the Korkyrians and Athenians. Revolt of Potidæa.

"Although Korkyra became the ally of Athens, the force sent to her aid was confined to the small number of ten ships, for the express purpose of making it clear to the Corinthians that no aggressive measures were intended; and the generals received precise instructions to remain strictly neutral unless the Corinthians should attempt to effect a landing either on Korkyra or on any Korkyraian settlements. The Corinthians lost no time in bringing the quarrel to an issue. With a fleet of 150 ships, of which 60 were furnished by their allies, they sailed to the harbor of Cheimerion near the lake through which the river Acheron finds its way into the sea about thirty miles to the east of the southernmost promontory of Korkyra. The conflict which ensued exhibited a scene of confusion which the Athenian seamen probably regarded with infinite contempt. After a hard struggle the Korkyraians routed the right wing of the enemy's fleet, and chasing it to its camp on shore, lost time in plundering it and burning the tents. For this folly they paid a terrible price. The remainder of the Korkyraian fleet, borne down by sheer force of numbers, was put to flight, and probably saved from utter ruin only by the open interference of the Athenians, who now dashed into the fight without scruple, and came into direct conflict with the Corinthians. The latter were now resolved to press their advantage to the utmost. Sailing through the enemy's ships, they applied themselves to the task not of taking prizes, but of indiscriminate slaughter, to which not a few of their own people fell victims. After this work of destruction, they conveyed their disabled ships with their dead to Sybota, and, still unwearied, advanced again to the attack, although it was now late in the day. Their Paian, or battle cry, had already rung through the air, when they suddenly backed water. Twenty Athenian ships had come into sight, and the Corinthians, supposing them to be only the vanguard of a larger force, hastily retreated. The Korkyraians, ignorant of the cause of this movement, marvelled at their departure: but the darkness was now closing in, and they also withdrew to their own ground. So ended the greatest sea-fight in which Hellenes had thus far contended not with barbarians but with their own kinsfolk. On the following day the Korkyraians sailed to Sybota with such of their ships as were still fit for service, supported by the thirty Athenian ships. But the Corinthians, far from wishing to come to blows with the newcomers, were anxious rather for their own safety. Concluding that the Athenians now regarded the Thirty Years' Truce as broken, they were afraid of being forcibly hindered by them in their homeward voyage. It became necessary therefore to learn what they meant to do. The answer of the Athenians was plain and decisive. They did not mean to break the truce, and the Corinthians might go where they pleased, so long as they did not go to Korkyra or to any city or settlement belonging to her. … Upwards of a thousand prisoners had fallen into the hands of the Corinthians. Of these 250 were conveyed to Corinth, and treated with the greatest kindness and care. Like the Athenians, the Corinthians were acting only from a regard to their own interests. Their object was to send these prisoners back to Korkyra, nominally under pledge to pay a heavy ransom for their freedom, but having really covenanted to put down the Demos, and thus to insure the hearty alliance of Korkyra with Corinth. These men returned home to stir up the most savage seditions that ever disgraced an Hellenic city.

G. W. Cox, General History of Greece, book 3, chapter 1.

"The evils of this imprudent interference of the Athenians began now to be seen. In consequence of the Corcyrian alliance, the Athenians issued an order to Potidæa, a Macedonian town acknowledging their supremacy, to demolish its walls; to send back certain officers whom they had received from Corinth, and to give hostages for their good conduct. Potidæa, although an ally of Athens, had originally been a colony of Corinth, and thus arose the jealousy which occasioned these harsh and peremptory orders. Symptoms of universal hostility to Athens now appeared in the states around. The Corinthians and their allies were much irritated; the oppressed Potidæans were strongly instigated to revolt; and Perdiccas, king of Macedon, who had some time since been at open war with the Athenians, now gladly seized the opportunity to distress them, by exciting and assisting the malcontents. The Potidæans, however, deputed ambassadors to Athens to deprecate the harsh orders which had been sent them; but in the mean time to prepare for the worst, they also sent messengers to Sparta entreating support, where they met deputies from Corinth and Megara. By these loud and general complaints Sparta was at length roused to head the conspiracy against Athens, and the universal flames of war shortly afterwards broke forth throughout Greece." The revolt of Potidæa followed immediately; the Corinthians placed a strong force in the town, under Aristeus, and the Athenians sent an army under Phormion to lay siege to it.

Early History of Greece (Enc. Metropolitana), page 283.

GREECE: B. C. 432-431. Charges brought by Corinth against Athens. The hearing and the Congress at Sparta. Decision for war. Theban attack on Platæa. The Peloponnesian War begun.

The Corinthians "invited deputies from the other states of the confederacy to meet them at Sparta, and there charged the Athenians with having broken the treaty, and trampled on the rights of the Peloponnesians. The Spartans held an assembly to receive the complaints of their allies, and to discuss the question of peace or war. Here the Corinthians were seconded by several other members of the confederacy, who had also wrongs to complain of against Athens, and urged the Spartans for redress. … It happened that at this time Athenian envoys, who had been sent on other business, were still in Sparta. {1581} They desired permission to attend and address the assembly. … When the strangers had all been heard, they were desired to withdraw, that the assembly might deliberate. The feeling against the Athenians was universal; most voices were for instant war. … The deputies of the allies were then informed of the resolution which the assembly had adopted, and that a general congress of the confederacy would shortly be summoned to deliberate on the same question, in order that war, if decided on, might be decreed by common consent. … The congress decided on the war; but the confederacy was totally unprepared for commencing hostilities, and though the necessary preparations were immediately begun and vigorously prosecuted, nearly a year elapsed before it was ready to bring an army into the field. In the meantime embassies were sent to Athens with various remonstrances and demands, for the double purpose of amusing the Athenians with the prospect of peace, and of multiplying pretexts for war. An attempt was made, not, perhaps, so foolish as it was insolent, to revive the popular dread of the curse which had been supposed to hang over the Alcmæonids. The Athenians were called upon, in the name of the gods, to banish all who remained among them of that blood-stained race. If they had complied with this demand, they must have parted with Pericles, who, by the mother's side, was connected with the Alcmæonids. This, indeed, was not expected; but it was hoped that the refusal might afford a pretext to his enemies at Athens for treating him as the author of the war. The Athenians retorted by requiring the Spartans to expiate the pollution with which they had profaned the sanctuary of Tænarus, by dragging from it some Helots who had taken refuge there, and that of Athene, by the death of Pausanias. … Still, war had been only threatened, not declared; and peaceful intercourse, though not wholly free from distrust, was still kept up between the subjects of the two confederacies. But early in the following spring, B. C. 431, in the fifteenth year of the Thirty Years' Truce, an event took place which closed all prospects of peace, precipitated the commencement of war, imbittered the animosity of the contending parties, and prepared some of the most tragical scenes of the ensuing history. In the dead of night the city of Platæa was surprised by a body of 300 Thebans, commanded by two of the great officers called Bœotarchs. They had been invited by a Platæan named Nauclides, and others of the same party, who hoped, with the aid of the Thebans, to rid themselves of their political opponents, and to break off the relation in which their city was standing to Athens, and transfer its alliance to Thebes. The Thebans, foreseeing that a general war was fast approaching, felt the less scruple in strengthening themselves by this acquisition, while it might be made with little cost and risk. The gates were unguarded, as in time of peace, and one of them was secretly opened to the invaders, who advanced without interruption into the marketplace. … The Platæans, who were not in the plot, imagined the force by which their city had been surprised to be much stronger than it really was, and, as no hostile treatment was offered to them, remained quiet, and entered into a parley with the Thebans. In the course of these conferences they gradually discovered that the number of the enemy was small, and might be easily overpowered. … Having barricaded the streets with wagons, and made such other preparations as they thought necessary, a little before daybreak they suddenly fell upon the Thebans. The little band made a vigorous defence, and twice or thrice repulsed the assailants; but as these still returned to the charge, and were assisted by the women and slaves, who showered stones and tiles from the houses on the enemy, all, at the same time, raising a tumultuous clamour, and a heavy rain increased the confusion caused by the darkness, they at length lost their presence of mind, and took to flight. But most were unable to find their way in the dark through a strange town, and several were slain as they wandered to and fro in search of an outlet. … The main body, which had kept together, entered a large building adjoining the walls, having mistaken its gates, which they found open, for those of the town, and were shut in. The Platæans at first thought of setting fire to the building; but at length the men within, as well as the rest of the Thebans, who were still wandering up and down the streets, surrendered at discretion. Before their departure from Thebes it had been concerted that as large a force as could be raised should march the same night to support them. The distance between the two places was not quite nine miles, and these troops were expected to reach the gates of Platæa before the morning; but the Asopus, which crossed their road, had been swollen by the rain, and the state of the ground and the weather otherwise retarded them, so that they were still on their way when they heard of the failure of the enterprise. Though they did not know the fate of their countrymen, as it was possible that some might have been taken prisoners, they were at first inclined to seize as many of the Platæans as they could find without the walls, and to keep them as hostages. … The Thebans afterward alleged that they had received a promise, confirmed by an oath, that, on condition of their retiring from the Platæan territory, the prisoners should be released; and Thucydides seems disposed to believe this statement. The Platæans denied that they had pledged themselves to spare the lives of the prisoners, unless they should come to terms on the whole matter with the Thebans; but it does not seem likely that, after ascertaining the state of the case, the Thebans would have been satisfied with so slight a security. It is certain, however, that they retired, and that the Platæans, as soon as they had transported their movable property out of the country into the town, put to death all the prisoners— amounting to 180, and including Eurymachus, the principal author of the enterprise, and the man who possessed the greatest influence in Thebes. On the first entrance of the Thebans into Platæa, a messenger had been despatched to Athens with the intelligence, and the Athenians had immediately laid all the Bœotians in Attica under arrest; and when another messenger brought the news of the victory gained by the Platæans, they sent a herald to request that they would reserve the prisoners for the disposal of the Athenians. The herald came too late to prevent the execution; and the Athenians, foreseeing that Platæa would stand in great need of defence, sent a body of troops to garrison it, supplied it with provisions, and removed the women and children and all persons unfit for service in a siege. {1582} After this event it was apparent that the quarrel could only be decided by arms. Platæa was so intimately united with Athens, that the Athenians felt the attack which had been made on it as an outrage offered to themselves, and prepared for immediate hostilities. Sparta, too, instantly sent notice to all her allies to get their contingents ready by an appointed day for the invasion of Attica."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 19 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: Thucydides, History, books 1-2.

GREECE: B. C. 431-429. The Peloponnesian War: How Hellas was divided. The opposing camps. Peloponnesian invasions of Attica. The Plague at Athens. Death of Pericles. Surrender of Potidæa to the Athenians.

"All Hellas was excited by the coming conflict between her two chief cities. … The feeling of mankind was strongly on the side of the Lacedaemonians; for they professed to be the liberators of Hellas. … The general indignation against the Athenians was intense; some were longing to be delivered from them, others fearful of falling under their sway. … The Lacedaemonian confederacy included all the Peloponnesians with the exception of the Argives and the Achaeans—they were both neutral; only the Achaeans of Pellene took part with the Lacedaemonians at first; afterwards all the Achaeans joined them. Beyond the borders of the Peloponnese, the Megarians, Phocians, Locrians, Boeotians, Ambraciots, Leucadians, and Anactorians were their allies. Of these the Corinthians, Megarians, Sicyonians, Pellenians, Eleans, Ambraciots, and Leucadians provided a navy, the Boeotians, Phocians, and Locrians furnished cavalry, the other states only infantry. The allies of the Athenians were Chios, Lesbos, Plataea, the Messenians of Naupactus, the greater part of Acarnania, Corcyra, Zacynthus, and cities in many other countries which were their tributaries. There was the maritime region of Caria, the adjacent Dorian peoples, Ionia, the Hellespont, the Thracian coast, the islands that lie to the east within the line of Peloponnesus and Crete, including all the Cyclades with the exception of Melos and Thera. Chios, Lesbos and Corcyra furnished a navy; the rest, land forces and money. Thus much concerning the two confederacies, and the character of their respective forces. Immediately after the affair at Plataea the Lacedaemonians determined to invade Attica, and sent round word to their Peloponnesian and other allies, bidding them equip troops and provide all things necessary for a foreign expedition. The various states made their preparations as fast as they could, and at the appointed time, with contingents numbering two-thirds of the forces of each, met at the Isthmus." Then followed the invasion of Attica, the siege of Athens, the plague in the city, the death of Pericles, and the success won by the indomitable Athenians, at Potidaea, in the midst of their sore distress.

Thucydides, History (translated by Jowett), book 2, sections 8-70 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: E. Abbott, Pericles, chapters 13-15.

See ATHENS: 431 B. C. 431 and 430-429.

GREECE: B. C. 429-427. The Peloponnesian War: Siege, capture and destruction of Platæa.

"In the third spring of the war, the Peloponnesians changed their plan of offence. By the invasion and ravage of Attica for two following summers, tho much injury had been done to the Athenians, little advantage had accrued to themselves: the booty was far from paying the expense of the expedition; the enemy, it was found, could not be provoked to risk a battle, and the great purpose of the war was little forwarded. The Peloponnesians were yet very unequal to attempt naval operations of any consequence. Of the continental dependencies of Athens none was so open to their attacks, none so completely excluded from naval protection, none so likely by its danger to superinduce that war of the field which they wished, as Platæa. Against that town therefore it was determined to direct the principal effort. … Under the command still of Archidamus, the confederate army accordingly entered the Platæid, and ravage was immediately begun. … The town was small, as may be judged from the very small force which sufficed for an effectual garrison; only 400 Platæans, with 80 Athenians. There were besides in the place 110 women to prepare provisions, and no other person free or slave. The besieging army, composed of the flower of the Peloponnesian youth, was numerous. The first operation was to surround the town with a palisade, which might prevent any ready egress; the neighboring forest of Cithæron supplying materials. Then, in a chosen spot, ground was broken, according to the modern phrase, for making approaches. The business was to fill the town-ditch, and against the wall to form a mound, on which a force sufficient for assault might ascend. … Such was at that time the inartificial process of a siege. Thucydides appears to have been well aware that it did no credit to the science of his age. … To oppose this mode of attack, the first measure of the besieged was to raise, on that part of their wall against which the mound was forming, a strong wooden frame, covered in front with leather and hides; and, within this, to build a rampart with bricks from the neighboring houses. The wooden frame bound the whole, and kept it firm to a considerable height: the covering of hides protected both work and workmen against weapons discharged against them, especially fiery arrows. But the mound still rising as the superstructure on the wall rose, and this superstructure becoming unavoidably weaker with increasing height, while the mound was liable to no counterbalancing defect, it was necessary for the besieged to devise other opposition. Accordingly they broke through the bottom of their wall, where the mound bore against it, and brought in the earth. The Peloponnesians, soon aware of this, instead of loose earth, repaired their mound with clay or mud inclosed in baskets. This requiring more labor to remove, the besieged undermined the mound; and thus, for a long time unperceived, prevented it from gaining height. Still, however, fearing that the efforts of their scanty numbers would be overborne by the multitude of hands which the besiegers could employ, they had recourse to another device. Within their town-wall they built, in a semilunar form, a second wall, connected with the first at the extremities. These extended, on either side, beyond the mound; so that should the enemy possess themselves of the outer wall, their work would be to be renewed in a far less favorable situation. … A ram, advanced upon the Peloponnesian mound, battered the superstructure on the Platæan rampart, and shook it violently; to the great alarm of the garrison, but with little farther effect. {1583} Other machines of the same kind were employed against different parts of the wall itself, but to yet less purpose. … No means however were neglected by the besiegers that either approved practice suggested, or their ingenuity could devise, to promote their purpose; yet, after much of the summer consumed, they found every effort of their numerous forces so completely baffled by the vigilance, activity, and resolution of the little garrison, that they began to despair of succeeding by assault. Before however they would recur to the tedious method of blockade, they determined to try one more experiment, for which their numbers, and the neighboring woods of Cithæron, gave them more than ordinary facility. Preparing a very great quantity of faggots, they filled with them the town-ditch in the parts adjoining to their mound, and disposed piles in other parts around the place, wherever ground or any other circumstance gave most advantage. On the faggots they put sulphur and pitch, and then set all on fire. The conflagration was such as was never before known, says Thucydides, to have been prepared and made by the hands or men. … But fortunately for the garrison, a heavy rain, brought on by a thunderstorm without wind, extinguished the fire, and relieved them from an attack far more formidable than any they had before experienced. This attempt failing, the Peloponnesians determined immediately to reduce the siege to a blockade. … To the palisade, which already surrounded the town, a contravallation was added; with a double ditch, one without, and one within. A sufficient body of troops being then appointed to the guard of these works, the Bœotians undertaking one half, the other was allotted to detachments drafted from the troops of every state of the confederacy, and, a little after the middle of September, the rest of the army was dismissed for the winter."

W. Mitford, History of Greece, chapter 15, section 1 (volume 2).

When the blockade had endured for more than a year, and food in the city grew scarce, about half of the defending force made a bold dash for liberty, one stormy night, scaled the walls of circumvallation, and escaped. The remainder held out until some time in the next year, when they surrendered and were all put to death, the city being destroyed. The families of the Platæans had been sheltered at Athens before the siege began.

Thucydides, History, books 2-3.

GREECE: B. C. 429-427. The Peloponnesian War: Phormio's sea-fights. Revolt of Lesbos. Siege and capture of Mitylene. The ferocious decree of Cleon reversed.

"At the same time that Archidamus laid siege to Plataea, a small Peloponnesian expedition, under a Spartan officer named Cnemus, had crossed the mouth of the Gulf of Corinth, and joined the land forces of the Leucadians and Ambraciots. They were bent on conquering the Acarnanians and the Messenians of Naupactus, the only continental allies whom Athens possessed in Western Greece. … When Cnemus had been joined by the troops of Leucas and the other Corinthian towns, and had further strengthened himself by summoning to his standard a number of the predatory barbarian tribes of Epirus, he advanced on Stratus, the chief city of Acarnania. At the same time a squadron of Peloponnesian ships collected at Corinth, and set sail down the gulf towards Naupactus. The only Athenian force in these waters consisted of twenty galleys under an able officer named Phormio, who was cruising off the straits of Rhium, to protect Naupactus and blockade the Corinthian Gulf. Both by land and by sea the operations of the Peloponnesians miscarried miserably. Cnemus collected a very considerable army, but as he sent his men forward to attack Stratus by three separate roads, he exposed them to defeat in detail. … By sea the defeat of the Peloponnesians was even more disgraceful; the Corinthian admirals Machaon and Isocrates were so scared, when they came across the squadron of Phormio at the mouth of the gulf, that, although they mustered 47 ships to his 20, they took up the defensive. Huddling together in a circle, they shrank from his attack, and allowed themselves to be hustled and worried into the Achaian harbour of Patrae, losing several ships in their flight. Presently reinforcements arrived; the Peloponnesian fleet was raised to no less than 77 vessels, and three Spartan officers were sent on board, to compel the Corinthian admirals, who had behaved so badly, to do their best in future. The whole squadron then set out to hunt down Phormio. They found him with his 20 ships coasting along the Aetolian shore towards Naupactus, and at once set out in pursuit. The long chase separated the larger fleet into scattered knots, and gave the fighting a disconnected and irregular character. While the rear ships of Phormio's squadron were compelled to run on shore a few miles outside Naupactus, the 11 leading vessels reached the harbour in safety. Finding that he was now only pursued by about a score of the enemy—the rest having stayed behind to take possession of the stranded Athenian vessels—Phormio came boldly out of port again. His 11 vessels took 6, and sunk one of their pursuers; and then, pushing on westward, actually succeeded in recapturing most of the 9 ships which had been lost in the morning. This engagement, though it had no great results, was considered the most daring feat performed by the Athenian navy during the whole war. … The winter passed uneventfully, and the war seemed as far as ever from showing any signs of producing a definite result. But although the Spartan invasion of 428 B. C. had no more effect than those of the preceding years, yet in the late summer there occurred an event so fraught with evil omens for Athens, as to threaten the whole fabric of her empire. For the first time since the commencement of hostilities, an important subject state made an endeavour to free itself by the aid of the Spartan fleet. Lesbos was one of the two Aegean islands which still remained free from tribute, and possessed a considerable war-navy. Among its five towns Mitylene was the chief, and far exceeded the others in wealth and resources. It was governed by an oligarchy, who had long been yearning to revolt, and had made careful preparation by accumulating war-like stores and enlisting foreign mercenaries. … The whole island except Methymna, where a democracy ruled, rose in arms, and determined to send for aid to Sparta. The Athenians at once despatched against Mitylene a squadron of 40 ships under Cleïppides, which had just been equipped for a cruise in Peloponnesian waters. This force had an engagement with the Lesbian fleet, and drove it back into the harbour of Mitylene. {1584} To gain time for assistance from across the Aegean to arrive, the Lesbians now pretended to be anxious to surrender, and engaged Cleïppides in a long and fruitless negotiation, while they were repeating their demands at Sparta. But at last the Athenian grew suspicious, established a close blockade of Mitylene by sea, and landed a small force of hoplites to hold a fortified camp on shore. … Believing the revolt of the Lesbians to be the earnest of a general rising of all the vassals of Athens, the Peloponnesians determined to make a vigorous effort in their favour. The land contingents of the various states were summoned to the Isthmus—though the harvest was now ripe, and the allies were loath to leave their reaping—while it was also determined to haul over the Corinthian Isthmus the fleet which had fought against Phormio, and then to despatch it to relieve Mitylene. … The Athenians were furious at the idea that their vassals were now about to be stirred up to revolt, and strained every nerve to defend themselves. While the blockade of Mitylene was kept up, and 100 galleys cruised in the Aegean to intercept any succours sent to Lesbos, another squadron of 100 ships sailed round Peloponnesus and harried the coastland with a systematic ferocity that surpassed any of their previous doings. To complete the crews of the 250 ships now afloat and in active service proved so great a drain on the military force of Athens, that not only the Thetes but citizens of the higher classes were drafted on shipboard. Nevertheless the effect which they designed by this display of power was fully produced. To defend their own harvests the confederates who had met at the Isthmus went homewards, while the dismay at the strength of the Athenian fleet was so great that the plan of sending naval aid to Lesbos was put off for the present. … All through the winter of 428-7 B. C. the blockade of Mitylene was kept up, though its maintenance proved a great drain on the resources of Athens. On the land side a considerable force of hoplites under Paches strengthened the troops already on the spot, and made it possible to wall the city in with lines of circumvallation. … When the spring of 427 B. C. arrived, the Spartans determined to make a serious attempt to send aid to Lesbos; but the fear of imperiling all their naval resources in a single expedition kept them from despatching a fleet of sufficient size. Only 42 galleys, under an admiral named Alcidas, were sent forth from Corinth. This squadron managed to cross the Aegean without meeting the Athenians, by steering a cautious and circuitous course among the islands. But so much time was lost on the way, that on arriving off Embatum in Ionia, Ælia found that Mitylene had surrendered just seven days before. … Learning the fall of Mitylene, he made off southward, and, after intercepting many merchant vessels off the Ionian coast and brutally slaying their crews, returned to Corinth without having struck a single blow for the cause of Sparta. Paches soon reduced Antissa, Eresus, and Pyrrha, the three Lesbian towns which had joined in the revolt of Mitylene, and was then able to sail home, taking with him the Laconian general Salaethus, who had been caught in hiding at Mitylene, together with the other leaders of the revolt. When the prisoners arrived at Athens Salaethus was at once put to death without a trial. But the fate of the Lesbians was the subject of an important and characteristic debate in the Ecclesia. Led by the demagogue Cleon, the Athenians at first passed the monstrous resolution that the whole of the Mitylenaeans, not merely the prisoners at Athens, but every adult male in the city, should be put to death, and their wives and families sold as slaves. It is some explanation but no excuse for this horrible decree that Lesbos had been an especially favoured ally, and that its revolt had for a moment put Athens in deadly fear of a general rising of Ionia and Aeolis. Cleon the leather-seller, the author of this infamous decree, was one of the statesmen of a coarse and inferior stamp, whose rise had been rendered possible by the democratic changes which Pericles had introduced into the state. … On the eve of the first day of debate the motion of Cleon had been passed, and a galley sent off to Paches at Mitylene, bidding him slay all the Lesbians; but on the next morning … the decree of Cleon was rescinded by a small majority, and a second galley sent off to stay Paches from the massacre. … By extraordinary exertions the bearers of the reprieve contrived to reach Lesbos only a few hours after Paches had received the first despatch, and before he had time to put it into execution. Thus the majority of the Mitylenaeans were saved; but all their leaders and prominent men, not less than 1,000 in number, were put to death. … The land of the Lesbians was divided into 3,000 lots, of which a tenth was consecrated to the gods, while the rest were granted out to Athenian cleruchs, who became the landlords of the old owners."

C. W. C. Oman, History of Greece, chapter 28.

ALSO IN: Thucydides, History, book 2, sections 80-92, and book 3, sections 1-50.

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 2 (volume 3).

GREECE: B. C. 425. The Peloponnesian War: Spartan catastrophe at Sphacteria. Peace pleaded for and refused by Athens.

In the seventh year of the Peloponnesian War (B. C. 425), the enterprising Athenian general, Demosthenes, obtained permission to seize and fortify a harbor on the west coast of Messenia, with a view to harassing the adjacent Spartan territory and stirring up revolt among the subjugated Messenians. The position he secured was the promontory of Pylus, overlooking the basin now called the Bay of Navarino, which latter was protected from the sea by the small island of Sphacteria, stretching across its front. The seizure of Pylus created alarm in Sparta at once, and vigorous measures were taken to expel the intruders. The small force of Demosthenes was assailed, front and rear, by a strong land army and a powerful Peloponnesian fleet; but he had fortified himself with skill and stoutly held his ground, waiting for help from Athens. Meantime his assailants had landed 420 men on the island of Sphacteria, and these were mostly hoplites, or heavy-armed soldiers, from the best citizenship of Sparta. In this situation an Athenian fleet made its sudden and unexpected appearance, defeated the Peloponnesian fleet completely, took possession of the harbor and surrounded the Spartans on Sphacteria with a ring from which there was no escape. To obtain the release of these citizens the Spartans were reduced to plead for peace on almost any terms, and Athens had her opportunity to end the war at that moment with great advantage to herself. But Cleon, the demagogue, persuaded the people to refuse peace. The beleaguered hoplites on Sphacteria were made prisoners by force, and little came of it in the end.

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Thucydides, History, book 4, sections 2-38.

Pylus remained in the possession of the Athenians until B. C. 408, when it was retaken by the Spartans.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 52.

ALSO IN: E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 2 (volume 3).

GREECE: B. C. 424-421. The Peloponnesian War: Brasidas in Chalcidice. Athenian defeat at Delium. A year's Truce. Renewed hostilities. Death of Brasidas and Cleon at Amphipolis. The Peace of Nikias (Nicias).

"About the beginning of 424 B. C. Brasidas did for Sparta what Demosthenes had done for the Athenians. Just as Demosthenes had understood that the severest blow which he could inflict on Sparta was to occupy the coasts of Laconia, so Brasidas understood that the most effective method of assailing the Athenians was to arouse the allies to revolution, and by all means to aid the uprising. But since, from lack of a sufficient naval force, he could not work on the islands, he resolved to carry the war to the allied cities of the Athenians situated on the coast of Macedonia; especially since Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, the inhabitants of Chalkidike, and some other districts subject to the Athenians, had sought the assistance of Sparta, and had asked Brasidas to lead the undertaking. Sparta permitted his departure, but so little did she appear disposed to assist him, that she granted him only 700 Helots. In addition to these, however, he succeeded, through the money sent from Chalkidike, in enrolling about 1,000 men from the Peloponnesus. With this small force of 1,700 hoplites, Brasidas resolved to undertake this adventurous and important expedition. He started in the spring of 424, and reached Macedonia through eastern Hellas and Thessaly. He effected the march with great daring and wisdom, and on his way he also saved Megara, which was in extreme danger from the Athenians. Reaching Macedonia and uniting forces with Perdikkas, Brasidas detached from the Athenians many cities, promising them liberty from the tyranny they suffered, and their association in the Peloponnesian alliance on equal terms. He made good these promises by great military experience and perfectly honest dealings. In December he became master of Amphipolis, perhaps the most important of all the foreign possessions of Athens. The historian Thucydides, to whom was intrusted the defense of that important town, was at Thasos when Brasidas surprised it. He hastened to the assistance of the threatened city, but did not arrive in time to prevent its capture. Dr. Thirlwall says it does not appear that human prudence and activity could have accomplished anything more under the same circumstances; yet his unavoidable failure proved the occasion of a sentence under which he spent twenty years of his life in exile, where he composed his history. … The revolution of the allied cities in Macedonia astonished the Athenians, who almost at the same time sustained other misfortunes. Following the advice of Kleon, instead of directing their main efforts to the endangered Chalkidike, they decided, about the middle of 424, to recover Bœotia itself, in conjunction as usual with some malcontents in the Bœotian towns, who desired to break down and democratize the oligarchical governments. The undertaking, however, was not merely unsuccessful, but attended with a ruinous defeat. A force of 7,000 hoplites [among them, Socrates, the philosopher—see DELIUM], several hundred horsemen, and 25,000 light-armed under command of Hippokrates, took possession of Delium, a spot strongly situated, overhanging the sea, about five miles from Tanagra, and very near the Attic confines. But while the Athenians were still occupied in raising their fortifications, they were suddenly startled by the sound of the Bœotian pæan, and found themselves attacked by an army of 7,000 hoplites, 1,000 horse, and 500 peltasts. The Athenians suffered a complete defeat, and were driven away with great loss. Such was the change of affairs which took place in 424 B. C. During the preceding year they could have ended the war in a manner most advantageous to them. They did not choose to do so, and were now constantly defeated. Worse still, the seeds of revolt spread among the allied cities. The best citizens, among whom Nikias was a leader, finally persuaded the people that it was necessary to come to terms of peace, while affairs were yet undecided. For, although the Athenians had suffered the terrific defeat near Delium, and had lost Amphipolis and other cities of Macedonia, they were still masters of Pylos, of Kythera, of Methone, of Nisæa, and of the Spartans captured in Sphakteria; so that there was now an equality of advantages and of losses. Besides, the Lacedæmonians were ever ready to lay aside the sword in order to regain their men. Again, the oligarchy in Sparta envied Brasidas, and did not look with pleasure on his splendid achievements. Lately they had refused to send him any assistance whatever: The opportunity, therefore, was advantageous for the conclusion of peace, … Such were the arguments by which Nikias and his party finally gained the ascendency over Kleon, and in the beginning of 423 B. C. persuaded the Athenians to enter into an armistice of one year, within which they hoped to be able to put an end to the destructive war by a lasting peace. Unfortunately, the armistice could not be carried out in Chalkidike. The cities there continued in their rebellion against the Athenians. Brasidas could not be prevailed upon to leave them unprotected in the struggle which they had undertaken, relying on his promises of assistance. The war-like party at Athens, taking advantage of this, succeeded in frustrating any definite conditions of peace. On the other hand, the Lacedæmonians, seeing that the war was continued, sent an ample force to Brasidas. This army did not succeed in reaching him, because the king of Macedonia, Perdikkas, had in the meantime become angered with Brasidas, and persuaded the Thessalians to oppose the Lacedæmonians in their passage. The year of the armistice passed, and Kleon renewed his expostulations against the incompetency of the generals who had the control of affairs in Chalkidike. … The Athenians decided to forward a new force, and intrusted its command to Kleon. He therefore, in August, 422 B. C., started from the Peiræus, with 1,200 hoplites, 300 horsemen, a considerable number of allies, and thirty triremes. Reaching Chalkidike, he engaged in battle against Brasidas in Amphipolis, suffered a disgraceful defeat, and was killed while fleeing. Brasidas also ended his short but glorious career in this battle, dying the death of a hero. The way in which his memory was honored was the best evidence of the deep impression that he had made on the Hellenic world. {1586} All the allies attended his funeral in arms, and interred him at the public expense, in front of the market-place of Amphipolis. … Thus disappeared the two foremost champions of the war—its good spirit, Brasidas, and its evil, Kleon. The party of Nikias finally prevailed at Athens, and that general soon after arranged a conference with King Pleistoanax of Sparta, who was also anxious for peace. Discussions continued during the whole autumn and winter after the battle of Amphipolis, without any actual hostilities on either side. Finally, at the beginning of the spring of 421 B. C., a peace of fifty years was agreed upon. The principal conditions of this peace, known in history as the 'peace of Nikias,' were as follows:

1. The Lacedæmonians and their allies were to restore Amphipolis and all the prisoners to the Athenians. They were further to relinquish to the Athenians Argilus, Stageirus, Acanthus, Skolus, Olynthus, and Spartolus. But, with the exception of Amphipolis, these cities were to remain independent, paying to the Athenians only the usual tribute of the time of Aristeides.

2. The Athenians should restore to the Lacedæmonians Koryphasium, Kythera, Methone, Pteleum, and Atalante, with all the captives in their hands from Sparta or her allies.

3. Respecting Skione, Torone, Sermylus, or any other town in the possession of Athens, the Athenians should have the right to adopt such measures as they pleased.

4. The Lacedæmonians and their allies should restore Panaktum to the Athenians.

When these terms were submitted at Sparta to the consideration of the allied cities, the majority accepted them. The Bœotians, Megarians, and Corinthians, however, summarily refused their consent. The Peloponnesian war was now considered to be at an end, precisely ten years from its beginning; Both the combatants came out from it terribly maimed. Sparta not only did not attain her object—the emancipation of the Hellenic cities from the tyranny of the Athenians—but even officially recognized this tyranny, by consenting that the Athenians should adopt such measures as they choose toward the allied cities. Besides, Sparta obtained an ill repute throughout Hellas, because she had abandoned the Greeks in Chalkidike, who had at her instigation revolted, and because she had also sacrificed the interests of her principal allies. … Athens, on the other hand, preserved intact her supremacy, for which she undertook the struggle. This, however, was gained at the cost of Attica ravaged, a multitude of citizens slain, the exhaustion of the treasury, and the increase of the common hatred."

T. T. Timayenis, History of Greece, part 5, chapter 4 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 23 (volume 3).

GREECE: B. C. 421-418. The Peloponnesian War: New combinations. The Argive League against Sparta. Conflicting alliances of Athens with both. Rising influence of Alcibiades. War in Argos. Spartan victory at Mantinea. Revolution in Argos.

"All the Spartan allies in Peloponnesus and the Boeotians refused to join in this treaty [of Nicias]. The latter concluded with the Athenians only a truce of ten days … , probably on condition, that, if no notice was given to the contrary, it was to be constantly renewed after the lapse of ten days. With Corinth there existed no truce at all. Some of the terms of the peace were not complied with, though this was the case much less on the part of Athens than on that of Sparta. … The Spartans, from the first, were guilty of infamous deception, and this immediately gave rise to bitter feelings. But before matters had come to this, and when the Athenians were still in the full belief that the Spartans were honest, all Greece was startled by a treaty of alliance between Athens and Sparta against their common enemies. This treaty was concluded very soon after the peace. … The consequence was, that Sparta suddenly found herself deserted by all her allies; the Corinthians and Boeotians renounced her, because they found themselves given over to the Athenians, and the Boeotians perhaps thought that the Spartans, if they could but reduce the Eleans to the condition of Helots, would readily allow Boeotia to be subdued by the Athenians. Thus Argos found the means of again following a policy which ever since the time of Cleomenes it had not ventured to think of, and … became the centre of an alliance with Mantinea, 'which had always been opposed to the Lacedaemonians,' and some other Arcadian towns, Achaia, Elis, and some places of the Acte. The Arcadians had dissolved their union, the three people of the country had separated themselves, though sometimes they united again; and thus it happened that only some of their towns were allied with Argos. Corinth at first would listen to neither party, and chose to remain neutral; 'for although for the moment it was highly exasperated against Sparta, yet it had at all times entertained a mortal hatred of Argos, and its own interests drew it towards Sparta.' But when, owing to Sparta's dishonesty, the affairs on the coasts of Thrace became more and more complicated, when the towns refused to submit to Athens, and when it became evident that this was the consequence of the instigations of Sparta, then the relation subsisting between the two states became worse also in Greece, and various negotiations and cavillings ensued. … After much delay, the Athenians and Spartans were already on the point of taking up arms against each other; but then they came to the singular agreement (Olympiad 89, 4), that the Athenians should retain possession of Pylos, but keep in it only Athenian troops, and not allow the Helots and Messenians to remain there. After this the loosened bonds between the Spartans, Corinthians, and Boeotians, were drawn more closely. The Boeotians were at length prevailed upon to surrender Panacton to the Spartans, who now restored it to the Athenians. This was in accordance with the undoubted meaning of the peace; but the Boeotians had first destroyed the place, and the Spartans delivered it to the Athenians only a heap of ruins. The Athenians justly complained, that this was not an honest restoration, and that the place ought to have been given back to them with its fortifications uninjured. The Spartans do not appear to have had honest intentions in any way. … While thus the alliance between Athens and Sparta, in the eyes of the world, still existed, it had in reality ceased and become an impossibility. Another alliance, however, was formed between Athens and Argos (Olympiad 89, 4) through the influence of Alcibiades, who stood in the relation of an hereditary proxenus to Argos. {1587} A more natural alliance than this could not be conceived, and by it the Athenians gained the Mantineans, Eleans, and other Peloponnesians over to their side. Alcibiades now exercised a decisive influence upon the fate of his country. … We generally conceive Alcibiades as a man whose beauty was his ornament, and to whom the follies of life were the main thing, and we forget that part of his character which history reveals to us. … Thucydides, who cannot be suspected of having been particularly partial to Alcibiades, most expressly recognises the fact, that the fate of Athens depended upon him, and that, if he had not separated his own fate from that of his native city, at first from necessity, but afterwards of his own accord, the course of the Peloponnesian war, through his personal influence alone, would have taken quite a different direction, and that he alone would have decided it in favour of Athens. This is, in fact, the general opinion of all antiquity, and there is no ancient writer of importance who does not view and estimate him in this light. It is only the moderns that entertain a derogatory opinion of him, and speak of him as an eccentric fool, who ought not to be named among the great statesmen of antiquity. … Alcibiades is quite a peculiar character; and I know no one in the whole range of ancient history who might be compared with him, though I have sometimes thought of Caesar. … Alcibiades was opposed to the peace of Nicias from entirely personal, perhaps even mean, motives. … It was on his advice that Athens concluded the alliance with Argos and Elis. Athens now had two alliances which were equally binding, and yet altogether opposed to each other: the one with Sparta, and an equally stringent one with Argos, the enemy of Sparta. This treaty with Argos, the Peloponnesians, etc., was extremely formidable to the Spartans; and they accordingly, for once, determined to act quickly, before it should be too late. The alliance with Argos, however, did not confer much real strength upon Athens, for the Argives were lazy, and Elis did not respect them, whence the Spartans had time again to unite themselves more closely with Corinth, Boeotia, and Megara. When, therefore, the war between the Spartans and Argives broke out, and the former resolutely took the field, Alcibiades persuaded the Athenians to send succour to the Argives, and thus the peace with Sparta was violated in an unprincipled manner. But still no blow was struck between Argos and Sparta. … King Agis had set out with a Spartan army, but concluded a truce with the Argives (Olympiad 90, 2); this, however, was taken very ill at Sparta, and the Argive commanders who had concluded it were censured by the people and magistrates of Argos. Soon afterwards the war broke out again, and, when the Athenian auxiliaries appeared, decided acts of hostility commenced. The occasion was an attempt of the Mantineans to subdue Tegea: the sad condition of Greece became more particularly manifest in Arcadia, by the divisions which tore one and the same nation to pieces. The country was distracted by several parties; had Arcadia been united, it would have been invulnerable. A battle was fought (Olympiad 90, 3) in the neighbourhood of Mantinea, between the Argives, their Athenian allies, the Mantineans, and part of the Arcadians ('the Eleans, annoyed at the conduct of the Argives, had abandoned their cause'), on the one hand, and the Spartans and a few allies on the other. The Spartans gained a most decisive victory; and, although they did not follow it up, yet the consequence was, that Argos concluded peace, the Argive alliance broke up, and at Argos a revolution took place, in which an oligarchical government was instituted, and by which Argos was drawn into the interest of Sparta (Olympiad 90, 4). This constitution, however, did not last, and very soon gave way to a democratic form of government. Argos, even at this time, and still more at a later period, is a sad example of the most degenerate and deplorable democracy, or, more properly speaking, anarchy."

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History, lecture 49 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Plutarch, Alcibiades.

W. Mitford, History of Greece, chapter 17 (volume 3).

GREECE: B. C. 416. Siege and conquest of Melos by the Athenians. Massacre of the inhabitants.

"It was in the beginning of summer 416 B. C. that the Athenians undertook the siege and conquest of the Dorian island of Mêlos, one of the Cyclades, and the only one, except Thêra, which was not already included in their empire. Mêlos and Thêra were both ancient colonies of Lacedæmon, with whom they had strong sympathies of lineage. They had never joined the confederacy of Delos, nor been in any way connected with Athens; but, at the same time, neither had they ever taken part in the recent war against her, nor given her any ground of complaint, until she landed and attacked them in the sixth year of the recent war. She now renewed her attempt, sending against the island a considerable force under Kleomêdês and Tisias."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 56.

"They desired immediate submission on the part of Melos, any attempt at resistance being regarded as an inroad upon the omnipotence of Athens by sea. For this reason they were wroth at the obstinate courage of the islanders, who broke off all further negotiations, and thus made it necessary for the Athenians to commence a costly circumvallation of the city. The Melians even succeeded on two successive occasions in breaking through part of the wall built round them by the enemy, and obtaining fresh supplies; but no relief arrived; and they had to undergo sufferings which made the 'Melian famine' a proverbial phrase to express the height of misery; and before the winter ended the island was forced to surrender unconditionally. … There was no question of quarter. All the islanders capable of bearing arms who had fallen into the hands of the Athenians were sentenced to death, and all the women and children to slavery."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Thucydides, History, book 5, sections 84-116.

GREECE: B. C. 415. The mutilation of the Hermæ at Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 415.

GREECE: B. C. 415-413. The Peloponnesian War: Disastrous Athenian expedition against Syracuse. Alcibiades a fugitive in Sparta. His enmity to Athens.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 415-413.

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GREECE: B. C. 413. The Peloponnesian War: Effects and consequences of the Sicilian expedition. Prostration of Athens. Strengthening of Sparta. Negotiations with the Persians against Athens. Peloponnesian invasion of Attica. The Decelian War.

"The Sicilian expedition ended in a series of events which, to this day, it is impossible to recall without a feeling of horror. … Since the Persian wars it had never come to pass, that on the one side all had been so completely lost, while on the other all was won. … When the Athenians recovered from the first stupefaction of grief, they called to mind the causes of the whole calamity, and hereupon in passionate fury turned round upon all who had advised the expedition, or who had encouraged vain hopes of victory, as orators, prophets, or soothsayers. Finally, the general excitement passed into the phase of despair and terror, conjuring up dangers even greater and more imminent than existed in reality. The citizens every day expected to see the Sicilian fleet with the Peloponnesians appear off the harbor, to take possession of the defenceless city; and they believed that the last days of Athens had arrived. … Athens had risked all her military and naval resources for the purpose of overcoming Syracuse. More than 200 ships of state, with their entire equipment, had been lost; and if we reckon up the numbers despatched on successive occasions to Sicily, the sum total, inclusive of the auxiliary troops, may be calculated at about 60,000 men. A squadron still lay in the waters of Naupactus; but even this was in danger and exposed to attack from the Corinthians, who had equipped fresh forces. The docks and naval arsenals were empty, and the treasury likewise. In the hopes of enormous booty and an abundance of new revenues, no expense had been spared; and the resources of the city were entirely exhausted. … But, far heavier than the material losses in money, ships, and men, was the moral blow which had been received by Athens, and which was more dangerous in her case than in that of any other state, because her whole power was based on the fear inspired in the subject states, so long as they saw the fleets of Athens absolutely supreme at sea. The ban of this fear had now been removed; disturbances arose in those island-states which were most necessary to Athens, and whose existence seemed to be most indissolubly blended with that of Attica, —in Eubœa, Chios, and Lesbos; everywhere the oligarchical parties raised their head, in order to overthrow the odious dominion of Athens. … Sparta, on the other hand, had in the course of a few months, without sending out an army or incurring any danger or losses, secured to herself the greatest advantages, such as she could not have obtained from the most successful campaign. Gylippus had again proved the value of a single Spartan man: inasmuch as in the hour of the greatest danger his personal conduct had altered the course of the most important and momentous transaction of the entire war. He was, in a word, the more fortunate successor of Brasidas. The authority of Sparta in the Peloponnesus, which the peace of Nicias had weakened, was now restored; with the exception of Argos and Elis, all her allies were on amicable terms with her; the brethren of her race beyond the sea, who had hitherto held aloof, had, by the attack made by the Athenian invasion, been drawn into the war, and had now become the most zealous and ardent allies of the Peloponnesians. … Moreover, the Athenians had driven the most capable of all living statesmen and commanders into the enemy's camp. No man was better adapted than Alcibiades for rousing the slowly-moving Lacedæmonians to energetic action; and it was he who supplied them with the best advice, and with the most accurate information as to Athenian politics and localities. Lastly, the Spartans were at the present time under a warlike king, the enterprising and ambitious Agis, the son of Archidamus. … Nothing was now required, except pecuniary means. And even these now unexpectedly offered themselves to the Spartans, in consequence of the events which had in the meantime occurred in the Persian empire. … Everywhere [in that empire] sedition raised its head, particularly in Asia Minor. Pissuthnes, the son of Hystaspes, who had on several previous occasions interfered in Greek affairs, rose in revolt. He was supported by Greek soldiers, under the command of an Athenian of the name of Lycon. The treachery of the latter enabled Darius to overthrow Pissuthnes, whose son, Amorges, maintained himself by Athenian aid in Caria. After the fall of Pissuthnes, Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus appear in Asia Minor as the first dignitaries of the Great King. Tissaphernes succeeded Pissuthnes as satrap in the maritime provinces. He was furious at the assistance offered by Athens to the party of his adversary; moreover, the Great King (possibly in consequence of the Sicilian war and the destruction of the Attic fleet) demanded that the tributes long withheld by the coast-towns, which were still regarded as subject to the Persian empire, should now be levied. Tissaphernes was obliged to pay the sums according to the rate at which they were entered in the imperial budget of Persia; and thus, in order to reimburse himself, found himself forced to pursue a war policy. … Everything now depended for the satrap upon obtaining assistance from a Greek quarter. He found opportunities for this purpose in Ionia itself, in all the more important cities of which a Persian party existed. … The most important and only independent power in Ionia was Chios. Here the aristocratic families had with great sagacity contrived to retain the government. … It was their government which now became the focus of the conspiracy against Athens, in the first instance establishing a connection on the opposite shore with Erythræ. Hereupon Tissaphernes opened negotiations with both cities, and in conjunction with them despatched an embassy to Peloponnesus charged with persuading the Spartans to place themselves at the head of the Ionian movement, the satrap at the same time promising to supply pay and provisions to the Peloponnesian forces. The situation of Pharnabazus was the same as that of Tissaphernes. Pharnabazus was the satrap of the northern province. … Pharnabazus endeavored to outbid Tissaphernes in his promises; and two powerful satraps became rival suitors for the favor of Sparta, to whom they offered money and their alliance. … While thus the most dangerous combinations were on all sides forming against Athens, the war had already broken out in Greece. This time Athens had been the first to commence direct hostilities. … A Peloponnesian army under Agis invaded Attica, with the advent of the spring of B. C. 413 (Olympiad xci. 3); at which date it was already to be anticipated how the Sicilian war would end. For twelve years Attica had been spared hostile invasions, and the vestiges of former wars had been effaced. {1589} The present devastations were therefore doubly ruinous; while at the same time it was now impossible to take vengeance upon the Peloponnesians by means of naval expeditions. And the worst point in the case was that they were now fully resolved, instead of recurring to their former method of carrying on the war and undertaking annual campaigns, to occupy permanently a fortified position on Attic soil." The invaders seized a strong position at Decelea, only fourteen miles northward from Athens, on a rocky peak of Mount Parnes, and fortified themselves so strongly that the Athenians ventured on no attempt to dislodge them. From this secure station they ravaged the surrounding country at pleasure. "This success was of such importance that even in ancient times it gave the name of the Decelean War to the entire last division of the Peloponnesian War. The occupation of Decelea forms the connecting link between the Sicilian War and the Attico-Peloponnesian, which now broke out afresh. … Its immediate object … it failed to effect; inasmuch as the Athenians did not allow it to prevent their despatching a fresh armament to Sicily. But when, half a year later, all was lost, the Athenians felt more heavily than ever the burden imposed upon them by the occupation of Decelea. The city was cut off from its most important source of supplies, since the enemy had in his power the roads communicating with Eubœa. … One-third of Attica no longer belonged to the Athenians, and even in the immediate vicinity of the city communication was unsafe; large numbers of the country-people, deprived of labor and means of subsistence, thronged the city; the citizens were forced night and day to perform the onerous duty of keeping watch."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapters 4-5 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, chapter 61 (volume 7).

GREECE: B. C. 413-412. The Peloponnesian War: Revolt of Chios, Miletus, Lesbos, and Rhodes from Athens. Revolution at Samos. Intrigues of Alcibiades for a revolution at Athens and for his own recall.

"Alkibiades … persuaded the Spartans to build a fleet, and send it over to Asia to assist the Ionians in revolting. He himself crossed at once to Chios with a few ships, in order to begin the revolt. The government of Chios was in the hands of the nobles; but they had hitherto served Athens so well that the Athenians had not altered the government to a democracy. Now, however, they revolted (B. C. 413). This was a heavy blow to Athens, for Chios was the most powerful of the Ionian States, and others would be sure to follow its example. Miletus and Lesbos revolted in B. C. 412. The nobles of Samos prepared to revolt, but the people were in favour of Athens, and rose against the nobles, killing 200 of them, and banishing 400 more. Athens now made Samos its free and equal ally, instead of its subject, and Samos became the head-quarters of the Athenian fleet and army. … The Athenians … had now manned a fresh navy. They defeated the Peloponnesian and Persian fleets together at Miletus, and were only kept from besieging Miletus by the arrival of a fleet from Syracuse. [This reinforcement of the enemy held them powerless to prevent a revolt in Rhodes, carried out by the oligarchs though opposed by the people.] Alkibiades had made enemies among the Spartans, and when he had been some time in Asia Minor an order came over from Sparta to put him to death. He escaped to Tissaphernes, and now made up his mind to win back the favour of Athens by breaking up the alliance between Tissaphernes and the Spartans. He contrived to make a quarrel between them about the rate of pay, and persuaded Tissaphernes that it would be the best thing for Persia to let the Spartans and Athenians wear one another out, without giving help to either. Tissaphernes therefore kept the Spartans idle for months, always pretending that he was on the point of bringing up his fleet to help them. Alkibiades now sent a lying message to the generals of the Athenian army at Samos that he could get Athens the help of Tissaphernes, if the Athenians would allow him to return from his exile: but he said that he could never return while there was a democracy; so that if they wished for the help of Persia they must change the government to an oligarchy (B. C. 412). In the army at Samos there were many rich men willing to see an oligarchy established at Athens, and peace made with Sparta. … Therefore, though the great mass of the army at Samos was democratical, a certain number of powerful men agreed to the plan of Alkibiades for changing the government. One of the conspirators, named Pisander, was sent to Athens to instruct the clubs of nobles and rich men to work secretly for this object. In these clubs the overthrow of the democracy was planned. Citizens known to be zealous for the constitution were secretly murdered. Terror fell over the city, for no one except the conspirators knew who did, and who did not, belong to the plot; and at last, partly by force, the assembly was brought to abolish the popular government."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Greece (History Primer), chapter 5, sections 36-39.

ALSO IN: G. W. Cox, The Athenian Empire, chapter 6.

Thucydides, History, book 8, chapters 4-51.

GREECE: B. C. 411-407. The Peloponnesian War: Athenian victories at Cynossema and Abydos. Exploits of Alcibiades. His return to Athens and to supreme command. His second deposition and exile.

While Athens was in the throes of its revolution, "the war was prosecuted with vigour on the coast of Asia Minor. Mindarus, who now commanded the Peloponnesian fleet, disgusted at length by the often-broken promises of Tissaphernes, and the scanty and irregular pay which he furnished, set sail from Miletus and proceeded to the Hellespont, with the intention of assisting the satrap Pharnabazus, and of effecting, if possible, the revolt of the Athenian dependencies in that quarter. Hither he was pursued by the Athenian fleet under Thrasyllus. In a few days an engagement ensued (in August, 411 B. C.), in the famous straits between Sestos and Abydos, in which the Athenians, though with a smaller force, gained the victory, and erected a trophy on the promontory of Cynossema [see CYNOSSEMA] near the tomb and chapel of the Trojan queen Hecuba. The Athenians followed up their victory by the reduction of Cyzicus, which had revolted from them. A month or two afterward, another obstinate engagement took place between the Peloponnesian and Athenian fleets near Abydos, which lasted a whole day, and was at length decided in favour of the Athenians by the arrival of Alcibiades with his squadron of 18 ships from Samos."

W. Smith, Smaller History of Greece, chapter 13.

{1590}

Alcibiades, although recalled, had "resolved to delay his return until he had performed such exploits as might throw fresh lustre over his name, and endear him to all classes of his fellow-citizens. With this ambition he sailed with a small squadron from Samos, and having gained information that Mindarus, with the Peloponnesian fleet, had gone in pursuit of the Athenian navy, he hastened to afford his countrymen succour. Happily he arrived at the scene of action, near Abydos, at a most critical moment; when, after a severe engagement, the Spartans had on one side obtained an advantage, and were pursuing the broken lines of the Athenians. … He speedily decided the fortune of the day, completely routed the Spartans, … broke many of their ships in pieces, and took 30 from them. … His vanity after this signal success had, however, nearly destroyed him; for, being desirous of appearing to Tissaphernes as a conqueror instead of a fugitive, he hastened with a splendid retinue to visit him, when the crafty barbarian, thinking he should thus appease the suspicions of the Spartans, caused him to be arrested and confined in prison at Sardis. Hence, however, he found means to escape. … He sailed immediately for the Athenian camp to diffuse fresh animation among the soldiers, and induce them hastily to embark on an expedition against Mindarus and Pharnabazus, who were then with the residue of the Peloponnesian fleet at Cyzicum" (Cyzicus). Mindarus was defeated and killed and Pharnabazus driven to flight (B. C. 410). "Alcibiades pursued his victory, took Cyzicum without difficulty, and, staining his conquest with a cruelty with which he was not generally chargeable, put to death all the Peloponnesians whom he found within the city. A very short space of time elapsed after this brilliant success before Alcibiades found another occasion to deserve the gratitude of Athens," by defeating Pharnabazus, who had attacked the troops of Thrasyllus while they were wasting the territory of Abydos. He next reduced Chalcedon, bringing it back into the Athenian alliance, and once more defeating Pharnabazus, when the Persian satrap attempted to relieve the town. He also recovered Selymbria, and took Byzantium (which had revolted) after a severe fight (B. C. 408). "Alcibiades having raised the fortunes of his country from the lowest state of depression, not only by his brilliant victories, but his conciliating policy, prepared to return and enjoy the praise of his successes. He entered the Piræus [B. C. 407] in a galley adorned with the spoils of numerous victories, followed by a long line of ships which he had taken from the foe. … The whole city came down to the harbour to see and welcome him, and took no notice of Thrasybulus or Theramenes, his fellow-commanders. … An assembly of the people being convened, he addressed them in a gentle and modest speech, imputing his calamities not to their envy, but to some evil genius which pursued him. He exhorted them to take courage, bade them oppose their enemies with all the fresh inspiration of their zeal, and taught them to hope for happier days. Delighted with these assurances, they presented him with a crown of brass and gold, which never was before given to any but the Olympic victors, invested him with absolute control over their naval and military affairs, restored to him his confiscated wealth, and ordered the ministers of religion to absolve him from the curses which they had denounced against him. Theodorus, however, the high-priest, evaded the last part of the decree, by alleging that he had never cast any imprecation on him, if he had committed no offence against the republic. The tablets on which the curses against him had been inscribed were taken to the shore, and thrown with eagerness into the sea. His next measure heightened, if possible, the brief lustre of his triumph. In consequence of the fortification of Decelea by the Lacedæmonians, and their having possession of the passes of the country, the procession to Eleusis, in honour of Athene, had been long unable to take its usual course, and being conducted by sea, had lost many of its solemn and august ceremonials. He now, therefore, offered to conduct the solemnity by land. … His proposal being gladly accepted, he placed sentinels on the hills; and, surrounding the consecrated band with his soldiers, conducted the whole to Eleusis and back to Athens, without the slightest opposition, or breach of that order and profound stillness which he had exhorted the troops to maintain. After this graceful act of homage to the religion he was once accused of destroying, he was regarded by the common people as something more than human; they looked on him as destined never to know defeat, and believed their triumph was certain so long as he was their commander. But, in the very height of his popularity, causes of a second exile were maturing. The great envied him in proportion to the people's confidence, and that confidence itself became the means of his ruin: for, as the people really thought the spell of invincibility was upon him, they were prepared to attribute the least pause in his career of glory to a treacherous design. He departed with a hundred vessels, manned under his inspection, with colleagues of his own choice, to reduce the isle of Chios to obedience. At Andros he once more gained a victory over both the natives and the Spartans, who attempted to assist them. But, on his arrival at the chief scene of action, he found that he would be unable to keep the soldiers from deserting, unless he could raise money to pay them sums more nearly equal to those which the Lacedæmonians offered, than the pay he was able to bestow. He was compelled, therefore, to leave the fleet [at Notium] and go into Caria in order to obtain supplies. While absent on this occasion, he left Antiochus in the command. … To this officer Alcibiades gave express directions that he should refrain from coming to an engagement, whatever provocations he might receive. Anxious, however, to display his bravery, Antiochus took the first occasion to sail out in front of the Lacedæmonian fleet, which lay near Ephesus, under the command of Lysander, and attempt, by insults, to incite them to attack him. Lysander accordingly pursued him; the fleets came to the support of their respective admirals, and a general engagement ensued, in which Antiochus was slain, and the Athenians completely defeated. On receiving intelligence of this unhappy reverse, Alcibiades hastened to the fleet, and eager to repair the misfortune, offered battle to the Spartans; Lysander, however, did not choose to risk the loss of his advantage by accepting the challenge, and the Athenians were compelled to retire. This event, for which no blame really attached to Alcibiades, completed the ruin of his influence at Athens. {1591} It was believed that this, the first instance of his failure, must have arisen from corruption, or, at least, from a want of inclination to serve his country. He was also accused of leaving the navy under the direction of those who had no other recommendation to the charge but having been sharers in his luxurious banquets, and of having wandered about to indulge in profligate excesses. … On these grounds, the people in his absence took from him his command, and confided it to other generals. As soon as he heard of this new act of ingratitude, he resolved not to return home, but withdrew into Thrace, and fortified three castles … near to Perinthus. Here, having collected a formidable band, as an independent captain, he made incursions on the territories of those of the Thracians who acknowledged no settled form of government, and acquired considerable spoils."

Sir T. N. Talfourd, Early History of Greece (Encyclopedia Metropolitana), chapter 11.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 29 (volume 4).

Plutarch, Alcibiades.

Xenophon, Hellenica, book 1, chapters 1-4.

GREECE: B. C. 406. The Peloponnesian War: Battle of Arginusæ. Trial and execution of the generals at Athens.

Alcibiades was succeeded by Conon and nine colleagues in command of the Athenian fleet on the coast of Asia Minor. The Athenians, soon afterwards, were driven into the harbor of Mitylene, on the island of Lesbos, by a superior Peloponnesian fleet, commanded by Callicratidas, and were blockaded there with small chance of escape. Conon contrived to send news of their desperate situation to Athens, and vigorous measures were promptly taken to rescue the fleet and to save Mitylene. Within thirty days, a fleet of 110 triremes was fitted out at the Piræus, and manned with a crew which took nearly the last able-bodied Athenian to make it complete. At Samos these were joined by 40 more triremes, making 150 in all, against which Callicratidas was able to bring out only 120 ships from Mitylene, when the relieving armament approached. The two fleets encountered one another near the islands of Arginusæ, off Cape Malea, the southern promontory of Lesbos. In the battle that ensued, which was the greatest naval conflict of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians were completely victorious; Callicratidas was drowned and no less than 77 of the Peloponnesian ships were destroyed, while the Athenians themselves lost 25. As the result of this battle Sparta again made overtures of peace, as she had done after the battle of Cyzicus, and Athens, led by her demagogues, again rejected them. But the Athenian demagogues and populace did worse. They summoned home the eight generals who had won the battle of Arginusæ, to answer to a charge of having neglected, after the victory, to pick up the floating bodies of the Athenian dead and to rescue the drowning from the wrecked ships of their fleet. Six of the accused generals came home to meet the charge; but two thought it prudent to go into voluntary exile. The six were brought to trial; the forms of legality were violated to their prejudice and all means were unscrupulously employed to work up the popular passion against them. One man, only, among the prytanes—senators, that is, of the tribe then presiding, and who were the presidents of the popular assembly—stood out, without flinching, against the lawless rage of his fellow citizens, and refused, in calm scorn of all fierce threats against himself, to join in taking the unconstitutional vote. That one was the philosopher Socrates. The generals were condemned to death and received the fatal draught of hemlock from the same populace which pressed it a little later to the lips of the philosopher. "Thus died the son of Pericles and Aspasia [one of the generals, who bore his father's name], to whom his father had made a fatal gift in obtaining for him the Attic citizenship, and with him Erasinides, Thrasylus, Lysias, Aristocrates, and Diomedon. The last-named, the most innocent of all, who had wished that the whole fleet should immediately be employed in search of the wrecked, addressed the people once more; he expressed a wish that the decree dooming him to death might be beneficial to the state, and called upon his fellow-citizens to perform the thanksgiving offerings to the saving gods which they, the generals, had vowed on account of their victory. These words may have sunk deep into the hearts of many of his hearers; but their only effect has been to cast a yet brighter halo in the eyes of subsequent generations around the memory of these martyrs. Their innocence is best proved by the series of glaring infractions of law and morality which were needed to ensure their destruction, as well as by the shame and repugnance which seized upon the citizens, when they had recognized how fearfully, they had been led astray by a traitorous faction.

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 4, chapter 5 (volume 3).

Mr. Grote attempts to uphold a view more unfavorable to the generals and less severe upon the Athenian people.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 64.

ALSO IN: Xenophon, Hellenica, book 1, chapters 5-7.

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 424-406.

GREECE: B. C. 405. The Peloponnesian War Decisive battle of Aigospotamoi. Defeat of the Athenians.

After the execution of the generals, "no long time passed before the Athenians repented of their madness and their crimes: but, yielding still to their old besetting sin, they insisted, as they had done in the days of Miltiades and after the catastrophe at Syracuse, on throwing the blame not on themselves but on their advisers. This great crime began at once to produce its natural fruits. The people were losing confidence in their officers, who, in their turn, felt that no services to the state could secure them against illegal prosecutions and arbitrary penalties. Corruption was eating its way into the heart of the state, and treason was losing its ugliness in the eyes of many who thought themselves none the worse for dallying with it. … The Athenian fleet had fallen back upon Samos; and with this island as a base, the generals were occupying themselves with movements, not for crushing the enemy, but for obtaining money. … The Spartans, whether at home or on the Asiatic coast, were now well aware that one more battle would decide the issue of the war; for with another defeat the subsidies of the Persians would be withdrawn from them as from men doomed to failure, and perhaps be transferred to the Athenians. In the army and fleet the cry was raised that Lysandros was the only man equal to the emergency. Spartan custom could not appoint the same man twice to the office of admiral; but when Arakos was sent out with Lysandros [Lysander] as his secretary, it was understood that the latter was really the man in power." {1592} In the summer of 405 B. C. Lysandros made a sudden movement from the southern Ægean to the Hellespont, and laid siege to the rich town of Lampsacus, on the Asiatic side. The Athenians followed him, but not promptly enough to save Lampsacus, which they found in his possession when they arrived. They took their station, thereupon, at the mouth of the little stream called the Aigospotamoi (the Goat's Stream), directly opposite to Lampsacus, and endeavored for four successive days to provoke Lysandros to fight. He refused, watching his opportunity for the surprise which he effected on the fifth day, when he dashed across the narrow channel and caught the Athenian ships unprepared, their crews mostly scattered on shore. One only, of the six Athenian generals, Conon, had foreseen danger and was alert. Conon, with twelve triremes, escaped. The remaining ships, about one hundred and seventy in number, were captured almost without the loss of a man on the Peloponnesian side. Of the crews, some three or four thousand Athenians were pursued on shore and taken prisoners, to be afterwards slaughtered in cold blood. Two of the incapable generals shared their fate. Of the other generals who escaped, some at least were believed to have been bribed by Lysandros to betray the fleet into his hands. The blow to Athens was deadly. She had no power of resistance left, and when her enemies closed around her, a little later, she starved within her walls until resistance seemed no longer heroic, and then gave herself up to their mercy.

G. W. Cox, The Athenian Empire, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 30 (volume 4).

Plutarch, Lysander.

Xenophon, Hellenica, book 2, chapter 1.

GREECE: B. C. 404. End of the Peloponnesian War. Fall of Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 404.

GREECE: B. C. 404-403. The Year of Anarchy at Athens. Reign of the Thirty.

See ATHENS: B. C. 404-403.

GREECE: B. C. 401-400. The expedition of Cyrus, and the Retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks.

See PERSIA: B. C.,401-400.

GREECE: B. C. 399-387. Spartan war with Persia. Greek confederacy against Sparta. The Corinthian War. Peace of Antalcidas.

The successful retreat of the Ten Thousand from Cunaxa, through the length of the Persian dominions (B. C. 401-400), and the account which they brought of the essential hollowness of the power of the Great King, produced an important change among the Greeks in their estimate of the Persian monarchy as an enemy to be feared. Sparta became ashamed of having abandoned the Greek cities of Asia Minor to their old oppressors, as she did after breaking the strength of their protector, Athens, in the Peloponnesian War. When, therefore, the Persians began to lay siege to the coast cities which resisted them, Sparta found spirit enough to interfere (B. C. 399) and sent over a small army, into which the surviving Cyreans were also enlisted. The only immediate result was a truce with the Persian satrap. But, meantime, the Athenian general Conon—he who escaped with a few triremes from Ægospotami and fled to Cyprus—had there established relations with the Persian court at Susa and had acquired a great influence, which he used to bring about the creation of a powerful Persian armament against Sparta, himself in command. The news of this armament, reaching Sparta, provoked the latter to a more vigorous prosecution of the war in Asia Minor. King Agesilaus took the field in Ionia with a strong army and conducted two brilliant campaigns (B. C. 396-395), pointing the way, as it were, to the expedition of Alexander a couple of generations later. The most important victory won was on the Pactolus, not far from Sardis. But, in the midst of his successes, Agesilaus was called home by troubles which arose in Greece. Sparta, by her arrogance and oppressive policy, had already alienated all the Greek states which helped her to break down Athens in the Peloponnesian War. Persian agents, with money, had assisted her enemies to organize a league against her. Thebes and Athens, first, then Argos and Corinth, with several of the lesser states, became confederated in an agreement to overthrow her domination. In an attempt to crush Thebes, the Spartans were badly beaten at Haliartus (B. C. 395), where their famous Lysander, conqueror of Athens, was killed. Their power in central and northern Greece was virtually annihilated, and then followed a struggle with their leagued enemies for the control or the Corinthian isthmus, whence came the name of the Corinthian War. It was this situation of things at home which called back King Agesilaus from his campaigns in Asia Minor. He had scarcely crossed the Hellespont on his return, in July B. C. 394, before all his work in Asia was undone by an overwhelming naval victory achieved at Cnydus by the Athenian Conon, commanding the Persian-Phœnician fleet. With his veteran army, including the old Cyreans, now returning home after seven years of incredible adventures and hardships, he made his way through all enemies into Bœotia and fought a battle with the league at Coronea, in which he so far gained a victory that he held the field, although the fruits of it were doubtful. The Spartans on the isthmus had also just gained a considerable success near Corinth, on the banks of the Nemea. On the whole, the results of the war were in their favor, until Conon and the Persian satrap, Pharnabazus, came over with the victorious fleet from Cnydus and lent its aid to the league. The most important proceeding of Conon was to rebuild (B. C. 393), with the help of his Persian friends, the Long Walls of Athens, which the Peloponnesians had required to be thrown down eleven years before. By this means he restored to Athens her independence and secured for her a new career of commercial prosperity. During six years more the war was tediously prolonged, without important or decisive events, while Sparta intrigued to detach the Persian king from his Athenian allies and the latter intrigued to retain his friendship. In the end, all parties were exhausted—Sparta, perhaps, least so—and accepted a shameful peace which was practically dictated by the Persian and had the form of an edict or mandate from Susa, in the following terms: "The king, Artaxerxes, deems it just that the cities in Asia, with the islands of Clazomenae and Cyprus, should belong to himself; the rest of the Hellenic cities he thinks it just to leave independent, both small and great, with the exception of Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, which three are to belong to Athens as of yore. Should any of the parties concerned not accept this peace, I, Artaxerxes, will war against him or them with those who share my views. {1593} This will I do by land and by sea, with ships and with money." By this, called the Peace of Antalcidas (B. C. 387) from the Lacedæmonian who was instrumental in bringing it about, the Ionian Greeks were once more abandoned to the Persian king and his satraps, while Sparta, which assumed to be the administrator and executor of the treaty, was confirmed in her supremacy over the other Grecian states.

Xenophon, Hellenica (translated by Dakyns), books 3-5 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: C. Sankey, The Spartan and Theban Supremacies, chapters 7-9.

W. Mitford, History of Greece, chapters 24-25 (volume 4).

G. Rawlinson, The Five Great Monarchies, volume 3; Persia, chapter 7.

GREECE: B. C. 385. Destruction of Mantinea by the Spartans.

The Mantineians, having displayed unfriendliness to Sparta during the Corinthian War, were required by the latter, after the Peace of Antalcidas, to demolish their walls. On their refusal, king Agesipolis was sent to subdue them. By damming up the waters of the river Ophis he flooded the city and brought it to terms. "The city of Mantineia was now broken up, and the inhabitants were distributed again into the five constituent villages. Out of four-fifths of the population each man pulled down his house in the city, and rebuilt it in the village near to which his property lay. The remaining fifth continued to occupy Mantineia as a village. Each village was placed under oligarchical government and left unfortified."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 76 (volume 9).

ALSO IN: Xenophon, Hellenica, book 5, chapter 2.

GREECE: B. C. 383. The betrayal of Thebes to the Spartans.

When the Spartans sent their expedition against Olynthus, in 383 B. C., it marched in two divisions, the last of which, under Phoebidas, halted at Thebes, on the way, probably having secret orders to do so. "On reaching Thebes the troops encamped outside the city, round the gymnasium. Faction was rife within the city. The two polemarchs in office, Ismenias and Leontiades, were diametrically opposed, being the respective heads of antagonistic political clubs. Hence it was that, while Ismenias, ever inspired by hatred to the Lacedaemonians, would not come anywhere near the Spartan general, Leontiades, on the other hand, was assiduous in courting him; and when a sufficient intimacy was established between them, he made a proposal as follows: 'You have it in your power,' he said, addressing Phoebidas, 'this very day to confer supreme benefit on your country. Follow me with your hoplites, and I will introduce you into the citadel.'"

Xenophon, Hellenica (translated by Dakyns), book 5, chapter 2 (volume 2).

"On the day of the Thesmophoria, a religious festival celebrated by the women apart from the men, during which the acropolis, or Kadmeia, was consecrated to their exclusive use, Phœbidas, affecting to have concluded his halt, put himself in march to proceed as if towards Thrace; seemingly rounding the walls of Thebes, but not going into it. The Senate was actually assembled in the portico of the agora, and the heat of a summer's noon had driven everyone out of the streets, when Leontiades, stealing away from the Senate, hastened on horseback to overtake Phœbidas, caused him to face about, and conducted the Lacedæmonians straight up to the Kadmeia; the gates of which, as well as those of the town, were opened to his order as Polemarch. There were not only no citizens in the streets, but none even in the Kadmeia; no male person being permitted to be present at the feminine Thesmophoria; so that Phœbidas and his army became possessed of the Kadmeia without the smallest opposition. … The news of the seizure of the Kadmeia and of the revolution at Thebes [was] … received at Sparta with the greatest surprise, as well as with a mixed feeling of shame and satisfaction. Everywhere throughout Greece, probably, it excited a greater sensation than any event since the battle of Ægospotami. Tried by the recognised public law of Greece, it was a flagitions iniquity, for which Sparta had not the shadow of a pretence. … It stood condemned by the indignant sentiment of all Greece, unwillingly testified even by the philo-Laconian Xenophon himself. But it was at the same time an immense accession to Spartan power. … Phœbidas might well claim to have struck for Sparta the most important blow since Ægospotami, relieving her from one of her two really formidable enemies."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 76.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 37 (volume 5).

GREECE: B. C. 383-379. Overthrow of the Olynthian confederacy by Sparta.

Among the Greek cities which were founded at an early day in that peninsula of Macedonia called Chalcidice, from Chalcis, in Eubœa, which colonized the greater number of them, Olynthus became the most important. It long maintained its independence against the Macedonian kings, on one hand, and against Athens, when Athens ruled the Ægean and its coasts, on the other. As it grew in power, it took under its protection the lesser towns of the peninsula and adjacent Macedonia, and formed a confederacy among them, which gradually extended to the larger cities and acquired a formidable character. But two of the Chalcidian cities watched this growth of Olynthus with jealousy and refused to be confederated with her. More than that, they joined the Macedonians in sending an embassy (B. C. 383) to Sparta, then all-powerful in Greece, after the Peace of Antalcidas, and invoked her intervention, to suppress the rising Olynthian confederacy. The response of Sparta was prompt, and although the Olynthians defended themselves with valor, inflicting one severe defeat upon the Lacedæmonian allies, they were forced at last (B. C. 379) to submit and the confederacy was dissolved. "By the peace of Antalkidas, Sparta had surrendered the Asiatic Greeks to Persia; by crushing the Olynthian confederacy, she virtually surrendered the Thracian Greeks to the Macedonian princes. … She gave the victory to Amyntas [king of Macedonia], and prepared the indispensable basis upon which his son Philip afterwards rose, to reduce not only Olynthus, but … the major part of the Grecian world, to one common level of subjection."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 76 (volume 9).

ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapter 4, section 3.

GREECE: B. C. 379-371. The liberation of Thebes and her rise to supremacy. The humbling of Sparta.

For three years after the betrayal of the Acropolis, or Cadmea, of Thebes to the Spartans, the city groaned under the tyranny of the oligarchical party of Leontiades, whom the Spartans supported. Several hundreds of the more prominent of the democratic and patriotic party found a refuge at Athens, and the deliverance of Thebes was effected at last, about December, B. C. 379, by a daring enterprise on the part of some of these exiles. {1594} Their plans were concerted with friends at Thebes, especially with one Phyllidas, who had retained the confidence of the party in power, being secretary to the polemarchs. The leader of the undertaking was Melon. "After a certain interval Melon, accompanied by six of the trustiest comrades he could find among his fellow-exiles, set off for Thebes. They were armed with nothing but daggers, and first of all crept into the neighbourhood under cover of night. The whole of the next day they lay concealed in a desert place, and drew near to the city gates in the guise of labourers returning home with the latest comers from the fields. Having got safely within the city, they spent the whole of that night at the house of a man named Charon, and again the next day in the same fashion. Phyllidas meanwhile was busily taken up with the concerns of the polemarchs, who were to celebrate a feast of Aphrodite on going out of office. Amongst other things, the secretary was to take this opportunity of fulfilling an old undertaking, which was the introduction of certain women to the polemarchs. They were to be the most majestic and the most beautiful to be found in Thebes. … Supper was over, and, thanks to the zeal with which the master of the ceremonies responded to their mood, they were speedily intoxicated. To their oft-repeated orders to introduce their mistresses, he went out and fetched Melon and the rest, three of them dressed up as ladies and the rest as their attendant maidens. … It was preconcerted that as soon as they were seated they were to throw aside their veils and strike home. That is one version of the death of the polemarchs. According to another, Melon and his friends came in as revellers, and so despatched their victims."

Xenophon, Hellenica, (translated by Dakyns), book 5, chapter 4.

Having thus made way with the polemarchs, the conspirators surprised Leontiades in his own house and slew him. They then liberated and armed the prisoners whom they found in confinement and sent heralds through the city to proclaim the freedom of Thebes. A general rally of the citizens followed promptly. The party of the oppression was totally crushed and its prominent members put to death. The Spartan garrison in the Cadmea capitulated and was suffered to march out without molestation. The government of Thebes was reorganized on a more popular basis, and with a view to restoring the Bœotian League, in a perfected state, with Thebes for its head.

See THEBES: B. C. 378.

In the war with Sparta which followed, Athens was soon involved, and the Spartans were driven from all their footholds in the Bœotian towns. Then Athens and Thebes quarreled afresh, and the Spartans, to take advantage of the isolation of the latter, invaded her territory once more. But Thebes, under the training of her great statesman and soldier, Epaminondas, had become strong enough to face her Lacedæmonian enemy without help, and in the momentous battle of Leuctra, fought July 6, B. C. 371, on a plain not far from Platæa, the domineering power of Sparta was broken forever. "It was the most important of all the battles ever fought between Greeks. On this day Thebes became an independent power in Greece, and a return of Spartan despotism was henceforth impossible for all times."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 6, chapter 1 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: Plutarch, Pelopidas.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 77-78.

C. Sankey, The Spartan and Theban Supremacies, chapters 10-11.

GREECE: B. C. 378-357. The new Athenian Confederacy. The Social War.

See ATHENS: B. C. 378-357.

GREECE: B. C. 371. The Arcadian union. Restoration of Mantinea. Building of Megalopolis.

One of the first effects of the battle of Leuctra (B. C. 371), which ended the domination of Sparta in Greek affairs, was to emancipate the Arcadians and to work great changes among them. Mantinea, which the Spartans had destroyed, was rebuilt the same year. Then "the chiefs of the parties opposed to the Spartan interest in the principal Arcadian towns concerted a plan for securing the independence of Arcadia, and for raising it to a higher rank than it had hitherto held in the political system of Greece. With a territory more extensive than any other region of Peloponnesus, peopled by a hardy race, proud of its ancient origin and immemorial possession of the land, and of its peculiar religious traditions, Arcadia—the Greek Switzerland—had never possessed any weight in the affairs of the nation; the land only served as a thoroughfare for hostile armies, and sent forth its sons to recruit the forces of foreign powers. … The object was to unite the Arcadian people in one body, yet so as not to destroy the independence of the particular states; and with this view it was proposed to found a metropolis, to institute a national council which should be invested with supreme authority in foreign affairs, particularly with regard to peace and war, and to establish a military force for the protection of the public safety. … Within a few months after the battle of Leuctra, a meeting of Arcadians from all the principal towns was held to deliberate on the measure; and under its decree a body of colonists, collected from various quarters, proceeded to found a new city, which was to be the seat of the general government, and was called Megalepolis, or Megalopolis (the Great City). The site chosen was on the banks of the Helisson, a small stream tributary to the Alpheus. … The city was designed on a very large scale, and the magnitude of the public buildings corresponded to its extent; the theatre was the most spacious in Greece. … The population was to be drawn … from a great number of the most ancient Arcadian towns. Pausanias gives a list of forty which were required to contribute to it. The greater part of them appear to have been entirely deserted by their inhabitants."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 39 (volume 5).

"The patriotic enthusiasm, however, out of which Megalopolis had first arisen, gradually became enfeebled. The city never attained that preeminence or power which its founders contemplated, and which had caused the city to be laid out on a scale too large for the population actually inhabiting it."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 78.

GREECE: B. C. 371-362. Popular fury in Argos. Arcadian union and disunion. Restoration of Mantinea. Expeditions of Epaminondas into Peloponnesus. His attempts against Sparta. His victory and death at Mantinea.

"In many of the Peloponnesian cities, when the power of Sparta seemed visibly on the wane, internal commotions had arisen, and much blood had been shed on both sides. But now Argos displayed the most fearful example of popular fury recorded in Greek annals, red as they are with tales of civil bloodshed. {1595} The democratic populace detected a conspiracy among the oligarchs, and thirty of the chief citizens were at once put to death. The excitement of the people was inflamed by the harangues of demagogues, and the mob, arming itself with cudgels, commenced a general massacre. When 1,200 citizens had fallen, the popular orators interfered to check the atrocities, but met with the same fate; and, sated at length with bloodshed, the multitude stayed the deadly work. But where the pressure of Spartan interference had been heaviest and most constant, there the reaction was naturally most striking. The popular impulses which were at work in Arkadia [see above] found their first outlet in the rebuilding of Mantineia." But there was far from unanimity in the Arkadian national movement. "In Tegea … public opinion was divided. The city had been treated by Sparta with special consideration, and had for centuries been her faithful ally; hence the oligarchical government looked with disfavour upon the project of union. But the democratical party was powerful and unscrupulous; and, with the help of the Mantineians, they effected a revolution, in which many were killed, and 800 exiles fled to Sparta." The Spartans, under Agesilaos, avenged them by ravaging the plain in front of Mantineia. "This invasion of Arkadia is chiefly important for the pretext which it furnished for Theban intervention. The Mantineians applied for help at first to Athens, and, meeting with a refusal, went on to Thebes. For this request Epameinondas must have been thoroughly prepared beforehand, and he was soon on the march with a powerful army. … On his arrival in the Peloponnese [B. C. 370], he found that Agesilaos had already retired; and some of the Theban generals, considering the season of the year, wished at once to return." But Epameinondas was persuaded by the allies of Thebes to make an attempt upon Sparta itself. "In four divisions the invading host streamed into the land which, according to the proudest boast of its inhabitants, had felt no hostile tread for 600 years. At Sellasia, not ten miles distant from Sparta, the army reunited; and, having plundered and burnt the town, swept down into the valley of the Eurotas, and marched along the left bank till it reached the bridge opposite the city. Within Sparta itself, though a universal terror prevailed, one man rose equal to the emergency. While the men fainted in spirit as they thought how few they were, and how wide their unwalled city, … Agesilaos accepted, not without mistrust, the services of 6,000 helots, collected reinforcements, preserved order, suppressed conspiracy, stamped out mutiny, posted guards on every vantage-ground, and refused to be tempted to a battle by the taunts of foes or the clamours of over-eager friends. … After one unsuccessful cavalry skirmish, the Theban general, who, in a campaign undertaken on his sole responsibility, dared not risk the chance of defeat, decided to leave the 'wasps'-nest' untaken. He completed his work of devastation by ravaging the whole of southern Lakonia, … and then turned back into Arkadia to devote himself to the more permanent objects of his expedition." Messene was now rebuilt (see MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD), and "the descendants of the old Messenian stock were gathered to form a new nation from Rhegion and Messene [Sicily], and from the parts of Lybia round Kyrene. … By thus restoring the Messenians to their ancient territory, Epameinondas deprived Sparta at one blow of nearly half her possessions. … At last Epameinondas had done his work; and, leaving Pammenes with a garrison in Tegea, he hastened to lead his soldiers home. At the Isthmus he found a hostile army from Athens," which had been persuaded to send succor to Sparta; but the Athenians did not care to give battle to the conquering Thebans, and the latter passed unopposed. On the arrival of Epameinondas at Thebes, "the leaders of a petty faction threatened to bring him and his colleagues to trial for retaining their command for four months beyond the legal term of office. But Epameinondas stood up in the assembly, and told his simple tale of victorious generalship and still more triumphant statesmanship; and the invidious cavils of snarling intriguers were at once forgotten." Sparta and Athens now formed an alliance, with the senseless agreement that command of the common forces "should be given alternately to each state for five days. … The first aim of the confederates was to occupy the passes of the isthmus," but Epameinondas forced a passage for his army, captured Sikyon, ravaged the territory of Epidauros, and made a bold but unsuccessful attempt to surprise Corinth. Then, on the arrival of reinforcements to the Spartans from Syracuse, he drew back to Thebes (B. C. 368). For a time the Thebans were occupied with troubles in Thessaly, and their Arkadian proteges in Peloponnese were carrying on war against Sparta independently, with so much momentary success that they became over-confident and rash. They paid for their foolhardiness by a frightful defeat, which cost them 10,000 men, whilst no Spartan is said to have fallen; hence the fight was known in Sparta as the Tearless Battle. "This defeat probably caused little grief at Thebes, for it would prove to the arrogant Arkadians that they could not yet dispense with Theban aid; and it decided Epameinondas to make a third expedition into the Peloponnese." The result of his third expedition was the enrolment of a number of Achaian cities as Theban allies, which gave to Thebes "the control of the coast-line of the Corinthian gulf." But the broad and statesmanlike terms on which Epameinondas arranged these alliances were set aside by his narrow-minded fellow citizens, and a policy adopted by which Achaia was "converted from a lukewarm neutral into an enthusiastic supporter of Sparta. In this unsettled state of Greek politics the Thebans resolved to have recourse, like the Spartans before them, to the authority of the Great King. Existing treaties, for which they were not responsible, acknowledged his right to interfere in the internal affairs of Greece." Pelopidas and other envoys were accordingly sent to Susa (E. C. 366), where they procured from Artaxerxes a rescript "which recognised the independence of Messene and ordered the Athenians to dismantle their fleet." But the mandate of the Great King proved void of effect. "After this the confusion in Greece grew infinitely worse. An accident transferred the town of Oropos … from the hands of Athens to those of Thebes; and as the Peloponnesian allies of the Athenians refused to help them to regain it, they broke with them, and, in spite of the efforts of Epameinondas, formed an alliance with Arkadia. … {1596} The Athenians made soon after a vain attempt to seize the friendly city of Corinth, and the disgusted Corinthians, together with the citizens of Epidauros and Phlious, … obtained the grudging consent of Sparta, and made a separate peace with Thebes. As soon as tranquillity was restored in one quarter, in another the flame of war would again burst forth." Its next outbreak (B. C. 365) was between Elis and Arkadia, the former being assisted by Sparta, and its principal event was a desperate battle fought for the possession of Olympia. The Arkadians held part of the city and acquired possession of the sacred treasures in the Olympian temple, which they determined to apply to the expenses of the war. "Raising the cry of sacrilege, the Mantineians, who were jealous both of Tegea and Megalopolis, at once broke loose and shut their gates." Soon afterwards, Mantineia separated herself wholly from the Arkadian confederacy and entered the Spartan alliance. This was among the causes which drew Epameinondas once more, and for the last time, into the Peloponnese (B. C. 362). "The armies of Greece were now gathering from all quarters for the great struggle. On the one side stood Sparta, Athens, Elis, Achaia, and a part of Arkadia, led by Mantineia; on the other side were ranged Boiotia [Thebes], Argos, Messenia, and the rest of Arkadia, while a few of the smaller states—as Phokis, Phlious, and Corinth—remained neutral." At the outset of his campaign, Epameinondas made a bold attempt, by a rapid night march, to surprise Sparta; but a traitorous warning had been given, the Spartans were barricaded and prepared for defence, and the undertaking failed. Then he marched quickly to Mantineia, and failed in his design there, likewise. A pitched battle was necessary to decide the issue, and it was fought on the plain between Mantineia and Tegea, on the 3d day of July, B. C. 362. The fine discipline of the Theban troops and the skilful tactics of Epameinondas had given the victory into his hands, when, "suddenly, the aspect of the battle changed. Except among the light troops on the extreme right, the advance was everywhere stayed. The Spartan hoplites were in full flight, but the conquerors did not stir a step in the pursuit. … The fury of the battle had instantly ceased. … Epameinondas had fallen wounded to death, and this was the result. … Every heart was broken, every arm paralysed. … Both sides claimed the victory in the battle, and erected the usual trophies, but the real advantage remained with the Thebans. … By the peace that ensued, the independence of Messenia was secured, and Megalopolis and the Pan-Arkadian constitution were preserved from destruction. The work of Epameinondas, though cut short, was thus not thrown away; and the power of Sparta was confined within the limits which he had assigned."

C. Sankey, The Spartan and Theban Supremacies, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: Xenophon, Hellenica, books 5-6.

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 6, chapter 2.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 80 (volume 10).

GREECE: B. C. 359-358. First proceedings of Philip of Macedonia. His acquisition of Amphipolis.

The famous Philip of Macedon succeeded to the Macedonian throne in 359 B. C., at the age of 23. In his youth he had been delivered to the Thebans as one of the hostages given upon the conclusion of a treaty of peace in 368. "His residence at Thebes gave him some tincture of Grecian philosophy and literature; but the most important lesson which he learned at that city was the art of war, with all the improved tactics introduced by Epaminondas. Philip … displayed at the beginning of his reign his extraordinary energy and abilities. After defeating the Illyrians he established a standing army, in which discipline was preserved by the severest punishments. He introduced the far-famed Macedonian phalanx, which was 16 men deep, armed with long projecting spears. Philip's views were first turned towards the eastern frontiers of his dominions, where his interests clashed with those of the Athenians. A few years before the Athenians had made various unavailing attempts to obtain possession of Amphipolis, once the jewel of their empire, but which they had never recovered since its capture by Brasidas in the eighth year of the Peloponnesian war."

W. Smith, Smaller History of Greece, chapter 19.

The importance of Amphipolis to the Athenians arose chiefly from its vicinity to "the vast forests which clothed the mountains that enclose the basin of the Strymon, and afforded an inexhaustible supply of ship-timber." For the same reason that the Athenians desired ardently to regain possession of Amphipolis their enemies were strong in the wish to keep it out of their hands. Moreover, as the Macedonian kingdom became well-knitted in the strong hands of the ambitious Philip, the city of "the Nine Ways" assumed importance to that rising power, and Philip resolved to possess it. It was at this point that his ambitions first came into conflict with Athens. But the Athenians were not aware of his aims until too late. He deceived them completely, in fact, by a bargain to give help in acquiring Amphipolis for them, and to receive help in gaining Pydna for himself. But when his preparations were complete, he suddenly laid siege to Amphipolis and made himself master of the city (B. C. 358), besides taking Pydna as well. At Athens, "Philip was henceforth viewed as an open enemy, and this was the beginning—though without any formal declaration—of a state of hostility between the two powers, which was called, from its origin, the Amphipolitan War."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 42 (volume 5).

GREECE: B. C. 357-336. Advancement of Philip of Macedonia to supremacy. The Sacred Wars and their consequences. The fatal field of Chæronea. Philip's preparations for the invasion of Asia. His assassination.

A war between the Thebans and their neighbors, the Phocians, which broke out in 357 or 356 B. C., assumed great importance in Greek history and was called the Sacred War,—as two earlier contests, in which Delphi was concerned, had been likewise named. It is sometimes called the Ten Years Sacred War. Thebes, controlling the shadowy Amphictyonic Council, had brought a charge of sacrilege against the Phocians and procured a decree imposing upon them a heavy fine. The Phocians resisted the decree with unexpected energy, and, by a bold and sudden movement, gained possession of Delphi, where they destroyed the records of the Amphictyonic judgment against them. Having the vast accumulation of the sacred treasures of the Delphic temple in their hands, they did not scruple to appropriate them, and were able to maintain a powerful army of mercenaries, gathered from every part of Greece, with which they ravaged the territories of Bœotia and Locris, and acquired control of the pass of Thermopylæ. {1597} In the midst of their successes they were called upon for help by the tyrant of Pheræ in Thessaly, then being attacked by Philip of Macedon (B. C. 353). The Phocians opposed Philip with such success, at first, that he retreated from Thessaly; but it was only to recruit and reanimate his army. Returning presently he overthrew the Phocian army, with great slaughter—Onomarchus, its leader, being slain—and made himself master of all Thessaly. Both Athens and Sparta were now alarmed by this rapid advance into Central Greece of the conquering arms of the ambitious Macedonian, and both sent forces to the help of the Phocians. The former was so energetic that an army of 5,000 Athenian foot-soldiers and 400 horse reached Thermopylæ (May 352 B. C.) before Philip had been able to push forward from Thessaly. When he did advance, proclaiming his purpose to rescue the Delphian temple from sacrilegious robbers, he was repulsed at the pass and drew back. It was the beginning of the struggle for Greek independence against Macedonian energy and ambition. A few months later Demosthenes delivered the first of his immortal orations, called afterwards Philippics, in which he strove to keep the already languishing energy of the Athenians alive, in unfaltering resistance to the designs of Philip. For six years there was a state of war between Philip and the Athenians with their allies, but the conquests of the former in Thrace and the Chalcidian peninsula were steadily pressed. At length (B. C. 346) Athens was treacherously persuaded into a treaty of peace with Philip (the Peace of Philocrates) which excluded the Phocians from its terms. No sooner had he thus isolated the latter than he marched quickly to Thermopylæ, secured possession of the pass and declared himself the supporter of Thebes. The Sacred War was ended, Delphi rescued, Phocis punished without mercy, and Greece was under the feet of a master. This being accomplished, the Peace of Philocrates was doubtfully maintained for about six years. Then quarrels broke out which led up to still another Sacred War, and which gave Philip another opportunity to trample on the liberties of Greece. Curiously, the provoking causes of this outbreak were an inheritance from that more ancient Sacred War which brought ruin upon the town of Cirrha and a lasting curse upon its soil. The Locrians of Amphissa, dwelling near to the accursed territory, had ventured in the course of years to encroach upon it with brick-kilns, and to make use of its harbor. At a meeting of the Amphictyonic Council, in the spring of B. C. 339, this violation of the Sacred Law was brought to notice, by way of retaliation for some offence which the deputies of Amphissa had given to those of Athens. Hostilities ensued between the citizens of Delphi, pushed on by the Amphictyons, on one side, and the Amphissians on the other. The influence of Philip in the Amphictyonic Council was controlling, and his partisans had no difficulty in summoning him to act for the federation in settling this portentous affair. He marched into Bœotia, took possession of the strong city of Elatea, and very soon made it manifest that he contemplated something more than mere dealing with the refractory trespassers of Amphissa. Athens watched his movements with terror, and even Thebes, his former ally, took alarm. Through the exertions of Demosthenes, Thebes and Athens, once more, but too late, gave up their ancient enmity and united their strength and resources in a firm league. Megara, Corinth and other states were joined to them and common cause was made with the Locrians of Amphissa. These movements consumed a winter, and war opened in the spring. Philip gained successes from the beginning. He took Amphissa by surprise and carried Naupactus by storm. But it was not until August—the first day of August, B. C. 338—that the two combatants came together in force. This occurred in the Bœotian valley of the Cephisus, near the town of Chæronea, which gave its name to the battle. The Sacred Band of Thebes and the hoplites of Athens, with their allies, fought obstinately and well; but they were no match for the veterans of the Macedonian phalanx and most of them perished on the field. It was the last struggle for Grecian independence. Henceforth, practically at least, Hellas was swallowed up in Macedonia. We can see very plainly that Philip's "conduct towards Athens after the victory, under the appearance of generosity, was extremely prudent. His object was, to separate the Thebans from the Athenians, and he at once advanced against the former. The Athenian prisoners he sent home, free and clothed, accompanied by Antipater; he ordered the dead bodies to be burned, and their ashes to be conveyed to Athens, while the Thebans had to purchase their dead from him. He then entered Thebes, which he seems to have taken without any resistance, placed a Macedonian garrison in the Cadmea, and, with the same policy which Sparta had followed at Athens after the Peloponnesian war, he established an oligarchy of 300 of his partizans, who were for the most part returned exiles, and who now, under the protection of the garrison in the Cadmea, ruled like tyrants, and raged in a fearful manner. … Philip accepted all the terms which were agreeable to the Athenians; no investigations were to be instituted against his enemies, and none of them was to be sent into exile. Athens was not only to remain a perfectly sovereign city, but retain Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, nay even Samos and Chersonnesus, though he might have taken the latter without any difficulty, and though the Athenians had most cleruchiae in Samos. Thus he bought over the Athenians through this peace, against which Demosthenes and others, who saw farther, could not venture to protest, because Philip offered more than they could give him in return. … The only thing which the Athenians conceded to Philip, was, that they concluded a symmachia with him, and conferred upon him the supreme command in the Persian war. For with great cunning Philip summoned an assembly of the Greeks whom he called his allies, to Corinth, to deliberate upon the war against Persia. The war of revenge against the Persians had already become a popular idea in Greece. … Philip now entered Peloponnesus with his whole army, and went to the diet at Corinth, where the Greek deputies received his orders. In Peloponnesus he acted as mediator, for he was invited as such by the Arcadians, Messenians, and Argives, to decide their disputes with Lacedaemon, and they demanded that he should restore to them their ancient territories. {1598} The Arcadians had formerly possessed many places on the Eurotas, and the Messenians were still very far from having recovered all their ancient territories. He accordingly fixed the boundaries, and greatly diminished the extent of Laconia. … The Spartans, on that occasion, behaved in a dignified manner; they were the only ones who refused to acknowledge Philip as generalissimo against Persia. … Even the ancients regarded the day of Chaeronea as the death-day of Greece; every principle of life was cut off; the Greeks, indeed, continued to exist, but in spirit, and politically, they were dead. … Philip was now at the height of his power. Byzantium, and the other allied cities, had submitted to the conqueror, when he sent his army against them, and he was already trying to establish himself in Asia. 'A detachment of troops, under Attalus, had been sent across, to keep open the road for the great expedition, and had encamped on mount Ida.' Philip was thus enabled to commence his passage across the Hellespont whenever he pleased. But the close of his career was already at hand." He was assassinated in August, B. C. 336, by a certain Pausanias, at the instigation, it is said, of Olympias, one of Philip's several wives—and the mother of his famous son Alexander—whom he had repudiated to please a younger bride. "Philip was unquestionably an uncommon and extraordinary man, and the opinion of several among the ancients, that by the foundation of the Macedonian state he did something far greater than Alexander by the application of the powers he inherited, is quite correct. … When we regard him as the creator of his state, by uniting the most different nations, Macedonians and Greeks; … when we reflect what a man he must have been, from whom proceeded the impulse to train such great generals, … to whom Alexander, it must be observed, did not add one, for all Alexander's generals proceeded from the school of Philip, and there is not one whom Alexander did not inherit from Philip;—when we perceive the skill with which he gained over nations and states, … we cannot but acknowledge that he was an extraordinary man."

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History, lectures 69 and 66 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapters 43-46 (volumes 5-6).

T. Leland, History of the Life and Reign of Philip of Macedon, books 2-5.

GREECE: B. C. 351-348. The Olynthian War. Destruction of Olynthus by Philip of Macedonia.

After the overthrow of Spartan domination in Greece, Olynthus recovered its independence and regained, during the second quarter of the fourth century B. C., a considerable degree of prosperity and power. It was even helped in its rise by the cunning, dangerous hand of Philip of Macedon, who secured many and great advantages in his treacherous diplomacy by playing the mutual jealousies of Athens and Olynthus against one another. The Olynthian Confederacy, formed anew, just served its purpose as a counterpoise to the Athenian Confederacy, until Philip had no more need of that service. He was the friend and ally of the former until he had secured Amphipolis, Methone, and other necessary positions in Macedonia and Thrace. Then the mask began to slip and Olynthus (B. C. 351) got glimpses of the true character of her subtle neighbor. Too late, she made overtures to Athens, and Athens, too late, saw the vital importance of a league of friendship between the two Greek confederacies, against the half Hellenic, half barbaric Macedonian kingdom. Three of the great speeches of Demosthenes—the "Olynthiac orations"—were made upon this theme, and the orator succeeded for the first time in persuading his degenerated countrymen to act upon his clear view of the situation. Athens and Olynthus were joined in a defensive league and Athenian ships and men were sent to the Chalcidian peninsula,—too late. Partly by the force of his arms and partly by the power of his gold, buying traitors, Philip took Olynthus (B. C. 348) and all the thirty-two lesser towns that were federated with her. He took them and he destroyed them most brutally. "The haughty city of Olynthus vanished from the face of the earth, and together with it thirty-two towns inhabited by Greeks and flourishing as commercial communities. … The lot of those who saved life and liberty was happy in comparison with the fate of those who, like the majority of the Olynthians, fell into the hands of the conqueror and were sold into slavery, while their possessions were burnt to ashes or flung as booty to the mercenaries. … The mines continued to be worked for the royal treasury; with this exception the whole of Chalcidice became a desert"

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 7, chapter 3 (volume 5).

ALSO IN: A. M. Curteis, Rise of the Macedonian Empire, chapters 4-5.

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History, lectures 66-68 (volume 2).

GREECE: B. C. 340. Siege of Byzantium by Philip of Macedonia.

The enmity between Athens and Byzantium yielded in 340 B. C. to their common fear of Philip of Macedon, and the exertions of Demosthenes brought about an alliance of the two cities, in which Perinthus, the near neighbor of Byzantium, was also joined. Philip, in wrath, proceeded with a fleet and army against both cities, laying siege, first to Perinthus and afterwards to Byzantium, but without success in either case. He was compelled to withdraw, after wasting several months in the fruitless undertaking. It was one of the few failures of the able Macedonian.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 90 (volume 11).

GREECE: B. C. 336-335. Northern campaign of Alexander of Macedonia. Revolt at Thebes. Destruction of the city.

"Alexander … took up and continued the political and military schemes which his father had begun. We first make acquaintance with him and his army during his campaign against the tribes on the northern frontier of Makedonia. This campaign he carried out with energy equal to that of Philip, and with more success (spring of 335 B. C.). The distinctive feature of the war was that the Makedonian phalanx, the organization and equipment of which were adapted from Grecian models, everywhere won and maintained the upper hand. … Even at this epoch Byzantium was rising into importance. That city had, owing to its hostility with Persia, deserted the side of the Greeks for that of the Makedonians. It was from Byzantium that Alexander summoned triremes to help him against the island in the Danube on which the king of the Triballi had taken refuge. … The great successes of Alexander induced all the neighboring nationalities to accept the proposals of friendship which he made to them. … In Greece false reports concerning the progress of events in the north had raised to fever heat the general ferment which naturally existed. {1599} Alexander relied upon the resolutions of the League of the Public Peace [formed by the Congress at Corinth], which had recognized his father and afterwards himself as its head. But he was now opposed by all those who were unable to forget their former condition, and who preferred the alliance with Persia which had left them independent, to the league with Makedonia which robbed them of their autonomy. … Thebes took the lead of the malcontents, and set about ridding herself of the garrison which Philip had placed in the Cadmeia. She thus became the centre of the whole Hellenic opposition. The enemies of Makedon, who had been exiled from every city, assembled in Thebes. … The same party was stirring in Lakedæmon, in Arcadia, in Ætolia, and, above all, at Athens. From Athens the Thebans were supplied, through the mediation of Demosthenes, and doubtless by means of Persian gold, with arms, of which they were likely to stand in need. … Alexander had no sooner settled with his enemies in the north than he turned to Hellas. So rapid was his movement that he found the pass of Thermopylæ still open, and, long before he was expected, appeared before the walls of Thebes." The fate of the city was decided by a battle in which the Makedonians were overwhelmingly victorious. "In the market-place, in the streets, in the very houses, there ensued a hideous massacre. … The victors were, however, not satisfied with the slaughter. Alexander summoned a meeting of his League, by which the complete destruction of Thebes was decreed, and this destruction was actually carried out (October, 335 B. C.). [At the same time Platæa, which Thebes had destroyed, was ordered to be rebuilt.] In Grecian history it was no unheard-of event that the members of the defeated nation should be sold into slavery, and so it happened on this occasion. The sale of the slaves supplied Alexander with a sum of money which was no inconsiderable addition to his military chest. But his main object was to strike terror, and this was spread through Greece by the ruthless destruction of the city of Œdipus, of Pindar, and of Epameinondas. … Deep and universal horror fell upon the Greeks. … The close connection that existed at this moment between Grecian and Persian affairs forbade him to lose a moment in turning his arms towards Asia. … A war between Alexander and Persia was inevitable, not only on account of the relation of the Greeks to Makedon, whose yoke they were very loth to bear, but on account of their relation to Persia, on whose support they leaned. … The career which Philip had begun, and in which Alexander was now proceeding, led of necessity to a struggle with the power that held sway in Asia Minor. Until that power were defeated, the Makedonian kingdom could not be regarded as firmly established."

L. von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Group of Nations and the Greeks, chapter 10, part 2.

ALSO IN: Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander, book 1, chapters 1-10.

T. A. Dodge, Alexander, chapters 14-17.

GREECE: B. C. 334-323. Asiatic conquests of Alexander the Great.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 334-330; and 330-323.

GREECE: B. C. 323-322. Attempt to break the Macedonian yoke. The Lamian War. Subjugation of Athens. Suppression of democracy. Expulsion of poor citizens. Death of Demosthenes.

On the death of Alexander the Great, B. C. 323, a party at Athens which still hoped for freedom in Greece set on foot a vigorous movement designed to break the Macedonian yoke. A league was formed in which many cities joined—a larger assemblage of Hellenic states, says Mr. Grote, than that which resisted Xerxes in 480 B. C. A powerful army of Greek citizens and mercenaries was formed and placed under the command of a capable Athenian, Leosthenes, who led it into Thessaly, to meet the Macedonian general Antipater, who now ruled Greece.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316.

The latter was defeated in a battle which ensued, and was driven into the fortified Thessalian town of Lamia, where he was besieged. Unfortunately, Leosthenes was killed during the progress of the siege, and a long interval occurred before a new commander could be agreed on. This gave Antipater time to obtain succor from Asia. A Macedonian army, under Leonnatus, crossed the Hellespont, and the besiegers of Lamia were forced to break up their camp in order to meet it. They did so with success; Leonnatus was slain and his army driven back. But meantime Antipater escaped from Lamia, joined the defeated troops and retreated into Macedonia. The war thus begun, and which took the name of the Lamian War, was continued, not unfavorably to the confederates, on the whole, until the following summer—August, 322 B. C.—when it was ended by a battle fought on the plain of Krannon, in Thessaly. Antipater, who had been joined by Kraterus, from Asia, was the victor, and Athens with all her allies submitted to the terms which he dictated. He established a Macedonian garrison in Munychia, and not only suppressed the democratic constitution of Athens, but ordered all the poorer citizens—all who possessed less than 2,000 drachmæ's worth of property, being 12,000 out of the 21,000 who then possessed the Athenian franchise—to be driven from the city; thus leaving a selected citizenship of 9,000 of the richer and more manageable men. The banished or deported 12,000 were scattered in Thrace, Illyria, Italy and even in northern Africa. The leaders of the anti-Macedonian rising were pursued with unrelenting animosity. Demosthenes, the great orator, who had been conspicuous among them, was dragged from a temple at Kalauria, to which he had fled, and took poison to escape the worse death which probably awaited him.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 95 (volume 12).

GREECE: B. C. 323-301. Wars of the Diadochi or Successors of Alexander.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316; 315-310; and 310-301.

GREECE: B. C. 321-312. The contest for Athens and Peloponnesus, between Cassander and Polysperchon. Execution of Phocion. Restoration of Thebes.

"Antipater, after the termination of the Lamian war, passed over to Asia and took part in the affairs there.

See MACEDONIA: A. D. 323-316.

Being appointed guardian to the Kings, as the children and relatives of Alexander were called, he returned to Macedonia, leading them with him. … Antipater died (Olympiad 115, 3) shortly after his return to Macedonia. He directed that Polysperchon, his ancient mate in arms, should succeed him in his office, while to his son Cassander he left only the second place. But Cassander, an ambitious youth, looked upon his father's authority as his inheritance; and relying on the aid of the aristocratic party in the Grecian states, of Ptolemæus, who ruled in Egypt, and of Antigonus, the most powerful general in Asia, he resolved to dispute it with Polysperchon. {1600} Under pretext of going a-hunting, he escaped out of Macedonia, and passed over to Asia to concert matters with Antigonus. Polysperchon, seeing war inevitable, resolved to detach Greece, if possible, from Cassander. Knowing that the oligarchies established in the different states by Antipater would be likely to espouse the cause of his son, he issued a pompous edict, in the name of the Kings, restoring the democracies. … At Athens (Olympiad 115,4) [B. C. 317], Nicanor, who commanded in the Munychia, finding that the people were inclined toward Polysperchon, secretly collected troops, and seized the Piræeus. The people sent to him Phocion, Conon the son of Timotheüs, and Clearchus, men of distinction, and his friends; but to no purpose. A letter also came to him from Olympias, Alexander's mother, whom Polysperchon had recalled from Epeirus, and given the charge of her infant grandson, ordering him to surrender both the Munychia and the Piræeus; but to as little effect. Finally, Polysperchon's son Alexander entered Attica with an army, and encamped before the Piræeus. Phocion and other chiefs of the aristocracy went to Alexander, and advised him not to give these places up to the people, but to hold them himself till the contest with Cassander should be terminated. They feared, it is evident, for their own safety, and not without reason; for the people, ferocious with the recovery of power, soon after held an assembly, in which they deposed all the former magistrates, appointed the most furious democrats in their room, and passed sentences of death, banishment, and confiscation of goods on those who had governed under the oligarchy. Phocion and his friends fled to Alexander, who received them kindly, and sent them with letters in their favor to his father, who was now in Phocis. The Athenians also despatched an embassy, and, yielding to motives of interest, Polysperchon sent his suppliants prisoners to Athens, to stand a trial for their lives before the tribunal of an anarchic mob. … The prisoners were condemned and led off to prison, followed by the tears of their friends and the triumphant execrations of their mean-spirited enemies. They drank the fatal hemlock-juice, and their bodies were cast unburied beyond the confines of Attica. Four days after the death of Phocion, Cassander arrived at the Piræeus with 35 ships, carrying 4,000 men, given him by Antigonus. Polysperchon immediately entered Attica with 20,000 Macedonian foot and 4,000 of those of the allies, 1,000 horse, and 65 elephants, which he had brought from Asia, and encamped near the Piræeus. But as the siege was likely to be tedious, and sufficient provisions for so large an army could not be had, he left a force such as the country could support with his son Alexander, and passed with the remainder into Peloponnesus, to force the Megalopolitans to submit to the Kings; for they alone sided with Cassander, all the rest having obeyed the directions to put to death or banish his adherents. The whole serviceable population of Megalopolis, slaves included, amounted to 15,000 men; and under the directions of one Damis, who had served in Asia under Alexander, they prepared for a vigorous defence. Polysperchon sat down before the town, and his miners in a short time succeeded in throwing down three towers and a part of the wall. He attempted a storm, but was obliged to draw off his men, after an obstinate conflict. … The Athenians meantime saw themselves excluded from the sea, and from all their sources of profit and enjoyment, while little aid was to be expected from Polysperchon, who had been forced to raise the siege of Megalopolis, and whose fleet had just now been destroyed by Antigonus in the Hellespont. A citizen of some consideration ventured at length to propose in the assembly an arrangement with Cassander. The ordinary tumult at first was raised, but the sense of interest finally prevailed. Peace was procured, on the conditions of the Munychia remaining in Cassander's hands till the end of the present contest; political privileges being restricted to those possessed of ten minas and upwards of property, and a person appointed by Cassander being at the head of the government. The person selected for this office was Demetrius of Phaleron, a distinguished Athenian citizen; and under his mild and equitable rule the people were far happier than they could have been under a democracy, for which they had proved themselves no longer fit. Cassander then passed over into Peloponnesus, and laid siege to Tegea. While here, he heard that Olympias had put to death several of his friends in Macedonia; among the rest, Philip Aridæus and his wife Eurydice, members of the royal family. He at once (Olympiad 116, 1) [B. C. 316] set out for Macedonia; and, as the pass of Pylæ was occupied by the Ætolians, he embarked his troops in Locris, and landed them in Thessaly. He besieged Olympias in Pydna, forced her to surrender, and put her to death. Macedonia submitted to him, and he then set forth for Peloponnesus, where Polysperchon's son Alexander was at the head of an army. He forced a passage through Pylæ, and coming into Bœotia, announced his intention of restoring Thebes, which had now lain desolate for twenty years. The scattered Thebans were collected; the towns of Bœotia and other parts of Greece (Athens in particular), and even of Italy and Sicily, aided to raise the walls and to supply the wants of the returning exiles, and Thebes was once more numbered among the cities of Greece. As Alexander guarded the Isthmus, Cassander passed to Megara, where he embarked his troops and elephants, and crossed over to Epidaurus. He made Argos and Messene come over to his side, and then returned to Macedonia. In the conflict of interests which prevailed in this anarchic period, Antigonus was ere long among the enemies of Cassander. He sent one of his generals to Laconia, who, having obtained permission from the Spartans to recruit in Peloponnesus, raised 8,000 men. The command in Peloponnesus was given to Polysperchon, whose son Alexander was summoned over to Asia to accuse Cassander of treason before the assembly of the Macedonian soldiers. Cassander was proclaimed a public enemy unless he submitted to Antigonus; at the same time the Greeks were declared independent, Antigonus hoping thus to gain them over to his side. He then sent Alexander back with 500 talents; and when Ptolemæus of Egypt heard what Antigonus had done, he also hastened to declare the independence of the Greeks; for all the contending generals were anxious to stand well with the people of Greece, from which country, exclusive of other advantages, they drew their best soldiers. {1601} … Antigonus, to show the Greeks that he was in earnest in his promise to restore them to independence, sent one of his generals, named Telesphorus, with a fleet and army to Peloponnesus, who expelled Cassander's garrisons from most of the towns. The following year (Olympiad 117, 1) [B. C. 312] he sent an officer, named Ptolemæus, with another fleet and army to Greece. Ptolemæus landed in Bœotia, and being joined by 2,200 foot, and 1,300 horse of the Bœotians, he passed over to Eubœa; where having expelled the Macedonian garrison from Chalcis (the only town there which Cassander held), he left it without any foreign garrison, as a proof that Antigonus meant fairly. He then took Orôpus, and gave it to the Bœotians; he entered Attica, and the people forced Demetrius Phalereus to make a truce with him, and to send to Antigonus to treat of an alliance. Ptolemæus returned to Bœotia, expelled the garrison from the Cadmeia, and liberated Thebes."

T. Keightley, History of Greece, part 3, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 58 (volume 7).

GREECE: B. C. 307-197. Demetrius and the Antigonids.

In the spring of the year 307 B. C. Athens was surprised by an expedition sent from Ephesus by Antigonus, under his adventurous son Demetrius, surnamed Poliorcetes.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301.

The city had then been for ten years subject to Cassander, the ruling chief in Macedonia for the time, and appears to have been mildly governed by Cassander's lieutenant, Demetrius the Phalerian. The coming of the other Demetrius offered nothing to the Athenians but a change of masters, but they welcomed him with extravagant demonstrations. Their degeneracy was shown in proceedings of Asiatic servility. They deified Demetrius and his father Antigonus, erected altars to them and appointed ministering priests. After some months spent at Athens in the enjoyment of these adulations, Demetrius returned to Asia, to take part in the war which Antigonus was waging with Ptolemy of Egypt and Lysimachus of Thrace, two of his former partners in the partition of the empire of Alexander. He was absent three years, and then returned, at the call of the Athenians, to save them from falling again into the hands of Cassander. He now made Athens his capital, as it were, for something more than a year, while he acquired control of Corinth, Argos, Sicyon, Chalcis in Eubœa and other important places, greatly reducing the dominion of the Macedonian, Cassander. His treatment at Athens, during this period, was marked by the same impious and disgraceful servility as before. He was called the guest of the goddess Athene and lodged in the Parthenon, which he polluted with intolerable debaucheries. But in the summer of 301 B. C. this clever adventurer was summoned again to Asia, to aid his father in the last great struggle, which decided the partition of the empire of Alexander between his self-constituted heirs. At the battle of Ipsus (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301), Antigonus perished and Demetrius was stripped of the kingdom he expected to inherit. He turned to Athens for consolation, and the fickle city refused to admit him within her walls. But after some period of wanderings and adventures the unconquerable prince got together a force with which he compelled the Athenians to receive him, on more definite terms of submission on their part and of mastery on his. Moreover, he established his rule in the greater part of Peloponnesus, and finally, on the death of Cassander (B. C. 297), he acquired the crown of Macedonia. Not satisfied with what fortune had thus given him, he attempted to recover the Asiatic kingdom of his father, and died, B. C. 283, a captive in the hands of the Syrian monarch, Seleucus. His Macedonian kingdom had meantime been seized by Pyrrhus of Epirus; but it was ultimately recovered by the eldest legitimate son of Demetrius, called Antigonus Gonatus. From that time, for a century, until the Romans came, not only Macedonia, but Greece at large, Athens included, was ruled or dominated by this king and his descendants, known as the Antigonid kings.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapters 59-60 (volumes 7-8).

GREECE: B. C. 297-280. Death of Cassander. Intrigues and murders of Ptolemy Keraunos and his strange acquisition of the Macedonian throne.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280.

GREECE: B. C. 280-279. Invasion by the Gauls.

See GAULS: B. C. 280-279.

GREECE: B. C. 280-275. Campaigns of Pyrrhus in Italy and Sicily.

See ROME: B. C. 282-275.

GREECE: B. C. 3d Century. The Hellenistic world.

As the result of the conquests of Alexander and the wars of his successors, there were, in the third century before Christ, three great Hellenistic kingdoms, Macedonia, Egypt, Syria, which lasted, each under its own dynasty, till Rome swallowed them up. The first of these, which was the poorest, and the smallest, but historically the most important, included the ancestral possessions of Philip and Alexander— Macedonia, most of Thrace, 'Thessaly, the mountainous centre of the peninsula, as well as a protectorate more or less definite and absolute over Greece proper, the Cyclades, and certain tracts of Caria. … Next came Egypt, including Cyrene and Cyprus, and a general protectorate over the sea-coast cities of Asia Minor up to the Black Sea, together with claims often asserted with success on Syria, and on the coast lands of Southern Asia Minor. … Thirdly came what was now called Syria, on account of the policy of the house of Seleucus, who built there its capital, and determined to make the Greek or Hellenistic end of its vast dominions its political centre of gravity. The Kingdom of Syria owned the south and south-east of Asia Minor, Syria, and generally Palestine, Mesopotamia, and the mountain provinces adjoining it on the East, with vague claims further east when there was no king like Sandracottus to hold India and the Punjaub with a strong hand. There was still a large element of Hellenism in these remote parts. The kingdom of Bactria was ruled by a dynasty of kings with Greek names—Euthydemus is the chief—who coined in Greek style, and must therefore have regarded themselves as successors to Alexander. There are many exceptions and limitations to this general description, and many secondary and semi-independent kingdoms, which make the picture of Hellenism infinitely various and complicated. There was, in fact, a chain of independent kingdoms reaching from Media to Sparta, all of which asserted their complete freedom, and generally attained it by balancing the great powers one against the other. {1602} Here they are in their order. Atropatene was the kingdom in the northern and western parts of the province of Media, by Atropates, the satrap of Alexander, who claimed descent from the seven Persian chiefs who put Darius I. on the throne. Next came Armenia, hardly conquered by Alexander, and now established under a dynasty of its own. Then Cappadocia, the land in the heart of Asia Minor, where it narrows between Cilicia and Pontus, ruled by sovereigns also claiming royal Persian descent. … Fourthly, Pontus, under its equally Persian dynast Mithridates—a kingdom which makes a great figure in Eastern history under the later Roman Republic. There was moreover a dynast of Bithynia, set up and supported by the robber state of the Celtic Galatians, which had just been founded, and was a source of strength and of danger to all its neighbours. Then Pergamum, just being founded and strengthened by the first Attalid, Philetærus, an officer of Lysimachus, and presently to become one of the leading exponents of Hellenism. … Almost all these second-rate states (and with them the free Greek cities of Heracleia, Cyzicus, Byzantium, &c.) were fragments of the shuttered kingdom of Lysimachus. … We have taken no account of a very peculiar feature extending all through even the Greek kingdoms, especially that of the Selucids—the number of large Hellenistic cities founded as special centres of culture, or points of defence, and organized as such with a certain local independence. These cities, most of which we only know by name, were the real backbone of Hellenism in the world. Alexander had founded seventy of them, all called by his name. Many were upon great trade lines, like the Alexandria which still exists. Many were intended as garrison towns in the centre of remote provinces, like Candahar—a corruption of Iskanderieh, Iskendar being the Oriental form for Alexander. Some were mere outposts, where Macedonian soldiers were forced to settle, and guard the frontiers against the barbarians, like the Alexandria on the Iaxartes. … As regards Seleucus … we have a remarkable statement from Appian that he founded cities through the length and breadth of his kingdom, viz., sixteen Antiochs called after his father, five Laodiceas after his mother, nine Seleucias after himself, three Apameias and one Stratoniceia after his wives. … All through Syria and Upper Asia there are many towns bearing Greek and Macedonian names—Berea, Edessa, Perinthos, Aclæa, Pella, &c. The number of these, which have been enumerated in a special catalogue by Droysen, the learned historian of Hellenism, is enormous, and the first question which arises in our mind is this: where were Greek-speaking people found to fill them? It is indeed true that Greece proper about this time became depopulated, and that it never has recovered from this decay. … Yet … the whole population of Greece would never have sufficed for one tithe of the cities—the great cities—founded all over Asia by the Diadochi. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that but a small fraction, the soldiers and officials of the new cities, were Greeks—Macedonians, when founded by Alexander himself—generally broken down veterans, mutinous and discontented troops, and camp followers. To these were associated people from the surrounding country, it being Alexander's fixed idea to discountenance sporadic country life in villages and encourage town communities. The towns accordingly received considerable privileges. … The Greek language and political habits were thus the one bond of union among them, and the extraordinary colonizing genius of the Greek once more proved itself."

J. P. Mahaffy, The Story of Alexander's Empire, chapter 10.

See, also, HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE.

GREECE: B. C. 280-146. The Achaian League. Its rise and fall. Destruction of Sparta. Supremacy of Rome.

The Achaian League, which bore a leading part in the affairs of Greece during the last half of the third and first half of the second century before Christ, was in some sense the revival of a more ancient confederacy among the cities of Achaia in Peloponnesus. The older League, however, was confined to twelve cities of Achaia and had little weight, apparently, in general Hellenic politics. The revived League grew beyond the territorial boundaries which were indicated by its name, and embraced the larger part of Peloponnesus. It began about 280 B. C. by the forming of a union between the two Achaian cities of Patrai and Dyme. One by one their neighbors joined them, until ten cities were confederated and acting as one. "The first years of the growth of the Achaian League are contemporary with the invasion of Macedonia and Greece by the Gauls and with the wars between Pyrrhos and Antigonos Gonatas.

See MACEDONIA, &c.: B. C. 277-244.

Pyrrhos, for a moment, expelled Antigonos from the Macedonian throne, which Antigonos recovered while' Pyrrhos was warring in Peloponnesos. By the time that Pyrrhos was dead, and Antigonos again firmly fixed in Macedonia, the League had grown up to maturity as far as regarded the cities of the old Achaia. … Thus far, then, circumstances had favoured the quiet and peaceful growth of the League." It had had the opportunity to grow firm enough and strong enough, on the small scale, to offer some lessons to its disunited and tyrannized neighbors and to exercise an attractive influence upon them. One of the nearest of these neighbors was Sikyon, which groaned under a tyranny that had been fastened upon it by Macedonian influence. Among the exiles from Sikyon was a remarkable young man named Aratos, or Aratus, to whom the successful working of the small Achaian League suggested some broader extension of the same political organism. In B. C. 251, Aratos succeeded in delivering his native city from its tyrant and in bringing about the annexation of Sikyon to the Achaian League. Eight years later, having meantime been elected to the chief office of the League, Aratos accomplished the expulsion of the Macedonians and their agents from Corinth, Megara, Troizen and Epidauros, and persuaded those four cities to unite themselves with the Achaians. During the next ten years he made similar progress in Arkadia, winning town after town to the federation, until the Arkadian federal capital, Megalopolis, was enrolled in the list of members, and gave to the League its greatest acquisition of energy and brain. In 229 B. C. the skill of Aratos and the prestige of the League, taking advantage of disturbances in Macedonia, effected the withdrawal of the Macedonian garrisons from Athens and the liberation of that city, which did not become confederated with its liberators, but entered into alliance with them. Argos was emancipated and annexed, B. C. 228, and "the League was now the greatest power of Greece. {1603} A Federation of equal cities, democratically governed, embraced the whole of old Achaia, the whole of the Argolic peninsula, the greater part of Arkadia, together with Phlious, Sikyon, Corinth, Megara, and the island of Aigina." The one rival of the Achaian League in Peloponnesus was Sparta, which looked with jealousy upon its growing power, and would not be confederated with it. The consequences of that jealous rivalry were fatal to the hopes for Greece which the Achaian union had seemed to revive. Unfortunately, rather than otherwise, the Lacedæmonian throne came to be occupied at this time by the last of the hero-kings of the Herakleid race—Kleomenes. When the inevitable collision of war between Sparta and the League occurred (B. C. 227-221), the personal figure of Kleomenes loomed so large in the conflict that it took the name of the Kleomenic War. Aratos was the worst of generals, Kleomenes one of the greatest, and the Achaians were steadily beaten in the field. Driven to sore straits at last, they abandoned the whole original purpose of their federation, by inviting the king of Macedonia to help them crush the independence of Sparta. To win his aid they gave up Corinth to him, and under his leadership they achieved the shameful victory of Sellasia (B. C. 221), where all that is worthy in Lacedæmonian history came to an end. The League was now scarcely more than a dependency of the Macedonian kingdom, and figured as such in the so-called Social War with the Ætolian League, B. C. 219-217. The wars of Rome with Macedonia which followed renewed its political importance considerably for a time. Becoming the ally of Rome, it was able to maintain a certain dignity and influence until the supremacy of the Roman arms had been securely proved, and then it sank to the helpless insignificance which all Roman alliances led to in the end. It was in that state when, on some complaint from Rome (B. C. 167), a thousand of the chief citizens of Achaia were sent as prisoners to Italy and detained there until less than 300 survived to return to their homes. Among them was the historian Polybios. A little later (B. C. 146) there was a wild revolt from the Roman yoke, in which Corinth took the lead. A few months of war ensued, ending in a decisive battle at Leukopetra. Then Corinth was sacked and destroyed by the Roman army and the Achaian League disappeared from history.

E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapters 5-9.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapters 61-66 (volume 8).

Polybius, History.

GREECE: B. C. 214-146. The Roman conquest.

The series of wars in which the Romans made themselves masters of Greece were known in their annals as the Macedonian Wars. At the beginning, they were innocent of aggression. A young and ambitious but unprincipled king of Macedonia—Philip, who succeeded the able Antigonos Doson—had put himself in alliance with the Carthaginians and assailed the Romans in the midst of their desperate conflict with Hannibal. For the time they were unable to do more than trouble Philip so far as to prevent his bringing effective reinforcements to the enemy at their doors, and this they accomplished in part by a treaty with the Ætolians, which enlisted that unscrupulous league upon their side. The first Macedonian war, which began B. C. 214, was terminated by the Peace of Dyrrachium, B. C. 205. The Peace was of five years duration, and Philip employed it in reckless undertakings against Pergamus, against Rhodes, against Athens, everyone of which carried complaints to Rome, the rising arbiter of the Mediterranean world, whose hostility Philip lost no opportunity to provoke. On the Ides of March, B. C. 200, the Roman senate declared war. In the spring of B. C. 197 this second Macedonian War was ended at the battle of Cynoscephalæ—so called from the name of a range of hills known as the Dog-heads—where the Macedonian army was annihilated by the consul T. Quinctius Flamininus. At the next assembly of the Greeks for the Isthmian Games, a crier made proclamation in the arena that the Roman Senate and T. Quinctius the General, having conquered King Philip and the Macedonians, declared all the Greeks who had been subject to the king free and independent. Henceforth, whatever freedom and independence the states of Greece enjoyed were according to the will of Rome. An interval of twenty-five years, broken by the invasion of Antiochus and his defeat by the Romans at Thermopylæ (see SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187), was followed by a third Macedonian War. Philip was now dead and succeeded by his son Perseus, known to be hostile to Rome and accused of intrigues with her enemies. The Roman Senate forestalled his intentions by declaring war. The war which opened B. C. 171 was closed by the battle of Pydna, fought June 22, B. C. 168, where 20,000 Macedonians were slain and 11,000 taken prisoners, while the Romans lost scarcely 100 men. Perseus attempted flight, but was soon driven to give himself up and was sent to Rome. The Macedonian kingdom was then extinguished and its territory divided between four nominal republics, tributary to Rome. Twenty years after, there was an attempt made by a pretender to re-establish the Macedonian throne, and a fourth Macedonian War occurred; but it was soon finished (B. C. 146—see above, B. C. 280-146). The four republics then gave way, to form a Roman province of Macedonia and Epirus, while the remainder of Greece, in turn, became the Roman province of Achaia.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapters 64-66 (volume 8).

ALSO IN: H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, chapters 39, 43 and 45.

E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapters 8-9.

Polybius, General History.

GREECE: B. C. 191. War of Antiochus of Syria and the Romans.

See SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187.

GREECE: B. C. 146-A. D. 180. Under the Romans, to the reign of Marcus Aurelius. Sufferings in the Mithridatic war and revolt, and in the Roman civil wars. Treatment by the emperors. Munificence of Herodes Atticus.

"It was some time [after the Roman conquest] before the Greeks had great reason to regret their fortune. A combination of causes, which could hardly have entered into the calculations of any politician, enabled them to preserve their national institutions, and to exercise all their former social influence, even after the annihilation of their political existence. Their vanity was flattered by their admitted superiority in arts and literature, and by the respect paid to their usages and prejudices by the Romans. Their political subjection was at first not very burdensome; and a considerable portion of the nation was allowed to retain the appearance of independence. {1604} Athens and Sparta were honoured with the title of allies of Rome. [Athens retained this independent existence, partaking something of the position of Hamburg in the Germanic body, until the time of Caracalla, when its citizens were absorbed into the Roman empire.—Footnote.] The nationality of the Greeks was so interwoven with their municipal institutions, that the Romans found it impossible to abolish the local administration; and an imperfect attempt made at the time of the conquest of Achaia was soon abandoned. … The Roman senate was evidently not without great jealousy and some fear of the Greeks; and great prudence was displayed in adopting a number of measures by which they were gradually weakened, and cautiously broken to the yoke of their conquerors. … It was not until after the time of Augustus, when the conquest of every portion of the Greek nation had been completed, that the Romans began to view the Greeks in the contemptible light in which they are represented by the writers of the capital. Crete was not reduced into the form of a province until about eight years after the subjection of Achaia, and its conquest was not effected without difficulty, after a war of three years, by the presence of a consular army. The resistance it offered was so obstinate that it was almost depopulated ere the Romans could complete its conquest. … The Roman government … soon adopted measures tending to diminish the resources of the Greek states when received as allies of the republic. … If we could place implicit faith in the testimony of so firm and partial an adherent of the Romans as Polybius, we must believe that the Roman administration was at first characterised by a love of justice, and that the Roman magistrates were far less venal than the Greeks. … Less than a century of irresponsible power effected a wonderful change in the conduct of the Roman magistrates. Cicero declares that the senate made a traffic of justice to the provincials. … But as the government of Rome grew more oppressive, and the amount of the taxes levied on the provinces was more severely exacted, the increased power of the republic rendered any rebellion of the Greeks utterly hopeless. … For sixty years after the conquest of Achaia, the Greeks remained docile subjects of Rome. … The number of Roman usurers increased, and the exactions of Roman publicans in collecting the taxes became more oppressive, so that when the army of Mithridates invaded Greece, B. C. 86, while Rome appeared plunged in anarchy by the civil broils of the partisans of Marius and Sylla, the Greeks in office conceived the vain hope of recovering their independence. …

See MITHRIDATIC WARS; and ATHENS: B. C. 87-86.

Both parties, during the Mithridatic war, inflicted severe injuries on Greece. … Many of the losses were never repaired. The foundations of national prosperity were undermined, and it henceforward became impossible to save from the annual consumption of the inhabitants the sums necessary to replace the accumulated capital of ages, which this short war had annihilated."

G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 1.

"Scarcely had the storm of Roman war passed by, when the Cilician pirates, finding the coasts of Greece peculiarly favorable for their marauding incursions, and tempted by the wealth accumulated in the cities and temples, commenced their depredations on so gigantic a scale that Rome felt obliged to put forth all her military forces for their suppression. The exploits of Pompey the Great, who was clothed with autocratic power to destroy this gigantic evil, fill the brightest chapter in the history of that celebrated but too unfortunate commander. …

See CILICIA, PIRATES OF.

The civil wars in which the great Republic expired had the fields of Greece for their theatre. Under the tramp of contending armies, her fertile plains were desolated, and Roman blood, in a cause not her own; again and again moistened her soil.

See ROME: B. C. 48, 44-42, and 31.

But at length the civil wars have come to an end, and the Empire introduces, for the first time in the melancholy history of man, a state of universal peace. Greece still maintains her pre-eminence in literature and art, and her schools are frequented by the sons of the Roman aristocracy. Her elder poets serve as models to the literary genius of the Augustan age. … The historians form themselves on Attic prototypes, and the philosophers of Rome divide themselves among the Grecian sects, while in Athens the Platonists, the Stoics, the Peripatetics, and the Epicureans still haunt the scenes with which the names of their masters were inseparably associated. … The establishment of the Empire made but little change in the administration of Greece. Augustus, indeed, showed no great solicitude, except to maintain the country in subjection by his military colonies,—especially those of Patræ and Nicopolis. He even deprived Athens of the privileges she had enjoyed under the Republic, and broke down the remaining power of Sparta, by declaring the independence of her subject towns. Some of his successors treated the country with favor, and endeavored, by a clement use of authority, to mitigate the sufferings of its decline. Even Nero, the amiable fiddler of Rome, was proud to display the extent of his musical abilities in their theatres. … The noble Trajan allowed the Greeks to retain their former local privileges, and did much to improve their condition by his wise and just administration. Hadrian was a passionate lover of Greek art and literature. Athens especially received the amplest benefits from his taste and wealth. He finished the temple of Olympian Zeus; established a public library; built a pantheon and a gymnasium; rebuilt the temple of Apollo at Megara; improved the old roads of Greece and made new ones. … Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius showed good will to Greece. The latter rebuilt the temple at Eleusis, and improved the Athenian schools, raising the salaries of the teachers, and in various ways contributing to make Athens, as it had been before, the most illustrious seat of learning in the world. It was in the reign of this Emperor, in the second century of our era, that one of the greatest benefactors of Athens and all Greece lived,--Herodes Atticus, distinguished alike for wealth, learning, and eloquence. Born at Marathon, … educated at Athens by the best teachers his father's wealth could procure, he became on going to Rome, in early life, the rhetorical teacher of Marcus Aurelius himself. Antoninus Pius bestowed on him the honor of the consulship; but he preferred the career of a teacher at Athens to the highest political dignities … , and he was followed thither by young men of the most eminent Roman families, from the Emperor's down. … {1605} At Athens, south of the Ilissus, he built the stadium … and the theatre of Regilla. … At Corinth he built a theatre; at Olympia, an aqueduct; at Delphi, a race-course; and at Thermopylæ, a hospital. Peloponnesus, Eubœa, Bœotia, and Epeirus experienced his bounty, and even Italy was not forgotten in the lavish distribution of his wealth. He died in A. D. 180."

C. C. Felton, Greece, Ancient and Modern, 4th course, lecture 3 (volume 2).

On the influence which Greek genius and culture exercised upon the Romans,

See HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE.

ALSO IN: T. Mommsen, History of Rome: The Provinces, chapter 7 (volume 1).

J. P. Mahaffy, The Greek World under Roman Sway.

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 197-A. D. 138.

GREECE: B. C. 48. Cæsar's campaign against Pompeius. Pharsalia.

See ROME: B. C. 48.

GREECE: A. D. 258-395. Gothic invasions.

See GOTHS.

GREECE: A. D. 330. Transference of the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium (Constantinople).

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 330.

GREECE: A. D. 394-395. Final division of the Roman Empire between the sons of Theodosius. Definite organization of the Eastern Empire under Arcadius.

See ROME: A. D. 394-395.

GREECE: A. D. 425. Legal separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.

See Rome: A. D. 423-450.

GREECE: A. D. 446. Devastating invasion of the Huns.

See HUNS: A. D. 441-446.

GREECE: A. D. 527-567. The reign of Justinian at Constantinople. His recovery of Italy and Africa.

See ROME: A. D. 527-567, and 535-553.

GREECE: 7th Century. Slavonic occupation of the Peninsula.

See SLAVONIC PEOPLES: 6TH AND 7TH CENTURIES.

GREECE: A. D. 717-1205. The Byzantine Empire to its fall.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 717, to 1204-1205.

GREECE: A. D. 1205-1261. Overthrow of the Byzantine Empire by the Crusaders. The Latin Empire of Romania. The Greek Empire of Nicæa. The dukedoms of Athens and Naxos; The principality of Achaia.

See ROMANIA; GREEK EMPIRE OF NICÆA; ATHENS: A. D.1205; ACHAIA: A. D. 1205-1387; and NAXOS.

GREECE: A. D. 1261-1453. The restored Byzantine or Greek Empire.

See CONSTANTINOPLE; A. D. 1261-1453; and BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1261-1453.

GREECE: A. D. 1453-1479. The Turkish Conquest.

See TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481; CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1453, and 1453-1481; and ATHENS: A. D. 1456.

GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479. War of Turks and Venetians in the Peninsula. Siege of Corinth. Sack of Athens. Massacres at Negropont and Croia.

"The taking of Constantinople by the Turks, and the captivity of the Venetians settled in Pera, threatened [the power of Venice] … in the East; and she felt no repugnance to enter into a treaty with the enemies of her religion. After a year's negotiation, terms were concluded [1454] between the Sultan and Venice; by which her possessions were secured to her, and her trade guaranteed throughout the empire. In virtue of this treaty she continued to occupy Modon, Coron, Napoli di Romania, Argos, and other cities on the borders of the Peninsula, together with Eubœa (Negropont) and some of the smaller islands. But this good understanding was interrupted in 1463, when the Turks contrived an excuse for attacking the Venetian territory. Under pretence of resenting the asylum afforded to a Turkish refugee, the Pasha of the Morea besieged and captured Argos; and the Republic felt itself compelled immediately to resent the aggression. A re-inforcement was sent from Venice to Napoli, and Argos was quickly recaptured. Corinth was next besieged, and the project of fortifying the isthmus was once more renewed. … The labour of 30,000 workmen accomplished the work in 15 days; a stone wall of more than 12 feet high, defended by a ditch and flanked by 136 towers, was drawn across the isthmus. … But the approach of the Turks, whose numbers were probably exaggerated by report, threw the Venetians into distrust and consternation; and, unwilling to confide in the strength of their rampart, they abandoned the siege of Corinth, and retreated to Napoli, from which the infidels were repulsed with the loss of 5,000 men. The Peloponnesus was now exposed to the predatory retaliations of the Turks and Venetians; and the Christians appeared anxious to rival or surpass the Mahomedans in the refinement of their barbarous inflictions. … In the year 1465, Sigismondo Malatesta landed in the Morea with a re-inforcement of 1,000 men; and, without effecting the reduction of the citadel, captured and burned Misitra [near the ruins of ancient Sparta]. In the following year, Vittore Cappello, with the Venetian fleet, arrived in the straits of Euripus; and landing at Aulis marched into Attica. After making himself master of the Piræus, he laid siege to Athens; her walls were overthrown; her inhabitants plundered; and the Venetians retreated with the spoil to the opposite shores of Eubœa. The victorious career of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, for a time diverted the Sultan from the war in the Morea; but … in the beginning of the year 1470 a fleet of 108 gallies, besides a number of smaller vessels, manned by a force 70,000 strong, issued from the harbour of Constantinople, and sailed for the straits of Euripus. … The army landed without molestation on the island, which they united to the mainland by a bridge of boats, and immediately proceeded to lay siege to the city of Negropont. … The hopes of the besieged were now centred in the Venetian fleet, which, under the command of Nicolo Canale, lay at anchor in the Saronic Gulf. But that admiral, whilst he awaited a re-inforcement, let slip the favourable opportunity of preventing the debarcation of the enemy, or of shutting up the Turks in the island by the destruction of their half-deserted fleet and bridge of boats. By an unaccountable inactivity, he suffered the city to be attacked, which, after a vigorous resistance of nearly a month, was carried by assault [July 12, 1470]; and all the inhabitants, who did not escape into the citadel, were put to the sword. At length that fortress was also taken; and the barbarous conqueror, who had promised to respect the head of the intrepid governor, deemed it no violation of his word to saw his victim in halves. After this decisive blow, which reduced the whole island, Mahomed led back his conquering army to Constantinople. … This success encouraged the Turks to attack the Venetians in their Italian territory; and the Pasha of Bosnia invaded Istria and Friuli, and carried fire and sword almost to the gates of Udine. {1606} In the following year [1474], however, the Turks were baffled in their attempt to reduce Scutari in Albania, which had been delivered by the gallant Scanderbeg to the guardian care of Venice. Some abortive negotiations for peace suspended hostilities until 1477, when the troops of Mahomed laid siege to Croia in Albania, which they reduced to the severest distress. But a new incursion into Friuli struck a panic into the inhabitants of Venice, who beheld, from the tops of their churches and towers, the raging flames which devoured the neighbouring villages." The Turks, however, withdrew into Albania, where the siege of Croia was terminated by its surrender and the massacre of its inhabitants, and the Sultan, in person, renewed the attack on Scutari. The stubborn garrison of that stronghold, however, resisted, with fearful slaughter, a continuous assault made upon their walls during two days and a night. Mahomed was forced to convert the siege into a blockade, and his troops reappeared in Friuli. "These repeated aggressions on her territories made Venice every day more anxious to conclude a peace with the Sultan," and a treaty was signed in April, 1479. "It was agreed that the islands of Negropont and Mitylene, with the cities of Croia and Scutari in Albania, and of Tenaro in the Morea, should be consigned to the Turk; whilst other conquests were to be reciprocally restored to their former owners. A tribute of 10,000 ducats was imposed upon Venice, and the inhabitants of Scutari [now reduced to 500 men and 150 women] were to be permitted to evacuate the city."

Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapter 31 (volume 2).

ALSO IN:

Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 5.

GREECE: A. D. 1645-1669. The war of Candia. Surrender of Crete to the Turks by the Venetians.

See TURKS: A. D. 1645-1669.

GREECE: A. D. 1684-1696. Conquests by the Venetians from the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

GREECE: A. D. 1699. Cession of part of the Morea to Venice by the Turks.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.

GREECE: A. D. 1714-1718. The Venetians expelled again from the Morea by the Turks. Corfu defended.

See TURKS: A. D. 1714-1718.

GREECE: A. D. 1770-1772. Revolt against the Turkish rule. Russian encouragement and desertion.

See TURKS: A. D. 1768-1774.

GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829. Overthrow of Turkish rule. Intervention of Russia, England and France. Battle of Navarino. Establishment of national independence.

"The Spanish revolution of 1820 [see SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827], which was speedily followed by the revolutions of Naples, Sicily, and Piedmont, caused a great excitement throughout Europe, and paved the way for the Greek revolution of 1821. Since the beginning of the century the Greeks had been preparing for the struggle; in fact, for more than fifty years there had been a general movement in the direction of independence. … There had been many insurrections against the Turkish authority, but they were generally suppressed without difficulty, though with the shedding of much Greek blood. Nearly every village in Greece suffered from pillage by the Turks, and the families were comparatively few that did not mourn a father, son, or brother, killed by the Turks or carried into slavery, or a daughter or sister transported to a Turkish harem. … Notwithstanding their subjugation, many of the Greeks were commercially prosperous, and a large part of the traffic of the East was in their hands. They conducted nearly all the coasting trade of the Levant, and a few years before the revolution they had 600 vessels mounting 6,000 guns (for defence against pirates) and manned by 18,000 seamen. … In laying their plans for independence the Greeks resorted to the formation of secret societies, and so well was the scheme conducted that everything was ripe for insurrection before the Turkish rulers had any suspicion of the state of affairs. A great association was formed which included Greeks everywhere, not only in Greece and its islands, but in Constantinople, Austria, Germany, England, and other countries, wherever a Greek could be found. Men of other nationalities were occasionally admitted, but only when their loyalty to the Greek cause was beyond question, and their official positions gave them a chance to aid in the work. Several distinguished Russians were members, among them Count Capo D'Istria, a Greek by birth, who held the office of private secretary to the Emperor Alexander I. of Russia. The society was known as the Hetaira, or Hetairist, and consisted of several degrees or grades. The highest contained only sixteen persons, whose names were not all known, and it was impossible for any member of the lower classes to ascertain them. … All the Hetairists looked hopefully towards Russia, partly in consequence of their community of religion, and partly because of the fellow-feeling of the two countries in cordially detesting the Turk. … The immediate cause of the revolution, or rather the excuse for it, was the death of the Hospodar of Wallachia, January 30, 1821, followed by the appointment of his successor. During the interregnum, which naturally left the government in a weakened condition, the Hetairists determined to strike their blow for liberty. A band of 150 Greeks and Arnauts, under the command of Theodore Vladimiruko, formerly a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian service, marched out of Bucharest and seized the small town of Czernitz, near Trajan's Bridge, on the Danube. There Theodore issued a proclamation, and such was the feeling of discontent among the people, that in a few days he had a force of 12,000 men under his command. Soon afterwards there was an insurrection in Jassy, the capital of Moldavia, headed by Prince Alexander Ipsilanti, an officer in the Russian service. He issued a proclamation in which the aid of Russia was distinctly promised, and as the news of this proclamation was carried to Greece, there was a general movement in favor of insurrection. The Russian minister assured the Porte that his government had nothing to do with the insurrection, and the Patriarch and Synod of Constantinople issued a proclamation emphatically denouncing the movement, but in spite of this assurance and proclamation the insurrection went on. Count Nesselrode declared officially that Ipsilanti's name would be stricken from the Russian army list, and that his act was one for which he alone was responsible. This announcement was the death-blow of the insurrection in Moldavia and Wallachia, as the forces of Theodore and Ipsilanti were suppressed, after some sharp fighting, by the hordes of Moslems that were brought against them. … Nearly the whole of Greece was in full insurrection in a few months, and with far better prospects than had the insurrection on the Danube. {1607} Turks and Greeks were embittered against each other; the war-cry of the Turk was, 'Death to the Christian!' while that of the Christian was, 'Death to the Turk!' The example was set by the Turks, and, to the eternal disgrace of the Turkish government, slaughter in cold blood was made official. It was by the order and authority of the Porte that Gregory, Patriarch of Constantinople, a revered prelate, eighty years of age, was seized on Easter Sunday, as he was descending from the altar where he had been celebrating divine service, and hanged at the gate of his archiepiscopal palace, amid the shouts and howls of a Moslem mob. After hanging three hours, the body was cut down and delivered to some Jews, who dragged it about the streets and threw it into the sea, whence it was recovered the same night by some Christian fishermen. Some weeks later it was taken to Odessa and buried with great ceremony. This act of murder was the more atrocious on the part of the Turks, since the Patriarch had denounced the insurrection in a public proclamation, and his life and character were most blameless and exemplary. It is safe to say that this barbarity had more to do with fanning the fires of revolt than any other act of the Turkish government. But it was by no means the only act of the kind of which the Turks were guilty. The Patriarch of Adrianople with eight of his ecclesiastics was beheaded, and so were the dragoman of the Porte and several other eminent residents of Constantinople, descended from Greek settlers of two or three centuries ago. Churches were everywhere broken open and plundered; Greek citizens of the highest rank were murdered, their property stolen, and their wives and daughters sold as slaves; on the 15th of June five archbishops and a great number of laymen were hanged in the streets, and 450 mechanics were sold and transported into slavery; at Salonica the battlements of the town were lined with Christian heads, from which the blood ran down and discolored the water in the ditch. In all the great towns of the empire there were similar atrocities; some were the work of mobs, which the authorities did not seek to restrain, but the greater part of them were ordered by the governors or other officials, and met the approval of the Porte. At Smyrna, the Christian population was massacred by thousands without regard to age or sex, and in the island of Cyprus a body of 10,000 troops sent by the Porte ravaged the island, executed the metropolitan, five bishops, and thirty-six other ecclesiastics, and converted the whole island into a scene of rapine, bloodshed, and robbery. Several thousand Christians were killed before the atrocities ceased, and hundreds of their wives and daughters were carried into Turkish harems. These and similar outrages plainly told the Greeks that no hope remained except in complete independence of the Turks, and from one end of Greece to the other the fires of insurrection were everywhere lighted. The islands, as well as the mainland, were in full revolt, and the fleet of coasting vessels, nearly all of them armed for resisting pirates, gave the Turks a great deal of trouble. … On the land, battle followed battle in different parts of the country, and the narration of the events of the insurrection would fill a bulky volume. … During the latter part of 1821, the advantages to the Greeks were sufficient to encourage them to proclaim their independence, which was done in January, 1822. In the same month the Turks besieged Corinth, and in the following April they besieged and captured Chios (Scio), ending the capture with the slaughter of 40,000 inhabitants, the most horrible massacre of modern times. In July, the Greeks were victorious at Thermopylæ; in the same month Corinth fell, with great slaughter of the defenders. In April, 1823, the Greeks held a national congress at Argos; the victories of Marco Bozzaris occurred in the following June, and in August he was killed in a night attack upon the Turkish camp; in August, too, Lord Byron landed at Athens to take part in the cause of Greece, which was attracting the attention of the whole civilized world. The first Greek loan was issued in England in February, 1824; Lord Byron died at Missolonghi in the following April; in August the Capitan Pasha was defeated at Samos with heavy loss; in October, the provisional government of Greece was set up; and the fighting became almost continuous in the mountain districts of Greece. In February, 1825, Ibrahim Pasha arrived with a powerful army from Egypt, which captured Navarino in May, and Tripolitza in June of the same year. In July, the provisional government invoked the aid of England; in the following April (1826), Ibrahim Pasha took Missolonghi after a long and heroic defence [for twelve months]; and nearly a year later Reschid Pasha captured Athens. Down to the beginning of 1826, the Greeks had felt seriously the deprivation of Russian sympathy and aid for which they had been led to look before the revolution. The death of Alexander I., and the accession of Nicholas in December, 1825, caused a change in the situation. The British government sent the Duke of Wellington to St. Petersburg ostensibly to congratulate Nicholas on his elevation to the throne, but really to secure concert of action in regard to Greece. On the 4th of April a protocol was signed by the Duke of Wellington, Prince Lieven, and Count Nesselrode, which may be considered the foundation of Greek independence. Out of this protocol grew the treaty of July 6, 1827, between England, Russia, and France, by which it was stipulated that those nations should mediate between the contending Greeks and Turks. They proposed to the Sultan that he should retain a nominal authority over the Greeks, but receive from them a fixed annual tribute. … The Sultan … refused to listen to the scheme of mediation, and immediately made preparations for a fresh campaign, and also for the defence of Turkey in case of an attack. Ships and reinforcements were sent from Constantinople, and the Egyptian fleet, consisting of two 84-gun ships, twelve frigates, and forty-one transports, was despatched from Alexandria with 5,000 troops, and reached Navarino towards the end of August, 1827. The allied powers had foreseen the possibility of the Porte's refusal of mediation, and taken measures accordingly; an English fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, and a French fleet under Admiral De Rigny, were in the Mediterranean, and were shortly afterwards joined by the Russian fleet under Admiral Heiden. … The allied admirals held a conference, and decided to notify Ibrahim Pasha that he must stop the barbarities of plundering and burning villages and slaughtering their inhabitants. {1608} But Ibrahim would not listen to their remonstrances, and to show his utter disregard for the powers, he commanded four of his ships to sail to the Gulf of Patras to occupy Missolonghi and relieve some Turkish forts, in effect to clear those waters of every Greek man-of-war which was stationed there. This he did easily, the allied squadrons being temporarily absent. Admiral Codrington pursued him and, without difficulty, drove him back to Navarino. … A general muster of all the ships was ordered by Admiral Codrington, Commander-in-Chief of the squadron. … The allied fleet mounted 1,324 guns, while the combined Turkish and Egyptian fleet mounted 2,240 guns. To this superiority in the number of guns on board must be added the batteries on shore, which were all in the hands of the Turks. But the Christians had a point in their favor in their superiority in ships of the line, of which they possessed ten, while the Turks had but three. … The allied fleet entered the Bay of Navarino about two o'clock on the afternoon of October 20, 1827. … In less than four hours from the beginning of the contest the Ottoman fleet had ceased to be. Every armed ship was burnt, sunk, or destroyed; the only remaining vessels belonging to the Turks and Egyptians were twenty-five of the smallest transports, which were spared by order of Admiral Codrington. It was estimated that the loss in men on the Turkish and Egyptian vessels was fully 7,000. On the side of the allies, no vessels were destroyed, but the Asia, Albion, and Genoa of the English fleet were so much injured, that Admiral Codrington sent them to Malta for repairs which would enable them to stand the voyage home to England. Seventy-five men were killed and 197 wounded on the British fleet, and the loss of the French was 43 killed and 117 wounded. The Russian loss was not reported. … It was feared that when the news of the event at Navarino reached Constantinople, the lives of all Europeans in that city, including the foreign ambassadors, would be in great danger, but happily there was no violence on the part of the Turks. The ambassadors pressed for an answer to their note of August 16th, and at length the Sultan replied: 'My positive, absolute, definitive, unchangeable, eternal answer is, that the Sublime Porte does not accept any proposition regarding the Greeks, and will persist in its own will regarding them even to the last day of judgment.' The Porte even demanded compensation for the destruction of the fleet, and satisfaction for the insult, and that the allies should abstain from all interference in the affairs of Greece. The reply of the ambassadors was to the effect that the treaty of July obliged them to defend Greece, and that the Turks had no claim whatever for reparation for the affair of Navarino. The ambassadors left Constantinople on the 8th December, and soon afterwards Count Capo D'Istria, who had been elected President of Greece, took his seat, and issued a proclamation, declaring that the Ottoman rule over the country was at an end after three centuries of oppression. Thus was the independence of Greece established. There was little fighting after the events of Navarino, and early in 1828 Admiral Codrington and Ibrahim Pasha held a convention and agreed upon measures for evacuating the land of the Hellenes. During the summer and autumn Patras, Navarino, and Modon were successively surrendered to the French, and the Morea was evacuated by the Turks. Missolonghi was surrendered to Greece early in 1829, and by the Treaty of Adrianople in September of the same year the Porte acknowledged the independence of Greece, which was henceforth to be one in the family of nations."

T. W. Knox, Decisive Battles since Waterloo, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 2, chapter 4.

S. G. Howe, Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution.

T. Gordon, History of the Greek Revolution.

Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, 1823-4 (volume 2).

E. J. Trelawny, Records of Shelley, Byron, etc., chapters 19-20 (volume 2).

S. Walpole, History of England, chapters 9 and 11 (volume 2).

GREECE: A. D. 1822-1823. The Congress of Verona.

See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF.

GREECE: A. D. 1830-1862. The independent kingdom constituted under Otho of Bavaria. Its unsatisfactoriness. Dethronement of King Otho. Election of Prince George of Denmark.

"On February 3d, 1830, a protocol was signed which constituted Greece an independent State; and on the 11th of the same month Prince Leopold of Belgium accepted the crown which was offered to him by the Powers: He, however, soon resigned the honour; giving for his main reason the hopelessness of establishing a Greek kingdom from which Krete, Epeiros, and Thessaly were to be excluded. The northern boundary, as drawn in 1830, stretched from the Gulf of Zeitoun to the mouth of the Aspropotamos, thus depriving Greece of the greater part of Akarnania and Aitolia. After the assassination [by the family of an insurgent chief] of Count Capodistna (who was the popularly elected President of Greece from April 14th, 1827, to October 9th, 1831), and after the Powers had selected Prince Otho of Bavaria for the position declined by Prince Leopold, an arrangement was concluded between England, France, Russia, and Turkey, whereby the boundary was drawn from the Gulf of Arta to the same termination in the Gulf of Zeitoun. But a few months later the district of Zeitoun, north of the Spercheios, was added to Greece; and the new kingdom paid to the Porte an indemnity of 40,000,000 piastres, or about £460,000. The Powers guaranteed a loan to Greece of 60,000,000 francs, out of which the payment of the indemnity was made; and thus, at last, in the autumn of 1832, the fatherland of the Greeks was redeemed. Under Otho of Bavaria the country was governed at first by a Council of Regency, consisting of Count Armansperg, Professor Maurer, and General Heideck. Maurer was removed in 1834, and Armansperg in 1837; and at the close of the latter year, after the trial of another Bavarian as president of the Council, a Greek was for the first time appointed to the principal post in the Ministry. The greatest benefit conferred upon the country by its German rulers was the reinforcement of the legal system, and the elevation of the authority of the law. But, on the other hand, an unfortunate attempt was made to centralize the whole administration of Greece, her ancient municipal rights and customs were overlooked, taxation was almost as indiscriminate and burdensome as under the Turks, whilst large sums of money were spent upon the army, and on other objects of an unremunerative or insufficiently remunerative character, so that the young State was laden with pecuniary liabilities before anything had been done to develope her resources. … {1609} No national assembly was convened, no anxiety was shown to conciliate the people, liberty of expression was curtailed, personal offence was given by the foreigners, and by Armansperg in particular; brigandage and piracy flourished, and Greece began to suffer all the evils which might have been expected to arise from the government of unsympathetic aliens. … In addition to the rapid and alarming increase of brigandage by land and piracy by sea, there were popular insurrections in Messenia, Maina, Akarnania, and elsewhere. One of the most capable Englishmen who have ever espoused the cause of the Greeks, General Gordon, was commissioned in 1835 to clear northern Greece of the marauders by whom it was overrun. He executed his mission in an admirable manner, sweeping the whole of Phokis, Aitolia, and Akarnania, and securing the cooperation of the Turkish Pasha at Larissa. Hundreds of brigands were put to flight,—but only to return again next year, and to enjoy as great immunity as ever. … In the absence of a strong and active organization of the national forces, brigandage in Greece was an ineradicable institution; and, as a matter of fact, it was not suppressed until the year 1870. Gradually the discontent of the people, and the feebleness and infatuation of the Government, were breeding a revolution. … The three Guaranteeing Powers urged on Otho and his advisers the necessity of granting a Constitution, which had been promised on the establishment of the kingdom; and moral support was thus given to two very strong parties, known by the titles of Philorthodox and Constitutional, whose leaders looked to Russia and England respectively. The King and the Government neglected symptoms which were conspicuous to all besides, and the revolution of 1843 found them practically unprepared and helpless. On the 15th of September, after a well-contrived demonstration of the troops, which was acquiesced in and virtually sanctioned by the representatives of the three Powers, King Otho gave way, and signed the decrees which had been submitted to him. The Bavarian Ministers were dismissed, Mavrokordatos was made Premier, a National Assembly was convoked, and a Constitution was granted. For the first time since the Roman conquest, Greece resumed the dignity of self-government. The Constitution of 1844 was by no means an adequate one. It did not fully restore the privileges of local self-rule, and it only partially modified the system of centralization, from which so many evils had sprung. But it was nevertheless a great advance towards popular liberty. … The difficulties which arose between Russia and Turkey in 1853, and which led up to the Crimean War, inspired the Greeks with a hope that their 'grand idea'—the inheritance of the dominion of Turkey in Europe, so far as the Greek-speaking provinces are concerned—might be on the eve of accomplishment. … The Russian army crossed the Pruth in July, 1853, and preparations were at once made by the Greeks to invade Turkey. … The temper of the whole country was such that England and France deemed it necessary to take urgent measures for preventing an alliance between Russia and Greece. In May, 1854, an Anglo-French force was landed at the Peiraios, where it remained until February, 1857. Pressure was thus brought to bear upon King Otho, who was not in a position to resist it. … The humiliation of the Greeks under the foreign occupation weakened the authority of the King and his Ministers, and the unhappy country was once more a prey to rapine and disorder. … From the year 1859 a new portent began to make itself apparent in Greece. As the insurrection of 1821 may be said to have derived some of its energy from the upheaval of France and Europe in the preceding decades, so the Greek revolution of 1862 was doubtless hastened, if not suggested, by the Italian regeneration of 1848-1861. … On February 13th, 1862, the garrison of Nauplia revolted; other outbreaks followed; and at last, in October, during an ill-advised absence of the Monarch from his capital, the garrison of Athens broke out into open insurrection. A Provisional Government was nominated; the deposition of King Otho was proclaimed; and when the royal couple hurried back to the city they were refused an entrance. The representatives of the Powers were appealed to in vain; and the unfortunate Bavarian, after wearing the crown for thirty years, sailed from the Peiraios never to return. The hopes of the Greeks at once centred in Prince Alfred of England for their future king. … But the agreement of the three Powers on the establishment of the kingdom expressly excluded from the throne all members of the reigning families of England, France, and Russia; and thus, although Prince Alfred was elected king with practical unanimity, the English Government would not sanction his acceptance of the crown. The choice eventually and happily fell upon Prince George of Denmark, the present King of the Hellenes; and neither Greece nor Europe has had reason to regret the selection. … From this time forward the history of modern Greece enters upon a brighter phase."

L. Sergeant, Greece, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: L. Sergeant, New Greece, part 2, chapter 8-10.

GREECE: A. D. 1846-1850. Rude enforcement of English claims. The Don Pacifico Affair.

"Greek independence had been established under the joint guardianship of Russia, France, and England. Constitutional government had been guaranteed. It had however been constantly delayed. Otho, the Bavarian Prince, who had been placed upon the throne, was absolute in his own tendencies, and supported by the absolute Powers; and France, eager to establish her own influence in the East, … had sided with the Absolutists, leaving England the sole supporter of constitutional rule. The Government and administration were deplorably bad. … Any demands raised by the English against the Government—and the bad administration afforded abundant opportunity for dispute—were certain to encounter the opposition of the King, supported by the advice of all the diplomatic body. Such questions had arisen. Ionians, claiming to be British subjects, had been maltreated, the boat's crew of a Queen's ship roughly handled, and in two cases the money claims of English subjects against the Government disregarded. They were trivial enough in themselves; a piece of land belonging to a Mr. Finlay [the historian of mediæval and modern Greece], a Scotchman, had been incorporated into the royal garden, and the price—no doubt somewhat exorbitant—which he set upon it refused. The house of Don Pacifico, a Jew, a native of Gibraltar, had been sacked by a mob, without due interference on the part of the police. He demanded compensation for ill-usage, for property destroyed, and for the loss of certain papers, the only proof as he declared of a somewhat doubtful claim against the Portuguese Government. {1610} Such claims in the ordinary course of things should have been made in the Greek Law Court. But Lord Palmerston, placing no trust in the justice to be there obtained, made them a direct national claim upon the Government. For several years, on various pretences, the settlement of the question had been postponed, and Palmerston had even warned Russia that he should some day have to put strong pressure upon the Greek Court to obtain the discharge of their debts. At length, at the close of 1849, his patience became exhausted. Admiral Parker, with the British fleet, was ordered to the Piræus. Mr. Wyse, the English Ambassador, embarked in it. The claims were again formally laid before the King, and upon their being declined the Piræus was blockaded, ships of the Greek navy captured and merchant vessels secured by way of material guarantee for payment. The French and the Russians were indignant at this unexpected act of vigour." The Russians threatened; the French offered mediation, which was accepted. The French negotiations at Athens had no success; but at London there was promise of a friendly settlement of the matter, when Mr. Wyse, the English Minister at the Greek Court, being left in ignorance of the situation, brought fresh pressure to bear upon King Otho and extorted payment of his claims. The French were enraged and withdrew their Minister from London. "For the time, this trumpery little affair caused the greatest excitement, and, being regarded as a typical instance of Lord Palmerston's management of the Foreign Office, it formed the ground of a very serious attack upon the Government."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 4, pages 200-203.

ALSO IN: S. Walpole, History of England, from 1815, chapter 22 (volume 4).

J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, chapter 19 (volume 2).

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1849-1850.

GREECE: A. D. 1862. Annexation of the Ionian Islands.

See IONIAN ISLANDS: A. D. 1815-1862.

GREECE: A. D. 1862-1881. The Cretan struggle and defeat. The Greek question in the Berlin Congress. Small cession of territory by Turkey.

"The annexation of the Heptannesos [the seven (Ionian) islands] was a great benefit to Hellas. It was not only a piece of good fortune for the present but an earnest of the future. … There still remained the delusion of the Integrity of the Turkish Empire; but the Christians of the East really cannot believe in the sincerity of all the Powers who proclaim and sustain this extraordinary figment, any more than they are able to fall a prey to the hallucination itself. The reunion of the Heptannesos with the rest of Hellas was therefore regarded as marking the beginning of another and better era—a sanction to the hopes of other re-unions in the future. The first of the Hellenes who endeavoured to gain for themselves the same good fortune which had fallen upon the Ionians were again the Cretans. They defied Turkey for three years, 1866-7-8. With the exception of certain fortresses, the whole island was free. Acts of heroism and sacrifice such as those which had rendered glorious the first War of Independence, again challenged the attention of the world. Volunteers from the West recalled the Philhellenic enthusiasm of old days. The Hellenes of the mainland did not leave their brethren alone in the hour of danger; they hastened to fight at their side, while they opened in their own homes a place of refuge for the women and children of the island. Nearly 60,000 fugitives found protection there. For a while there was room for believing that the deliverance of Crete was at last accomplished. Russia and France were favourably disposed. Unhappily the good-will of these two Powers could not overcome the opposition of England, strongly supported by Austria. Diplomacy fought for the enslavement of the Cretans with as much persistence and more success than those with which it had opposed the deliverance of Greece. Freedom has not yet come for Crete. The islanders obtained by their struggle nothing but a doubtful amelioration of their condition by means of a sort of charter which was extracted from the unwillingness of the Porte in 1868, under the name of the 'Organic Regulation.' This edict has never been honestly put in force. However, even if it had been carried out, it would not have been a settlement of the Cretan question. The Cretans have never concealed what they want, or ceased to proclaim their intention of demanding it until they obtain it. At the time of the Congress of Berlin they thought once more that they would succeed. They got nothing but another promise from the Porte 'to enforce scrupulously the Organic Regulation of 1868, with such modifications as might be judged equitable.' … The history of the Greek Question at the Congress of Berlin and the conferences which followed it, is not to be treated in detail here. The time is not come for knowing all that took place. … We do not know why Hellas herself remained so long with her sword undrawn during the Russo-Turkish War—what promises or what threats held her back from moving when the armies of Russia, checked before Plevna, would have welcomed a diversion in the West, and when the Hellenic people both within and without the Kingdom were chafing at the do-nothing attitude of the Government of Athens. Everyone in Greece felt that the moment was come. The measures taken by hordes of Bashi-Bazooks were hardly sufficient to repress the insurrection which was ready in all quarters, and which at length broke out in the mountains of Thessaly. … It was only at the last moment, when the war was on the point of being closed by the treaty which victorious Russia compelled Turkey to grant at San Stefano, that the Greek Government, under the Presidency of Koumoundouros, yielded tardily to the pressure of the nation, and allowed the army to cross the frontier. It was too late for the diversion to be of any use to Russia, and it could look for no support from any other Government in Europe. This fact was realized at Athens, but men felt, at the same time, that it was needful to remind the world at any price that there is a Greek Question connected with the Eastern Question. The step was taken, but it was taken with a hesitation which betrayed itself in act as well as in word. … Diplomacy saw the danger of the fresh conflagration which the armed intervention of Greece was capable of kindling. {1611} The utmost possible amount of pressure was therefore brought to bear upon the Government of Athens in order to induce it to retrace the step, and in the result an order was obtained to the Greek Commander-in-Chief to recross the frontier, upon the solemn assurance of the great Powers 'that the national aspirations and interests of the Greek populations should be the subject of the deliberations of the approaching Congress.' … On July 5, 1878, the Congress accepted the resolution proposed by the French plenipotentiary, 'inviting the Porte to come to an understanding with Greece for a rectification of the frontiers in Thessaly and Epiros, a rectification which may follow the valley of the Peneus upon the Eastern side, and that of the Thyamis (or Kalamas) upon the Western.' In other words, they assign to Hellas the whole of Thessaly and a large part of Epiros. Notwithstanding the abandonment of the island of Crete, this was some satisfaction for the wrongs which she had suffered at the delimitation of the Kingdom. … But the scheme suggested by the Congress and sanctioned by the Conference of Berlin on July 1, 1880, was not carried out. When Turkey found that she was not confronted by an Europe determined to be obeyed, she refused to submit. And then the Powers, whose main anxiety was peace at any price, instead of insisting upon her compliance, put upon Hellas all the pressure which they were able to exercise, to induce her to submit the question of the frontiers to a fresh arbitration. … Hellas had to yield, and on July 2, 1881, three years after the signing of the famous Protocol of Berlin, she signed the convention by which Turkey ceded to her the flat part of Thessaly and a small scrap of Epiros."

D. Bikelas, Seven Essays on Christian Greece, essay 6.

GREECE: A. D. 1864-1893. Government under the later constitution.

A new constitution, framed by the National Assembly, "was ratified by the King on November 21, 1864. Abolishing the old Senate, it established a Representative Chamber of 150 deputies, since increased to 190, and again to 307, elected by ballot by all males over the age of twenty-one, from equal electoral districts (they were afterwards elected by nomarchies; the system now is by eparchies). Mr. Sergeant gives the number of electors (in 1879) at 311 per 1,000, but I do not know what he does with the women and minors, who must be about 75 per cent of the population. The present [1893] number of electors is 450,000, or 205 per 1,000. The King has considerable power: he is irresponsible; he appoints and dismisses his ministers and all officers and officials; and he can prorogue or suspend Parliament. Nor is his power merely nominal. In 1866 the Chamber behaved illegally, and the King promptly dissolved it; in 1875 again the King successfully steered his country out of a whirlpool of corruption; and, lastly, in 1892, his Majesty, finding M. Deleyannes obstinate in his financial dilatoriness, dismissed him. … Before King Otho there were 4 administrations; under his rule 24 (13 before the Constitution was granted and 11 after), 10 in the interregnum, and 42 under King George. This gives 70 administrations in 62 years, or about one every 10½ months, or, deducting the two kingless periods, 56 administrations in 60 years—that is, with an average duration of nearly 13 months. This compares for stability very well with the duration of French Ministries, 28 of which have lasted 22 years, or about 9½ months each. It should also be stated that there has been a distinct tendency to greater Ministerial longevity of late years in Greece. Under King Otho there were seven Parliaments in 18 years, which allows 2 years and 7 months for each Parliamentary period. Under King George there have been 13 in 28 years, or with a life of 2 years and 2 months each. However, we know that Parliament had not the same free play under the first King that it has had under the second; and, besides, the present Parliament, considering the Prime Minister's enormous majority, is likely to continue some time, and bring up the Georgian average. … There have been no notable changes of the Greek Constitution since its first promulgation, though there has been a natural expansion, especially in the judicial section. This very fact is of itself a vindication of Hellenic national stability."

R. A. H. Bickford-Smith, Greece under King George, chapter 18.

----------GREECE: End----------

GREEK, Origin of the name.

See HELLAS.

GREEK CHURCH, The.

See CHRISTIANLY: A. D. 330-1054.

GREEK EDUCATION.

See EDUCATION, ANCIENT.

GREEK EMPIRE, called Byzantine: A.D. 700-1204.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE.

GREEK EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE (A. D. 1261-1453).

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1261-1453.

GREEK EMPIRE OF NICÆA: A. D. 1204-1261.

The conquest of Constantinople by the Venetians and the Crusaders, in 1204, broke the Byzantine Empire into many fragments, some of which were secured by the conquerors and loosely bound together in the feudal empire of Romania, while others were snatched from the ruin and preserved by the Greeks, themselves. For the sovereignty of these latter numerous claimants made haste to contend. Three fugitive emperors were wandering in the outer territories of the shattered realm. One was that Alexius III., whose deposition of Isaac Angelos had afforded a pretext for the crusading conquest, and who had fled when Isaac was restored. A second was Alexius V. (Murtzuphlos), who pushed Isaac Angelos and his son Alexius IV. from the shaking throne when Constantinople resolved to defend itself against the Christians of the West, but who abandoned the city in the last hours of the siege. The third was Theodore Lascaris, son-in-law of Alexius III., who was elected to the imperial office as soon as the flight of Alexius V. became known—even after the besiegers had entered the city—and who, then, could do nothing but follow his fugitive predecessors. This last was the only one of the three who found a piece of defensible territory on which to set up his throne. He established himself in Bithynia, associating his claims with those of his worthless father-in-law, and contenting himself with the title of Despot, at first. But the convenient though objectionable father-in-law was not permitted to enjoy any share of the sovereignty which he acquired. Theodore, in fact, managed his affairs with great vigor and skill. The district in which his authority was recognized widened rapidly and the city of Nicæa became his capital. There, in 1206, he received the imperial crown, more formally and solemnly, anew, and rallied the Greek resistance which was destined to triumph, a little more than half a century later, over the insolent aggression of the Latin West. {1612} The small empire of Nicæa had to contend, not merely with the Latins in Constantinople and Greece, and with the Turkish Sultan of Iconium, but also with another ambitious fragment of Greek empire at Trebizond, which showed itself persistently hostile. His successors, moreover, were in conflict with a third such fragment in Europe, at Thessalonica. But, ten years after the flight of Theodore from Constantinople, his empire of Nicæa "extended from Heracleia on the Black Sea to the head of the Gulf of Nicomedia; from thence it embraced the coast of the Opsikian theme as far as Cyzicus; and then descending to the south, included Pergamus, and joined the coast of the Ægean. Theodore had already extended his power over the valleys of the Hermus, the Caister, and the Mæander." Theodore Lascaris died in 1222, leaving no son, and John Dukas Vatatzes, or Vataces as his name is written by some historians, a man of eminent abilities and high qualities, who had married Theodore's daughter, was elected to the vacant throne. He was saluted as John III.—assuming a continuity from the Byzantine to the Nicæan series of emperors. In a reign of thirty-three years, this prudent and capable emperor, as Gibbon expresses the fact, "rescued the provinces from national and foreign usurpers, till he pressed on all sides the imperial city [Constantinople], a leafless and sapless trunk, which must fall at the first stroke of the axe." He did not live to apply that blow nor to witness the fall of the coveted capital of the East. But the event occurred only six years after his death, and owed nothing to the energy or the capability of his successors. His son, Theodore II., reigned but four years, and left at his death, in 1258, a son, John IV., only eight years old. The appointed regent and tutor of this youth was soon assassinated, and Michael Paleologos, an able officer, who had some of the blood of the imperial Angelos family in his veins, was made in the first instance tutor to the young emperor, and soon afterwards raised to the throne with him as a colleague. In 1260 the new emperor made an attack on Constantinople and was repulsed. But on the 25th of July in the next year the city was taken by a sudden surprise, while 6,000 soldiers of its garrison were absent on an expedition against Daphnusia in the Black Sea. It was acquired almost without resistance, the Latin emperor, Baldwin II., taking promptly to flight. The destruction of life was slight; but the surprising party fired a considerable part of the city, to cover the smallness of its numbers, and Constantinople suffered once more from a disastrous conflagration. On the recovery of its ancient capital, the Greek empire ceased to bear the name of Nicæa, and its history is continued under the more imposing appellation of the Greek empire of Constantinople.

G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, from 716 to 1453, book 4, chapter 1 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 62.

GREEK EMPIRE OF TREBIZOND.

See TREBIZOND: A. D. 1204-1461.

GREEK FIRE.

"The important secret of compounding and directing this artificial flame was imparted [in the later part of the seventh century to the Greeks, or Byzantines, at Constantinople] by Callinicus, a native of Heliopolis, in Syria, who deserted from the service of the caliph to that of the emperor. The skill of a chemist and engineer was equivalent to the succour of fleets and armies; and this discovery or improvement of the military art was fortunately reserved for the distressful period when the degenerate Romans of the East were incapable of contending with the warlike enthusiasm and youthful vigour of the Saracens. The historian who presumes to analyze this extraordinary composition should suspect his own ignorance and that of his Byzantine guides, so prone to the marvellous, so careless, and, in this instance, so jealous of the truth. From their obscure, and perhaps fallacious hints, it should seem that the principal ingredient of the Greek fire was the naphtha, or liquid bitumen, a light, tenacious, and inflammable oil, which springs from the earth. … The naphtha was mingled, I know not by what methods or in what proportions, with sulphur and with the pitch that is extracted from evergreen firs. From this mixture, which produced a thick smoke and a loud explosion, proceeded a fierce and obstinate flame … ; instead of being extinguished it was nourished and quickened by the element of water; and sand, urine, or vinegar were the only remedies that could damp the fury of this powerful agent. … It was either poured from the ramparts [of a besieged town] in large boilers, or launched in red-hot balls of stone and iron, or darted in arrows and javelins, twisted round with flax and tow, which had deeply imbibed the inflammable oil; sometimes it was deposited in fire-ships … and was most commonly blown through long tubes of copper, which were planted on the prow of a galley, and fancifully shaped into the mouths of savage monsters, that seemed to vomit a stream of liquid and consuming fire. This important art was preserved at Constantinople, as the palladium of the state. … The secret was confined, above 400 years, to the Romans of the East. … It was at length either discovered or stolen by the Mahometans; and, in the holy wars of Syria and Egypt, they retorted an invention, contrived against themselves, on the heads of the Christians. … The use of the Greek, or, as it might now be called, the Saracen fire, was continued to the middle of the fourteenth century."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 52.

GREEK GENIUS AND INFLUENCE.

See HELLENIC GENIUS, &c.

GREELEY, Horace, The Peace Conference at Niagara.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY).

Presidential candidacy and defeat.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1872.

GREEN, Duff, in the "Kitchen Cabinet" of President Jackson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829.

GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS.

See VERMONT: A. D. 1749-1774.

GREENBACK PARTY, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1880.

GREENE, General Nathaniel, and the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (MAY-AUGUST); 1780-1781; and 1781 (JANUARY-MAY).

----------GREENLAND: Start--------

GREENLAND: A D.876-984. Discovery and settlement by the Northmen.

See NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: A. D. 876-984.

GREENLAND: A. D. 1450-1585. The lost Icelandic colony, absorbed by Eskimo. Rediscovery of the country.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.

----------GREENLAND: End----------

{1613}

GREENS, Roman Faction of the.

See CIRCUS, FACTIONS OF THE ROMAN.

GREENVILLE TREATY WITH THE INDIAN TRIBES.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1790-1795.

GREGORIAN CALENDAR.—GREGORIAN ERA.

See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.

GREGORY I. (called The Great), Pope, A. D. 590-604. Gregory II., Pope, 715-731. Gregory III., Pope, 731-741. Gregory IV., Pope, 827-844. Gregory V., Pope, 996-999. Gregory VI., Pope, 1044-1046. Gregory VII., Pope, 1075-1085. Gregory VIII., Pope, 1187, October to December. Gregory IX., Pope, 1227-1241. Gregory X., Pope, 1271-1276. Gregory XI., Pope, 1371-1378. Gregory XII., Pope, 1406-1415. Gregory XIII., Pope, 1572-1585. Gregory XIV., Pope, 1590-1591. Gregory XV., Pope, 1621-162. Gregory XVI., Pope, 1831-1846.

GRENVILLE MINISTRY, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1763; and 1765-1768.

GRÉVY, Jules, President of the French Republic, 1879-1887.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889.

GREY, Earl, The Ministry of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830-1832; and 1834-1837.

GREY FRIARS.

See MENDICANT ORDERS.

GREY LEAGUES, The.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.

GREYS, OR BIGI, of Florence, The.

See BIGI.

GRIERSON'S RAID.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-MAY: MISSISSIPPI).

GRIQUAS.—GRIQUALAND.

"The Griquas or Baastards, a mixed race sprung from the intercourse of the 'Boers' [of South Africa] with their Hottentot slaves," migrated from Cape Colony after the Emancipation Act of 1833, "and, under the chiefs Waterboer and Adam Kok, settled in the country north of the confluence of the Orange and Vaal, the present Griqualand West. Subsequently, in 1852, Adam Kok's section of the Griquas again migrated to the territory then called No Man's Land, between Kafraria and southern Natal, now known as Griqualand East, or New Griqualand. … In consequence of the discovery of diamonds in the Griqua country in 1867, and the rush thither of thousands of Europeans from all the surrounding states, as well as from Europe, America, and Australia, the chief Waterboer ceded his rights to the British Government, and this region was annexed to the Cape Colony as the Lieutenant-Governorship of Griqualand West in 1871."

Hellwald-Johnston, Africa (Stanford's Compendium), chapter 23, section 5.

----------GRISONS: Start--------

GRISONS, The. Achievement of democratic independence.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.

GRISONS: The Valtelline revolt and war.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

----------GRISONS: End----------

GROCHOW, Battles of (1831).

See POLAND: A. D. 1830-1832.

GROL, Capture of (1627).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1621-1633.

GRONENBURG: A. D. 1593. Capture by Prince Maurice.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1588-1593.

GROS VENTRE INDIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HIDATSA, and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

GROSS BEEREN, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (AUGUST).

GROSS GÖRSCHEN, OR LUTZEN, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (APRIL-MAY).

GROSSE RATH, The.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.

GROSSWARDEIN, Treaty of.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567.

GROTIUS, HUGO, Imprisonment and escape of.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1603-1619.

GROVETON, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

GRUTHUNGI, The.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 376.

GRÜTLI, OR RÜTLI, The Meadow of.

See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS.

GRYNEUM, The Oracle of.

See ORACLES OF THE GREEKS.

GUADACELITO OR SALADO, Battle of (1340).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1273-1460.

GUADALETE, Battle of the.

See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.

GUADALOUPE HIDALGO, Treaty of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1848.

GUADALUPES.

See GACHUPINES.

GUAICARUS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

GUAJIRA, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: COAJIRO.

GUANAJUATO, Battles of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1810-1819.

GUANAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

GUANCHES, The.

See LIBYANS.

GUARANI, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: TUPI.

GUASTALLA, Battle of (1734).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

----------GUATEMALA: Start--------

GUATEMALA: The name.

"According to Fuentes y Guzman, derived from 'Coctecmalan' —that is to say 'Palo de leche,' milk-tree, commonly called 'Yerba mala,' found in the neighborhood of Antigua Guatemala. … In the Mexican tongue, if we may believe Vasquez, it was called 'Quauhtimali,' rotten-tree. … Others derive it from 'Uhatezmalha,' signifying 'the hill which discharges water'; and Juarros suggests that it may be from Juitemal, the first king of Guatemala."

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, page 620, foot-note.

GUATEMALA: Aboriginal inhabitants, and ruins of Ancient Civilization.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MAYAS, and QUICHES; also, MEXICO, ANCIENT.

GUATEMALA: A. D. 1524. Conquest by Alvarado, the lieutenant of Cortes.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1521-1524.

GUATEMALA: A. D. 1821-1871. Separation from Spain. Brief annexation to Mexico. Resistance to Central American Federation. The wars of the states.

See CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1871.

----------GUATEMALA: End----------

GUAYANAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

{1614}

GUCK OR COCO TRIBES.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.

----------GUELDERLAND: Start--------

GUELDERLAND: A. D. 1079-1473. Under the House of Nassau. Acquisition by the Duke of Burgundy.

"The arable extent of Guelderland, its central position, and the number of its ancient towns, rendered it at all times of great importance. The men of Zutphen and Arnheim were foremost among the claimants of civic freedom; and at Tiel and Bommel industry struck early root, and struggled bravely to maturity through countless storms of feudal violence and rapine. Guelderland was constituted a county, or earldom, by Henry III. [Emperor, A. D. 1079], and bestowed on Otho, count of Nassau; and thus originated the influence of that celebrated family in the affairs of the Netherlands. Three centuries later the province was created a duchy of the empire. Vigour and ability continued to distinguish the house of Nassau, and they were destined to become eventually the most popular and powerful family in the nation. Apart from their influence, however, Guelderland hardly occupies as important a place in the general history of the country as Utrecht or Holland." In 1473, when the House of Burgundy had acquired sovereignty over most of the Netherland states, Charles the Bold availed himself of a domestic quarrel between the reigning prince of Guelderland and his heir "to purchase the duchy from the former for 92,000 crowns of gold. The old duke died before the pecuniary portion of the bargain was actually completed; and, the rightful heir being detained in prison, the grasping lord of Burgundy entered into possession of his purchase, for which no part of the price was ever paid."

W. T. McCullagh, Industrial History of Free Nations, chapters 8 and 10 (volume 2).

GUELDERLAND: A. D. 1713. The Spanish province ceded to Prussia.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

----------GUELDERLAND: End----------

GUELF PARTY, Captains of the.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1358.

GUELF PARTY: Guelfic origin of the House of Hanover, or Brunswick-Lüneburg.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1714; also, GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES; and ESTE, HOUSE OF.

----------GUELFS: Start--------

GUELFS, OR GUELPHS, AND GHIBELLINES: German origin of these Factions and their feuds.

On the death (A. D. 1125) of Henry V., the last of the Franconian dynasty of Germanic emperors, Lothaire, Duke of Saxony, was elected emperor, in rather a tumultuous and irregular manner. Lothaire, and the Saxons generally, were embittered in enmity against the house of Franconia, and against the new family—the Suabiau or Hohenstauffen—which succeeded by inheritance, through the female line, to the Franconian claims. It was the object of his reign, moreover, to pass the imperial crown from his own head to that of his son-in-law, Henry the Proud. Hence arose a persecution of the Suabian family, under Lothaire, which stirred deep passions. Henry the Proud, for whose succession Lothaire labored, but vainly, united in himself several ancient streams of noble blood. He "was fourth in descent from Welf [or Guelf], son of Azon marquis of Este, by Cunegonda, heiress of a distinguished family, the Welfs of Altorf in Suabia." His ancestor, Welf, had been invested with the duchy of Bavaria. He himself represented, by right of his mother, the ancient ducal house of Saxony; and, by favor of his imperial father-in-law, the two powerful duchies, Bavaria and Saxony, were both conferred on him. He also received Hanover and Brunswick as the dowry of his wife. "On the death of Lothaire in 1138 the partisans of the house of Suabia made a hasty and irregular election of Conrad [one of the Hohenstauffen princes], in which the Saxon faction found itself obliged to acquiesce. The new emperor availed himself of the jealousy which Henry the Proud's aggrandizement had excited. Under pretence that two duchies could not legally be held by the same person, Henry was summoned to resign one of them, and on his refusal, the diet pronounced that he had incurred a forfeiture of both. Henry made but little resistance, and before his death, which happened soon afterwards, saw himself stripped of all his hereditary as well as acquired possessions. Upon this occasion the famous names of Guelf [or Guelph] and Ghibelin were first heard, which were destined to keep alive the flame of civil dissension in far distant countries, and after their meaning had been forgotten. The Guelfs, or Welfs, were, as I have said, the ancestors of Henry, and the name has become a sort of patronymic in his family. The word Ghibelin is derived from Wibelung, a town in Franconia, whence the emperors of that line are said to have sprung. The house of Suabia were considered in Germany as representing that of Franconia; as the Guelfs may, without much impropriety, be deemed to represent the Saxon line."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 5 (volume 2).

Sir Andrew Halliday, in his "Annals of the House of Hanover," traces the genealogy of the Guelfs with great minuteness and precision—with more minuteness, perhaps, in some remote particulars, and more precision, than seems consistent with entire credibility. He carries the line back to Edico, king or prince of the Heruli, or Rugii, or Scyrii,—the stock from which came Odoacer, who overturned the Western Roman Empire and made himself the first king of Italy. Edico, who was subject to Attila, and the favorite adviser of the king of the Huns, is thought to have had a son or brother named Guelf or Welf, who fell in battle with the Ostrogoths. It is to him that Sir Andrew is disposed to assign the honor of being the historical chief of the great family of the Guelfs. If not from this shadowy Guelf, it is from another of like name in the next generation—a brother of Odoacer—that he sees the family spring, and the story of its wide-branching and many-rooted growth, in Friuli, Altdorf, Bavaria, old Saxony, Brunswick, Hanover,—and thence, more royally than ever, in England,—is as interesting as a narrative of highly complicated genealogy can be.

Sir A. Halliday, Annals of the House of Hanover.

From the Guelf uncertainly indicated above were descended two Marquesses of Este, "successively known in German and Italian story as the first and second of that name. … Azo, the second Marquess of Este in Italy (born A. D. 995, died 1097), the head of the Italian (junior) branch of Guelphs [see ESTE], married Cunigunda, the sole heiress of the German Guelphs of Altdorf, thus uniting in his family the blood, wealth, and power of both branches of the old Guelphs, and becoming the common father of the later German and Italian princes of the name of Guelph. {1615} No wonder, then, that he was elected by the Emperor, Henry III., as his representative in Italy. … Cunigunda, the first wife of Azo II., bore him one son, Guelph, who was known in German history as Guelph VI. He succeeded to his mother's titles and vast estates on her death, A. D. 1055, and to those of his father, A. D. 1097. … Henry IV. invested him with the Duchy of Bavaria, A. D. 1071—a title first assumed 170 years before (A. D. 900) by his almost mythological ancestor, Henry of the Golden Chariot." This Guelph VI. was the grandfather of Henry the Proud, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, referred to above.

P. M. Thornton, The Brunswick Accession, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: O. Browning, Guelfs and Ghibellines.

See, also, SAXONY: A. D. 1178-1183; and GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268; and, also, ESTE, HOUSE OF.

GUELFS: The outcrop of the contention in Italy. Its beginnings, causes, course and meaning.

See ITALY: A. D. 1215; and FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.

----------GUELFS: End----------

GUÉLFS. White and Black (Bianchi and Neri).

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300; and 1301-1313.

GUELPHS OF HANOVER, The Order of the.

"The Hanoverian troops having much distinguished themselves at the battle of Waterloo, George IV. (then prince regent) determined to found an order of merit which might, with especial propriety, be conferred upon such of them as deserved the distinction, and the 12th of August, 1815, was fixed upon as the date of its foundation. By the second statute, the Order is inseparably annexed to the possession of the Hanoverian crown, by vesting the grand-mastership in the sovereign of that country for the time being."

C. R. Dodd, Manual of Dignities, part 3.

GUERANDE. Treaty of.

See BRITTANY: A. D. 1341-1365.

GUERNSEY, The Isle of.

See JERSEY AND GUERNSEY.

GUERRA DOS CABANOS.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1825-1865.

GUERRILLAS.

A term of Spanish origin, derived from 'guerilla', signifying little or petty warfare, and applied to small, irregular bands of troops, carrying on war against an enemy by harassing, destructive raids.

GUEUX OF THE NETHERLAND REVOLT.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1562-1566.

----------GUIANA: Start--------

GUIANA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CARIBS.

GUIANA: 16th Century. The search for El Dorado.

See EL DORADO.

GUIANA: A. D. 1580-1814. Dutch, French and English settlements and conquests.

"There was one European nation which was not likely to hunt for a golden city, when gold was to be earned by plain and matter of fact commerce. The Dutch had as early as 1542 established a systematic if contraband trade with the Spanish Main; and in 1580 they began to settle in Guiana by planting a depot on the river Pomeroon, in what is now the county of Essequibo. In 1599 they built two forts at the mouth of the Amazon, but were driven out by the Portuguese; and about 1613 they established a colony on the Essequibo, building the fort of 'Kyk over al', 'Look over all,' on an island where the Massaruni flows into the Essequibo. The colony was founded by Zeeland merchants, was known as Nova Zeelandia, and came under the control of the Netherlands West India Company, which was incorporated in 1621. Shortly afterwards colonisation began further to the east on the Berbice river. The founder was a Flushing merchant, Van Peere by name; he founded his settlement about 1624, and he held his rights under contract with the Chamber of Zeeland. … Thus was the present province of British Guiana colonised by Dutchmen. … While English discovery was attracted to the west and Orinoco, the first attempts at English settlement were far to the east on the Wyapoco or Oyapok river. Here, in 1604, while Ralegh was in prison, Captain Charles Leigh founded a colony at the mouth of the river. … In 1609 Robert Harcourt of Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire took up the work in which Leigh had failed. … In 1613 he obtained from King James a grant of 'all that part of Guiana or continent of America lying between the river of Amazones and the river of Dessequebe,' which was not actually possessed or inhabited by any Christian power in friendship with England. … In 1619 a scheme was started for an Amazon Company, the leading spirit in which was Captain Roger North. … The company was fortunate enough to secure the powerful patronage of the Duke of Buckingham. Harcourt threw in his lot with them, and on the 19th of May 1627 a royal grant was made to the Duke of Buckingham and 55 other adventurers, including the Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, who were incorporated under the title of 'the governor and company of noblemen and gentlemen of England for the plantation of Guiana.' The Duke of Buckingham was Governor, North was Deputy-Governor, and the grant included the 'royal' river of the Amazon. For about two years the company did some solid work, sending out four ships and 200 colonists; an attempt was then made in 1629 to bring the territory covered by their grant immediately under royal protection, and upon its failure their efforts at colonisation appear to have gradually died away. The English were not the only Europeans who tried their hand at settlement in the east of Guiana. … In 1613, 160 French families settled in Cayenne. The first colony failed, but in 1624 and 1626 fresh attempts were made a little to the west on the rivers Sinamari and Cananama; and in 1643 a Rouen Company, incorporated under the name of the Cape North Company, sent out three or four hundred men to Cayenne under the Sieur de Bretigny. Bretigny ruined the scheme by savage ill-treatment of Indians and colonists alike, and the remains of the settlement were absorbed by a new and more powerful Normandy Company." This failed in its turn, and gave way to a "French Equinoctial Company," organized under the auspices of Colbert, which sent out 1,200 colonists and fairly established them at Cayenne. Colbert, in 1665, placed the colony, "with all the other French possessions in the West Indies, under one strong West India Company. Such were the beginnings of colonisation in the west and east of Guiana. Between them lies the district now known as Dutch Guiana or Surinam." The first settlement in this was made in 1630 by 60 English colonists, under a Captain Marshall. {1616} The colony failed, and was revived in 1650 by Lord Willoughby, then representing the fugitive King Charles II., as Governor of Barbadoes. In 1663, after the Restoration, Lord Willoughby, in conjunction with Lawrence Hyde, second son of the Earl of Clarendon, received Letters Patent "constituting them lords and proprietors of the district between the Copenam and the Maroni (which included the Surinam river) under the name of Willoughby Land." Soon afterwards "war broke out with the Dutch, and in March 1667 the colony capitulated to the Dutch admiral Crynsenn. The peace of Breda between Great Britain and the Netherlands, which was signed in the following July, provided that either nation should retain the conquests which it had made by the preceding 10th of May, and under this arrangement Surinam was ceded to the Netherlands, while New York became a British possession. … Thus ended for many long years all British connexion with Guiana. … When at length the English returned [in 1796 and 1803, during the subjection of the Dutch to Napoleon, and while they were forced to take part in his wars], they came as conquerors rather than as settlers, and by a strange perversity of history, the original Dutch colonies on the Berbice and Essequibo became a British dependency, while the Netherlanders retain to this day the part of Guiana which Lord Willoughby marked out for his own." These arrangements were settled in the convention between Great Britain and the Netherlands signed at London in 1814.

C. P. Lucas, History Geography of the British Colonies, volume 2, section 2, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: H. G. Dalton, History of British Guiana.

----------GUIANA: End--------

GUIENNE, OR GUYENNE.

A corruption of the name of Aquitaine, which came into use, apparently, about the 13th century.

See AQUITAINE: A. D. 884-1151.

GUILDS, OR GILDS, Mediæval.

"The history of the Gild Merchant begins with the Norman Conquest. The latter widened the horizon of the English merchant even more than that of the English annalist. The close union between England and Normandy led to an increase in foreign commerce, which in turn must have greatly stimulated internal trade and industry. Moreover, the greatly enhanced power of the English crown tempered feudal turbulence, affording a measure of security to traders in England that was as yet unknown on the continent. … With this expansion of trade the mercantile element would become a more potent factor in town life, and would soon feel the need of joint action to guard its nascent prosperity against encroachments. Not until there was something of importance to protect, not until trade and industry began to predominate over agriculture within the borough, would a protective union like the Gild Merchant come into being. Its existence, in short, presupposes a greater mercantile and industrial development than that which prevailed in England in the tenth century. This circumstance and the absence of all mention of the Gild Merchant in the records of the Anglo-Saxon period render it probable that this fraternity first appeared in England soon after the Conqueror had established his sway and restored order in the land. Whether it was merely a reorganization of older gilds, a spontaneous adaptation of the gild idea to the newly-begotten trade interests, or a new institution directly transplanted from Normandy, we have no means of determining with certainty. The last-mentioned view is strongly favoured by the circumstance that, at the time of the Conquest, the Gild Merchant doubtless existed in Northern France and Flanders. From the Frenchmen who became burgesses of English towns, and from the Norman merchants who thronged the marts of England after the Conquest, the English would soon ascertain the advantages of formal trade organization. The earliest distinct references to the Gild Merchant occur in a charter granted by Robert Fitz-Hamon to the burgesses of Burford (1087-1107), and in a document drawn up while Anselm was Archbishop of Canterbury (1093-1109). … Whether we place the inception of the fraternity immediately before or after the Norman Conquest, whether we make it a continuation of older Anglo-Saxon gilds, or a derivative from Normandy, or a wholly new and spontaneous growth, it was doubtless at first merely a private society, unconnected with the town government, having for its object the protection of its members, the tradesmen of the borough, and the maintenance of the newly invigorated trade interests. During the twelfth century it gradually became a recognised part of the town constitution, thus entering upon its second stage of development. How this came to pass can be easily realised from the later history of English gilds in general. For in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries … a simple social-religious gild at times attained such power in a community that it came to be regarded as an important constituent element of the civic administration. Quite similar must have been the growth of the Gild Merchant, which from the outset was doubtless composed of the most influential burgesses, and which, as the exponent of the mercantile interests, must always have been greatly concerned in the increase of the privileges and prosperity of the borough in general. It was very natural that the town authorities should use such a society for public purposes, entrusting to it the surveillance of the trade monopoly, in which its members were particularly interested,—allowing it to gradually become an important part of the civic administrative machinery. … The beginning of this third and final stage of development cannot be definitely fixed; for in some places it was of an earlier date than in others. The fourteenth century may in general be called the period of gradual transition. In the fifteenth century the transformation was completed. In this and the following centuries the term 'Gilda Mercatoria' became less and less frequent. In many places it soon wholly disappeared. Where it continued to subsist, the Gild no longer had an individuality of its own. Its alderman and other peculiar officers, its whole organization as a distinctive entity, had vanished. It had merged its identity in that of the general municipal organism. The head of the fraternity was now the head of the town; borough and Gild, burgesses and gildsmen were now identical. What had once been a distinct integral part of the civic body politic became vaguely blended with the whole of it. {1617} The old Gild Merchant was now rarely mentioned in connection with the municipal trade restrictions and regulations, the latter being commonly applied to burgesses, craftsmen, freemen, or 'foreigners.' The exegesis of this transformation … was due mainly to three causes: (1) the expansion of trade and the multiplication of the craft and mercantile fraternities, which absorbed the ancient functions of the Gild Merchant and rendered it superfluous; (2) the growth of the select governing body, which usurped most of the privileges of the old burghers at large, and hence tended to obliterate the distinction between them, or their less privileged successors, and the ancient gildsmen, leaving both only certain trade immunities; (3) the decay of the leet—the rallying point of the old burghers as distinguished from that of the gildsmen—the functions of which passed, in part, to the crafts, but mainly to the select body and to the justices of the peace. But even after the Gild Merchant and the borough had thus become identical, the old dual idea did not completely disappear, the Gild being often regarded as a particular phase or function of the town, namely, the municipality in its character of a trade monopoly. Hence the modern survivals of the Gild Merchant help to elucidate its actual functions in ancient times. In a few boroughs the select governing body of the town—the narrow civic corporation, in distinction from the burgesses or freemen at large—succeeded to the name and traditions of the Gild Merchant. In some of these cases the signification of the latter gradually dwindled down to a periodical civic feast of the privileged few. … In the eighteenth century we meet the word much less frequently than in the seventeenth; and toward the beginning of the present century it became very rare. The Municipal Corporations Commission, in 1835, found it still used in only a few boroughs. The remnants of the Gild Merchant and of the craft fraternities were rapidly vanishing before the new ideas of a more liberal age,—the age of laissez faire. The onerous, self-destructive restrictions of gilds were now being superseded by the stimulating measures of Chambers of Commerce. More than six centuries elapsed before the enactment of Magna Carta that all merchants 'may go through England, by land and water, to buy and sell, free from all unjust imposts,' became a realised fact throughout the realm. The Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 provided that 'every person in any borough may keep any shop for the sale of all lawful wares and merchandizes by wholesale or retail, and use every lawful trade, occupation, mystery, and handicraft, for hire, gain, sale, or otherwise, within any borough.' In a single town of England the Gild Merchant still subsists, but only as the shadow of its former self—a spectre from the distant past. At Preston the Gild Merchant has been 'celebrated' regularly once every twenty years for more than three centuries, on which occasions the burgesses renew their freedom and indulge in all the festivities of a civic carnival. The last Gild Merchant was held in 1882. There was then much feasting and dancing, there were gay processions of townsmen, and much talk of the glories of the past. And yet how few even of the scholars and noblemen there assembled from various parts of Great Britain knew what an important role the Gild Merchant had played in the annals of English municipal history, what strange vicissitudes it had undergone, what a remarkable transformation the centuries had wrought in it."

C. Gross, The Gild Merchant, chapters 1 and 9 (volume 1).

"The rise of the craft gilds is, roughly speaking, a century later [than the rise of the merchant gilds]; isolated examples occur early in the twelfth century, they become more numerous as the century advances, and in the thirteenth century they appear in all branches of manufacture and in every industrial centre. Craft gilds were associations of all the artisans engaged in a particular industry in a particular town, for certain common purposes. … Their appearance marks the second stage in the history of industry, the transition from the family system to the artisan (or gild) system. In the former there was no class of artisans properly so called; no class, that is to say, of men whose time was entirely or chiefly devoted to a particular manufacture; and this because all the needs of a family or other domestic group, whether of monastery or manor-house, were satisfied by the labours of the members of the group itself. The latter, on the contrary, is marked by the presence of a body of men each of whom was occupied more or less completely in one particular manufacture. The very growth from the one to the other system, therefore, is an example of 'division of labour,' or, to use a better phrase, of 'division of employments.' … When the place of the young manufactures of the twelfth century in the development of mediæval society is thus conceived, the discussion as to a possible Roman 'origin' of the gilds loses much of its interest. No doubt modern historians have exaggerated the breach in continuity between the Roman and the barbarian world; no doubt the artisans in the later Roman Empire had an organization somewhat like that of the later gilds. Moreover, it is possible that in one or two places in Gaul certain artisan corporations may have had a continuous existence from the fifth to the twelfth century. It is even possible that Roman regulations may have served as models for the organization of servile artisans on the lands of monasteries and great nobles,—from which, on the continent, some of the later craft gilds doubtless sprang. But when we see that the growth of an artisan class, as distinguished from isolated artisans here and there, was impossible till the twelfth century, because society had not yet reached the stage in which it was profitable or safe for a considerable number of men to confine themselves to any occupation except agriculture; and that the ideas which governed the craft gilds were not peculiar to themselves but common to the whole society of the time; then the elements of organization which may conceivably have been derived from or suggested by the Roman artisan corporations become of quite secondary importance. There is, as we have said, little doubt that some of the craft gilds of France and Germany were originally organizations of artisan serfs on the manors of great lay or ecclesiastical lords. This may also have been the case in some places in England, but no evidence has yet been adduced to show that it was so. … The relation of the craft gilds to the merchant gild is a still more difficult question. In many of the towns of Germany and the Netherlands a desperate struggle took place during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries between a burgher oligarchy, who monopolized the municipal government, and were still further strengthened in many cases by union in a merchant gild, and the artisans organized in their craft gilds; the craftsmen fighting first for the right of having gilds of their own, and then for a share in the government of the town. {1618} These facts have been easily fitted into a symmetrical theory of industrial development; the merchant gilds, it is said, were first formed for protection against feudal lords, but became exclusive, and so rendered necessary the formation of craft gilds; and in the same way the craft gilds became exclusive afterwards, and the journeymen were compelled to form societies of their own for protection against the masters. … The very neatness of such a theory, the readiness with which it has been accepted by popular writers in spite of the paucity of English evidence, have perhaps led some historians to treat it with scant consideration. … At the end of the reign of Edward III. there were in London forty-eight companies or crafts, each with a separate organization and officers of its own, a number which had increased to at least sixty before the close of the century."

W. J. Ashley, An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).

"The unions known by the names of mystery, faculty, trade, fellowship, or (from the fact of possessing particular costumes) livery company, existed in large numbers throughout the realm, and were frequently divided into two or three categories. Thus in London the principal crafts were the twelve 'substantial companies' or 'livery companies' [Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Merchant Tailors, Haberdashers, Salters, Ironmongers, Vintners, Cloth-workers]. … A perfect acquaintance with the details of the trade and the desire as well as the ability to produce good work were in all cases preliminary requisites [of membership]. In fact the main provisions of the craft, the very soul of its constitution, were the regulations intended to ensure the excellence of the products and the capacity of the workman. … The whole character of the craft guild is explained by these regulations, designed to prevent fraud and deception of the public."

E. R. A. Seligman, Mediæval Guilds of England (American Economics Association, volume 2, number 5), part 2, section 2.

ALSO IN: W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 11.

W. Herbert, History of Twelve Great Livery Companies.

See, also, COMMUNE.

GUILDS OF FLANDERS.

"In the course of the tenth century Bruges had waxed great and wealthy through its trade with England, while the Ghent people constructed a port at the junction of their two rivers. The Flemings, nevertheless, were still noted for the boorishness of their demeanour, their addiction to intemperance, and their excessive turbulence. Their pagan ancestors had been accustomed to form associations for their mutual protection against accidents by fire or water, and similar misadventures. These unions were called 'Minne,' or Friendships—an idea reproduced in the 'Amicitiæ,' to which allusion is so frequently made in the deeds of ancient corporations. … After a time the name of 'Minne' came to be supplanted by that of 'Ghilde,' meaning a feast at the common expense. Each ghilde was placed under the tutelage of a departed hero, or demigod, and was managed by officers elected by the members— social equality being the foundation of each fraternity. Subsequent to the introduction of Christianity the demigod was replaced by a saint, while the members were enjoined to practise works of piety. … The Ghildes were the base of the municipal administration, and gradually assumed the government of the town, but took another form and appellation. The word was thenceforward applied, in its restricted sense of Guild, as referring to trade corporations, while the previous organisation came to be described in French and Latin documents as Commune or Communia, and embraced all who were entitled to gather together in the cauter, or public place, when the bell rang out the summons from the town belfry. In Flanders the Communes grew out of popular institutions of ancient date, and, though, no doubt, their influence was sensibly increased by their confirmation at the hands of King or Count, they did not owe their origin to royal or seigniorial charters."

J. Hutton, James and Philip Van Arteveld, part 1, chapter 1.

GUILDS OF FLORENCE.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293.

GUILFORD COURT HOUSE, Battle of (1781).

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.

GUILLOTINE, The origin of the.

"It was during these winter months [of the session of the French National Assembly, 1790] that Dr. Guillotin read his long discourse upon the reformation of the penal code; of which the 'Moniteur' has not preserved a single word. This discourse attracts our attention on two accounts:—First, it proposed a decree that there should be but one kind of punishment for capital crimes; secondly, that the arm of the executioner should be replaced by the action of a machine, which Dr. Guillotin had invented. 'With the aid of my machine,' said the glib doctor, 'I will make your head spring off in the twinkling of an eye, and you will suffer nothing.' Bursts of laughter met this declaration; nevertheless, the Assembly listened with attention, and adopted the proposal."

G. H. Lewes, Life of Robespierre, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: G. Everitt, Guillotine the Great and her Successors.

J. W. Croker, History of the Guillotine.

----------GUINEGATE: Start--------

GUINEGATE, Battle of (1478).

A bloody but indecisive battle, fought between the French, on one side, and Flemish and Burgundian troops on the other, in the war produced by the attempt of Louis XI. to rob Mary of Burgundy of her heritage. It was followed by a long truce, and a final treaty.

E. Smedley, History of France, part 1, chapter 17.

GUINEGATE: Battle of (1513).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1513-1515.

----------GUINEGATE: End----------

GUINES, Treaty of (1547).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.

GUISCARD, Robert, and Roger and the Norman conquest of Southern Italy and Sicily.

See ITALY: A. D. 1000-1090; and 1081-1194.

GUISE, Duke of, Assassination.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1584-1589.

GUISES, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

GUIZOT'S MINISTRY.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1841-1848.

GUJERAT, Battle of (1849).

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

GUNDEBERTUS, King of the Lombards, A. D. 662-672.

{1619}

GUNPOWDER PLOT, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1605.

GURKHAS, OR GOORKAS, The.

See INDIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

GURU, OR GOOROO.

See SIKHS.

GUSTAVUS (I.) Vasa, King of Sweden, A. D. 1523-1560.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1397-1527, and 1523-1604.

Gustavus (II.) Adolphus, King of Sweden, 1611-1632.

Campaigns and death in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1630-1631, to 1631-1632.

Gustavus III., King of Sweden, 1771-1792.

Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, 1792-1809.

GUTBORM, King of Norway, A. D. 1204-1205.

GUTENBERG, and the invention of Printing.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1430-1456.

GUTSTADT, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).

GUTHRIE, The founding of the city of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1889-1890.

GUTTONES, The.

See PRUSSIAN LANGUAGE, THE OLD.

GUUCHIES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

GUY FAWKES' DAY.

November 5, the anniversary of the day on which the conspirators of the "Gunpowder Plot" intended to blow up King and Parliament, in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1605.

GWENT.

See BRITAIN: 6TH CENTURY.

GWLEDIG.

A Welsh title, signifying ruler, or prince, which was taken by the native leader in Britain after the Romans left. He was the successor of the Roman Duke of Britain.

J. Rhys, Celtic Britain, chapter 3.

See, also, ARTHUR, KING.

GWYNEDD.

See BRITAIN: 6TH CENTURY.

GYLIPPUS, and the defense of Syracuse.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 415-413.

GYMNASIA, German.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.—PRUSSIA: A. D. 1874.

GYMNASIA, Greek.

"Amongst public buildings [of the ancient Greeks] we mentioned first the gymnasia, which, originating in the requirements of single persons, soon became centre-points of Greek life. Corporeal exercise was of great importance amongst the Greeks, and the games and competitions in the various kinds of bodily skill … formed a chief feature of their religious feasts. This circumstance reacted on both sculpture and architecture, in supplying the former with models of ideal beauty, and in setting the task to the latter of providing suitable places for these games to be celebrated. For purposes of this kind (as far as public exhibition was not concerned) the palæstrai and gymnasia served. In earlier times these two must be distinguished. In the palæstra … young men practised wrestling and boxing. As these arts were gradually developed, larger establishments with separate compartments became necessary. Originally such places were, like the schools of the grammarians, kept by private persons; sometimes they consisted only of open spaces, if possible near a brook and surrounded by trees. Soon, however, regular buildings—gymnasia—became necessary. At first they consisted of an uncovered, court surrounded by colonnades, adjoining which lay covered spaces, the former being used for running and jumping, the latter for wrestling. In the same degree as these exercises became more developed, and as grown-up men began to take an interest in these youthful sports, and spent a great part of their day at the gymnasia, these grew in size and splendour. They soon became a necessary of life, and no town could be without them, larger cities often containing several."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 25.

Of gymnasia "there were many at Athens; though three only, those of the Academy, Lyceum, and Cynosarges, have acquired celebrity: The site of the first of these gymnasia being low and marshy was in ancient times infested with malaria, but having been drained by Cimon and planted with trees it became a favourite promenade and place of exercise. Here, in walks shaded by the sacred olive, might be seen young men with crowns of rushes in flower upon their heads, enjoying the sweet odour of the smilax and the white poplar, while the platanos and the elm mingled their murmurs in the breeze of spring. The meadows of the Academy, according to Aristophanes the grammarian, were planted with the Apragmosune, a sort of flower so called as though it smelt of all kind of fragrance and safety, like our heart's-ease or flower of the Trinity. This place is supposed to have derived its name from Ecadamos, a public-spirited man who bequeathed his property for the purpose of keeping it in order. … The name of the Lyceum, sometimes derived from Lycus, son of Pandion, probably owed its origin to the temenos of Lycian Apollo there situated. It lay near the banks of the Ilissos, and was adorned with stately edifices, fountains and groves. … In this place anciently the Polemarch held his court and the forces of the republic were exercised before they went forth to war. Appended to the name of the Cynosarges, or third gymnasium surrounded with groves, was a legend which related that when Diomos was sacrificing to Hestia, a white dog snatched away a part of the victim from the altar, and running straightway out of the city deposited it on the spot where this gymnasium was afterwards erected."

J. A. St. John, The Hellenes, book 2, chapter 5.

"The name of that most illustrious of the Athenian gymnasia, the Academy, has been preserved through the dark ages, and exactly in the situation indicated by ancient testimony. We are informed that the Academy was six or eight stades distant from a gate in the wall of the asty named Dipylum, and that the road from thence to the Academy led through that part of the outer Cerameicus, in which it was a custom to bury the Athenian citizens who had fallen in battle on important occasions. Dipylum was the gate from whence began the Sacred Way from Athens to Eleusis. … It appears also that the Academy lay between the Sacred Way and the Colonus Hippius, a height near the Cephissus, sacred to Neptune, and the scene of the Œdipus Coloneus of Sophocles; for the Academy was not far from Colonus, and the latter was ten stades distant from the city. That part of the plain which is near the olive-groves, on the northeastern side of Athens, and is now called Akadhimia, is entirely in conformity with these data. It is on the lowest level, where some water-courses from the ridges of Lycabettus are consumed in gardens and olive plantations."

W. M. Leake, Topography of Athens, section 2.

See, also, EDUCATION, ANCIENT: GREECE.

{1620}

GYMNASIARCH.

See LITURGIES.

GYPSIES, The.

"Having in various and distant countries lived in habits of intimacy with these people, I have come to the following conclusions respecting them: that wherever they are found, their manners and customs are virtually the same, though somewhat modified by circumstances, and that the language they speak amongst themselves, and of which they are particularly anxious to keep others in ignorance, is in all countries one and the same, but has been subjected more or less to modification; and lastly, that their countenances exhibit a decided family resemblance, but are darker or fairer according to the temperature of the climate, but invariably darker, at least in Europe, than the natives of the countries in which they dwell, for example, England and Russia, Germany and Spain. The names by which they are known differ with the country, though, with one or two exceptions, not materially; for example, they are styled in Russia, Zigani; in Turkey and Persia, Zingarri; and in Germany, Zigeuner; all which words apparently spring from the same etymon, which there is no improbability in supposing to be 'Zincali,' a term by which these people, especially those of Spain, sometimes designate themselves, and the meaning of which is believed to be, 'The black men of Zend or Ind.' In England and Spain they are commonly known as Gypsies and Gitanos, from a general belief that they were originally Egyptians, to which the two words are tantamount; and in France as Bohemians, from the circumstance that Bohemia was the first country in civilized Europe where they made their appearance; though there is reason for supposing that they had been wandering in the remote regions of Sclavonia for a considerable time previous, as their language abounds with words of Sclavonic origin, which could not have been adopted in a hasty passage through a wild and half populated country. But they generally style themselves and the language which they speak, Rommany. This word … is of Sanscrit origin, and signifies, 'The Husbands,' or that which pertaineth unto them. From whatever motive this appellation may have originated, it is perhaps more applicable than any other to a sect or caste like them, who have no love and no affection beyond their own race; who are capable of making great sacrifices for each other, and who gladly prey upon all the rest of the human species, whom they detest, and by whom they are hated and despised. It will perhaps not be out of place to observe here, that there is no reason for supposing that the word Roma or Rommany is derived from the Arabic word which signifies Greece or Grecians, as some people not much acquainted with the language of the race in question have imagined. … Scholars have asserted that the language which they speak proves them to be of Indian stock, and undoubtedly a great number of their words are Sanscrit. … There is scarcely a part of the habitable world where they are not to be found; their tents are alike pitched on the heaths of Brazil and the ridges of the Himalayan hills, and their language is heard at Moscow and Madrid, in the streets of London and Stamboul."

G. Borrow, The Zincali, volume 1, pages 2-5.

"One day, 450 years ago, or thereabouts, there knocked at the gates of the city of Lüneburg, on the Elbe, as strange a rabble rout as had ever been seen by German burgher. There were 300 of them, men and women, accompanied by an extraordinary number of children. They were dusky of skin, with jet-black hair and eyes; they wore strange garments; they were unwashed and dirty even beyond the liberal limits tolerated by the cold-water-fearing citizens of Lüneburg; they had with them horses, donkeys, and carts; they were led by two men whom they described as Duke and Count. … All the Lüneburgers turned out to gaze open-mouthed at these pilgrims, while the Duke and the Count told the authorities their tale, which was wild and romantic. … Many years before, they explained, while the tears of penitence stood in the eyes of all but the youngest children, they had been a Christian community, living in orthodoxy, and therefore happiness, in a far-off country known as Egypt. … They were then a happy Christian flock. To their valley came the Saracens, an execrable race, worshipping Mahound. Yielding, in an evil hour, to the threats and persecutions of their conquerors, they—here they turned their faces and wept aloud—they abjured Christ. But thereafter they had no rest or peace, and a remorse so deep fell upon their souls that they were fain to arise, leave their homes, and journey to Rome in hope of getting reconciliation with the Church, They were graciously received by the Pope, who promised to admit them back into the fold after seven years of penitential wandering. They had letters of credit from King Sigismund—would the Lüneburgers kindly look at them?—granting safe conduct and recommending them to the protection of all honest people. The Lüneburg folk were touched at the recital of so much suffering in a cause so good; they granted the request of the strangers. They allowed them to encamp, … The next day the strangers visited the town. In the evening a good many things were missed, especially those unconsidered trifles which a housewife may leave about her doorway. Poultry became suddenly scarce; eggs doubled in price; it was rumoured that purses had been lost while their owners gazed at the strangers; cherished cups of silver were not to be found. … While the Lüneburgers took counsel, in their leisurely way, how to meet a case so uncommon, the pilgrims suddenly decamped, leaving nothing behind them but the ashes of their fires and the picked bones of the purloined poultry. … This was the first historical appearance of Gipsies. It was a curious place to appear in. The mouth of the Elbe is a long way from Egypt, even if you travel by sea, which does not appear to have been the case; and a journey on laud not only would have been infinitely more fatiguing, but would, one would think, have led to some notice on the road before reaching Lüneburg. There, however, the Gipsies certainly are first heard of, and henceforth history has plenty to say about their doings. From Lüneburg they went to Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock, Griefswald, travelling in an easterly direction. They are mentioned as having appeared in Saxony, where they were driven away, as at Lüneburg, for their thievish propensities. They travelled through Switzerland, headed by their great Duke Michael, and pretending to have been expelled from Egypt by the Turks, Their story in these early years, though it varied in particulars, remained the same in essentials. {1621} In Provence they called themselves Saracens; in Swabia they were Egyptians doomed to everlasting wanderings for having refused hospitality to the Virgin and Joseph; at Bâle, where they exhibited letters of safe conduct from the Pope, they were also Egyptians. Always the Land of the Nile; always the same pretence, or it may be reminiscence, of sojourn in Egypt; always, to soothe the suspicions of priests, faithful and submissive sons of the Church. From the very first their real character was apparent. They lie, cheat, and steal at Lüneburg; they lie and steal everywhere; they tell fortunes and cut purses, they buy and sell horses, they poison pigs, they rob and plunder, they wander and they will not work. They first came to Paris in the year 1427, when more people went to see them, we are told, than ever crowded to the Fair of Laudet. … They remained at St. Denis for a month, when they received peremptory orders to quit for the usual reason. … In the 16th century trouble began for the Roman folk. By this time their character was perfectly well known. They were called Bohemians, Heathen, Gitanos, Pharaohites, Robbers, Tartars, and Zigeuner. They had abandoned the old lying story of the penitential wanderings; they were outcasts; their hand was against every man's hand; their customs were the same then as they are described now by Leland or Borrow."

Gipsies and their Friends (Temple Bar, volume 47), pages 65-67.

"Since the publication of Pott's book upon the gypsies [Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien]—about 30 years ago—we have come to regard the origin of this singular people with considerable unanimity of opinion. Almost nobody doubts now that they are Indians; and the assumption that all the gypsies scattered throughout Europe are descended from one parent stock meets with little contradiction. Both of these beliefs are the outcome of the investigation of their language. … Pott, in the introduction to his book, and quoting from the 'Shah-Name' of Firdousi, informs us that, during the 5th century of our era, the Persian monarch, Behram Gour, received from an Indian king 12,000 musicians of both sexes, who were known as Luris. Now, as this is the name by which the gypsies of Persia are known even at the present day, and as, moreover, the author of the Persian work 'Modjmal at-tawarikh' emphatically says that the Luris or Lulis of modern Persia are the descendants of these same 12,000 musicians, there is no hazard in the assumption that we have here the first recorded gypsy migration. Confirmation of this is afforded by the Arabian historian, Hamza of Ispahan, who wrote half a century before Firdousi, and who was well versed in the history of the Sassasinides. It is related by this author that Behram Gour caused 12,000 musicians, called Zott, to be sent from India for the benefit of his subjects. And 'Zott' is the name by which the gypsies were known to the Arabs, and which they even bear in Damascus at the present day. In the Arabic dictionary 'al-Kamus' this entry occurs: 'Zott, arabicized from Jatt, a people of Indian origin. The word might be pronounced Zatt with equal correctness.' … For the fatherland of these Zott, or Jatt, we have not long to seek. Istakhri and Ibn-Haukal, the celebrated 10th-century geographers, recount as follows:— 'Between al-Mansura and Mokran the waters of the Indus have formed marshes, the borders of which are inhabited by certain Indian tribes, called Zott; those of them who dwell near the river live in huts, like the huts of the Berbers, and subsist chiefly on fish and water-fowl; while those occupying the level country further inland live like the Kurds, supporting themselves on milk, cheese, and maize.' In these same regions there are yet two more tribes placed by these geographers, namely, the Bodha and the Meid. The former are properly, according to Ibn-Haukal, a subdivision of the Zott. … In course of time the Meds (to adopt the spelling favoured by Sir Henry Elliott) overcame the Zotts, whom they treated with such severity that they had to leave the country. The Zotts then established themselves on the river Pehen, where they soon became skilful sailors"; while those living farther to the north, known as Kikan, became famed as breeders of horses and herders of buffalos. When the Arabs, in their career of conquest, came in contact with the Zotts, the latter joined them, and large colonies of them were removed, for some reason, to western Asia, and settled with their herds on the lower Euphrates and Tigris, and in Syria. The Zotts on the Tigris became strong and troublesome in time, and in 834 the khalif Motacem, after subjugating them by force, removed them from the country, to the number of 27,000, sending them to Ainzarba, on the northern frontier of Syria. In 855, Ainzarba was captured by the Byzantines, who carried off the Zotts, with all their buffalo herds. "Here, then, we have the first band of gypsies brought into the Greek Empire. … As regards the destinies of the Zotts after they had been brought to Asia Minor from Ainzarba, in the year 855, I have been unable—in the course of a hurried search—to discover anything. But, now that we know the year in which they entered Byzantine territory, others may be more successful. Whether the name Zott, or rather its Indian form Jatt (or Jaut), has also been brought with them into Europe, I am, of course, as little able to say."

M. J. de Goeje, A Contribution to the History of the Gypsies (In "Accounts of the Gypsies of India," edited by D. MacRitchie).

"Students of the gipsies, and especially those who have interested themselves in the history of the race, will have read with regret the announcement of the death, at Paris, on March 1st, of the veteran 'tsiganologue,' M. Paul Bataillard. For the last half century he had devoted his leisure time to the study of the early notices of the presence of gipsies in Europe. … It was his opinion that there have been gipsies in Eastern Europe since prehistoric times, and that it is to them Europe owes its knowledge of metallurgy. Heterodox although this opinion may be, it has recently been observed by Mr. F. H. Groome that 'Bataillard's theory is gaining favour with foreign archæologists, among whom MM. Mortillet, Chantre, and Burnouf had arrived independently at similar conclusions.'"

The Athenæum, March 31, 1894.

ALSO IN: C. G. Leland, English Gipsies, chapters 8-10.

W. Simson. History of the Gipsies.

GYRWAS.

"Fen-folk"—the name taken by a body of Engle freebooters who occupied the islands in the Fen district of England for a long time before they were able to possess the Roman-British towns and country on its border.

J. R. Green, The Making of England, chapter 2.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.

{1622}

H

HAARLEM: A. D. 1572-1573. Siege and capture by Alva's Spaniards.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1572-1573.

HABEAS CORPUS, Act and Writ of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1679 (MAY).

HABSBURG, or HAPSBURG, Origin of the House of.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.

HABSBURG-LORRAINE, The House of.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1745 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

HACKINSACKS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

HADI, Al, Caliph, A. D. 786-809.

HADRIAN, Roman Emperor, A. D. 117-138. Hadrian I., Pope, 772-795. Hadrian II., Pope, 867-872. Hadrian III., Pope, 884-885. Hadrian IV., Pope, 1154-1159. Hadrian V., Pope, 1276, July to August.

HADRIANOPLE.

See ADRIANOPLE.

HADRIAN'S MAUSOLEUM.

See CASTLE ST. ANGELO.

HADRIAN'S WALL.

See ROMAN WALLS IN BRITAIN.

HADRUMETUM, OR ADRUMETUM.

See CARTHAGE, THE DOMINION OF.

HÆDUI, The.

See ÆDUI.

HÆMUS, Mount.

The ancient name of the Balkan chain of mountains.

HÆRRED, The.

See HUNDRED, THE.

HAGENAU, Treaty of (1330).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364.

HAGUE, The: Origin and Name.

"Unlike other Dutch cities, the Hague owed its importance, not to commerce or manufactures, but to having early been made the seat of government of the United Provinces, and to the constant presence of the officers of state and the foreign ministers accredited to the republic. For four centuries the abode of the counts of Holland, it derives its name from the 'Haeg 'or hedge encircling the magnificent park which formed their ancient hunting ground, and the majestic trees in which, at this day, attract the admiration of Europe."

J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of New York, volume 1, page 61.

HAGUENAU: Cession to France.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

HAIDAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SKITTAGETAN FAMILY.

HAIDERABAD, OR HYDERABAD, The Nizam of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748; and 1877.

HAINAULT.

Hainault, the region of the Netherlands occupied anciently by the Nervii, became a county under hereditary lords in the 9th century. In the 11th century it was joined by marriage to the territories of the counts of Flanders, and so remained, until the beginning of the 14th century. In 1300 Hainault and Holland became joined under the same family of counts.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 922-1345.

HAITI.

See HAYTI.

HAKO, OR HAKON I. (called the Good), King of Norway, A. D. 940-963. Hako II. (Jarl), King of Norway, 977-995. Hako III., King of Norway, 1202-1204. Hako IV., King of Norway, 1207-1263. Hako V., King of Norway, 1299-1319. Hako VI., King of Norway, 1343-1380.

HALF-BREEDS.

See STALWARTS.

HALFWAY COVENANT, The.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1657-1669.

HALIARTUS, Battle of (B. C. 395).

See GREECE: B. C. 399-387.

HALICARNASSUS.

See CARIANS; and ASIA MINOR; THE GREEK COLONIES; also, MACEDONIA: B. C. 334-330.

HALIDON HILL, Battle of (1333).

See BERWICK-UPON-TWEED: A. D. 1293-1333; and SCOTLAND: A. D. 1332-1333.

HALIFAX: A. D. 1749. The founding of the city.

"In the year [1749] after the peace [of Aix-la-Chapelle] the land forces in Great Britain were reduced to little more than 18,000 men; those in Minorca, Gibraltar, and the American plantations, to 10,000; while the sailors retained in the Royal Navy were under 17,000. From the large number both of soldiers and seamen suddenly discharged, it was feared that they might be either driven to distress or tempted to depredation. Thus, both for their own comfort and for the quiet of the remaining community, emigration seemed to afford a safe and excellent resource. The province of Nova Scotia was pitched upon for this experiment, and the freehold of fifty acres was offered to each settler, with ten acres more for every child brought with him, besides a free passage, and an exemption from all taxes during a term of ten years. Allured by such advantages, above 4,000 persons, with their families, embarked under the command of Colonel Cornwallis, and landed at the harbour of Chebuetow. The new town which soon arose from their labours received its name from the Earl of Halifax, who presided at the Board of Trade, and who had the principal share in the foundation of this colony. In the first winter there were but 300 huts of wood, surrounded by a palisade."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 31 (volume 4).

See, also, NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755.

HALIFAX CURRENCY.

"For many years Canada used what was called 'Halifax currency,' in which the nomenclature of sterling money was that employed, but having a pound of this currency valued at four dollars."

G. Bryce, Short History of the Canadian People, page 433.

HALIFAX FISHERY AWARD.

See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1877-1888.

HALLECK, General Henry W. Command in Missouri.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

Command in the Valley of the Mississippi.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE); (APRIL-MAY: TENNESSEE-MISSISSIPPI); (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).

Command of all the armies.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: MISSISSIPPI).

HAMADAN.

The capital city of ancient Media.

HAMATH, Kingdom of.

"It is impossible to doubt that the Hamathites are identical with the Canaanitish tribe that was settled in the town of Hamath, afterwards called Epiphania, on the Orontes, between the Hittites and the Amorites of Kadesh. After the time of David they were succeeded in that town by the Arimæans."

F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 6, chapter 1 (volume 2).

{1623}

----------HAMBURG: Start----------

HAMBURG: The origin of the city, its freedom and commercial rise.

See HANSA TOWNS.

HAMBURG: A. D. 1801-1803. One of six Free Cities which survived the Peace of Luneville.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

HAMBURG: A. D. 1806. Occupied and oppressed by the French.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

HAMBURG: A. D. 1810. Annexation to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).

HAMBURG: A. D. 1810-1815. Loss and recovery of the autonomy of a Free City.

See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY.

HAMBURG: A. D. 1813. Expulsion of the French.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813.

HAMBURG: A. D. 1813. Defense by Marshal Davoust.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

HAMBURG: A. D. 1815. Once more a Free City and a member of the Germanic Confederation.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

HAMBURG: A. D. 1888. Surrender of free privileges. Absorption in the Zollverein and Empire.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1888.

----------HAMBURG: End----------

HAMILCAR BARCA, and the First Punic War.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

HAMILTON, Alexander, The framing and adoption of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787, and 1787-1789.

HAMILTON, Alexander: Financial organization of the United States Government.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792; also, TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1789-1791.

HAMILTON, Alexander: The Federal Party.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792, and 1797-1799.

HAMILTON, Alexander: Fatal duel with Aaron Burr.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1806-1807.

HAMITES.—HAMITIC LANGUAGES.

The name Hamites, as now used among ethnologists, is restricted more closely than it once was to certain African races, whose languages are found to be related. The languages classed as Hamitic are those of the ancient Egyptians and the modern Copts, most of the Abyssinian tribes, the Gallas and the Berbers. Some of the older writers, Lenormant, for example, embraced the Phœnicians and all their Canaanite neighbors among the Hamites; but this is not now an accepted view. It was undoubtedly formed under the influence of the theory from which the name Hamites came, namely that the people so designated were descendants of Ham; and it sought to adjust a division of the Hamitic family to four lines of descent, indicated by the Biblical account of the four sons of Ham,—Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. This hypothesis identified the Cushites with the Ethiopians (modern Abyssinians and Nubians), the descendants of Mizraim with the Egyptians, those of Phut with the Libyans, and those of Canaan with the Canaanites, including the Phœnicians. Some held that the Hamites occupied originally a great part of western and southern Asia; that they were the primitive inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia, or Chaldea, southern Persia, and southern Arabia, and were displaced by the Semites; also that they once inhabited the most of Asia Minor, and that the Carians were a surviving remnant of them. But the more conservative sense in which the term Hamite is now used restricts it, as stated above, to certain races which are grouped together by a relationship in their languages. Whether or not the Hamitic tongues have an affinity to the Semitic seems still an open question; and, in fact, the whole subject is in an undetermined state, as may be inferred from the following extract: "The so-called Hamitic or sub-Semitic languages of Northern Africa … exhibit resemblances to the language of ancient Egypt as well as to those of the Semitic family. In the Libyan dialects we find the same double verbal form employed with the same double function as in Assyrian, and throughout the 'Hamitic' languages the causative is denoted by a prefixed sibilant as it was in the parent Semitic speech. We cannot argue, however, from language to race, … and the Libyans have ethnologically no connection with the Semites or the Egyptians. Moreover, in several instances the Hamitic' dialects are spoken by tribes of negro or Nubian origin, while the physiological characteristics of the Egyptians are very different from those of the Semite."

A. H. Sayce, The Races of the Old Testament, chapter 4.

HAMPDEN, John.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637; 1640-1641; 1642 (JANUARY), (OCTOBER-DECEMBER); and 1643 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

HAMPDEN CLUBS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1816-1820.

HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1604.

HAMPTON ROADS PEACE CONFERENCE.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (FEBRUARY).

HANAU, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

HANCOCK, John, and the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (MAY-AUGUST); and 1776 (JULY).

HANDVESTS.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1559-1562.

HANES.

An ancient Egyptian city, once mentioned in the Bible by that name (Isaiah xxx. 4). Its ruins have been identified, about 70 miles above Cairo, on the western bank of the Nile. The Egyptian name of the city was Chenensu; the Greek name Heracleopolis.

R. S. Poole, Cities of Egypt, chapter 3.

HANNIBAL, The war of, with Rome.

See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.

----------HANOVER: Start--------

HANOVER, OR BRUNSWICK-LÜNEBURG: Origin of the Kingdom and House.

See SAXONY: THE OLD DUCHY, and A. D. 1178-1183.

HANOVER: The Guelf connection.

See GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES; and ESTE, HOUSE OF.

HANOVER: A. D. 1529. The Duke joins in the Protest which gave origin to the name Protestants.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1525-1529.

HANOVER: A. D. 1546. Final separation from the Wolfenbüttel branch of the House.

The two principalities of Brunswick and Lüneburg, which had been divided, were reunited by Ernest, called the Confessor. On his death, in 1546, they were again divided, the heir of his elder son taking Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, or Brunswick, and the younger receiving Brunswick-Lüneburg, or Hanover. From the latter branch sprang the Electoral House of Hanover, and the present royal family of England; from the former descended the Ducal Brunswick family.

Sir A. Halliday, Annals of the House of Hanover, book 9 (volume 2).

{1624}

HANOVER: A. D. 1648. Losses and acquisitions in the Peace of Westphalia. The alternating Bishopric.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

HANOVER: A. D. 1692. Rise to Electoral rank.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648-1705; and 1125-1152.

HANOVER: A. D. 1694-1696. The war of the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV.

See FRANCE: A.D. 1694; and 1695-1696.

HANOVER: A. D. 1701. Settlement of the Succession of the Brunswick-Lüneberg line to the English Crown.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1701.

HANOVER: A. D. 1714. Succession of the Elector to the British Crown.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1714.

HANOVER: A. D. 1720. Acquisition of the duchies of Bremen and Verden by the Elector.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1719-1721.

HANOVER: A. D. 1741. The War of the Austrian Succession: Neutrality declared.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER).

HANOVER: A. D. 1745. The English-Hanoverian defeat at Fontenoy.

See NETHERLANDS (THE AUSTRIAN PROVINCES): A. D. 1745.

HANOVER: A. D. 1757-1762. French attack and British defense of the electorate in the Seven Years War.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER), to 1761-1762.

HANOVER: A. D. 1763. The Peace of Paris, ending the Seven Years War.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.

HANOVER: A. D. 1776. Troops hired to Great Britain for service in the American War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE).

HANOVER: A. D. 1801-1803. Annexation of Osnabruck.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

HANOVER: A. D. 1803-1806. Seizure by the French. Cession to Prussia.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1802-1803; and GERMANY: 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).

HANOVER: A. D. 1807. Absorbed in the kingdom of Westphalia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807 (JUNE-JULY).

HANOVER: A. D. 1810. Northern part annexed to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).

HANOVER: A. D. 1813. Deliverance from Napoleon. Restoration to the King of England.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

HANOVER: A. D. 1815. Raised to the rank of a kingdom, with territorial enlargement.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

HANOVER: A. D. 1837, Separation of the Crown from that of Great Britain.

"From the hour that the Crown of these kingdoms [Great Britain and Ireland] devolved upon Queen Victoria, dates a change which was a real blessing in the relations of the Sovereign to the Continent of Europe. Hanover was at that instant wholly separated from Great Britain. By the law of that country a female could not reign except in default of heirs male in the Royal family. But in addition to the great advantage of separating the policy of England wholly from the intrigues and complications of a petty German State, it was an immediate happiness that the most hated and in some respects the most dangerous man in these islands was removed to a sphere where his political system might be worked out with less danger to the good of society than amongst a people where his influence was associated with the grossest follies of Toryism and the darkest designs of Orangeism. On the 24th of June the duke of Cumberland, now become Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover, left London. On the 28th he made a solemn entrance into the capital of his states, and at once exhibited to his new subjects his character and disposition by refusing to receive a deputation of the Chambers, who came to offer him their homage and their congratulations. By a proclamation of the 5th of July he announced his intention to abolish the representative constitution, which he had previously refused to recognize by the customary oath. We shall have little further occasion to notice the course of this worst disciple of the old school of intolerance and irresponsible government, and we may therefore at once state that he succeeded in depriving Hanover of the forms of freedom under which she had begun to live; ejected from their offices and banished some of the ablest professors of the University of Gottingen, who had ventured to think that letters would flourish best in a free soil; and reached the height of his ambition in becoming the representative of whatever in sovereign power was most repugnant to the spirit of the age."

C. Knight, Popular History of England, volume 8, chapter 23.

HANOVER: A. D. 1866. Extinction of the kingdom. Absorption by Prussia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

----------HANOVER: End--------

HANOVER, The Alliance of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

HANOVER JUNCTION, Engagement at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 18112 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).

HANSA TOWNS, The.

"In consequence of the liberty and security enjoyed by the inhabitants of the free towns [of Germany—see CITIES: IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY], while the rest of the country was a prey to all the evils of feudal anarchy and oppression, they made a comparatively rapid progress in wealth and population. Nuremberg, Augsburg, Worms, Spires, Frankfort, and other cities, became at an early period celebrated alike for the extent of their commerce, the magnificence of their buildings, and the opulence of their citizens. … The commercial spirit awakened in the north about the same time as in the south of Germany. Hamburgh was founded by Charlemagne in the beginning of the ninth century, in the intention of serving as a fort to bridle the Saxons, who had been subjugated by the emperor. Its favourable situation on the Elbe necessarily rendered it a commercial emporium. Towards the close of the twelfth century, the inhabitants, who had already been extensively engaged in naval enterprizes, began to form the design of emancipating themselves from the authority of their counts, and of becoming a sovereign and independent state; and in 1189 they obtained an Imperial charter which gave them various privileges, including among others the power of electing councillors, or aldermen, to whom, in conjunction with the deputy of the count, the government of the town was to be entrusted. Not long after Hamburgh became entirely free. In 1224 the citizens purchased from Count Albert the renunciation of all his rights, whether real or pretended, to any property in or sovereignty over the town, and its immediate vicinity. And the government was thus early placed on that liberal footing on which it has ever since remained. Lubeck, situated on the Trave, was founded about the middle of the twelfth century. It rapidly grew to be a place of great trade. {1625} It became the principal emporium for the commerce of the Baltic, and its merchants extended their dealings to Italy and the Levant. At a period when navigation was still imperfect, and when the seas were infested with pirates, it was of great importance to be able to maintain a safe intercourse by land between Lubeck and Hamburgh, as by that means the difficult and dangerous navigation of the Sound was avoided. And it is said by some, that the first political union between these cities had the protection of merchandize carried between them by land for its sole object. But this is contradicted by Lambec in his 'Origines Hamburgenses' (lib. xi., pa. 26). … But whatever may have been the motives which led to the alliance between these two cities, it was the origin of the famous Hanseatic League, so called from the German word 'hansa,' signifying a corporation. There is no very distinct evidence as to the time when the alliance in question was established; but the more general opinion seems to be that it dates from the year 1241. … From the beginning of the twelfth century, the progress of commerce and navigation in the north was exceedingly rapid. The countries which stretch along the bottom of the Baltic from Holstein to Russia, and which had been occupied by barbarous tribes of Sclavonic origin, were then subjugated by the Kings of Denmark, the Dukes of Saxony, and other princes. The greater part of the inhabitants being exterminated, their place was filled by German colonists, who founded the towns of Stralsund, Rostock, Wismar, etc. Prussia and Poland were afterwards subjugated by the Christian princes, and the Knights of the Teutonic order. So that in a comparatively short period, the foundations of civilization and the arts were laid in countries whose barbarism had ever remained impervious to the Roman power. The cities that were established along the coasts of the Baltic, and even in the interior of the countries bordering upon it, eagerly joined the Hanseatic confederation. They were indebted to the merchants of Lubeck for supplies of the commodities produced in more civilized countries, and they looked up to them for protection against the barbarians by whom they were surrounded. The progress of the league was in consequence singularly rapid. Previously to the end of the thirteenth century it embraced every considerable city in all those vast countries extending from Livonia to Holland; and was a match for the most powerful monarchs. The Hanseatic confederacy was at its highest degree of power and splendour during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It then comprised from sixty to eighty cities, which were distributed into four classes or circles. Lubeck was at the head of the first circle, and had under it Hamburgh, Bremen, Rostock, Wismar, etc. Cologne was at the head of the second circle, with twenty-nine towns under it. Brunswick was at the head of the third circle, consisting of thirteen towns. Dantzic was at the head of the fourth circle, having under it eight towns in its vicinity, besides several that were more remote. The supreme authority of the League was vested in the deputies of the different towns assembled in Congress. In it they discussed all their measures; decided upon the sum that each city should contribute to the common fund; and upon the questions that arose between the confederacy and other powers, as well as those that frequently arose between the different members of the confederacy. The place for the meeting of Congress was not fixed, but it was most frequently held at Lubeck, which was considered as the capital of the League, and there its archives were kept. … Besides the towns already mentioned, there were others that were denominated confederated cities, or allies. … The Golden Bull proscribed all sorts of leagues and associations, as contrary to the fundamental laws of the empire, and to the subordination due to the emperor and the different princes. But Charles IV., the author of this famous edict, judged it expedient to conciliate the Hanseatic League; and his successors seem generally to have followed his example. As the power of the confederated cities was increased and consolidated, they became more ambitious. Instead of limiting their efforts to the mere advancement of commerce and their own protection, they endeavoured to acquire the monopoly of the trade of the North, and to exercise the same sort of dominion over the Baltic that the Venetians exercised over the Adriatic. For this purpose they succeeded in obtaining, partly in return for loans of money, and partly by force, various privileges and immunities from the Northern sovereigns which secured to them almost the whole foreign commerce of Scandinavia, Denmark, Prussia, Poland, Russia, etc. They exclusively carried on the herring-fishery of the Sound, at the same time that they endeavoured to obstruct and hinder the navigation of foreign vessels in the Baltic. … The Kings of Denmark, Sweden and Norway were frequently engaged in hostilities with the Hanse towns. They regarded, and it must be admitted not without pretty good reason, the privileges acquired by the League in their kingdoms as so many usurpations. But their efforts to abolish these privileges served, for more than two centuries, only to augment and extend them. … Waldemar III., who ascended the Danish throne in 1340, engaged in a furious contest with the League. Success seemed at first rather to incline to his arms. Ultimately, however, he was completely defeated by the forces of the League and its allies, and was even obliged to fly from his kingdom. In his exile he prevailed on the Emperor and the Pope to interpose in his favour. But neither the imperial rescripts nor the thunders of the Vatican were able to divert the confederated cities from their purposes. At length, in 1370, the regents, to whom the government of Denmark had been intrusted during the absence of the monarch, concluded a peace with the League on the conditions dictated by the latter; one of which was that most of the strong places in the kingdom should be given up to the League for fifteen years, in security for the faithful performance of the treaty. Waldemar having assented to these humiliating terms, returned soon after to Denmark. In the early part of the fifteenth century the Hanse towns having espoused the side of the Count of Holstein, who was at war with Eric X., King of Denmark, sent an armament of upwards of 200 ships, having more than 12,000 troops on board, to the assistance of their ally. This powerful aid decided the contest in his favour. Nearly at the same time the League raised their ally, Albert of Mecklenburgh, to the throne of Norway, who confirmed to them several important commercial privileges. {1626} In their contests with Sweden, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the League were equally successful. Such, indeed, was their ascendancy in that kingdom, that they were authorized to nominate some of the principal magistrates in most of the Swedish maritime towns of any importance! … The town of Wisby, situated on the west coast of the island of Gothland, became, during the ascendancy of the League, one of its principal depots, and also one of the best frequented emporiums of the North. But Wisby is chiefly famous from its name having become identified with the code of maritime laws that was long of paramount authority in the Baltic. … The principal Northern jurists and historians regard the Wisby code, or compilation, as anterior to the code, or compilation, denominated the Rules or Judgments of Oleron, and as being in fact the most ancient monument of the maritime laws of the middle ages. But no learning or ingenuity can give plausibility to so improbable a theory. … In order to facilitate and extend their commercial transactions, the League established various factories in foreign countries, the principal of which were at Novogorod in Russia, London in England, Bruges in the Netherlands, and Bergen in Norway. Novogorod, situated at the confluence of the Volkof with the Imler Lake, was, for a lengthened period, the most renowned emporium in the north-eastern parts of Europe. … The merchants of the Hanse towns, or Hansards, as they were then commonly termed, were established in London at a very early period, and their factory here was of considerable magnitude and importance. They enjoyed various privileges and immunities; they were permitted to govern themselves by their own laws and regulations; the custody of one of the gates of the city (Bishopsgate) was committed to their care; and the duties on various sorts of imported commodities were considerably reduced in their favour. These privileges necessarily excited the ill-will and animosity of the English merchants. … The League exerted themselves vigorously in defence of their privileges; and having declared war against England, they succeeded in excluding our vessels from the Baltic, and acted with such energy, that Edward IV. was glad to come to an accommodation with them, on terms which were anything but honourable to the English. In the treaty for this purpose, negotiated in 1474, the privileges of the merchants of the Hanse towns were renewed, and the king assigned to them, in absolute property, a large space of ground, with the buildings upon it, in Thames Street, denominated the Steel Yard, whence the Hanse merchants have been commonly denominated the Association of the Steel Yard. … In 1498, all direct commerce with the Netherlands being suspended, the trade fell into the hands of the Hanse merchants, whose commerce was in consequence very greatly extended. But, according as the spirit of commercial enterprise awakened in the nation, and as the benefits resulting from the prosecution of foreign trade came to be better known, the privileges of the Hanse merchants became more and more obnoxious. They were in consequence considerably modified in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., and were at length wholly abolished in 1597. The different individuals belonging to the factory in London, as well as those belonging to the other factories of the League, lived together at a common table, and were enjoined to observe the strictest celibacy. … By means of their factory at Bergen, and of the privileges which had been either granted to or usurped by them, the League enjoyed for a lengthened period the monopoly of the commerce of Norway. But the principal factory of the League was at Bruges in the Netherlands. Bruges became, at a very early period, one of the first commercial cities of Europe, and the centre of the most extensive trade carried on to the north of Italy. The art of navigation in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was so imperfect, that a voyage from Italy to the Baltic and back again could not be performed in a single season, and hence, for the sake of their mutual convenience, the Italian and Hanseatic merchants determined on establishing a magazine or store-house of their respective products in some intermediate situation. Bruges was fixed upon for this purpose, a distinction which it seems to have owed as much to the freedom enjoyed by the inhabitants, and the liberality of the government of the Low Countries, as to the conveniency of its situation. In consequence of this preference, Bruges speedily rose to the very highest rank among commercial cities, and became a place of vast wealth. … From the middle of the fifteenth century the power of the confederacy, though still very formidable, began to decline. This was not owing to any misconduct on the part of its leaders, but to the progress of that improvement it had done so much to promote. … Lubeck, Hamburgh, Bremen, and the towns in their vicinity, were latterly the only ones that had any interest in its maintenance. The cities in Zealand and Holland joined it, chiefly because they would otherwise have been excluded from the commerce of the Baltic; and those of Prussia, Poland and Russia did the same, because, had they not belonged to it, they would have been shut out from all intercourse with strangers. When, however, the Zealanders and Hollanders became sufficiently powerful at sea to be able to vindicate their right to the free navigation of the Baltic by force of arms, they immediately seceded from the League; and no sooner had the ships of the Dutch, the English, etc., begun to trade directly with the Polish and Prussian Hanse Towns, than these nations also embraced the first opportunity of withdrawing from it. … At the middle of the seventeenth century the cities of Lubeck, Hamburgh, and Bremen were all that continued to acknowledge the authority of the League."

History of the Hanseatic League (Foreign Quarterly Review, January, 1831).

ALSO IN: S. A. Dunham, History of the Germanic Empire, book 1, chapter 4 (volume 2).

C. Walford, Outline History of the Hanseatic League (Royal Historical Society Transactions, volume 9).

H. Zimmern, The Hansa Towns (Stories of the Nations).

J. Yeats, The Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce.

See, also, CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY; and SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1018-1397.

HANSE OF LONDON, The Flemish.

See FLANDERS: 13TH CENTURY.

HANSEATIC LEAGUE.

See HANSA TOWNS.

HAOMA.

See SOMA.

HAPSBURG, OR HABSBURG, Origin and rise of the House of.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.

{1627}

HAPSBURG-LORRAINE, The House of.

See AUSTRIA; A. D. 1745 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

HARALD IV., King of Norway, A. D. 1134-1136.

Harald Blaatand, King of Denmark, 941-991.

Harald Graafield, King of Norway, 963-977.

Harald Hardrade, King of Norway, 1047-1066.

Harald Harfager, King of Norway, 863-934.

Harald Sweynson, King of Denmark, 1076-1080.

HARAN.

"From Ur, Abraham's father had migrated to Haran, in the northern part of Mesopotamia, on the high road which led from Babylonia and Assyria into Syria and Palestine. Why he should have migrated to so distant a city has been a great puzzle, and has tempted scholars to place both Ur and Haran in wrong localities; but here, again, the cuneiform inscriptions have at last furnished us with the key. As far back as the Accadian epoch, the district in which Haran was built belonged to the rulers of Babylonia; Haran was, in fact, the frontier town of the empire, commanding at once the highway into the west and the fords of the Euphrates; the name itself was an Accadian one, signifying 'the road.'"

A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 2.

The site of Haran is generally identified with that of the later city of Carrhæ.

HARD-SHELL DEMOCRATS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845-1846.

HARDENBURG'S REFORM MEASURES IN PRUSSIA.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1807-1808.

HARDICANUTE, OR HARTHACNUT, King of Denmark, A. D. 1035-1042; King of England, A. D. 1040-1042.

HARDINGE, Lord, The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

HARFLEUR. Capture by Henry V.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1415.

HARGREAVE'S SPINNING-JENNY, Invention of.

See COTTON MANUFACTURE.

HARII, OR ARII, The.

See LYGIANS.

HARLAW, Battle of (1411).

A very memorable battle in Scottish history, fought July 24, 1411, between the Highlanders and Lowlanders of the country. Donald, Lord of the Isles, was then practically an independent sovereign of the western Highlands of Scotland, as well as the islands opposite their shore. He claimed still larger domains and invaded the lowland districts to make his claim good. The defeat inflicted upon him, at heavy cost to the victors, was felt, says Mr. Benton in his "History of Scotland," as a more memorable deliverance even than that of Bannockburn. The independence of the Lord of the Isle was not extinguished until sixty years later. "The battle of Harlaw and its consequences were of the highest importance, since they might be said to decide the superiority of the more civilized regions of Scotland over those inhabited by the Celtic tribes, who remained almost as savage as their forefathers the Dalriads."

Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, chapter 17.

HARLEM.

See HAARLEM.

HARMAR'S EXPEDITION AGAINST THE INDIANS.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1790-1795.

HARMOSTS.

See SPARTA: B. C. 404-403.

HAROLD (the Dane), King of England, A. D. 1037-1040. Harold (the Saxon), King of England, 1066.

HAROUN AL RASCHID, Caliph, A. D. 786-809.

----------HARPER'S FERRY: Start--------

HARPER'S FERRY: A. D. 1859. John Brown's invasion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1859.

HARPER'S FERRY: A. D. 1861 (April). Arsenal destroyed and abandoned by the Federal garrison. Occupied by the Rebels.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL).

HARPER'S FERRY: A. D. 1862. Capture by the Confederates.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER: MARYLAND).

----------HARPER'S FERRY: End--------

HARRISON, General Benjamin, Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1888, to 1892.

HARRISON, General William Henry: Indian campaign and battle of Tippecanoe.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1811.

In the War of 1812.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

Presidency for one month. Death.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840.

HARRISON'S LANDING, The Army of the Potomac at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA), and (JULY-AUGUST: VIRGINIA).

HARROW SCHOOL.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.-ENGLAND.

----------HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: Start--------

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1634-1637. The beginnings of the city.

See CONNECTICUT; A. D. 1631; and 1634-1637.

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1650. The Treaty with the Dutch of New Netherland.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1650.

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1687. The hiding of the Charter.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1685-1687.

----------HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT: End--------

HARTFORD CONVENTION, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER).

HARTHACNUT.

See HARDICANUTE.

HARUSPICES, The.

"The haruspices, nearly related to the augures, were of Etruscan origin. Under the [Roman] Republic they were consulted only in a few individual cases: under the emperors they gained more importance, remaining, however, inferior to the other priestly colleges. They also expounded and procured lightnings and 'prodigies,' and moreover examined the intestines of sacrificed animals. … Heart, liver and lungs were carefully examined, every anomaly being explained in a favourable or unfavourable sense."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 103.

HARVARD ANNEX.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1804-1891.

HARVARD COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1635, and 1636.

HASHEM, Caliph: A. D. 724-743.

HASMONEANS, OR ASMONEANS.

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.

HASSAN, Caliph: A. D. 661.

HASSIDIN, The.

A sect of Jewish mystics which rose during the 17th century in Podolia, Wallachia, Moldavia, Hungary and neighboring regions.

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, volume 3, book 28.

HASTATI.

See LEGION, ROMAN.

HASTENBACK, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER).

{1628}

HASTING, The Northman.

See Normans: A. D. 849-860.

HASTINGS, Marquis of (Lord Moira). The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

HASTINGS, Warren: His administration in India. His impeachment and Trial.

See INDIA: A. D. 1773-1785; and 1785-1795.

HASTINGS, OR SENLAC, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1066 (OCTOBER).

HATFIELD CHASE. A vast swamp in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, 180,000 acres in extent, which was sold by the crown in the reign of Charles I. to a Hollander who drained and reclaimed it. It had been a forest in early times and was the scene of a great battle between Penda, King of Mercia, and Edwin of Northumberland.

J. C. Brown, Forests of England, part 1, chapter. 2, section 2.

HATRA.

"Hatra [in central Mesopotamia] became known as a place of importance in the early part of the second century after Christ. It successfully resisted Trajan in A. D. 116, and Severus in A. D. 198. It is then described as a large and populous city, defended by strong and extensive walls, and containing within it a temple of the Sun, celebrated for the great value of its offerings. It enjoyed its own kings at this time, who were regarded as of Arabian stock, and were among the more important of the Parthian tributary monarchs. By the year A. D. 363 Hatra had gone to ruin, and is then described as 'long since deserted.' Its flourishing period thus belongs to the space between A. D. 100 and A. D. 300." The ruins of Hatra, now called El-Hadhr, were "visited by Mr. Layard in 1846, and described at length by Mr. Ross in the ninth volume of the 'Journal of the Royal Geographical Society,' as well as by Mr. Fergusson, in his 'History of Architecture.'"

G. Rawlinson, Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 22.

HATS AND CAPS, Parties of the.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1720-1792.

HATTERAS EXPEDITION, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (AUGUST: NORTH CAROLINA).

HATUNTAQUI, Battle of.

See ECUADOR: THE ABORIGINAL KINGDOM.

HAVANA.

See CUBA: A. D.1514-1851.

HAVELOCK'S CAMPAIGN IN INDIA.

See INDIA: A. D. 1857-1858.

HAVRE: A. D. 1563-1564. Occupation by the English. Siege and recovery by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1564.

HAWAIIAN ISLANDS, The.

The Hawaiian or Sandwich Archipelago, in the North Pacific ocean, "consists of the seven large and inhabited volcanic islands of Oahu, Kauai, Niihau, Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Hawaii, and the four bare and rocky islets of Kaula, Lehua, Kahoolawe, and Molokini, with a total area of 8,000 square miles, and a population of scarcely more than 50,000 souls. … The Kanakas, as the natives are called, are amongst the finest and most intelligent races of the Pacific, and have become thoroughly 'Europeanised,' or, perhaps rather, 'Americanised.' … The Hawaiians, like all other Polynesians, are visibly decreasing in a constantly increasing ratio."

Stanford's Compendium of Geography: Australasia, chapter 24.

"Gaetano discovered one of the Sandwich [Hawaiian] Islands in 1542; and, following him, Quiros found Tahiti and the New Hebrides. Sea voyages in the Pacific multiplied, but that sea long continued the exclusive theatre of the enterprises of the Spaniards and Portuguese. … Native traditions refer to the arrival of strangers a long time before Cook's appearance. In the seventeenth century Spanish merchantmen were crossing the Pacific, and might have refreshed at these islands. The buccaneers, too, may have found the small harbour a convenient place of concealment."

M. Hopkins, Hawaii: The Past, Present and Future of the Island Kingdom, pages 83, 87.

"It is about a century since His Majesty's ships 'Resolution' and 'Adventure,' Captains Cook and Clerke, turned back from Behring Strait after an unsuccessful attempt to discover the North-West Passage. But the adventurers were destined to light upon fairer lands than those which they had failed to find. On the 18th of January, 1778, whilst sailing through the Pacific, the look-out man reported land ahead, and in the evening they anchored on the shores of that lovely group of twelve islands, which they named in honour of the then First Lord of the Admiralty—Lord Sandwich—better known to the satirists of his day as 'Jemmy Tickler,' one of the greatest of statesmen and most abandoned of men. The natives received the strangers gladly; but on the 14th of February, 1779, in an altercation consequent on the theft of a boat, Captain Cook was killed in Kealakcakua or Karakakoa Bay, in the Island of Hawaii, or Owhyhee, from which the official name of the country—the kingdom of Hawaii—takes its name."

R. Brown, The Countries of the World, volume 4, page 22.

The several islands of the Hawaiian group were politically independent of each other and ruled by different chiefs at the time of Captain Cook's visit; but a few years later a chief named Kaméhaméha, of remarkable qualities and capabilities, succeeded to the sovereignty in the Island of Hawaii, and made himself master in time of the whole group. Dying in 1819, he left a consolidated kingdom to his son Liholiho, or Kaméhaméha II., in whose reign "tabu" and idolatry were abolished and Christian missionaries began their labors. The dynasty founded by Kaméhaméha held the throne until 1872. In 1840 a constitution was proclaimed, which created a legislative body, composed of hereditary nobles and seven representatives informally elected by the people. In 1842 the United States, by an official letter from Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, "recognized the independence of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and declared, 'as the sense of the government of the United States, that the government of the Sandwich Islands ought to be respected; that no power ought to take possession of the islands, either as a conquest or for the purpose of colonization; and that no power ought to seek for any undue control over the existing government, or any exclusive privileges or preferences in matters of commerce.'" The following year, France and England formally recognized "the existence in the Sandwich Islands of a government capable of providing for the regularity of its relations with foreign nations," and agreed "never to take possession, either directly or under the title of a protectorate, or under any other form, of any part of the territory of which they are composed." In 1852 the constitution was revised. The legislature, formerly sitting in one body, was now divided into two houses and both enlarged. {1629} In 1864, however, King Kaméhaméha V. forced the adoption of a new constitution which reversed this bicameral arrangement and restored the single chamber. A double qualification of the suffrage, by property and by education, was also introduced. With the death of Kaméhaméha V., in 1872, his line ended. His successor, Lunalilo, was elected by the legislature, and the choice ratified by a popular vote. The reign of Lunalilo lasted but two years. His successor, David Kalakaua, was raised to the throne by election. In the year after his accession, Kalakaua visited the United States, and soon afterwards, in 1875, a treaty of reciprocity between the two countries was negotiated. This was renewed and enlarged in 1887. In 1881 the King made a tour of the world. In the fall of 1890 he came to California for his health; in January, 1891, he died at San Francisco. His sister, Liliuokulani, widow of an American resident, succeeded him.

W. D. Alexander, Brief History of the Hawaiian People.

In 1887 a new constitution had been adopted. "This new constitution was not framed by the king but by the people through their own appointed citizens and members of the courts. The legislative powers of the crown which had been abridged by the constitution of 1864 were now entirely removed and vested in the representatives of the people. By this the crown became an executive. In addition to this provision there was one making the ministry a responsible body and depriving the king of the right to nominate members of the house of nobles. … The legislature consists of a House of Nobles composed of twenty-four members, who are elected for a term of six years, and a House of Representatives consisting of from twenty-four to forty-two members elected for two years. The Houses sit in joint session. In addition to these public officers there is a cabinet composed of four ministers appointed by the sovereign holding executive power and who may be removed upon sufficient cause by the legislature. Such was the form of government in vogue up to the time of the recent revolution which has excited the interest of the American government. On the 15th of January (1893) … Queen Liliuokalani made the attempt to promulgate a new constitution, obviously for the purpose of increasing her power in the government. It has been hinted that the queen desired to benefit in a pecuniary way by granting concessions for the establishment of a lottery, and the importation of opium into the kingdom, both of which had until a year ago been prohibited. It is best, however, to adhere to fact. The queen desired more power. This new constitution, as framed by her, deprived foreigners of the right of franchise, abrogated the House of Nobles, and gave to the queen herself the power to appoint a new House. This blow aimed directly at the foreigners, who are the largest property holders in the kingdom, stirred them to prompt action. The queen's own ministry were unsuccessful in their efforts to dissuade her from the attempt to put the new constitution into effect. The resolve was not to be shaken, however, and her determination to carry out her plan incited the people, chiefly the foreigners, to oppose the measure. The outcome was a revolution in which not a single life was sacrificed."

A. A. Black, The Hawaiian Islands (Chautauquan, April, 1893, pages 54-57).

A provisional government set up by the revolutionists was immediately recognized by the United States Minister, Mr. Stevens, and commissioners were sent to Washington to apply for the annexation of the islands to the United States. On the 16th of February, 1893, the President of the United States, Mr. Harrison, sent a message to the Senate, submitting an annexation treaty and recommending its ratification. Meantime, at Honolulu, on the 9th of February, the United States Minister, acting without instructions, had established a protectorate over the Hawaiian Islands, in the name of the United States. On the 4th of March, a change in the Presidency of the United States occurred, Mr. Cleveland succeeding Mr. Harrison. One of the earliest acts of President Cleveland was to send a message to the Senate, withdrawing the annexation treaty of his predecessor. A commissioner, Mr. Blount, was then sent to the Hawaiian Islands to examine and report upon the circumstances attending the change of government. On the 18th of the following December the report of Commissioner Blount was sent to Congress, with an accompanying message from the President, in which latter paper the facts set forth by the Commissioner, and the conclusions reached and action taken by the United States Government, were summarized partly as follows: "On Saturday, January 14, 1893, the Queen of Hawaii, who had been contemplating the proclamation of a new constitution, had, in deference to the wishes and remonstrances of her Cabinet, renounced it for the present at least. Taking this relinquished purpose as a basis of action, citizens of Honolulu, numbering from fifty to one hundred, mostly resident aliens, met in a private room and selected a so-culled committee of safety composed of thirteen persons, nine of whom were foreign subjects, and composed of seven Americans, one Englishman, and one German. This committee, though its designs were not revealed, had in view nothing less than annexation to the United States, and between Saturday, the 14th, and the following Sunday, the 18th of January—though exactly what action was taken may never be revealed—they were certainly in communication with the United States Minister. On Monday morning the Queen and her Cabinet made public proclamation, with a notice which was specially served upon the representatives of all foreign governments, that any changes in the constitution would be sought only in the methods provided by that instrument. Nevertheless, at the call and under the auspices of the committee of safety, a mass meeting of citizens was held on that day to protest against the Queen's alleged illegal and unlawful proceedings and purpose. Even at this meeting the committee of safety continued to disguise their real purpose and contented themselves with procuring the passage of a resolution denouncing the Queen and empowering the committee to devise ways and means 'to secure the permanent maintenance of law and order and the protection of life, liberty, and property in Hawaii.' This meeting adjourned between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. On the same day, and immediately after such adjournment, the committee, unwilling to take further steps without the co-operation of the United States Minister, addressed him a note representing that the public safety was menaced and that lives and property were in danger, and concluded as follows: 'We are unable to protect ourselves without aid, and therefore pray for the protection of the United States forces.' {1630} Whatever may be thought of the other contents of this note, the absolute truth of this latter statement is incontestable. When the note was written and delivered, the committee, so far as it appears, had neither a man nor a gun at their command, and after its delivery they became so panic-stricken at their position that they sent some of their number to interview the Minister and request him not to land the United States forces till the next morning, but he replied the troops had been ordered and whether the committee were ready or not the landing should take place. And so it happened that on the 16th day of January, 1893, between 4 and 5 o'clock in the afternoon, a detachment of marines from the United States steamship Boston, with two pieces of artillery, landed at Honolulu. The men, upwards of one hundred and sixty in all, were supplied with double cartridge belts, filled with ammunition, and with haversacks and canteens, and were accompanied by a hospital corps with stretchers and medical supplies. This military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war, unless made either with the consent of the Government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperilled lives and property of the citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the Government of Hawaii, which at that time was undisputed, and was both the de facto and the de jure Government. In point of fact the Government, instead of requesting the presence of an armed force, protested against it. There is little basis for the pretense that such forces landed for the security of American life and property. … When these armed men were landed the city of Honolulu was in its customary orderly and peaceful condition. There was no symptom of riot or disturbance in any quarter. … Thus it appears that Hawaii was taken possession of by the United States forces without the consent or wish of the Government of the Islands, or anybody else so far as known, except the United States Minister. Therefore, the military occupation of Honolulu by the United States on the day mentioned was wholly without satisfaction, either as an occupation by consent or as an occupation necessitated by dangers threatening American life and property. It must be accounted for in some other way and on some other ground, and its real motive and purpose are neither obscure nor far to seek. The United States forces being now on the scene and favorably stationed, the committee proceeded to carry out their original scheme. They met the next morning, Tuesday, the 17th, perfected the plan of temporary government and fixed upon its principal officers, who were drawn from 13 members of the committee of safety. Between 1 and 2 o'clock, by squads and by different routes to avoid notice, and having first taken the precaution of ascertaining whether there was anyone there to oppose them, they proceeded to the Government building to proclaim the new Government. No sign of opposition was manifest, and thereupon an American citizen began to read the proclamation from the steps of the Government Building almost entirely without auditors. It is said that before the reading was finished quite a concourse of persons, variously estimated at from 50 to 100, some armed and some unarmed, gathered about the committee to give them aid and confidence. This statement is not important, since the one controlling factor in the whole affair was unquestionably the United States marines, who, drawn up under arms with artillery in readiness only 76 yards distant, dominated the situation. The Provisional Government thus proclaimed was by the terms of the proclamation 'to exist until terms of the Union with the United States had been negotiated and agreed upon.' The United States Minister, pursuant to prior agreement, recognized this Government within an hour after the reading of the proclamation, and before 5 o'clock, in answer to an inquiry on behalf of the Queen and her Cabinet, announced that he had done so. … Some hours after the recognition of the Provisional Government by the United States Minister, the barracks and the police station, with all the military resources of the country, were delivered up by the Queen upon the representation made to her that her cause would thereafter be reviewed at Washington, and while protesting that she surrendered to the superior force of the United States, whose Minister had caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the Provisional Government, and that she yielded her authority to prevent collision of armed forces and loss of life, and only until such time as the United States, upon the facts being presented to it, should undo the action of its representative and reinstate her in the authority she claimed as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands. This protest was delivered to the chief of the Provisional Government, who indorsed it in his acknowledgment of its receipt. … As I apprehend the situation, we are brought face to face with the fact that the lawful government of Hawaii was overthrown without the drawing of a sword or the firing of a shot, by a process every step of which, it may safely be asserted, is directly traceable to and dependent for its success upon the agency of the United States acting through its diplomatic and naval representatives. … Believing, therefore, that the United States could not, under the circumstances disclosed, annex the islands without justly incurring the imputation of acquiring them by unjustifiable methods, I shall not again submit the treaty of annexation to the Senate for its consideration, and in the instructions to Minister Willis, a copy of which accompanies this message, I have directed him to so inform the Provisional Government. But in the present instance our duty does not, in my opinion, end with refusing to consummate this questionable transaction. … I mistake the American people if they favor the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as international morality; that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one; and that even by indirection a strong power may, with impunity, despoil a weak one of its territory. … The Queen surrendered, not to the Provisional Government, but to the United States. She surrendered not absolutely and permanently, but temporarily and conditionally until such facts could be considered by the United States. … {1631} In view of the fact that both the Queen and the Provisional Government had at one time apparently acquiesced in a reference of the entire case to the United States Government, and considering the further fact that, in any event, the Provisional Government, by its own declared limitation, was only 'to exist until terms of union with the United States of America have been negotiated and agreed upon,' I hoped that after the assurance to the members of that Government that such union could not be consummated, I might compass a peaceful adjustment of the difficulty. Actuated by these desires and purposes, and not unmindful of the inherent perplexities of the situation nor limitations upon my part, I instructed Mr. Willis to advise the Queen and her supporters of my desire to aid in the restoration of the status existing before the lawless landing of the United States forces at Honolulu on the 17th of January last, if such restoration could be effected upon terms providing for clemency as well as justice to all parties concerned. The conditions suggested contemplated a general amnesty to those concerned in setting up the Provisional Government and a recognition of all the bona fide acts and obligations. In short, they require that the past should be buried, and that the restored Government should reassume its authority as if its continuity had not been interrupted. These conditions have not proved acceptable to the Queen, and though she has been informed that they will be insisted upon, and that unless acceded to the effort of the President to aid in the restoration of her Government will cease, I have not thus far learned that she is willing to yield them her acquiescence." The refusal of the Queen to consent to a general amnesty forbade further thought of her restoration; while the project of annexation to the United States was extinguished for the time by the just action of President Cleveland, sustained by the Senate. The unauthorized protectorate assumed by Minister Stevens having been withdrawn, the Provisional government remains (March, 1894) in control of the Government of the Hawaiian Islands, and a republican constitution is said to be in preparation.

HAWKINS' FIRST THREE VOYAGES.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1562-1567.

HAWKWOOD, Sir John, The Free Company of.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.

HAWLEY, Jesse, and the origin of the Erie Canal.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825.

HAYES, General Rutherford B., Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1876-1877, to 1881.

HAYNE AND WEBSTER DEBATE, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828-1833.

----------HAYTI: Start--------

HAYTI, HAITI, OR SAN DOMINGO (Originally called Hispaniola): Its names. Its beauty.

"Columbus called the island Hispaniola, and it has also been called St. Domingo from the city of that name on its southeastern coast; but Hayti or Haiti (the mountainous country) was its original Carrib name. The French bestowed upon it the deserved name of 'la Reine des Antilles.' All descriptions of its magnificence and beauty, even those of 'Washington Irving in his history of Columbus, fall far short of the reality. It seems beyond the power of language to exaggerate its beauties, its productiveness, the loveliness of its climate, and its desirableness as an abode for man. Columbus labored hard to prove to Isabella that he had found here the original garden of Eden."

W. H. Pearson, Hayti and the Haitians (Putnam's Monthly Magazine, January, 1854).

HAYTI: A. D. 1492-1505. Discovery and occupation by Columbus.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492; 1493-1496; and 1498-1505.

HAYTI: A. D. 1499-1542. The enslavement of the natives. System of Repartimentos and Encomiendas. Introduction of negro slavery. Humane and reforming labors of Las Casas.

See SLAVERY, MODERN: OF THE INDIANS, and SLAVERY, NEGRO: ITS BEGINNINGS.

HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803. Partly possessed France and partly by Spain. Revolt of the Slaves and rise of Toussaint L'Ouverture to power. Extinction of Slavery. Treachery of the French. Independence of the island acquired.

"About 1632 the French took possession of the western shore, and increased so rapidly that the Spaniards found it impossible to drive them out; and the footing they had gained was recognized by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, when the western portion of Haiti was confirmed to France. The latter nation was fully conscious of the importance of the new acquirement, and under French rule it became of great value, supplying almost all Europe with cotton and sugar. But the larger eastern portion of the island, which still belonged to Spain, had no share in this progress, remaining much in the same condition as formerly; and thus matters stood—a sluggish community side by side with a thriving one—when the French Revolution broke out, and plunged the island into a state of ferment. In 1790 the population of the western colony consisted of half a million, of which number 38,360 were of European origin, 28,370 free people of colour, and the whole of the remainder negro slaves. The government of the island excluded the free people of colour—mostly mulattoes—from all political privileges, although they were in many cases well-educated men, and themselves the owners of large estates. … On the 15th May, 1790, the French National Assembly passed a decree declaring that people of colour, born of free parents, were entitled to all the privileges of French citizens. When this news reached the colony, it set the inhabitants in a perfect frenzy, the mulattoes manifesting an unbounded joy, whilst the whites boiled at the indignity their class had sustained. The representations of the latter caused the governor to delay the operation of the decree until the home government could be communicated with—a measure that aroused the greatest indignation amongst the mulattoes, and civil war appeared inevitable, when a third and wholly unexpected party stepped into the arena. The slaves rose in insurrection on August 23rd, 1791, marching with the body of a white infant on a spear-head as a standard, and murdering all Europeans indiscriminately. In the utmost consternation the whites conceded the required terms to the mulattoes, and, together with the help of the military, the rising was suppressed, and there seemed a prospect of peace, when the Assembly at Paris repealed the decree of the 15th May. The mulattoes now flew to arms, and for several years a terrible struggle was sustained, the horrors of which were augmented by vindictive ferocity on both sides. Commissioners sent from France could effect no settlement, for the camp of the whites was divided into two hostile sections, royalist and republican. {1632} The English and Spaniards both descended on the island, and the blacks, under able chiefs, held impregnable positions in the mountains. Apprehensive of a British invasion in force, the Commissioners, finding they could not conquer the blacks, resolved on conciliating them; and in August, 1793, universal freedom was proclaimed—a measure ratified by the National Convention early in the following year. Meanwhile the English had taken Port-au-Prince, and were besieging the French governor in Port de la Paix, when the blacks, relying on the recent proclamation, came to his assistance, under the command of Toussaint L'Ouverture, and effected his release. … François Dominique Toussaint, a negro of pure blood, a slave and the offspring of slaves, was born in 1743, and on attaining manhood was first employed as a coachman, and afterwards held a post of trust in connexion with the sugar manufactory of the estate to which he belonged. The overseer having taken a fancy to him, he was taught to read and write, and even picked up some slight knowledge of Latin and mathematics." He was slow to join the rising of the blacks; "but at length, after having secured the escape of his master and family, he joined the negro army in a medical capacity," but quickly rose to leadership. "At first the blacks fought with the Spaniards against the French;" but Toussaint came to the conclusion that they had more to hope from the French, and persuaded his followers to march to the relief of the French governor, Levaux. When the latter heard that Toussaint had won the blacks to this alliance, he exclaimed, "'Mais cet homme fait ouverture partout,' and from that day the black commander-in-chief received the surname of L'Ouverture, by which he is best known in history. Acting with wonderful energy, Toussaint effected a junction with Levaux, drove the English from their positions, took 28 Spanish batteries in four days, and finally the British abandoned the island, whilst the Spaniards [1797] gave up all claim to its western end. Toussaint L'Ouverture—now holding the position of commander-in-chief, but virtually dictator—succeeded with great skill in combining all the hostile elements of the colony. Peace was restored, commerce and agriculture revived, the whites were encouraged to reclaim their estates, and by a variety of prudent and temperate measures Toussaint showed the remarkable administrative abilities that he possessed. At this stage he assumed great state in public, being always guarded by a chosen body of 1,500 men in brilliant uniform, but in private life he was frugal and moderate. In the administration of affairs he was assisted by a council of nine, of whom eight were white planters. This body drew up a Constitution by which L'Ouverture was named president for life, and free trade established. The draft of this constitution, together with an autograph letter, he forwarded to Bonaparte; but the First Consul had no toleration for fellow-upstarts, and replied, 'He is a revolted slave whom we must punish; the honour of France is outraged.' At this time the whole island of Haiti was under Toussaint's sway. As some excuse for Bonaparte it must be acknowledged that Toussaint undoubtedly contemplated independence. … Anxious to divest his new presidency of even nominal subjection to France, he declared the independence of the island, with himself as supreme chief, in July 1801. Most unfortunately for the Haitian general, hostilities had for the moment ceased between Great Britain and France, and the First Consul was enabled to bestow his close attention on the former French colony. Determined to repossess it, Bonaparte sent out an army of 30,000 men, with 66 ships of war, under the command of his brother-in-law General Leclerc. … During Toussaint's presidency he had abolished slavery, the negroes still working the plantations, but as free men, and under the name of 'cultivators.' … Leclerc now endeavoured by proclamations to turn the cultivators against their chief, and also laboured to sow dissension in the ranks of the black army, by making the officers tempting offers, which they too often believed in and accepted. For months a bloody war raged, in which great cruelties were inflicted; but the discipline of the French was slowly telling in their favour, when Leclerc made a political blunder that destroyed the advantages he had gained. Thinking that all obstacles were overcome, he threw off the mask, and boldly declared the real object of the expedition—the re-enslavement of the negro population. This news fell like a thunderbolt amongst the blacks, who rallied round Toussaint in thousands." Alarmed at the effect, Leclerc recalled his proclamation, acknowledged it to be an error, and promised the summoning of an assembly representative of all races alike. "This specious programme won over Cristophe, Dessalines, and other negro generals; and finally, on receiving solemn assurances from Leclerc, Toussaint accepted his offers, and peace was concluded." Soon afterwards, by an act of the blackest treachery, the negro statesman and soldier was lured into the hands of his mean enemy, and sent, a prisoner, to France. Confined, without trial, or any hearing, in the dungeons of the Château Joux, in the department of Doubs, he was there allowed to pine away, without warm clothing and with insufficient food. … Finally the governor of the prison went away for four days, leaving his captive without food or drink. On his return Toussaint was dead, and the rats had gnawed his feet. It was given out that apoplexy was the cause of death. … This breach of faith on the part of the French aroused the fury and indignation of the blacks. … Under Dessalines, Cristophe, Clerveaux, and others, the fires of insurrection blazed out afresh." At the same time yellow fever raged and Leclerc was among the victims. General Rochambeau, who succeeded him, continued the war with unmeasured barbarity, but also with continued defeat and discouragement, until he was driven, in 1803, to surrender, and "the power of the French was lost on the island."

C. H. Eden, The West Indies, chapter 13.

Toussaint L'Ouverture: A Biography. (by J. R. Beard) and an Autobiography.

ALSO IN: H. Martineau, The Hour and the Man.

J. Brown, History of St. Domingo.

H. Adams, Historical Essays, chapter 4.

HAYTI: A. D. 1639-1700. The Buccaneers.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1639-1700.

{1633}

HAYTI: A. D. 1804-1880. Massacre of whites. The Empire of Dessalines. The kingdom of Christophe. The Republic of Pétion and Boyer. Separation of the independent Republic of San Domingo. The Empire of Soulouque. The restored Republic of Hayti.

"In the beginning of 1804 the independence of the negroes under Dessalines was sufficiently assured: but they were not satisfied until they had completed a general massacre of nearly the whole of the whites, including aged men, women and children, who remained in the island, numbering, according to the lowest estimate, 2,500 souls. Thus did Dessalines, in his own savage words, render war for war, crime for crime, and outrage for outrage, to the European cannibals who had so long preyed upon his unhappy race. The negroes declared Dessalines Emperor: and in October 1804 he was crowned at Port-au-Prince by the title of James I. Dessalines was at once a brave man and a cruel and avaricious tyrant. He acquired great influence over the negroes, who long remembered him with affectionate regret: but he was not warmly supported by the mulattoes, who were by far the most intelligent of the Haytians. He abolished the militia, and set up a standing army of 40,000 men, whom he found himself unable to pay, from the universal ruin which had overtaken the island. The plantation labourers refused to work. … Dessalines authorised the landowners to flog them. Dessalines was himself a large planter: he had 32 large plantations of his own at work, and he forced his labourers to work on them at the point of the bayonet. Both he and his successor, Christophe, like Mahomed Ali in Egypt, grew rich by being the chief merchants in their own dominions. … He failed in an expedition against St. Domingo, the Spanish part of the island, whence the French general Ferrand still threatened him: and at length some sanguinary acts of tyranny roused against him an insurrection headed by his old comrade Christophe. The insurgents marched on Port-au-Prince, and the first black Emperor was shot by an ambuscade at the Pont Rouge outside the town. The death of Dessalines delivered up Hayti once more to the horrors of civil war. The negroes and mulattoes, who had joined cordially enough to exterminate their common enemies, would no longer hold together; and ever since the death of Dessalines their jealousies and differences have been a source of weakness in the black republic. In the old times, Hayti, as the French part of the island of Española was henceforth called, had been divided into three provinces: South, East, and North. After the death of Dessalines each of these provinces became for a time a separate state. Christophe wished to maintain the unlimited imperialism which Dessalines had set up: but the Constituent Assembly, which he summoned at Port-au-Prince in 1806, had other views. They resolved upon a Republican constitution." Christophe, not contented with the offered presidency, "collected an army with the view of dispersing the Constituent Assembly: but they collected one of their own, under Pétion, and forced him to retire from the capital. Christophe maintained himself in Cap François, or, as it is now called, Cap Haytien; and here he ruled for 14 years. In 1811, despising the imperial title which Dessalines had desecrated, he took the royal style by the name of Henry I. Christophe, as a man, was nearly as great a monster as Dessalines. … Yet Christophe at his best was a man capable of great aims, and a sagacious and energetic ruler." In 1820, finding himself deserted in the face of a mulatto insurrection, he committed suicide. "In a month or two after Christophe's suicide the whole island was united under the rule of President Boyer." Boyer was the successor of Pétion, who had been elected in the North, under the republican constitution which Christophe refused submission to. Pétion, "a mulatto of the best type," educated at the military academy of Paris, and full of European ideas, had ruled the province which he controlled ably and well for eleven years. In discouragement he then took his own life, and was succeeded, in 1818, by his lieutenant, Jean Pierre Boyer, a mulatto. "On the suicide of Christophe, the army of the Northern Province, weary of the tyranny of one of their own race, declared for Boyer. The French part of the island was now once more under a single government: and Boyer turned his attention to the much larger Spanish territory, with the old capital of St. Domingo, where a Spaniard named Muñez de Caceres, with the aid of the negroes, had now followed the example in the West, and proclaimed an independent government. The Dominicans, however, were still afraid of Spain, and were glad to put themselves under the wing of Hayti: Boyer was not unwilling to take possession of the Spanish colony, and thus it happened that in 1822 he united the whole island under his Presidency. In the same year he was elected President for life under the constitution of Pétion, whose general policy he maintained: but his government, especially in his later years, was almost as despotic as that of Christophe. Boyer was the first Haytian who united the blacks and mulattoes under his rule. It was mainly through confidence in him that the government of Hayti won the recognition of the European powers. … In 1825 its independence was formally recognised by France, on a compensation of 150,000,000 of francs being guaranteed to the exiled planters and to the home government. This vast sum was afterwards reduced: but it still weighed heavily on the impoverished state, and the discontents which the necessary taxation produced led to Boyer's downfall," in 1843, when he withdrew to Jamaica, and afterwards to Paris, where he died in 1850. A singular state of affairs ensued. The eastern, or Spanish, part of the island resumed its independence (1844), under a republican constitution resembling that of Venezuela, and with Pedro Santana for its President, and has been known since that time as the Republic of San Domingo, or the Dominican Republic. In the Western, or Haytian Republic, large numbers of the negroes, "under the names of Piquets and Zinglins, now formed themselves into armed bands, and sought to obtain a general division of property under some communistic monarch of their own race. The mulatto officials now cajoled the poor negroes by bribing some old negro, whose name was well known to the mass of the people as one of the heroes of the war of liberty, to allow himself to be set up as President. The Boyerists, as the mulatto oligarchy were called, thus succeeded in re-establishing their power," and their system (for describing which the word "gerontocracy" has been invented) was carried on for some years, until it resulted, in 1847, in the election to the Presidency of General Faustin Soulouque. "Soulouque was an illiterate negro whose recommendations to power were that he was old enough to have taken part in the War of Independence, having been a lieutenant under Pétion, and that he was popular with the negroes, being devotedly attached to the strange mixture of freemasonry and fetish worship by which the Haytian blacks maintain their political organisation." {1634} The new President took his elevation more seriously than was expected, and proved to be more than a match for the mulattoes who thought to make him their puppet. He gathered the reins into his own hands, and crushed the mulattoes at Port-au-Prince by a general massacre. He then "caused himself to be proclaimed Emperor, by the title of Faustinus the First (1849)," and established a grotesque imperial court, with a fantastic nobility, in which a Duke de Lemonade figured by the side of a Prince Tape-à-l'œil. This lasted until December 1858, when Soulouque was dethroned and sent out of the country, to take refuge in Jamaica, and the republic was restored, with Fabre Nicholas Geffrard, a mulatto general, at its head. Geffrard held the Presidency for eight years, when he followed his predecessor into exile in Jamaica, and was succeeded by General Salnave, a negro, who tried to re-establish the Empire and was shot, 1869. Since that time revolutions have been frequent and nothing has been constant except the disorder and decline of the country. Meantime, the Dominican Republic has suffered scarcely less, from its own disorders and the attacks of its Haytian neighbors. In 1861 it was surrendered by a provisional government to Spain, but recovered independence three years later. Soon afterwards one of its parties sought annexation to the United States, and in 1869 the President of the latter republic, General Grant, concluded a treaty with the Dominican government for the cession of the peninsula of Samana, and for the placing of San Domingo under American protection. But the Senate of the United States refused to ratify the treaty.

E. J. Payne, History of European Colonies, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: Sir S. St. John, Hayti, or the Black Republic, chapter 3.

----------HAYTI: End--------

HEAD-CENTER, Fenian.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867.

HEARTS OF OAK BOYS. HEARTS OF STEEL BOYS.

See IRELAND: A. D.1760-1798.

HEAVENFIELD. Battle of the (635).

Defeat of the Welsh, with the death of Cadwallon, the "last great hero of the British race," by the English of Bernicia, A.D. 635. "The victory of the Heaven-field indeed is memorable as the close of the last rally which the Britons ever made against their conquerors."

J. R. Green, The Making of England, page 275.

ALSO IN: Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book 3, chapters 1-2.

HÉBERT AND THE HÉBERTISTS IN THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790; 1793 (MARCH-JUNE), (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER), to 1793-1794 (NOVEMBER-JUNE).

HEBREW, The Name.

See JEWS: THEIR NATIONAL NAMES.

----------HEBRIDES: Start--------

HEBRIDES OR WESTERN ISLANDS, The.

"The Hebrides or Western Islands comprise all the numerous islands and islets which extend along nearly all the west coast of Scotland; and they anciently comprised also the peninsula of Cantyre, the islands of the Clyde, the isle of Rachlin, and even for some time the isle of Man."

Historical Tales of the Wars of Scotland, volume 3, page 60.

HEBRIDES: 9th-13th Centuries. The dominion of the Northmen.

See NORMANS. NORTHMEN: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES, and 10TH-13TH CENTURIES; also, SODOR AND MAN.

HEBRIDES: A. D. 1266. Cession to Scotland.

See SCOTLAND; A. D. 1266.

HEBRIDES: A. D. 1346-1504. The Lords of the Isles.

In 1346, the dominion of most of the Hebrides became consolidated under John, son of Ronald or Angus Oig, of Islay, and he assumed the title of "Lord of the Isles." The Lords of the Isles became substantially independent of the Scottish crown until the battle of Harlaw, in 1411 (see HARLAW, BATTLE OF). The lordship was extinguished in 1504 (see SCOTLAND: A. D. 1502-1504).

Historical Tales of the Wars of Scotland, pages 65-72.

----------HEBRIDES: End--------

HEBRON.

In the settlement of the tribes of Israel, after the conquest of Canaan, Caleb, one of the heroes of Judah, "took possession of the territory round the famous old city of Hebron, and thereby gained for his tribe a seat held sacred from Patriarchal times. … Beginning with Hebron, he acquired for himself a considerable territory, which even in David's time was named simply Caleb, and was distinguished from the rest of Judah as a peculiar district. … Hebron remained till after David's time celebrated as the main seat and central point of the entire tribe, around which it is evident that all the rest of Judah gradually clustered in good order."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 2, section 3, A.

"Hebron was a Hittite city, the centre of an ancient civilization, which to some extent had been inherited by the tribe of Judah. It was undoubtedly the capital of Judah, a city of the highest religious character full of recollections and traditions. It could boast of fine public buildings, good water, and a vast and well-kept pool. The unification of Israel had just been accomplished there. It was only natural that Hebron should become the capital of the new kingdom [of David]. … It is not easy to say what induced David to leave a city which had such ancient and evident claims for a hamlet like Jebus [Jerusalem], which did not yet belong to him. It is probable that he found Hebron too exclusively Judahite."

E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 2, chapter 18.

See, also, ZOAN; and JEWS: THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL IN EGYPT.

HECANA, Kingdom of.

One of the small, short-lived kingdoms of the Angles in early England, its territory was in modern Herefordshire.

N. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 7, section 70.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.

HECATOMB

"Large sacrifices, where a great number of animals were slaughtered, [among the ancient Greeks] are called hecatombs."

G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, page 60.

HECATOMBÆON, Battle of.

Fought, B. C. 224, by Cleomenes of Sparta with the forces of the Achæan League, over which he won a complete victory. The result was the calling in of Antigonus Doson, king of Macedonia, to become the ally of the League, and to be aided by it in crushing the last independent political life of Peloponnesian Greece.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 62.

{1635}

HECATOMPEDON, The.

See PARTHENON AT ATHENS.

HECATOMPYLOS.

The chief city of Parthia Proper, founded by Alexander the Great, and long remaining one of the capitals of the Parthian empire.

HEDGELEY MOOR, Battle of (1464)

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

HEDWIGA, Queen of Poland, A. D. 1382-1386.

HEELERS.

See BOSSISM.

HEERBAN, The.

The "heerban" was a military system instituted by Charlemagne, which gave way to the feudal system under his successors. "The basis of the heerban system was the duty of every fighting man to answer directly the call of the king to arms. The freeman, not only of the Franks, but of all the subject peoples, owed military service to the king alone. This duty is insisted upon in the laws of Charlemagne with constant repetition. The summons (heerban) was issued at the spring meeting, and sent out by the counts or missi. The soldier was obliged to present himself at the given time, fully armed and equipped with all provision for the campaign, except fire, water, and fodder for the horses."

E. Emerton, Introduction to the Study of the Middle Ages, chapter 14.

HEGEMONY.

"A hegemony, the political ascendancy of some one city or community over a number of subject commonwealths."

Sir H. S. Maine, Dissertations on Early Law and Custom, page 131.

HEGIRA, The.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

HEGIRA, Era of the.

See ERA, MAHOMETAN.

----------HEIDELBERG: Start--------

HEIDELBERG: A. D. 1622. Capture by Tilly.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

HEIDELBERG: A. D. 1631. Burning of the Castle.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.

HEIDELBERG: A. D. 1690. Final destruction of the Castle.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690.

----------HEIDELBERG: End--------

HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

HEILBRONN, Union of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1632-1634.

HELAM, OR HALAMAH, Battle of.

A decisive victory won by King David over the Syrians.

II. Samuel, x. 15-19.

HELENA, Arkansas, The defense of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

HELEPOLIS, The.

See RHODES: B. C. 305-304.

HELIÆA, The.

Under Solon's constitution for the government of Athens, "a body of 6,000 citizens was every year created by lot to form a supreme court, called Heliæa, which was divided into several smaller ones, not limited to any precise number of persons. The qualifications required for this were the same with those which gave admission into the general assembly, except that the members of the former might not be under the age of thirty. It was, therefore, in fact, a select portion of the latter, in which the powers of the larger body were concentrated and exercised under a judicial form."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 11.

HELICON.

See THESSALY.

HELIGOLAND: A. D. 1814. Acquisition by Great Britain.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1813-1814.

HELIGOLAND: A. D. 1890. Cession to Germany.

See AFRICA: A. D. 1884-1891.

----------HELIOPOLIS: Start--------

HELIOPOLIS.

See ON.

HELIOPOLIS: Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800 (JANUARY-JUNE).

----------HELIOPOLIS: End--------

HELLAS. HELLENES. GRAIKOI. GREEKS.

"To the Greek of the historical ages the idea of Hellas was not associated with any definite geographical limits. Wherever a Greek settlement existed, there for the colonists was Hellas. … Of a Hellas lying within certain specified bounds, and containing within it only Greek inhabitants, they knew nothing."

G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 1.

"Their language was, … from the beginning, the token of recognition among the Hellenes. … Where this language was spoken—in Asia, in Europe, or in Africa—there was Hellas. … A considerable number of the Greek tribes which immigrated by land [from Asia] into the European peninsula [of Greece] followed the tracks of the Italicans, and, taking a westward route through Pæonia and Macedonia, penetrated through Illyria into the western half of the Alpine country of Northern Greece, which the formation of its hill ranges and valleys renders more easily accessible from the north than Thessaly in its secluded hollow. The numerous rivers, abounding in water, which flow close by one another through long gorges into the Ionian Sea, here facilitated an advance into the south; and the rich pasture-land invited immigration; so that Epirus became the dwelling-place of a dense crowd of population, which commenced its civilized career in the fertile lowlands of the country. Among them three main tribes were marked out, of which the Chaones were regarded as the most ancient. … Farther to the south the Thesprotians had settled, and more inland, in the direction of Pindus, the Molossians. A more ancient appellation than those of this triple division is that of the Greeks (Graikoi), which the Hellenes thought the earliest designation of their ancestors. The same name of Græci (Greeks) the Italicans applied to the whole family of peoples with whom they had once dwelt together in these districts. This is the first collective name of the Hellenic tribes in Europe. … Far away from the coast, in the seclusion of the hills, where lie closely together the springs of the Thyamis, Aous, Aracthus, and Achelous, extends at the base of Tomarus the lake Ioannina, on the thickly wooded banks of which, between fields of corn and damp meadows, lay Dodona, a chosen seat of the Pelasgian Zeus, the invisible God, who announced his presence in the rustling of the oaks, whose altar was surrounded by a vast circle of tripods, for a sign that he was the first to unite the domestic hearths and civic communities into a great association centering in himself. This Dodona was the central seat of the Græci; it was a sacred centre of the whole district before the Italicans commenced their westward journey; and at the same time the place where the subsequent national name of the Greeks can be first proved to have prevailed; for the chosen of the people, who administered the worship of Zeus, were called Selli or Helli, and after them the surrounding country Hellopia or Hellas."

{1636}

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 1, chapters 1 and 4 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 2 (volume 2).

G. W. Cox, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 4.

W. E. Gladstone, Juventus Mundi, chapter 4.

HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE. HELLENIC AND HELLENISTIC CULTURE. HELLENISM.

"It was the privilege of the Greeks to discover the sovereign efficacy of reason. They entered on the pursuit of knowledge with a sure and joyous instinct. Baffled and puzzled they might be, but they never grew weary of the quest. The speculative faculty which reached its height in Plato and Aristotle, was, when we make due allowance for time and circumstance, scarcely less eminent in the Ionian philosophers; and it was Ionia that gave birth to an idea, which was foreign to the East, but has become the starting-point of modern science,—the idea that Nature works by fixed laws. A fragment of Euripides speaks of him as 'happy who has learned to search into causes,' who 'discerns the deathless and ageless order of nature, whence it arose, the how and the why.' The early poet-philosophers of Ionia gave the impulse which has carried the human intellect forward across the line which separates empirical from scientific knowledge; and the Greek precocity of mind in this direction, unlike that of the Orientals, had in it the promise of uninterrupted advance in the future,—of great discoveries in mathematics, geometry, experimental physics, in medicine also and physiology. … By the middle of the fifth century B. C. the general conception of law in the physical world was firmly established in the mind of Greek thinkers. Even the more obscure phenomena of disease were brought within the rule. Hippocrates writing about a malady which was common among the Scythians and was thought to be preternatural says: 'As for me I think that these maladies are divine like all others, but that none is more divine or more human than another. Each has its natural principle and none exists without its natural cause.' Again, the Greeks set themselves to discover a rational basis for conduct. Rigorously they brought their actions to the test of reason, and that not only by the mouth of philosophers, but through their poets, historians, and orators. Thinking and doing—clear thought and noble action—did not stand opposed to the Greek mind. The antithesis rather marks a period when the Hellenic spirit was past its prime, and had taken a one-sided bent. The Athenians of the Periclean age—in whom we must recognise the purest embodiment of Hellenism—had in truth the peculiar power, which Thucydides claims for them, of thinking before they acted and of acting also. … To Greece … we owe the love of Science, the love of Art, the love of Freedom: not Science alone, Art alone, or Freedom alone, but these vitally correlated with one another and brought into organic union. And in this union we recognise the distinctive features of the West. The Greek genius is the European genius in its first and brightest bloom. From a vivifying contact with the Greek spirit Europe derived that new and mighty impulse which we call Progress. Strange it is to think that these Greeks, like the other members of the Indo-European family, probably had their cradle in the East; that behind Greek civilisation, Greek language, Greek mythology, there is that Eastern background to which the comparative sciences seem to point. But it is no more than a background. In spite of an resemblances, in spite of common customs, common words, common syntax, common gods, the spirit of the Greeks and of their Eastern kinsmen—the spirit of their civilisation, art, language, and mythology—remains essentially distinct. … From Greece came that first mighty impulse, whose far-off workings are felt by us to-day, and which has brought it about that progress has been accepted as the law and goal of human endeavour. Greece first took up the task of equipping man with all that fits him for civil life and promotes his secular well being; of unfolding and expanding every inborn faculty and energy, bodily and mental; of striving restlessly after the perfection of the whole, and finding in this effort after an unattainable ideal that by which man becomes like to the gods. The life of the Hellenes, like that of their Epic hero Achilles, was brief and brilliant. But they have been endowed with the gift of renewing their youth. Renan, speaking of the nations that are fitted to play a part in universal history, says 'that they must die first that the world may live through them;' that a people must choose between the prolonged life, the tranquil and obscure destiny of one who lives for himself, and the troubled stormy career of one who lives for humanity. The nation which revolves within its breast social and religious problems is always weak politically. Thus it was with the Jews, who in order to make the religious conquest of the world must needs disappear as a nation.' 'They lost a material city, they opened the reign of the spiritual Jerusalem.' So too it was with Greece. As a people she ceased to be. When her freedom was overthrown at Chaeronea, the page of her history was to all appearance closed. Yet from that moment she was to enter on a larger life and on universal empire. Already during the last days of her independence it had been possible to speak of a new Hellenism, which rested not on ties of blood but on spiritual kinship. This presentiment of Isocrates was marvellously realised. As Alexander passed conquering through Asia, he restored to the East, as garnered grain, that Greek civilisation whose seeds had long ago been received from the East. Each conqueror in turn, the Macedonian and the Roman, bowed before conquered Greece and learnt lessons at her feet. To the modern world too Greece has been the great civiliser, the oecumenical teacher, the disturber and regenerator of slumbering societies. She is the source of most of the quickening ideas which re-make nations and renovate literature and art. If we reckon up our secular possessions, the wealth and heritage of the past, the larger share may be traced back to Greece. One half of life she has made her domain,—all, or well-nigh all, that belongs to the present order of things and to the visible world."

S. H. Butcher, Some Aspects of the Greek Genius, pages 9-43.

"The part assigned to [the Greeks] in the drama of the nations was to create forms of beauty, to unfold ideas which should remain operative when the short bloom of their own existence was over, and thus to give a new impulse, a new direction, to the whole current of human life. {1637} The prediction which Thucydides puts into the mouth of the Athenian orator has been fulfilled, though not in the sense literally conveyed; 'Assuredly we shall not be without witnesses,' says Pericles; 'there are mighty documents of our power, which shall make us the wonder of this age, and of ages to come.' He was thinking of those wide-spread settlements which attested the empire of Athens. But the immortal witnesses of his race are of another kind. Like the victims of the war, whose epitaph he was pronouncing, the Hellenes have their memorial in all lands, graven, not on stone, but in the hearts of mankind. … Are we not warranted by what we know of Greek work, imperfect though our knowledge is, in saying that no people has yet appeared in the world whose faculty for art, in the largest sense of the term, has been so comprehensive? And there is a further point that may be noted. It has been said that the man of genius sometimes is such in virtue of combining the temperament distinctive of his nation with some gift of his own which is foreign to that temperament; as in Shakespeare the basis is English, and the individual gift a flexibility of spirit which is not normally English. But we cannot apply this remark to the greatest of ancient Greek writers. They present certainly a wide range of individual differences. Yet so distinctive and so potent is the Hellenic nature that, if any two of such writers be compared, however wide the individual differences may be,—as between Aristophanes and Plato, or Pindar and Demosthenes,—such individual differences are less significant than those common characteristics of the Hellenic mind which separate both the men compared from all who are not Hellenes. If it were possible to trace the process by which the Hellenic race was originally separated from their Aryan kinsfolk, the physiological basis of their qualities might perhaps be traced in the mingling of different tribal ingredients. As it is, there is no clue to these secrets of nature's alchemy: the Hellenes appear in the dawn of their history with that unique temperament already distinct: we can point only to one cause, and that a subordinate cause, which must have aided its development, namely, the geographical position of Greece. No people of the ancient world were so fortunately placed. Nowhere are the aspects of external nature more beautiful, more varied, more stimulating to the energies of body and mind. A climate which, within three parallels of latitude, nourishes the beeches of Pindus and the palms of the Cyclades; mountain barriers which at once created a framework for the growth of local federations, and encouraged a sturdy spirit of freedom; coasts abounding in natural harbors; a sea dotted with islands, and notable for the regularity of its wind-currents; ready access alike to Asia and to the western Mediterranean,—these were circumstances happily congenial to the inborn faculties of the Greek race, and admirably fitted to expand them."

R. C. Jebb, The Growth and Influence of Classical Greek Poetry, pages 27-31.

"The sense of beauty which the Greeks possessed to a greater extent than any other people could not fail to be caught by the exceptionally beautiful natural surroundings in which they lived; and their literature, at any rate their poetry, bears abundant testimony to the fact. Small though Greece is, it contains a greater variety, both in harmony and contrast, of natural beauty than most countries, however great. Its latitude gives it a southern climate, while its mountains allow of the growth of a vegetation found in more northern climes. Within a short space occur all the degrees of transition from snow-topped hills to vine-clad fountains. And the joy with which the beauty of their country filled the Greeks may be traced through all their poetry. … The two leading facts in the physical aspect of Greece are the sea and the mountains. As Europe is the most indented and has relatively the longest coast-line of all the continents of the world, so of all the countries of Europe the land of Greece is the most interpenetrated with arms of the sea. …

'Two voices are there: one is of the Sea, One of the Mountains; each a mighty voice: In both from age to age thou didst rejoice; They were thy chosen music, Liberty!'

Both voices spoke impressively to Greece, and her literature echoes their tones. So long as Greece was free and the spirit of freedom animated the Greeks, so long their literature was creative and genius marked it. When liberty perished, literature declined. The field of Chæronea was fatal alike to the political liberty and to the literature of Greece. The love of liberty was indeed pushed even to an extreme in Greece; and this also was due to the physical configuration of the country. Mountains, it has been said, divide; seas unite. The rise and the long continuance in so small a country of so many cities, having their own laws, constitution, separate history, and independent existence, can only be explained by the fact that in their early growth they were protected, each by the mountains which surrounded it, so effectually, and the love of liberty in this time was developed to such an extent, that no single city was able to establish its dominion over the others. … Everyone of the numerous states, whose separate political existence was guaranteed by the mountains, was actually or potentially a separate centre of civilisation and of literature. In some one of these states each kind of literature could find the conditions appropriate or necessary to its development. Even a state which produced no men of literary genius itself might become the centre at which poets collected and encouraged the literature it could not produce, as was the case with Sparta, to which Greece owed the development of choral lyric. … The eastern basin of the Mediterranean has deserved well of literature, for it brought Greece into communication with her colonies on the islands and on the surrounding coasts, and enabled the numerous Greek cities to co-operate in the production of a rich and varied literature, instead of being confined each to a one-sided and incomplete development. The process of communication began in the earliest times, as is shown by the spread of epic literature. Originating in Ionia, it was taken up in Cyprus, where the epic called the Cypria was composed, and, at the beginning of the sixth century it was on the coast of Africa in the colony of Cyrene. The rapid spread of elegiac poetry is even more strikingly illustrated, for we find Solon in Athens quoting from his contemporary Mimnermus of Colophon. Choral lyric, which originated in Asia Minor, was conveyed to Sparta by Alcman, and by Simonides of Ceos all over the Greek world. But although in early times we find as much interchange and reaction in the colonies amongst themselves as between the colonies and the mother-country, with the advance of time we find the centripetal tendency becoming dominant. {1638} The mother-country becomes more and more the centre to which all literature and art gravitates. At the beginning of the sixth century Sparta attracted poets from the colonies in Asia Minor, but the only form of literature which Sparta rewarded and encouraged was choral lyric. No such narrowness characterised Athens, and when she established herself as the intellectual capital of Greece, all men of genius received a welcome there, and we find all forms of literature deserting their native homes, even their native dialects, to come to Athens. … As long as literature had many centres, there was no danger of all falling by a single stroke; but when it was centralised in Athens, and the blow delivered by Philip at Chæronea had fallen on Athens, classical Greek literature perished in a generation. It is somewhat difficult to distinguish race-qualities from the characteristics impressed on a people by the conditions under which it lives, since the latter by accumulation and transmission from generation to generation eventually become race-qualities. Thus the Spartans possessed qualities common to them and the Dorians, of whom they were a branch, and also qualities peculiar to themselves, which distinguished them from other Dorians. … The ordinary life of a Spartan citizen was that of a soldier in camp or garrison, rather than that of a member of a political community, and this system of life was highly unfavourable to literature. … Other Dorians, not hemmed in by such unfavourable conditions as the Spartans, did provide some contributions to the literature of Greece, and in the nature of their contributions we may detect the qualities of the race. The Dorians in Sicily sowed the seeds of rhetoric and carried comedy to considerable perfection. Of imagination the race seems destitute: it did not produce poets. On the other hand, the race is eminently practical as well as prosaic, and their humour was of a nature which corresponded to these qualities. … The Æolians form a contrast both to the Spartans and to the Athenians. The development of individuality is as characteristic of the Æolians as its absence is of the Spartans. But the Æolians, first of all Greeks, possessed a cavalry, and this means that they were wealthy and aristocratic. … This gives us the distinction between the Æolians and the Athenians: among the former, individuality was developed in the aristocracy alone; among the latter, in all the citizens. The Æolians added to the crown of Greek literature one of the brightest of its jewels-lyric poetry, as we understand lyric in modern times, that is, the expression of the poet's feelings, on any subject whatever, as his individual feeling. … But it was the Ionians who rendered the greatest services to Greek literature. They were a quick-witted race, full of enterprise, full of resources. In them we see reflected the character of the sea, as in the Dorians the character of the mountains. The latter partook of the narrowness and exclusiveness of their own homes, hemmed in by mountains, and by them protected from the incursion of strangers and strange innovations. The Ionians, on the other hand, were open as the sea, and had as many moods. They were eminently susceptible to beauty in all its forms, to the charm of change and to novelty. They were ever ready to put any belief or institution to the test of discussion, and were governed as much by ideas as by sentiments. Keenness of intellect, taste in all matters of literature and art, grace in expression, and measure in everything distinguished them above all Greeks. The development of epic poetry, the origin of prose, the cultivation of philosophy, are the proud distinction of the Ionian race. In Athens we have the qualities of the Ionian race in their finest flower."

F. B. Jevons, A History of Greek Literature, pages 485-490.

HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE: Hellenism and the Jews.

"The Jewish region … was, in ancient times as well as in the Graeco-Roman period, surrounded on all sides by heathen districts. Only at Jamnia and Joppa had the Jewish element advanced as far as the sea. Elsewhere, even to the west, it was not the sea, but the Gentile region of the Philistine and Phenician cities, that formed the boundary of the Jewish. These heathen lands were far more deeply penetrated by Hellenism, than the country of the Jews. No reaction like the rising of the Maccabees had here put a stop to it, besides which heathen polytheism was adapted in quite a different manner from Judaism for blending with Hellenism. While therefore the further advance of Hellenism was obstructed by religious barriers in the interior of Palestine, it had attained here, as in all other districts since its triumphant entry under Alexander the Great, its natural preponderance over Oriental culture. Hence, long before the commencement of the Roman period, the educated world, especially in the great cities in the west and east of Palestine, was, we may well say, completely Hellenized. It is only with the lower strata of the populations and the dwellers in rural districts, that this must not be equally assumed. Besides however the border lands, the Jewish districts in the interior of Palestine were occupied by Hellenism, especially Scythopolis … and the town of Samaria, where Macedonian colonists had already been planted by Alexander the Great … while the national Samaritans had their central point at Sichem. The victorious penetration of Hellenistic culture is most plainly and comprehensively shown by the religious worship. The native religions, especially in the Philistine and Phenician cities, did indeed in many respects maintain themselves in their essential character; but still in such wise, that they were transformed by and blended with Greek elements. But besides these the purely Greek worship also gained an entrance, and in many places entirely supplanted the former. Unfortunately our sources of information do not furnish us the means of separating the Greek period proper from the Roman; the best are afforded by coins, and these for the most part belong to the Roman. On the whole however the picture, which we obtain, holds good for the pre-Roman period also, nor are we entirely without direct notices of this age. … In the Jewish region proper Hellenism was in its religious aspect triumphantly repulsed by the rising of the Maccabees; it was not till after the overthrow of Jewish nationality in the wars of Vespasian and Hadrian, that an entrance for heathen rites was forcibly obtained by the Romans. In saying this however we do not assert, that the Jewish people of those early times remained altogether unaffected by Hellenism. For the latter was a civilising power, which extended itself to every department of life. {1639} It fashioned in a peculiar manner the organization of the state, legislation, the administration of justice, public arrangements, art and science, trade and industry, and the customs of daily life down to fashion and ornaments, and thus impressed upon every department of life, wherever its influence reached, the stamp of the Greek mind. It is true that Hellenistic is not identical with Hellenic culture. The importance of the former on the contrary lay in the fact, that by its reception of the available elements of all foreign cultures within its reach, it became a world-culture. But this very world-culture became in its turn a peculiar whole, in which the preponderant Greek element was the ruling keynote. Into the stream of this Hellenistic culture the Jewish people was also drawn; slowly indeed and with reluctance, but yet irresistibly, for though religious zeal was able to banish heathen worship and all connected therewith from Israel, it could not for any length of time restrain the tide of Hellenistic culture in other departments of life. Its several stages cannot indeed be any longer traced. But when we reflect that the small Jewish country was enclosed on almost every side by Hellenistic regions, with which it was compelled, even for the sake of trade, to hold continual intercourse, and when we remember, that even the rising of the Maccabees was in the main directed not against Hellenism in general, but only against the heathen religion, that the later Asmonaeans bore in every respect a Hellenistic stamp-employed foreign mercenaries, minted foreign coins, took Greek names, etc., and that some of them, e. g. Aristobulus I., were direct favourers of Hellenism,—when all this is considered, it may safely be assumed, that Hellenism had, notwithstanding the rising of the Maccabees, gained access in no inconsiderable measure into Palestine even before the commencement of the Roman period."

E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of Christ, division 2, volume 1, pages 29-30.

HELLENIC GENIUS AND INFLUENCE: Hellenism and the Romans.

"In the Alexandrian age, with all its close study and imitation of the classical models, nothing is more remarkable than the absence of any promise that the Hellenic spirit which animated those masterpieces was destined to have any abiding influence in the world. … And yet it is true that the vital power of the Hellenic genius was not fully revealed, until, after suffering some temporary eclipse in the superficially Greek civilizations of Asia and Egypt, it emerged in a new quality, as a source of illumination to the literature and the art of Rome. Early Roman literature was indebted to Greece for the greater part of its material; but a more important debt was in respect to the forms and moulds of composition. The Latin language of the third century B. C. was already in full possession of the qualities which always remained distinctive of it; it was clear, strong, weighty, precise, a language made to be spoken in the imperative mood, a fitting interpreter of government and law. But it was not flexible or graceful, musical or rapid; it was not suited to express delicate shades of thought or feeling; for literary purposes, it was, in comparison with Greek, a poor and rude idiom. The development of Latin into the language of Cicero and Virgil was gradually and laboriously accomplished under the constant influence of Greece. That finish of form, known as classical, which Roman writers share with Greek, was a lesson which Greece slowly impressed upon Rome. … A close and prolonged study of the Greek models could not end in a mere discipline of form; the beauty of the best Greek models depends too much on their vital spirit. Not only was the Roman imagination enriched, but the Roman intellect, through literary intercourse with the Greek, gradually acquired a flexibility and a plastic power which had not been among its original gifts. Through Roman literature the Greek influence was transmitted to later times in a shape which obscured, indeed, much of its charm, but which was also fitted to extend its empire, and to win an entrance for it in regions which would have been less accessible to a purer form of its manifestation."

R. C. Jebb, The Growth and Influence of Classical Greek Poetry, chapter 8.

"Italy had been subject to the influence of Greece, ever since it had a history at all. … But the Hellenism of the Romans of the present period [second century B. C.] was, in its causes as well as its consequences, something essentially new. The Romans began to feel the lack of a richer intellectual life, and to be startled as it were at their own utter want of mental culture; and, if even nations of artistic gifts, such as the English and Germans, have not disdained in the pauses of their own productiveness to avail themselves of the paltry French culture for filling up the gap, it need excite no surprise that the Italian nation now flung itself with eager zeal on the glorious treasures as well as on the vile refuse of the intellectual development of Hellas. But it was an impulse still more profound and deep-rooted which carried the Romans irresistibly into the Hellenic vortex. Hellenic civilization still assumed that name, but it was Hellenic no longer; it was, it fact, humanistic and cosmopolitan. It had solved the problem of moulding a mass of different nations into one whole completely in the field of intellect, and to a certain degree in that of politics, and, now when the same task on a wider scale devolved on Rome, she entered on the possession of Hellenism along with the rest of the inheritance of Alexander the Great. Hellenism therefore was no longer a mere stimulus, or subordinate influence; it penetrated the Italian nation to the very core. Of course, the vigorous home life of Italy strove against the foreign element. It was only after a most vehement struggle that the Italian farmer abandoned the field to the cosmopolite of the capital; and, as in Germany the French coat called forth the national Germanic frock, so the reaction against Hellenism aroused in Rome a tendency, which opposed the influence of Greece on principle in a style to which earlier centuries were altogether unaccustomed, and in doing so fell not unfrequently into downright follies and absurdities. No department of human action or thought remained unaffected by this struggle between the new fashion and the old. Even political relations were largely influenced by it. The whimsical project of emancipating the Hellenes, … the kindred, likewise Hellenic, idea of combining republics in a common opposition to kings, and the desire of propagating Hellenic polity at the expense of eastern despotism—which were the two principles that regulated, for instance, the treatment of Macedonia—were fixed ideas of the new school, just as dread of the Carthaginians was the fixed idea of the old; and, if Cato pushed the latter to a ridiculous excess, Philhellenism now and then indulged in extravagances at least as foolish. … {1640} But the real struggle between Hellenism and its national antagonists during the present period was carried on in the field of faith, of manners, and of art and literature. … If Italy still possessed—what had long been a mere antiquarian curiosity in Hellas—a national religion, it was already visibly beginning to be ossified into theology. The torpor creeping over faith is nowhere perhaps so distinctly apparent as in the alterations in the economy of divine service and of the priesthood. The public service of the gods became not only more tedious, but above all more and more costly. … An augur like Lucius Paullus, who regarded the priesthood as a science and not as a mere title, was already a rare exception; and could not but be so, when the government more and more openly and unhesitatingly employed the auspices for the accomplishment of its political designs, or, in other words, treated the national religion in accordance with the view of Polybius as a superstition useful for imposing on the public at large. Where the way was thus paved, the Hellenistic irreligious spirit found free course. In connection with the incipient taste for art the sacred images of the gods began even in Cato's time to be employed, like other furniture, to embellish the chambers of the rich. More dangerous wounds were inflicted on religion by the rising literature. … Thus the old national religion was visibly on the decline; and, as the great trees of the primeval forest were uprooted, the soil became covered with a rank growth of thorns and briars and with weeds that had never been seen before. Native superstitions and foreign impostures of the most various hues mingled, competed and conflicted with each other. … The Hellenism of that epoch, already denationalized and pervaded by Oriental mysticism, introduced not only unbelief but also superstition in its most offensive and dangerous forms to Italy; and these vagaries, moreover, had a special charm, precisely because they were foreign. … Rites of the most abominable character came to the knowledge of the Roman authorities: a secret nocturnal festival in honour of the god Bacchus had been first introduced into Etruria by a Greek priest, and spreading like a cancer, had rapidly reached Rome and propagated itself over all Italy, everywhere corrupting families and giving rise to the most heinous crimes, unparalleled unchastity, falsifying of testaments, and murdering by poison. More than 7,000 men were sentenced to punishment, most of them to death, on this account, and rigorous enactments were issued as to the future. … The ties of family life became relaxed with fearful rapidity. The evil of grisettes and boy-favourites spread like a pestilence. … Luxury prevailed more and more in dress, ornaments and furniture, in the buildings and on the tables. Especially after the expedition to Asia Minor, which took place in 564, [B. C. 190] Asiatico-Hellenic luxury, such as prevailed at Ephesus and Alexandria, transferred its empty refinement and its petty trifling, destructive alike of money, time, and pleasure, to Rome. … As a matter of course, this revolution in life and manners brought an economic revolution in its train. Residence in the capital became more and more coveted as well as more costly. Rents rose to an unexampled height. Extravagant prices were paid for the new articles of luxury. … The influences which stimulated the growth of Roman literature were of a character altogether peculiar and hardly paralleled in any other nation. … By means of the Italian slaves and freedmen, a very large portion of whom were Greek or half Greek by birth, the Greek language and Greek knowledge to a certain extent reached even the lower ranks of the population, especially in the capital. The comedies of this period indicate that even the humbler classes of the capital were familiar with a sort of Latin, which could no more be properly understood without a knowledge of Greek than Sterne's English or Wieland's German without a knowledge of French. Men of senatorial families, however, not only addressed a Greek audience in Greek, but even published their speeches. … Under the influence of such circumstances Roman education developed itself. It is a mistaken opinion, that antiquity was materially inferior to our own times in the general diffusion of elementary attainments. Even among the lower classes and slaves there was considerable knowledge of reading, writing, and counting. … Elementary instruction, as well us instruction in Greek, must have been long ere this period imparted to a very considerable extent in Rome. But the epoch now before us initiated an education, the aim of which was to communicate not merely an outward expertness, but a real mental culture. The internal decomposition of Italian nationality had already, particularly in the aristocracy, advanced so far as to render the substitution of a broader human culture for that nationality inevitable: and the craving after a more advanced civilization was already powerfully stirring men's minds. The study of the Greek language as it were spontaneously met this craving. The classical literature of Greece, the Iliad and still more the Odyssey, had all along formed the basis of instruction; the overflowing treasures of Hellenic art and science were already by this means spread before the eyes of the Italians. Without any outward revolution, strictly speaking, in the character of instruction the natural result was, that the empirical study of the language became converted into a higher study of the literature; that the general culture connected with such literary studies was communicated in increased measure to the scholars; and that these availed themselves of the knowledge thus acquired to dive into that Greek literature which most powerfully influenced the spirit of the age—the tragedies of Euripides and the comedies of Menander. In a similar way greater importance came to be attached to the study of Latin. The higher society of Rome began to feel the need, if not of exchanging their mother-tongue for Greek, at least of refining it and adapting it to the changed state of culture. … But a Latin culture presupposed a literature, and no such literature existed in Rome. … The Romans desired a theatre, but the pieces were wanting. On these elements Roman literature was based; and its defective character was from the first and necessarily the result of such an origin. … Roman poetry in particular had its immediate origin not in the inward impulse of the poet, but in the outward demands of the school, which needed Latin manuals, and of the stage, which needed Latin dramas. Now both institutions—the school and the stage—were thoroughly anti-Roman and revolutionary. … The school and the theatre became the most effective levers in the hands of the new spirit of the age, and all the more so that they used the Latin tongue. {1641} Men might perhaps speak and write Greek, and yet not cease to be Romans; but in this case they were in the habit of speaking in the Roman language, while the whole inward being and life were Greek. It is one of the most pleasing, but it is one of the most remarkable and in a historical point of view most instructive, facts in this brilliant era of Roman conservatism, that during its course Hellenism struck root in the whole field of intellect not immediately political, and that the school-master and the maître de plaisir of the great public in close alliance created a Roman literature."

T. Mommsen, The History of Rome, book 3, chapter 13 (volume 2).

Panætius was the founder of "that Roman Stoicism which plays so prominent a part in the history of the Empire. He came from Rhodes, and was a pupil of Diogenes at Athens. The most important part of his life was, however, spent at Rome, in the house of Scipio Æmilianus, the centre of the Scipionic circle, where he trained up a number of Roman nobles to understand and to adopt his views. He seems to have taken the place of Polybius, and to have accompanied Scipio in his tour to the East (143 B. C.). He died as head of the Stoic school in Athens about 110 B. C. This was the man who, under the influence of the age, really modified the rigid tenets of his sect to make it the practical rule of life for statesmen, politicians, magnates, who had no time to sit all day and dispute, but who required something better than effete polytheism to give them dignity in their leisure, and steadfastness in the day of trial. … With the pupils of Panætius begins the long roll of Roman Stoics. … Here then, after all the dissolute and disintegrating influences of Hellenism,—its comœdia palliata, its parasites, its panders, its minions, its chicanery, its mendacity—had produced their terrible effect, came an antidote which, above all the human influences we know, purified and ennobled the world. It affected, unfortunately, only the higher classes at Rome; and even among them, as among any of the lower classes that speculated at all, it had as a dangerous rival that cheap and vulgar Epicureanism, which puffs up common natures with the belief that their trivial and coarse reflections have some philosophic basis, and can be defended with subtle arguments. But among the best of the Romans Hellenism produced a type seldom excelled in the world's history, a type as superior to the old Roman model as the nobleman is to the burgher in most countries—a type we see in Rutilius Rufus, as compared with the elder Cato. … It was in this way that Hellenistic philosophy made itself a home in Italy, and acquired pupils who in the next generation became masters in their way, and showed in Cicero and Lucretius no mean rivals of the contemporary Greek. … Till the poem of Lucretius and the works of Cicero, we may say nothing in Latin worth reading existed on the subject. Whoever wanted to study philosophy, therefore, down to that time (60 B. C.) studied it in Greek. Nearly the same thing may be said of the arts of architecture, painting, and sculpture. There were indeed distinctly Roman features in architecture, but they were mere matters of building, and whatever was done in the way of design, in the way of adding beauty to strength, was done wholly under the advice and direction of Greeks. The subservience to Hellenism in the way of internal household ornament was even more complete. … And with the ornaments of the house, the proper serving of the house, especially the more delicate departments—the cooking of state dinners, the attendance upon guests, the care of the great man's intimate comforts—could only be done fashionably by Greek slaves. … But of course these lower sides of Hellenism had no more potent effect in civilising Rome than the employing of French cooks and valets and the purchase of French ornaments and furniture had in improving our grandfathers. Much more serious was the acknowledged supremacy of the Greeks in literature of all kinds, and still more their insistence that this superiority depended mainly upon a careful system of intellectual education. … This is the point where Polybius, after his seventeen years' experience of Roman life, finds the capital flaw in the conduct of public affairs. In every Hellenistic state, he says, nothing engrosses the attention of legislators more than the question of education, whereas at Rome a most moral and serious government leaves the training of the young to the mistakes and hazards of private enterprise. That this was a grave blunder as regards the lower classes is probably true. … But when Rome grew from a city controlling Italy to an empire directing the world, such men as Æmilius Paullus saw plainly that they must do something more to fit their children for the splendid position they had themselves attained, and so they were obliged to keep foreign teachers of literature and art in their houses as private tutors. The highest class of these private tutors was that of the philosophers, whom we have considered, and while the State set itself against their public establishments, great men in the State openly encouraged them and kept them in their houses. … As regards literature, however, in the close of the second century B. C. a change was visible, which announced the new and marvellous results of the first. … Even in letters Roman culture began to take its place beside Greek, and the whole civilised world was divided into those who knew Greek letters and those who knew Roman only. There was no antagonism in spirit between them, for the Romans never ceased to venerate Greek letters or to prize a knowledge of that language. But of course there were great domains in the West beyond the influence of the most western Greeks, even of Massilia, where the first higher civilisation introduced was with the Roman legions and traders, and where culture assumed permanently a Latin form. In the East, though the Romans asserted themselves as conquerors, they always condescended to use Greek, and there were prætors proud to give their decisions at Roman assize courts in that language."

J. P. Mahaffy, The Greek World under Roman Sway, chapter 5.

HELLENION, The.

See NAUKRATIS.

HELLESPONT, The.

The ancient Greek name of what is now called the straits of The Dardanelles, the channel which unites the Sea of Marmora with the Ægean. The name (Sea of Helle) came from the myth of Helle, who was said to have been drowned in these waters.

HELLESPONTINE SIBYL.

See SIBYLS.

HELLULAND.

See AMERICA: 10TH-11TH CENTURIES.

HELOTS.

See SPARTA: THE CITY.

HELVECONES, The.

See LYGIANS.

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HELVETIAN REPUBLIC, The.

Switzerland is sometimes called the Helvetian Republic, for no better reason than is found in the fact that the country occupied by the Helvetii of Cæsar is embraced in the modern Swiss Confederacy. But the original confederation, out of which grew the federal republic of Switzerland, did not touch Helvetian ground.

See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS, and A. D. 1332-1460.

HELVETIC REPUBLIC OF 1798, The.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1792-1798.

HELVETII, The arrested migration of the.

"The Helvetii, who inhabited a great part of modern Switzerland, had grown impatient of the narrow limits in which they were crowded together, and harassed at the same time by the encroachments of the advancing German tide. The Alps and Jura formed barriers to their diffusion on the south and west, and the population thus confined outgrew the scanty means of support afforded by its mountain valleys. … The Helvetii determined to force their way through the country of the Allobroges, and to trust either to arms or persuasion to obtain a passage through the [Roman] province and across the Rhone into the centre of Gaul. … Having completed their preparations, [they] appointed the 28th day of March [B. C. 58] for the meeting of their combined forces at the western outlet of the Lake Lemanus. The whole population of the assembled tribes amounted to 368,000 souls, including the women and children; the number that bore arms was 92,000. They cut themselves off from the means of retreat by giving ruthlessly to the flames every city and village of their land; twelve of one class and four hundred of the other were thus sacrificed, and with them all their superfluous stores, their furniture, arms and implements." When the news of this portentous movement reached Rome, Cæsar, then lately appointed to the government of the two Gauls, was raising levies, but had no force ready for the field. He flew to the scene in person, making the journey from Rome to Geneva in eight days. At Geneva, the frontier town of the conquered Allobroges, the Romans had a garrison, and Cæsar quickly gathered to that point the one legion stationed in the province. Breaking down the bridge which had spanned the river and constructing with characteristic energy a ditch and rampart from the outlet of the lake to the gorge of the Jura, he held the passage of the river with his single legion and forced the migratory horde to move off by the difficult route down the right bank of the Rhone. This accomplished, Cæsar hastened back to Italy, got five legions together, led them over the Cottian Alps, crossed the Rhone above Lyons, and caught up with the Helvetii before the last of their cumbrous train had got beyond the Saone. Attacking and cutting to pieces this rear-guard (it was the tribe of the Tigurini, which the Romans had encountered disastrously half a century before), he bridged the Saone and crossed it to pursue the main body of the enemy. For many days he followed them, refusing to give battle to the great barbarian army until he saw the moment opportune. His blow was struck at last in the neighborhood of the city of Bibracte, the capital of the Ædui—modern Autun. The defeat of the Helvetii was complete, and, although a great body of them escaped, they were set upon by the Gauls of the country and were soon glad to surrender themselves unconditionally to the Roman proconsul. Cæsar compelled them—110,000 survivors, of the 368,000 who left Switzerland in the spring—to go back to their mountains and rebuild and reoccupy the homes they had destroyed.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 6 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: Cæsar, Gallic Wars, chapters 1-29.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 1.

Napoleon III., History of Julius Cæsar, book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2).

HELVII, The.

The Helvii were a tribe of Gauls whose country was between the Rhone and the Cevennes, in the modern department of the Ardêche.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 17.

HENGESTESDUN, Battle of.

Defeat of the Danes and Welsh by Ecgbehrt, the West Saxon king, A. D. 835.

HENNERSDORF, Battle of (1745).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1744-1745.

HENOTICON OF ZENO, The.

See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.

HENRICIANS.

See PETROBRUSIANS.

HENRY, Latin Emperor at Constantinople (Romania), A. D. 1206-1216.

Henry (of Corinthia), King of Bohemia, 1307-1310.

Henry, King of Navarre, 1270-1274.

Henry, King of Portugal, 1578-1580.

Henry, Count of Portugal, 1093-1112.

Henry (called the Lion), The ruin of.

See SAXONY: A. D. 1178-1183.

Henry (called the Navigator), Prince, The explorations of.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1415-1460.

Henry (called the Proud), The fall of.

See GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES.

Henry I., King of Castile, 1214-1217.

Henry I., King of England, 1100-1135.

Henry I., King of France, 1031-1060.

Henry I. (called The Fowler), King of the East Franks (Germany), 919-936.

Henry II., Emperor, A. D. 1014-1024; King of the East Franks (Germany), 1002-1024; King of Italy, 1004-1024.

Henry II. (of Trastamare), King of Castile and Leon, 1369-1379.

Henry II. (first of the Plantagenets), King of England, 1154-1189.

Henry II., King of France, 1547-1559.

Henry III., Emperor, King of Germany, and King of Burgundy, 1089-1056.

Henry III., King of Castile and Leon, 1390-1407.

Henry III., King of England, 1216-1272.

Henry III., King of France (the last of the Valois), 1574-1589; King of Poland, 1573-1574.

Henry IV., Emperor, 1077-1106; King of Germany, 1056-1106.

Henry IV., King of Castile and Leon, 1454-1474.

Henry IV., King of England (first of the Lancastrian royal line), 1399-1413.

Henry IV. (called the Great), King of France and Navarre (the first of the Bourbon kings), 1589-1610. Abjuration.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1591-1593.

Assassination.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1599-1610.

Henry V., Emperor, 1112-1125; King of Germany, 1106-1125.

Henry V., King of England, 1413-1422.

Henry VI., King of Germany, 1190-1197; Emperor, 1191-1197; King of Sicily, 1194-1197.

Henry VI., King of England, 1422-1461.

Henry VII. (of Luxemburg), King of Germany, 1308-1313; King of Italy and Emperor, 1312-1313.

Henry VII., King of England, 1485-1509.

Henry VIII., King of England, 1509-1547.

HENRY, Patrick, The Parson's cause.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1763.

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HENRY, Patrick: The American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765 RECEPTION OF THE NEWS OF THE STAMP ACT, 1774 (SEPTEMBER), 1775 (APRIL-JUNE), 1778-1779 CLARKE'S CONQUEST; also, VIRGINIA: A. D. 1776.

Opposition to the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.

HENRY, Fort, Capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY—TENNESSEE).

HEPTANOMIS, The.

The northern district of Upper Egypt, embracing seven provinces, or nomes; whence its name.

HEPTARCHY, The so-called Saxon.

See ENGLAND: 7th CENTURY.

HERACLEA. The earliest capital of the Venetians.

See VENICE: A. D. 697-810.

HERACLEA, Battle of (B. C. 280).

See ROME: B. C. 282-275.

HERACLEA PONTICA, Siege of.

Heraclea, a flourishing town of Greek origin on the Phrygian coast, called Heraclea Pontica to distinguish it from other towns of like name, was besieged for some two years by the Romans in the Third Mithridatic War. It was surrendered through treachery, B. C. 70, and suffered so greatly from the ensuing pillage and massacre that it never recovered. The Roman commander, Cotta, was afterwards prosecuted at Rome for appropriating the plunder of Heraclea, which included a famous statue of Hercules, with a golden club.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 3, chapter 5.

HERACLEIDÆ, OR HERAKLEIDS, The.

Among the ancient Greeks the reputed descendants of the demi-god hero, Herakles, or Hercules, were very numerous. "Distinguished families are everywhere to be traced who bear his patronymic and glory in the belief that they are his descendants. Among Achæans, Kadmeians, and Dorians, Hêraklês is venerated: the latter especially treat him as their principal hero—the Patron Hero-God of the race: the Hêrakleids form among all Dorians a privileged gens, in which at Sparta the special lineage of the two kings was included."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).

"The most important, and the most fertile in consequences, of all the migrations of Grecian races, and which continued even to the latest periods to exert its influence upon the Greek character, was the expedition of the Dorians into Peloponnesus. … The traditionary name of this expedition is 'the Return of the Descendants of Hercules' [or 'the Return of the Heraclidæ']. Hercules, the son of Zeus, is (even in the Iliad), both by birth and destiny, the hereditary prince of Tiryns and Mycenæ, and ruler of the surrounding nations. But through some evil chance Eurystheus obtained the precedency and the son of Zeus was compelled to serve him. Nevertheless he is represented as having bequeathed to his descendants his claims to the dominion of Peloponnesus, which they afterwards made good in conjunction with the Dorians; Hercules having also performed such actions in behalf of this race that his descendants were always entitled to the possession of one-third of the territory. The heroic life of Hercules was therefore the mythical title, through which the Dorians were made to appear, not as unjustly invading, but merely as reconquering, a country which had belonged to their princes in former times."

C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, book 1, chapter 3.

See, also, DORIANS AND IONIANS.

HERACLEIDÆ OF LYDIA.

The second dynasty of the kings of Lydia—so-called by the Greeks as reputed descendants of the sun-god. The dynasty is represented as ending with Candaules.

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 4, chapter 17.

HERACLEONAS, Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 641.

HERACLIUS I., Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 610-641.

----------HERAT: Start--------

HERAT: B. C. 330. Founding of the city by Alexander the Great.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 330-323.

HERAT: A. D. 1221. Destruction by the Mongols.

See KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221.

----------HERAT: End--------

HERCTÉ, Mount, Hamilcar on.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

HERCULANEUM.

See POMPEII.

HERCULIANS AND JOVIANS.

See PRÆTORIAN GUARDS: A. D. 312.

HERCYNIAN FOREST, The.

"The Hercynian Forest was known by report to Eratosthenes and some other Greeks, under the name Orcynia. The width of this forest, as Caesar says (B. G. vi. 25), was nine days' journey to a man without any incumbrance. It commenced at the territory of the Helvetii [ Switzerland] … and following the straight course of the Dunube reached to the country of the Daci and the Anartes. Here it turned to the left in different directions from the river, and extended to the territory of many nations. No man of western Germany could affirm that he had reached the eastern termination of the forest even after a journey of six days, nor that he had heard where it did terminate. This is all that Caesar knew of this great forest. … The nine days' journey, which measures the width of the Hercynian forest, is the width from south to north; and if we assume this width to be estimated at the western end of the Hercynia, which part would be the best known, it would correspond to the Schwarzwald and Odenwald, which extend on the east side of the Rhine from the neighbourhood of Bâle nearly as far north as Frankfort on the Main. The eastern parts of the forest would extend on the north side of the Danube along the Rauhe Alp and the Boehmerwald and still farther east. Caesar mentions another German forest named Bacenis (B. G. vi. 10), but all that he could say of it is this: it was a forest of boundless extent, and it separated the Suevi and the Cherusci; from which we may conclude that it is represented by the Thüringerwald, Erzgebirge, Riesengebirge, and the mountain ranges farther east, which separate the basin of the Danube from the basins of the Oder and the Vistula."

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 2.

HERETOGA.

See EALDORMAN.

HEREWARD'S CAMP IN THE FENS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1069-1071.

HERIBANN.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: FRANCE.

HERKIMER, General, and the Battle of Oriskany.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).

HERMÆ AT ATHENS, Mutilation of the.

See ATHENS: B. C. 415.

{1644}

HERMÆAN PROMONTORY.

The ancient name of the north-eastern horn of the Gulf of Tunis, now called Cape Bon. It was the limit fixed by the old treaties between Carthage and Rome, beyond which Roman ships must not go.

R. B. Smith, Carthage and the Carthaginians, chapter 5.

HERMANDAD, The.

See HOLY BROTHERHOOD.

HERMANRIC, OR ERMANARIC, The empire of.

See GOTHS: A. D. 350-375; and 376.

HERMANSTADT, Battle of (1442).

See TURKS: A. D. 1402-1451.

(Or Schellenberg,) Battle of (1599).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14TH-18TH CENTURIES (ROUMANIA, &c.).

HERMINSAULE, The.

See SAXONS: A.D. 772-804.

HERMIONES, The.

See GERMANY: As KNOWN TO TACITUS.

HERMITS.

See ANCHORITES.

HERMONTHIS.

See ON.

HERMUNDURI, The.

Among the German tribes of the time of Tacitus, "a people loyal to Rome. Consequently they, alone of the Germans, trade not merely on the banks of the river, but far inland, and in the most flourishing colony of the province of Rætia. Everywhere they are allowed to pass without a guard; and while to the other tribes we display only our arms and our camps, to them we have thrown open our houses and country-seats, which they do not covet."

Tacitus, Minor Works, translated by Church and Brodribb: The Germany.

"The settlements of the Hermunduri must have been in Bavaria, and seem to have stretched from Ratisbon, northwards, as far as Bohemia and Saxony."

Tacitus, Minor Works, translated by Church and Brodribb: The Germany. Geography notes.

HERNICANS, The.

A Sabine tribe, who anciently occupied a valley in the Lower Appenines, between the Anio and the Trerus, and who were leagued with the Romans and the Latins against the Volscians and the Æquians.

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 2, chapter 6.

HERODEANS, The.

See JEWS: B. C. 40-A. D. 44. REIGN OF THE HERODEANS.

HEROIC AGE OF GREECE.

See GREECE: THE HEROES.

HEROÖPOLIS.

See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.

HERRINGS, The Battle of the (1429).

In February, 1429, while the English still held their ground in France, and while the Duke of Bedford was besieging Orleans [see FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431], a large convoy of Lenten provisions, salted herring in the main, was sent away from Paris for the English army. It was under the escort of Sir John Fastolfe, with 1,500 men. At Rouvray en Beausse the convoy was attacked by 5,000 French cavalry, including the best knights and warriors of the kingdom. The English entrenched themselves behind their wagons and repelled the attack, with great slaughter and humiliation of the French chivalry; but in the mêlée the red-herrings were scattered thickly over the field. This caused the encounter to be named the Battle of the Herrings.

C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, 2d series, chapter 35.

HERRNHUT.

See MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN.

HERULI, The.

The Heruli were a people closely associated with the Goths in their history and undoubtedly akin to them in blood. The great piratical expedition of A. D. 267 from the Crimea, which struck Athens, was made up of Herules as well as Goths. The Heruli passed with the Goths under the yoke of the Huns. After the breaking up of the empire of Attila, they were found occupying the region of modern Hungary which is between the Carpathians, the upper Theiss, and the Danube. The Herules were numerous among the barbarian auxiliaries of the Roman army in the last days of the empire.

H. Bradley, Story of the Goths.

ALSO IN: T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chapter 8 (volume 2).

----------HERZEGOVINA: Start--------

HERZEGOVINA: A. D. 1875-1876. Revolt against Turkish rule. Interposition of the Powers.

See TURKS: A. D. 1861-1877.

HERZEGOVINA: A. D. 1878. Given over to Austria by the Treaty of Berlin.

See TURKS: A. D. 1878.

----------HERZEGOVINA: End--------

HESSE: A. D. 1866. Extinction of the electorate. Absorption by Prussia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

HESSIANS, The, in the American War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

HESTIASIS.

The feasting of the tribes at Athens.

See LITURGIES.

HESYCHASTS, The.

See MYSTICISM.

HETÆRIES, Ancient.

Political clubs "which were habitual and notorious at Athens; associations, bound together by oath, among the wealthy citizens, partly for purposes of amusement, but chiefly pledging the members to stand by each other in objects of political ambition, in judicial trials, in accusation or defence of official men after the period of office had expired, in carrying points through the public assembly, &c. … They furnished, when taken together, a formidable anti-popular force."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 62 (volume 7).

ALSO IN: G. F. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 3.

HETAIRA. HETAIRISTS, Modern.

See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.

HETMAN.

See POLAND: A. D. 1668-1696; also, COSSACKS.

HEXHAM, Battle of (1464).

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

HEYDUCS.

Servian Christians who, in the earlier period of the Turkish domination, fled into the forest and became outlaws and robbers were called Heyducs.

L. Ranke, History of Servia, chapter 3.

HIAWATHA AND THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERATION.

See IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

HIBERNIA.

See IRELAND.

HICKS PASHA, Destruction of the army of (1883).

See EGYPT: A. D. 1870-1883.

HIDALGO.

"Originally written 'fijodalgo,' son of something. Later applied to gentlemen, country gentlemen perhaps more particularly. … In the Dic. Univ. authorities are quoted showing that the word 'hidalgo' originated with the Roman colonists of Spain, called 'Italicos,' who were exempt from imposts. Hence those enjoying similar benefits were called 'Italicos,' which word in lapse of time became 'hidalgo.'"

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 1, page 252, foot-note.

HIDATSA INDIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HIDATSA.

{1645}

HIDE OF LAND. CARUCATE. VIRGATE.

"In the [Hundred] rolls for Huntingdonshire [England] a series of entries occurs, describing, contrary to the usual practice of the compilers, the number of acres in a virgate, and the number of virgates in a hide, in several manors. … They show clearly—(1) That the bundle of scattered strips called a virgate did not always contain the same number of acres. (2) That the hide did not always contain the same number of virgates. But at the same time it is evident that the hide in Huntingdonshire most often contained 120 acres or thereabouts. … We may gather from the instances given in the Hundred Rolls for Huntingdonshire, that the 'normal' hide consisted as a rule of four virgates of about thirty acres each. The really important consequence resulting from this is the recognition of the fact that as the virgate was a bundle of so many scattered strips in the open fields, the hide, so far as it consisted of actual virgates in villenage, was also a bundle—a compound and fourfold bundle—of scattered strips in the open fields. … A trace at least of the original reason of the varying contents and relations of the hide and virgate is to be found in the Hundred Rolls, as, indeed, almost everywhere else, in the use of another word in the place of hide, when, instead of the anciently assessed hidage of a manor, its modern actual taxable value is examined into and expressed. This new word is 'carucate'—'the land of a plough or plough team,'—'caruca' being the mediæval Latin term for both plough and plough team. … In some cases the carucate seems to be identical with the normal hide of 120 acres, but other instances show that the carucate varied in area. It is the land cultivated by a plough team; varying in acreage, therefore, according to the lightness or heaviness of the soil, and according to the strength of the team. … In pastoral districts of England and Wales the Roman tribute may possibly have been, if not a hide from each plough team, a hide from every family holding cattle. … The supposition of such an origin of the connexion of the word 'hide' with the 'land of a family,' or of a plough team, is mere conjecture; but the fact of the connexion is clear."

F. Seebohm, English Village Community, chapter 2, section 4, and chapter 10, section 6.

ALSO IN: J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England, book 1, chapter 4.

See, also, MANORS.

HIERATIC WRITING.

See HIEROGLYPHICS.

HIERODULI, The.

In some of the early Greek communities, the Hieroduli, or ministers of the gods, "formed a class of persons bound to certain services, duties, or contributions to the temple of some god, and … sometimes dwelt in the position of serfs on the sacred ground. They appear in considerable numbers, and as an integral part of the population only in Asia, as, e. g., at Comana in Cappadocia, where in Strabo's time there were more than 6,000 of them attached to the temple of the goddess Ma, who was named by the Greeks Enyo, and by the Romans Bellona. In Sicily too the Erycinian Aphrodite had numerous ministers, whom Cicero calls Venerii, and classes with the ministers of Mars (Martiales) at Larinum in South Italy. In Greece we may consider the Craugallidæ as Hieroduli of the Delphian Apollo. They belonged apparently to the race of Dryopes, who are said to have been at some former time conquered by Heracles, and dedicated by him to the god. The greater part of them, we are told, were sent at the command of Apollo to the Peloponnese, whilst the Craugallidæ remained behind. … At Corinth too there were numerous Hieroduli attached to Aphrodite, some of whom were women, who lived as Hetæræ and paid a certain tax from their earnings to the goddess."

G. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State, part 2, chapter 4.

See, also, DORIS AND DRYOPIS.

HIEROGLYPHICS, Egyptian.

"The Greeks gave the name of Hieroglyphics, that is, 'Sacred Sculpture,' to the national writing of the Egyptians, composed entirely of pictures of natural objects. Although very inapplicable, this name has been adopted by modern writers, and has been so completely accepted and used that it cannot now be replaced by a more appropriate appellation. … For a long series of ages the decipherment of the hieroglyphics, for which the classical writers furnish no assistance, remained a hopeless mystery. The acute genius of a Frenchman at last succeeded, not fifty years since, in lifting the veil. By a prodigious effort of induction, and almost divination, Jean François Champollion, who was born at Figeac (Lot) on the 23d of December, 1790, and died at Paris on the 4th of March, 1832, made the greatest discovery of the nineteenth century in the domain of historical science, and succeeded in fixing on a solid basis the principle of reading hieroglyphics. Numerous scholars have followed the path opened by him. … It would … be very far from the truth to regard hieroglyphics as always, or even generally, symbolical. No doubt there are symbolical characters among them, generally easy to understand; as also there are, and in very great number, figurative characters directly representing the object to be designated; but the majority of the signs found in every hieroglyphic text are characters purely phonetic; that is, representing either syllables (and these are so varied as to offer sometimes serious difficulties) or the letters of an only moderately complicated alphabet. These letters are also pictures of objects, but of objects or animals whose Egyptian name commenced with the letter in question, while also the syllabic characters (true rebusses) represented objects designated by that syllable."

F. Lenormant and E. Chevallier. Manual of the Ancient History of the East, book 3, chapter 5 (volume 1).

"The system of writing employed by the people called Egyptians was probably entirely pictorial either at the time when they first arrived in Egypt, or during the time that they still lived in their original home. We, however, know of no inscription in which pictorial characters alone are used, for the earliest specimens of their writing known to us contain alphabetical characters. The Egyptians had three kinds of writing—Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, and Demotic. … Hieroglyphics … were commonly employed for inscriptions upon temples, tombs, coffins, statues, and stelæ, and many copies of the Book of the Dead were written in them. The earliest hieroglyphic inscription at present known is found on the monument of Shera, parts of which are preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and in the Gîzeh Museum; it dates from the IInd dynasty. Hieroglyphics were used in Egypt for writing the names of Roman Emperors and for religious purposes until the third century after Christ, at least. {1646} Hieratic … was a style of cursive writing much used by the priests in copying literary compositions on papyrus; during the XIth or XIIth dynasty wooden coffins were inscribed in hieratic with religious texts. The oldest document in hieratic is the famous Prisse papyrus, which records the counsels of Ptah-hetep to his son; the composition itself is about a thousand years older than this papyrus, which was probably inscribed about the XIth dynasty. Drafts of inscriptions were written upon flakes of calcareous stone in hieratic, and at a comparatively early date hieratic was used in writing copies of the Book of the Dead. Hieratic was used until about the fourth century after Christ. Demotic … is a purely conventional modification of hieratic characters, which preserve little of their original form, and was used for social and business purposes; in the early days of Egyptian decipherment it was called enchorial. … The Demotic writing appears to have come into use about B. C. 900, and it survived until about the fourth century after Christ. In the time of the Ptolemies three kinds of writing were inscribed side by side upon documents of public importance, hieroglyphic, Greek, and Demotic; examples are the stele of Canopus, set up in the ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy III. Euergetes I., B. C. 247-222, at Canopus, to record the benefits which this king had conferred upon his country, and the famous Rosetta Stone, set up at Rosetta in the eighth year of the reign of Ptolemy V. Epiphanes (B. C. 205-182), likewise to commemorate the benefits conferred upon Egypt by himself and his family, etc. … A century or two after the Christian era Greek had obtained such a hold upon the inhabitants of Egypt, that the native Christian population, the disciples and followers of Saint Mark, were obliged to use the Greek alphabet to write down the Egyptian, that is to say Coptic, translation of the books of the Old and New Testaments, but they borrowed six signs from the demotic forms of ancient Egyptian characters to express the sounds which they found unrepresented in Greek."

E. A. Wallis Budge, The Mummy, pages 353-354.

See, also, ROSETTA STONE.

HIEROGLYPHICS, Mexican (so-called).

See AZTEC AND MAYA PICTURE-WRITING.

HIERONYMITES, The.

"A number of solitaries residing among the mountains of Spain, Portugal, and Italy, gradually formed into a community, and called themselves Hieronymites, either because they had compiled their Rule from the writings of St. Jerome, or because, adopting the rule of St. Augustine, they had taken St. Jerome for their patron. … The community was approved by Gregory XI., in 1374. The famous monastery of Our Lady of Guadaloupe, in Estremadura; the magnificent Escurial, with its wealth of literary treasures, and the monastery of St. Just, where Charles V. sought an asylum in the decline of his life, attest their wonderful energy and zeal."

J. Alzog, Manual of Universal Church History, volume 3, page 149.

HIGH CHURCH AND LOW CHURCH: First use of the names.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (APRIL-AUGUST).

HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.

See CURIA REGIS.

HIGH GERMANY, Old League of.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1332-1460.

HIGH MIGHTINESSES, Their.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1651-1660.

HIGHER LAW DOCTRINE, The.

William H. Seward, speaking in the Senate of the United States, March 11, 1850, on the question of the admission of California into the Union as a Free State, used the following language: "'The Constitution,' he said, 'regulates our stewardship; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty. But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no inconsiderable part, of the common heritage of mankind, bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe. We are His stewards, and must so discharge our trust as to secure in the highest attainable degree their happiness.' This public recognition by a Senator of the United States that the laws of the Creator were 'higher' than those of human enactment excited much astonishment and indignation, and called forth, in Congress and out of it, measureless abuse upon its author."

H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, pages 262-263.

In the agitations that followed upon the adoption of the Fugitive Slave Law, and the other compromise measures attending the admission of California, this Higher Law Doctrine was much talked about.

HIGHLAND CLANS.

See CLANS.

HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND,

See SCOTCH HIGHLAND AND LOWLAND.

HIKENILDE—STRETE.

See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

HILDEBRAND (Pope Gregory VII.), and the Papacy.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122; GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122; and CANOSSA.

HILDEBRAND, KING OF THE LOMBARDS, A. D. 743-744.

HILL, Isaac, in the "Kitchen Cabinet" of President Jackson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829.

HILL, Rowland, and the adoption of penny-postage.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1840.

HILTON HEAD, The capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: SOUTH CAROLINA-GEORGIA).

HIMATION, The.

An article of dress in the nature of a cloak, worn by both men and women among the ancient Greeks. It "was arranged so that the one corner was thrown over the left shoulder in front, so as to be attached to the body by means of the left arm. On the back the dress was pulled toward the right side, so as to cover it completely up to the right shoulder, or, at least, to the armpit, in which latter case the right shoulder remained uncovered. Finally, the himation was again thrown over the left shoulder, so that the ends fell over the back. … A second way of arranging the himation, which left the right arm free, was more picturesque, and is therefore usually found in pictures."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 42.

----------HIMERA: Start--------

HIMERA, Battle of.

See SICILY: B. C. 480.

HIMERA: Destroyed by Hannibal.

See SICILY: B. C. 409-405.

----------HIMERA: End--------

HIMYARITES, The.

See ARABIA.

HIN, The.

See EPHAH.

HINDMAN, Fort, Capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JANUARY: ARKANSAS).

{1647}

HINDOO KOOSH, The Name of the.

See CAUCASUS, THE INDIAN.

HINDUISM.

See INDIA: THE IMMIGRATION AND CONQUESTS OF THE ARYAS.

HINDUSTAN.

See INDIA: THE NAME.

HINKSTON'S FORK, Battle of (1782).

See KENTUCKY: A. D. 1775-1784.

HIONG-NU, The.

See TURKS: 6TH CENTURY.

HIPPARCH.

A commander of cavalry in the military organization of the ancient Athenians.

G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 3.

HIPPEIS.

Among the Spartans, the honorary title of Hippeis, or Knights, was given to the members of a chosen body of three hundred young men, the flower of the Spartan youth, who had not reached thirty years of age. "Their three leaders were called Hippagretæ, although in war they served not as cavalry but as hoplites. The name may possibly have survived from times in which they actually served on horseback." At Athens the term Hippeis was applied to the second of the four property classes into which Solon divided the population,—their property obliging them to serve as cavalry.

G. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece, The State, part 3, chapters 1 and 3.

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 594.

HIPPIS, Battle of the,

Fought, A. D. 550, in what was known as the Lazic War, between the Persians on one side and the Romans and the Lazi on the other. The latter were the victors.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 20.

----------HIPPO: Start--------

HIPPO, OR HIPPO REGIUS.

An ancient city of north Africa, on the Numidian coast.

See NUMIDIANS; and CARTHAGE: DOMINION OF.

HIPPO: A. D. 430-431. Siege by the Vandals.

See VANDALS: A. D. 429-439.

----------HIPPO: End--------

HIPPOBOTÆ, The.

See EUBŒA.

HIPPODROME. STADION. THEATER.

"The arts practised in the gymnasia were publicly displayed at the festivals. The buildings in which these displays took place were modified according to their varieties. The races both on horseback and in chariots took place in the hippodrome; for the gymnastic games of the pentathlon served the stadion; while for the acme of the festivals, the musical and dramatic performances, theatres were erected."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans (translated by Hueffer), sections 28-30.

HIPPOTOXOTÆ, The.

See SCYTHIANS, OR SCYTHÆ, OF ATHENS.

HIRA.

"The historians of the age of Justinian represent the state of the independent Arabs, who were divided by interest or affection in the long quarrel of the East [between the Romans and Persians—3rd to 7th century]: the tribe of Gassan was allowed to encamp on the Syrian territory; the princes of Hira were permitted to form a city about 40 miles to the southward of the ruins of Babylon. Their service in the field was speedy and vigorous; but their friendship was venal, their faith inconstant, their enmity capricious: it was an easier task to excite than to disarm these roving barbarians; and, in the familiar intercourse of war, they learned to see and to despise the splendid weakness both of Rome and of Persia."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 50 (volume 5).

"The dynasty of Palmyra and the western tribes embraced Christianity in the time of Constantine; to the east of the desert the religion was later of gaining ground, and indeed was not adopted by the court of Hira till near the end of the 6th century. Early in the 7th, Hira fell from its dignity as an independent power, and became a satrapy of Persia."

Sir William Muir, Life of Mahomet, introduction, chapter 1.

In 633 Hira was overwhelmed by the Mahometan conquest, and the greater city of Kufa was built only 3 miles distant from it.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651; also, BUSSORAH AND KUFA.

HISPALIS.

The name of Seville under the Romans.

See SEVILLE.

HISPANIA CITERIOR AND HISPANIA ULTERIOR.

See SPAIN: B. C. 218-25.

HISPANIOLA.

The name given by Columbus to the island now divided between the Republics of Hayti and San Domingo.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1492; 1493-1496, and after; and HAYTI.

HISSARLIK.

The site of ancient Troy, as supposed to be identified by the excavations of Dr. Schliemann.

See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES; also, TROJA, and HOMER.

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HISTORY: Definitions.

"With us the word 'history,' like its equivalents in all modern languages, signifies either a form of literary composition or the appropriate subject or matter of such composition—either a narrative of events, or events which may be narrated. It is impossible to free the term from this doubleness and ambiguity of meaning. Nor is it, on the whole, to be desired. The advantages of having one term which may, with ordinary caution, be innocuously applied to two things so related, more than counterbalances the dangers involved in two things so distinct having the same name. … Since the word history has two very different meanings, it obviously cannot have merely one definition. To define an order of facts and a form of literature in the same terms—to suppose that when either of them is defined the other is defined—is so absurd that one would probably not believe it could be seriously done were it not so often done. But to do so has been the rule rather than the exception. The majority of so-called definitions of history are definitions only of the records of history. They relate to history as narrated and written, not to history as evolved and acted; in other words, although given as the only definitions of history needed, they do not apply to history itself, but merely to accounts of history. They may tell us what constitutes a book of history, but they cannot tell us what the history is with which all books of history are occupied. It is, however, with history in this latter sense that a student of the science or philosophy of history is mainly concerned. … If by history be meant history in its widest sense, the best definition of history as a form of literature is, perhaps, either the very old one, 'the narration of events,' or W. von Humboldt's, 'the exhibition of what has happened' (die Darstellung des Geschehenen). {1648} The excellence of these definitions lies in their clear and explicit indication of what history as effectuated or transacted is. It consists of events; it is das Geschehene. It is the entire course of events in time. It is all that has happened precisely as it happened. Whatever happens is history. Eternal and unchanging being has no history. Things or phenomena considered as existent, connected, and comprehended in space, compose what is called nature as distinguished from history. … Probably Droysen has found a neater and terser formula for it in German than any which the English language could supply. Nature he describes as 'das Nebeneinander des Seienden,' and history as 'das Nacheinander des Gewordenen.' … The only kind of history with which we have here directly to deal is that kind of it to which the name is generally restricted, history par excellence, human history, what has happened within the sphere of human agency and interests, the actions and creations of men, events which have affected the lives and destinies of men, or which have been produced by men. This is the ordinary sense of the word history. … To attempt further to define it would be worse than useless. It would be unduly to limit, and to distort and pervert, its meaning. In proof of this a few brief remarks on certain typical or celebrated definitions of history may perhaps be of service. The definition given in the Dictionary of the French Academy—'l'histoire est le récit des choses dignes de mémoire' [Transcriber: "the story of things worth remembering"]—is a specimen of a very numerous species. According to such definitions history consists of exceptional things, of celebrated or notorious events, of the lives and actions of great and exalted men, of conspicuous achievements in war and politics, in science and art, in religion and literature. But this is a narrow and superficial conception of history. History is made up of what is little as well as of what is great, of what is common as well as of what is strange, of what is counted mean as well as of what is counted noble. … Dr. Arnold's definition—'history is the biography of a society'—has been often praised. Nor altogether undeservedly. For it directs attention to the fact that all history accords with biography in supposing in its subject a certain unity of life, work, and end. … It does not follow, however, that biography is a more general notion than history, and history only a species of biography. In fact, it is not only as true and intelligible to say that biography is the history of an individual as to say that history is the biography of a society, but more so. It is the word biography in the latter case which is used in a secondary and analogical sense, not the word history in the former case. … According to Mr. Freeman, 'history is past politics and politics are present history.' This is not a mode of definition which any logician will be found to sanction. It is equivalent to saying that politics and history are the same, and may both be divided into past and present; but it does not tell us what either is. To affirm that this was that and that is this is not a definition of this or that, but only an assertion that something may be called either this or that. Besides, the identification of history with politics proceeds, as has been already indicated, on a view of history which is at once narrow and arbitrary. Further, it is just as true that mathematical history is past mathematics and mathematics are present history, as that political history is past politics and politics are present history. … The whole of man's past was once present thought, feeling, and action. There is nothing peculiar to politics in this respect."

R. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History: France, etc., pages 5-10.

HISTORY: The subjects and objects of History.

"The position for which I have always striven is this, that history is past politics, that politics are present history. The true subject of history, of any history that deserves the name, is man in his political capacity, man as the member of an organized society, governed according to law. History, in any other aspect, hardly rises above antiquarianism, though I am far from holding that even simple antiquarianism, even the merest scraping together of local and genealogical detail, is necessarily antiquarian rubbish. I know not why the pursuits of the antiquary should be called rubbish, any more than the pursuits of the seeker after knowledge of any other kind. Still, the pursuits of the antiquary, the man of local and special detail, the man of buildings or coins or weapons or manuscripts, are not in themselves history, though they are constantly found to be most valuable helps to history. The collections of the antiquary are not history; but they are materials for history, materials of which the historian makes grateful use, and without which he would often be sore put to in doing his own work. … It is not too much to say that no kind of knowledge, of whatever kind, will be useless to the historian. There is none, however seemingly distant from his subject, which may not stand him in good stead at some pinch, sooner or later. But his immediate subject, that to which all other things are secondary, is man as the member of a political community. Rightly to understand man in that character, he must study him in all the forms, in all the developments, that political society has taken. Effects have to be traced up to their causes, causes have to be traced up to their effects; and we cannot go through either of those needful processes if we confine our studies either to the political societies of our own day or to political societies on a great physical scale. The object of history is to watch the workings of one side, and that the highest side, of human nature in all its shapes; and we do not see human nature in all its shapes, unless we follow it into all times and all circumstances under which we have any means of studying it. … In one sense it is perfectly true that history is always repeating itself; in another sense it would be equally true to say that history never repeats itself at all. No historical position can be exactly the same as any earlier historical position, if only for the reason that the earlier position has gone before it. … Even where the reproduction is unconscious, where the likeness is simply the result of the working of like causes, still the two results can never be exactly the same, if only because the earlier result itself takes its place among the causes of the later result. Differences of this kind must always be borne in mind, and they are quite enough to hinder any two historical events from being exact doubles of one another. … We must carefully distinguish between causes and occasions. It is one of the oldest and one of the wisest remarks of political philosophy that great events commonly arise from great causes, but from small occasions. {1649} A certain turn of mind, one which is more concerned with gossip, old or new, than with real history, delights in telling us how the greatest events spring from the smallest causes, how the fates of nations and empires are determined by some sheer accident, or by the personal caprice or personal quarrel of some perhaps very insignificant person. A good deal of court-gossip, a good deal of political gossip, passes both in past and present times for real history. Now a great deal of this gossip is sheer gossip, and may be cast aside without notice; but a good deal of it often does contain truth of a certain kind. Only bear in mind the difference between causes and occasions, and we may accept a good many of the stories which tell us how very trifling incidents led to very great events. … When I speak of causes and occasions, when I speak of small personal caprices and quarrels, as being not the causes of great events, but merely the occasions, I wish it to be fully understood that I do not at all place the agency of really great men among mere occasions: I fully give it its place among determining causes. In any large view of history, we must always be on our guard against either underrating or overrating the actions of individual men. History is something more than biography; but biography is an essential and a most important part of history. We must not think, on the one hand, that great men, heroes, or whatever we please to call them, can direct the course of history according to their own will and pleasure, perhaps according to their mere caprice, with no danger of their will being thwarted, unless it should run counter to the will of some other great man or hero of equal or greater power. … On the other hand, we must not deem that the course of history is so governed by general laws, that it is so completely in bondage to almost mechanical powers, that there is no room for the free agency of great men and of small men too. For it is of no little importance that, while we talk of the influence of great men on the history of the world, we should not forget the influence of the small men. Every man has some influence on the course of history."

E. A. Freeman, The Practical Bearings of European History (Lectures to American Audiences), pages 207-215.

HISTORY: The Philosophy of History

"The philosophy of history is not a something separate from the facts of history, but a something contained in them. The more a man gets into the meaning of them, the more he gets into it, and it into him; for it is simply the meaning, the rational interpretation, the knowledge of the true nature and essential relations of the facts. And this is true of whatever species or order the facts may be. Their philosophy is not something separate and distinct from, something over and above, their interpretation, but simply their interpretation. He who knows about any people, or epoch, or special development of human nature, how it has come to be what it is and what it tends to, what causes have given it the character it has, and what its relation is to the general development of humanity, has attained to the philosophy of the history of that people, epoch, or development. Philosophical history is sometimes spoken of as a kind of history, but the language is most inaccurate. Every kind of history is philosophical which is true and thorough; which goes closely and deeply enough to work; which shows the what, how, and why of events as far as reason and research can ascertain. History always participates in some measure of philosophy, for events are always connected according to some real or supposed principle either of efficient or final causation."

R. Flint, Philosophy of History, introduction.

HISTORY: The possibility of a Science of History. Mr. Buckle's theory.

"The believer in the possibility of a science of history is not called upon to hold either the doctrine of predestined events, or that of freedom of the will; and the only positions which, in this stage of the inquiry, I shall expect him to concede are the following: That when we perform an action, we perform it in consequence of some motive or motives; that those motives are the results of some antecedents; and that, therefore, if we were acquainted with the whole of the antecedents, and with all the laws of their movements, we could with unerring certainty predict the whole of their immediate results. This, unless I am greatly mistaken, is the view which must be held by every man whose mind is unbiased by system, and who forms his opinions according to the evidence actually before him. … Rejecting, then, the metaphysical dogma of free will and, the theological dogma of predestined events, we are driven to the conclusion that the actions of men, being determined solely by their antecedents, must have a character of uniformity, that is to say, must, under precisely the same circumstances, always issue in precisely the same results. And as all antecedents are either in the mind or out of it, we clearly see that all the variations in the results—in other words, all the changes of which history is full, all the vicissitudes of the human race, their progress or their decay, their happiness or their misery—must be the fruit of a double action; an action of external phenomena upon the mind, and another action of the mind upon the phenomena. These are the materials out of which a philosophic history can alone be constructed. On the one hand, we have the human mind obeying the laws of its own existence, and, when uncontrolled by external agents, developing itself according to the conditions of its organization. On the other hand, we have what is called Nature, obeying likewise its laws; but incessantly coming into contact with the minds of men, exciting their passions, stimulating their intellect, and therefore giving to their actions a direction which they would not have taken without such disturbance. Thus we have man modifying nature, and nature modifying man; while out of this reciprocal modification all events must necessarily spring. The problem immediately before us is to ascertain the method of discovering the laws of this double modification."

H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization in England, chapter 1.

"Buckle is not the first who has attempted to treat the unscientific character of History, the 'methodless matter,' as an ancient writer names it, by the method of exhibiting vital phenomena under points of view analogous to those which are the starting-point of the exact sciences. But a notion which others have incidentally broached under some formula about 'natural growth,' or carried out in the very inadequate and merely figurative idea of 'the inorganic; what still others, as Comte in his attractive 'Philosophie Positive,' have developed speculatively, Buckle undertakes to ground in a comprehensive historical exposition. … {1650} He purposes to raise History to a science by showing how to demonstrate historical facts out of general laws. He paves the way for this by setting forth that the earliest and rudest conceptions touching the course of human destiny were those indicated by the ideas of chance and necessity, that in all probability' out of these grew later the 'dogmas' of free-will and predestination, that both are in a great degree 'mistakes,' or that, as he adds, 'we at least have no adequate proof of their truth.' He finds that all the changes of which History is full, all the vicissitudes which have come upon the human race, its advance and its decline, its happiness and its misery, must be the fruit, of a double agency, the working of outer phenomena upon our nature, and the working of our nature upon outer phenomena. He has confidence that he has discovered the 'laws' of this double influence, and that he has therefore elevated the History of mankind to a science. … Buckle does not so much leave the freedom of the will, in connection with divine providence, out of view, but rather declares it an illusion and throws it overboard. Within the precincts of philosophy also something similar has recently been taught. A thinker whom I regard with personal esteem says: 'If we call all that an individual man is, has and performs A, then this A arises out of a + x, a embracing all that comes to the man from his outer circumstances: from his country, people, age, etc., while the vanishingly little x is his own contribution, the work of his free will.' However vanishingly small this x may be, it is of infinite value. Morally and humanly considered it alone has value. The colors, the brush, the canvas which Raphael used were of materials which he had not created. He had learned from one and another master to apply these materials in drawing and painting. The idea of the Holy Virgin and of the saints and angels, he met with in church tradition. Various cloisters ordered pictures from him at given prices. That this incitement alone, these material and technical conditions and such traditions and contemplations, should 'explain' the Sistine Madonna, would be, in the formula A = a + x, the service of the vanishing little x. Similarly everywhere. Let statistics go on showing that in a certain country so and so many illegitimate births occur. Suppose that in the formula A = a + x this a includes all the elements which 'explain' the fact that among a thousand mothers twenty, thirty, or whatever the number is, are unmarried; each individual case of the kind has its history, how often a touching and affecting one. Of those twenty or thirty who have fallen is there a single one who will be consoled by knowing that the statistical law 'explains' her case? Amid the tortures of conscience through nights of weeping, many a one of them will be profoundly convinced that in the formula A = a + x the vanishing little x is of immeasurable weight, that in fact it embraces the entire moral worth of the human being, his total and exclusive value. No intelligent man will think of denying that the statistical method of considering human affairs has its great worth; but we must not forget how little, relatively, it can accomplish and is meant to accomplish: Many and perhaps all human relations have a legal side; yet no one will on that account bid us seek for the understanding of the Eroica or of Faust among jurists' definitions concerning intellectual property."

J. G. Droysen, Outline of the Principles of History pages 62-64 and 77-79.

HISTORY: History as the root of all Science. Lost History.

"History, as it lies at the root of all science, is also the first distinct product of man's spiritual nature; his earliest expression of what can be called Thought. It is a looking both before and after; as, indeed, the coming Time already waits, unseen, yet definitely shaped, predetermined and inevitable, in the Time come; and only by the combination of both is the meaning of either completed. The Sibylline Books, though old, are not the oldest. Some nations have prophecy, some have not: but of all mankind, there is no tribe so rude that it has not attempted History, though several have not arithmetic enough to count Five. History has been written with quipo-threads, with feather-pictures, with wampum-belts; still oftener with earth-mounds and monumental stone-heaps, whether as pyramid or cairn; for the Celt and the Copt, the Red man as well as the White, lives between two eternities, and warring against Oblivion, he would fain unite himself in clear conscious relation, as in dim unconscious relation he is already united, with the whole Future and the whole Past. A talent for History may be said to be born with us, as our chief inheritance. In a certain sense all men are historians. Is not every memory written quite full with Annals, wherein joy and mourning, conquest and loss manifoldly alternate; and, with or without philosophy, the whole fortunes of one little inward Kingdom, and all its politics, foreign and domestic, stand ineffaceably recorded? Our very speech is curiously historical. Most men, you may observe, speak only to narrate; not in imparting what they have thought, which indeed were often a very small matter, but in exhibiting what they have undergone or seen, which is a quite unlimited one, do talkers dilate. Cut us off from Narrative, how would the stream of conversation, even among the wisest, languish into detached handfuls, and among the foolish utterly evaporate! Thus, as we do nothing but enact History, we say little but recite it: nay rather, in that widest sense, our whole spiritual life is built thereon. For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which; therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials? … Social Life is the aggregate of all the individual men's Lives who constitute society; History is the essence of innumerable Biographies. But if one Biography, nay our own Biography, study and recapitulate it as we may, remains in so many points unintelligible to us; how much more must these million, the very facts of which, to say nothing of the purport of them, we know not, and cannot know! … Which was the greatest innovator, which was the more important personage in man's history, he who first led armies over the Alps, and gained the victories of Cannæ and Thrasymene; or the nameless boor who first hammered out for himself an iron spade? When the oak tree is felled, the whole forest echoes with it; but a hundred acorns are planted silently by some unnoticed breeze. {1651} Battles and war-tumults, which for the time din every ear, and with joy or terror intoxicate every heart, pass away like tavern-brawls; and, except some few Marathons and Morgartens, are remembered by accident, not by desert. Laws themselves, political Constitutions, are not our Life, but only the house wherein our Life is led: nay they are but the bare walls of the house; all whose essential furniture, the inventions and traditions, and daily habits that regulate and support our existence, are the work not of Dracos and Hampdens, but of Phœnician mariners, of Italian masons and Saxon metallurgists, of philosophers, alchymists, prophets, and all the long-forgotten train of artists and artisans; who from the first have been jointly teaching us how to think and how to act, how to rule over spiritual and over physical Nature. Well may we say that of our History the more important part is lost without recovery."

T. Carlyle, On History (Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 2).

HISTORY: Interpretation of the Past by the Present.

"But how, it may be asked, are we to interpret the Past from the Present, if there are no institutions in the present answering to those in the past? We have no serfs, for example, in England at the present time, how then are we to understand a state of Society of which they were a component element? The answer is—by analogy, by looking at the essence of the relation. Between a modern master and his lackeys and dependents, the same essential relation subsists as between the lord and serf of feudal times. If we realise to ourselves the full round of this relationship, deepen the shades to correspond with the more absolute power possessed by a lord in early times, allow for a more aristocratic state of opinion and belief, the result will be the solution desired. This method of interpreting the Past from the Present has been followed by Shakespeare in his great historical dramas, with such success as we all know. He wishes, for example, to give us a picture of old Roman times. He gets from Plutarch and other sources the broad historical facts, the form of Government and Religion, the distribution of Power and Authority: this is the skeleton to which he has to give life and reality. How does he proceed? He simply takes his stand on the times in which he himself lived; notes the effects existing institutions have on his own and other minds; allows for the differences in custom, mode of life, and political and religious forms; and the result is a drama or dramas more real and lifelike, more true and believable, an insight into the working of Roman life more subtle and profound, than all the husks with which the historians have furnished us."

J. B. Crozier, Civilization and Progress, page 35.

HISTORY: The Moral lessons of History.

"Gibbon believed that the era of conquerors was at an end. Had he lived out the full life of man, he would have seen Europe at the feet of Napoleon. But a few years ago we believed the world had grown too civilized for war, and the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park was to be the inauguration of a new era. Battles bloody as Napoleon's are now the familiar tale of every day; and the arts which have made greatest progress are the arts of destruction. … What, then, is the use of History, and what are its lessons? If it can tell us little of the past, and nothing of the future, why waste our time over so barren a study? First, it is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last; not always by the chief offenders, but paid by some one. Justice and truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes at last to them, in French revolutions and other terrible ways. That is one lesson of History. Another is that we should draw no horoscopes; that we should expect little, for what we expect will not come to pass."

J. A. Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, pages 27-28.

HISTORY: The Educational and Practical value of History.

"It is, I think, one of the best schools for that kind of reasoning which is most useful in practical life. It teaches men to weigh conflicting probabilities, to estimate degrees of evidence, to form a sound judgment of the value of authorities. Reasoning is taught by actual practice much more than by any a priori methods. Many good judges—and I own I am inclined to agree with them—doubt much whether a study of formal logic ever yet made a good reasoner. Mathematics are no doubt invaluable in this respect, but they only deal with demonstrations; and it has often been observed how many excellent mathematicians are somewhat peculiarly destitute of the power of measuring degrees of probability. But History is largely concerned with the kind of probabilities on which the conduct of life mainly, depends. There is one hint about historical reasoning which I think may not be unworthy of your notice. When studying some great historical controversy, place yourself by an effort of the imagination alternately on each side of the battle; try to realise as fully as you can the point of view of the best men on either side, and then draw up upon paper the arguments of each in the strongest form you can give them. You will find that few practices do more to elucidate the past, or form a better mental discipline."

W. E. H. Lecky, The Political Value of History, pages 47-49.

"He who demands certainties alone as the sphere of his action must retire from the activities of life, and confine himself to the domain of mathematical computation. He who is unwilling to investigate and weigh probabilities can have no good reason to hope for any practical success whatever. It is strictly accurate to say that the highest successes in life, whether in statesmanship, in legislation, in war, in the civic professions, or in the industrial pursuits, are attained by those who possess the greatest skill in the weighing of probabilities and the estimating of them at their true value. This is the essential reason why the study of history is so important an element in the work of improving the judgment, and in the work of fitting men to conduct properly the larger interests of communities and states. It is a study of humanity, not in an ideal condition, but as humanity exists. The student of history surveys the relations of life in essentially the same manner as the man of business surveys them. Perhaps it ought rather to be said that the historical method is the method that must be used in the common affairs of everyday life. {1652} The premises from which the man of business has to draw his conclusions are always more or less involved and uncertain. The gift which insures success, therefore, is not so much the endowment of a powerful reasoning faculty as that other quality of intelligence, which we call good judgment. It is the ability to grasp what may be called the strategic points of a situation by instinctive or intuitive methods. It reaches its conclusions not by any very clearly defined or definable process, but rather by the method of conjecturing the value and importance of contingent elements. It is the ability to reach correct conclusions when the conditions of a strictly logical process are wanting. To a man of affairs this is the most valuable of all gifts; and it is acquired, so far as it comes by effort, not by studying the rigid processes of necessary reasoning, but by a large observance and contemplation of human affairs. And it is precisely this method of studying men that the historical student has to use. His premises are always more or less uncertain, and his conclusions, therefore, like the conclusions of every day life, are the product of his judgment rather than the product of pure reason. It is in the light of this fact that we are to explain the force of Guizot's remark, that nothing tortures history more than logic. Herein also is found the reason why the study of history is so necessary a part of a good preparation for the affairs of politics and statesmanship. Freeman has said that history is simply past politics, and politics are simply present history. If this be true—and who can deny it?—the study of history and the study of politics are much the same. The kind of involved and contingent reasoning necessary for the successful formation of political judgments is unquestionably the kind of reasoning which, of all studies, history is best adapted to give. It may also be said that the most important elements of success are the same in all practical vocations. The conditions, whether those of statesmanship or those of industry and commerce, have been essentially the same in all ages. Society is, and has been, from its first existence, a more or less complicated organism. It is a machine with a great number of wheels and springs. No part is independent. Hence it is that no man can be completely useful if he is out of gear with his age, however perfect he may be in himself."

C. K. Adams, A Manual of Historical Literature, pp. 15-16.

"To turn for a moment to the general question. I should not like to be thought to be advocating my study on the mere grounds of utility; although I believe that utility, both as regards the training of the study and the information attained in it, to be the highest, humanly speaking, of all utilities; it helps to qualify a man to act in his character of a politician as a Christian man should. But this is not all; beyond the educational purpose, beyond the political purpose, beyond the philosophical use of history and its training, it has something of the preciousness of everything that is clearly true. In common with Natural Philosophy it has its value, I will not say as Science, for that would be to use a term which has now become equivocal, but it has a value analogous to the value of science; a value as something that is worth knowing and retaining in the knowledge for its own and for the truth's sake. And in this consists its especial attraction for its own votaries. It is not the pleasure of knowing something that the world does not know,—that doubtless is a motive that weighs with many minds, a motive to be accepted as a fact, though it may not be worth analysis. It is not the mere pleasure of investigating and finding with every step of investigation new points of view open out, and new fields of labour, new characters of interest;—that investigating instinct of human nature is not one to be ignored, and the exercise of it on such inexhaustible materials as are before us now is a most healthy exercise, one that cannot but strengthen and develop the whole mind of the man who uses it, urging him on to new studies, new languages, new discoveries in geography and science. But even this is not all. There is, I speak humbly, in common with Natural Science, in the study of living History, a gradual approximation to a consciousness that we are growing into a perception of the workings of the Almighty Ruler of the world. … The study of History is in this respect, as Coleridge said of Poetry, its own great reward, a thing to be loved and cultivated for its own sake. … If man is not, as we believe, the greatest and most wonderful of God's works, he is at least the most wonderful that comes within our contemplation; if the human will, which is the motive cause of all historical events, is not the freest agent in the universe, it is at least the freest agency of which we have any knowledge; if its variations are not absolutely innumerable and irreducible to classification, on the generalisations of which we may formulate laws and rules, and maxims and prophecies, they are far more diversified and less reducible than any other phenomena in those regions of the universe that we have power to penetrate. For one great insoluble problem of astronomy or geology there are a thousand insoluble problems in the life, in the character, in the face of every man that meets you in the street. Thus, whether we look at the dignity of the subject-matter, or at the nature of the mental exercise which it requires, or at the inexhaustible field over which the pursuit ranges, History, the knowledge of the adventures, the development, the changeful career, the varied growths, the ambitions, aspirations, and, if you like, the approximating destinies of mankind, claims a place second to none in the roll of sciences."

W. Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History, lectures 1 and 4.

"There is a passage in Lord Bacon so much to this purpose that I cannot forbear quoting it. 'Although' (he says) 'we are deeply indebted to the light, because by means of it we can find our way, ply our tasks, read, distinguish one another; and yet for all that the vision of the light itself is more excellent and more beautiful than all these various uses of it; so the contemplation and sight of things as they are, without superstition, without imposture, without error, and without confusion, is in itself worth more than all the harvest and profit of inventions put together.' And so may I say of History; that useful as it may be to the statesman, to the lawyer, to the schoolmaster, or the annalist, so far as it enables us to look at facts as they are, and to cultivate that habit within us, the importance of History is far beyond all mere amusement or even information that we may gather from it."

J. S. Brewer, English Studies, page 382.

{1653}

"To know History is impossible; not even Mr. Freeman, not Professor Ranke himself, can be said to know History. … No one, therefore, should be discouraged from studying History. Its greatest service is not so much to increase our knowledge as to stimulate thought and broaden our intellectual horizon, and for this purpose no study is its equal."

W. P. Atkinson, On History and the Study of History, page 107.

HISTORY: The Writing of History. Macaulay's view.

"A history in which every particular incident may be true may on the whole be false. The circumstances which have most influence on the happiness of mankind, the changes of manners and morals, the transition of communities from poverty to wealth, from knowledge to ignorance, from ferocity to humanity—these are, for the most part, noiseless revolutions. Their progress is rarely indicated by what historians are pleased to call important events. They are not achieved by armies, or enacted by senates. They are sanctioned by no treaties and recorded in no archives. They are carried on in every school, in every church, behind ten thousand counters, at ten thousand firesides. The upper current of society presents no certain criterion by which we can judge of the direction in which the under current flows. We read of defeats and victories. But we know that nations may be miserable amidst victories and prosperous amidst defeats. We read of the fall of wise ministers and of the rise of profligate favourites. But we must remember how small a proportion the good or evil effected by a single statesman can bear to the good or evil of a great social system. … The effect of historical reading is analogous, in many respects, to that produced by foreign travel. The student, like the tourist, is transported into a new state of society. He sees new fashions. He hears new modes of expression. His mind is enlarged by contemplating the wide diversities of laws, of morals, and of manners. But men may travel far and return with minds as contracted as if they had never stirred from their own market-town. In the same manner, men may know the dates of many battles and the genealogies of many royal houses, and yet be no wiser. … The perfect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit of an age is exhibited in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes no expression to his characters, which is not authenticated by sufficient testimony. But, by judicious selection, rejection, and arrangement, he gives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction. In his narrative a due subordination is observed: some transactions are prominent; others retire. But the scale on which he represents them is increased or diminished, not according to the dignity of the persons concerned in them, but according to the degree in which they elucidate the condition of society and the nature of man. He shows us the court, the camp, and the senate. But he shows us also the nation. He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity of manner, no familiar saying, as too insignificant for his notice which is not too insignificant to illustrate the operation of laws, of religion, and of education, and to mark the progress of the human mind. Men will not merely be described, but will be made intimately known to us."

Lord Macaulay, History (Essays, volume 1).

HISTORY: The Writing of History. Truthfulness in Style.

"That man reads history, or anything else, at great peril of being thoroughly misled, who has no perception of any truthfulness except that which can be fully ascertained by reference to facts; who does not in the least perceive the truth, or the reverse, of a writer's style, of his epithets, of his reasoning, of his mode of narration. In life our faith in any narration is much influenced by the personal appearance, voice, and gesture of the person narrating. There is some part of all these things in his writing; and you must look into that well before you can know what faith to give him. One man may make mistakes in names, and dates, and references, and yet have a real substance of truthfulness in him, a wish to enlighten himself and then you. Another may not be wrong in his facts, but have a declamatory, or sophistical, vein in him, much to be guarded against. A third may be both inaccurate and untruthful, caring not so much for any thing as to write his book. And if the reader cares only to read it, sad work they make between them of the memories of former days."

Sir A. Helps, Friends in Council, volume 1, pages 199-200.

HISTORY: Historical Romance and Romantic History. Sir Walter Scott.

"The prodigious addition which the happy idea of the historical romance has made to the stories of elevated literature, and through it to the happiness and improvement of the human race, will not be properly appreciated, unless the novels most in vogue before the immortal creations of Scott appeared are considered. … Why is it that works so popular in their day, and abounding with so many traits of real genius, should so soon have palled upon the world? Simply because they were not founded upon a broad and general view of human nature; because they were drawn, not from real life in the innumerable phases which it presents to the observer, but imaginary life as it was conceived in the mind of the composer; because they were confined to one circle and class of society, and having exhausted all the natural ideas which it could present, its authors were driven, in the search of variety, to the invention of artificial and often ridiculous ones. Sir Walter Scott, as all the world knows, was the inventor of the historical romance. As if to demonstrate how ill founded was the opinion, that all things were worked out, and that originality no longer was accessible for the rest of time, Providence, by the means of that great mind, bestowed a new art, as it were, upon mankind—at the very time when literature to all appearance was effete, and invention, for above a century, had run in the cramped and worn-out channels of imitation. Gibbon was lamenting that the subjects of history were exhausted, and that modern story would never present the moving incidents of ancient story, on the verge of the French Revolution and the European war—of the Reign of Terror and the Moscow retreat. Such was the reply of Time to the complaint that political incident was worn out. Not less decisive was the answer which the genius of the Scottish bard afforded to the opinion, that the treasures of original thought were exhausted, and that nothing now remained for the sons of men. In the midst of that delusion he wrote 'Waverley'; and the effect was like the sun bursting through the clouds."

Historical Romance (Blackwood's Magazine, September, 1845).

{1654}

"Those sticklers for truth, who reproach Scott with having falsified history because he wilfully confused dates, forget the far greater truth which that wonderful writer generally presented. If, for his purposes, he disarranged the order of events a little; no grave historian ever succeeded better in painting the character of the epoch. He committed errors of detail enough to make Mrs. Markham shudder. He divined important historical truth which had escaped the sagacity of all historians. A great authority, Augustin Thierry, has pronounced Scott the greatest of all historical divinators."

G. H. Lewes, Historical Romance (Westminster Review, March, 1846).

"The novel of Ivanhoe places us four generations after the invasion of the Normans, in the reign of Richard, son of Henry Plantagenet, sixth king since the conqueror. At this period, at which the historian Hume can only represent to us a king and England, without telling us what a king is, nor what he means by England, Walter Scott, entering profoundly into the examination of events, shows us classes of men, distinct interests and conditions, two nations, a double language, customs which repel and combat each other; on one side tyranny and insolence, on the other misery and hatred, real developments of the drama of the conquest, of which the battle of Hastings had been only the prologue. … In the midst of the world which no longer exists, Walter Scott always places the world which does and always will exist, that is to say, human nature, of which he knows all the secrets. Everything peculiar to the time and place, the exterior of men, the aspect of the country and of the habitations, costumes, and manners, are described with the most minute truthfulness; and yet the immense erudition which has furnished so many details is nowhere to be perceived. Walter Scott seems to have for the past that second sight, which in times of ignorance, certain men attributed to themselves for the future. To say that there is more real history in his novels on Scotland and England than in the philosophically false compilations which still possess that great name, is not advancing any thing strange in the eyes of those who have read and understood 'Old Mortality,' 'Waverley,' 'Rob Roy,' the 'Fortunes of Nigel,' and the 'Heart of Mid-Lothian.'"

A. Thierry, Narratives of the Merovingian Era, Historical Essays, etc., essay 9.

"We have all heard how the romances of Walter Scott brought history home to people who would never have looked into the ponderous volumes of professed historians, and many of us confess to ourselves that there are large historical periods which would be utterly unknown to us but for some story either of the great romancer or one of his innumerable imitators. Writers, as well as readers, of history were awakened by Scott to what seemed to them the new discovery that the great personages of history were after all men and women of flesh and blood like ourselves. Hence in all later historical literature there is visible the effort to make history more personal, more dramatic than it had been before. We can hardly read the interesting Life of Lord Macaulay without perceiving that the most popular historical work of modern times owes its origin in a great measure to the Waverley Novels. Macaulay grew up in a world of novels; his conversation with his sisters was so steeped in reminiscences of the novels they had read together as to be unintelligible to those who wanted the clue. His youth and early manhood witnessed the appearance of the Waverley Novels themselves. … He became naturally possessed by the idea which is expressed over and over again in his essays, and which at last he realized with such wonderful success, the idea that it was quite possible to make history as interesting as romance. … Macaulay is only the most famous of a large group of writers who have been possessed with the same idea. As Scott founded the historical romance, he may be said to have founded the romantic history. And to this day it is an established popular opinion that this is the true way of writing history, only that few writers have genius enough for it. … It must be urged against this kind of history that very few subjects or periods are worthy of it. Once or twice there have appeared glorious characters whose perfection no eloquence can exaggerate; once or twice national events have arranged themselves like a drama, or risen to the elevation of an epic poem. But the average of history is not like this; it is indeed much more ordinary and monotonous than is commonly supposed. The serious student of history has to submit to a disenchantment like that which the experience of life brings to the imaginative youth. As life is not much like romance, so history when it is studied in original documents looks very unlike the conventional representation of it which historians have accustomed us to."

J. R. Seeley, History and Polities (Macmillan's Magazine, August, 1879).

HISTORY: How to study History.

"The object of the historical student is to bring before his mind a picture of the main events and the spirit of the times which he studies. The first step is to get a general view from a brief book; the second step is to enlarge it from more elaborate books, reading more than one, and to use some system of written notes keeping them complete. The next step is to read some of the contemporary writers. Having done these three things carefully, the historical student carries away an impression of his period which will never be effaced."

Prof. A. B. Hart, How to Study History (Chautauquan, October, 1893).

HISTORY: The Importance of a knowledge of Universal History.

"When I was a schoolmaster, I never considered a pupil thoroughly educated unless he had read Gibbon through before he left me. I read it through myself before I was eighteen, and I have derived unspeakable advantage from this experience. Gibbon's faults of style and matter have very slight effect on the youthful mind, whereas his merits, his scholarship, his learning, his breadth of view, his imagination, and his insight, afford a powerful stimulus to study. … I … wish to urge the claims of two subjects on your attention which have hitherto been unaccountably neglected. The first of them is universal history, the general course of the history of the world. It seems natural to think that no subject could be more important for the consideration of any human being than the knowledge of the main lines which the race has followed since the dawn of history in reaching the position which it has now attained. The best way of understanding any situation is to know how affairs came into that position. Besides the satisfaction of legitimate curiosity, it is only thus that we can be wise reformers, and distinguish between what is a mere survival of the past and an institution which is inherent in the character of the community. {1655} Our German cousins are fully aware of this truth; a German parlour, however meagerly furnished, always contains two books, a Bible and a Weltgeschichte. I suppose that during the present century from a hundred to a hundred and fifty of these universal histories have made their appearance in Germany. In England I only know of two. In Germany, Italy, and Austria, and, I believe, in France, universal history forms an essential part of education for nearly all classes. It is taken as a subject under certain conditions in the Abiturienten-Examen. I once had the privilege of reading the notes of a viva voce examination of a student in this subject who did not pass. It covered the whole range of ancient, mediæval, and modern history. I was astonished at what the student did know, and still more at what he was expected to know. I should like to see the subject an essential part of all secondary education in England, just as the knowledge of Bible history was in my young days and may be still. If proper text-books were forthcoming, to which I again direct the attention of enterprising publishers, there would be no difficulty in making this subject an accompaniment of nearly every literary lesson. … The advantage would be the enlargement of the mind by the contemplation of the majestic march of human events and the preparation for any future course of historical study. 'Boys come to us,' said a German professor once to me, 'knowing their centuries.' How few English boys or even English men have any notion of their centuries! The dark ages are indeed dark to them. I once asked a boy at Eton, who had given me a date, whether it was B. C. or A. D. Being hopelessly puzzled, he replied that it was B. D. Many of us, if we were honest, would give a similar answer."

O. Browning, The Teaching of History in Schools (Royal Historical Society, Transactions, new series, volume 4).

HISTORY: The Importance of Local History.

"From a variety of considerations, the writer is persuaded that one of the best introductions to history that can be given in American high schools, and even in those of lower grade, is through a study of the community in which the school is placed. History, like charity, begins at home. The best American citizens are those who mind home affairs and local interest. 'That man's the best cosmopolite who loves his native country best.' The best students of universal history are those who know some one country or some one subject well. The family, the hamlet, the neighborhood, the community, the parish, the village, town, city, county, and state are historically the ways by which men have approached national and international life. It was a preliminary study of the geography of Frankfort-on-the-Main that led Carl Ritter to study the physical structure of Europe and Asia, and thus to establish the new science of comparative geography. He says: 'Whoever has wandered through the valleys and woods, and over the hills and mountains of his own state, will be the one capable of following a Herodotus in his wanderings over the globe.' And we may say, as Ritter said of the science of geography, the first step in history is to know thoroughly the district where we live. … American local history should be studied as a contribution to national history. This country will yet be viewed and reviewed as an organism of historic growth, developing from minute germs, from the very protoplasm of state life. And some day this country will be studied in its international relations, as an organic part of a larger organism now vaguely called the World State, but as surely developing through the operation of economic, legal, social, and scientific forces as the American Union, the German and British Empires are evolving into higher forms. American history in its widest relations is not to be written by any one man nor by anyone generation of men. Our history will grow with the nation and with its developing consciousness of internationality. The present possibilities for the real progress of historic and economic science lie, first and foremost, in the development of a generation of economists and practical historians, who realize that history is past politics and politics present history; secondly, in the expansion of the local consciousness into a fuller sense of its historic worth and dignity, of the cosmopolitan relations of modern local life, and of its wholesome conservative power in these days of growing centralization. National and international life can best develop upon the constitutional basis of local self-government in church and state. … If young Americans are to appreciate their religious and political inheritance, they must learn its intrinsic worth. They must be taught to appreciate the common and lowly things around them. They should grow up with as profound respect for town and parish meetings as for the State legislature, not to speak of the Houses of Congress. They should recognize the majesty of the law, even in the parish constable as well as the high sheriff of the country. They should look on selectmen as the head men of the town, the survival of the old English reeve and four best men of the parish. They should be taught to see in the town common or village green a survival of that primitive institution of land-community upon which town and state are based. They should be taught the meaning of town and family names; how the word 'town' means, primarily, a place hedged in for the purposes of defence; how the picket-fences around home and house-lot are but a survival of the primitive town idea; how home, hamlet, and town live on together in a name like Hampton, or Home-town. They should investigate the most ordinary thing for these are often the most archaic. … It would certainly be an excellent thing for the development of historical science in America if teachers in our public schools would cultivate the historical spirit in their pupils with special reference to the local environment. … A multitude of historical associations gather around every old town and hamlet in the land. There are local legends and traditions, household tales, stories told by grandfathers and grandmothers, incidents remembered by 'the oldest inhabitants.' But above all in importance are the old documents and manuscript records of the first settlers, the early pioneers, the founders of our towns. Here are sources of information more authentic than tradition, and yet often entirely neglected. … In order to study history it is not necessary to begin with dead men's bones, with Theban dynasties, the kings of Assyria, the royal families of Europe, or even with the presidents of the United States. These subjects have their importance in certain connections, but for beginners in history there are perhaps other subjects of greater interest and vitality. {1656} The most natural entrance to a knowledge of the history of the world is from a local environment through widening circles of interest, until, from the rising ground of the present, the broad horizon of the past comes clearly into view. … A study of the community in which the student dwells will serve to connect that community not only with the origin and growth of the State and Nation, but with the mother-country, with the German fatherland, with village communities throughout the Aryan world,—from Germany and Russia to old Greece and Rome; from these classic lands to Persia and India."

H. B. Adams, Methods of Historical Study (Johns Hopkins University Studies, Second Series, 1-2), pages 16-21.

----------HISTORY: Start--------

HITCHITIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

HITTIN, Battle of (1187).

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 1149-1187.

HITTITES, The.

The Hittites mentioned in the Bible were known as the Khita or Khatta to the Egyptians, with whom they were often at war. Recent discoveries indicate that they formed a more civilized and powerful nation and played a more important part in the early history of Western Asia than was previously supposed. Many inscriptions and rock sculptures in Asia Minor and Syria which were formerly inexplicable are now attributed to the Hittites. The inscriptions have not yet been deciphered, but scholars are confident that the key to their secret will be found. The two chief cities of the Hittites were Kadesh on the Orontes and Carchemish on the Euphrates; so that their seat of empire was in northern Syria, but their power was felt from the extremity of Asia Minor to the confines of Egypt. It is conjectured that these people were originally from the Caucasus. "Their descendants," says Professor Sayee, "are still to be met with in the defiles of the Taurus and on the plateau of Kappadokia, though they have utterly forgotten the language or languages their forefathers spoke. What that language was is still uncertain, though the Hittite proper names which occur on the monuments of Egypt and Assyria show that it was neither Semitic nor Indo-European."

A. H. Sayee, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 5.

"We may … rest satisfied with the conclusion that the existence of a Hittite empire extending into Asia Minor is certified, not only by the records of ancient Egypt, but also by Hittite monuments which still exist. In the days of Ramses II., when the children of Israel were groaning under the tasks allotted to them, the enemies of their oppressors were already exercising a power and a domination which rivalled that of Egypt. The Egyptian monarch soon learned to his cost that the Hittite prince was as 'great' a king as himself, and could summon to his aid the inhabitants of the unknown north. Pharaoh's claim to sovereignty was disputed by adversaries as powerful as the ruler of Egypt, if indeed not more powerful, and there was always a refuge among them for those who were oppressed by the Egyptian king. When, however, we speak of a Hittite empire, we must understand clearly what that means. It was not an empire like that of Rome, where the subject provinces were consolidated together under a central authority, obeying the same laws and the same supreme head. It was not an empire like that of the Persians, or of the Assyrian successors of Tiglath-pileser III., which represented the organised union of numerous states and nations under a single ruler. … Before the days of Tiglath-pileser, in fact, empire in Western Asia meant the power of a prince to force a foreign people to submit to his rule. The conquered provinces had to be subdued again and again; but as long as this could be done, as long as the native struggles for freedom could be crushed by a campaign, so long did the empire exist. It was an empire of this sort that the Hittites established in Asia Minor. How long it lasted we cannot say. But so long as the distant races of the West answered the summons to war of the Hittite princes, it remained a reality. The fact that the tribes of the Troad and Lydia are found fighting under the command of the Hittite kings of Kadesh, proves that they acknowledged the supremacy of their Hittite lords, and followed them to battle like the vassals of some feudal chief. If Hittite armies had not marched to the shores of the Ægean, and Hittite princes been able from time to time to exact homage from the nations of the far west, Egypt would not have had to contend against the populations of Asia Minor in its wars with the Hittites, and the figures of Hittite warriors would not have been sculptured on the rocks of Karabel. There was a time when the Hittite name was feared as far as the western extremity of Asia Minor, and when Hittite satraps had their seat in the future capital of Lydia. Traditions of this period lingered on into classical days."

A. H. Sayee, The Hittites, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: W. Wright, The Empire of the Hittites.

See, also, AMORITES; and ITALY, ANCIENT: EARLY ITALIANS.

HIVITES, The.

The "Midlanders," who dwelt in the middle of Canaan when the Israelites invaded it.

See AMALEKITES.

HLÆFDIGE.

See LADY.

HLAFORD.

See LORD.

HLUDWIG.

See LOUIS.

HOARD. HORDERE.

See STALLER.

HOBKIRK'S HILL, Battle of (1781).

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.

HOCHE, Campaigns of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER), PROGRESS OF THE WAR; 1794-1796; 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

HOCHELAGA.

The name of an Indian village found by Cartier on the site of the present city of Montreal. An extensive region of surrounding country seems to have likewise borne the name Hochelaga, and Cartier calls the river St. Lawrence "the river of Hochelaga," or "the great river of Canada."

See AMERICA: A. D. 1534-1535, and CANADA: NAMES.

HOCHHEIM, The storming of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

HOCHKIRCH, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1758.

HÖCHST, Battle of (1622).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

----------HOCHSTADT: Start--------

HOCHSTADT, Battle of (1704).

The great battle which English historians name from the village of Blenheim, is named by the French from the neighboring town of Hochstadt.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1704.

HOCHSTADT: Battle of (1800).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

----------HOCHSTADT: End--------

{1657}

HODEIBIA, Truce of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

HOFER, Andrew, and the Tyrolese revolt.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809-1810 (APRIL-FEBRUARY).

HOHENFRIEDBERG, Battle of (1745).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1744-1745.

HOHENLINDEN, Battle of (1800).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

HOHENSTAUFEN OR SUABIAN FAMILY, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268; and ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162, to A. D. 1183-1250.

HOHENZOLLERN: Rise of the House of.

"Hohenzollern lies far south in Schwaben (Suabia), on the sunward slope of the Rauhe-Alp Country; no great way north from Constance and its Lake; but well aloft, near the springs of the Danube; its back leaning on the Black Forest; it is perhaps definable as the southern summit of that same huge old Hercynian Wood, which is still called the Schwarzwald (Black Forest), though now comparatively bare of trees. Fanciful Dryasdust, doing a little etymology, will tell you the name 'Zollern' is equivalent to 'Tollery' or Place of Tolls. Whereby Hohenzollern' comes to mean the 'High' or Upper 'Tollery';—and gives one the notion of antique pedlars climbing painfully, out of Italy and the Swiss valleys, thus far; unstrapping their packhorses here, and chaffering in unknown dialect about 'toll.' Poor souls;—it may be so, but we do not know, nor shall it concern us. This only is known: That a human kindred, probably of some talent for coercing anarchy and guiding mankind, had, centuries ago, built its 'Burg' there, and done that function in a small but creditable way ever since."

T. Carlyle, Frederick the Great, book 2, chapter 5.

"The title, Count of Zollern, was conferred by Henry IV. in the eleventh century. … In 1190 Henry VI. appointed the Count of Zollern to the imperial office of Burgrave of Nuremberg. By fortunate marriages and prudent purchases, his descendants, who retained the office, gradually acquired extensive estates in Franconia, Moravia, and Burgundy, and their wisdom and growing power steadily increased their weight in the councils of the German princes. … Frederick VI. was enriched by Sigismund with large gifts of money, and was made his deputy in Brandenburg in 1411. The marches were in utter confusion, under the feuds and ravages of the unrestrained knighthood. Frederick reduced them to order, and at the Council of Constance, in 1417, received from Sigismund the margraviate of Brandenburg with the dignity of Elector."

C. T. Lewis, History of Germany, book 3, chapter 12, section 1.

See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1168-1417.

HOHENZOLLERN INCIDENT, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JUNE-JULY).

----------HOLLAND: Start--------

HOLLAND: The country and its Name.

See NETHERLANDS.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1430. Absorbed in the dominions of the House of Burgundy.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1417-1430.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1477. The "Great Privilege" granted by Mary of Burgundy.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1488-1491. The Bread and Cheese War. End of the Party of the Hooks.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1482-1493.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1494. The Great Privilege disputed by Philip the Handsome. Friesland detached.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1494-1519.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1506-1609. The Austro-Spanish tyranny. Revolt and independence of the United Provinces.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1494-1519, to 1594-1609.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1651-1660. Supremacy in the Republic of the United Provinces.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1651-1660.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1665-1747. Wars with England and France.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1665-1666.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1746. The restored Stadtholdership.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1787.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1793-1810. French invasion and conquest. The Batavian Republic. The kingdom of Louis Bonaparte. Annexation to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL); 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY); and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1806-1810.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1813-1814. Independence regained. Belgium annexed. The kingdom of the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1813; FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE); and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

HOLLAND: A. D. 1830-1832. Dissolution of the kingdom of the Netherlands. Creation of the kingdoms of Holland and Belgium.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1830-1832.

----------HOLLAND: Start--------

HOLLAND PURCHASE, The.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1786-1799.

HOLLY SPRINGS, Confederate capture.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (DECEMBER: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

HOLOCAUST.

"The sacrifice of a whole burnt-offering, where nothing was kept back for the enjoyment of men," was called a holocaust by the ancient Greeks.

G. F. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State, page 60.

----------HOLSTEIN: Start--------

HOLSTEIN: A. D. 1848-1866. The Schleswig-Holstein question.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862; and GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866.

HOLSTEIN: A. D. 1866. Annexation to Prussia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

----------HOLSTEIN: End--------

HOLY ALLIANCE, The.

"The document called the Holy Alliance was originally sketched at Paris [during the occupation of the French capital by the Allies, after Waterloo, in 1815], in the French language, by [the Czar] Alexander's own hand, after a long and animated conversation with Madame de Krüdener and Bergasse. It was suggested, perhaps, by words spoken by the king of Prussia after the battle of Bautzen, but was chiefly the result of the influence, upon a mind always inclined to religious ideas, of the conversation of Madame de Krüdener and of the philosopher Bader, the admirer of Tauler, Jacob Boehm, and St. Martin, the deadly foe of Kant and his successors in Germany. … The Czar dreamt of founding a Communion of states, bound together by the first principles of Christianity. … The king of Prussia signed the paper from motives of friendship for the Czar, without attaching much importance to what he did. … The emperor of Austria, the least sentimental of mankind, at first declined to sign, 'because,' he said, 'if the secret is a political one, I must tell it, to Metternich; if it is a religious one, I must tell it to my confessor.' Metternich accordingly was told; and observed scornfully, 'C'est du verbiage.' {1658} Indeed no one of the princes who adhered to the Holy Alliance, with the single exception of Alexander himself, ever took it seriously. It was doomed from its birth. As M. de Bernhardi observes: 'It sank without leaving a trace in the stream of events, never became a reality, and never had the slightest real importance.' What had real importance was the continuance of the good understanding between the powers who had put down Napoleon, and their common fear of France. This good understanding and that common fear led to the treaty of the 20th November 1815, by which it was stipulated that the Powers should, from time to time, hold Congresses with a view to regulating the welfare of nations and the peace of Europe. It was these Congresses, and not the Holy Alliance, which kept up close relations between the rulers of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and enabled them, when the liberal movement on the Continent, which followed the conclusion of the war, began to be alarming, to take measures for a combined system of repression."

M. E. G. Duff, Studies in European Polities, chapter 2.

The text of the Treaty is as follows:

"In the name of the Most Holy and Indivisible Trinity: Holy Alliance of Sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Their Majesties the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and the Emperor of Russia, having, in consequence of the great events which have marked the course of the three last years in Europe, and especially of the blessings which it has pleased Divine Providence to shower down upon those States which place their confidence and their hope on it alone, acquired the intimate conviction of the necessity of settling the steps to be observed by the Powers, in their reciprocal relations, upon the sublime truths which the Holy Religion of our Saviour teaches; They solemnly declare that the present Act has no other object than to publish, in the face of the whole world, their fixed resolution, both in the administration of their respective States, and in their political relations with every other Government, to take for their sole guide the precepts of that Holy Religion, namely, the precepts of Justice, Christian Charity, and Peace, which, far from being applicable only to private concerns, must have an immediate influence on the councils of Princes, and guide all their steps, as being the only means of consolidating human institutions and remedying their imperfections. In consequence, their Majesties have agreed on the following Articles:—

Art. I. Conformably to the words of the Holy Scriptures, which command all men to consider each other as brethren, the Three contracting Monarchs will remain united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity, and considering each other as fellow countrymen, they will, on all occasions and in all places, lend each other aid and assistance; and, regarding themselves towards their subjects and armies as fathers of families, they will lead them, in the same spirit of fraternity with which they are animated, to protect Religion, Peace, and Justice.

Art II. In consequence, the sole principle of force, whether between the said Governments or between their Subjects, shall be that of doing each other reciprocal service, and of testifying by unalterable good will the mutual affection with which they ought to be animated, to consider themselves all as members of one and the same Christian nation; the three allied Princes looking on themselves as merely delegated by Providence to govern three branches of the One family, namely, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, thus confessing that the Christian world, of which they and their people form a part, has in reality no other Sovereign than Him to whom alone power really belongs, because in Him alone are found all the treasures of love, science, and infinite wisdom, that is to say, God, our Divine Saviour, the Word of the Most High, the Word of Life. Their Majesties consequently recommend to their people, with the most tender solicitude, as the sole means of enjoying that Peace which arises from a good conscience, and which alone is durable, to strengthen themselves every day more and more in the principles and exercise of the duties which the Divine Saviour has taught to mankind.

Art. III. All the Powers who shall choose solemnly to avow the sacred principles which have dictated the present Act, and shall acknowledge how important it is for the happiness of nations, too long agitated, that these truths should henceforth exercise over the destinies of mankind all the influence which belongs to them, will be received with equal ardour and affection into this Holy Alliance. Done in triplicate, and signed at Paris, the year of Grace 1815, 14/26th September."

"It is stated in 'Martens' Treaties' that the greater part of the Christian Powers acceded to this Treaty. France acceded to it in 1815; the Netherlands and Wurtemberg did so in 1816; and Saxony, Switzerland, and the Hansa Towns in 1817. But neither the Pope nor the Sultan were invited to accede."

E. Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, volume 1, number 36, pages 317-319.

"The Treaty of the Holy Alliance was not graced with the name of the Prince Regent [of Great Britain], but the Czar received a letter declaring that his principles had the personal approval of this great authority on religion and morality. The Kings of Naples and Sardinia were the next to subscribe, and in due time the names of the witty glutton, Louis XVIII., and of the abject Ferdinand of Spain were added."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 2, chapter 1.

"Metternich, the worldly-wise, smiled at this manifesto as 'nothing more than a philanthropic aspiration clothed in a religious garb.' He suspected that the evil-minded would misinterpret and that the jokers would ridicule it, but none knew better than he the flimsiness of diplomatic agreements, and accordingly he consented to it. Christianity has had many crimes committed in its name; the Holy Alliance made Christianity the cloak under which the kings of Europe conspired to perpetuate the helotage of their subjects. Metternich found it all the easier to direct kings whose common interest it was to uphold the paternal system therein approved. He exerted his influence over each of them separately; if the monarch were obdurate, he wheedled his minister; if the minister were wary, he prejudiced the monarch against him. Now by flattery, and now by specious argument, he won his advantage. … Like a trickster at cards, he marked every card in the pack and could always play the ace. … He told the truth when he knew it would not be believed; he prevaricated when he intended his falsehood should pass for truth. This was diplomacy, these the 'Christian precepts' by which one hundred and fifty millions of Europeans were governed. {1659} In a society where everyone lies, falsehoods of equal cunning nullify each other. Metternich took care that his should excel in verisimilitude and in subtlety. It was an open battle of craft; but his craft was as superior to that of his competitors as a slow, undetectable poison is more often fatal than the hasty stab of a bravo. He fished both with hooks and nets; if one broke, the other held. … He was, we may affirm, sincerely insincere; strongly attached to the Hapsburg dynasty, and patriotic in so far as the aggrandizement of that House corresponded with the interests of the Austrian State. But the central figure in his perspective was always himself, whom he regarded as the savior of a social order whose preservation held back the world from chaos. … He spoke of his mission as an 'apostolate.' … To resist all change,—that was his policy; to keep the surface smooth,—that was his peace. … He likened himself to a spider, spinning a vast web. 'I begin to know the world well,' he said, 'and I believe that the flies are eaten by the spiders only because they die naturally so young that they have no time to gain experience, and do not know what is the nature of a spider's web.' How many flies he caught during his forty years' spinning! but his success, he admitted, was due quite as much to their blindness as to his cunning. … He seemed to delight in royal conferences in order that he might have the excitement of manipulating Alexander and Frederick William; for his own Emperor, Francis, was as pliable as putty in his hands. Such was Metternich, 'the most worldly, the most dexterous, the most fortunate of politicians,' the embodiment of that Old Régime strangely interpolated in the nineteenth century. Knowing him, we shall know the nature of the resistance which checked every patriotic impulse, every effort towards progress in Italy, between 1815 and 1848. Few names have been hated as his was hated, or feared as his was feared. The Italians pictured to themselves a monster, a worse than Herod, who gloated over human suffering, and spent his time in inventing new tortures for his victims. He regarded them, and all liberals, as natural enemies to the order in which he flourished; and he had no more mercy for them than the Spanish Inquisitors had for heretics."

W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

HOLY BROTHERHOOD, OR HERMANDAD, The.

Before the close of the 13th century, there first arose in Spain "an anomalous institution peculiar to Castile, which sought to secure the public tranquillity by means scarcely compatible themselves with civil subordination. I refer to the celebrated Hermandad, or Holy Brotherhood, as the association was sometimes called,—a name familiar to most readers in the lively fictions of Le Sage, though conveying there no very adequate idea of the extraordinary functions which it assumed at the period under review [13th-14th centuries]. Instead of a regularly organized police, it then consisted of a confederation of the principal cities, bound together by a solemn league and covenant for the defence of their liberties in seasons of civil anarchy. Its affairs were conducted by deputies, who assembled at stated intervals for this purpose, transacting their business under a common seal, enacting laws which they were careful to transmit to the nobles and even the sovereign himself, and enforcing their measures by an armed force. … One hundred cities associated in the Hermandad of 1315. In that of 1295, were thirty-four. The knights and inferior nobility frequently made part of the association. … In one of [the articles of confederation] it is declared that if any noble shall deprive a member of the association of his property, and refuse restitution, his house shall be razed to the ground. In another, that if any one, by command of the king, shall attempt to collect an unlawful tax, he shall be put to death on the spot." Under the government of Ferdinand and Isabella, among the measures adopted for checking the license and disorder which had become prevalent in Castile, and restoring a more effective administration of justice, was one for a reorganization of the Santa Hermandad. "The project for the reorganization of this institution was introduced into the cortes held, the year after Isabella's accession, at Madrigal, 1476. … The new institution differed essentially from the ancient hermandades, since, instead of being partial in its extent, it was designed to embrace the whole kingdom; and, instead of being directed, as had often been the case, against the crown itself, it was set in motion at the suggestion of the latter, and limited in its operation to the maintenance of public order. The crimes reserved for its jurisdiction were all violence or theft committed on the highways or in the open country, and in cities by such offenders as escaped into the country; house-breaking; rape; and resistance of justice. … An annual contribution of 18,000 maravedis was assessed on every 100 vecinos or householders, for the equipment and maintenance of a horseman, whose duty it was to arrest offenders and enforce the sentence of the law. On the flight of a criminal, the tocsins of the villages through which he was supposed to have passed were sounded, and the quadrilleros or officers of the brotherhood, stationed on the different points, took up the pursuit with such promptness as left little chance of escape. A court of two alcaldes was established in every town containing thirty families, for the trial of all crimes within the jurisdiction of the hermandad; and an appeal lay from them in specified cases to a supreme council. A general junta, composed of deputies from the cities throughout the kingdom was annually convened for the regulation of affairs, and their instructions were transmitted to provincial juntas, who superintended the execution of them. … Notwithstanding the popular constitution of the hermandad, and the obvious advantages attending its introduction at this juncture, it experienced so decided an opposition from the nobility, who discerned the check it was likely to impose on their authority, that it required all the queen's address and perseverance to effect its general adoption. … The important benefits resulting from the institution of the hermandad secured its confirmation by successive cortes, for the period of 22 years, in spite of the repeated opposition of the aristocracy. At length, in 1498, the objects for which it was established having been completely obtained, it was deemed advisable to relieve the nation from the heavy charges which its maintenance imposed. The great salaried officers were dismissed; a few subordinate functionaries were retained for the administration of justice, over whom the regular courts of criminal law possessed appellate jurisdiction; and the magnificent apparatus of the Santa Hermandad, stripped of all but the terrors of its name, dwindled into an ordinary police, such as it has existed, with various modifications of form, down to the present century."

W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, introduction, section 1, with foot-note, and part 1, chapter 6.

{1660}

HOLY BROTHERHOOD IN MEXICO.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1535-1822.

HOLY GHOST, The military Order of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1578-1580.

HOLY JUNTA, The.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1518-1522.

----------HOLY LEAGUES: Start--------

HOLY LEAGUES: Pope Julius II. against Louis XII. of France.

See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.

Pope Clement VII. against Charles V.

See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527.

German Catholic princes against the Protestant League of Smalcald.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1533-1546.

Spain, Venice and Pope Pius V. against the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571.

Of the Catholic party in the Religious Wars of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1576-1585, to 1593-1598.

Pope Innocent XI., the Emperor, Venice, Poland and Russia against the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

----------HOLY LEAGUES: End--------

HOLY LION, Battle of the (1568).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1568-1572.

HOLY OFFICE, The.

See INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: Its origin.

See ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY: A. D. 963.

Its extinction.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.

HOLY ROOD OF SCOTLAND, The.

"A certified fragment of the true cross preserved in a shrine of gold or silver gilt. It was brought over by St. Margaret, and left as a sacred legacy to her descendants and their kingdom. … The rood had been the sanctifying relic round which King David I. raised the house of canons regular of the Holy Rood, devoted to the rule of St. Augustin, at Edinburgh. The kings of Scotland afterwards found it so convenient to frequent this religious house that they built alongside of it a royal residence or palace, well known to the world as Holyrood House."

J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 20 (volume 2).

The Holy Rood, or Black Rood as it was sometimes called, was carried away from Scotland, along with the "coronation stone," by Edward I. of England, afterwards got back by treaty, and then lost again at the battle of Neville's Cross, from which it went as a trophy to Durham Abbey.

HOLY WAR, Mahometan.

See DAR-UL-ISLAM.

HOMAGE.

See FEUDAL TENURES.

HOME RULE MOVEMENT, The Irish.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879, to 1893.

HOMER AND THE HOMERIC POEMS.

"When we use the word Homer, we do not mean a person historically known to us, like Pope or Milton. We mean in the main the author, whoever or whatever he was, of the wonderful poems called respectively, not by the author, but by the world, the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey.' His name is conventional, and its sense in etymology is not very different from that which would be conveyed by our phrase, 'the author.' … At the first dawn of the historic period, we find the poems established in popular renown; and so prominent that a school of minstrels takes the name of 'Homeridæ' from making it their business to preserve and to recite them. Still, the question whether the poems as we have them can be trusted, whether they present substantially the character of what may be termed original documents, is one of great but gradually diminishing difficulty. It is also of importance, because of the nature of their contents. In the first place, they give a far greater amount of information than is to be found in any other literary production of the same compass. In the second place, that information, speaking of it generally, is to be had nowhere else. In the third place, it is information of the utmost interest, and even of great moment. It introduces to us, in the very beginnings of their experience, the most gifted people of the world, and enables us to judge how they became such as in later times we know them. … And this picture is exhibited with such a fulness both of particulars and of vital force, that perhaps never in any country has an age been so completely placed upon record. … We are … probably to conceive of Homer as of a Bard who went from place to place to earn his bread by his profession, to exercise his knowledge in his gift of song, and to enlarge it by an ever-active observation of nature and experience of men. … It has … been extensively believed that he was a Greek of Asia Minor. And as there were no Greeks of Asia Minor at the time of the Trojan War, nor until a wide and searching revolution in the peninsula had substituted Dorian manners for those of the earlier Achaian age, which Homer sang, this belief involves the further proposition that the poet was severed by a considerable interval of time from the subjects of his verse. The last-named opinion depends very much upon the first; and the first chiefly, if not wholly, upon a perfectly vague tradition, which has no pretence to an historical character. … The question … has to be decided … by the internal evidence of the poems. This evidence, I venture to say, strongly supports the belief that Homer was an European, and if an European, then certainly also an Achaian Greek: a Greek, that is to say, of the pre-Doric period, when the Achaian name prevailed and principally distinguished the race. … Until the 18th century of our era was near its close, it may be said that all generations had believed Troy was actually Troy, and Homer in the main Homer; neither taking the one for a fable, or (quaintest of all dreams) for a symbol of solar phenomena, nor resolving the other into a multiform assemblage of successive bards, whose verses were at length pieced together by a clever literary tailor. … After slighter premonitory movements, it was Wolf that made, by the publication of his 'Prolegomena' in 1795, the serious attack. … Wolf maintained that available writing was not known at, or till long after, the period of their composition; and that works of such length, not intrusted to the custody of written characters, could not have been transmitted through a course of generations with any approach to fidelity. Therefore they could only be a number of separate songs, brought together at a later date."

W. E. Gladstone, Homer (Literature Primers), chapters 1-2.

{1661}

"Homeric geography is entirely pre-Dorian. Total unconsciousness of any such event as the Dorian invasion reigns both in the Iliad and Odyssey. … A silence so remarkable can be explained only by the simple supposition that when they were composed the revolution in question had not yet occurred. Other circumstances confirm this view."

A. M. Clerke, Familiar Studies in Homer, chapter 1.

"It is … in the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann that we have the impulse which seems to be sending the balance over towards the belief in the European instead of in the Asiatic origin of the poems. We now know that at the very point which Homer makes the chief royal city of Greece there did, in fact, exist a civilisation which did, in fact, offer just the conditions for the rise of a poetry such as the Homeric—a great city 'rich in gold,' with a cultivation of the material arts such as is wont to go hand in hand with the growth of poetry. …

See GREECE: MYCENÆ AND ITS KINGS.

It is no longer possible to doubt that the world which the poems describe was one which really existed in the place where they put it. Even in details the poems have received striking illustration from the remains of Mykenai. … It appears that we may date the oldest part of the Iliad at least to some time before the Dorian invasion, which, according to the traditional chronology, took place about 1000 B. C. … But the poems can hardly be much earlier than the invasion; for there are various signs which indicate that the civilisation which they depict had made some advance beyond that of which we find the material remains in the 'shaft tombs,' discovered by Dr. Schliemann in the Acropolis of Mykenai. And the date of these has now been fixed by Mr. Petrie, from comparison with Egyptian remains, at about 1150. We can therefore hardly be far wrong, if the poems were composed in Achaian Greece, in dating their origin at about 1050 B. C. There still remains the question of the historical basis which may underlie the story of the Iliad. The poem may give us a true picture of Achaian Greece and its civilisation, and yet be no proof that the armies of Agamemnon fought beneath the walls of Troy. But here again the discoveries of recent years, and notably those of Schliemann at Hissarlik, have tended on the whole to confirm the belief that there is a historic reality behind the tale of Troy. … The hypothesis that the Iliad and Odyssey are the work of more than one poet … is one which has been gaining ground ever since it was seriously taken up and argued at length by Wolf in his famous 'Prolegomena,' just a century ago. But it has from the first encountered strong opposition, and is still regarded, in England at least, as the heretical view."

W. Leaf, Companion to the Iliad, introd.

"It seems clear that the author or authors of the Iliad and Odyssey lived long before the time when Æolian, Ionian, Dorian, were the three great tribal names of Greece, and far from the coast on which these three names were attached to successive portions of territory. If we are to decide the ancient controversy about the birthplace of Homer, we must turn away from Asia, and set ourselves to consider the claims of three districts of Greece proper: Thessaly, the home of the chief hero and the most ancient worship; Bœotia, the ancient seat of the Muses, and the first in the very ancient (if not actually Homeric) muster-roll of the ships; and Argolis, the seat of Achæan empire."

D. B. Monro, Homer and the Early History of Greece (English Historical Review, January, 1886).

"I hold that the original nucleus of the Iliad was due to a single Achaean poet, living in Thessaly before the immigration which partly displaced the primitive Hellenes there. This primary Iliad may have been as old as the eleventh century B. C. It was afterwards brought by Achaean emigrants to Ionia, and there enlarged by successive Ionian poets. The original nucleus of the Odyssey was also composed, probably, in Greece proper, before the Dorian conquest of the Peloponnesus; was carried to Ionia by emigrants whom the conquerors drove out; and was there expanded into an epic which blends the local traits of its origin with the spirit of Ionian adventure and Ionian society."

R. C. Jebb, The growth and influence of Classical Greek Poetry, page 14.

R. C. Jebb, Homer: An Introduction to the Iliad and the Odyssey.

"We accept the Iliad as one epic by one hand. The inconsistencies which are the basis of the opposite theory seem to us reconcileable in many places, in others greatly exaggerated. … To us the hypothesis of a crowd of great harmonious poets, working for centuries at the Iliad, and sinking their own fame and identity in Homer's, appears more difficult of belief than the opinion that one great poet may make occasional slips and blunders." As for the Odyssey, "we have … to deal with critics who do not recognise the unity, the marshalling of incidents towards a given end. We have to do with critics who find, in place of unity, patchwork and compilation, and evident traces of diverse dates, and diverse places of composition. Thus argument is inefficient, demonstration is impossible, and the final judge must be the opinion of the most trustworthy literary critics and of literary tradition. These are unanimous, as against the 'microscope-men,' in favor of the unity of the Odyssey."

A. Lang, Homer and the Epic, chapters 7 and 13.

HOMERITES, The.

See ABYSSINIA: 6TH TO 16TH CENTURIES.

HOMESTEAD ACT, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY).

HOMILDON HILL, Battle of.

A victory for the English, under "Hotspur," over a raiding army of the Scots, A. D. 1402. It was won almost entirely by the English cross-bow. By some historians it is called the Battle of Humbledon.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1400-1436.

HOMOOUSION AND HOMOIOUSION.

SEE ARIANISM.

HOMS, Battle of (1832).

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

HONDSCHOTTEN, Battle of (1793).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER).

----------HONDURAS: Start--------

HONDURAS: Aboriginal inhabitants. Ruins of Ancient Civilization.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MAYAS, and QUICHES.

HONDURAS: A. D. 1502. Discovery by Columbus.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1498-1505.

HONDURAS: A. D. 1524. Conquest by Olid and Cortes.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1521-1524.

{1662}

HONDURAS: A. D. 1821-1871. Separation from Spain and independence. Brief annexation to Mexico. Attempted federations and their failure. The British colony.

See CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1871.

----------HONDURAS: End--------

HONDURAS, British: A. D. 1850. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.

See NICARAGUA: A. D. 1850.

HONE, William, The Trials of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1816-1820.

HONEIN, Battle of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

HONG-KONG: A. D. 1842. Ceded to Great Britain.

See CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842.

HONG MERCHANTS.

See CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842.

HONORIUS, Roman Emperor (Western), A. D. 395-423. Honorius I., Pope, 625-638. Honorius II., Pope, 1124-1130. Honorius III., Pope, 1216-1227. Honorius IV., Pope, 1285-1287;

HONOURS, Escheated.

"When a great barony by forfeiture or escheat fell into the hands of the [English] crown, instead of being incorporated with the general body of the county or counties in which it lay, it retained a distinct corporate existence and the whole apparatus of jurisdiction which it had possessed before. Under the title of an Honour, it either continued in the possession of the king and was farmed like a shire, or was granted out again to another lord as a hereditary fief."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 11, section 129 (volume 1).

HOOD, General John B. The Atlanta campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA) to (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: GEORGIA).

HOOKER, General Joseph, Commander of the Army of the Potomac.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JANUARY-APRIL: VIRGINIA), and (APRIL-MAY: VIRGINIA).

Transfer to Chattanooga.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY-NOVEMBER: VIRGINIA).

At Chattanooga.—The Battle above the Clouds.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).

HOOKS AND KABELJAUWS, OR HOOKS AND CODS.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1345-1354; also, 1482-1493.

HOOVER'S GAP, Battle at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: TENNESSEE).

HOPLITES.

Heavy-armed foot-soldiers of the Greeks.

See PHYLÆ.

HORESTII, The.

See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES.

HORIKANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HORIKANS.

HORITES, The.

The aborigines of Canaan,—dwellers in caves, Troglodytes. "At the time of the Israelitish conquest … there still existed many remains of the Aborigines scattered through the land. They were then ordinarily designated by a name which suggests very different ideas—Rephaim, or Giants."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, introduction, section 4.

F. Lenormant considers the Rephaim a distinct race, divided into the Rephaim of Bashan, the Emim, the Zamzummim, the Zumim and the Anakim.

Manual of Ancient History, book 6, chapter 1.

See, also, JEWS: THE EARLY HEBREW HISTORY.

HORMUZ, Battle of.

The decisive battle, fought A. D. 226, on the plain of Hormuz, in Persia Proper, in which the Parthian monarchy was overthrown, its last king, Artabanus, slain, and the New Persian, or Sassanian empire established by Artaxerxes I.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 3.

HORN, Count, and the struggle in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1566-1568.

HORN, Cape. Discovered by Drake (1578).

See AMERICA: A. D. 1572-1580.

HORTENSIAN LAWS, The.

See ROME: B. C. 286.

HOSEIN, The martyrdom of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 680.

HOSPES. HOSPITES. HOSPITIUM.

"In the earlier stages of society, especially in Greece and Italy, where the population consisted of numerous independent tribes constantly at variance with each other, every stranger was looked upon with suspicion. … Hence it became common for a person who was engaged in commerce, or any other occupation which might compel him to visit a foreign country, to form previously a connection with a citizen of that country, who might be ready to receive him as a friend and act as his protector. Such a connection was always strictly reciprocal. … An alliance of this description was termed Hospitium, the parties who concluded it were termed Hospites in relation to each other, and thus the word Hospes bore a double signification, denoting, according to circumstances, either an entertainer or a guest. The obligations imposed by the covenant were regarded as of the most sacred character. … The league of Hospitium, when once formed, was hereditary. … The parties interchanged tokens, by which they or their descendants might recognise each other. This token, called 'tessera hospitalis,' was carefully preserved. … In process of time, among both the Greeks and Romans, it became common for a state, when it desired to pay a marked compliment to any individual, to pass a resolution declaring him the Hospes of the whole community."

W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 3.

----------HOSPITALLERS: Start--------

HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM, The Knights: A. D. 1115-1310. The origin and rise of the order.

"Some citizens of Amalfi, in Italy, who traded to the East, had [some time before the first crusade], with the permission of the Egyptian khaleefeh, built a convent near the church of the Resurrection [at Jerusalem], which was dedicated to the Virgin, and named Santa Maria de Latina, whose abbot and monks were to receive and entertain pilgrims from the West. A nunnery was afterwards added, and as the confluence of pilgrims increased, a new 'hospitium' was erected, dedicated to St. John Eleëmon ('compassionate'), a former patriarch of Alexandria, or, as is asserted, with perhaps more probability, to St. John the Baptist. This hospital was supported by the bounty of the abbot of Sta. Maria and the alms of the faithful, and the sick and poor of the pilgrims here met with attention and kindness. At the time of the taking of Jerusalem, Gerhard, a native of Provence, presided over the hospital; and the care taken by him and his brethren of the sick and wounded of the crusaders won them universal favour. Godfrey bestowed on them his domain of Monboire, in Brabant; his example was followed by others, and the brethren of the Hospital soon found themselves rich enough to separate from the monastery. {1663} They adopted the rule of the Augustinian canons, and assumed for their habit a black mantle, with a white cross of eight points on the left breast. Many knights who had come to Asia to combat the Infidels now laid aside their swords, and, as brethren of the Hospital, devoted themselves to the tending of the sick and relieving of the poor. Among these was a knight of Dauphiné, named Raymond Dupuy, who, on the death of Gerhard, was chosen to be his successor in office. Raymond, in the year 1118, gave the order its first regular organization."

T. Keightley, The Crusaders, chapter 2.

To Raymond Dupuy "the Order owed its distinctly military character, and that wonderful organization, combining the care of the sick and poor with the profession of arms, which characterized the Knights of St. John during all their subsequent history. … A new and revised constitution was drawn up, by which it was provided that there should be three classes of members. First, the Knights, who should bear arms and form a military body for service in the field against the enemies of Christ in general, and of the kingdom of Jerusalem in particular. These were to be of necessity men of noble or gentle birth. Secondly, the Clergy, or Chaplains. … Thirdly, the Serving Brethren, who were not required to be men of rank, and who acted as Esquires to the Knights, and assisted in the care of the hospitals. All persons of these three classes were considered alike members of the Order, and took the usual three monastic vows, and wore the armorial bearings of the Order, and enjoyed its rights and privileges. As the Order spread and the number of its members and convents increased, it was found desirable to divide it further into nations or 'Langes' [tongues, or languages], of which there were ultimately seven, viz., those of Provence, Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, Germany, and England. The habit was a black robe with a cowl, having a cross of white linen of eight points upon the left breast. This was at first worn by all Hospitallers, to whichever of the three classes they belonged; but Pope Alexander IV. afterwards ordered that the Knights should be distinguished by a white cross upon a red ground. … It was not long before the new Order found a field for the exercise of its arms. … From this time the Hospitallers were always found in the ranks of the Christian army in every battle that was fought with the Moslems, and the fame of their gallantry and bravery soon spread far and wide, and attracted fresh recruits to their ranks from the noblest families of every country of Europe. They became the right hand of the King of Jerusalem," sharing the fortunes of the nominal kingdom for nearly two centuries, and almost sharing its ultimate fate. The handful who escaped from Acre in 1291 (see JERUSALEM: A. D. 1291) took refuge in Cyprus and rallied there the Knights scattered in other lands. Rebuilding and fortifying the town of Limisso, they made that their citadel and capital for a few years, finding a new vocation for their pious valor. They now took up war upon the naval side, and turned their arms specially against the Moslem pirates of the Mediterranean. They fitted out armed ships "which began to cruise between Palestine and European ports, conveying pilgrims, rescuing captives, and engaging and capturing the enemy's galleys." But not finding in Cyprus the independence they desired, the Knights, ere long, established themselves in a more satisfactory home on the island of Rhodes.

F. C. Woodhouse, Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages, part 1, chapter 3-6.

ALSO IN: Abbe de Vertot, History of the Knights Hospitallers, books 1-3 (volume 1).

A. Sutherland, Achievements of the Knights of Malta, chapters 1-9 (volume 1).

HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM: A. D. 1310. Conquest and occupation of Rhodes.

"The most important conquest of the time … was that of Rhodes, by the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, both from its durability and from the renown of the conquerors. The knights had settled in Cyprus after they had been expelled from Acre, but they were soon discontented to remain as vassals of the King of Cyprus. They aspired to form a sovereign state, but it was not easy to make any conquests from the Infidels in a position which they could hope to maintain for any length of time. They therefore solicited permission from the Pope to turn their arms against the Greeks. His Holiness applauded their Christian zeal, and bestowed on them innumerable blessings and indulgences, besides nine thousand ducats to aid their enterprise. Under the pretext of a crusade for the recovery of Christ's tomb, the knights collected a force with which they besieged Rhodes. So great was their contempt for the Greek emperor that they sent an embassy to Constantinople, requiring Adronicus to withdraw his garrisons, and cede the island and its dependencies to them as feudatories, offering to supply him with a subsidiary force of three hundred cavalry. Adronicus dismissed the ambassadors, and sent an army to raise the siege; but his troops were defeated, and the knights took the city of Rhodes on the 15th August, 1310. As sovereigns of this beautiful island, they were long the bulwark of Christian Europe against the Turkish power; and the memory of the chivalrous youth who for successive ages found an early tomb at this verge of the Christian world, will long shed a romantic colouring on the history of Rhodes. They sustained the declining glory of a state of society that was hastening to become a vision of the past; they were the heroes of a class of which the Norse sea-kings had been the demigods. The little realm they governed as an independent state consisted of Rhodes, with the neighbouring islands of Kos, Kalymnos, Syme, Leros, Nisyros, Telos, and Chalke; on the opposite continent they possessed the classic city of Halicarnassus, and several strong forts, of which the picturesque ruins still overhang the sea."

G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, book 4, chapter 2 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: W. Porter, History of the Knights of Malta, chapters 7-10 (volume 1).

HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM: A. D. 1482. Treatment of the Turkish Prince Jemshid or Zizim.

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM: A. D. 1522. Siege and surrender of Rhodes to the Turks

In 1522, the Turkish sultan, Solyman the Magnificent, "turned his victorious arms against the island of Rhodes, the seat at that time of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. This small state he attacked with such a numerous army as the lords of Asia have been accustomed, in every age, to bring into the field. Two hundred thousand men, and a fleet of 400 sail, appeared against a town defended by a garrison consisting of 5,000 soldiers and 600 knights, under the command of Villiers de L'Isle Adam, the grand-master, whose wisdom and valour rendered him worthy of that station at such a dangerous juncture. {1664} No sooner did he begin to suspect the destination of Solyman's vast armaments than he despatched messengers to all the Christian courts, imploring their aid against the common enemy. But though every prince in that age acknowledged Rhodes to be the great bulwark of Christendom in the East, and trusted to the gallantry of its knights as the best security against the progress of the Ottoman arms,—though Adrian, with a zeal which became the head and father of the Church, exhorted the contending powers to forget their private quarrels, and, by uniting their arms, to prevent the infidels from destroying a society which did honour to the Christian name,—yet so violent and implacable was the animosity of both parties [in the wars of the Emperor Charles V. and Francis I. of France], that, regardless of the danger to which they exposed all Europe, … they suffered Solyman to carry on his operations against Rhodes without disturbance. The grand-master, after incredible efforts of courage, of patience, and of military conduct, during a siege of six months,—after sustaining many assaults, and disputing every post with amazing obstinacy,—was obliged at last to yield to numbers; and, having obtained an honourable capitulation from the sultan, who admired and respected his virtue, he surrendered the town, which was reduced to a heap of rubbish, and destitute of every resource. Charles and Francis, ashamed of having occasioned such a loss to Christendom by their ambitious contests, endeavoured to throw the blame of it on each other, while all Europe, with greater justice, imputed it equally to both. The emperor, by way of reparation, granted the Knights of St. John the small island of Malta, in which they fixed their residence, retaining, though with less power and splendour, their ancient spirit and implacable enmity to the infidels."

W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 2 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: C. Torr, Rhodes in Modern Times, chapter 1.

J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII., chapter 10 (volume 1).

HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM: A. D. 1530-1565. Occupation of Malta. Improvement and fortification of the island. The great siege. The Turks repelled.

"Malta, which had been annexed by Charles [the Fifth's] predecessors to Sicily, had descended to that monarch as part of the dominions of the crown of Aragon. In … ceding it to the Knights of St. John, the politic prince consulted his own interests quite as much as those of the order. He drew no revenue from the rocky isle, but, on the contrary, was charged with its defence against the Moorish corsairs, who made frequent descents on the spot, wasting the country, and dragging off the miserable people into slavery. By this transfer of the island to the military order of St. John, he not only relieved himself of all further expense on its account, but secured a permanent bulwark for the protection of his own dominions. … In October, 1530, L'Isle Adam and his brave associates took possession of their new domain. … It was not very long before the wilderness before them was to blossom like the rose, under their diligent culture. Earth was brought in large quantities, and at great cost, from Sicily. Terraces to receive it were hewn in the steep sides of the rock; and the soil, quickened by the ardent sun of Malta, was soon clothed with the glowing vegetation of the South. … In a short time, too, the island bristled with fortifications, which, combined with its natural defences, enabled its garrison to defy the attacks of the corsair. To these works was added the construction of suitable dwellings for the accommodation of the order. But it was long after, and not until the land had been desolated by the siege on which we are now to enter, that it was crowned with the stately edifices that eclipsed those of Rhodes itself, and made Malta the pride of the Mediterranean. … Again their galleys sailed forth to battle with the corsairs, and returned laden with the spoils of victory. … It was not long before the name of the Knights of Malta became as formidable on the southern shores of the Mediterranean as that of the Knights of Rhodes had been in the East." At length the Turkish sultan, Solyman the Magnificent, "resolved to signalize the close of his reign by driving the knights from Malta, as he had the commencement of it by driving them from Rhodes," and he made his preparations on a formidable scale. The grand-master of Malta, Jean Parisot de la Valette, had his spies at Constantinople, and was not long in ignorance of the Turkish project. He, too, prepared himself for the encounter with prodigious energy and forethought. He addressed appeals for help to all the Christian powers. "He summoned the knights absent in foreign lands to return to Malta, and take part with their brethren in the coming struggle. He imported large supplies of provisions and military stores from Sicily and Spain. He drilled the militia of the island, and formed an effective body of more than 3,000 men; to which was added a still greater number of Spanish and Italian troops. … The fortifications were put in repair, strengthened with outworks, and placed in the best condition for resisting the enemy. … The whole force which La Valette could muster in defence of the island amounted to about 9,000 men. This included 700 knights, of whom about 600 had already arrived [when the siege began]. The remainder were on their way; and joined him at a later period of the siege." The Turkish fleet made its appearance on the 18th of May, 1565. It comprised 130 royal galleys, with fifty of lesser size, and a number of transports. "The number of soldiers on board, independently of the mariners, and including 6,000 janizaries, was about 30,000,—the flower of the Ottoman army. … The command of the expedition was intrusted to two officers. One of these, Piali, was the same admiral who defeated the Spaniards at Gelves.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.

He had the direction of the naval operations. The land forces were given to Mustapha, a veteran nearly 70 years of age. … The Turkish armada steered for the southeastern quarter of the island, and cast anchor in the port of St. Thomas. The troops speedily disembarked, and spread themselves in detached bodies over the land, devastating the country. … It was decided, in the Turkish council of war, to begin operations with the siege of the castle of St. Elmo"—a small but strong fort, built at the point of a promontory which separates Port Musiette, on the west, from what is now known as Valetta harbor, then called the Great Port. The heroic defense of St. Elmo, where a mere handful of knights and soldiers withstood the whole army and navy of the Turks for an entire month, is one of the grand episodes of war in the 16th century. {1665} The few surviving defenders were overwhelmed in the final assault, which took place on the 23d of June. "The number of Christians who fell in this siege amounted to about 1,500. Of these 123 were members of the order, and among them several of its most illustrious warriors. The Turkish loss is estimated at 8,000, at the head of whom stood Dragut," the famous pasha of Tripoli, who had joined the besiegers, with ships and men, and who had received a mortal wound in one of the assaults. After the loss of St. Elmo, "the strength of the order was … concentrated on the two narrow slips of land which run out from the eastern side of the Great Port. … The northern peninsula, occupied by the town of Il Borgo, and at the extreme point by the castle of St. Angelo, was defended by works stronger and in better condition than the fortifications of St. Elmo. … The parallel slip of land was crowned by the fort of St. Michael." Early in July, the Turks opened their batteries on both St. Angelo and St. Michael, and on the 15th they attempted the storming of the latter, but were bloodily repulsed, losing 3,000 or 4,000 men, according to the Christian account. Two weeks later they made a general assault and were again repelled. On the 25th of August, the valiant knights, wasted and worn with watching and fighting, were relieved by long-promised re-enforcements from Sicily, and the disheartened Turks at once raised the siege. "The arms of Solyman II., during his long and glorious reign, met with no reverse so humiliating as his failure in the siege of Malta. … The waste of life was prodigious, amounting to more than 30,000 men. … Yet the loss in this siege fell most grievously on the Christians. Full 200 knights, 2,500 soldiers, and more than 7,000 inhabitants,—men, women, and children,—are said to have perished."

W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip II., book 4, chapters 2-5.

ALSO IN: W. Porter, History of the Knights of Malta, chapters 15-18 (volume 2).

S. Lane-Poole, Story of the Barbary Corsairs, chapter 13.

HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM: A. D. 1565-1879. Decline and practical disappearance of the order.

"The Great Siege of 1565 was the last eminent exploit of the Order of St. John. From that time their fame rested rather on the laurels of the past than the deeds of the present. Rest and affluence produced gradually their usual consequences—diminished vigour and lessened independence. The 'esprit de corps' of the Knights became weaker after long years, in which there were no events to bind them together in united sympathies and common struggles. Many of them had become susceptible of bribery and petty jealousies. In 1789 the French Revolution burst out and aroused all European nations to some decided policy. The Order of St. John had received special favours from Louis XVI., and now showed their grateful appreciation of his kindness by cheerfully contributing a large portion of their revenue to assist him in his terrible emergencies. For this they suffered the confiscation of all the property of the Order in France, when the revolutionists obtained supreme power."

W. Tallack, Malta, section 8.

"In September, 1792, a decree was passed, by which the estates and property of the Order of St. John in France were annexed to the state. Many of the knights were seized, imprisoned, and executed as aristocrats. The principal house of the Order in Paris, called the Temple, was converted into a prison, and there the unfortunate Louis XVI. and his family were incarcerated. The Directory also did its best to destroy the Order in Germany and Italy. … All this time the Directory had agents in Malta, who were propagating revolutionary doctrines, and stirring up the lowest of the people to rebellion and violence. There were in the island 332 knights (of whom many, however, were aged and infirm), and about 6,000 troops. On June 9, 1798, the French fleet appeared before Malta, with Napoleon himself on board, and a few days after troops were landed, and began pillaging the country. They were at first successfully opposed by the soldiers of the Grand Master, but the seeds of sedition, which had been so freely sown, began to bear fruit, and the soldiers mutinied, and refused to obey their officers. All the outlying forts were taken, and the knights who commanded them, who were all French, were dragged before Napoleon. He accused them of taking up arms against their country, and declared that he would have them shot as traitors. Meanwhile sedition was rampant within the city. The people rose and attacked the palace of the Grand Master, and murdered several of the knights. They demanded that the island should be given up to the French, and finally opened the gates, and admitted Napoleon and his troops. After some delay, articles of capitulation were agreed upon, Malta was declared part of France, and all the knights were required to quit the island within three days. Napoleon sailed for Egypt on June 19, taking with him all the silver, gold, and jewels that could be collected from the churches and the treasury. … In the following September, 1798, Nelson besieged, and quickly obtained possession of the island, which has ever since remained in the hands of the English. In this way the ancient Order of St. John ceased to be a sovereign power, and practically its history came to an end. The last Grand Master, Baron Ferdinand von Hompesch, after the loss of Malta, retired to Trieste, and shortly afterwards abdicated and died at Montpelier, in 1805. Many of the knights, however, had in the mean time gone to Russia, and before the abdication of Hompesch, they elected the Emperor Paul Grand Master, who had for some time been protector of the Order. This election was undoubtedly irregular and void. By the terms of the Treaty of Amiens, in 1802, it was stipulated that Malta should be restored to the Order, but that there should be neither French nor English knights. But before the treaty could be carried into effect Napoleon returned from Elba, and war broke out again. By the treaty of Paris, in 1814, Malta was ceded to England. … In 1801, the assembly of the Knights at St. Petersburg … petitioned Pope Pius VII. to select a Grand Master from certain names which they sent. This he declined to do, but, some time afterwards, at the request of the Emperor Alexander, and the King of Naples, and without consulting the knights, the Pope appointed Count Giovanni di Tommasi Grand Master. He died in 1805, and no Grand Master has been since appointed. On his death-bed, Tommasi nominated the bailiff, Guevara Suardo, Lieutenant Master. … {1666} [Such] lieutenants have presided over an association of titular knights at Rome, which is styled 'the Sacred Council.' In 1814, the French knights assembled at Paris and elected a capitulary commission for the government of the Order. … In or about the year 1826, the English 'Lange' of the Order of the Knights of Malta was revived. … A regular succession of Priors has been continued to the present time [1879], and the Duke of Manchester is the present Prior. The members of the Order devote themselves to relieving the poor, and assisting hospitals."

F. C. Woodhouse, Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages, part 1, chapter 20.

----------HOSPITALLERS: End--------

HOSPODAR.

"A title of Slavonic or Russian origin (Russian, Gospodin = Lord)."

J. Samuelson, Roumania, page 209, foot-note.

HOSTIS.

See PEREGRINI.

HOTTENTOTS, The.

See SOUTH AFRICA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS, and A. D. 1486-1806; also, AFRICA: THE INHABITING RACES.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

See PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH; and KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE.

HOUSE OF KEYS, The.

See MANX KINGDOM.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

See LORDS, HOUSE OF.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

See CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES.

HOUSECARLS.

"No English King or Ealdorman had hitherto kept a permanent military force in his pay. But Cnut [or Canute, A. D. 1018-1035] now organized a regular paid force, kept constantly under arms, and ready to march at a moment's notice. These were the famous Thingmen, the Housecarls, of whom we hear so much under Cnut and under his successors. … The Housecarls were in fact a standing army, and a standing army was an institution which later Kings and great Earls, English as well as Danish, found it to be their interest to continue. Under Cnut they formed a sort of military guild with the king at their head."

E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest, chapter 6, section 2, and appendix, note kkk (volume 1).

HOUSEHOLD FRANCHISE.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

HOUSTON, Sam, and the independence of Texas.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836.

HOVAS, The.

See MALAYAN RACE.

HOWE, George Augustus, Lord, Death at Ticonderoga.

See CANADA: A. D. 1758.

HOWE, Richard, Admiral Lord, and the War of the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (AUGUST)

Naval Victory (1794).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).

HOWE, General Sir William, and the War of the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (APRIL-MAY), (JUNE); 1776 (AUGUST), (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER); 1776-1777; 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER); 1778 (JUNE).

HRINGS OF THE AVARS.

See AVARS, RINGS OF THE.

HUAMABOYA, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

HUANCAS, The.

See PERU: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

HUASTECS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MAYAS.

HUAYNA CAPAC, The Inca.

See PERU: THE EMPIRE OF THE INCAS.

HUBERTSBURG, The Peace of.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.

HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY.

See CANADA: A. D. 1869-1873.

HUDSON'S BAY TERRITORY, Relinquished by France to Great Britain (1713).

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

HUDSON'S VOYAGES, Explorations and Discoveries.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1607-1608, and 1609.

HUECOS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

HUGH CAPET, King of France, A. D. 987-996.

----------HUGUENOTS: Start--------

HUGUENOTS. First appearance and disputed origin of the name. Quick formation of the Calvinistic Protestant Party in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1559-1561.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1528-1562. Ascendancy in Navarre.

See NAVARRE: A. D. 1528-1563.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1554-1565. Attempted colonization in Brazil and in Florida. The Massacre at Fort Caroline.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1562-1563, to 1567-1568.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1560-1598. The Wars of Religion in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1560-1563, to 1593-1598.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1598-1599. The Edict of Nantes.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1598-1599.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1620-1622. Their formidable organization and political pretensions. Continued desertion of nobles. Leadership of the clergy. Revolt and unfavorable Treaty of Montpellier.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1625-1626. Renewed revolt. Second Treaty of Montpellier.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1627-1628. Revolt in alliance with England. Richelieu's siege and capture of La Rochelle. End of political Huguenotism in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1627-1628.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1661-1680. Revived persecution under Louis XIV.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1661-1680.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1681-1698. The climax of persecution in France. The Dragonnades. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The great exodus.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1698.

HUGUENOTS: A. D. 1702-1710. The Camisard uprising in the Cévennes.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1702-1710.

----------HUGUENOTS: End--------

HULL, Commodore Isaac.—Naval exploits.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

HULL, General William, and the surrender of Detroit.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-OCTOBER).

HULL: Siege by the Royalists.

Hull, occupied by the Parliamentary forces under Lord Fairfax, after their defeat at Adwalton Moor, was besieged by the Royalists under the Earl of Newcastle, from September 2 until October 11, 1643, when they were driven off.

C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 12.

See, also, WINCEBY FIGHT.

HÜLSEMANN LETTER, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850-1851.

HULST, Battle of (1642).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.

HUMANISM.

See RENAISSANCE.

HUMAS, OR OUMAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

{1667}

HUMAYUN, Moghul Emperor or Padischah of India, A. D. 1530-1556.

HUMBERT, King of Italy, A. D. 1878-.

HUMBLE PETITION AND ADVICE, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1654-1658.

HUMBLEDON, Battle of.

See HOMILDON HILL, BATTLE OF.

HUNDRED, The.

"The union of a number of townships for the purpose of judicial administration, peace, and defence, formed what is known as the 'hundred,' or 'wapentake'; a district answering to the 'pagus' of Tacitus, the 'hærred' of Scandinavia, the 'huntari' or 'gau' of Germany. … The name of the hundred, which, like the wapentake, first appears in the laws of Edgar, has its origin far back in the remotest antiquity, but the use of it as a geographical expression is discoverable only in comparatively late evidences. The 'pagus' of the Germania sent its hundred warriors to the host, and appeared by its hundred judges in the court of the 'princeps.' The Lex Salica contains abundant evidence that in the fifth century the administration of the hundred was the chief, if not the only, machinery of the Frank judicial system; and the word in one form or other enters into the constitution of all the German nations. It may be regarded then as a certain vestige of primitive organisation. But the exact relation of the territorial hundred to the hundred of the Germania is a point which is capable of, and has received, much discussion. It has been regarded as denoting simply a division of a hundred hides of land; as the district which furnished a hundred warriors to the host; as representing the original settlement of the hundred warriors; or as composed of a hundred hides, each of which furnished a single warrior. The question is not peculiar to English history, and the same result may have followed from very different causes as probably as from the same causes, here and on the continent. It is very probable, as already stated, that the colonists of Britain arranged themselves in hundreds of warriors; it is not probable that the country was carved into equal districts. The only conclusion that seems reasonable is that, under the name of geographical hundreds, we have the variously sized pagi or districts in which the hundred warriors settled. … The hundred-gemot, or wapentake court, was held every month; it was called six days before the day of meeting, and could not be held on Sunday. It was attended by the lords of lands within the hundred, or their stewards representing them, and by the parish priest, the reeve, and four best men of each township. … The criminal jurisdiction of the hundred is perpetuated in the manorial court leet."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 5, section 45 (volume 1).

"By the 13th century the importance of the hundred had much diminished. The need for any such body, intermediate between township and county, ceased to be felt, and the functions of the hundred were gradually absorbed by the county. Almost everywhere in England, by the reign of Elizabeth, the hundred had fallen into decay. It is curious that its name and some of its peculiarities should have been brought to America, and should in one state have remained to the present day. Some of the early settlements in Virginia were called hundreds, but they were practically nothing more than parishes, and the name soon became obsolete, except upon the map, where we still see, for example, Bermuda Hundred. But in Maryland the hundred flourished and became the political unit, like the township in New England. The hundred was the militia district, and the district for the assessment of taxes. In the earliest times it was also the representative district. … The hundred had also its assembly of all the people, which was in many respects like the New England town-meeting. These hundred-meetings enacted by-laws, levied taxes, appointed committees, and often exhibited a vigorous political life. But after the Revolution they fell into disuse, and in 1824 the hundred became extinct in Maryland; its organization was swallowed up in that of the county. In Delaware, however, the hundred remains to this day."

J. Fiske, Civil Government in the United States, chapter 4, section 1.

HUNDRED DAYS, The.

The period of Napoleon's recovery of power in France, on his return from the Isle of Elba, and until his overthrow at Waterloo and final abdication, is often referred to as The Hundred Days.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814-1815, to 1815 (JUNE-AUGUST).

HUNDRED YEARS WAR, The

See FRANCE: A. D.1337-1360.

----------HUNGARIANS: Start--------

HUNGARIANS, The.

"Gibbon is correct in connecting the language of the Hungarians with that of the Finnish or Tschudish race. The original abode of the Hungarians was in the country called Ugria or Jugoria, in the southern part of the Uralian mountains, which is now inhabited by the Voguls and Ostiaks, who are the eastern branches of the Finnish race, while the most important of the western branches are the Finns and Lappes. Ugria is called Great Hungary by the Franciscan monk Piano Carpini, who travelled in 1426 to the court of the Great Khan. From Ugria the Hungarians were expelled by the Turkish tribes of Petcheneges and Chazars, and sought refuge in the plains of the Lower Danube, where they first appeared in the reign of the Greek Emperor Theophilus, between 829 and 842. They called themselves Magyars, but the Russians gave them the name of Ugri, as originating from Ugria; and this name has been corrupted into Ungri and Hungarians. Although it is difficult to believe that the present Magyars, who are the foremost people in Eastern Europe, are of the same race as the degraded Voguls and Ostiaks, this fact is not only attested by historical authority, and the unerring affinity of language; but, when they first appeared in the central parts of Europe, the description given of them by an old chronicler of the ninth century (quoted by Zeuss, page 746) accords precisely with that of the Voguls and Ostiaks."

Dr. W. Smith, Note to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 55.

"That a Majiar female ever made her way from the Ural Mountains to Hungary is more than I can find; the presumptions being against it. Hence it is just possible that a whole-blooded Majiar was never born on the banks of the Danube. Whether the other elements are most Turk or most Slavonic is more than I venture to guess."

R. G. Latham, Ethnology of Europe, chapter 11.

"According to their own primitive traditions, the ruling caste, the main body of the nation, were the children of Mogor the son of Magog. The Hebrew name Mogor signifies 'Terror'; and slightly varied by the Orientals into Magyar became the rallying cry of the once-splendid Hungarian nationality."

Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: A. J. Patterson, The Magyars, volume 1, chapter 1.

{1668}

HUNGARIANS: Ravages in Europe and settlement in Hungary.

"The Magyars (the idiomatic synonym for Hungarians, and probably the proper name of one of their tribes), driven by internal dissensions from their native deserts, found a home for centuries around the Caucasus and along the barren shores of the Wolga. About the end of the 9th century they suddenly struck their tents, and pressed irresistibly forward to the very heart of Europe. … Immediately after crossing the eastern frontier (A. D. 889), the Magyars elected for their chief Arpad, the son of Almos, who conducted them to the frontiers of Hungary. The latter did not survive to see the conquest. The whole body under Arpad's guidance consisted of about a million, numbering among them about 200,000 warriors, and divided into seven tribes, each having its chief. The country which they prepared to take possession of, and the central part of which was then called Pannonia, was broken up into small parts, and inhabited by races dissimilar in origin and language; as Sclavonians, Wallachians, a few Huns and Avars, as well as some Germans. … Arpad soon descended with his followers on those wide plains, whence Attila, four centuries before, swayed two parts of the globe. Most dexterous horsemen, armed with light spears and almost unerring bows, these invaders followed their leader from victory to victory, soon rendering themselves masters of the land lying between the Theiss and the Danube, carrying at the same time their devastations, on the one hand, to the Adriatic, and, on the other, towards the German frontiers. Having achieved the conquest, Arpad took up his residence on the Danubian isle, Csepel, though the seat of the court was Buda or Attelburg. … The love of their new dominion was far from curbing the passion of the Magyars for distant bloody adventure and plunder. The most daring deeds were undertaken by single chiefs, during the reign of Zoltan and his successor Taksony, which filled up the first part of the tenth century. The enervated and superstitious population of Europe thought the Magyars to be the scourge of God, directly dropped down from heaven; the very report of their approach was sufficient to drive thousands into the recesses of mountains and depths of forests, while the priests increased the common panic by mingling in their litanies the words, 'God preserve us from the Magyars.' … The irruptions of the Magyars were simultaneously felt on the shores of the Baltic, among the inhabitants of the Alps, and at the very gates of Constantinople. The emperors of the East and of Germany were repeatedly obliged to purchase momentary peace by heavy tributes; but Germany, as may be conceived from her geographical position, was chiefly exposed to the ravages of these new neighbours."

E. Szabad, Hungary, Past and Present, part 1, chapter 1.

See GERMANY: A. D. 911-936.

HUNGARIANS: A. D. 900-924. Ravages in Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 900-924.

HUNGARIANS: A. D. 934-955. Repulse from Germany.

"The deliverance of Germany and Christendom was achieved by the Saxon princes, Henry the Fowler and Otho the Great, who, in two memorable battles, forever broke the power of the Hungarians." Twenty years after their defeat by Henry the Fowler (A. D. 934) the Hungarians invaded the empire of his son (A. D. 955), "and their force is defined, in the lowest estimate, at 100,000 horse. They were invited by domestic faction; the gates of Germany were treacherously unlocked, and they spread, far beyond the Rhine and the Meuse, into the heart of Flanders. But the vigour and prudence of Otho dispelled the conspiracy; the princes were made sensible that, unless they were true to each other, their religion and country were irrecoverably lost; and the national powers were reviewed in the plains of Augsburg. They marched and fought in eight legions, according to the division of provinces and tribes [Bavarians, Franconians, Saxons, Swabians, Bohemians]. … The Hungarians were expected in the front; they secretly passed the Lech, a river of Bavaria that falls into the Danube, turned the rear of the Christian army, plundered the baggage, and disordered the legions of Bohemia and Swabia. The battle [near Augsburg, August 10, 955] was restored by the Franconians, whose duke, the valiant Conrad, was pierced with an arrow as he rested from his fatigues; the Saxons fought under the eyes of their king, and his victory surpassed, in merit and importance, the triumphs of the last two hundred years. The loss of the Hungarians was still greater in the flight than in the action; they were encompassed by the rivers of Bavaria; and their past cruelties excluded them from the hope of mercy."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire chapter 55.

ALSO IN: W. Menzel, History of Germany, chapter 135 (volume 1).

Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, volume 2, pages 656-665.

A. W. Grube, Heroes of History and Legend, chapter 8.

----------HUNGARIANS: End--------

HUNGARY: Ancient.

See DACIA, and PANNONIA.

HUNGARY: The Huns in possession.

See HUNS.

HUNGARY: The Avars in possession.

See AVARS.

HUNGARY: A. D. 972-1114. Christianization of the Magyars. Kingship conferred on the Duke by the Pope. Annexation of Croatia and conquest of Dalmatia.

"King Geiza [of the house of Arpad—see HUNGARIANS: RAVAGES IN EUROPE] (972-997) was the first pacific ruler of pagan Hungary. … Hungary was enclosed within limits which she was never again able to cross, and even within these limits the Magyars were not the only inhabitants; in almost every part they were surrounded by Slavs, whose language and laws were to exercise over them a lasting influence, and on the southeast they touched on that Romance or Wallachian element which, from the time of the Roman colonies of Trajan, had continued to develop there. Numerous marriages with these neighbours gradually modified the primitive type of the Magyars. … Geiza I. had married as his second wife a sister of the duke of Poland, Mieczyslaw. She had been converted to Christianity, and, like Clotilde of France, this princess knew how to use her influence in favour of her religion. {1669} She persuaded her husband to receive the missionaries who came to preach the Gospel in the country of the Magyars, and Pilgrim, archbishop of Lorch, undertook the systematic conversion of the nation. The mention of him in the 'Nibelungen Lied' in connection with Etzel (Attila), king of the Huns, is doubtless due to the memory of this mission. He sent priests from his diocese into Hungary, and in 974 he was able to announce to the pope 5,000 conversions. … The great Chekh apostle, St. Adalbert or Vojtech, bishop of Prague, continued the work begun by Pilgrim. About 994, he went to Gran (Esztergom), where the duke of Hungary then dwelt, and solemnly baptized the son of Geiza, to whom he gave the name of Stephen. Henceforth the court of the duke became the resort of knights from all the neighbouring countries, but especially from Germany, and these knights, entering into intimate relations with the native nobility, drew Hungary and the empire into still closer union. Prince Stephen, heir presumptive to the throne, married the princess Gisella, daughter of the duke of Bavaria, while one of the daughters of Geiza became the wife of the Polish duke Boleslaw, and another married Urseolus, doge of Venice. Through these alliances, Hungary obtained for itself a recognized place among European states, and the work begun so well by Geiza was completed by Stephen, to whom was reserved the honour of establishing the position of his kingdom in Europe and of completing its conversion. … 'Hungary became Catholic,' says a Magyar historian, 'not through apostolic teaching, nor through the invitation of the Holy See, but through the laws of king Stephen' (Verböczy). He was not always content to use persuasion alone to lead his subjects to the new faith; he hesitated not to use threats also. … Stephen sent an ambassador to Rome, to treat directly with pope Sylvester, who graciously received the homage done by him for his kingdom, and, by a letter dated the 27th of March, 1000, announced that he took the people of Hungary under the protection of the Church. By the same brief he granted the royal crown to Stephen. … Besides this, he conferred on him the privilege of having the cross always borne before him, as a symbol of the apostolic power which he granted to him. The authenticity of this pontifical letter has indeed been disputed; but, however that may be, the emperor of Austria, king of Hungary, still bears the title of Apostolic Majesty. … Under this great king, Hungary became a completely independent kingdom between the two empires of the East and West. … The laws of Stephen are contained in 56 articles divided into two books. His ideas on all matters of government are also to be found in the counsels which he wrote, or caused to be written, for his son Emerich. … The son for whom the great king had written his maxims died before his father, in 1031, and is honoured as a saint by the Church. The last years of king Stephen were harassed by rivalries and plots. He died on the 15th of August, 1038. … Stephen had chosen as his successor his nephew Peter, the son of the doge Urseolus." But Peter was driven out and sought help in Germany, bringing war into the country. The Hungarians chose for their king, Samuel Ala, a tribal chief; but soon deposed him and elected Andrew, son of Ladislas the Bald (1046). Andrew was dethroned by his brother Bela, in 1061. Both Andrew and Bela had bitter struggles with revived paganism, which was finally suppressed. Bela died in 1063. "According to the Asiatic custom, which still prevails in Turkey, he was succeeded by his nephew Solomon. … This prince was only twelve years of age, and the emperor, Henry IV., took advantage of his youth to place him in a humiliating position of tutelage. … The enemies of Solomon accused him of being the creature of the Germans, and reproached him for having done homage to the emperor for a state which belonged to St. Peter. Pope Gregory VII., who was then struggling against the emperor [see PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122], encouraged the rebels. 'The kingdom of Hungary,' he said, owes obedience to none but the Church.' Prince Geiza was proclaimed king in the place of Solomon, but he died without having reigned. He was succeeded by Ladislas the Holy (1077), who was able to make himself equally independent of emperor and pope. … The dying Ladislas chose his nephew Koloman as his successor. … The most important act of this reign [Koloman's, 1095-1114] was the annexation of Croatia. In 1090, St. Ladislas had been elected to the throne of Croatia, and he, on his death, left the government of it to his nephew Almos, who very soon made himself unpopular. Koloman drove him out of Croatia, and had himself proclaimed king. He next set about the conquest of Dalmatia from the Venetians, seized the principal towns, Spalato (Spljet), Zara (Zadir), and Trogir (Trau), and granted them full power of self-government. Then (1102) he had himself crowned, at Belgrade, king of Croatia and Dalmatia. From this time the position of Croatia, as regarded Hungary, was very much the same as the position of Hungary in regard to Austria in later times."

L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapters 5-6.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES, 9TH-16TH CENTURIES (BOSNIA, SERVIA, ETC.).

HUNGARY: A. D. 1096. Hostilities with the first Crusaders.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1114-1301. The Golden Bull of King Bela. Invasion and frightful devastation by the Tartars. The end of the Arpad dynasty.

"Coloman was succeeded on the throne by his son Stephen, who, after a short reign, was succeeded by Bela the Blind. The most important event of these reigns was the war with Venice about the possession of Dalmatia, and the annexation to the Hungarian crown of Rama, a part of Servia. In 1141, Geisa II. ascended the throne of St. Stephen. His reign was marked by several important events. Having entirely reduced Transylvania, he invited many Saxons and Flemish into his kingdom, some of whom settled in the Banat, in the south of Hungary, and others in Transylvania. In this principality the German settlers received from the king a separate district, being, besides, exempted from many taxes and endowed with particular privileges. … The following years of the 12th century, filled up by the reigns of Stephen III., Bela III., and Emerick, are marked by the continuance of the Venetian war, but present no incidents deserving of particular notice. More important was the reign of Andrew II., who ascended the throne in 1205. … {1670} Andrew, by the advice of the Pope, set out with a large army to the Holy Land [1216—see CRUSADES: A. D. 1216-1229], nominating the Ban, called Banko, viceroy of Hungary. While the Hungarian king spent his time in Constantinople, and afterwards in operations round Mount Tabor, Hungary became a scene of violence and rapine, aggravated by the careless and unconstitutional administration of the queen's foreign favourites, as well as by the extortions committed by the oligarchy on their inferiors. Receiving no support from the king of Jerusalem, Andrew resolved on returning home. On his arrival in Hungary, he had the mortification of finding, in addition to a disaffected nobility, a rival to the throne in the person of his son Bela. As the complaints of the nobles became daily louder, … the king resolved to confirm the privileges of the country by a new charter, called The Golden Bull. This took place in the year 1222. The chief provisions of this charter were as follows:

1st, That the states were henceforth to be annually convoked either under the presidency of the king or the palatine;

2d, That no nobleman was to be arrested without being previously tried and legally sentenced;

3d, That no contribution or tax was to be levied on the property of the nobles;

4th, That if called to military service beyond the frontiers of the country, they were to be paid by the king;

5th, That high offices should neither be made hereditary nor given to foreigners without the consent of the Diet.

The most important point, however, was article 31st, which conferred on the nobles the right of appealing to arms in case of any violation of the laws by the crown. Other provisions contained in this charter refer to the exemption of the lower clergy from the payment of taxes and tolls, and to the determination of the tithes to be paid by the cultivators of the soil. … Andrew died soon after the promulgation of the charter, and was succeeded by his son Bela IV. The beginning of this prince's reign was troubled with internal dissensions caused by the Cumans [an Eastern tribe which invaded Hungary in the later half of the 11th century—see COSSACKS], who, after having been vanquished by St. Ladislaus, settled in Hungary between the banks of the Theiss and Marosch. But a greater and quite unexpected danger, which threatened Hungary with utter destruction, arose from the invasion of the Tartars. Their leader Batu, after having laid waste Poland and Silesia, poured with his innumerable bands into the heart of Hungary [see MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294]. Internal dissensions facilitated the triumph of the foe, and the battle fought on the banks of the river Sajo (A. D. 1241) terminated in the total defeat of the Hungarians. The Tartar hordes spread with astonishing rapidity throughout the whole country, which in a few weeks was converted into a chaos of blood and flames. Not contented with wholesale massacre, the Tartar leader devised snares to destroy the lives of those who succeeded in making their escape into the recesses of the mountains and the depths of the forests. Among those who perished in the battle of Sajo was the Hungarian chancellor, who carried with him the seal of state. Batu having got possession of the seal, caused a proclamation to be made in the name of the Hungarian king [calling the people back to their homes], to which he affixed the royal stamp. … Trusting to this appeal, the miserable people issued from their hiding-places, and returned to their homes. The cunning barbarian first caused them to do the work of harvest in order to supply his hordes with provisions, and then put them to an indiscriminate death. The king Bela, in the meantime, succeeded in making his way through the Carpathian Mountains into Austria; but instead of receiving assistance from the arch-duke Frederick, he was retained as a prisoner. Having pledged three counties of Hungary to Frederick, Bela was allowed to depart. … In the meantime Batu was as prompt in leaving Hungary, in consequence of the death of the Tartar khan. … Bela was succeeded on the throne by his son Stephen, in the year 1270." The reign of Stephen was short. He was followed by Ladislaus IV., who allied himself with Rudolph of Hapsburg in the war which overthrew and destroyed Ottoacer or Ottocar, king of Bohemia (see AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282). "The reign of this prince, called the Cuman, was, besides, troubled by most devastating internal dissensions, caused by the Cumans, whose numbers were continually augmented by fresh arrivals … from their own tribe as well as from the Tartars." Ladislaus, dying in 1290, was succeeded by Andrew III., the last Hungarian king of the house of Arpad. "This prince had to dispute his throne with Rudolph of Hapsburg, who coveted the crown of Hungary for his son Albert. The appearance, however, of the Hungarian troops before the gates of Vienna compelled the Austrian emperor to sue for peace, which was cemented by a family alliance, Andrew having espoused Agnes, daughter of Albert. … Nor did this matrimonial alliance with Austria secure peace to Hungary. Pope Nicholas IV. was bent upon gaining the crown of St. Stephen for Charles Martel, son of Charles d'Anjou of Naples, who put forward his claims to the Hungarian crown in virtue of his mother, Mary, daughter of king Stephen V.," transferring them at his death to Charles Robert, nephew of the king of Naples. Andrew III., the last Arpad, died in 1301.

E. Szabad, Hungary, Past and Present, part 1, chapter 2.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1285. Wallachian struggle for independence.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES, 14TH-18TH CENTURIES (ROUMANIA, etc.).

HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442. The House of Anjou and the House of Luxembourg. Conquests of Louis the Great. Beginning of wars with the Turks. The House of Austria and the disputed crown.

On the extinction of the ancient race of kings, in the male line of descent, by the death of Andrew III., in 1301, the crown was "contested by several competitors, and at length fell into the hands of the House of Anjou, the reigning family of Naples [see ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1343-1389]. Charles Robert, grandson of Charles II. King of Naples, by Mary of Hungary, outstripped his rivals (1310), and transmitted the crown to his son LOUIS, surnamed the Great [1342]. This prince, characterized by his eminent qualities, made a distinguished figure among the Kings of Hungary. He conquered from the Venetians the whole of Dalmatia from the frontiers of Istria, as far as Durazzo; he reduced the princes of Moldavia, Wallachia, Bosnia and Bulgaria to a state of dependence; and at length mounted the throne of Poland, on the death of his uncle, Casimir the Great. Mary, his eldest daughter, succeeded him in the kingdom of Hungary (1382). {1671} This princess married Sigismund of Luxembourg [afterwards Emperor, 1411-1437-see GERMANY: A. D. 1347-1493], who thus united the monarchy of Hungary to the Imperial crown. The reign of Sigismund in Hungary was most unfortunate. … He had to sustain the first war against the Ottoman Turks; and, with the Emperor of Constantinople as his ally, he assembled a formidable army, with which he undertook the siege of Nicopolis in Bulgaria [see TURKS (THE OTTOMANS): A. D. 1389-1403]. In his retreat he was compelled to embark on the Danube, and directed his flight towards Constantinople. This disaster was followed by new misfortunes. The male contents of Hungary offered their crown to Ladislaus, called the Magnanimous, King of Naples, who took possession of Dalmatia, which he afterwards surrendered to the Venetians. Desirous to provide for the defence and security of his kingdom, Sigismund acquired, by treaty with the Prince of Servia, the fortress of Belgrade (1425), which, by its situation at the confluence of the Danube and the Save, seemed to him a proper bulwark to protect Hungary against the Turks. He transmitted the crown of Hungary [in 1437, when he died] to his son-in-law, Albert of Austria, who reigned only two years."

C. W. Koch, The Revolutions of Europe, period 5.

"Albert, afterwards the Emperor Albert II., was the first prince of the House of Habsburg that enjoyed the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, which he owed to his father-in-law, the Emperor Sigismund, whose only daughter, Elizabeth, he had married. Elizabeth was the child of Barbara von Cilly, Sigismund's second wife, whose notorious vices had procured for her the odious epithets of the 'Bad,' and the 'German Messalina.' Barbara had determined to supplant her daughter, to claim the two crowns as her dowry, and to give them, with her hand, to Wladislaus, the young King of Poland, who, though 40 years her junior, she had marked out for her future husband. With this view she was courting the Hussite party in Bohemia: but Sigismund, a little before his death, caused her to be arrested; and, assembling the Hungarian and Bohemian nobles at Znaym, in Moravia, persuaded them, almost with his dying breath, to elect Albert as his successor. Sigismund expired the next day (December 9th, 1437). Albert was soon after recognised as king by the Hungarian diet, and immediately released his mother-in-law Barbara, upon her agreeing to restore some fortresses which she held in Hungary. He did not so easily obtain possession of the Bohemian crown. … The short reign of Albert in Hungary was disastrous both to himself and to the country. Previously to his fatal expedition against the Turks in 1439, … the Hungarian diet, before it would agree to settle the succession to the throne, forced him to accept a constitution which destroyed all unity and strength of government. By the famous 'Decretum Alberti Regis,' he reduced himself to be the mere shadow of a king; while by exalting the Palatine [a magistrate next to the king in rank, who presided over the legal tribunals, and discharged the functions of the king in the absence of the latter], the clergy, and the nobles, he perpetuated all the evils of the feudal system. … The most absurd and pernicious regulations were now adopted respecting the military system of the kingdom, and such as rendered it almost impossible effectually to resist the Turks. … On the death of Albert, Wladislaus [Ladislaus] III., King of Poland [the second Polish king of the dynasty of Jagellon], was … elected to the throne of Hungary. … Albert, besides two daughters, had left his wife Elizabeth pregnant; and the Hungarians, dreading a long minority in case she should give birth to a son, compelled her to offer her hand to Wladislaus, agreeing that the crown should descend to their issue; but at the same time engaging that if Elizabeth's child should prove a male, they would endeavour to procure for him the kingdom of Bohemia and the duchy of Austria; and that he should moreover succeed to the Hungarian throne in case Wladislaus had no issue by Elizabeth. … Scarcely had the Hungarian ambassador set off for the court of Wladislaus with these proposals, when Elizabeth brought forth a son, who, from the circumstances of his birth, was christened Ladislaus Posthumus. Elizabeth now repented of the arrangement that had been made; and the news having arrived that the archduke Frederick had been elected Emperor of Germany, she was induced to withdraw her consent to marry the King of Poland. Messengers were despatched to recall the Hungarian ambassadors; but it was too late—Wladislaus had accepted her hand, and prepared to enter Hungary with an army. … The party of the King of Poland, especially as it was headed by John of Hunyad, proved the stronger. Elizabeth was compelled to abandon Lower Hungary and take refuge at Vienna, carrying with her the crown of St. Stephen, which, with her infant son, she intrusted to the care of the Emperor Frederick III. (August 3rd, 1440). … In November 1442, Elizabeth and Wladislaus had an interview at Raab, when a peace was agreed upon, the terms of which are unknown; but it is probable that one of the chief conditions was a marriage between the contracting parties. The sudden death of Elizabeth, Dec. 24th, 1442, not without suspicion of poison, prevented the ratification of a treaty which had never been agreeable to the great party led by John of Hunyad, whose recent victories over the Turks gave him enormous influence."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, introduction (volume 1).

HUNGARY: A. D. 1364. Reversion of the Crown guaranteed to the House of Austria.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1330-1364.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1381-1386. Expedition of Charles of Durazzo to Naples.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1343-1389.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1442-1444. Wars of Huniades with the Turks.

See TURKS (THE OTTOMANS): A. D. 1402-1451.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1442-1458. The minority of Ladislaus Posthumus. Regency of Huniades. His defeat of the Turks and his death. His son Matthias chosen king on the death of Ladislaus.

Peace between the factions was brought about by an agreement that "the Polish king should retain the government of Hungary until Ladislaus attained his majority; that he should be possessed of the throne in case the young prince died without issue; and the compact was sealed by affiancing the two daughters of Elizabeth to the King of Poland and his brother Casimir. {1672} The young Ladislaus was also acknowledged as King of Bohemia; and the administration during his minority vested in two Regents: Mainard, Count of Neuhaus, chosen on the part of the Catholics; and Henry Ptarsko, and after his death George Podiebrad, on that of the Hussites. The death of Uladislaus in the memorable battle of Warna again left Hungary without a ruler; and as Frederic III. persisted in retaining the young Ladislaus and the crown of St. Stephen, the Hungarians entrusted the government to John Corvinus Huniades, the redoubted defender of their country." In 1452, when the Emperor Frederic returned from Italy into Germany, "he found himself involved in a dispute with the Austrians, the Bohemians, and the Hungarians, in respect to the custody of the young Ladislaus. … As Ladislaus had now arrived at the age of thirteen, his subjects, but more particularly the Austrians, grew impatient of the detention of their sovereign at the imperial court. Whilst Podiebrad continued regent of Bohemia, and Huniades of Hungary, the affairs of Austria were directed by Frederic; and the unpopularity of his government caused a general anxiety for a change. But to give up the custody of his ward was contrary to the policy of the Emperor, and in the hope of silencing the Austrians he marched with a force against them. His enemies, however, proved too numerous; he was himself endangered by a siege in Neustadt; and compelled to purchase his deliverance by resigning the person of Ladislaus. The states of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary then assembled at Vienna; Podiebrad and Huniades were confirmed in their regencies; and the administration of Austria, together with the custody of Ladislaus, was confided to his maternal great-uncle, Ulric, Count of Cilli. The resentment of Frederic does not appear to have been vehement; for in the following year [1453] he raised Austria to an archdutchy, and by a grant of especial privileges placed the Duke of the province on a level with the Electors. After being crowned King of Bohemia at Prague, Ladislaus was invited by his Hungarian subjects to visit that kingdom. But the Count of Cilli, jealous of the power of Huniades, so far worked upon the young king's mind as to create in him suspicions of the regent's integrity. An attempt was made to seize Huniades by enticing him to Vienna; but he eluded the snare, exposed the treachery of Ulric, and prevailed on Ladislaus to visit his people. At Buda, an apparent reconciliation took place between the count and the regent; but Ulric still persisted in his design of ruining the credit of a man whom he regarded as a dangerous rival. In the moment of danger, the brave spirit of Huniades triumphed over his insidious traducer; the siege of Belgrade by the Turks [1456], under Mahomed II., threw Hungary into consternation; the royal pupil and his crafty guardian abandoned the Hungarians to their fate and precipitately fled to Vienna; whilst Huniades was left to encounter the fury of the storm. … The undaunted resistance of that renowned captain preserved Belgrade; the Turks, after a desperate struggle, were compelled to abandon the siege; their loss amounted to 30,000 men; and the Sultan himself was severely wounded [see TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481]. The great defender did not long survive his triumph; dying, soon after the retreat of the enemy, of a fever occasioned by his extraordinary exertions. Huniades left two sons, Ladislaus and Matthias Corvinus, who were as much the idols of their country as they were objects of jealousy to Ulric and the King. The latter, indeed, took care to treat them with every mark of external respect; but the injurious behaviour of the count provoked Ladislaus Corvinus to open violence; and, in a personal rencounter, Ulric received a mortal wound. Enraged at the death of his favourite yet dreading the vengeance of the people, King Ladislaus resorted to treachery; and the brothers being lured into his power, the younger was beheaded as a murderer [1457]. Matthias was preserved from death by the menaces of the indignant Hungarians; the terrified monarch fled with his prisoner to Prague; and being there attacked by a malignant disease, was consigned to a premature grave after suffering for only a few hours. The death of Ladislaus Posthumus plunged the Emperor into new difficulties. His succession to the Austrian territory was opposed by his brother Albert VI., whose hostility had long troubled his repose. The Bohemians rejected his claim to their throne, and conferred the crown on the more deserving Podiebrad [1458]. The Hungarians testified their regard for the memory of Huniades Corvinus by electing his son Matthias, who purchased his liberty from Podiebrad for 40,000 ducats. Thus baffled in his views, Frederic consoled himself with his retention of the crown of St. Stephen; and his pertinacity in respect to this sacred relique involved him in a war with the new King of Hungary."

Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapter 28 (volume 2).

HUNGARY: A. D. 1444. Wallachia taken from the Turks.

See TURKS (THE OTTOMANS): A. D. 1402-1451.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1468-1471. King Matthias joins the crusade against George Podiebrad of Bohemia and claims the Bohemian crown.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1458-1471.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487. The wars of Matthias with Bohemia, Poland, the emperor and the Turks. Conquest and occupation of Austria.

Ladislaus, elected to the throne of Bohemia on the death of George Podiebrad, was supported by all the forces of his father, the king of Poland, and Matthias of Hungary was now involved in war with both. Meanwhile, "his whole kingdom was agitated by intestine commotions, and a strong party of nobles breaking out into insurrection, had offered the crown to Casimir, prince of Poland. At the same time, the Turks having subdued Transylvania, and ravaged Dalmatia and Croatia, built the fortress of Szabatch on the Save, and from thence harassed Hungary with perpetual inroads. From these impending dangers, Matthias extricated himself by his courage, activity, and prudence. While he carried the war into Bohemia and Silesia, he awed, by his presence, his rebellious subjects, conciliated by degrees the disaffected nobles, expelled the Poles, and, by an important victory in the vicinity of Breslau, over the united armies of Poles and Bohemians, forced the two sovereigns, in 1474, to conclude an armistice for three years and a half. He availed himself of the suspension of arms to repel the Turks. He supported Stephen Bathori, hospodar of Wallachia, who had shaken off the Ottoman yoke, by a reinforcement of troops, enabled him to defeat Mahomet himself [on the plain of Kenyer-Mesö, October, 1479], at the head of 100,000 men, and soon afterwards secured his frontiers on the side of the Danube by the capture of Szabatch. {1673} Having in consequence of these successes delivered his dominions from the aggressions of the Turks, he hastened to gratify his vengeance against the emperor, whose conduct had afforded so many causes of complaint. After instigating Matthias to make war on George Podiebrad, Frederic had abandoned him in the midst of the contest, had refused to fulfil his promise of investing him with the kingdom of Bohemia, had concluded an alliance with the kings of Poland and Bohemia, and, on the 10th of June, 1477, formally conferred on Ladislaus the investiture of the crown." Matthias, as soon as he had freed himself from the Turks (1479), declared war against the emperor and invaded Austria. "Frederic, left without a single ally, was unable to make the smallest resistance, and in less than a month Matthias overran the greater part of Lower Austria, invested the capital, and either besieged or captured all the fortresses of the Danube, as far as Krems and Stein. Frederic fled in dismay to Lintz, and, to save his capital, was reduced to accept the conditions imposed by the conqueror," which included a promised payment of 100,000 ducats. This payment the shifty emperor evaded, when Matthias became involved anew, as he presently did, in hostilities with Bohemia and Poland. "Matthias, irritated by his conduct, concluded a peace with Ladislaus, by which he acknowledged him as king of Bohemia, and agreed that Moravia, Silesia, and Lusatia [which had been surrendered to him in 1475] should revert to the crown of Bohemia, in ease of his death without issue. He then again invaded Austria; but his arms were not attended with the same rapid success as on the former invasion. … It was not till after a contest of four years, which called forth all the skill and perseverance of the warlike monarch and his most experienced generals, that they obtained possession of the capital [1485] and the neighbouring fortresses, and completed the subjugation of Lower Austria, by the capture of Newstadt, the favourite residence of the emperor. Frederic, driven from his hereditary dominions, at first took refuge at Gratz; and, on the approach of danger, wandered from city to city, and from convent to convent." After many appeals, he persuaded Albert, duke of Saxony, to take the field in his behalf; but Albert, with the small force at his command, could only retard the progress of the invader, and he soon concluded an armistice with him. "In consequence of this agreement, he [Albert of Saxony], in November, 1487, abandoned Austria, and Matthias was permitted to retain possession of the conquered territories, until Frederic had discharged his former engagement, and reimbursed the expenses of the war; should Matthias die before that period, these states were to revert to their sovereign."

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 18 (volume 1).

HUNGARY: A. D. 1487-1526. Death of Matthias. Election of Wladislaw, or Ladislaus, of the Polish house of Jagellon. Union of the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia. Loss of the Austrian provinces. Treaty of Succession with Maximilian. Insurrection of the Kurucs. Loss of Belgrade. Great Turkish invasion and ruinous battle of Mohacs. The end of Hungarian independence.

"When once the archduchy of Austria was conquered, Mathias, who was already master of Moravia and Silesia, had in his power a state almost as large as the Austria of the present time, if we except from it Galicia and Bohemia. But his power had no solid foundation. While the influence of the house of Austria had been increased by marriage, Mathias Corvinus had no legitimate heir. He made several attempts to have his natural son, John Corvinus, born in Silesia, recognized as his successor; but he died suddenly (1490) at the age of 50, without having arranged anything definitely for the future of his kingdom. … Hungary reached her highest point in the reign of Mathias Corvinus, and from this time we shall have to watch her hopeless decay. The diet, divided by the ambition of rival barons, could decide on no national king, and so turned to a foreigner. Wladyslaw II., of the [Polish] house of Jagellon, was elected, and thus a king of Bohemia, and an old rival of Mathias, united the two crowns of St. Vacslav and St. Stephen—a union which had been so ardently hoped for by Mathias, and for which he had waged the miserable war against Bohemia. … The beginning of the new reign was not fortunate. Maximilian [son of the Emperor Frederic] recovered the Austrian provinces, and John of Poland declared war against his brother, Wladyslaw, and obliged him to cede part of Silesia to him. Maximilian invaded the west of Hungary, … whence he only consented to retire after Wladyslaw had agreed to a treaty, which secured Hungary to the house of Austria, in case of Wladyslaw dying without children. This treaty, in which the king disposed of the country without consulting the diet, roused universal indignation. … Meanwhile, the Turks thronged round the southern frontier of the kingdom. Bajazet II. had failed to capture Belgrade in 1492, but he could not be prevented from forcing his way into the valley of the Save, and beating the Hungarian army, which was badly paid and badly disciplined. … Wladyslaw had one son, Louis. Surrounded by the net of Austrian diplomacy, he had affianced this son in his cradle to Mary of Austria, the sister of Charles V., and later on he undertook, in defiance of public opinion, to leave the crown to his daughter Anne, who was, betrothed to Ferdinand of Austria, if Louis should die without heirs. … To add to the miseries of his reign, a peasant rising, a terrible Jacquerie, took place. … In 1513, Cardinal Bacracz came from Rome, bringing with him the papal bull for a crusade against the infidels; whereupon the peasants armed themselves, as if they were about to march against the Turks, and then turned their arms against the nobles. This terrible insurrection is called in Hungarian history the insurrection of the Kurucs (Kouroutses, cruciati) crusaders. … The chief leader of the insurrection, the peasant Dosza, was one of the Szeklers of Transylvania. … Dosza was beaten in a battle near Temesvar, and fell into the hands of his enemies. Their vengeance was terrible. The king of the peasants was seated on a throne of fire, and crowned by the executioner with a red-hot crown. He bore his frightful sufferings with a courage that astonished his adversaries. … The feeble Wladyslaw died in 1515, and the reign of the child-king, Louis II., may be summed up in two catastrophes, the loss of Belgrade and the defeat at Mohacs. The young king, married in his cradle, was corrupt and dissolute, and quite incapable of governing, and his guardians could not rise to the height of the occasion. {1674} The finances of the kingdom were in great disorder, and the leading barons quarrelled continually over the shreds of sovereignty still left. … This state of things was of the greatest use to the Turks, for while Hungary was sinking ever deeper into anarchy, Turkey was ruled by the great sovereign who was called Soliman the Magnificent. It was not long before he found a pretext for war in the arrest of one of his subjects as a spy, and assembled his troops at Sophia, captured Shabats [Szabatch], laid siege to Belgrade and took it, making it thenceforward a Mussulman fortress (1521). The key of the Danube was now in the hands of the Turks. … King Louis begged for help on every side. … The Austrian princes were ready to help him from interested motives; but even when joined with Hungary they were too feeble to conquer the armies of 'the Magnificent.' On the 25th of April, 1526, Soliman quitted Constantinople, bringing with him 100,000 men and 300 cannon, taking up arms not only against Hungary, but against the empire. One of the pretexts for his expedition was the captivity of Francis I.; he wished, he said, to save 'the bey of France' from the hands of the Germans and their allies the Hungarians. He crossed the Save near Osiek (Essek), captured Petervardin, and came up with the Hungarians at Mohacs, on the right bank of the Danube (August 26, 1526). The Magyar army was commanded by the king in person, assisted by Paul Tomory, archbishop of Kalocsa, one of the warlike bishops of whom Hungary gives us so many examples; by George Szapolyai, and by Peter Perenyi, bishop of Nagy-Varad (Great Varadin). Perenyi wished to treat with the Turks, in order to gain time for help to reach them from Croatia and Transylvania, but the impetuosity of Tomory decided on immediate battle. … At first, it seemed as if the battle was in favour of the Magyars; but Soliman had commanded that the front ranks of his army should give way before the Hungarian cavalry, and that then the main body of his troops should close around them. When the Magyars were thus easily within reach, they were overwhelmed by the Turkish artillery and forced to retreat. They took refuge in some marshy land, in which many of them lost their lives. The king had disappeared; Tomory was slain; seven bishops, 22 barons, and 22,000 men were left upon the field. The road to Buda lay open before the invaders, and after having laid waste the whole country on their way, they reached the capital, where the treasures which Mathias Corvinus had collected in his palace and his library were either carried off or committed to the flames. … Then the tide of invasion gradually retired, leaving behind it a land covered with ruins. The independent existence of Hungary ended with Louis II."

L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: L. Felbermann, Hungary and its People, chapter 3.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1526-1567. Election of John Zapolya to the throne. Rival candidacy and election of Ferdinand of Austria. Zapolya's appeal to the Turks. Great invasion by Soliman. Siege of Vienna. The sultan master of the greater part of the country. Progress of the Reformation. Soliman's last invasion.

"No sooner was the corpse of Louis II. found lying in a marsh, under his mangled steed, than the necessity of speedily electing a new monarch was powerfully felt. Louis left no heir to the throne, while his wife Mary, archduchess of Austria, far from trying to possess herself of the helm of the state, was already on her way to Vienna, even before the results of the battle of Mohacs had become fully known. The vacant throne found thus an aspirant in John Zapolya, waivod of Transylvania and count of the Zips, who lay encamped with a mighty army at Szegedin, on his march to the plain of Mohacs. … The Diet, which met on the plain of Rakos (1526), proclaimed Zapolya king. … The day of coronation was soon fixed, the waivod receiving his royal unction at Weisenburg. Stephen Batory, the palatine, however, actuated by envy rather than ambition, first attempted to oppose to the new king the interests of the widow of Louis II. But the Austrian archduchess, unwilling to enter the field as a competitor for the crown, handed over her role to her brother Ferdinand I. of Austria, who was married to Anne, sister of the late Hungarian king. Ferdinand soon repaired to Presburg, a town beyond the reach of Zapolya's arms, where he was elected king of Hungary by an aristocratic party, headed by the palatine Batory, Francis Batthany, Ban of Croatia, and Nadasdy." After a fruitless conference between representatives of the rival kings, they proceeded to war. Zapolya was "master of the whole country, except some parts beyond the Danube," but he remained inactive at Buda until the Austrians surprised him there and forced him to evacuate the capital. "Not able to make head against the foreign mercenaries of Ferdinand, Zapolya was soon obliged to confine himself to the northern frontiers, till he left the kingdom for Poland, there to solicit help and concert measures for the renewal of the war (1528)." Receiving no encouragement from the king of Poland, Zapolya at length addressed himself to the great enemy of Hungary, the sultan Soliman, and there he met no rebuff. The Ottoman conqueror made instant preparations to enter Hungary as the champion of its native king. Thereupon "Zapolya organized a small army, and crossed the frontiers. His army was soon swelled to thousands, and he had possessed himself of the greatest part of Upper, before Soliman began to pour down on Lower Hungary. … Proclaiming to the people that his army was not come to conquer, but to assist their elected native king, Soliman marched onwards, took Buda, Gran, and Raab, all of them shamelessly given up by Ferdinand's mercenaries, and moved on unopposed to the walls of Vienna [1529]. Ferdinand, in his distress, Invoked the assistance of Germany; but his brother [the] emperor, as well as the Diet of Spires, engrossed with Luther and his followers, … were not forward to render their assistance. Vienna, however, though neglected by the German emperor, was momentarily saved by the advanced state of the season; for winter being at hand, the Turks, according to their usage at that season, took their way home. [The besieging army of Turks is said to have numbered 250,000 men; while the river swarmed with 400 Turkish boats. Twenty fierce assaults were made upon the defenses of the city, in as many days. The suburbs were destroyed and the surrounding country terribly ravaged. {1675} Before raising the siege, the baffled Turk massacred thousands of captives, under the walls, only carrying away into slavery the young and fair of both sexes. The repulse of Soliman is "an epoch in the history of the world."]

Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 9.

… Zapolya, having taken up his position in Buda, ruled over the greatest part of Hungary; while Croatia submitted to Ferdinand. … A useless war was thus for a while carried on between the two rival sovereigns, in the midst of which Buda had to sustain a heavy siege conducted by General Roggendorf; but the garrison, though reduced so far as to be obliged to eat horseflesh, succeeded in repelling and routing the Austrian besiegers (1530)." Ferdinand now humbled himself to the sultan, beseeching his friendship and support, but in vain. The war of the rival kings went on until 1538, when it was suspended by what is known as the Treaty of Grosswardein, which conceded to each party possession of the parts of the country which he then occupied; which gave the whole to Zapolya if Ferdinand died without male issue, and the whole to Ferdinand if Zapolya died before him, even though Zapolya should leave an heir—but the heir, in this latter case, was to marry Ferdinand's daughter. This treaty produced immense indignation in the country. "That the never-despairing and ambitious Zapolya meant that step rather as a means of momentary repose, may safely be assumed; but the development of his schemes was arrested by the hand of death (1540), which removed the weary warrior from these scenes of blood, at the very moment when his ears were gladdened by the news that he had become the father of a son." Ferdinand now claimed the undivided sovereignty, according to the terms of the Treaty of Grosswardein; but the queen-dowager Isabella, wife of John Zapolya, maintained the rights of her infant son. She was supported by a strong party, animated and led by one George Martinussius, a priest of extraordinary powers. Both Ferdinand and Isabella appealed to the sultan, as to an acknowledged suzerain. He declared for young Zapolya, and sent an army to Buda to establish his authority, while another Turkish army occupied Transylvania. "Soliman soon followed in person, made his entry into Buda [1541], which he determined to keep permanently occupied during the minority of Sigismund; and assuring Isabella of his affection to the son of John, bade her retire with the child to Transylvania; a piece of advice which she followed not without some reluctance and distrust. Buda was thus henceforward governed by a pasha; the army of Ferdinand was ruined, and Soliman, under the title of an ally, became absolute lord of the country." After a few years "new complications and difficulties arose in Transylvania, when Martinussius, who was confirmed by Soliman in his capacity of guardian to the young Sigismund and regent of that country, began to excite the suspicion of queen Isabella. Ferdinand, aware of these circumstances, marched an army into Transylvania, headed by Costaldo, who was instructed to gain over the monk-tutor." Martinussius was won by the promise of a cardinal's hat; with his help the queen-dowager was coerced into abdicating in behalf of her son. Having brought this about, Ferdinand basely procured the assassination of the monk Martinussius. "'Far from gaining by an act that stamped his own name with eternal shame, Ferdinand was soon driven by the Turks from Transylvania, and lost even the places occupied by his troops in Hungary.' … Transylvania owned the sway of Sigismund Zapolya, while Ferdinand, in spite of the crown of the German empire, recently conferred upon him, … was fain to preserve in Hungary some small districts, contiguous to his Austrian dominions. … In the year 1563, Ferdinand convoked his party at Presburg," and prevailed upon them to go through the form of electing his son Maximilian to the Hungarian throne. "Ferdinand soon after died (1564), leaving three sons. Of these, Maximilian succeeded his father in Austria; Ferdinand inherited the Tyrol; and Charles, the youngest son, got possession of Styria. Maximilian, who, in addition to his Austrian dominions, succeeded to the throne of Bohemia and to that of the German empire, proved as impotent in Hungary as his father had been. The Pasha of Buda ruled the greater part of Hungary proper; Sigismund Zapolya continued to maintain his authority in Transylvania. … His [Maximilian's] reign left Hungary much the same as it was under his predecessor, although much credit is due to the neutral line of conduct he observed in regard to religious affairs. Unlike the rise and progress of the Reformation in the rest of Europe, religious reform in Hungary was rather an additional element in the political conflict than its originator. … By the battle of Mohacs, the Reformation was freed from a bigoted king and many persecuting prelates; while Ferdinand, conniving at the Protestant party in Germany, was withheld from persecuting it in Hungary, the more so from the dread that his rival might win the Protestant party to his interest. The Protestants thus increased in number amid the din of arms. … The sectarian spirit, though somewhat later than elsewhere, found also its way into this land of blood, and Hungary was soon possessed of considerable bodies of Lutherans and Calvinists, besides a smaller number of Anabaptists and Socinians. … Calvin's followers were mostly Magyars, while Lutheranism found its centre point in the German population of Transylvania." In 1566, Maximilian, encouraged by some subsidies obtained from his German subjects, began hostilities against the Turks and against Sigismund in Transylvania. This provoked another formidable invasion by the great sultan Soliman. The progress of the Turk was stopped, however, at the fortress of Szigeth, by a small garrison of 3,000 men, commanded by Nicholas Zriny. These devoted men resisted the whole army of the Moslems for nearly an entire month, and perished, everyone, without surrendering their trust. Soliman, furious at the loss of 20,000 men, and the long delay which their obstinate valor caused him, died of apoplexy while the siege went on. This brought the expedition to an end, and Maximilian "bought a new peace at the hands of Selim II., son of Soliman, for a tribute of 30,000 ducats (1567). Shortly after, Maximilian was also relieved of his rival, John Sigismund Zapolya, who died a sudden death."

E. Szabad, Hungary, Past and Present, part 2, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: R. W. Fraser, Turkey, Ancient and Modern, chapters 12-13.

{1676}

HUNGARY: A. D. 1567-1604. Successive disturbances in Transylvania. Cession of the principality to the House of Austria, and consequent revolt. Religious persecutions of Rodolph. Successful rebellion of Botskai. Continued war with the Turks.

John Sigismond Zapolya refused at first to be included in the peace which Maximilian arranged with the Turks, and endeavored to stir up an insurrection in Hungary; but his scheme failed, and "he had no resource but to accept the terms of peace offered by Maximilian, which were advantageous to both parties. He engaged not to assume the title of king of Hungary, except in his correspondence with the Turks, and to acknowledge the emperor as king, his superior and master; in addition to Transylvania, as an hereditary principality, he was to retain for life the counties of Bihar and Marmarosch, with Crasna and Zolnok, and whatever territories he could recover from the Turks. In return, the emperor promised to confer on him one of his nieces in marriage, and to cede to him Oppelen in Silesia, if expelled from Transylvania. On the death of John Sigismond without issue male, Transylvania was to be considered as an elective principality, dependent on the crown of Hungary. The intended marriage did not take place, for John Sigismond dying on the 16th of March, 1571, soon after the peace, all his possessions in Hungary reverted to Maximilian. The diet of Transylvania chose Stephen Bathori, who had acted with great reputation as the general and minister of John Sigismond; and Maximilian, although he had recommended another person, prudently confirmed the choice. … The new waivode was accordingly confirmed, both by Maximilian and the Turks, took the oath of fidelity to the crown of Hungary, and continued to live on terms of friendship and concord with the emperor. … Maximilian being of a delicate constitution, and declining in health, employed the last years of his reign in taking precautions to secure his dignities and possessions for his descendants. Having first obtained the consent of the Hungarian states, his eldest son Rhodolph was, in 1572, crowned king of Hungary, in a diet at Presburgh." Subsequently, the election of Rhodolph by the Bohemian diet was likewise procured, and he was crowned king of Bohemia on the 22d of September, 1575. A few weeks later, the same son was chosen and crowned king of the Romans, which secured his succession to the imperial dignity. This latter crown fell to him the following year, when his father died. Educated in Spain and by the Jesuits, the new emperor was easily persuaded to reverse the tolerant policy of his father, and to adopt measures of repression and persecution against the Protestants, in the Austrian provinces, in Hungary and in Bohemia, which could not long be endured without resistance. "The first object of Rhodolph had been to secure his dominions in Hungary against the Turks. In order to diminish the enormous expense of defending the distant fortresses on the side of Croatia, he transferred that country, as a fief of the empire, to his uncle Charles, duke of Styria, who, from the contiguity of his dominions, was better able to provide for its security. Charles accordingly constructed the fortress of Carlstadt, on the Kulpa, which afterwards became the capital of Croatia, and a military station of the highest importance. He also divided the ceded territory into numerous tenures, which he conferred on freebooters and adventurers of every nation, and thus formed a singular species of military colony. This feudal establishment gradually extended along the frontiers of Sclavonia and Croatia, and not only contributed, at the time, to check the incursions of the Turks, but afterwards supplied that lawless and irregular, though formidable military force … who, under the names of Croats, Pandours, and other barbarous appellations, spread such terror among the enemies of Austria on the side of Europe. … Notwithstanding the armistice concluded with the Sultan by Maximilian, and its renewal by Rhodolph in 1584 and 1591, a predatory warfare had never ceased along the frontiers." The truce of 1591 was quickly broken in a more positive way by Sultan Amurath, whose forces invaded Croatia and laid siege to Siseek. They were attacked there and driven from their lines, with a loss of 12,000 men. "Irritated by this defeat, … Amurath published a formal declaration of war, and poured his numerous hordes into Hungary and Croatia. The two following years were passed in various sieges and engagements, attended with alternate success and defeat; but the advantage ultimately rested on the side of the Turks, by the capture of Siseck and Raab. In 1595, a more favourable though temporary turn was given to the Austrian affairs, by the defection of the prince of Transylvania from the Turks. On the elevation of Stephen Bathori to the throne of Poland, his brother Christopher succeeded him as waivode of Transylvania, and, dying in 1582, left an infant son, Sigismond, under the protection of the Porte. Sigismond, who possessed the high spirit and talents of his family, had scarcely assumed the reins of government before he liberated himself from the galling yoke of the Turks, and in 1595 concluded an offensive alliance with the house of Austria. … He was to retain Transylvania as an independent principality, the part of Hungary which he still held, and Moldavia and Wallachia. … The conquests of both parties were to be equally divided. … By this important alliance the house of Austria was delivered from an enemy who had always divided its efforts, and made a powerful diversion in favour of the Turks. Sigismond signalised himself by his heroic courage and military skill; uniting with the waivodes of Moldavia and Wallachia, he defeated the grand vizir, Sinan, took Turgovitch by storm, and drove the Turks back in disgrace towards Constantinople. Assisted by this diversion, the Austrians in Hungary were likewise successful, and not only checked the progress of the Turks, but distinguished their arms by the recovery of Gran and Vissegrad. This turn of success roused the sultan Mahomet, the son and successor of Amurath. … He put himself, in 1596, at the head of his forces, led them into Hungary, took Erlau, and defeating the Austrians under the archduke Maximilian, the lateness of the season alone prevented him from carrying his arms into Austria and Upper Hungary, which were exposed by the loss of Raab and Erlau. As Mahomet could not a second time tear himself from the seraglio, the war was carried on without vigour, and the season passed rather in truces than in action. But this year, though little distinguished by military events, was memorable for the cession of Transylvania to Rhodolph, by the brave yet fickle Sigismond, in exchange for the lordships of Ratibor and Oppelen in Silesia, with an annual pension." {1677} The capricious Sigismond, however, soon repenting of his bargain, reclaimed and recovered his Transylvanian dominion, but only to resign it again, in 1599, to his uncle, and again to repossess it. Not until 1602, after much fighting and disorder, was the fickle-minded and troublesome prince sent finally to retirement, in Bohemia. Transylvania was then placed under the government of the imperial general Basta. "His cruel and despotic administration driving the natives to despair, they found a chief in Moses Tzekeli, who, with other magnates, after ineffectually opposing the establishment of the Austrian government, had sought a refuge among the Turks. Tzekeli, at the head of his fellow exiles, assisted by bodies of Turks and Tartars, entered the country, was joined by numerous adherents, and, having obtained possession of the capital and the adjacent fortresses, was elected and inaugurated prince of Transylvania. His reign, however, was scarcely more permanent than that of his predecessor; for, before he could expel the Germans, he was, in 1603, defeated by the new waivode of Wallachia, and killed in the confusion of the battle. In consequence of this disaster, his followers dispersed, and Basta again recovered possession of the principality. During these revolutions in Transylvania, Hungary had been the scene of incessant warfare between the Austrians and the Turks, which exhausted both parties with little advantage to either. … Rhodolph had long lost the confidence of his Hungarian subjects. … He treated the complaints and remonstrances of his subjects with contempt and indifference; and the German troops being free from control, filled the country with devastation and pillage. While, however, he abandoned the civil and military affairs to chance, or to the will of his officers, he laboured to fetter his subjects with religious restrictions, and the most intolerant edicts were issued against the Protestants, in various parts of the kingdom. … The disaffected increasing in numbers, soon found a leader in Stephen Botskai, the principal magnate of Upper Hungary, uncle of Sigismond Bathori. … The discontents in Transylvania, arising from the same causes as the rebellion in Hungary, greatly contributed to the success of Botskai. … Being in 1604 assisted by a Turkish army, which the new sultan, Achmet, despatched into Transylvania, he soon expelled the Austrians, and was formally inaugurated sovereign. … But Botskai was too disinterested or too prudent to accept the regal dignity [as king of Hungary, which the grand vizier of the sultan proclaimed him]. … He acted, however, with the same vigour and activity as if he had a crown to acquire; before the close of the campaign he conquered all Upper Hungary, almost to the walls of Presburgh; at the same time the Turks reduced Gran, Vissegrad and Novigrad."

W. Coxe History of the House of Austria, chapters 38-42 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. H. Merle D'Aubigne, History of the Protestant Church in Hungary, chapters 12-20.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1595-1606. The Turkish war. Great defeat at Cerestes. The Peace of Sitvatorok.

'The disasters which the Turkish arms were now experiencing in Wallachia and Hungary made the Sultan's best statesmen anxious that the sovereign should, after the manner of his great ancestors, head his troops in person, and endeavour to give an auspicious change to the fortune of the war. … The Imperialists, under the Archduke Maximilian and the Hungarian Count Pfalfy, aided by the revolted princes of the Danubian Principalities, dealt defeat and discouragement among the Ottoman ranks, and wrung numerous fortresses and districts from the empire. The cities of Gran, Wissgrad, and Babocsa, had fallen; and messengers in speedy succession announced the loss of Ibrail, Varna, Kilic, Ismail, Silistria, Rustchuk, Bucharest, and Akerman. These tidings at last roused the monarch in his harem. … Mahomet III. left his capital for the frontier in the June of 1596. … The display of the sacred standard of the Prophet, which now for the first time was unfurled over a Turkish army, excited … the zeal of the True Believers. … The Grand Vizier, Ibrahim Pacha, Hassan Sokolli Pacha, and Cicala Pacha, were the principal commanders under the Sultan. … The Archduke Maximilian, who commanded the Imperialists, retired at first before the superior numbers of the great Ottoman army; and the Sultan besieged and captured Erlau. The Imperialists now having effected a junction with the Transylvanian troops under Prince Sigismund, advanced again, though too late to save Erlau; and on October 23rd, 1596, the two armies were in presence of each other on the marshy plain of Cerestes, through which the waters of the Cincia ooze towards the river Theiss. There were three days of battle at Cerestes." Repeatedly, the effeminate Sultan wished to order a retreat, or to betake himself to flight; but was persuaded by his counsellors to remain on the field, though safely removed from the conflict. On the third day the battle was decided in favor of the Turks by a charge of their cavalry under Cicala. "Terror and flight spread through every division of the Imperialists; and in less than half an hour from the time when Cicala began his charge, Maximilian and Sigismund were flying for their lives, without a single Christian regiment keeping their ranks, or making an endeavour to rally and cover the retreat. 50,000 Germans and Transylvanians perished in the marshes or beneath the Ottoman sabre. … Mahomet III. eagerly returned after the battle to Constantinople, to receive felicitations and adulation for his victory, and to resume his usual life of voluptuous indolence. The war in Hungary was prolonged for several years, until the peace of Sitvatorok [November 11, 1606] in the reign of Mahomet's successor. … No change of importance was made in the territorial possessions of either party, except that the Prince of Transylvania was admitted as party to the treaty, and that province became to some extent, though not entirely, independent of the Ottoman Empire."

Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 12.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1606-1660. The Pacification of Vienna. Gabriel Bethlem of Transylvania and the Bohemian revolt. Participation and experience in the Thirty Years War.

In 1606, the Archduke Mathias—who had lately been appointed to the Governorship of Hungary, and who had been acknowledged, by a secret compact among the members of the Hapsburg family as the head of their House—arranged the terms of a peace with Botskai. This treaty, called the "Pacification of Vienna," restored the religious toleration that had been practised by Ferdinand and Maximilian; provided that Mathias should be lieutenant-general of the kingdom; gave to Botskai the title of Prince of Transylvania and part of Hungary; and stipulated that on the failure of his male issue these territories should revert to the House of Austria. {1678} "This treaty, at last, restored peace to Hungary, but at the expense of her unity and independence. Some idea may be formed of the state of weakness and lassitude to which these long wars had reduced the country … by a statement of the divisions into which it had been split up by the various factions. Hungary, with Croatia, Sclavonia, and the frontiers, was then reckoned to cover an area of 4,427 square miles, and Transylvania one of 736. Of these 5,163 miles, Turkey possessed 1,859; Botskai in Hungary 1,346, in Transylvania 736=2,082; [sic] and Austria only 1,222. Botskai died in 1606, and was succeeded by Sigismond Rakoczi, who, however, soon abdicated in favour of Gabriel Bathori." At this time the plans of the Austrian family for taking the reins of power out of the feeble and careless hands of the Emperor Rodolph, and giving them to his more energetic brother, the Archduke Mathias, came to a head.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1556-1609.

Mathias "marched into Bohemia: and Rodolph, after a feeble resistance, found himself abandoned by all his supporters, and compelled to resign into the hands of Mathias Hungary, Austria and Moravia, and to guarantee to him the succession to the crown of Bohemia; Mathias in the meantime bearing the title of king elect of that kingdom, with the consent of the states. Rodolph at the same time delivered up the Hungarian regalia, which for some time past had been kept at Prague." Before his coronation, Mathias was required by the Hungarian diet to sign a compact, guaranteeing religious liberty; stipulating that the Hungarian Chamber of Finances should be independent of that of Austria, that all offices and employments should be filled by natives, and that the Jesuits should possess no real property in the country. The peace of the country was soon disturbed by another revolution in Transylvania. "Gabriel Bathori, who had succeeded Sigismond Bathori on the throne of the principality, had suffered his licentiousness to tempt him into insulting the wives of some of the nobles, who instantly fell upon him and murdered him; and in his place Gabriel Bethlem, a brave warrior and an able statesman, was unanimously elected, with the consent and approbation of the sultan. Under his government his dominions enjoyed a full measure of peace and tranquillity, and began to recover from the horrible devastations of preceding years. He did not, however, assume his dignity without dispute. Transylvania had been secured to the house of Austria on the death of Botskai, by the Pacification of Vienna, and Mathias was, of course, now anxious to enforce his rights, and he considered the present opportunity (1617) favourable, as the Turks were engaged in wars on the side of Asia and Poland. He therefore summoned a diet of the empire, to the throne of which he had succeeded in 1612 by the death of Rodolph. … But the diet refused all aid," and he was forced to conclude a peace with the sultan for the further period of twenty years. "No mention being made in it of Transylvania, the rights of Gabriel Bethlem were thus tacitly recognised. Mathias died soon after, in 1619, leaving his crown to his cousin, Ferdinand II." Then followed the renewed attempt of an imperial bigot to crush Protestantism in his dominions, and the Bohemian revolt (see BOHEMIA: A. D. 1611-1618) which kindled the flames of the "Thirty Years' War." Hungary and Transylvania were in sympathy with Bohemia. "Gabriel Bethlem entered Hungary, in answer to the call of the Protestants of that country, at the head of a large army—took Cassau, Tiernan, Newhasel, dispersed the imperial forces under Homonai, sent 18,000 men to enforce Count Thurn, got possession of Presburg by treachery, and seized upon the regalia." The cause of the Bohemians was lost at the battle of the White Mountain, before Prague; but "Gabriel Bethlem for a long time supported the prestige acquired by his earlier successes. He was proclaimed king of Hungary, and obtained considerable advantages over two generals of ability and reputation." But a treaty of peace was concluded at length, according to which Gabriel surrendered the crown and royal title, receiving the duchies of Oppelen and Ratibor in Silesia, and seven counties of Hungary, together with Cassau, Tokay, and other towns. Ferdinand promised complete toleration to the Protestants, but was not faithful to his promise, and war was soon resumed. Bethlem "collected an army of 45,000 men, joined his forces with those of Mansfeldt, the general of the confederacy [the Protestant Union], after his victory over the imperialists at Presburg; and at the same time the Bashaw of Buda entered Lower Hungary at the head of a large force, captured various fortresses in the district of Gran, and laid siege to Novigrad. They were opposed by two able generals, the famous Wallenstein and Swartzemberg, but without checking their progress. Wallenstein, however, followed Mansfeldt into Hungary, where the two armies remained for some time inactive in the presence of one another; but famine, disease, and the approach of winter at last brought the contest to, a close. The king of Denmark had been defeated, and Gabriel Bethlem began to fear that the whole force of the Austrians would now be directed against him, and concluded a truce. The bashaw of Buda feared the winter, and followed his example; and Mansfeldt, finding himself thus abandoned, disbanded his soldiers.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626.

… The treaty of peace was again renewed, the truce with the Turks prolonged." Gabriel Bethlem, or Bethlem Gabor, died in 1629. "The Transylvanians elected George Rakotski to fill his place, and during nearly four years Hungary and Transylvania enjoyed the blessings of peace." Then they were again disturbed by attempts of Ferdinand to reduce Transylvania to the state of an Austrian province, and by hostile measures against the Protestants. The latter continued after the death of Ferdinand II. (1637), and under his son Ferdinand III. Rakotski inspired an insurrection of the Hungarians which became formidable, and which, joining in alliance with the Swedes, then warring in Germany, extorted from the emperor a very favorable treaty of peace (1647). "At the same time Ferdinand caused his son of the same name, and elder brother of Leopold, to be elected and crowned king. During his short reign, the country was tranquil; but in 1654 he died, leaving his rights to Leopold. The reign of Leopold [1655-1697] was a period which witnessed events more important to Hungary than any which preceded it, or have followed it, save only the revolutionary years, 1848 and 1849. {1679} No monarch of the house of Austria had ever made so determined attacks upon Hungarian liberty, and to none did the Hungarians oppose a braver and more strenuous resistance. Nothing was left untried on the one side to overthrow the constitution; nothing was left untried on the other to uphold and defend it."

E. L. Godkin, History of Hungary, chapters 15-17.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664. Turkish attacks on Upper Hungary. The battle of St. Gothard. Liberation of Transylvania. A twenty years truce.

"Hostilities had recommenced, in 1660, between the Ottoman empire and Austria, on account of Transylvania. The Turk was suzerain of Transylvania, and directly held Buda and the part of Hungary on the west and south of the Danube, projecting like a wedge between Upper Hungary, Styria, and Vienna. George Rakoczi, Prince of Transylvania, having perished in combat against the Sultan, his suzerain, the Turks had pursued the House of Rakoczi into the domains which it possessed in Upper Hungary. The Rakoczis, and the new prince elected by the Transvlvanians, Kemeni, invoked the aid of the emperor. The Italian, Montecuculi, the greatest military chieftain in the service of the House of Austria, expelled the Turks from a part of Transylvania, but could not maintain himself there; Kemeni was killed in a skirmish. The Turks installed their protégé, Michael Abaffi, in his place, and renewed their attacks against Upper Hungary (1661-1662). The secret of these alternations lay in the state of feeling of the Hungarians and Transylvanians, who, continually divided between two oppressors, the Turk and the Austrian, and too weak to rid themselves of either, always preferred the absent to the present master. … Religious distrust also complicated political distrust; Protestantism, crushed in Bohemia, remained powerful and irritated in Hungary. The emperor demanded the assistance of the Germanic Diet and all the Christian states against the enemy of Christianity. … Louis XIV., at the first request of Leopold, supported by the Pope, replied by offers so magnificent that they appalled the Emperor. Louis proposed not less than 60,000 auxiliaries, half to be furnished by France, half by the Alliance of the Rhine; that is, by the confederates of France in Germany. … The Emperor … would have gladly been able to dispense with the aid of France and his confederates; but the more pressing danger prevailed over the more remote. The Turks had made a great effort during the summer of 1663. The second of the Kiouprouglis, the Vizier Achmet, taking Austrian Hungary in the rear, had crossed the Danube at Buda with 100,000 fighting men, invaded the country between the Danube and the Carpathians, and hurled his Tartars to the doors of Presburg and Olmütz. Montecuculi had with great difficulty been able to maintain himself on the island of Schütt, a species of vast intrenched camp formed by nature in front of Presburg and Vienna. The fortified towns of Upper Hungary fell one after another, and the Germanic Diet, which Leopold had gone to Ratisbon to meet, replied with maddening dilatoriness to the urgent entreaties of the head of the Empire. The Diet voted no effective aid until February, 1664; but the Alliance of the Rhine, in particular, had already accorded 6,500 soldiers, on condition that the Diet should decide, before separating, certain questions relative to the interpretation of the Treaty of Westphalia. The Pope, Spain, and the Italian States furnished subsidies. Louis persisted in offering nothing but soldiers, and Leopold resigned himself to accept 6,000 Frenchmen. He had no reason to repent it. … When the junction was effected [July, 1664], the position of the Imperialists was one of great peril. They had resumed the offensive on the south of the Danube in the beginning of the year; but this diversion, contrary to the advice of Montecuculi, had succeeded ill. The Grand Vizier had repulsed them, and, after carrying back his principal forces to the right bank of the Danube, threatened to force the passage of the Raab and invade Styria and Austria. The Confederate army was in a condition to stand the shock just at the decisive moment. An attempt of the Turks to cross the Raab at the bridge of Kerment was repulsed by Coligni [commanding the French], July 26, 1664. The Grand Vizier reascended the Raab to St. Gothard, where were the headquarters of the Confederates, and, on August 1, the attack was made by all the Mussulman forces. The janizaries and spahis crossed the river and overthrew the troops of the Diet and a part of the Imperial regiments; the Germans rallied, but the Turks were continually reinforced, and the whole Mussulman army was soon found united on the other side of the Raab. The battle seemed lost, when the French moved. It is said that Achmet Kiouprougli, on seeing the young noblemen pour forth, with their uniforms decked with ribbons, and their blond perukes, asked, 'Who are these maidens?' The 'maidens' broke the terrible janizaries at the first shock; the mass of the Turkish army paused and recoiled on itself; the Confederate army, reanimated by the example of the French, rushed forward and charged on the whole line; the Turks fell back, at first slowly, their faces towards the enemy, then lost footing and fled precipitately to the river to recross it under the fire of the Christians; they filled it with their corpses. The fatigue of the troops, the night that supervened, the waters of the Raab, swelled the next day by a storm, and above all the lack of harmony among the generals, prevented the immediate pursuit of the Turks, who had rallied on the opposite bank of the river and had preserved the best part of their cavalry. It was expected, nevertheless, to see them expelled from all Hungary, when it was learned with astonishment that Leopold had hastened to treat, without the approbation of the Hungarian Diet, on conditions such that he seemed the conquered rather than the conqueror. A twenty years' truce was signed, August 10, in the camp of the Grand Vizier. Transylvania became again independent under its elective princes, but the protégé of the Turks, Abaffi, kept his principality; the Turks retained the two chief towns which they had conquered in Upper Hungary, and the Emperor made the Sultan a 'present,' that is, he paid him 200,000 florins tribute."

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 62 (volume 2).

{1680}

HUNGARY: A. D. 1668-1683. Increased religious persecution and Austrian oppression. Tekeli's revolt. The Turks again called in. Kara Mustapha's great invasion and siege of Vienna. Deliverance of the city by John Sobieski.

In Hungary, "the discontent caused by the oppressive Government and the fanatical persecution of Protestantism by the Austrian Cabinet had gone on increasing. At length, the Austrian domination had rendered itself thoroughly odious to the Hungarians. To hinder the progress of Protestantism, the Emperor Leopold, in the excess of his Catholic zeal, sent to the galleys a great number of preachers and ministers; and to all the evils of religious persecution were added the violence and devastations of the generals and the German administrators, who treated Hungary as a conquered province. The Hungarians in vain invoked the charters which consecrated their national liberties. To their most legitimate complaints Leopold replied by the infliction of punishments; he spared not even the families of the most illustrious; several magnates perished by the hands of the executioner. Such oppression was certain to bring about a revolt. In 1668 a conspiracy had been formed against Leopold by certain Hungarian leaders, which, however, was discovered and frustrated; and it was not till 1677, when the young Count Emmerich Tekeli, having escaped from prison, placed himself at the head of the malcontents, that these disturbances assumed any formidable importance. … Tekeli, who possessed much military talent, and was an uncompromising enemy of the House of Austria, having entered Upper Hungary with 12,000 men, defeated the Imperial forces, captured several towns, occupied the whole district of the Carpathian Mountains, and compelled the Austrian generals, Counts Wurmb and Leslie, to accept the truce he offered." In 1681 the Emperor made some concessions, which weakened the party of independence, while, at the same time, the Peace of Nimeguen, with France, allowed the House of Austria to employ all its forces against the rebels. "In this conjuncture Tekeli turned for aid towards the Turks, making an appeal to Mahomet IV.; and after the conclusion of the Turkish and Russian war in 1681, Kara Mustapha [the Grand Vizier] determined to assist the insurgents openly, their leader offering, in exchange, to acknowledge the suzerainty of the Porte. Tekeli sought also succour from France. Louis XIV. gave him subsidies, solicited the Sultan to send an army into Hungary, and caused an alliance between the Hungarians, Transylvanians, and Wallachians to be concluded against Austria (1682). The truce concluded in 1665 between Austria and Turkey had not yet expired," but the Sultan was persuaded to break it. "The Governor of Buda received orders to support Tekeli, who took the title of King. … Early in the spring of 1683 Sultan Mahomet marched forth from his capital with a large army, which at Belgrade he transferred to the command of Kara Mustapha. Tekeli formed a junction with the Turks at Essek."

S. Menzies, Turkey, Old and New, book 2, chapter 9, section 3 (volume 1).

"The strength of the regular forces, which Kara Mustapha led to Vienna, is known from the muster-roll which was found in his tent after the siege. It amounted to 275,000 men. The attendants and camp-followers cannot be reckoned; nor can any but an approximate speculation be made as to the number of the Tartar and other irregular troops that joined the Vizier. It is probable that not less than half a million of men were set in motion in this last great aggressive effort of the Ottomans against Christendom. The Emperor Leopold had neither men nor money sufficient to enable him to confront such a deluge of invasion; and, after many abject entreaties, he obtained a promise of help from King Sobieski of Poland, whom he had previously treated with contumely and neglect. … The Turkish army proceeded along the western side of the Danube from Belgrade, and reached Vienna without experiencing any serious check, though a gallant resistance was made by some of the strong places which it besieged during its advance. The city of Vienna was garrisoned by 11,000 men under Count Stahremberg, who proved himself a worthy successor of the Count Salm, who had fulfilled the same duty when the city was besieged by Sultan Solyman. The second siege of Vienna lasted from the 15th July to the 12th September, 1683, during which the most devoted heroism was displayed by both the garrison and the inhabitants. … The garrison was gradually wasted by the numerous assaults which it was called on to repulse, and in the frequent sorties, by which the Austrian commander sought to impede the progress of the besiegers. Kara Mustapha, at the end of August, had it in his power to carry the city by storm, if he had thought fit to employ his vast forces in a general assault, and to continue it from day to day, as Amurath IV. had done when Bagdad fell. But the Vizier kept the Turkish troops back out of avarice, in the hope that the city would come into his power by capitulation; in which case he would himself be enriched by the wealth of Vienna, which, if the city were taken by storm, would become the booty of the soldiery. … Sobieski had been unable to assemble his troops before the end of August; and, even then, they only amounted to 20,000 men. But he was joined by the Duke of Lorraine and some of the German commanders, who were at the head of a considerable army, and the Polish King crossed the Danube at Tulm, above Vienna, with about 70,000 men. He then wheeled round behind the Kalemberg Mountains to the north-west of Vienna, with the design of taking the besiegers in the rear. The Vizier took no heed of him; nor was any opposition made to the progress of the relieving army through the difficult country which it was obliged to traverse. On the 11th of September the Poles were on the summit of the Mount Kalemberg," overlooking the vast encampment of the besiegers. Sobieski "saw instantly the Vizier's want of military skill, and the exposure of the long lines of the Ottoman camp to a sudden and fatal attack. 'This man,' said he, 'is badly encamped: he knows nothing of war; we shall certainly beat him.' … The ground through which Sobieski had to move down from the Kalemberg was broken by ravines; and was so difficult for the passage of the troops that Kara Mustapha might, by an able disposition of part of his forces, have long kept the Poles in check, especially as Sobieski, in his hasty march, had brought but a small part of his artillery to the scene of action. But the Vizier displayed the same infatuation and imbecility that had marked his conduct throughout the campaign. … Unwilling to resign Vienna, Mustapha left the chief part of his Janissary force in the trenches before the city, and led the rest of his army towards the hills, down which Sobieski and his troops were advancing. {1691} In some parts of the field, where the Turks had partially intrenched the roads, their resistance to the Christians was obstinate; but Sobieski led on his best troops in person in a direct line for the Ottoman centre, where the Vizier's tent was conspicuous; and the terrible presence of the victor of Khoczim was soon recognised. 'By Allah! the King is really among us,' exclaimed the Khan of the Crimea, Selim Ghirai; and turned his horse's head for flight. The mass of the Ottoman army broke and fled in hopeless rout, hurrying Kara Mustapha with them from the field. The Janissaries, who had been left in the trenches before the city, were now attacked both by the garrison and the Poles and were cut to pieces. The camp, the whole artillery, and the military stores of the Ottomans became the spoil of the conquerors; and never was there a victory more complete, or signalised by more splendid trophies. The Turks continued their panic flight as far as Raab. … The great destruction of the Turks before Vienna was rapturously hailed throughout Christendom as the announcement of the approaching downfall of the Mahometan Empire in Europe."

Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 16.

"It was cold comfort to the inhabitants of Vienna, or to the King of Poland, to know that even if St. Stephen's had shared the fate of St. Sophia and become a mosque of Allah, and if the Polish standards had been borne in triumph to the Bosphorus, yet that, nevertheless, the undisciplined Ottomans would infallibly have been scattered by French, German and Swedish armies on the fields of Bavaria or of Saxony. Vienna would have been sacked; Poland would have been a prey to internal anarchy and to Tartar invasion. The ultimate triumph of their cause would have consoled few for their individual destruction. … So cool and experienced a diplomatist as Sir William Temple did indeed believe, at the time, that the fall of Vienna would have been followed by a great and permanent increase of Turkish power. Putting this aside, however, there were other results likely to spring from Turkish success. The Turks constantly made a powerful diversion in favour of France and her ambitious designs. Turkish victories upon the one side of Germany meant successful French aggressions upon the other, and Turkish schemes were promoted with that object by the French. … 'If France would but stand neutral, the controversy between Turks and Christians might soon be decided,' says the Duke of Lorraine. But France would not stand neutral."

H. E. Malden, Vienna, 1683, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, The Battle-Fields of Germany, chapter 9.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1687. End of the insurrection of Tekeli. Bloody vengeance of the Austrian. The crown made hereditary in the House of Hapsburg.

The defeat of the Turks was likewise a defeat for the insurgent Tekeli, or Tököli, "whom they called the king of the Kurucz, and after it he found himself reduced to guerilla warfare. The victory over the Turks was followed by the capture of some of the chief Magyar towns … and in the end [1686] Buda itself, which was at last recovered after so long an occupation. … Kara Mustapha attributed his defeat to Tököli, and had his former ally arrested and imprisoned in Belgrade. His captivity put an end to the party of the king of the Kurucz. … An amnesty was proclaimed and immediately afterwards violated, the Italian general, Caraffa, becoming the merciless executioner of imperial vengeance. He established a court at Éperjes, and the horrors of this tribunal recall the most atrocious deeds of the Spaniards in the Low Countries. … After having terrorized Hungary, Leopold thought he had the right to expect every sort of concession. Notwithstanding persecution, up to this date the monarchy had remained elective. He was determined it should now become hereditary; and the diet of 1687, in conformity with the wishes of the sovereign, made the crown hereditary in the male line of the house of Habsburg."

L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 20.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699. Expulsion of the Turks. Battle of Zenta. Peace of Carlowitz.

After the great defeat of the Turks before Vienna, their expulsion from Hungary was only a question of time. It began the same autumn, in October, by the taking of Gran. In 1684, the Imperialists under the Duke of Lorraine captured Visegrad and Waitzen, but failed in a siege of Ofen, although they defeated a Turkish army sent to its relief in July. In 1685 they took Neuhäusel by storm, and drove the Turks from Gran, which these latter had undertaken to recover. Next year they laid siege again to Ofen, investing the city on the 21st of June and carrying it by a final assault on the 2d of September. "Ofen, after having been held by the Porte, and regarded as the third city in the Ottoman Empire, for 145 years, was restored to the sway of the Habsburgs." Before the year closed the Austrians had acquired Szegedin, and several lesser towns. The great event of the campaign of 1687 was a battle on the field of Mohacs, where, in 1526, the Turks became actual masters of Hungary, for the most part, while the House of Austria acquired nominally the right to its crown. On this occasion the fortune of 1526 was reversed. "The defeat became a rout as decisive against the Turks as the earlier battle on the same spot had proved to the Jagellons." Transylvania and Slavonia were occupied as the consequence, and Erlau surrendered before the close of the year. In 1688, what seemed the crowning achievement of these campaigns was reached in the recovery of Belgrade, after a siege of less than a month. A Turkish army in Bosnia was destroyed; another was defeated near Nissa, and that city occupied; and at the end of 1689 the Turks held nothing north of the Danube except Temeswar and Grosswardein (Great Waradein); while the Austrians had made extensive advances, on the south of the river, into Bosnia and Servia. Then occurred a great rally of Ottoman energies, under an able Grand Vizier. In 1690, both Nissa and Belgrade were retaken, and the Austrians were expelled from Servia. But next year fortune favored the Austrians once more and the Turks were severely beaten, by Louis of Baden, on the field of Salankament. They still held Belgrade, however, and the Austrians suffered heavily in another attempt to regain that stronghold. For several years little progress in the war was made on either side; until Prince Eugene of Savoy received the command, in 1697, and wrought a speedy change in the military situation. {1682} The Sultan, Mustapha II., had taken the Turkish command in person, "with the finest army the Osmanli had raised since their defeat at Mohacs." Prince Eugene attacked him, September 11, at Zenta, on the Theiss, and destroyed his army almost literally. "When the battle ceased about 20,000 Osmanli lay on the ground; some 10,000 had been drowned; scarcely 1,000 had reached the opposite bank. There were but few prisoners. Amongst the slain were the Grand Vizier and four other Viziers. … By 10 o'clock at night not a single living Osmanli remained on the right bank of the Theiss. … The booty found in the camp surpassed all … expectations. Everything had been left by the terror-stricken Sultan. There was the treasury-chest, containing 3,000,000 piastres. … The cost of these spoils had been to the victors only 300 killed and 200 wounded. … The battle of Zenta, … regarded as part of the warfare which had raged for 200 years between the Osmanli and the Imperialists, … was the last, the most telling, the decisive blow." It was followed by a period of inaction, during which England and Holland undertook to mediate between the Porte and its several Christian enemies. Their mediation resulted in the meeting of a Congress at Carlowitz, or Karlowitz, on the Danube, which was attended by representatives of the Sultan, the Emperor, the Czar of Russia, the King of Poland, and the republic of Venice. "Here, after much negotiation, lasting seventy-two days, was concluded, the 26th January, 1699, the famous Peace of Carlowitz. The condition that each party should possess the territories occupied by each at the moment of the meeting of the congress formed its basis. By the treaty, then, the frontier of Hungary, which, when the war broke out, extended only to within a short distance of the then Turkish towns of Gran and Neuhäusel, was pushed forward to within a short distance of Temeswar and Belgrade. Transylvania and the country of Bacska, between the Danube and the Theiss, were yielded to the Emperor. To Poland were restored Kaminietz, Podolia, and the supremacy over the lands watered by the Ukraine, the Porte receiving from her in exchange, Soczava, Nemos, and Soroka; to Venice, who renounced the conquests she had made in the gulfs of Corinth and Ægina, part of the Morea, and almost all Dalmatia, including the towns of Castelnuovo and Cattaro; to Russia, the fortress and sea of Azof." By the Peace of Carlowitz "the Ottoman Power lost nearly one-half of its European dominions, and ceased to be dangerous to Christendom. Never more would the discontented magnates of Hungary be able to find a solid supporter in the sultan."

G. B. Malleson, Prince Eugene of Savoy, chapters 2 and 4.

ALSO IN: Sir E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, chapter 17.

See, also, on the "Holy War," or "War of the "Holy League" against the Turks, of which the war in Hungary formed only a part, the TURKS: A. D. 1684—1696.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1699-1718. The revolt of Rakoczy and its suppression. The Treaty of Szathmar. Recovery of Belgrade and final expulsion of the Turks. Peace of Passarowitz.

"The peace of Carlowitz, which disposed of the Hungarian territory without the will or knowledge of the Hungarian States, in utter contempt of repeatedly confirmed laws, was in itself a deep source of new discontent,—which was considerably increased by the general policy continually pursued by the Court of Vienna. Even after the coronation of Joseph I., a prince who; if left to himself, might have perhaps followed a less provoking line of conduct, Leopold, the real master of Hungary, did not relinquish his design of entirely demolishing its institutions. … The high clergy were ready to second any measure of the government, provided they were allowed full scope in their persecutions of the Protestants. … Scarcely had three years passed since the peace of Carlowitz was signed, when Leopold, just embarking in the war of the Spanish succession, saw the Hungarians suddenly rise up as one man in arms. … The head and soul of this new struggle in Hungary was Francis Rakoczy II., the son of Helen Zriny, by her first husband, after the death of whom she became the wife of Tököli." Rakoczy entered the country from Poland, with a few hundred men, in 1703, and issued a proclamation which brought large numbers to his support. The Austrian forces had been mostly drawn away, by the war of the Spanish succession, into Italy and to the Rhine, and during the first year of the insurrection the Hungarian patriot became master of the greater part of the country. Then there occurred a suspension of hostilities, while the English government made a fruitless effort at mediation. On the reopening of warfare, the Austrians were better prepared and more encouraged by the circumstances of the larger contest in which they were engaged; while the Hungarians were correspondingly discouraged. They had promises of help from France, and France failed them; they had expectations from Russia, but nothing came of them. "The fortune of war decidedly turned in favour of the imperialists, in consequence of which numerous families, to escape their fury, left their abodes to seek shelter in the national camp; a circumstance which, besides clogging the military movements, contributed to discourage the army and spread general consternation." In 1710 Rakoczy went to Poland, where he was long absent, soliciting help which he did not get. "Before his departure, the chief command of the troops was entrusted to Karoly, who, tired of Rakoczy's prolonged and useless absence in Poland, assembled the nobles at Szathmar, and concluded, in 1711, a peace known as the Treaty of Szathmar. By this treaty the emperor engaged to redress all grievances, civil and religious, promising, besides, amnesty to all the adherents of Rakoczy, as well as the restitution of many properties illegally confiscated. Rakoczy protested from Poland against the peace concluded by Karoly; but of what effect could be the censure and remonstrance of a leader who, in the most critical emergency, had left the scene of action in quest of foreign assistance, which, he might have foreseen, would never be accorded. … After the peace of Szathmar, Hungarian history assumes a quite different character." Revolts are at an end for more than a century, and "Hungary, without producing a single man of note, lay in a state of deep lethargy." In 1714, the Emperor Charles VI. (who, as King of Hungary, was Charles III.) began a new war against the Porte, with Prince Eugene again commanding in Hungary. "The sultan Achmet III., anticipating the design of the imperial general [to concentrate his troops on the Danube], marched his army across the Save, and, as will be seen, to his own destruction. {1683} After a small success gained by Palfy, Eugene routed the Turks at Petervardein [August 13, 1716], and captured besides nearly all their artillery. Profiting by the general consternation of the Turks, Eugene sent Palfy and the Prince of Wurtemberg to lay siege to the fortress of Temesvar, which commands the whole Banat, and which was surrendered by the Turks after a heavy siege. By these repeated disasters the Mussulmans lost all confidence in the success of their arms; and in the year 1717 they opened the gates of Belgrade to the imperial army. The present campaign paved the way for the peace of Passarowitz, a little town in Servia,—a peace concluded between the Porte and the Emperor in 1718. In virtue of the provisions of this treaty, the Porte abandoned the Banat, the fortress of Belgrade, and a part of Bosnia, on the hither side of the Unna, promising besides the free navigation of the Danube to the people of the Austrian empire."

E. Szabad, Hungary, Past and Present, part 2, chapter 5-6.

ALSO in: L. Felbermann, Hungary and its People, chapter 4.

See, also, TURKS: A. D. 1714-1718.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1739: Belgrade restored to the Turks.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1725-1739.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1740. The question of the Austrian Succession. The Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738; and 1740.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1740-1741. Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession: Faithlessness of Frederick the Great. His seizure of Silesia.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1741. The War of the Austrian Succession: Maria Theresa's appeal and the Magyar response.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1741 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

HUNGARY: A. D. 1780-1790. Irritations of the reign of Joseph II. Illiberality of the Hungarian nobles.

"The reign of Joseph II. is described by the historians of Hungary and Bohemia as a disastrous time for the two countries. Directly he ascended the throne he began to carry out a series of measures which deeply irritated the Magyars. With his philosophical ideas, the crown of Hungary was to him nothing more than a Gothic bauble, and the privileges of the nation only the miserable remains of an age of barbarism; the political opinions of the Hungarians were as distasteful to him as their customs, and he amused himself with ridiculing the long beards and the soft boots of the great nobles. He never would be crowned. He annoyed the bishops by his laws against convents, while his tyrannical tolerance never succeeded in contenting the Protestants. … On the 7th of April, 1784, he ordered that the holy crown should be brought to him in Vienna and placed in the imperial treasury. To confiscate this symbol of Hungarian independence was, in the eyes of the Magyars, an attempt at the suppression of the nation itself, and the affront was deeply resented. Up to this time the official language of the kingdom had been Latin, a neutral tongue among the many languages in use in the various parts of Hungary. Joseph believed he was proving his liberal principles in substituting German, and that language took the place of Latin. … Joseph II. soon learned that it is not wise to attack the dearest prejudices of a nation. The edict which introduced a foreign language was the signal for the new birth of Magyar. … At the time of the death of Joseph II. Hungary was in a state of violent disturbance. The 'comitat' of Pesth proclaimed that the rule of the Hapsburgs was at an end, and others threatened to do the same unless the national liberties were restored by the new sovereign. All united in demanding the convocation of the diet in order that the long-suppressed wishes of the people might be heard. The revolutionary wind which had passed over France had been felt even by the Magyars, but there was this great difference in its effect upon France and Hungary—in France, ideas of equality had guided the revolution; in Hungary, the great nobles and the squirearchy who formed the only political element claimed, under the name of liberties, privileges which were for the most part absolutely opposed to the ideas of the Revolution of 1789. … Among the late reforms only one had found favour in the eyes of the Magyars, and that was toleration towards Protestants, and the reason of this was to be found in the fact that the small landowners of Hungary were themselves to a large extent Protestant; yet a democratic party was gradually coming into existence which appealed to the masses. … When France declared war against Francis II. the Magyar nobles showed themselves quite ready to support their sovereign; they asked for nothing better than to fight the revolutionary democrats of Paris. Francis was crowned very soon after his accession, and was able to obtain both men and money from the diet; but before long, the reactionary measures carried by Thugut his minister, lost him all the popularity which had greeted him at the beginning of his reign. The censorship of the press, the employment of spies, and the persecution of the Protestants—a persecution, however, in which the Hungarian Catholics themselves took an active part—all helped to create discontent."

L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapters 23 and 28.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1787-1791. War with the Turks. Treaty of Sistova.

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1815-1844. The wakening of the national spirit. Patriotic labors of Szechenyi and Kossuth.

"The battle of Waterloo, in 1815, put an end to the terrible struggle by which every country in Europe had for twenty years been agitated. The sovereigns of the continent now breathed freely … and their first act was to enter into a league against their deliverers, to revoke all their concessions, and break all their promises. … The most audacious of all those who joined in framing the Holy Alliance was the emperor of Austria. The Hungarians reminded him, in 1815, of his repeated promises to redress their grievances, while they were voting him men and money to defend his capital against the assaults of Napoleon. He could not deny the promises, but he emphatically declined to fulfil them. They asked him to convoke the diet, but he … determined to dispense with it for the future. … At last the popular ferment reached such a pitch, that the government found it absolutely necessary to yield the point in dispute. In 1825, Francis I. convoked the diet, and from that moment the old struggle, which the wars with France had suspended, was renewed. … The session was … rendered for ever memorable by an incident, in itself of trifling importance, but of vast significance when viewed in connexion with subsequent events. {1684} It was in it that Count Stephen Szechenyi made his first speech in the Magyar language. The life of this extraordinary man is more remarkable as an instance of what may be achieved by well-directed energy, labouring in obedience to the dictates of patriotism, than for any brilliant triumphs of eloquence or diplomacy. … He was no great orator; so that his influence over the Magyars—an influence such as no private individual has ever acquired over a people, except, perhaps, Kossuth and O'Connell—must be looked upon rather as the triumph of practical good sense and good intentions than of rhetorical appeals to prejudices or passion. … The first object to which his attention was directed was the restoration of the Magyar language, which, under the Germanizing efforts of Austria, had fallen into almost total disuse amongst the higher classes. He knew how intimately the use of the national language is connected with the feeling of nationality. … But the Magyar was now totally neglected by the Magyar gentlemen. Latin was the language of the diet, and of all legal and official documents, and German and French were alone used in good society. Szechenyi, as the first step in his scheme of reformation, set about rescuing it from the degradation and disuse into which it had fallen; and as the best of all ways to induce others to do a thing is to do it oneself first, he rose in the diet of 1825, and, contrary to previous usage, made a speech in Magyar. His colleagues were surprised; the magnates were shocked; the nation was electrified. … The diet sat for two years, and during the whole of that period Szechenyi continued his use of the native language, in which he strenuously opposed the designs of the court, and was soon considered the leader of the opposition or liberal party, which speedily grew up around him. His efforts were so successful, that before the close of the session, Francis was compelled to acknowledge the illegality of his previous acts, formally to recognize the independence of the country, and promise to convoke the diet at least once in every three years. … He [Szechenyi] soon had the satisfaction of seeing the Hungarian language growing to general use, but he was still vexed to see the total want of unity, co-operation, and communion which prevailed amongst the nobles, owing to the want of a newspaper press, or of any place of re-union where political subjects could be discussed amongst men of the same party with freedom and confidence. This he remedied by the establishment of the casino, at Pesth, upon the plan of the London clubs. He next turned his attention to the establishment of steam navigation on the Danube. … He … rigged out a boat, sailed down the Danube right to the Black Sea, explored it thoroughly, found it navigable in every part, went over to England, studied the principles of the steam-engine as applied to navigation, brought back English engineers, formed a company, and at last confounded the multitude of sceptics, who scoffed at his efforts, by the sight of a steam-boat on the river in full work. This feat was accomplished in October, 1830. … In the interval which followed the dissolution of the diet, Szechenyi still followed up his plan of reform with unwearied diligence, and owing to his exertions, a party was now formed which sought not merely the strict observance of the existing laws, but the reform of them, the abolition of the unjust privileges of the nobles, the emancipation of the peasantry, the establishment of a system of education, the equal distribution of the taxes, the equality of all religious sects, the improvement of the commercial code and of internal communication, and though last, not least, the freedom of the press. These projects were all strenuously debated, but on this occasion without any practical result. The next meeting was for a long time delayed, upon one pretext or another. At last it was convened in 1832, and proved in many respects one of the most important that had ever assembled. … The man who in future struggles was destined to play so prominent a part, during the whole of these … proceedings, was merely an intent and diligent looker-on. … He was a gentleman of noble origin, of course, but his whole fortune lay in his talents, which at that period were devoted to journalism—a profession which the Hungarians had not yet learned to estimate at its full value. He was still but thirty years of age, and within the diet he was known as a promising young man, although, amongst the world without, his name—the name of Louis Kossuth, which has since become a household word in two hemispheres—had never yet been heard. … Whether from the jealousy of the government or the apathy of the Magyars, no printed reports of the parliamentary proceedings had ever yet been published. … To supply this defect, Kossuth resolved to devote the time, which would otherwise have been wasted in idle listening, to carefully reporting everything that took place, and circulated it all over the country on a small printed sheet. The importance of the proceedings which then occupied the attention of the diet caused it to be read with extraordinary eagerness, and Kossuth rendered it still more attractive by amplifying, and often even embellishing, the speeches. The cabinet, however, soon took the alarm, and although the censorship was unknown to the Hungarian law, prohibited the printing and publication of the reports. This was a heavy blow, but Kossuth was not baffled. He instantly gathered round him a great number of young men to act as secretaries, who wrote out a great number of copies of the journal, which were then circulated in manuscript throughout Hungary. The government was completely foiled, and new ardour was infused into the liberal party. When the session was at an end he resolved to follow up his plan by reporting the meetings of the county assemblies, which were then the scenes of fiery debates. … The government stopped his journal in the post-office. He then established a staff of messengers and carriers, who circulated it from village to village. The enthusiasm of the people was fast rising to a flame. A crisis was imminent. It was resolved to arrest Kossuth. … He was seized, and shut up in the Neuhaus, a prison built at Pesth by Joseph II. He was, however, not brought to trial till 1839, and was then sentenced to four years' imprisonment. The charge brought against him was, that he had circulated false and inaccurate reports; but the real ground of offence was, as everyone knew, that he had circulated any reports at all. … Kossuth, after his liberation from prison, had taken up his abode for a short period at a watering place called Parad, for the purpose of recruiting his shattered health, and for a time wholly abstained from taking any part in public affairs. {1685} On the first of January, 1841, however, a printer in Pesth, named Landerer, obtained permission to publish a journal entitled 'Pesthi Hirlap,' or the Pesth Gazette. He offered the editorship to Kossuth, who accepted it, but only on condition that he should be perfectly untrammelled in the expression of his opinions. … Kossuth … soon raised the circulation of his paper to 10,000 copies—an immense number in a country where the newspaper press had hitherto hardly had a footing. He made vigorous onslaughts upon the privileges of the noblesse, and pleaded the cause of the middle and lower classes unanswerably. … In 1844, owing to a change of ministry which threw the liberals out of office, he lost the editorship of the Gazette; but he had kindled a flame which now blazed fiercely enough of itself."

E. L. Godkin, History of Hungary, chapter 21.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1847-1849. The struggle for National Independence and its failure.

"A strong spirit of nationality had been growing up for many years, greatly fostered by Louis Kossuth, a newspaper editor. The old Magyar language, which had been treated as barbarous, was cultivated. Books and papers were printed in the tongue, all with the spirit of independence as a country and a race apart from that of the Austrians. In November, 1847, Ferdinand V. had opened the Diet in person, and proposed reforms in the Constitution were put before him. Count Batthyani, Prince Esterhazy, Kossuth, and others, drew up a scheme which was laid before the Emperor in the April of 1848, amid the crash of revolutions, and was assented to by him. But the other tribes within the kingdom of Hungary, the Rascians and Croats, began to make separate demands, and to show themselves stronger than the Magyars and Germans scattered among them. It was strongly suspected that they were encouraged by the Austrian powers in order to break down the new Hungarian constitution. The Hungarian council applied to have their national troops recalled from Lombardy, where, under Radetzky, they were preserving the Emperor's power; but this could not be granted, and only a few foreign regiments, whom they distrusted, were sent them. Disturbances broke out, and at the same time the Wallachians in Transylvania rose, and committed ravages on the property of Hungarians. The confusion was great, for these insurgents called the constitutional government of Hungary rebels, and professed to be upholding the rights of the Emperor, and, on the other hand, the Hungarian government viewed them as rebels. … Meantime a high-spirited Croatian officer, Baron Jellachich, had been appointed Ban of Croatia, and collected forces from among his wild countrymen to put down the Hungarian rule. … Jellachich advanced upon Pesth, and thus showed the Government there that in Ferdinand's eyes they were the rebels. Batthyani resigned, and Kossuth set himself to raise the people. Jellachich was defeated, and entered the Austrian states, appearing to menace Vienna. The effect of this was a tremendous insurrection of the Viennese, who seized Latour, the minister at war, savagely murdered him, and hung his body, stripped naked, to a lamp-post. The Viennese, under the command of the Polish General Bern, now prepared for a siege, while Windischgrätz and Jellachich collected a large army of Austrians and Croatians, besieged the city, stormed it on the 30th of October, and made an entrance, when all the ringleaders of the rebellion were treated with great severity. Jellachich then prepared to lead his Croats into Hungary, which was a very different matter, since the constitutional government there had been formed under the sanction and encouragement of Ferdinand. Kossuth and the rest of the ministry therefore thought themselves justified in naming a committee of public safety, and voting the raising of an army of 200,000 men. Ferdinand V., now an old man, felt himself no longer capable of coping with all the discordant forces of the empire; a family council was held at Olmütz, whither the Court had retired, and it was decided that he should abdicate, and that his next brother, Francis Charles, should waive his right in favour of his son, Francis Joseph, a promising and amiable young man of twenty, who, it was hoped, would conciliate matters. On December 2d, 1848, the change was made, and the new Emperor put forth a proclamation, promising constitutional government, liberty of the press, and all that could conduce to true freedom, but called on all faithful subjects to repress the rebellions that were raging in the provinces. Both in Lombardy and in Hungary this was taken as defiance; indeed, the Magyars considered that neither the abdication of Ferdinand, nor the accession of Francis Joseph to their throne, was valid without the consent of the Diet. Prince Windischgrätz was sent to reduce them with a considerable army, while Kossuth showed remarkable ability in getting together supplies for the Hungarian force, which was commanded by Generals Bem and Görgei. The difficulties of passing the mountains in the winter told much against the Austrians, though a corps of Russians was sent to their assistance. Five considerable battles were fought in the early spring of 1849, and in April Windischgrätz was fairly driven across the Danube out of the country."

C. M. Yonge, Landmarks of Recent History, chapter 3, part 5.

"On the 4th of March [1849] a new Imperial Charter was promulgated at Olmütz, containing many excellent provisions, but having this fatal defect, that in it Hungary was merged completely in the Austrian Empire, and all its ancient institutions obliterated. On the 14th of April the Imperial Decree was answered by the Declaration of Independence, in which the Hapsburg dynasty was proclaimed to have forfeited all right to the Hungarian throne, and to be banished for ever from the country. Kossuth was appointed Governor, and a new Ministry was chosen, under the Premiership of M. Szemere, the late Minister for Home Affairs in the Batthyány Government. For a while the national army was victorious. … But the despotic princes of Europe were now recovering from the panic that had demoralised them and their principles in 1848; the time had come for absolutism to rally its forces and reassert itself after the old fashion. Acting on the maxim that 'La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure,' the Emperor of Austria, after previous arrangement with his imperial brother in St. Petersburg, felt at liberty to disavow and ignore the arguments for constitutional government which had seemed so cogent to his predecessor. … In July the Czar's troops a second time entered Hungary, this time with no disavowal of political motives, but on the ground that His majesty, having always reserved to himself entire freedom of action whenever revolutions in neighboring States should place his own in danger, was now convinced that the internal security of his empire was menaced by what was passing and preparing in Hungary.' {1686} … In August, Gorgei, the commander-in-chief of the national army, who had been nominated Dictator in the place of Kossuth, was invested with full powers to treat for a peace, and instructed to act according to the best of his ability to save the national existence of Hungary. At Vilagós, on the 13th of August, the Hungarian army, by order of the new Dictator, laid down their arms, and surrendered—not to the Austrians, but to the Russian general Rudiger. Thanks to the united efforts of 300,000 of the flower of the Austrian and Russian troops, the Hungarian rebellion was at an end. … General Haynau presided over the Bloody Assizes of Pesth and Arad, and the long roll of Hungarian patriots condemned to death at the hands of the Austrian hangman was headed by such names as Count Batthyány and General Damyanics, the wounded leader of the 'Redcaps,' the famous student brigade. Those who escaped death found a refuge in England, America, or Turkey, whither they carried with them bitter memories of wrong and suffering inflicted, and an undying 'love for the country of their birth. Those bitter memories have happily died away, under the healing influence of time, and still more of that great work of reconciliation which a wise generosity on both sides has effected between the two countries."

Francis Deak, Hungarian Statesman: a memoir, chapter 14.

See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1849-1850. Contemplated recognition of the revolutionary government by the United States. The Hülsemann Letter of Daniel Webster.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850-1851.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1849-1859. Completed Emancipation of the peasantry. Restoration of pure absolutism.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1859.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1856-1868. Recovery of nationality. Formation of the dual Austro-Hungarian empire.

In 1856, the Emperor, Francis Joseph, "proclaimed an amnesty against the political offenders, and in the following year he decreed the restoration of their estates, and further steps were taken to study the wishes of the Hungarians. In 1859 other concessions were made, notably as to provincial Governments in Hungary, and they were given free administration as to their educational and religious rites in the Magyar tongue. In 1860 the 'Curia Regia' were reinstated, and finally, in 1861, the whole Constitution was restored to Hungary and its dependencies, Transylvania, Croatia, and Slavonia. The Hungarian Parliament, which had been closed for so many years, reopened its gates. These concessions, however, did not satisfy the Magyars, who wanted perfect autonomy for their country. … The Hungarians refused to pay taxes, which therefore had to be collected by military aid. In 1865 the Hungarian Parliament was opened by the Emperor in person, who gave his assent to the Self-Government of Hungary, but further details had still to be arranged, and the war which broke out between Austria, Prussia and Italy in 1866 prevented these from being carried out. On the strength of the Emperor's promise to accede to the wishes of his Hungarian subjects, the Hungarians fought most bravely in Germany and in Italy for the Austrian cause, but the disorganized system that then existed in the Austrian army was the cause of their defeat, and the dissolution of the German confederation, over which Austria presided for so many years. The final result of this was that a perfect autonomy for Hungary was reinstated in 1867, and the Dual System was introduced, by which Hungary received perfect freedom and independence as to the administration of its affairs without any interference from Austria, and became, so to say, a partner in the newly-formed Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, as also described in the able 'Memoir' on Francis Deák, to which Sir Mountstuart E. Grant-Duff wrote a preface, is constituted as follows:

I. The Common Ministry for the Austro-Hungarian monarchy consists of a Minister for Foreign Affairs, for War, and for Finance.

II. In each half of the monarchy there is a separate Ministry of Worship, of Finance, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, and National Defence, headed respectively by a Minister-President of the Council.

III. The Lower House in the Austrian Reichsrath consists of 353 members, in the Hungarian Diet of 444, now chosen in both cases by direct election.

IV. The Delegations, composed respectively of sixty members from each half of the monarchy, are elected annually from amongst their parliamentary representatives of the majority in each province by the members of the two Houses of the Austrian and Hungarian Legislatures.

V. The two Delegations, who meet alternately at Vienna and Budapest, deliberate separately, their discussions being confined strictly to affairs of common interest, with regard to which the Delegations have the right to interpellate the Common Minister and to propose laws or amendments. In case of disagreement between the two Delegations the question of policy at issue is discussed by an interchange of written messages; drawn up in the official language—German or Hungarian—of the Delegation sending the message, and accompanied by an authorized translation in the language of the Delegation to which it is addressed.

VI. If, after the interchange of three successive notes, an agreement between the two bodies is not arrived at, the question is put to the vote by ballot without further debate. The Delegates, of whom in a plenary session there must be an equal number present from each Delegation, vote individually, the Emperor-King having the casting vote.

VII. By virtue of the present definition of common affairs, the cost of the diplomatic service and the army, except the Honvéds (militia), is defrayed out of the Imperial revenues, to which Hungary contributes a proportion of 30 per 100.

VIII. With reference to the former, it is stipulated that all international treaties be submitted to the two Legislatures by their respective Ministries; with reference to the latter, that whilst the appointment to the military command of the whole army, as also to that of the national force of Hungary, is in the hands of the Sovereign, the settlement of matters affecting the recruiting, length of service, mobilization, and pay of the Honvéd army (the militia) remains with the Hungarian Legislature.

{1687}

IX. Those matters which it is desirable should be subject to the same legislation, such as customs, indirect taxation, currency, etc., etc., are regulated by means of treaties, subject to the approval of the two Legislatures. In cases where the two parties are unable to come to an agreement, each retains the right to decide such questions in accordance with their own special interests.

X. In common affairs, the decisions arrived at by the Delegations (within the scope of their powers), and sanctioned by the Sovereign, become thenceforth fundamental laws; each Ministry is bound to announce them to its respective National Legislature, and is responsible for their execution.

It should be here mentioned that the late great and lamented Hungarian statesman, Deák, and also the late Count Beust, have by their personal efforts contributed a great deal to these concessions being granted. The Hungarian Parliament was reopened in 1867, and the late Count Julius Andrássy, … who escaped to England from the noose of the hangman, became its Prime Minister. … In 1868 the Emperor and Empress entered in great state the town of Buda, and were crowned with the greatest pomp with the Apostolic crown of St. Stephen."

L. Felbermann, Hungary and its People, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: Francis Deak: a memoir, chapters 26-31.

Count von Beust, Memoirs, volume 2, chapter 38.

See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1867, and FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS: MODERN FEDERATIONS.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1866-1887. Difficulties and promises of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Its ambitions in southeastern Europe.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1866-1887.

HUNGARY: A. D. 1894. Death of Kossuth.

Louis Kossuth, the leader of the revolutionary movement of 1848, died at Turin on the 20th of March, 1894, aged ninety-two years. He had refused to the end of his life to be reconciled to the Austro-Hungarian government, or to countenance the acceptance by the Hungarians of the dual nationality established by the constitution of 1867, and remained an exile in Italy. After his death his remains were brought to Budapest, and their burial, which took place on Sunday, April 1st, was made the occasion of a great national demonstration of respect.

----------HUNGARY: End--------

HUNIADES AND THE HUNGARIAN WARS WITH THE TURKS.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1442-1458; and TURKS (OTTOMANS): A. D. 1402-1451.

HUNINGEN, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

HUNKERS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845-1846.

----------HUNS: Start--------

HUNS, Gothic account of the.

"We have ascertained that the nation of the Huns, who surpassed all others in atrocity, came thus into being. When Filimer, fifth king of the Goths after their departure from Sweden, was entering Scythia, with his people, as we have before described, he found among them certain sorcerer-women, whom they call in their native tongue Aliorumnas (or Al-runas), whom he suspected and drove forth from the midst of his army into the wilderness. The unclean spirits that wander up and down in desert places, seeing these women, made concubines of them; and from this union sprang that most fierce people (of the Huns) who were at first little, foul, emaciated creatures, dwelling among the swamps, and possessing only the shadow of human speech by way of language. … Nations whom they would never have vanquished in fair fight fled horrified from those frightful—faces I can hardly call them, but rather—shapeless black collops of flesh, with little points instead of eyes. No hair on their cheeks or chins gives grace to adolescence or dignity to age, but deep furrowed scars instead, down the sides of their faces, show the impress of the iron which with characteristic ferocity they apply to every male child that is born among them. … They are little in stature, but lithe and active in their motions, and especially skilful in riding, broad-shouldered, good at the use of the bow and arrows, with sinewy necks, and always holding their heads high in their pride."

Jornandes, De Rebus Geticis, translated by T. Hodgkin in Italy and Her Invaders, book 1, chapter 1.

HUNS: First appearance in Europe.

See GOTHS: A. D. 376.

HUNS: A. D. 433-453. The empire of Attila.

After driving the Goths from Dacia, the terrible Huns had halted in their march westward for something more than a generation. They were hovering, meantime, on the eastern frontiers of the empire "taking part like other barbarians in its disturbances and alliances. Emperors paid them tribute, and Roman generals kept up a politic or a questionable correspondence with them. Stilicho had detachments of Huns in the armies which fought against Alaric; the greatest Roman soldier after Stilicho,—and, like Stilicho, of barbarian parentage,—Aetius, who was to be their most formidable antagonist, had been a hostage and a messmate in their camps. … About 433, Attila, the son of Mundzukh, like Charles the Great, equally famous in history and legend, became their king. Attila was the exact prototype and forerunner of the Turkish chiefs of the house of Othman. In his profound hatred of civilized men, in his scorn of their knowledge, their arts, their habits and religion, and, in spite of this, in his systematic use of them as his secretaries and officers, in his rapacity combined with personal simplicity of life, in his insatiate and indiscriminate destructiveness, in the cunning which veiled itself under rudeness, in his extravagant arrogance, and audacious pretensions, in his sensuality, in his unscrupulous and far-reaching designs, in his ruthless cruelty joined with capricious displays of generosity, mercy, and good faith, we see the image of the irreclaimable Turkish barbarians who ten centuries later were to extinguish the civilization of [eastern?] Europe. The attraction of Attila's daring character, and his genius for the war which nomadic tribes delight in, gave him absolute ascendency over his nation, and over the Teutonic and Slavonic tribes near him. Like other conquerors of his race, he imagined and attempted an empire of ravage and desolation, a vast hunting ground and preserve, in which men and their works should supply the objects and zest of the chase."

R. W. Church, Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 1.

{1688}

"He [Attila] was truly the king of kings; for his court was formed of chiefs, who, in offices of command, had learned the art of obedience. There were three brothers of the race of the Amales, all of them kings of the Ostrogoths; Ardaric, king of the Gepidæ, his principal confidant; a king of the Merovingian Franks; kings of the Burgundians, Thuringians, Rugians, and Heruli, who commanded that part of their nation which had remained at home, when the other part crossed the Rhine half a century before."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 7 (volume 1).

"The amount of abject, slavish fear which this little swarthy Kalmuck succeeded in instilling into millions of human hearts is not to be easily matched in the history of our race. Whether he had much military talent may be doubted, since the only great battle in which he figured was a complete defeat. The impression left upon us by what history records of him is that of a gigantic bully, holding in his hands powers unequalled in the world for ravage and spoliation. … Some doubt has recently been thrown on the received accounts of the wide extent of Attila's power. … The prince who felt China on his left, who threatened Persepolis, Byzantium, Ravenna in front, who ruled Denmark and its islands in his rear, and who ultimately appeared in arms on the soil of Champagne on his right, was no minor monarch, and had his empire been as deep as it was widespread, he might worthily have taken rank with Cyrus and Alexander. At the same time it is well to remember that over far the larger part of this territory Attila's can have been only an over-lordship, Teutonic, Slavonic, and Tartar chieftains of every name bearing rule under him. His own personal government, if government it can be called, may very likely have been confined nearly within the limits of the modern Hungary and Transylvania."

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 2, chapter 2 (volume 2).

"As far as we may ascertain the vague and obscure geography of Priscus, this [Attila's] capital appears to have been seated between the Danube, the Theiss [Teyss] and the Carpathian hills, in the plains of Upper Hungary, and most probably in the neighbourhood of Jazberin, Agria, or Tokay. In its origin it could be no more than an accidental camp, which, by the long and frequent residence of Attila, had insensibly swelled into a huge village."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 34.

HUNS: A. D. 441-446. Attila's attack on the Eastern Empire.

Attila's first assault upon the Roman power was directed against the Eastern Empire. The court at Constantinople had been duly obsequious to him, but he found a pretext for war. "It was pretended that the Roman bishop of Margus had surreptitiously introduced himself into the sepulchre of the Hunnic kings and stolen from it the buried treasure. The Huns immediately fell upon a Roman town during the time of a fair, and pillaged everything before them, slaying the men and carrying off the women. To all complaints from Constantinople the answer was, "The bishop, or your lives.' The emperor thought, and with reason, that to give up an innocent man to be massacred would be displeasing to Heaven, would alienate the clergy, and only appease for a moment the demands of his merciless enemy. He refused, though timidly and in vague terms. The Huns replied by scouring Pannonia, laying Sirmium, its capital, in ruins, and extending their ravages far south of the Danube to the cities of Naissa and Sardica, upon both of which they wrought the extremity of their vengeance. A truce of four years only increased their fury and aggravated its effects. The war was suddenly recommenced. This time they reached Thessaly, and renewed with a somewhat similar result the far-famed passage of Thermopylæ by the hordes of Xerxes. Two Roman armies were put to complete rout, and seventy cities levelled to the ground. Theodosius purchased the redemption of his capital by the cession of territory extending for fifteen days' journey south of the Danube, by an immediate payment of 6,000 pounds of gold, and the promise of 2,000 more as an annual tribute."

J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 4.

HUNS: A. D. 451. Attila's invasion of Gaul.

In the spring of the year 451 Attila moved the great host which he had assembled in the Hungarian plains westward toward the Rhine and the provinces of Gaul. He hesitated, it was said, between the Eastern and Western Empires as the objects of his attack. But the East had found an emperor, at last, in Marcian, who put some courage into the state,—who refused tribute to the insolent Hun and showed a willingness for war. The West, under Valentinian III. and his mother Placidia, with the Goths, Vandals, Burgundians and Franks in the heart of its provinces, seemed to offer the most inviting field of conquest. Hence Attila turned his horses and their savage riders to the West. "The kings and nations of Germany and Scythia, from the Volga perhaps to the Danube, obeyed the warlike summons of Attila. From the royal village in the plains of Hungary his standard moved towards the West, and after a march of seven or eight hundred miles he reached the conflux of the Rhine and the Neckar, where he was joined by the Franks who adhered to his ally, the elder of the sons of Clodion. … The Hercynian forest supplied materials for a bridge of boats, and the hostile myriads were poured with resistless violence into the Belgic provinces." At Metz, the Huns "involved in a promiscuous massacre the priests who served at the altar and the infants who, in the hour of danger, had been providently baptized by the bishop; the flourishing city was delivered to the flames, and a solitary chapel of St. Stephen marked the place where it formerly stood. From the Rhine and the Moselle, Attila advanced into the heart of Gaul, crossed the Seine at Auxerre, and, after a long and laborious march, fixed his camp under the walls of Orleans."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 35.

Meantime the energy of the unscrupulous but able Count Aetius, who ruled the court and commanded the resources of the Western Empire, had brought about a general combination of the barbarian forces in Gaul with those of the Romans. It included, first in importance, the Goths of the kingdom of Toulouse, under their king Theodoric, and with them the Burgundians, the Alans, a part of the Franks, and detachments of Saxons, Armoricans and other tribes. There were Goths, too, and Franks and Burgundians in the host of the Hun king. The latter laid siege to Orleans and the walls of the brave city were already crumbling under his battering rams when the banners of Aetius and Theodoric came in sight. Attila retreated beyond the Seine and took a position somewhere within the wide extent of what were anciently called the Catalaunian fields, now known as the Champagn country surrounding Chalons. There, in the early days of July, A. D. 451, was fought the great and terrible battle which rescued Europe from the all-conquering Tartar. {1689} The number of the slain, according to one chronicler, was 162,000; according to others 300,000. Neither army could claim a victory; both feared to renew the engagement. The Goths, whose king Theodoric was slain, withdrew in one direction, to their own territory; the Huns retreated in the other direction and quitted Gaul forever. The wily Roman, Aetins, was probably best satisfied with a result which crippled both Goth and Hun. As for the battle, its latest historian says: "Posterity has chosen to call it the battle of Chalons, but there is good reason to think that it was fought fifty miles distant from Chalons-sur-Marne, and that it would be more correctly named the battle of Troyes, or, to speak with complete accuracy, the battle of Mery-sur-Seine."

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 2, chapter 3 (volume 2).

"It was during the retreat from Orleans that a Christian hermit is reported to have approached the Hunnish king, and said to him, 'Thou art the Scourge of God for the chastisement of Christians.' Attila instantly assumed this new title of terror, which thenceforth became the appellation by which he was most widely and most fearfully known."

Sir E. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, chapter 6.

HUNS: A. D. 452. Attila's invasion of Italy.

In the summer of 451 Attila, retreating from the bloody plain of Chalons, recrossed the Rhine and returned to his quarters in Hungary. There, through the following autumn and winter, he nursed his chagrin and his wrath, and in the spring of 452 he set his host in motion again, directing its march to the Julian Alps and through their passes into Italy. The city of Aquileia, then prominent in commerce, and prosperous and rich, was the first to obstruct the savage invasion. The defence of the city proved so obstinate that Attila was at the point of abandoning his siege, when a flight of storks, which his shrewdness construed favorably as an omen, encouraged the Huns to one more irresistible assault and the doomed town was carried by storm. "In proportion to the stubbornness of the defence was the severity of the punishment meted out to Aquileia. The Roman soldiers were, no doubt, all slain. Attila was not a man to encumber himself with prisoners. The town was absolutely given up to the rage, the lust, and the greed of the Tartar horde who had so long chafed around its walls. … When the barbarians could plunder no more, they probably used fire, for the very buildings of Aquileia perished, so that, as Jornandes tells us, in his time, a century later than the siege, scarcely the vestiges of it yet remained. A few houses may have been left standing, and others must have slowly gathered round them, for the Patriarch of Aquileia retained all through the middle ages considerable remains of his old ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and a large and somewhat stately cathedral was reared there in the eleventh century. But the City of the North Wind never really recovered from the blow. … The terrible invaders, made more wrathful and more terrible by the resistance of Aquileia, streamed on through the trembling cities of Venetia." Patavium (modern Padua), Altinum and Julia Concordia, were blotted out of existence. At Vicenza, Verona, Brescia, Bergamo, Pavia and Milan, the towns were sacked, but spared destruction, and the inhabitants who did not escape were carried away into captivity. Many of the fugitives from these towns escaped the Huns by hiding in the islands and fens of the neighboring Adriatic coast, and out of the poor fishing villages that they formed there grew, in time, the great commercial city and republic of Venice. "The valley of the Po was now wasted to the heart's content of the invaders. Should they cross the Appennines and blot out Rome as they had blotted out Aquileia from among the cities of the world? This was the great question that was being debated in the Hunnish camp, and strange to say, the voices were not all for war. Already Italy began to strike that strange awe into the hearts of her northern conquerors which so often in later ages has been her best defence. The remembrance of Alaric, cut off by a mysterious death immediately after his capture of Rome, was present in the mind of Attila, and was frequently insisted upon by his counsellors." So, the grim Hun was prepared by his superstitions to listen to the embassy from Rome which met him at the Ticino, praying for peace. At the head of the embassy was the venerable bishop of Rome, Leo I.—the first of the great Popes. To his influence the pacific disposition into which Attila was persuaded has been commonly ascribed. At all events, the king of the Huns consented to peace with the Romans, and withdrew beyond the Danube in fulfilment of the treaty, leaving Italy a desert to the Appennines, but not beyond.

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 2, chapter 4 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 35.

See, also, VENICE: A. D. 452.

HUNS: A. D. 453. Death of Attila and fall of his empire.

Attila died suddenly and mysteriously in his sleep, after a drunken debauch, some time in the early months of the year 453, and his death was the end of the "reign of terror" under which he had reduced half the world. "Immediately after his death, the Germans refused to submit to the divided rule of his sons. The army of Attila split up into two great camps; on the one side were the Gepidæ and Ostrogoths, with the majority of the Teutonic nations; on the other the Huns, the Alans, the Sarmatians or Slavonians, and the few Germans who still owned allegiance to the memory of Attila. A vast plain between the Drave and the Danube was selected to decide this vital struggle, known as the battle of Netad, which, though less famous in history, may perhaps claim equal importance with that of Chalons, as an arbiter of the destinies of civilization. … Fortune at first seemed to favour the Huns; but German steadfastness prevailed; Goths and Gepidæ scattered the less-disciplined bands of Asia; and Ardaric, the king of the latter tribe for the time, established himself in the royal residence of Attila, and assumed the leading position in the barbarian world."

J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 4.

"Thirty thousand of the Huns and their confederates lay dead upon the field, among them Ellak, Attila's first-born. … The rest of his nation fled away across the Dacian plains, and over the Carpathian mountains to those wide steppes of Southern Russia in which at the commencement of our history we saw the three Gothic nations taking up their abode. Ernak, Attila's darling, ruled tranquilly under Roman protection in the district between the lower Danube and the Black Sea, which we now call the Dobrudscha, and which was then 'the lesser Scythia.' {1690} Others of his family maintained a precarious footing higher up the stream. … There is nothing in the after-history of these fragments of the nation with which anyone need concern himself. … Dacia, that part of Hungary which lies east and north of the Danube, and which had been the heart of Attila's domains, fell to the lot of the Gepidae, under the wise and victorious Ardaric. Pannonia, that is the western portion of Hungary, with Sclavonia, and parts of Croatia, Styria and Lower Austria, was ruled over by the three Amal-descended kings of the Ostrogoths."

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).

HUNS: Attila in Teutonic legend.

"Short as was the sway of Attila (from 434 to 453), the terror it had inspired and the great commotion it had brought over the whole Teuton and Roman world, were, not … soon forgotten. … The memory of the great chieftain hovered for a long time, like a bloody phantom, in the Roman annals and in the German sagas. … When we compare the historical Attila, before whose piercing glance Rome and Constantinople trembled, with Etzel of the Nibelungen Lied, we find that the latter bears but a slight resemblance to the former. It is true that Attila's powerful sway is still reflected in the Nibelungen Lied, as Kriemhild at her arrival in the land of the Huns is surprised at seeing so many nations submitted to his sceptre. Yet upon the whole Etzel plays in the German epic the part of a weak and sometimes even contemptible king, while glimpses of his real might can be detected only at rare intervals, fluttering as it were in the far-distant background of a by-gone time. … The Eddas and the Volsunga Saga bear the impress of the early Teutonic era, when the king was little more than the chosen leader in war; and the Northern people for a long time had in their political institutions nothing by which the conception of a great monarchy, or still less of a far-stretching realm like that of Attila, could be expressed."

G. T. Dippold, Great Epics of Mediæval Germany, chapter 4.

----------HUNS: End--------

HUNS, The White.

"It was during the reign of this prince [Varahran V., king of Persia, A. D. 420-440] that those terrible struggles commenced between the Persians and their neighbours upon the north-east which continued, from the early part of the fifth till the middle of the sixth century, to endanger the very existence of the empire. Various names are given to the people with whom Persia waged her wars during this period. They are called Turks, Huns, sometimes even Chinese; but these terms seem to be used in a vague way, as 'Scythian' was by the ancients; and the special ethnic designation of the people appears to be quite a different name from any of them. It is a name the Persian form of which is 'Haïthal,' or 'Haïtheleh,' the Armenian 'Hephthagh,' and the Greek 'Ephthalites,' or sometimes 'Nephthalites.' … All that we know of the Ephthalites is, that they were established in force, during the fifth and sixth centuries of our era, in the regions east of the Caspian, especially in those beyond the Oxus river, and that they were generally regarded as belonging to the Scythic or Finno-Turkic population, which, at any rate from B. C. 200, had become powerful in that region. They were called 'White Huns' by some of the Greeks; but it is admitted that they were quite distinct from the Huns who invaded Europe under Attila. … They were a light-complexioned race, whereas the Huns were decidedly swart; they were not ill-looking, whereas the Huns were hideous; they were an agricultural people, while the Huns were nomads; they had good laws, and were tolerably well civilised, but the Huns were savages. It is probable that they belonged to the Thibetic or Turkish stock."

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 14.

"We are able to distinguish the two great divisions of these formidable exiles [the Huns], which directed their march towards the Oxus and towards the Volga. The first of these colonies established their dominion in the fruitful and extensive plains of Sogdiana, on the eastern side of the Caspian, where they preserved the name of Huns, with the epithet of Euthalites [Ephthalites], or Nephthalites. Their manners were softened, and even their features were insensibly improved, by the mildness of the climate and their long residence in a flourishing province; which might still retain a faint impression of the arts of Greece. The White Huns, a name which they derived from the change of their complexion, soon abandoned the pastoral life of Scythia. Gorgo, which, under the appellation of Carizine, has since enjoyed a temporary splendour, was the residence of the king, who exercised a legal authority over an obedient people. Their luxury was maintained by the labour of the Sogdians."

E. Gibbon. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 26.

The White Huns were subjugated by the Turks.

See TURKS: SIXTH CENTURY.

HUNTER, General David. Command in Kansas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

Emancipation Order.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY).

Command in the Shenandoah.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1864 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).

HUNTSVILLE, Capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL-MAY: ALABAMA).

HUPAS, OR HOOPAHS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS.

----------HURON, Lake: Start--------

HURON, Lake: Discovery.

See CANADA: A. D. 1611-1616; and 1634-1673.

HURON, Lake: A. D. 1679. Navigated by La Salle.

See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

----------HURON, Lake: End--------

HURONS, OR WYANDOTS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS, and IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

HURST CASTLE, King Charles at.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).

HUS AND THE REFORMATION IN BOHEMIA.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1405-1415.

HUSCARLS.

See HOUSECARLS.

HUSSARS.

Matthias, son of John Hunyadi, was elected king of Hungary in 1458. "The defence of the country chiefly engaged the attention of Matthias at the commencement of his reign. Measures of defence were accordingly carried on with the utmost speed, the most important of which was the establishment of regular cavalry; to levy which one man was enrolled out of every 20 families. This was the origin of the 'Hussar,' meaning in Hungarian the price or due of twenty."

E. Szabad, Hungary, Past and Present, page 50.

HUSSEIN, Shah of Persia, A. D. 1694-1722.

{1691}

HUSTINGS. COURT OF HUSTING.

"The 'hygh and auncyent' Court of Husting of the City of London is of Anglo-Saxon, or, to speak more accurately, of Scandinavian origin, being a remarkable memorial of the sway once exercised over England by the Danes and other Northmen. The name of the Court is derived from [hus], 'a house,' and [dhing], a thing, 'cause,' or 'council,' and signifies, according to general acceptation, 'a court held in a house,' in contradistinction to other 'things,' or courts, which in Saxon times were usually held in the open air. … The term 'Husting' or, less correctly, 'Hustings' is commonly applied at the present day to open-air assemblies or temporary courts, usually held in some elevated position, for the purpose of electing members of Parliament in counties and boroughs, its strict etymological meaning, being lost sight of. … [The Court of Husting] is the oldest court of record within the City, and at one time constituted the sole court for settling disputes between citizen and citizen."

R. R. Sharpe, Introduction to Calendar of Wills, Court of Husting, London.

HUTCHINSON, Mrs. Anne, and the Antinomian troubles.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636-1638; and RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.

HUTCHINSON, Governor Thomas, and the outbreak of Revolution in Massachusetts.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1761; and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765, NEWS OF THE STAMP ACT; 1772-1773; 1774 (MAY-JUNE).

HWICCAS.

A name borne by the West Saxons who first settled in Gloucestershire and Worcestershire when that region was conquered. They led a revolt against the West Saxon king Ceawlin, in which they were joined by the Britons, or Welsh. The battle of Wanborough, fought A. D. 591, drove Ceawlin from the throne.

J. R. Green, The Making of England, pages 129-208.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.

HYACINTHIA, Feast of the.

"The feast of the Hyacinthia was held annually at Amyclæ [Lacedæmonia], on the longest day of the Spartan month Hecatombeus, corresponding to our June and July. … Hyacinthus, the beautiful youth slain accidentally by Apollo, was the chief object of the worship. He took his name from the flower, which was an emblem of death; and the original feast seems to have been altogether a mournful ceremony,—a lamentation over the destruction of the flowers of spring by the summer heat, passing on to a more general lament over death itself.'

G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, Note, book 9, section 7.

ALSO IN: E. Abbott, History of Greece, volume 1, page 222.

HYBLA.

"There was a Sikel goddess Hybla, whom the Greeks looked on as the same with several goddesses of their own mythology, here with one, there with another. Three towns in Sicily were called after her, one in the southeastern part of the island, now Ragusa, another on the coast north of Syracuse, near the place where the Greek colony of Megara was afterwards planted. This gave Its name to the Hyblaian hills not far off, famous for their honey; but there is no hill strictly called Mount Hybla. The third Hybla is inland, not far from Catania, and is now called Paterno."

E. A. Freeman, Story of Sicily, page 33.

HYDASPES, The.

The ancient name of the river Jelum, or Jhelum, in the Punjab, on the banks of which the Indian king Porus made a vain attempt to oppose the invasion of Alexander.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 53.

HYDER ALI AND TIPPOO SAIB, English Wars with.

See INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769; 1780-1783; and 1785-1793.

HYDERABAD OR HAIDERABAD, The Nizam of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748; and 1877.

HY-IVAR, The.

See NORMANS. NORTHMEN: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES, and 10TH-13TH CENTURIES.

HYKSOS, The.

See EGYPT: THE HYKSOS.

HYLLEANS, The.

"The Hylleans are never mentioned in any historical narrative, but always in mythical [Greek] legends; and they appear to have been known to the geographers only from mythological writers. Yet they are generally placed in the islands of Melita and Black-Corcyra, to the south of Liburnia."

C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, volume 1, introduction.

HYMETTUS.

One of the noted mountains of Attica, "celebrated for its excellent honey, and the broad belt of flowers at its base, which scented the air with their delicious perfume."

M. and R. P. Willson, Mosaics of Grecian History, page 9.

HY-NIALS AND EUGENIANS.

"As surnames were not generally used, either in Ireland or anywhere else, till after the 10th century, the great families are distinguishable at first only by their tribe or clan names. Thus, at the north we have the Hy-Nial race; in the south the Eugenian race, so called, from Nial and Eoghan, their mutual ancestors."

T. D. McGee, Popular History of Ireland, book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).

HYPATIA.

See ALEXANDRIA: A.D. 413-415.

HYPERBOREANS, The.

A mythical people, supposed by the ancients to dwell beyond the north wind, and therefore to enjoy a perfect climate in the extreme north.

HYPHASIS, The. The ancient name of the river Sutlej, in the Punjab.

HYRCANIA. HYRCANIAN SEA.

"The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau [of Iran] on the north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens out after it passes the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea till it covers a space of nearly three degrees (more than 200 miles). Instead of the single lofty ridge which separates the Salt Desert from the low Caspian region, we find between the 54th and 59th degrees of east longitude three or four distinct ranges, all nearly parallel to one another, having a general direction of east and west. … Here in Persian times was settled a people called Hyrcani; and from them the tract derived the name of Hyrcania (Vehrkana), while the lake [Caspian Sea] on which it adjoined came to be known as 'the Hyrcanian Sea.' The fertility of the region, its broad plains, shady woods, and lofty mountains were celebrated by the ancient writers."

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapter 1.

"In the inscriptions of the Achæmenids their land [Hyrcania] is known as Valkana; the modern name is Jorjan. Here, according to the Greeks, the mountains were covered with forests of oaks, where swarms of wild bees had their hives; in the valleys vines and fig-trees flourished, and the soil down to the sea was so luxuriant that corn grew from the fallen grains without any special sowing."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 1.

See, also, PARTHIA.

{1692}

I.

IAPYGIANS, The.

See ITALY, ANCIENT; also, ŒNOTRIANS.

IAZYGES, OR JAZYGES, The.

See LIMIGANTES.

IBERA, Battle at.

See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.

IBERIANS, The eastern.

"The Sapeires [of Herodotus] appear to be the Iberians of later writers. The name is found under the various forms of Saspeires, Sapeires, Sabeires, or Sabeiri, and Abeires, whence the transition to Iberes is easy. They are always represented as adjoining on the Colchians to the east and southeast, so that they must evidently have inhabited the greater part of the modern province of Georgia. … There is reason to believe that the modern Georgians—still called 'Virk' by their neighbours—are their descendants, and preserve, in the original seat of the nation, a name and a nationality which have defied the destroying touch of time for more than twenty-four centuries."

G. Rawlinson, History of Herodotus, book 7, appendix 1.

See, also, ALARODIANS.

If these Iberians of the east were connected in race or origin of name with the Iberians of western Europe, the connection does not seem to have been traced. Iberia was devastated and subjugated by the Seljuk Turks in the 11th century.

See TURKS (SELJUKS): A. D. 1063-1073.

IBERIANS, The western.

"The numerous skulls obtained from Basque cemeteries possess exactly those characters which have been remarked … in the Neolithic tombs and caves in Britain and on the Continent, and may therefore be taken to imply that the Basque-speaking peoples are to be looked upon as a fragment of the race which occupied the British isles, and the area west of the Rhine and north of the Alps, in the Neolithic age. … Nor can there be any reasonable doubt as to this small, dark-haired people being identical with the ancient Iberians of history, who have left their name in the Iberian peninsula [Spain] as a mark of their former dominion in the west. … In ancient times they were spread through Spain as far to the south as the Pillars of Hercules, and as far to the north-east as Germany and Denmark. The Iberic population of the British Isles was apparently preserved from contact with other races throughout the whole of the Neolithic age. On the Continent, however, it is not so; a new set of men, differing in physical characteristics from them, make their appearance. … The new invader is identified by Thurnam and Huxley with the Celtæ of history. … These two races were in possession of Spain during the very earliest times recorded in history, the Iberians occupying the north-western region, and the Celts, or Gauls, extending in a broad band south of the Pyrenees along the Mediterranean shore. … In the north the Vascones then, as now, held the Basque provinces of Spain. The distribution of these two races in Gaul is similar to that which we have noted in Spain. … When Cæsar conquered Gaul, the Iberian Aquitani possessed the region bounded by the river Garonne, the Cevennes, and the Pyrenees. … An ethnological connection also between Aquitaine and Brittany (Armorica) may be inferred from the remark of Pliny, 'Aquitania Armorica ante dicta.' … Just as the Celts pushed back the Iberian population of Gaul as far south as Aquitania, and swept round it into Spain, so they crossed the channel and overran the greater portion of Britain, until the Silures, identified by Tacitus with the Iberians, were left only in those fastnesses which were subsequently a refuge for the Welsh against the English invaders."

W. B. Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: I. Taylor, Origin of the Aryans, chapter 2, section 5.

See CELTS; LIGURIANS; AQUITAINE: THE ANCIENT TRIBES; AND PORTUGAL: EARLY HISTORY; and, also, volume 1, APPENDIX A.

IBERION.

See ALBION.

IBRAHIM, Caliph, A. D. 744.

Ibrahim, Turkish Sultan, 1640-1649.

ICARIA, Attica.

One of the demes or ancient townships of Attica, where Icarius, in a Greek legend, was taught the art of wine-making by Dionysus.

ICARIA, in the Ægean.

An island near Samos and anciently belonging to the Samians, who used it chiefly for their pasture land.

----------ICELAND: Start--------

ICELAND: Supposed identity with the Ultima Thule of the ancients.

See THULE.

ICELAND: A. D. 860-1100. Discovery and Settlement by the Northmen. A Norse Commonwealth. Development of the Saga Literature.

See NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: A. D. 860-1100.

ICELAND: A. D. 1800-1874. Political relations with Denmark.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK-ICELAND): A. D. 1849-1874.

----------ICELAND: End--------

ICELANDIC "THING," The.

See THING.

ICENI, The.

See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES; and A. D. 61.

ICONIUM, Sultans of.

See TURKS (THE SELJUKS): A. D. 1073-1092.

ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY, The.

"Of the controversies that disquieted this age [the eighth century], the greatest and the most pernicious related to the worship of sacred images. Originating in Greece, it thence spread over the East, and the West, producing great harm both to the state and to the church. The first sparks of it appeared under Phillippicus Bardanes, who was emperor of the Greeks near the beginning of this century. With the consent of the patriarch John, in the year 712, he removed from the portico of the church of St. Sophia a picture representing the sixth general council, which condemned the Monothelites, whom the emperor was disposed to favour; and he sent his mandate to Rome, requiring all such pictures to be removed out of the churches. But Constantine, the Roman pontiff, not only protested against the emperor's edict, but … , having assembled a council at Rome, he caused the emperor himself to be condemned as an apostate from the true religion. These first commotions, however, terminated the next year, when the emperor was hurled from the throne. Under Leo the Isaurian, a very heroic emperor, another conflict ensued; which was far more terrific, severe, and lasting. Leo, unable to bear with the extravagant superstition of the Greeks in worshipping religious images, which rendered them a reproach both to the Jews and the Saracens; in order to extirpate the evil entirely, issued an edict in the year 726, commanding all images of saints, with the exception of that of Christ on the cross, to be removed out of the churches, and the worship of them to be wholly discontinued and abrogated. {1693} … A civil war broke out; first in the islands of the Archipelago and a part of Asia, and afterwards in Italy. For the people, either spontaneously, or being so instructed by the priests and monks, to whom the images were productive of gain, considered the emperor as an apostate from true religion. … In Italy, the Roman pontiffs, Gregory II. and Gregory III., were the principal authors of the revolt. … The Romans and the other people of Italy who were subjects of the Greek empire, violated their allegiance, and either massacred or expelled the viceroys of Leo. Exasperated by these causes, the emperor contemplated making war upon Italy, and especially upon the pontiff: but circumstances prevented him. Hence in the year 730, fired with resentment and indignation, he vented his fury against images and their worshippers, much more violently than before. For having assembled a council of bishops, he deposed Germanus, bishop of Constantinople, who favoured images, and substituted Anastasius in his place; commanded that images should be committed to the flames, and inflicted various punishments upon the advocates of them. The consequence of this severity was, that the Christian church was unhappily rent into two parties; that of the Iconoduli or Iconolatrae, who adored and worshipped images, and that of the Iconomachi or Iconoclastae, who would not preserve but destroyed them; and these parties furiously contended with mutual invectives, abuses, and assassinations. The course commenced by Gregory II. was warmly prosecuted by Gregory III., and although we cannot determine at this distance of time the precise degree of fault in either of these prelates, thus much is unquestionable, that the loss of their Italian possessions in this contest by the Greeks, is to be ascribed especially to the zeal of these two pontiffs in behalf of images. Leo's son Constantine, surnamed Copronymus by the furious tribe of Image-worshippers, after he came to the throne, A. D. 741, trod in his father's steps; for he laboured with equal vigour to extirpate the worship of images, in opposition to the machinations of the Roman pontiff and the monks. Yet he pursued the business with more moderation than his father had done: and being, aware that the Greeks were governed entirely by the authority of councils in religious matters, he collected a council of eastern bishops at Constantinople in the year 754, to examine and decide this controversy. By the Greeks this is called the seventh general council. The bishops pronounced sentence, as was customary, according to the views of the emperor; and therefore condemned images. … Leo IV., who succeeded to the throne on the death of Constantine, A. D. 775, entertained the same views as his father and grandfather. For when he saw, that the abettors of images were not to be moved at all by mild and gentle measures, he coerced them with penal statutes. But Leo IV. being removed by poison, through the wickedness of his perfidious wife Irene, in the year 780, images became triumphant. For that guilty woman, who governed the empire during the minority of her son Constantine, with a view to establish her authority, after entering into a league with Hadrian the Roman pontiff, assembled a council at Nice in Bithynia in the year 786, which is known by the title of the second. Nicene council. Here the laws of the emperors, together with the decrees of the council of Constantinople, were abrogated; the worship of images and of the cross was established. … In these contests most of the Latins,—as the Britons, the Germans, and the French, took middle ground between the contending parties; for they decided, that images were to be retained indeed, and to be placed in the churches, but that no religious worship could be offered to them without dishonouring the Supreme Being. In particular Charlemagne, at the suggestion of the French bishops who were displeased with the Nicene decrees, caused four Books concerning images to be drawn up by some learned man, and sent them in the year 790 to the Roman pontiff Hadrian, with a view to prevent his approving the decrees of Nice. In this work, the arguments of the Nicene bishops in defence of image-worship, are acutely and vigorously combated. But Hadrian was not to be taught by such a master, however illustrious, and therefore issued his formal confutation of the book. Charlemagne next assembled, in the year 794, a council of 300 bishops, at Frankfort on the Maine, in order to re-examine this controversy. This council approved the sentiments contained in the Books of Charlemagne, and forbid the worship of images."

J. L. von Mosheim, Institutes of Ecclesiastical History, book 3, century 8, part 2, chapter 3 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: P. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, volume 4, chapter 10, section 101.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 49.

G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine Empire, book 1.

H. F. Tozer, The Church and the Eastern Empire, chapter 6.

See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 728-774.

ICONOCLASTS OF THE NETHERLANDS.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1566-1568.

ICTIS.

An island off the coast of Britain, to which tin is said to have been brought from the main shore by natives to be sold to Greek merchants. Whether it was the Isle of Thanet, at the mouth of the Thames, or the Isle of Wight, or St. Michael's Mount, is a disputed question.

IDA, Mount.

See TROJA.

----------IDAHO: Start--------

IDAHO: The Aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.

IDAHO: A. D. 1803. Was it embraced in the Louisiana Purchase? Grounds of American possession.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

IDAHO: A. D. 1863. Organized as a Territory.

The Territory of Idaho was created by an act of Congress passed March 3, 1863.

IDAHO: A. D. 1890. Admission to the Union as a State.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1889-1890.

----------IDAHO: End--------

IDES.

See CALENDAR, JULIAN.

IDLE, Battle of the.

Fought A. D. 617, between the East English, or East Angles, and the Northumbrians; the former victorious.

IDOMENE, Battle of.

One of the battles of the Peloponnesian War, in which the Ambrakiots were surprised and almost totally destroyed by Messenians and Akarnanians, under the Athenian general Demosthenes, B. C. 426.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 51 (volume 6).

IDSTEDT, Battle of (1850).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.

IDUMEANS, The.

See EDOMITES.

IERNE.

See IRELAND: THE NAME.

{1694}

IGANIE, Battle of (1831).

See POLAND: A. D. 1830-1832.

IGUALA, The Plan of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1820-1826.

IGUALADA, Battle of (1809).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH).

IKENILD-STRETE.

See ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

ILA. ILARCH.

The Spartan boys were divided into companies, according to their several ages; each company was called an Ila, and was commanded by a young officer called an Ilarch.

G. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 1.

ILERDA.

Modern Lerida, in Spain, the scene of Cæsar's famous campaign against Afranius and Petreius, in the civil war.

See ROME: B. C. 49.

ILIAD, The.

See HOMER.

ILIUM.

See TROJA.

ILKHANS, The.

See PERSIA: A. D. 1258-1393.

ILLINOIA, The proposed State of.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.

----------ILLINOIS: Start--------

ILLINOIS: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALLEGHANS, ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and ILLINOIS.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1673. Traversed by Marquette and Joliet.

See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1679-1682. LaSalle's fort and colony.

See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1679-1735. The French occupation.

See CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1700-1750. The "Illinois country" under the French.

"For many years the term 'Illinois country' embraced all the region east of the Upper Mississippi as far as Lake Michigan, and from the Wisconsin on the north to the Ohio on the south. The extent of the Illinois country under the French varied but little from the extent of the present State of Illinois. At a later date, its limits on the east were restricted by the 'Wabash country,' which was erected into a separate government, under the commandant of 'Post St. Vincent,'on the Wabash River. … The early French on the Illinois were remarkable for their talent of ingratiating themselves with the warlike tribes around them, and for their easy amalgamation in manners and customs, and blood. … Their settlements were usually in the form of small, compact, patriarchal villages, like one great family assembled around their old men and patriarchs."

J. W. Monette, History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, volume 1, pages 181-183.

See, also, LOUISIANA: A. D. 1719-1750.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1751. Settlements and population.

"Up to this time, the 'Illinois country,' east of the Upper Mississippi, contained six distinct settlements, with their respective villages. These were:

1. Cahokia, near the mouth of Cahokia Creek, and nearly five miles below the present site of St. Louis;

2. St. Philip, forty-five miles below the last, and four miles above Fort Chartres, on the cast side of the Mississippi;

3. Fort Chartres, on the east bank of the Mississippi, twelve miles above Kaskaskia;

4. Kaskaskia, situated upon the Kaskaskia River, five miles above its mouth, upon a peninsula, and within two miles of the Mississippi River;

5. Prairie du Rocher, near Fort Chartres;

6. St. Geneviève, on the west side of the Mississippi, and about one mile from its bank, upon Gabarre Creek.

These are among the oldest towns in what was long known as the Illinois country. Kaskaskia, in its best days, under the French regime, was quite a large town, containing 2,000 or 3,000 inhabitants. But after it passed from the crown of France, its population for many years did not exceed 1,500 souls. Under the British dominion the population decreased to 460 souls, in 1773."

J. W. Monette, History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Mississippi Valley, volume 1, pages 167-168.

"The population of the French and Indian villages in the district of the Illinois, at the period of which we write, is largely a matter of conjecture and computation. Father Louis Vivier, a Jesuit missionary, in a letter dated June 8, 1750, and written from the vicinity of Fort Chartres, says: 'We have here whites, negroes, and Indians, to say nothing of the cross-breeds. There are five French villages, and three villages of the natives within a space of twenty-five leagues, situate between the Mississippi and another river called (Kaskaskia). In the French villages are, perhaps, eleven hundred whites, three hundred blacks, and sixty red slaves or savages. The three Illinois towns do not contain more than eight hundred souls, all told.' This estimate does not include the scattered French settlers or traders north of Peoria, nor on the Wabash. It is stated that the Illinois nation, then dwelling for the most part along the river of that name, occupied eleven different villages, with four or five fires at each village, and each fire warming a dozen families, except at the principal village, where there were three hundred lodges. These data would give us something near eight thousand as the total number of the Illinois of all tribes."

J. Wallace, History of Illinois and Louisiana under the French Rule, chapter 16.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1763. Cession to Great Britain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1763. The king's proclamation excluding settlers.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1765. Possession taken by the English.

"The French officers had, since the peace, been ready loyally to surrender the country to the English. But the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Osage tribes would not consent. At a council held in the spring of 1765, at Fort Chartres, the chief of the Kaskaskias, turning to the English officer, said: 'Go hence, and tell your chief that the Illinois and all our brethren will make war on you if you come upon our lands.' … But when Fraser, who arrived from Pittsburg, brought proofs that their elder brothers, the Senecas, the Delawares and the Shawnees, had made peace with the English, the Kaskaskias said: 'We follow as they shall lead.' 'I waged this war,' said Pontiac, 'because, for two years together, the Delawares and Shawnees begged me to take up arms against the English. So I became their ally, and was of their mind;' and, plighting his word for peace, he kept it with integrity. A just curiosity may ask how many persons of foreign lineage had gathered in the valley of the Illinois since its discovery by the missionaries. Fraser was told that there were of white men, able to bear arms, 700; of white women, 500; of their children, 850; of negroes of both sexes, 900. The banks of the Wabash, we learn from another source, were occupied by about 110 French families, most of which were at Vincennes. {1695} Fraser sought to overawe the French traders with the menace of an English army that was to come among them; but they pointed to the Mississippi, beyond which they would be safe from English jurisdiction [France having ceded to Spain her territory on the western side of the river]. … With Croghan, an Indian agent, who followed from Fort Pitt, the Illinois nations agreed that the English should take possession of all the posts which the French formerly held; and Captain Stirling, with 100 men of the 42d regiment, was detached down the Ohio, to relieve the French garrison. At Fort Chartres, St. Ange, who had served for fifty years in the wilderness, gave them a friendly reception; and on the morning of the 10th of October he surrendered to them the left bank of the Mississippi. Some of the French crossed the river, so that at St. Genevieve there were at least five-and-twenty families, while St. Louis, whose origin dates from the 15th of February 1764, and whose skilfully chosen site attracted the admiration of the British commander, already counted about twice that number, and ranked as the leading settlement on the western side of the Mississippi. In the English portion of the distant territory, the government then instituted was the absolute rule of the British army, with a local judge to decide all disputes among the inhabitants according to the customs of the country, yet subject to an appeal to the military chief."

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), volume 3, pages 151-152.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1765-1774. Early years of English rule.

"Just before and during the first years of the English domination, there was a large exodus of the French inhabitants from Illinois. Such, in fact, was their dislike of British rule that fully one-third of the population, embracing the wealthier and more influential families, removed with their slaves and other personal effects, beyond the Mississippi, or down that river to Natchez and New Orleans. Some of them settled at Ste. Genevieve, while others, after the example set by St. Ange, took up their abode in the village of St. Louis, which had now become a depot for the fur company of Louisiana. … At the close of the year 1765, the whole number of inhabitants of foreign birth or lineage, in Illinois, excluding the negro slaves, and including those living at Post Vincent on the Wabash, did not much exceed two thousand persons; and, during the entire period of British possession, the influx of alien population hardly more than kept pace with the outflow. Scarcely any Englishmen, other than the officers and troops composing the small garrisons, a few enterprising traders and some favored land speculators, were then to be seen in the Illinois, and no Americans came hither, for the purpose of settlement, until after the conquest of the country by Colonel Clark. All the settlements still remained essentially French, with whom there was no taste for innovation or change. But the blunt and sturdy Anglo-American had at last gained a firm foot-hold on the banks of the great Father of Rivers, and a new type of civilization, instinct with energy, enterprise and progress, was about to be introduced into the broad and fertile Valley of the Mississippi. … Captain Thomas Stirling began the military government of the country on October 10, 1765, with fair and liberal concessions, calculated to secure the good-will and loyalty of the French-Canadians, and to stay their further exodus; but his administration was not of long duration. On the 4th of the ensuing December, he was succeeded by Major Robert Farmer, who had arrived from Mobile with a detachment of the 34th British infantry. In the following year, after exercising an arbitrary authority over these isolated and feeble settlements, Major Farmer was displaced by Colonel Edward Cole, who had commanded a regiment under Wolfe, at Quebec. Colonel Cole remained in command at Fort Chartres about eighteen months; but the position was not congenial to him. … He was accordingly relieved at his own request, early in the year 1768. His successor was Colonel John Reed, who proved a bad exchange for the poor colonists. He soon became so notorious for his military oppressions of the people that he was removed, and gave place to Lieutenant-Colonel John Wilkins, of the 18th, or royal regiment of Ireland, who had formerly commanded at Fort Niagara. Colonel Wilkins arrived from Philadelphia and assumed the command September 5, 1768. He brought out with him seven companies of his regiment for garrison duty. … One of the most noticeable features of Colonel Wilkins' administration was the liberality with which he parceled out large tracts of the domain over which he ruled to his favorites in Illinois, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, without other consideration than requiring them to re-convey to him a certain interest in the same. Lieutenant Colonel Wilkins' government of the Illinois country eventually became unpopular, and specific charges were preferred against him, including a misappropriation of the public funds. He asked for an official investigation, claiming that he was able to justify his public conduct. But he was deposed from office in September, 1771, and sailed for Europe in July of the following year. Captain Hugh Lord, of the 18th regiment, became Wilkins' successor at Fort Chartres, and continued in command until the year 1775. … On the 2d of June, 1774, Parliament passed an act enlarging and extending the province of Quebec to the Mississippi River so as to include the territory of the Northwest. … Who was the immediate successor of Captain Lord in command of the Illinois is not positively determined."

J. Wallace, History of Illinois and Louisiana Under the French Rule, chapter 20.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1774. Embraced in the Province of Quebec.

See CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1778-1779. Conquest from the British by the Virginian General Clark and annexation to the Kentucky District of Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779, CLARK'S CONQUEST.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1784. Included in the proposed states of Assenisipia, Illinoia, and Polypotamia.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1785-1786. Partially covered by the western land claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut, ceded to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1787. The Ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory. Perpetual exclusion of Slavery.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1809. Detached from Indiana and organized as a distinct Territory.

See INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818.

{1696}

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1818. Admission into the Union as a State.

See INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818; and WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1832. The Black Hawk War.

"In 1830 a treaty was made with the tribes of Sacs and Foxes, by which their lands in Illinois were ceded to the United States. They were nevertheless unwilling to leave their country. … Black Hawk, a chief of the Sacs, then about 60 years of age, refused submission, and the next year returned with a small force. He was driven back by the troops at Rock Island, but in March, 1832, he reappeared, at the head of about 1,000 warriors,—Sacs, Foxes, and Winnebagos,—and penetrated into the Rock river valley, declaring that he came only to plant corn. But either he would not or could not restrain his followers, and the devastation of Indian warfare soon spread among the frontier settlements. … The force at Rock Island was sent out to stay these ravages, and Generals Scott and Atkinson ordered from Buffalo with a reënforcement, which on the way was greatly diminished by cholera and desertions. The Governor of Illinois called for volunteers, and an effective force of about 2,400 men was soon marched against the enemy. Black Hawk's band fled before it. General Whiteside, who was in command, burned the Prophet's Town, on Rock River, and pursued the Indians up that stream. … The Indians were overtaken and badly defeated on Wisconsin River; and the survivors, still retreating northward, were again overtaken near Bad Axe River, on the left bank of the Mississippi. … Many of the Indians were shot in the water while trying to swim the stream; others were killed on a little island where they sought refuge. Only about 50 prisoners were taken, and most of these were squaws and children. The dispersion was complete, and the war was soon closed by the surrender or capture of Black Hawk, Keokuk, and other chiefs."

W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the United States, volume 4, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: T. Ford, History of Illinois, chapters 4-5.

J. B. Patterson, editor, History of Black Hawk, dictated by himself. Wisconsin Historical Society Collections, volume 10.

ILLINOIS: A. D. 1840-1846. The settlement and the expulsion of the Mormons.

See MORMONISM: A. D. 1830-1846; and 1846-1848.

----------ILLINOIS: End--------

ILLUMINATI, The.

See ROSICRUCIANS.

ILLYRIA, Slavonic settlement of.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 7TH CENTURY (SERVIA, CROATIA, ETC.).

ILLYRIAN PROVINCES OF NAPOLEON.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

ILLYRIANS, The.

"Northward of the tribes called Epirotic lay those more numerous and widely extended tribes who bore the general name of Illyrians, bounded on the west by the Adriatic, on the east by the mountain-range of Skardus, the northern continuation of Pindus, and thus covering what is now called Middle and Upper Albania, together with the more northerly mountains of Montenegro, Herzegovina, and Bosnia. Their limits to the north and north-east cannot be assigned. … Appian and others consider the Liburnians and Istrians as Illyrian, and Herodotus even includes under that name the Eneti or Veneti at the extremity of the Adriatic Gulf. … The Illyrians generally were poor, rapacious, fierce and formidable in battle. They shared with the remote Thracian tribes the custom of tattooing their bodies and of offering human sacrifices: moreover, they were always ready to sell their military service for hire, like the modern Albanian Schkipetars, in whom probably their blood yet flows, though with considerable admixture from subsequent immigrations. Of the Illyrian kingdom on the Adriatic coast, with Skodra (Scutari) for its capital city, which became formidable by its reckless piracies in the third century B. C., we hear nothing in the flourishing period of Grecian history."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 25 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 6.

ILLYRICUM OF THE ROMANS.

"The provinces of the Danube soon acquired the general appellation of Illyricum, or the Illyrian frontier, and were esteemed the most warlike of the empire; but they deserve to be more particularly considered under the names of Rhætia, Noricum, Pannonia, Dalmatia, Dacia, Mœsia, Thrace, Macedonia, and Greece. … Dalmatia, to which the name of Illyricum more properly belonged, was a long but narrow tract, between the Save and the Adriatic. … The inland parts have assumed the Sclavonian names of Croatia and Bosnia."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 1.

See, also, ROME: A. D. 394-305.

IMAGE-BREAKING IN THE NETHERLANDS.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1566-1568.

IMAMS. THE IMAMATE.

"When an assembly of Moslems meet together for prayer, an Imam is chosen, who leads the prayer, and the congregation regulate their motions by his, prostrating themselves when he does so, and rising when he rises. In like manner, the khalif is set up on high as the Imam, or leader of the Faithful, in all the business of life. He must be a scrupulous observer of the law himself, and diligent in enforcing it upon others. The election of an Imam is imperative. … The qualities requisite in an Imam are four: knowledge, integrity, mental and physical soundness. … Among strict Moslems, it is a doctrine that Islam has been administered by only four veritable Imams—the 'rightly-guided khalifs': Abou Bekr, Omar, Othman, and Ali. But the Muhammadan world, in general, was not so exacting. They recognized the Commander of the Faithful in the prince who ruled with the title of khalif in Damascus or Baghdad, in Cordova or Kairo. The one condition absolutely essential was that the sovereign thus reigning should be a member of the tribe of Kuraish [or Koreish]."

R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Khalifs of Baghdad, part 3, chapter 1.

See, also, ISLAM.

IMMACULATE CONCEPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY, Promulgation of the Dogma of the.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1854.

IMMÆ, Battle of (A. D. 217).

See ROME: A. D. 192-284.

IMMORTALS, The.

A select corps of cavalry in the army of the Persians, under the Sassanian kings, bore this name. It numbered 10,000.

----------IMPEACHMENT: Start--------

IMPEACHMENT: Acquisition of the right by the English House of Commons.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1413-1422.

{1697}

IMPEACHMENT: Revival of the right.

In the English Parliament of 1620-21 (reign of James I.), "on the motion of the Ex-Chief Justice, Sir Edward Coke, a committee of inquiry into grievances had been early appointed. The first abuse to which their attention was directed was that of monopolies, and this led to the revival of the ancient right of parliamentary impeachment—the solemn accusation of an individual by the Commons at the bar of the Lords—which had lain dormant since the impeachment of the Duke of Suffolk in 1449. Under the Tudors impeachments had fallen into disuse, partly through the subservience of the Commons, and partly through the preference of those sovereigns for bills of attainder, or of pains and penalties. Moreover, the power wielded by the Crown through the Star Chamber enabled it to inflict punishment for many state offences without resorting to the assistance of Parliament. With the revival of the spirit of liberty in the reign of James I., the practice of impeachment revived also, and was energetically used by the Commons in the interest alike of public justice and of popular power."

T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History, chapter 13.

----------IMPEACHMENT: End--------

IMPEACHMENTS: Warren Hastings.

See INDIA: A. D. 1785-1795.

President Johnson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868 (MARCH-MAY)

Strafford.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1641.

----------IMPERATOR: Start--------

IMPERATOR.

"There can be no doubt that the title Imperator properly signifies one invested with Imperium, and it may very probably have been assumed in ancient times by every general on whom Imperium had been bestowed by a Lex Curiata. It is, however, equally certain, that in those periods of the republic with the history and usages of which we are most familiar, the title Imperator was not assumed as a matter of course by those who had received Imperium, but was, on the contrary, a much valued and eagerly coveted distinction. Properly speaking, it seems to have been in the gift of the soldiers, who hailed their victorious leader by this appellation on the field of battle; but occasionally, especially towards the end of the commonwealth, it was conferred by a vote of the Senate. … But the designation Imperator was employed under the empire in a manner and with a force altogether distinct from that which we have been considering. On this point we have the distinct testimony of Dion Cassius (xliii. 44, comp. liii. 17), who tells us that, in B. C. 46, the Senate bestowed upon Julius Cæsar the title of Imperator, not in the sense in which it had hitherto been applied, as a term of military distinction, but as the peculiar and befitting appellation of supreme power, and in this signification it was transmitted to his successors, without, however, suppressing the original import of the word. … Imperator, when used to denote supreme power, comprehending in fact the force of the titles Dictator and Rex, is usually, although not invariably, placed before the name of the individual to whom it is applied."

W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 5.

See, also, ROME: B. C. 45-44.

IMPERATOR: Final Signification of the Roman title.

"When the Roman princes had lost sight of the senate and of their ancient capital, they easily forgot the origin and nature of their legal power. The civil offices of consul, of proconsul, of censor, and of tribune, by the union of which it had been formed, betrayed to the people its republican extraction. Those modest titles were laid aside; and if they still distinguished their high station by the appellation of Emperor, or Imperator, that word was understood in a new and more dignified sense, and no longer denoted the general of the Roman armies, but the sovereign of the Roman world. The name of Emperor, which was at first of a military nature, was associated with another of a more servile kind. The epithet of Dominus, or Lord, in its primitive signification, was expressive, not of the authority of a prince over his subjects, or of a commander over his soldiers, but of the despotic power of a master over his domestic slaves. Viewing it in that odious light, it had been rejected with abhorrence by the first Cæsars. Their resistance insensibly became more feeble, and the name less odious; till at length the style of 'our Lord and Emperor' was not only bestowed by flattery, but was regularly admitted into the laws and public monuments."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 13.

See ROME: B. C. 31-A. D. 14.

----------IMPERATOR: End--------

IMPERIAL CHAMBER, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.

IMPERIAL CITIES OF GERMANY.

See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY; and (as affected by the Treaties of Westphalia) GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

IMPERIAL FEDERATION.

See FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: BRITANNIC FEDERATION.

IMPERIAL INDICTIONS.

See INDICTIONS.

IMPERIUM, The.

"The supreme authority of the magistrates [in the Roman Republic], the 'imperium,' embraced not only the military but also the judicial power over the citizens. By virtue of the imperium a magistrate issued commands to the army, and by virtue of the imperium he sat in judgment over his fellow-citizens."

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 6, chapter 5 (volume 4).

IMPEY, Sir Elijah, Macaulay's injustice to.

See INDIA: A. D. 1773-1785.

IMPORTANTS, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643.

IMPRESSMENT OF AMERICAN SEAMEN BY BRITISH NAVAL OFFICERS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809; and 1812.

INCAS, OR YNCAS, The.

See PERU: THE EMPIRE OF THE INCAS.

INCUNABULA.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1430-1456.

INDEPENDENCE, MO., Confederate capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

INDEPENDENCE DAY.

The anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence, adopted July 4, 1776.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).

INDEPENDENCE HALL. The Liberty Bell.

The hall in the old State House of Pennsylvania, at Philadelphia, within which the Declaration of American Independence was adopted and promulgated by the Continental Congress, on the 4th of July, 1776. The venerable State House, which was erected between 1729 and 1734, is carefully preserved, and the "Hall of Independence is kept closed, except when curious visitors seek entrance, or some special occasion opens its doors to the public. {1698} Nothing now remains of the old furniture of the hall except two antique mahogany chairs, covered with red leather, one of which was used by Hancock as president, and the other by Charles Thomson as secretary of Congress, when the Declaration of Independence was adopted. … I ascended to the steeple, where hangs, in silent grandeur, the Liberty Bell. It is four feet in diameter at the lip, and three inches thick at the heaviest part. Its tone is destroyed by a crack, which extends from the lip to the crown, passing directly through the names of the persons who cast it. An attempt was made to restore the tone by sawing the crack wider, but without success. … The history of this bell is interesting. In 1752, a bell for the State House was imported from England. On the first trial-ringing, after its arrival, it was cracked. It was recast by Pass and Stow, of Philadelphia, in 1753, under the direction of Isaac Norris, Esq., the then speaker of the Colonial Assembly. And that is the bell, 'the greatest in English America,' which now hangs in the old State House steeple and claims our reverence. Upon fillets around its crown, cast there twenty-three years before the Continental Congress met in the State House, are the words of Holy Writ: 'Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.' How prophetic! Beneath that very bell the representatives of the thirteen colonies 'proclaimed liberty.' Ay, and when the debates were ended, and the result was announced, on the 4th of July, 1776, the iron tongue of that very bell first 'proclaimed liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof,' by ringing out the joyful annunciation for more than two hours."

B. J. Lossing, Field-book of the Revolution, volume 2, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: J. T. Scharf and T. Westcott, History of Philadelphia, volume I, chapters 15 and 17.

INDEPENDENT REPUBLICANS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1884.

----------INDEPENDENTS: Start--------

INDEPENDENTS, OR SEPARATISTS: Their origin and opinions.

"The Puritans continued members of the church, only pursuing courses of their own in administering the ordinances, and it was not till about the middle of the reign of Elizabeth that the disposition was manifested among them to break away from the church altogether, and to form communities of their own. And then it was but a few of them who took this course: the more sober part remained in the church. The communities of persons who separated themselves were formed chiefly in London: there were very few in the distant counties, and those had no long continuance. It was not till the time of the Civil Wars that such bodies of Separatists, as they were called, or Congregationalists, or Independents, became numerous. At first they were often called Brownist churches, from Robert Brown, a divine of the time, who was for a while a zealous maintainer of the duty of separation."

J. Hunter, The Founders of New Plymouth, pages 12-13.

"The peculiar tenet of Independency … consists in the belief that the only organization recognised in the primitive Church was that of the voluntary association of believers into local congregations, each choosing its own office-bearers and managing its own affairs, independently of neighbouring congregations, though willing occasionally to hold friendly conferences with such neighbouring congregations, and to profit by the collective advice. Gradually, it is asserted, this right or habit of occasional friendly conference between neighbouring congregations had been mismanaged and abused, until the true independency of each voluntary society of Christians was forgotten, and authority came to be vested in Synods or Councils of the office-bearers of the churches of a district or province. This usurpation of power by Synods or Councils, it is said, was as much a corruption of the primitive Church-discipline as was Prelacy itself. … So, I believe, though with varieties of expression, English Independents argue now. But, while they thus seek the original warrant for their clews in the New Testament and in the practice of the primitive Church, … they admit that the theory of Independency had to be worked out afresh by a new process of the English mind in the 16th and 17th centuries, and they are content, I believe, that the crude immediate beginning of that process should be sought in the opinions propagated, between 1580 and 1590, by the erratic Robert Brown, a Rutlandshire man, bred at Cambridge, who had become a preacher at Norwich. … Though Brown himself had vanished from public view since 1590, the Brownists, or Separatists, as they were called, had persisted in their course, through execration and persecution, as a sect of outlaws beyond the pale of ordinary Puritanism, and with whom moderate Puritans disowned connexion or sympathy. One hears of considerable numbers of them in the shires of Norfolk and Essex, and throughout Wales; and there was a central association of them in London, holding conventicles in the fields, or shifting from meeting-house to meeting-house in the suburbs, so as to elude Whitgift's ecclesiastical police. At length, in 1592, the police broke in upon one of the meetings of the London Brownists at Islington. … There ensued a vengeance far more ruthless than the Government dared against Puritans in general. Six of the leaders were brought to the scaffold. … Among the observers of these severities was Francis Bacon, then rising into eminence as a politician and lawyer. His feeling on the subject was thus expressed at the time: 'As for those which we call Brownists, being, when they were at the most, a very small number of very silly and base people here and there in corners dispersed, they are now (thanks be to God), by the good remedies that have been used, suppressed and worn out, so as there is scarce any news of them.' … Bacon was mistaken in supposing that Brownism was extinguished. Hospitable Holland received and sheltered what England cast out."

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 2, book 4, sections 1-2.

"The name 'Brownist' had never been willingly borne by most of those who had accepted the distinguishing doctrine of the heresiarch to whom it related. Nor was it without reason that a distinction was alleged, and a new name preferred, when, relaxing the offensive severity of Brown's system, some who had adopted his tenet of the absolute independence of churches came to differ from him respecting the duty of avoiding and denouncing dissentients from it as rebellious, apostate, blasphemous, antichristian and accursed. {1699} To this amendment of 'Brownism' the mature reflections and studies of the excellent Robinson of Leyden conducted him; and with reference to it he and his followers were sometimes called 'Semi-separatists.' Such a deference to reason and to charity gave a new position and attractiveness to the sect, and appears to have been considered as entitling Robinson to the character of 'father of the Independents.' Immediately on the meeting of the Long Parliament [1640], 'the Brownists, or Independents, who had assembled in private, and shifted from house to house for twenty or thirty years, resumed their courage, and showed themselves in public.' During this period of the obscurity of a sect which, when arrived at its full vigor, was to give law to the mother country, the history of the progress of its principles is mainly to be sought in New England. … Their opponents and their votaries alike referred to Massachusetts as the source of the potent element which had made its appearance in the religious politics of England."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, book 2, chapter 2 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: D. Neal, History of the Puritans, volume 2, chapters 1, 2 and 7.

L. Bacon, Genesis of the New England Churches.

B. Hanbury, Historical Memorials of the Independents, volume 1.

G. Punchard, History of Congregationalism, volume 3.

H. M. Dexter, The Congregationalism of the last 300 Years, lectures 1-5.

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1638-1640, and PURITANS: IN DISTINCTION FROM THE INDEPENDENTS, OR SEPARATISTS.

INDEPENDENTS: A. D. 1604-1617. The church at Scrooby and its migration to Holland.

"The flimsiness of Brown's moral texture prevented him from becoming the leader in the Puritan exodus to New England. That honour was reserved for William Brewster, son of a country gentleman who had for many years been postmaster at Scrooby." After King James' Hampton Court Conference with the Puritan divines, in 1604, and his threatening words to them, nonconformity began to assume among the churches more decidedly the form of secession. "The key-note of the conflict was struck at Scrooby. Staunch Puritan as he was, Brewster had not hitherto favoured the extreme measures of the Separatists. Now he withdrew from the church, and gathered together a company of men and women who met on Sunday for divine service in his own drawing-room at Scrooby Manor. In organizing this independent Congregationalist society, Brewster was powerfully aided by John Robinson, a native of Lincolnshire. Robinson was then thirty years of age, and had taken his master's degree at Cambridge in 1600. He was a man of great learning and rare sweetness of temper, and was moreover distinguished for a broad and tolerant habit of mind too seldom found among the Puritans of that day. Friendly and unfriendly writers alike bear witness to his spirit of Christian charity and the comparatively slight value which he attached to orthodoxy in points of doctrine; and we can hardly be wrong in supposing that the comparatively tolerant behaviour of the Plymouth colonists, whereby they were contrasted with the settlers of Massachusetts, was in some measure due to the abiding influence of the teachings of this admirable man. Another important member of the Scrooby congregation was William Bradford, of the neighbouring village of Austerfield, then a lad of seventeen years, but already remarkable for maturity of intelligence and weight of character, afterward governor of Plymouth for nearly thirty years, he became the historian of his colony; and to his picturesque chronicle, written in pure and vigorous English, we are indebted for most that we know of the migration that started from Scrooby and ended in Plymouth. It was in 1606—two years after King James's truculent threat—that this independent church of Scrooby was organized. Another year had not elapsed before its members had suffered so much at the hands of officers of the law, that they began to think of following the example of former heretics and escaping to Holland. After an unsuccessful attempt in the autumn of 1607, they at length succeeded a few months later in accomplishing their flight to Amsterdam, where they hoped to find a home. But here they found the English exiles who had preceded them so fiercely involved in doctrinal controversies, that they decided to go further in search of peace and quiet: This decision, which we may ascribe to Robinson's wise counsels, served to keep the society of Pilgrims from getting divided and scattered. They reached Leyden in 1609, just as the Spanish government had sullenly abandoned the hopeless task of conquering the Dutch, and had granted to Holland the Twelve Years Truce. During eleven of these twelve years the Pilgrims remained in Leyden, supporting themselves by various occupations, while their numbers increased from 300 to more than 1,000. … In spite of the relief from persecution, however, the Pilgrims were not fully satisfied with their new home. The expiration of the truce with Spain might prove that this relief was only temporary; and at any rate, complete toleration did not fill the measure of their wants. Had they come to Holland as scattered bands of refugees, they might have been absorbed into the Dutch population, as Huguenot refugees have been absorbed in Germany, England, and America. But they had come as an organized community, and absorption into a foreign nation was something to be dreaded. They wished to preserve their English speech and English traditions, keep up their organization, and find some favoured spot where they might lay the corner-stone of a great Christian state. The spirit of nationality was strong in them; the spirit of self-government was strong in them; and the only thing which could satisfy these feelings was such a migration as had not been seen since ancient times, a migration like that of Phokaians to Massilia or Tyrians to Carthage. It was too late in the world's history to carry out such a scheme upon European soil. Every acre of territory there was appropriated. The only favourable outlook was upon the Atlantic coast of America, where English cruisers had now successfully disputed the pretensions of Spain, and where after forty years of disappointment and disaster a flourishing colony had at length been founded in Virginia."

J. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: G. Punchard, History of Congregationalism, volume 1, chapters 12-15.

G. Sumner, Memoirs of the Pilgrims at Leyden (Massachusetts Historical Society Collection, 3d series, volume 9).

A. Steele, Life and Time of Brewster, chapters 8-14.

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, chapter 17 (volume 2).

{1700}

INDEPENDENTS: A. D. 1617-1620. Preparations for the exodus to New England.

"'Upon their talk of removing, sundry of the Dutch would have them go under them, and made them large offers'; but an inborn love for the English nation and for their mother tongue led them to the generous purpose of recovering the protection of England by enlarging her dominions. They were 'restless' with the desire to remove to 'the most northern parts of Virginia,' hoping, under the general government of that province, 'to live in a distinct body by themselves.' To obtain the consent of the London Company, John Carver, with Robert Cushman, in 1617, repaired to England. They took with them 'seven articles,' from the members of the church at Leyden, to be submitted to the council in England for Virginia. These articles discussed the relations which, as separatists in religion, they bore to their prince; and they adopted the theory which the admonitions of Luther and a century of persecution had developed as the common rule of plebeian sectaries on the continent of Europe. They expressed their concurrence in the creed of the Anglican church, and a desire of spiritual communion with its members. Toward the king and all civil authority derived from him, including the civil authority of bishops, they promised, as they would have done to Nero and the Roman pontifex, 'obedience in all things, active if the thing commanded be not against God's word, or passive if it be.' They denied all power to ecclesiastical bodies, unless it were given by the temporal magistrate. … The London company listened very willingly to their proposal, so that their agents 'found God going along with them'; and, through the influence of 'Sir Edwin Sandys, a religious gentleman then living,' a patent might at once have been taken, had not the envoys desired first to consult 'the multitude' at Leyden. On the 15th of December, 1617, the pilgrims transmitted their formal request, signed by the hands of the greatest part of the congregation. … The messengers of the pilgrims, satisfied with their reception by the Virginia company, petitioned the king for liberty of religion, to be confirmed under the king's broad seal. But here they encountered insurmountable difficulties. … Even while the negotiations were pending, a royal declaration constrained the Puritans of Lancashire to conform or leave the kingdom; and nothing more could be obtained for the wilds of America than an informal promise of neglect. On this the community relied, being advised not to entangle themselves with the bishops. 'If there should afterward be a purpose to wrong us,' thus they communed with themselves, 'though we had a seal as broad as the house-floor, there would be means enough found to recall or reverse it. We must rest herein on God's providence.' Better hopes seemed to dawn when, in 1619, the London company for Virginia elected for their treasurer Sir Edwin Sandys, who from the first had befriended the pilgrims. Under his presidency, so writes one of their number, the members of the company in their open court 'demanded our ends of going; which being related, they said the thing was of God, and granted a large patent.' As it was taken in the name of one who failed to accompany the expedition [Mr. John Wincob], the patent was never of any service. And, besides, the pilgrims, after investing all their own means, had not sufficient capital to execute their schemes. In this extremity, Robinson looked for aid to the Dutch. He and his people and their friends, to the number of 400 families, professed themselves well inclined to emigrate to the country on the Hudson, and to plant there a new commonwealth under the command of the stadholder and the states general. The 'West India company was willing to transport them without charge, and to furnish them with cattle; but when its directors petitioned the states general to promise protection to the enterprise against all violence from other potentates, the request was found to be in conflict with the policy of the Dutch republic, and was refused. The members of the church of Leyden, ceasing 'to meddle with the Dutch, or to depend too much on the Virginia company,' now trusted to their own resources and the aid of private friends. The fisheries had commended American expeditions to English merchants; and the agents from Leyden were able to form a partnership between their employers and men of business in London. The services of each emigrant were rated as a capital of £10, and belonged to the company; all profits were to be reserved till the end of seven years, when the whole amount, and all houses and land, gardens and fields, were to be divided among the share-holders according to their respective interests. The London merchant, who risked £100, would receive for his money tenfold as much as the penniless laborer for his services. This arrangement threatened a seven years' check to the pecuniary prosperity of the community; yet, as it did not interfere with civil rights or religion, it was accepted. And now, in July, 1620, the English at Leyden, trusting in God and in themselves, made ready for their departure."

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 1, chapter 12 (volume 1).

INDEPENDENTS: A. D. 1620. The exodus of the Pilgrims to New England.

See MASSACHUSETTS (PLYMOUTH COLONY): A. D. 1620.

INDEPENDENTS: A. D. 1646-1649. In the English Civil War.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1646 (MARCH); 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST), and after.

----------INDEPENDENTS: End--------

INDEX EXPURGATORIUS, The.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1559-1595.

----------INDIA: Start--------

INDIA. The name.

"To us … it seems natural that the whole country which is marked off from Asia by the great barrier of the Himalaya and the Suleiman range should have a single name. But it has not always seemed so. The Greeks had but a very vague idea of this country. To them for a long time the word India was for practical purposes what it was etymologically, the province of the Indus. When they say that Alexander invaded India, they refer to the Punjab. At a later time they obtained some information about the valley of the Ganges, but little or none about the Deccan. Meanwhile in India itself it did not seem so natural as it seems to us to give one name to the whole region. For there is a very marked difference between the northern and southern parts of it. {1701} The great Aryan community which spoke Sanscrit and invented Brahminism spread itself chiefly from the Punjab along the great valley of the Ganges; but not at first far southward. Accordingly the name Hindostan properly belongs to this northern region. In the South or peninsula we find other races and non-Aryan languages. … It appears then that India is not a political name, but only a geographical expression like Europe or Africa."

J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England, pages 221-222.

"The name 'Hindustan' … is not used by the natives as it has been employed by writers of books and map-makers in Europe. … The word really means 'the land of the Hindus'; the northern part of the Peninsula, distinguished from the 'Deccan,' from which it is parted by the river Narbada. … The word Hindu' is of Zend (ancient Persian) origin, and may be taken to denote 'river-people,' so named, perhaps, from having first appeared on the line of the Indus, q. d., 'the river.'"

E. G. Keene, Sketch of the History of Hindustan, page 1.

"Sinde, India, and Hindu-stan are various representatives of the same native word. 'Hindu' is the oldest known form, since it occurs in one of the most ancient portions of the Zendavesta. The Greeks and Romans sometimes called the river Sindus, instead of Indus."

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapter 1, note.

INDIA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

"Our earliest glimpses of India disclose two races struggling for the soil. The one was a fair-skinned people, which had lately entered by the north-western passes,—a people who called themselves Aryan, literally of 'noble' lineage, speaking a stately language, worshipping friendly and powerful gods. These Aryans became the Brahmans and Rajputs of India. The other race was of a lower type, who had long dwelt in the land, and whom the lordly newcomers drove back into the mountains, or reduced to servitude on the plains. The comparatively pure descendants of these two races are now nearly equal in numbers; the intermediate castes, sprung chiefly from the ruder stock, make up the mass of the present Indian population. … The victorious Aryans called the early tribes Dasyus, or 'enemies,' and Dasas, or 'slaves.' The Aryans entered India from the colder north, and prided themselves on their fair complexion. Their Sanskrit word for 'colour' (varna) came to mean 'race' or 'caste.' The old Aryan poets, who composed the Veda at least 3,000 and perhaps 4,000 years ago, praised their bright gods, who, 'slaying the Dasyus, protected the Aryan colour;' who, 'subjected the black-skin to the Aryan man.' They tell us of their own 'stormy deities, who rush on like furious bulls and scatter the black-skin.' Moreover, the Aryan, with his finely-formed features, loathed the squat Mongolian faces of the Aborigines. One Vedic poet speaks of the non-Aryans as 'noseless' or flat-nosed, while another praises his own 'beautiful-nosed' gods. … Nevertheless all the non-Aryans could not have been savages. We hear of wealthy Dasyus or non-Aryans; and the Vedic hymns speak of their 'seven castles' and 'ninety forts.' The Aryans afterwards made alliance with non-Aryan tribes; and some of the most powerful kingdoms of India were ruled by non-Aryan kings. … Let us now examine these primitive peoples as they exist at the present day. Thrust back by the Aryan invaders from the plains, they have lain hidden away in the mountains, like the remains of extinct animals found in hill-caves. India thus forms a great museum of races, in which we can study man from his lowest to his highest stages of culture. … Among the rudest fragments of mankind are the isolated Andaman islanders, or non-Aryans of the Bay of Bengal. The Arab and early European voyagers described them as dog-faced man-eaters. The English officers sent to the islands in 1855 to establish a settlement, found themselves in the midst of naked cannibals; who daubed themselves at festivals with red earth, and mourned for their dead friends by plastering themselves with dark mud. … The Anamalai hills, in Southern Madras, form the refuge of many non-Aryan tribes. The long-haired, wild-looking Puliars live on jungle products, mice, or any small animals they can catch; and worship demons. Another clan, the Mundavers, have no fixed dwellings, but wander over the innermost hills with their cattle. They shelter themselves in caves or under little leaf sheds, and seldom remain in one spot more than a year. The thick-lipped, small-bodied Kaders, 'Lords of the Hills,' are a remnant of a higher race. They live by the chase, and wield some influence over the ruder forest-folk. These hills abound in the great stone monuments (kistvaens and dolmens) which the ancient non-Aryans erected over their dead. The Nairs, or hillmen of South-Western India, still keep up the old system of polyandry, according to which one woman is the wife of several husbands, and a man's property descends not to his own sons, but to his sister's children. This system also appears among the non-Aryan tribes of the Himalayas at the opposite end of India. In the Central Provinces, the non-Aryan races form a large part of the population. In certain localities they amount to one-half of the inhabitants. Their most important race, the Gonds, have made advances in civilisation; but the wilder tribes still cling to the forest, and live by the chase. … The Maris fly from their grass-built huts on the approach of a stranger. … Farther to the north-east, in the Tributary States of Orissa, there is a poor tribe, 10,000 in number, of Juangs or Patuas, literally the 'leaf-wearers.' Until lately their women wore no clothes, but only a few strings of beads around the waist, with a bunch of leaves before and behind. … Proceeding to the northern boundary of India, we find the slopes and spurs of the Himalayas peopled by a great variety of rude non-Aryan tribes. Some of the Assam hillmen have no word for expressing distance by miles or by any land-measure, but reckon the length of a journey by the number of plugs of tobacco or pan which they chew upon the way. They hate work; and, as a rule, they are fierce, black, undersized, and ill-fed. … Many of the aboriginal tribes, therefore, remain in the same early stage of human progress as that ascribed to them by the Vedic poets more than 3,000 years ago. But others have made great advances, and form communities of a well-developed type. These higher races, like the ruder ones, are scattered over the length and breadth of India, and I must confine myself to a very brief account of two of them,—the Santals and the Kandhs. The Santals have their home among the hills which abut on the valley of the Ganges in Lower Bengal. {1702} They dwell in villages of their own, apart from the people of the plains, and number about a million. Although still clinging to many customs of a hunting forest tribe, they have learned the use of the plough, and settled down into skilful husbandmen. Each hamlet is governed by its own headman, who is supposed to be a descendant of the original founder of the village. … Until near the end of the last century, the Santals lived by plundering the adjacent plains. But under British rule they settled down into peaceful cultivators. … The Kandhs, literally 'The Mountaineers,' a tribe about 100,000 strong, inhabit the steep and forest-covered ranges which rise from the Orissa coast. Their idea of government is purely patriarchal. The family is strictly ruled by the father. The grown-up sons have no property during his life, but live in his house with their wives and children, and all share the common meal prepared by the grandmother. The head of the tribe is usually the eldest son of the patriarchal family. … The Kandh system of tillage represents a stage half way between the migratory cultivation of the ruder non-Aryan tribes and the settled agriculture of the Hindus. … Whence came these primitive peoples, whom the Aryan invaders found in the land more than 3,000 years ago, and who are still scattered over India, the fragments of a pre-historic world? Written annals they do not possess. Their traditions tell us little. But from their languages we find that they belong to three stocks. First, the Tibeto-Burman tribes, who entered India from the north-east, and still cling to the skirts of the Himalayas. Second, the Kolarians, who also seem to have entered Bengal by the north-eastern passes. They dwell chiefly along the north-eastern ranges of the three-sided tableland which covers the southern half of India. Third, the Dravidians, who appear, on the other hand, to have found their way into the Punjab by the north-western passes. They now inhabit the southern part of the three-sided tableland as far down as Cape Comorin, the southernmost point of India. As a rule, the non-Aryan races, when fairly treated, are truthful, loyal, and kind. Those in the hills make good soldiers; while even the thieving tribes of the plains can be turned into clever police. The non-Aryan castes of Madras supplied the troops which conquered Southern India for the British; and some of them fought at the battle of Plassey, which won for us Bengal. The gallant Gurkhas, a non-Aryan tribe of the Himalayas, now rank among the bravest regiments in our Indian army, and lately covered themselves with honour in Afghanistan."

W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: R. Brown, Races of Mankind, volume 4, chapter 1.

R. G. Latham, Ethnology of British Colonies and Dependencies, chapter 3.

See, also, TURANIAN RACES.

INDIA: The immigration and conquests of the Aryas. The hymns and prayers of their religion. Vedism. Brahmanism. Hinduism

"The immigration of the Aryas into India took place from the west. They stand in the closest relation to the inhabitants of the table-land of Iran, especially the inhabitants of the eastern half. These also call themselves Aryas, though among them the word becomes Airya, or Ariya, and among the Greeks Arioi. The language of the Aryas is in the closest connection with that of the Avesta, the religious books of Iran, and in very close connection with the language of the monuments of Darius and Xerxes, in the western half of that region. The religious conceptions of the Iranians and Indians exhibit striking traits of a homogeneous character. A considerable number of the names of gods, of myths, sacrifices, and customs, occurs in both nations, though the meaning is not always the same, and is sometimes diametrically opposed. Moreover, the Aryas in India are at first confined to the borders of Iran, the region of the Indus, and the Panjab. Here; in the west, the Aryas had their most extensive settlements, and their oldest monuments frequently mention the Indus, but not the Ganges. Even the name by which the Aryas denote the land to the south of the Vindhyas, Dakshinapatha (Deccan), i. e., path to the right, confirms the fact already established, that the Aryas came from the west. From this it is beyond a doubt that the Aryas, descending from the heights of Iran, first occupied the valley of the Indus and the five tributary streams, which combine and flow into the river from the north-east, and they spread as far as they found pastures and arable land, i. e., as far eastward as the desert which separates the valley of the Indus from the Ganges. The river which irrigated their land, watered their pastures, and shaped the course of their lives they called Sindhu (in Pliny, Sindus), i. e., the river. It is, no doubt, the region of the Indus, with the Panjab, which is meant in the Avesta by the land hapta hindu (hendu), i. e., the seven streams. The inscriptions of Darius call the dwellers on the Indus Idhus. These names the Greeks render by Indos and Indoi. … Products of India, and among them such as do not belong to the land of the Indus, were exported from the land about 1000 B. C., under names given to them by the Aryas, and therefore the Aryas must have been settled there for centuries previously. For this reason, and it is confirmed by facts which will appear further on, we may assume that the Aryas descended into the valley of the Indus about the year 2000 B. C., i. e., about the time when the kingdom of Elam was predominant in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, when Assyria still stood under the dominion of Babylon, and the kingdom of Memphis was ruled by the Hyksos. … The oldest evidence of the life of the Aryas, whose immigration into the region of the Indus and settlement there we have been able to fix about 2000 B. C., is given in a collection of prayers and hymns of praise, the Rigveda, i. e., 'the knowledge of thanksgiving.' It is a selection or collection of poems and invocations in the possession of the priestly families, of hymns and prayers arising in these families, and sung and preserved by them. … We can ascertain with exactness the region in which the greater number of these poems grew up. The Indus is especially the object of praise: the 'seven rivers' are mentioned as the dwelling-place of the Aryas. This aggregate of seven is made up of the Indus itself and the five streams which unite and flow into it from the east—the Vitasta, Asikni, Iravati, Vipaça, Çatadru. The seventh river is the Sarasvati, which is expressly named 'the seven-sistered.' The land of the seven rivers is, as has already been remarked, known to the Iranians. The 'Sapta sindhava' of the Rigveda are, no doubt, the hapta hendu of the Avesta, and in the form Harahvaiti, the Arachotus of the Greeks, we again find the Sarasvati in the east of the table-land of Iran. {1703} As the Yamuna and the Ganges are only mentioned in passing … and the Vindhya mountains and Narmadas are not mentioned at all, the conclusion is certain that, at the time when the songs of the Aryas were composed, the nation was confined to the land of the Panjab, though they may have already begun to move eastward beyond the valley of the Sarasvati. We gather from the songs of the Rigveda that the Aryas on the Indus were not one civic community. They were governed by a number of princes (raja). Some of these ruled on the bank of the Indus, others in the neighbourhood of the Sarasvati. They sometimes combined; they also fought not against the Dasyus only, but against each other."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 5, chapters 1-2 (volume 4).

"When the Indian branch of the Aryan family settled down in the land of the seven rivers. … now the Panjab, about the 15th century B. C., their religion was still nature-worship. It was still adoration of the forces which were everywhere in operation around them for production, destruction, and reproduction. But it was physiolatry developing itself more distinctly into forms of Theism, Polytheism, Anthropomorphism, and Pantheism. The phenomena of nature were thought of as something more than radiant beings, and something more than powerful forces. … They were addressed as kings, fathers, guardians, friends, benefactors, guests. They were invoked in formal hymns and prayers (mantras), in set metres (chandas). These hymns were composed in an early form of the Sanskrit language, at different times—perhaps during several centuries, from the 15th to the 10th B. C.—by men of light and leading (Rishis) among the Indo-Aryan immigrants, who were afterwards held in the highest veneration as patriarchal saints. Eventually the hymns were believed to have been directly revealed to, rather than composed by, these Rishis, and were then called divine knowledge (Veda), or the eternal word heard (sruti), and transmitted by them. These Mantras or hymns were arranged in three principal collections or continuous texts (Samhitas). The first and earliest was called the Hymn-veda (Rig-veda). It was a collection of 1,017 hymns, arranged for mere reading or reciting. This was the first bible of the Hindu religion, and the special bible of Vedism. … Vedism was the earliest form of the religion of the Indian branch of the great Aryan family. … Brahmanism grew out of Vedism. It taught the merging of all the forces of Nature in one universal spiritual Being—the only real Entity—which, when unmanifested and impersonal, was called Brahma (neuter); when manifested as a personal creator, was called Brahmā (masculine); and when manifested in the highest order of men, was called Brāhmana ('the Brāhmans'). Brahmanism was rather a philosophy than a religion, and in its fundamental doctrine was spiritual Pantheism. Hinduism grew out of Brahmanism. It was Brahmanism, so to speak, run to seed and spread out into a confused tangle of divine personalities and incarnations. … Yet Hinduism is distinct from Brahmanism, and chiefly in this—that it takes little account of the primordial, impersonal Being Brahma, and wholly neglects its personal manifestation Brahmā, substituting, in place of both Brahma and Brahmā., the two popular personal deities Siva and Vishnu. Be it noted, however, that the employment of the term Hinduism is wholly arbitrary and confessedly unsatisfactory. Unhappily there is no other expression sufficiently comprehensive. … Hinduism is Brahmanism modified by the creeds and superstitions of Buddhists [see below: B. C. 312—] and Non-Aryan races of all kinds, including Dravidians, Kolarians, and perhaps pre-Kolarian aborigines. It has even been modified by ideas imported from the religions of later conquering races, such as Islam and Christianity."

M. Williams, Religious Thought and Life in India, part 1, chapter 1, and introduction.

ALSO IN: R. Mitra, Indo-Aryans.

F. Max Müller, History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature.

F. Max Müller, editor, Sacred Books of the East, volume. 1, and others.

A. Barth, Religions of India.

Rig-Veda Sanhita, translated by H. H. Wilson.

See, also, ARYANS.

INDIA: 6th Century, B. C. Invasion of Darius.

See PERSIA: B. C.621-493.

INDIA: B. C. 327-312. Invasion and conquests of Alexander the Great. Expulsion of the Greeks. Rise of the empire of Chandragupta.

"The year B. C. 327 marks an important era in the history of India. More than two centuries are supposed to have elapsed since the death of Gotama Buddha. The great empire of Magadha was apparently falling into anarchy, but Brahmanism and Buddhism were still expounding their respective dogmas on the banks of the Ganges. At this juncture Alexander of Macedon was leading an army of Greeks down the Cabul river towards the river Indus, which at that time formed the western frontier of the Punjab.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 330-323.

… The design of Alexander was to conquer all the regions westward of the Indus, including the territory of Cabul, and then to cross the Indus in the neighbourhood of Attock, and march through the Punjab in a south-easterly direction, crossing all the tributary rivers on his way; and finally to pass down the valley of the Ganges and Jumna, via Delhi and Agra, and conquer the great Gangetic empire of Magadha or Pataliputra between the ancient cities of Prayaga and Gour. … After crossing the Indus, there were at least three kingdoms in the Punjab to be subdued one after the other, namely;—that of Taxiles between the Indus and the Jhelum; that of Porus the elder between the Jhelum and the Chenab; and that of Porus the younger between the Chenab and the Ravee. … When Alexander had fully established his authority in Cabul he crossed the Indus into the Punjab. Here he halted some time at the city of Taxila [Taxiles, the king, having submitted in advance], and then marched to the river Jhelum, and found that Porus the elder was encamped on the opposite bank with a large force of cavalry and infantry, together with chariots and elephants. The decisive battle which followed on the Jhelum is one of the most remarkable actions in ancient story. … Porus fought with a valour which excited the admiration of Alexander, but was at last wounded and compelled to fly. Ultimately he was induced to tender his submission. … The victory over Porus established the ascendancy of Alexander in the Punjab." It "not only decided the question between himself and Porus, but enabled him to open up a new communication with Persia, via the river Indus and the Indian Ocean. {1704} He sent out woodmen to cut timber for ship-building in the northern forests, and to float it down the Jhelum; and he founded two cities, Bukephalia and Nikæa, one on each side of the Jhelum. … Whilst the fleet was being constructed, Alexander continued his march to the Chenab, and crossed that river into the dominions of Porus the younger," who fled at his approach, and whose kingdom was made over to the elder Porus, his uncle. "Alexander next crossed the Ravee, when he was called back by" a revolt in his rear, which he suppressed. "But meantime the Macedonians had grown weary of their campaign in India. … They … resisted every attempt to lead them beyond the Sutlej; and Alexander, making a virtue of necessity, at last consulted the oracles and found that they were unfavourable to an onward movement. … He returned with his army to the Jhelum, and embarked on board the fleet with a portion of his troops, whilst the remainder of his army marched along either bank. In this manner he proceeded almost due south through the Punjab and Scinde. … At last he reached the Indian Ocean, and beheld for the first time the phenomena of the tides; and then landed his army and marched through Beloochistan towards Susa, whilst Nearchos conducted the fleet to the Persian Gulf, and finally joined him in the same city. … Alexander had invaded the Punjab during the rainy season of B. C. 327, and reached the Indian Ocean about the middle of B. C. 326. Meantime Philip remained at Taxila as his lieutenant or deputy, and commanded a garrison of mercenaries and a body-guard of Macedonians. When Alexander was marching through Beloochistan, on his way to Susa, the news reached him that Philip had been murdered by the mercenaries, but that nearly all the murderers had been slain by the Macedonian body-guards. Alexander immediately despatched letters directing the Macedonian Eudemos to carry on the government in conjunction with Taxiles, until he could appoint another deputy; and this provisional arrangement seems to have been continued until the death of Alexander in B. C. 323. The political anarchy which followed this catastrophe can scarcely be realized. … India was forgotten. Eudemos took advantage of the death of Alexander to murder Porus; but was ultimately driven out of the Punjab with all his Macedonians by an adventurer who was known to the Greeks as Sandrokottos, and to the Hindus as Chandragupta. This individual is said to have delivered India from a foreign yoke only to substitute his own. … By the aid of banditti he captured the city of Patali-putra, and obtained the throne; and then drove the Greeks out of India, and established his empire over the whole of Hindustan and the Punjab."

J. T. Wheeler, History of India: Hindu, Buddhist and Brahmanical, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander (translated by Chinnock), books 4-6.

T. A. Dodge, Alexander, chapters 38-43.

INDIA: B. C. 312 Chandragupta and Asoka. The spread of Buddhism and its Brahmanic absorption.

"The first tolerably trustworthy date in Indian history is the era of Candra-gupta (=Sandro-kottus) the founder of the Maurya dynasty, who, after making himself master of Pataliputra (Palibothra, Patna) and the kingdom of Magadha (Behar), extended his dominion over all Hindustan, and presented a determined front towards Alexander's successor Seleukos Nikator, the date of the commencement of whose reign was about 312 B. C. When the latter contemplated invading India from his kingdom of Bactria, so effectual was the resistance offered by Candra-gupta that the Greek thought it politic to form an alliance with the Hindu king, and sent his own countryman Megasthenes as an ambassador to reside at his court. To this circumstance we owe the first authentic account of Indian manners, customs, and religious usages by an intelligent observer who was not a native, and this narrative of Megasthenes, preserved by Strabo, furnishes a basis on which we may found a fair inference that Brahmanism and Buddhism existed side by side in India on amicable terms in the fourth century B. C. There is even ground for believing that King Candra-gupta himself was in secret a Buddhist, though in public he paid homage to the gods of the Brahmans; at any rate, there can be little doubt that his successor Asoka did for Buddhism what Constantine did for Christianity—gave an impetus to its progress by adopting it as his own creed. Buddhism, then, became the state religion, the national faith of the whole kingdom of Magadha, and therefore of a great portion of India. This Asoka is by some regarded as identical with Candra-gupta; at any rate, their characters and much of their history are similar. He is probably the same as King Priyadarsi, whose edicts on stone pillars enjoining 'Dharma,' or the practice of virtue and universal benevolence, are scattered over India from Katak in the east and Gujarat in the west to Allahabad, Delhi, and Afghanistan on the north-west. What then is Buddhism? It is certainly not Brahmanism, yet it arose out of Brahmanism, and from the first had much in common with it. Brahmanism and Buddhism are closely interwoven with each other, yet they are very different from each other. Brahmanism is a religion which may be described as all theology, for it makes God everything, and everything God. Buddhism is no religion at all, and certainly no theology, but rather a system of duty, morality, and benevolence, without real deity, prayer or priest. The name Buddha is simply an epithet meaning the perfectly enlightened one,' or rather one who, by perfect knowledge of the truth, is liberated from all existence, and who, before his own attainment of Nirvana, or 'extinction,' reveals to the world the method of obtaining it. The Buddha with whom we are concerned was only the last of a series of Buddhas who had appeared in previous cycles of the universe. He was born at Kapila-vastu, a city and kingdom at the foot of the mountains of Nepal, his father Suddhodana being the king of that country, and his mother Maya-devi being the daughter of King Suprabuddha. Hence he belonged to the Kshatriya class, and his family name was Sakya, while his name of Gautama (or Gotama) was taken from that of his tribe. He is said to have arrived at supreme knowledge under the Bodhi tree, or 'tree of wisdom' (familiarly called' the Bo tree'), at Gaya, in Behar (Magadha), about the year 588 B. C., and to have commenced propagating the new faith at Benares soon afterwards. … Buddhism was a protest against the tyranny of Brahmanism and caste. According to the Buddha, all men are equal. {1705} … We have five marked features of Buddhism:

1. disregard of all caste distinctions;

2. abolition of animal sacrifice and of vicarious suffering;

3. great stress laid on the doctrine of transmigration;

4. great importance assigned to self-mortification, austerity, and abstract meditation, as an aid to the suppression of all action;

5. concentration of all human desires on the absolute extinction of all being.

There is still a sixth, which is perhaps the most noteworthy of all; viz., that the Buddha recognized no supreme deity. The only god, he affirmed, is what man himself can become. A Buddhist, therefore, never really prays, he only meditates on the perfections of the Buddha and the hope of attaining Nirvana. … Brahmanism and Buddhism [in India] appear to have blended, or, as it were, melted into each other, after each had reciprocally parted with something, and each had imparted something. At any rate it may be questioned whether Buddhism was ever forcibly expelled from any part of India by direct persecution, except, perhaps, in a few isolated centres of Brahmanical fanaticism, such as the neighbourhood of Benares. Even in Benares the Chinese traveller, Hiouen Thsang, found Brahmanism and Buddhism flourishing amicably side by side in the 7th century of our era. In the South of India the Buddha's doctrines seem to have met with acceptance at an early date, and Ceylon was probably converted as early as B. C. 240, soon after the third Buddhist council held under King Asoka. In other parts of India there was probably a period of Brahmanical hostility, and perhaps of occasional persecution; but eventually Buddhism was taken by the hand, and drawn back into the Brahmanical system by the Brahmans themselves, who met it half way and ended by boldly adopting the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu. … Only a small section of the Buddhist community resisted all conciliation, and these are probably represented by the present sect of Jains [who are found in large numbers in various parts of India, especially on the western coast]. Be the actual state of the case as it may, nothing can be clearer than the fact that Buddhism has disappeared from India (the island of Ceylon being excepted), and that it has not done so without having largely contributed towards the moulding of Brahmanism into the Hinduism of the present day."

M. Williams, Hinduism, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: M. Williams (now Sir Monier Monier-Williams), Buddhism.

H. Oldenburg, Buddha.

P. Bigandet, Life and Legend of Gaudama.

A. Lillie, Buddha and the Early Buddhists.

W. W. Rockhill, The Life of the Buddha.

INDIA: A. D. 977-1290. Under the Ghaznavide and Mameluke empires.

"Aryan civilisation was … germinating, but it was in uncongenial soil. Like the descendants of Abraham and Jacob, the invaders mingled with the heathen and learned their ways. The older inhabitants were barbarous, multilingual, indolent; worshippers less of many gods than of many devils. The fusion that ensued was not happy; though the origin and growth of the caste system prevented complete union, it facilitated some of its evils; the character of the Aryan settlers became disastrously affected; the want of commercial communication by land and sea tended to perpetuate stagnation. This was the state of things upon which the rising tide from Central Asia began to flow with resistless pertinacity after the Mongolo-Turkish power became established on the Oxus and the Helmand. It was not to be wondered at if the Arabs made no wide or lasting Indian conquests in the early ages of the Musulman era. At a time when they were engaged with the Christian Empires of the East and the West, when they were spreading the power of the crescent from the borders of Khorásán to the Pillars of Hercules, the warriors of Islam had perhaps but little temptation to undertake further adventure. Certain it is that beyond the confines of Makran and a part of Sindh (occupied less than a hundred years after the Hijra)—the Arab conquests did not spread in India. It was Nasir-ud-Din Sabuktigin—certainly a Merv captive and popularly believed a scion of the Sassanian dynasty that once ruled Persia—by whom the first Muslim invasion of Hindustan was made in durable fashion. His master, Alptigin, having fled from the oppression of the Samani dynasty of Bukhara in 962 A. D., had founded a principality at Ghazni. Sabuktigin acquired his favour, and was able, soon after his death, to acquire the succession in 977 A. D. He established his power in the Punjab; and his armies are said to have penetrated as far as Benares. On his death, 997 A. D., his son, the celebrated Sultan Mahmud, succeeded to the Empire extending from Balkh to Lahore, if not to Hansi [see TURKS: A. D. 999-1183]. During a reign of over thirty years he invaded Hindustan twelve times, inflicting terrible carnage on the Hindus, desecrating their idols, and demoralising their temples. Mathura, Kanauj, Somnath; to such distant and divergent points did his enterprises reach. Mahmud died 1030 A. D., and was buried at Ghazni, where his monument is still to be seen. For about one hundred years the dynasty continued to rule in the Punjab and Afghanistan, more and more troubled by the neighbouring tribe of Ghor, who in 1187 A. D. took Lahore and put an end to the Ghaznavide dynasty. A prince of the Ghorians—variously known, but whose name may be taken as Muhammad Bin Sam—was placed in a sort of almost independent viceroyalty at Ghazni. In 1191 A. D. he led an army against Sirhind, south of the Sutlaj river. Rai Pithaura, or Pirthi Rai, a chief of the Chauhans (who had lately possessed themselves of Dehli), marched against the invaders and defeated them in a battle where Bin Sam had a narrow escape from being slain. But the sturdy mountaineers would not be denied. Next year they returned" and defeated Pithaura. "The towns of Mirat and Dehli fell upon his defeat; and their fall was followed a year later by that of Kanauj and Benares. The Viceroy's brother dying at this juncture, he repaired to his own country to establish his succession. He was killed in an expedition, 1206 A. D., and the affairs of Hindustan devolved upon his favourite Mameluke, Kutb-ud-din Aibak. … When Muhammad bin Sam had gone away, to rule and ultimately to perish by violence in his native highlands, his acquisitions in Hindustan came under the sway of Kutb-ud-din Aibak, a Mameluke, or Turkish slave, who had for a long time been his faithful follower. One of the Viceroy's first undertakings was to level to the ground the palaces and temples of the Hindus at Dehli, and to build, with the materials obtained by their destruction, a great Mosque for the worship of Allah. … From 1192 to 1206, the year of Bin Sam's death, Kutb-ud-din Aibak ruled as Viceroy. {1706} But it is recorded that the next Emperor—feeling the difficulty, perhaps, of exercising any sort of rule over so remote a dependency—sent Aibak a patent as 'Sultan,' accompanied by a canopy of state, a throne and a diadem. Becoming Sultan of Hindustan, the distinguished and fortunate Mameluke founded what is known as 'the Slave dynasty.' … Aibak died at Lahore, in 1210, from an accident at a game now known as 'polo.' He was contemporaneous with the great Mughul leader Changiz Khan, by whom, however, he was not molested. The chief event of his reign is to be found in his successful campaigns in Behar and Northern Bengal. … The Musulman power was not universally and firmly established in the Eastern Provinces till the reign of Balban (circ. 1282). At the death of Aibak the Empire was divided into four great portions. The Khiljis represented the power of Islam in Bihar and Bengal; the North-West Punjab was under a viceroy named Ilduz, a Turkman slave; the valley of the Indus was ruled by another of these Mamelukes, named Kabacha; while an attempt was made at Dehli to proclaim an incompetent lad, son of the deceased, as Sultan. But the Master of the Horse, a third Mameluke named Altimsh, was close at hand, and, hurrying up at the invitation of influential persons there, speedily put down the movement. … Altimsh, having deposed his feeble brother-in-law, became Suzerain of the Empire. His satraps were not disposed to obedience; and bloody wars broke out, into the details of which we need not enter. It will be sufficient to note that Ilduz was defeated and slain A. D. 1215. Two years later Kabacha came up from Sindh, and seems [to] have enlisted some of the Mughul hordes in his armies. These formidable barbarians, of whom more anon, were now in force in Khorasan, under Changiz in person, assisted by two of his sons.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.

They drove before them the Sultan of Khwarizm (now Khiva), and occupied Afghanistan. The fugitive, whose adventures are among the most romantic episodes of Eastern history, attempted to settle himself in the Panjab; but he was driven out by Altimsh and Kabacha in 1223. Two years later Altimsh moved on the Khiljis in the Eastern Provinces, occupied Gaur, their capital; and proceeding from thence made further conquests south and north at the expense of the Hindus. In 1228 he turned against Kabacha, the mighty Satrap of Sindh, who was routed in battle near Bakkhar, where he committed suicide or was accidentally drowned. In 1232-3 the Sultan reduced Gwalior (in spite of a stout resistance on the part of the Hindus under Milak Deo), slaying 700 prisoners at the door of his tent. In 1234 he took the province of Malwa; where he demolished the great temples of Bhilsa and Ujain. In the following year this puissant warrior of the Crescent succumbed to the common conqueror, dying a natural death at Dehli, after a glorious reign of twenty-six (lunar) years. … His eldest son, who had conducted the war against the Khiljis, had died before him, and the Empire was assumed by a younger son, Rukn-ud-din Firoz. … [In 1241] Lahore was taken by the Mughols with terrific carnage. Troubles ensued; Dehli was besieged by the army that had been raised for its defence against the Mughols; in May 1242 the city was taken by storm and the new Sultan was slain. His successor, Ala-uddin I., was a grandson of Altimsh, incompetent and apathetic as young men in his position have usually been. The land was partitioned among Turkish satraps, and overrun by the Mughols, who penetrated as far as Gaur in Bengal. Another horde, led by Mangu, grandson of Changiz, and father of the celebrated Kiblai Khan, ravaged the Western Punjab. The Sultan marched against them and met with a partial success. This turned into evil courses the little intellect that he had, a plot was organised for his destruction. Ala-ud-din was slain, and his uncle Nasir-ud-din was placed upon the vacant throne in June 1246. Nasir's reign was long, and, so far as his personal exploits went, would have been uneventful. But the risings of the Hindus and the incursions of the Mughols kept the Empire in perpetual turmoil." Nasir was succeeded in 1286-7 by his grandson, Kai Kobad. "This unfortunate young man was destined to prove the futility of human wisdom. Educated by his stern and serious grandfather, his lips had never touched those of a girl or a goblet. His sudden elevation turned his head. He gave himself up to debauchery, caused his cousin Khusru to be murdered, and was himself ultimately killed in his palace at Kilokhari, while lying sick of the palsy. With his death (1290) came to an end the Mameluke Empire of Hindustan."

H. G. Keene, Sketch of the History of Hindustan, book 1, chapters 1-2.

ALSO IN: J. T. Wheeler, History of India, volume 4, part 1, chapter 2.

A. Dow, History of Hindustan (from the Persian of Ferishta), volume 1.

INDIA: A. D. 1290-1398. From the Afghans to the Moghuls.

"In 1290 the last Sultan of the Afghan slave dynasty was assassinated, and a Sultan ascended the throne at Delhi under the name of Jelal-ud-din. He was an old man of seventy, and made no mark in history; but he had a nephew, named Ala-ud-din, who became a man of renown," and who presently acquired the throne by murdering his uncle. "When Ala-ud-din was established on the throne at Delhi he sent an army to conquer Guzerat." This conquest was followed by that of Rajputana. "Meanwhile the Moghuls [Mongols] were very troublesome. In the previous reign the uncle of Ala-ud-din had enlisted 3,000, and settled them near Delhi; but they were turbulent, refractory, and mixed up with every rebellion. Ala-ud-din ordered them to be disbanded, and then they tried to murder him. Ala-ud-din then ordered a general massacre. Thousands are said to have been put to death, and their wives and children were sold into slavery. Ala-ud-din was the first Muhammadan sovereign who conquered Hindu Rajas in the Dekhan and Peninsula. … Ala-ud-din sent his general Malik Kafur to invade these southern countries, ransack temples, and carry off treasure and tribute. The story is a dreary narrative of raid and rapine. … Ala-ud-din died in 1316. His death was followed by a Hindu revolt; indeed Hindu influences must have been at work at Delhi for many years previously. Ala-ud-din had married a Hindu queen; his son had married her daughter. Malik Kafur was a Hindu converted to Islam. The leader of the revolt at Delhi in 1316 was another Hindu convert to Islam. The proceedings of the latter rebel, however, were of a mixed character. He was proclaimed Sultan under a Muhammadan name, and slaughtered every male of the royal house. Meanwhile his Hindu followers set up idols in the mosques, and seated themselves on Korans. {1707} The rebels held possession of Delhi for five months. At the end of that time the city was captured by the Turkish governor of the Punjab, named Tughlak. The conqueror then ascended the throne of Delhi, and founded the dynasty of Tughlak Sultans. The Tughlak Sultans would not live at Delhi; they probably regarded it as a Hindu volcano. They held their court at Tughlakabad, a strong fortress about an hour's drive from old Delhi. The transfer of the capital from Delhi to Tughlakabad is a standpoint in history. It shows that a time had come when the Turk began to fear the Hindu. The conqueror of Delhi died in 1325. He was succeeded by a son who has left his mark in history. Muhammad Tughlak was a Sultan of grand ideas, but blind to all experiences, and deaf to all counsels. He sent his armies into the south to restore the Muhammadan supremacy which had been shaken by the Hindu revolt. Meanwhile the Moghuls invaded the Punjab, and Muhammad Tughlak bribed them to go away with gold and jewels. Thus the imperial treasury was emptied of all the wealth which had been accumulated by Ala-ud-din. The new Sultan tried to improve his finances, but only ruined the country by his exactions. … Then followed rebellions and revolutions. Bengal revolted, and became a separate kingdom under an independent Sultan. The Rajas of the Dekhan and Peninsula withheld their tribute. The Muhammadan army of the Dekhan broke out into mutiny, and set up a Sultan of their own. Muhammad Tughlak saw that all men turned against him. He died in 1350, after a reign of twenty-five years. The history of Delhi fades away after the death of Muhammad Tughlak. A Sultan reigned from 1350 to 1388, named Firuz Shah. He is said to have submitted to the dismemberment of the empire, and done his best to promote the welfare of the subjects left to him; but it is also said that he destroyed temples and idols, and burnt a Brahman alive for perverting Muhammadan women. In 1398-99, ten years after the death of Firuz Shah, Timur Shah invaded the Punjab and Hindustan [see TIMOUR]. The horrors of the Tartar invasion are indescribable; they teach nothing to the world, and the tale of atrocities may well be dropped into oblivion. It will suffice to say that Timur came and plundered, and then went away. He left officers to rule in his name, or to collect tribute in his name. In 1450 they were put aside by Afghans;—turbulent Muhammadan fanatics whose presence must have been hateful to the Hindus. At last, in 1525, a descendant of Timur, named the Baber, invaded India, and conquered the Punjab and Hindustan."

J. T. Wheeler, Short History of India, part 2, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: M. Elphinstone, History of India: Hindu and Mahometan, book 6. chapters 2-3.

INDIA: A. D. 1398-1399. Timour's invasion of the Punjab.

See TIMOUR.

INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605. The Saiyid and the Lodi dynasties. The founding of the Moghul Empire by Babar and Akbar.

"The invasion of Taimur … dealt a fatal blow to an authority already crumbling. The chief authority lingered indeed for twelve years in the hands of the then representative, Sultan Mahmud. It then passed for a time into the hands of a family which did not claim the royal title. This family, known in history as the Saiyid dynasty, ruled nominally in Northern India for about 33 years, but the rule had no coherence, and a powerful Afghan of the Lodi family took the opportunity to endeavour to concentrate power in his own hands. The Muhammadan rule in India had indeed become by this time the rule of several disjointed chiefs over several disjointed provinces, subject in point of fact to no common head. Thus, in 1450, Delhi, with a small territory around it, was held by the representative of the Saiyid family. Within fourteen miles of the capital, Ahmad Khan ruled independently in Mewat. Sambhal, or the province now known as Rohilkhand, extending to the very walls of Delhi, was occupied by Darya Khan Lodi. … Lahore, Dipalpur, and Sirhind, as far south as Panipat, by Behlul Lodi. Multan, Jaunpur, Bengal, Malwa, and Gujarat, each had its separate king. Over most of these districts, and as far eastward as the country immediately to the north of Western Bihar, Behlul Lodi, known as Sultan Behlul, succeeded on the disappearance of the Saiyids in asserting his sole authority, 1450-88. His son and successor, Sultan Sikandar Lodi, subdued Behar, invaded Bengal, which, however, he subsequently agreed to yield to Allah-u-din, its sovereign, and not to invade it again; and overran a great portion of Central India. On his death, in 1518, he had concentrated under his own rule the territories now known as the Punjab; the North-western Provinces, including Jaunpur; a great part of Central India; and Western Bihar. But, in point of fact, the concentration was little more than nominal." The death of Sikandar Lodi was followed by a civil war which resulted in calling in the Tartar or Mongol conqueror, Babar, a descendant of Timour, who, beginning in 1494 with a small dominion (which he presently lost) in Ferghana, or Khokland, Central Asia, had made himself master of a great part of Afghanistan (1504), establishing his capital at Kabul. Babar had crossed the Indian border in 1505, but his first serious invasion was in 1519, followed, according to some historians, by a second invasion the same year; the third was in 1520; the fourth occurred after an interval of two or three years. On his fifth expedition he made the conquest complete, winning a great battle at Panipat, 53 miles to the north-west of Delhi, on the 24th of April, 1526. Ibrahim Lodi, son and successor of Sikandar Lodi, was killed in the battle, and Delhi and Agra were immediately occupied. "Henceforth the title of King of Kabul was to be subjected to the higher title of Emperor of Hindustan." Babar was in one sense the founder of the Mughal (synonymous with Mongol) dynasty—the dynasty of the Great Moguls, as his successors were formerly known. He died in 1530, sovereign of northern India, and of some provinces in the center of the peninsula: But "he bequeathed to his son, Humayun, … a congeries of territories uncemented by any bond of union or of common interest, except that which had been concentrated in his life. In a word, when he died, the Mughal dynasty, like the Muhammadan dynasties which had preceded it, had shot down no roots into the soil of Hindustan."

G. B. Malleson, Akbar, chapters 4-5.

{1708}

Humayun succeeded Babar in India, "but had to make over Kabul and the Western Punjab to his brother and rival, Kamran. Humayun was thus left to govern the new conquest of India, and at the same time was deprived of the country from which his father had drawn his support. The descendants of the early Afghan invaders, long settled in India, hated the new Muhammadan hordes of Babar even more than they hated the Hindus. After ten years of fighting, Humayun was driven out of India by these Afghans under Sher Shah, the Governor of Bengal. While flying through the desert of Sind to Persia, his famous son Akbar was born in the petty fort of Umarkot (1542). Sher Shah set up as emperor, but was killed while storming the rock fortress of Kalinjar (1545). His son succeeded. But, under Sher Shah's grandson, the third of the Afghan house, the Provinces revolted, including Malwa, the Punjab, and Bengal. Humayun returned to India, and Akbar, then only in his thirteenth year, defeated the Afghan army after a desperate battle at Panipat (1556). India now passed finally from the Afghans to the Mughals. Sher Shah's line disappears; and Humayun, having recovered his Kabul dominions, reigned again for a few months at Delhi, but died in 1556. … Akbar the Great, the real founder of the Mughal Empire as it existed for two centuries, succeeded his father at the age of fourteen. … His reign lasted for almost fifty years, from 1556 to 1605, and was therefore contemporary with that of our own Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). His father, Humayun, left but a small kingdom in India, scarcely extending beyond the Districts around Agra and Delhi. … The reign of Akbar was a reign of pacification. … He found India split into petty kingdoms, and seething with discordant elements; on his death, in 1605, he bequeathed it an empire. The earlier invasions by Turks, Afghans, and Mughals, had left a powerful Muhammadan population in India under their own Chiefs. Akbar reduced these Musalman States to Provinces of the Delhi Empire. Many of the Hindu kings and Rajput nations had also regained their independence: Akbar brought them into political dependence upon his authority. This double task he effected partly by force of arms, but in part also by alliances. He enlisted the Rajput princes by marriage and by a sympathetic policy in the support of his throne. He then employed them in high posts, and played off his Hindu generals and Hindu ministers against the Mughal party in Upper India, and against the Afghan faction in Bengal. … His efforts to establish the Mughal Empire in Southern India were less successful. … Akbar subjugated Khandesh, and with this somewhat precarious annexation his conquests in the Deccan ceased. … Akbar not only subdued all India to the north of the Vindhya mountains, he also organized it into an empire. He partitioned it into Provinces, over each of which he placed a governor, or viceroy, with full civil and military control."

W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapter 10.

"I wish briefly and fairly to state what the Emperor Akbar did for the improvement of the country and the people of Hindostan. He improved the system of land-assessment, or rather he improved upon the improvements instituted by Shir Shah. He adapted an uniform and improved system of land-measurement, and computed the average value of the land, by dividing it into three classes, according to the productiveness of each. This computation being made, one-third of the average produce was fixed as the amount of tax to be paid to the state. But as this was ordinarily to be paid in money, it was necessary to ascertain the value of the produce, and this was done upon an average of the nineteen preceding years, according to local circumstances; and if the estimate was conceived to be too high, the tax-payer was privileged to pay the assessment in kind. … The regulations for the collection of the revenue enforced by Akbar were well calculated to prevent fraud and oppression, and, on the whole, they worked well for the benefit of the people; but it has been said of them, and with truth, that 'they contained no principle of progressive improvement, and held out no hopes to the rural population, by opening paths by which it might spread into other occupations, or rise by individual exertions within its own.' The judicial regulations of Akbar were liberal and humane. Justice, on the whole, was fairly administered. All unnecessary severity—all cruel personal punishments, as torture and mutilation, were prohibited, except in peculiar cases, and capital punishments were considerably restricted. The police appears to have been well organised. … He prohibited … trials by ordeal … ; he suppressed the barbarous custom of condemning to slavery prisoners taken in war; and he authoritatively forbade the burning of Hindoo widows, except with their own free and uninfluenced consent. … That something of the historical lustre which surrounds the name of the Emperor Akbar was derived rather from the personal character of the man than from the great things that he accomplished, is, I think, not to be denied. His actual performances, when they come to be computed, fall short of his reputation. But his merits are to be judged not so much by the standard of what he did, as of what he did with the opportunities allowed to him, and under the circumstances by which he was surrounded. Akbar built up the Mogul Empire, and had little leisure allowed him to perfect its internal economy."

J. W. Kaye, The Administration of the East India Company, part 1, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: 3 W. Erskine, History of India under Baber and Humayun.

A. Dow, History of Hindostan, from Ferishta, volume 2.

J. T. Wheeler, History of India, volume 4, chapter 4.

INDIA: A. D. 1498-1580. Portuguese trade and settlements.

In May, 1498, Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese navigator, reached Calicut, on the southwest (Malabar) coast, being the first European to traverse the ocean route to India, around the Cape of Good Hope (see PORTUGAL: A. D. 1463-1498). He met with a hostile reception from the natives of Malabar; but the next voyager from Portugal, Alvarez Cabral, "who came out the following year, was very favourably received, being allowed to establish a factory on the mainland and to appoint a 'factor' (or consul, as we say now) to represent Portugal there. This factor seems to have had some difficulties with the natives, chiefly owing to his own high-handed actions, which resulted in the murder of himself and the destruction of the factory. Alvarez Cabral therefore sailed up to Cochin, and was received with great friendliness by the chiefs of that part of the country, who allowed him again to set up agencies at Cochin and at Cananore. But the vengeance of the ruler of Malabar pursued them; and the Portuguese, together with their native allies, had to fight desperately for their safety. {1709} They were almost exhausted with the struggle when in 1504 large reinforcements were sent from Portugal, bombarded Calicut, the capital of Malabar, and established the name and fame of the Portuguese as an important power in India generally. A regular maritime trade with India was now firmly set on foot, but the Portuguese had to struggle hard to maintain it. The Mohammedans of India called in the aid of Egypt against them, and even the republic of Venice joined these enemies, in hopes of crushing this new rival to their ancient trade. In 1508 a powerful expedition was sent out from Egypt against the newcomers, a tremendous battle took place, and the Portuguese were defeated. But by a desperate effort Almeida, the Portuguese viceroy, collected all his forces for a final blow, and succeeded in winning a magnificent naval victory which once and for all firmly established the Portuguese power in India. Two years afterwards Almeida's rival and successor, Alfonso de Albuquerque, gained possession of Goa (1510), and this city became the centre of their Indian dominion, which now included Ceylon and the Maldive Islands, together with the Malacca and Malabar coasts. In 1511 the city of Malacca was captured, and the city of Ormuz in 1515. The next few years were spent in consolidating their sovereignty in these regions, till in 1542 the Portuguese colonists practically regulated all the Asiatic coast trade with Europe, from the Persian Gulf … to Japan. … For nearly sixty years after this date the king of Portugal, or his viceroy, was virtually the supreme ruler—in commercial matters at any rate—of the southern coast of Asia. The Portuguese were at the climax of their power in the east. The way in which Portuguese trade was carried on is an interesting example of the spirit of monopoly which has, invariably at first and very often afterwards, inspired the policy of all European powers in their efforts of colonisation. The eastern trade was of course kept in the hands of Portuguese traders only, as far as direct commerce between Portugal and India was concerned; but even Portuguese traders were shut out from intermediate commerce between India and other eastern countries, i. e., China, Japan, Malacca, Mozambique, and Ormuz. This traffic was reserved as a monopoly to the crown; and it was only as a great favour, or in reward for some particular service, that the king allowed private individuals to engage in it. The merchant fleet of Portugal generally set sail from Lisbon, bound to Goa, once a year about February or March. … This voyage generally took about eighteen months, and, owing to the imperfect state of navigation at that time, and the lack of accurate charts of this new route, was frequently attended by the loss of several ships. Immense profits were, however, made by the traders. On arriving back at Lisbon the Portuguese merchants, as a rule, did not themselves engage in any trade with other European countries in the goods they had brought back, but left the distribution of them in the hands of Dutch, English, and Hansa sailors who met them at Lisbon. … The colonial empire of Portugal, so rapidly and brilliantly acquired, came to a disastrous close. It lasted altogether hardly a century. The avarice and oppressions of its viceroys and merchants, the spirit of monopoly which pervaded their whole policy, and the neglect both of the discipline and defences necessary to keep newly-acquired foreign possessions, hastened its ruin. By 1580 the Portuguese power in the east had seriously declined, and in that year the crown of Portugal was united to that of Spain in the person of Philip II. The Spaniards neglected their eastern possessions altogether, and engaged in wars with the Dutch which had the effect, not only of wasting a great portion of their own and the Portuguese fleet, but of positively driving the Dutch into those very eastern seas which the Portuguese had once so jealously kept to themselves. Only Goa and Diu and a few other small stations remained out of all their magnificent dominion."

H. de B. Gibbins, History of Commerce in Europe, book 3, chapter 1 (sections 94-97).

ALSO IN: E. McMurdo, History of Portugal, volume 3, books 2-5.

Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque (Hakluyt Society Publications).

E. Grey, Introduction to Travels of Pietro della Valle (Hakluyt Society Publications).

H. M. Stephens, Albuquerque.

INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702. Beginnings of English trade. The chartering of the English East India Company. Its early footholds in Hindostan. The founding of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. The three Presidencies.

"For some time it appears to have been thought by other European Powers, that the discovery of the passage round Africa by the Portuguese gave them some exclusive claim to its navigation. But after the year 1580 the conquest of Portugal by Spain, and the example of the Dutch who had already formed establishments not only in India but the Spice Islands, aroused the commercial enterprise of England. In 1599 an Association was formed for the Trade to the East Indies; a sum was raised by subscription, amounting to £68,000; and a petition was presented to the Crown for a Royal Charter. Queen Elizabeth wavered during some time, apprehending fresh entanglements with Spain. At length, in December 1600, the boon was granted; the 'Adventurers' (for so were they termed at that time) were constituted a body corporate, under the title of 'the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies.' By their Charter they obtained the right of purchasing lands without limitation, and the monopoly of their trade during fifteen years, under the direction of a Governor, and twenty-four other persons in Committee, to be elected annually. … In 1609, the Charter of the new Company was not only renewed but rendered perpetual,—with a saving clause, however, that should any national detriment be at any time found to ensue, these exclusive privileges should, after three years' notice, cease and expire. It does not seem, however, that the trade of the new Company was extensive. Their first voyage consisted of four ships and one pinnace, having on board £28,742 in bullion, and £6,860 in goods, such as cloth, lead, tin, cutlery, and glass. Many other of their voyages were of smaller amount; thus, in 1612, when they united into a Joint Stock Company, they sent out only one ship, with £1,250 in bullion and £650 in goods. But their clear profits on their capital were immense; scarcely ever, it is stated, below 100 per cent. During the Civil Wars the Company shared in the decline of every other branch of trade and industry. {1710} But soon after the accession of Charles II. they obtained a new Charter, which not only confirmed their ancient privileges but vested in them authority, through their agents in India, to make peace and war with any prince or people, not being Christians, and to seize within their limits, and send home as prisoners, any Englishmen found without a licence. It may well be supposed that in the hands of any exclusive Company this last privilege was not likely to lie dormant. … The period of the Revolution was not so favourable to the Company as that of the Restoration. A rival Company arose, professing for its object greater freedom of trade with the East Indies, and supported by a majority in the House of Commons. It is said that the competition of these two Companies with the private traders and with one another had well nigh ruined both. … An Union between these Companies, essential, as it seemed, to their expected profits, was delayed by their angry feelings till 1702. Even then, by the Indenture which passed the Great Seal, several points were left unsettled between them, and separate transactions were allowed to their agents in India for the stocks already sent out. Thus the ensuing years were fraught with continued jarrings and contentions. … After the grant of the first Charter by Queen Elizabeth, and the growth of the Company's trade in India, their two main factories were fixed at Surat and Bantam. Surat was then the principal sea-port of the Mogul Empire, where the Mahometan pilgrims were wont to assemble for their voyages towards Mecca. Bantam, from its position in the island of Java, commanded the best part of the Spice trade. But at Surat the Company's servants were harassed by the hostility of the Portuguese, as at Bantam, by the hostility of the Dutch. To such heights did these differences rise that in 1622 the English assisted the Persians in the recovery of Ormuz from the Portuguese, and that in 1623 the Dutch committed the outrage termed the 'Massacre of Amboyna,'—putting to death, after a trial, and confession of guilt extorted by torture, Captain Towerson and nine other Englishmen, on a charge of conspiracy. In the final result, many years afterwards, the factories both at Bantam and Surat were relinquished by the Company. Other and newer settlements of theirs had, meanwhile, grown into importance.—In 1640 the English obtained permission from a Hindoo Prince in the Carnatic to purchase the ground adjoining the Portuguese settlement of St. Thomé, on which they proceeded to raise Fort St. George and the town of Madras. … In a very few years Madras had become a thriving town.—About twenty years afterwards, on the marriage of Charles II. to Catherine of Braganza [1661], the town and island of Bombay were ceded to the King of England as a part of the Infanta's dowry. For some time the Portuguese Governor continued to evade the grant, alleging that the patent of His Majesty was not in accordance with the customs of Portugal; he was compelled to yield; but the possession being found on trial to cost more than it produced, it was given up by King Charles to the East India Company, and became one of their principal stations. Nor was Bengal neglected. Considering the beauty and richness of that province, a proverb was already current among the Europeans, that there are a hundred gates for entering and not one for leaving it. The Dutch, the Portuguese, and the English had established their factories at or near the town of Hooghly on one of the branches—also called Hooghly—of the Ganges. But during the reign of James II. the imprudence of some of the Company's servants, and the seizure of a Mogul junk, had highly incensed the native Powers. The English found it necessary to leave Hooghly, and drop twenty-five miles down the river, to the village of Chuttanuttee. Some petty hostilities ensued, not only in Bengal but along the coasts of India. … So much irritated was Aurungzebe at the reports of these hostilities, that he issued orders for the total expulsion of the Company's servants from his dominions, but he was appeased by the humble apologies of the English traders, and the earnest intercession of the Hindoo, to whom this commerce was a source of profit. The English might even have resumed their factory at Hooghly, but preferred their new station at Chuttanuttee, and in 1698 obtained from the Mogul, on payment of an annual rent, a grant of the land on which it stood. Then, without delay, they began to construct for its defence a citadel, named Fort William, under whose shelter there grew by degrees from a mean village the great town of Calcutta,—the capital of modern India. … At nearly the same period another station,—Tegnapatam, a town on the coast of Coromandel, to the south of Madras,—was obtained by purchase. It was surnamed Fort St. David; was strengthened with walls and bulwarks, and was made subordinate to Madras for its government. Thus then before the accession of the House of Hanover these three main stations,—Fort William, Fort St. George, and Bombay,—had been erected into Presidencies, or central posts of Government; not, however, as at present, subject to one supreme authority, but each independent of the rest. Each was governed by a President and a Council of nine or twelve members, appointed by the Court of Directors in England. Each was surrounded with fortifications, and guarded by a small force, partly European and partly native, in the service of the Company. The Europeans were either recruits enlisted in England or strollers and deserters from other services in India. Among these the descendants of the old settlers, especially the Portuguese, were called Topasses,—from the tope or hat which they wore instead of turban. The natives, as yet ill-armed and ill-trained, were known by the name of Sepoys,—a corruption from the Indian word 'sipahi,' a soldier. But the territory of the English scarcely extended out of sight of their towns."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope); History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 39 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: J. Mill, History of British India, book 1 (volume 1).

P. Anderson, The English in Western India, chapters 1-10.

H. Stevens, editor., Dawn of British Trade to East Indies: Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1599-1603.

J. W. Kaye, The Administration of the East India Company, chapters 3-4.

INDIA: A. D. 1602-1620. Rise of the Dutch East India Company.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1620.

{1711}

INDIA: A. D. 1605-1658. Jahangir and Nur Mahal. Shah Jahan and the Taj Mahal. Seizure of the throne by Aurungzebe.

"Selim, the son and successor of Akbar, reigned from the year of his father's death until 1627, having assumed the title of Jahangir, or 'Conqueror of the World'; that is to say, he reigned, but he did not govern. Before he came to the throne, he fell in love with a poor Persian girl," whom his father gave in marriage to one of his officers. "On his advent to the throne, Jahangir … managed to get the husband killed, and took the widow into his harem. He subsequently married her, and she ruled, not him alone, but the whole empire. … [She was first called Nur Mahal, 'Light of the Harem,' then Nur Jahan, 'Light of the World.'] It was during this reign, in 1615, that the first English ambassador, Sir Thomas Roe, arrived in Hindustan from James I.; and proceeding to Ajmere, where Jahangir was staying at the time with his court, he made him several presents, amongst which, we are told, a beautiful English coach gave the Emperor the most satisfaction. He received the ambassador with great distinction, showed him marked attention at all public receptions, and granted a firmân to the English to establish a factory at Surat. … The later years of Jahangir's reign were disturbed by family intrigues, in which the Empress Nur Jehan took a prominent part, endeavouring to secure the succession for her son-in-law; but after the death of the Emperor, his oldest living son, Shah Jahan, pensioned and forced the Empress into retirement … and … 'dispatched all the males of the house of Timour, so that only himself and his children remained of the posterity of Baber, who conquered India.' In some respects the reign of Shah Jahan was unfortunate. He lost his Afghan dominions, and gained but little by his invasions of the Dekhan, which were carried on by his rebellious son and successor, Aurungzeb; but in another direction he did more to perpetuate the glory of the Mughal dynasty than any other emperor of his line. Amongst other handsome buildings, he erected the most beautiful the world has ever possessed. … This was the well-known Taj Mahal at Agra, a mausoleum for his favourite Empress Arjamund, known as Mumtaz-i-Mahal [of which name, according to Elphinstone, Taj Mahal is a corruption], 'the Exalted One of the Seraglio.' … When Shah Jahan had attained his 66th year (according to some writers, his 70th), he was seized with a sudden illness, the result of his debauched life, and as it was reported that he was dead, a civil war broke out amongst his sons for the possession of the throne. These were four in number, Dara (the oldest), Shuja, Aurungzeb, and Murad (the youngest); and in the conflict Aurungzeb, the third son, was ultimately successful. Two of the brothers, Dara and Murad, fell into the power of the last-named and were put to death by his orders. Shuja escaped to Arracan, and was murdered there; and as for the Emperor, who had recovered, Aurungzeb confined him in the fort at Agra, with all his female relatives, and then caused himself to be proclaimed in his stead [1658]. Towards the close of Shah Jehan's life [which came to an end in 1666], a partial reconciliation took place between him and his son, who, however, did not release him from his confinement."

J. Samuelson, India, Past and Present, part 1, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: J. T. Wheeler, History of India, volume 4, chapters 5-7.

Sir T. Roe, Journal of Embassy (Pinkerton's Collection of Voyages, volume 8).

M. Elphinstone, History of India: Hindu and Mahometan, book 10.

INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748. The struggle of Aurungzebe with the Mahrattas. The Mahratta empire. Invasion of Nadir Shah. Sack of Delhi and great Massacre.

"Aurungzebe had reigned five years before he succeeded in destroying all his kinsmen. … About that time, in the year 1662, a new and extraordinary power in Southern India began to attract attention. The Mahrattas appear to have been nothing more than the Hindoo peasantry, scattered throughout some of the mountainous districts of the Mahomedan kingdoms of Ahmednuggur, Beijapoor and Golconda, and united into a body only by the prejudices of caste, of which their rank was the lowest, that of Sudra. In the confusion incidental to the constant wars in which these states were engaged, some of the head men of their villages set up for themselves, and one of them, Shahji Borla, became powerful enough to play a conspicuous part at the time of the annexation of Ahmednuggur to the Mogul empire. His son Sevaji, setting out from this vantage ground, strengthened his hands by the silent capture of some hill forts in Beijapoor, and eventually raising the standard of revolt against that government, introduced a spirit of union amidst the scattered masses of his people, and may thus be considered the founder of the Mahratta empire. In 1662 he commenced his predatory expeditions into the Mogul territory, and in ten years he found himself at the head of a regular government with the title of Rajah, and strong enough to encounter and defeat the imperial forces in a field battle. This was the critical moment in the progress of the Mogul empire. Aurungzebe was called away for two years by the chronic disturbances beyond the Indus; his strength was wasted by the ceaseless wars of the Deccan; and being goaded to madness by the casual insurrection of some Hindoo devotees in the centre of his dominions, he replaced the capitation tax on infidels, and fulminated other decrees against that portion of his subjects of such extravagant intolerance that they at length looked upon the progress of their co-religionists, the Mahrattas, with more longing than alarm. In 1679, the western portion of Rajahstan was in arms against the empire, and continued in a state of hostility more or less active during the whole reign. Even the emperor's eventual successes in the Deccan, in overthrowing the kingdoms of Beijapoor and Golconda, contributed to his ruin; for it removed the check of regular government from that distracted portion of the country, and … threw into the arms of the Mahrattas the adventurous and the desperate of the population. Sevaji died, and successors of less talent filled the throne of the robber-king; but this seems to have had no effect upon the progress of the inundation, which now bursting over the natural barriers of the peninsula, and sweeping away its military defences, overflowed Malwa and a portion of Guzerat. Aurungzebe fought gallantly and finessed craftily by turns; … and thus he struggled with his destiny even to extreme old age, bravely and alone. He expired in his 89th year, the 50th of his reign, on the 21st of February, 1707. … During the next twelve years after the death of Aurungzebe, no fewer than five princes sat upon the throne, whose reigns, without being distinguished by any great events, exhibited evident indications of the gradual decline of the empire. {1712} During that period the Sikhs, originally a sect of Hindoo dissenters, whose peculiarity consisted in their repudiation of all religious ceremonies, having first been changed into warriors by persecution, began to rise by the spirit of union into a nation; but so weak were they at this time that in 1706 the dying energies of the empire were sufficient almost for their extirpation. … Mahomed Shah succeeded to the throne in 1719. The Mahratta government was by this time completely consolidated, and the great families of the race, since so celebrated, had begun to rise into eminence: such as that of the Peshwa, the official title of a minister of the Rajah; of Holkar, the founder of which was a shepherd; and of Sindia, which sprang from a menial servant. … A still more remarkable personage of the time was Asof Jah, whose descendants became the Nizams [regulators or governors—the title becoming hereditary in the family of Asof, at Hyderabad] of the Deccan. … While the empire was … rent in pieces by internal disturbances, a more tremendous enemy even than the Mahrattas presented himself from without. A revolution had taken place in Persia, which seated a soldier of fortune upon the throne; and the famous Nadir Shah, after capturing Candahar, found it necessary, according to the fashion of conquerors, to seize upon the Mogul territories, Ghizni and Cabul, and when at the latter city to continue his march into Hindostan. In 1739, he arrived at Kurnaul, within 70 miles of Delhi, and defeated the emperor in a general engagement. … The two kings then proceeded to Delhi after the battle, where Nadir, in consequence, it is said, of an insurrection of the populace, set fire to the city and massacred the inhabitants to a number which has been variously estimated at from 30,000 to 150,000. He then proceeded to the main business of his invasion, robbing first the treasury and afterwards the inhabitants individually, torturing or murdering all who were suspected of concealing their riches, and at length returned to his own dominions, having obtained a formal cession of the country west of the Indus, and carrying with him in money and plate at least twelve millions sterling, besides jewels of great value, including those of the Peacock Throne [the throne of the Great Mogul, made solidly of gold and adorned with diamonds and pearls,—the enamelled back of the throne being spread in the form of a peacock's tail.]

Tavernier's Travels, translated and edited by V. Ball, book 2, chapter 8 (volume 1).

From this period to the death of the Emperor Mahomed Shah, in 1748, the interval was filled up with the disturbances which might be expected."

Leitch Ritchie, History of the Indian Empire, book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1).

The Asof or Asaf Jah mentioned above had become, in 1721, the Prime Minister of the Emperor Muhammad Shah, "In a little more than three years he had thrown up in disgust an office which the levity of the young monarch hindered him from discharging to his satisfaction; and had repaired to the Deccan, where he founded the State which still subsists under the name of 'The Nizam's Dominions.' Nominally, it was the Subah [province] erected on the ruins of the old Musalman kingdoms; but in the decline of the Empire it became a hereditary and quasi-independent province, though the ruler never took the royal title, but continued to retain the style of an Imperial Viceroy, as 'Nizam-ul-mulk,' which his descendant still bears."

H. G. Keene, Madhava Rao Sindhia, chapter 1.

"The different provinces and viceroyalties went their own natural way; they were parcelled out in a scuffle among revolted governors, rebellious chiefs, leaders of insurgent tribes or sects, religious revivalists, or captains of mercenary bands. The Indian people were becoming a masterless multitude swaying to and fro in the political storm, and clinging to any power, natural or supernatural, that seemed likely to protect them. They were prepared to acquiesce in the assumption of authority by anyone who could show himself able to discharge the most elementary functions of government in the preservation of life and property. In short, the people were scattered without a leader or protector; while the political system under which they had long lived was disappearing in complete disorganization. It was during this period of tumultuary confusion that the French and English first appeared upon the political arena in India."

Sir A. Lyall, Rise of the British Dominion in India, chapter 4, sections 1-2.

ALSO IN: S. Lane-Poole, Aurangzib, chapters 9-12.

A. Dow, History of Hindostan, from Ferishta, volume 3.

J. G. Duff, History of the Mahrattas, volume 1, and volume 2, chapter 1.

C. R. Markham, History of Persia, chapter 12.

INDIA: A. D. 1665-1743. Commercial undertakings of the French. Their settlement at Pondicherry.

"Many expeditions to India had been made [by the French] earlier than the time of Colbert's East India Company, chartered in the year 1665. The first French ships, of which there is any record, that succeeded in reaching India, were two despatched from one of the ports of Brittany in 1601. These ships were, however, wrecked on the Maldive Islands, and their commander did not return to France for ten years. Voyages were undertaken in 1616, 1619, and again in 1633, of which the most that can be said is that they met with no great disaster. The attempt to found settlements in Java and Madagascar, which was the object of these voyages, completely failed. The first operations of the French East India Company were to establish factories in Hindostan. Surat, a large commercial city at the mouth of the Taptee, was fixed upon for the principal depot. The abuses and lavish waste of the officers entrusted to carry out Colbert's plans, brought the company to an end in five years. An attempt in 1672 to form a colony at Trincomalee, on the north-east coast of Ceylon, was frustrated by the hostility of the Dutch. Afterwards the French made an attempt on Meliapoor or Thomé, belonging to the Portuguese. They were soon expelled, and the survivors sought refuge at Pondicherry [1674], a small town which they had purchased on the same coast of the Carnatic. In 1693, Pondicherry was taken by the Dutch, who improved the fortifications and general condition of the town. At the peace of Ryswick, in 1697, the settlement was restored to the French. For half a century Pondicherry shared the neglect common to French colonies, and owed more to the probity and discretion of its governors than to the home government. M. Martin, and subsequently Dumas, saved the settlement from ruin. They added to the defences; and Dumas, being in want of money for public purposes, obtained permission from the King of Delhi to coin money for the French settlers. He also procured the cession of Karikal, a district of Tanjore. On the other hand, several stations and forts had to be given up."

J. Yeats, Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, part 3, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, History of the French in India, chapters 1-3.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, chapter 2.

{1713}

INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752. Struggle of the French and English for supremacy in the Deccan. Clive against Dupleix. The founding of British empire.

"England owes the idea of an Indian empire to the French, as also the chief means by which she has hitherto sought to realize it. The war of the Austrian succession had just broken out [1743] between France and England.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.

Dupleix, the governor of the settlements of the French East India Company, proposed to the English company a neutrality in the eastern seas; it was rejected. The English probably repented of their presumption when they saw Captain Peyton, the commander of a squadron of three liners and a frigate, after an indecisive engagement with the French admiral, Labourdonnais, take flight to the Bay of Bengal, leaving Madras, then the most flourishing of the English settlements, defenceless. Dupleix and Labourdonnais were the first of that series of remarkable Frenchmen who, amidst every discouragement from home, and in spite of their frequent mutual dissensions, kept the French name so prominent in India for more than the next half century, only to meet on their return with obloquy, punishment, even death. Labourdonnais, who was Admiral of the French fleet, was also Governor of Mauritius, then called the Isle of France. He had disciplined a force of African negroes. With French troops and these, he entered the narrow strip of coast, five miles long, one mile broad, which was then the territory of Madras, bombarded the city, compelled the fort (which had lost five men) to surrender. But his terms were honourable; the English were placed on parole; the town was to be given up on payment of a moderate ransom (1746). Dupleix, however, was jealous; he denied Labourdonnais powers; broke the capitulation; paraded the Governor and other English gentlemen in triumph through Pondicherry. In vain did Admiral Boscawen besiege the latter place; time was wasted, the trenches were too far, the rains came on; Boscawen raised the siege, crippled in men and stores; was recalled by the news of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, and, to close his career of misfortune, lost several ships and 1,200 men on the Coromandel coast (1748-9). News of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, however, produced a very temporary cessation of hostilities, Madras being restored, with fortifications much improved. The English fortunes seemed at their lowest in India; the French rising to their full height. Dupleix conceived the bold plan of interfering in the internal politics of the country. Labourdonnais had disciplined the negro; Dupleix disciplined the native Indian. … Labourdonnais had beaten off the so-called Nawab of the Carnatic, when he attempted to take Madras; the event produced an immense sensation; it was the first victory obtained for a century by Europeans over the natives of India. Dupleix was strong enough to be reckoned a valuable ally. But on the English side a young man had appeared who was to change the whole course of events in the East. Robert Clive, an attorney's son from Market Drayton, born in 1725, sent off at eighteen as a writer to Madras—a naughty boy who had grown into an insubordinate clerk, who had been several times in danger of losing his situation, and had twice attempted to destroy himself—ran away from Madras, disguised as a Mussulman, after Dupleix's violation of the capitulation, obtained an ensign's commission at twenty-one, and began distinguishing himself as a soldier under Major Lawrence, then the best British officer in India."

J. M. Ludlow, British India, lecture 7.

"Clive and others who escaped [from Madras] betook themselves to Fort St. David's—a small English settlement a few miles south of Pondicherry. There Clive prepared himself for the military vocation for which nature had clearly destined him. … At Fort St. David's the English intrigued with the native chiefs, much as the French had done, and not more creditably. They took sides, and changed sides, in the disputes of rival claimants to the province of Tanjore, under the inducement of the possession of Devi-cottah, a coast station at the mouth of the Coleroon. There was no great honour in the results, any more than in the conception, of this first little war. We obtained Devi-cottah; but we did not improve our reputation for good faith, nor lessen the distance between the French and ourselves in military prestige. But Dupleix was meantime providing the opportunity for Clive to determine whether the Deccan should be under French or English influence. … The greatest of the southern princes, the Nizam al Mulk, Viceroy of the Deccan, died in 1748; and rivals rose up, as usual, to claim both his throne and the richest province under his rule—the Carnatic. The pretenders on one side applied to the French for assistance, and obtained reinforcements to the extent of 400 French soldiers and 2,000 trained sepoys. This aid secured victory; the opposing prince was slain; and his son, the well-known Mohammed Ali, 'the Nabob of Arcot' of the last century, took refuge, with a few remaining troops, at Trichinopoly. In a little while, the French seemed to be supreme throughout the country. Dupleix was deferred to as the arbiter of the destinies of the native princes, while he was actually declared Governor of India, from the Kistna to Cape Comorin—a region as large as France, inhabited by 30,000,000 of people, and defended by a force so large that the cavalry alone amounted to 7,000 under the command of Dupleix. In the midst of this dominion, the English looked like a handful of dispirited and helpless settlers, awaiting the disposal of the haughty Frenchman. Their native ally had lost everything but Trichinopoly; and Trichinopoly itself was now besieged by the Nabob of the Carnatic and his French supporters. Dupleix was greater than even the Mogul sovereign; he had erected a column in his own honour, displaying on its four sides inscriptions in four languages, proclaiming his glory as the first man of the East; and a town had sprung up round this column, called his City of Victory. To the fatalistic mind of the native races it seemed a settled matter that the French rule was supreme, and that the English must perish out of the land. Major Lawrence had gone home; and the small force of the English had no commander. Clive was as yet only a commissary, with the rank of captain, and regarded more as a civilian than a soldier. {1714} He was only five-and-twenty. His superiors were in extreme alarm, foreseeing that when Trichinopoly was taken, the next step would be the destruction of Madras. Nothing could make their position worse; and they caught at every chance of making it better. Clive offered to attack Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, in the hope that this would draw away the besiegers from Trichinopoly; and the offer was accepted. The force consisted of 200 British and 300 native soldiers, commanded, under Clive, by four factors and four military men, only two of whom had ever been in action. Everything was against them, from numbers and repute to the weather; but Clive took Arcot [September 11, 1751], and (what was much more difficult) kept it. The garrison had fled in a panic; but it was invested by 10,000 men before the British had repaired half its dilapidations and deficiencies, or recruited their numbers, now reduced to 320 men in all, commanded by four officers. For fifty days, amidst fatigue, hunger, and a hundred pressing dangers, the little band sustained the siege. … A series of victories followed, and men and opinion came round to the side of the victors. There was no energy at headquarters to sustain Clive in his career. … In his absence, the enemy appeared again before Fort George, and did much damage; but Clive came up, and 100 of the French soldiers were killed or taken. He uprooted Dupleix's boasting monument, and levelled the city to the ground, thereby reversing the native impression of the respective destinies of the French and English. Major Lawrence returned. Dupleix's military incapacity was proved, and his personal courage found wanting as soon as fortune deserted him. Trichinopoly was relieved, and the besiegers were beaten, and their candidate prince put to death. Dupleix struggled in desperation for some time longer before he gave up the contest; and Clive had his difficulties in completing the dislodgement of the French. … He did it; but nearly at the sacrifice of his life. When the British supremacy in the Deccan was completely established, he returned [1752] in bad health to England. … He left behind him Dupleix, for whom a summons home in disgrace was on the way."

H. Martineau, History of British Rule in India, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, History of the French in India, chapters 3-6.

G. B. Malleson, Founders of the Indian Empire: Lord Clive, chapters 1-6.

Colonel Sir C. Wilson, Lord Clive, chapters 2-4.

INDIA: A. D. 1747-1761. The Duranee power in Afghanistan. Conflict of the Afghans and the Mahrattas. Great defeat of the latter at Panniput. Fall of the shattered Moghul empire. The state of things which invited British conquest.

On the death of Nadir Shah, who was murdered in 1747, his Afghan kingdom was acquired by a native chief, Ahmed Abdalee, who, first a prisoner and a slave to Nadir Shah, had become one of the trusted officers of his court and army. "Ahmed Abdalee had acquired so great an ascendency among the troops that upon this event [the death of Nadir Shah] several commanders and their followers joined his standard; and he drew off toward his own country. He fell in with and seized a convoy of treasure, which was proceeding to the camp. This enabled him to engage in his pay a still larger body of his countrymen. He proclaimed himself king of the Afghauns; and took the title of Doordowran, or pearl of the age, which being corrupted into Dooranee,[or Duranee], gave one of their names to himself and his Abdallees. He marched towards Candahar which submitted to his arms; and next proceeded to Cabul … and this province also fell into the hands of the Afghaun." Lahore was next added to his dominions, and he then, in 1747, invaded India, intent upon the capture of Delhi; but met with sufficient resistance to discourage his undertaking, and fell back to Cabul. In 1748, and again in 1749, he passed the Indus, and made himself master of the Punjab. In 1755-6 he marched to Delhi, which opened its gates to him and received him, pretendedly as a guest, but really as a master. A plague breaking out in his army caused him to return to his own country. He "left his son Governor of Lahore and Multan; disordered by revolutions, wasted and turbulent. A chief … incited the Seiks [Sikhs] to join him in molesting the Dooranees; and they gained several important advantages over their principal commanders. They invited the Mahratta generals, Ragonaut Raow, Shumsheer Bahadur, and Holkar, who had advanced into the neighbourhood of Delhi, to join them in driving the Abdalees from Lahore. No occupation could be more agreeable to the Mahrattas. After taking Sirhind, they advanced to Lahore, where the Abdalee Prince made but a feeble resistance and fled. This event put them in possession of both Multan and Lahore. … The whole Indian continent appeared now about to be swallowed up by the Mahrattas. … Ahmed Shah [the Abdalee, or Dooranee] was not only roused by the loss of his two provinces, and the disgrace imprinted on his arms, but he was invited by the chiefs and people of Hindustan, groaning under the depredations of the Mahrattas, to march to their succour and become their King. … For some days the Dooranees hovered round the Mahratta camp; when the Mahrattas, who were distressed for provisions, came out and offered battle. Their army, consisting of 80,000 veteran cavalry, was almost wholly destroyed; and Duttah Sindia, their General, was among the slain. A detachment of horse sent against another body of Mahrattas, who were marauding under Holkar in the neighbourhood of Secundra, surprised them so completely that Holkar fled naked, with a handful of followers, and the rest, with the exception of a few prisoners and fugitives, were all put to the sword. During the rainy season, while the Dooranee Shah was quartered at Secundra, the news of this disaster and disgrace excited the Mahrattas to the greatest exertions. A vast army was collected, and … the Mahrattas marched to gratify the resentments, and fulfil the unbounded hopes of the nation. … They arrived at the Jumna before it was sufficiently fallen to permit either the Mahrattas on the other side, or the Dooranees, to cross. In the meantime they marched to Delhi, of which after some resistance they took possession; plundered it with their usual rapacity, tearing away even the gold and silver ornaments of the palace; proclaimed Sultan Jewan Bukht, the son of Alee Gohur [or Shah Alum, absent son of the late nominal Emperor at Delhi, Alumgeer II., who had recently been put to death by his own vizir], Emperor; and named Sujah ad Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, his Vizir. {1715} Impatient at intelligence of these and some other transactions, Ahmed Shah swam the Jumna, still deemed impassable, with his whole army. This daring adventure, and the remembrance of the late disaster, shook the courage of the Mahrattas; and they entrenched their camp on a plain near Panniput. The Dooranee, having surrounded their position with parties of troops, to prevent the passage of supplies, contented himself for some days with skirmishing. At last he tried an assault; when the Rohilla infantry … forced their way into the Mahratta works, and Bulwant Raow with other chiefs was killed; but night put an end to the conflict. Meanwhile scarcity prevailed and filth accumulated in the Mahratta camp. The vigilance of Ahmed intercepted their convoys. In a little time famine and pestilence "raged. A battle became the only resource [January 7, 1761]. The Abdalee restrained his troops till the Mahrattas had advanced a considerable way from their works; when he rushed upon them with so much rapidity as left them hardly any time for using their cannon. The Bhaow was killed early in the action; confusion soon pervaded the army, and a dreadful carnage ensued. The field was floated with blood. Twenty-two thousand men and women were taken prisoners. Of those who escaped from the field of battle, the greater part were butchered by the people of the country, who had suffered from their depredations. Of an army of 140,000 horse, commanded by the most celebrated generals of the nation, only three chiefs of any rank, and a mere residue of the troops, found their way to Deccan. The Dooranee Shah made but little use of this mighty victory. After remaining a few months at Delhi, he recognized Alee Gohur as Emperor, by the title of Shah Aulum II.; and entrusting Nujeeb ad Dowlah with the superintendence of affairs, till his master should return from Bengal, he marched back to his capital of Cabul in the end of the year 1760 [1761]. With Aulum-geer II. the empire of the Moguls may be justly considered as having arrived at its close. The unhappy Prince who now received the name of Emperor, and who, after a life of misery and disaster, ended his days a pensioner of English merchants, never possessed a sufficient degree of power to consider himself for one moment as master of the throne."

J. Mill, History of British India, book 3, chapter 4 (volume 2).

"The words 'wonderful,' 'strange,' are often applied to great historical events, and there is no event to which they have been applied more freely than to our [the English] conquest of India. … But the event was not wonderful in a sense that it is difficult to discover adequate causes by which it could have been produced. If we begin by remarking that authority in India had fallen on the ground through the decay of the Mogul Empire, that it lay there waiting to be picked up by somebody, and that all over India in that period adventurers of one kind or another were founding Empires, it is really not surprising that a mercantile corporation which had money to pay a mercenary force should be able to compete with other adventurers, nor yet that it should outstrip all its competitors by bringing into the field English military science and generalship, especially when it was backed over and over again by the whole power and credit of England and directed by English statesmen. … England did not in the strict sense conquer India, but … certain Englishmen, who happened to reside in India at the time when the Mogul Empire fell, had a fortune like that of Hyder Ali or Runjeet Singh and rose to supreme power there."

J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England, course 2, lecture 3.

ALSO IN: J. G. Duff, History of the Mahrattas, volume 2, chapters 2-5.

G. B. Malleson, History of Afghanistan, chapter 8.

H. G. Keene, Madhava Rao Sindhia, chapter 2.

INDIA: A. D. 1755-1757. Capture of Calcutta by Surajah Dowlah. The tragedy of the Black Hole. Clive's recovery of the Fort and settlement.

Clive remained three years in England, where he sought an election to Parliament, as a supporter of Fox, but was unseated by the Tories. On suffering this disappointment, he re-entered the service of the East India Company, as governor of Fort St. David, with the commission of a lieutenant-colonel in the British army, received from the king, and returned to India in 1755. Soon after his arrival at Fort St. David, "he received intelligence which called forth all the energy of his bold and active mind. Of the provinces which had been subject to the house of Tamerlane, the wealthiest was Bengal. No part of India possessed such natural advantages both for agriculture and for commerce. … The great commercial companies of Europe had long possessed factories in Bengal. The French were settled, as they still are, at Chandernagore on the Hoogley. Higher up the stream the Dutch traders held Chinsurah. Nearer to the sea, the English had built Fort William. A church and ample warehouses rose in the vicinity. A row of spacious houses, belonging to the chief factors of the East India Company, lined the banks of the river; and in the neighbourhood had sprung up a large and busy native town, where some Hindoo merchants of great opulence had fixed their abode. But the tract now covered by the palaces of Chowringhee contained only a few miserable huts thatched with straw. A jungle, abandoned to water-fowl and alligators, covered the site of the present Citadel, and the Course, which is now daily crowded at sunset with the gayest equipages of Calcutta. For the ground on which the settlement stood, the English, like other great landholders, paid rent to the government; and they were, like other great landholders, permitted to exercise a certain jurisdiction within their domain. The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa and Bahar, had long been governed by a viceroy, whom the English called Aliverdy Khan, and who, like the other viceroys of the Mogul, had become virtually independent. He died in 1756, and the sovereignty descended to his grandson, a youth under twenty years of age, who bore the name of Surajah Dowlah. … From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English. It was his whim to do so; and his whims were never opposed. He had also formed a very exaggerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by plundering them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they been even greater than he imagined, would not compensate him for what he must lose, if the European trade, of which Bengal was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence to some other Quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found. {1716} The English, in expectation of a war with France, had begun to fortify their settlement without special permission from the Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken refuge at Calcutta, and had not been delivered up. On such grounds as these Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William. The servants of the Company at Madras had been forced by Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers. Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terrified and bewildered by the approaching danger. … The fort was taken [June 20, 1756] after a feeble resistance; and great numbers of the English fell into the hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself with regal pomp in the principal hall of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the first in rank among the prisoners, to be brought before him. His Highness talked about the insolence of the English, and grumbled at the smallness of the treasure which he had found; but promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest. Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was followed. The English captives were left at the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and by the constant waving of fans. The number of the prisoners was 146. When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them. Nothing in history or fiction, not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell who, even in that extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the gaolers. But the answer was that nothing could be done without the Nabob's orders, that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers in the mean time held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, 123 in number, were flung into it promiscuously and covered up. … One Englishwoman had survived that night. She was placed in the harem of the Prince at Moorshedabad. Surajah Dowlah, in the mean time, sent letters to his nominal sovereign at Delhi, describing the late conquest in the most pompous language. He placed a garrison in Fort William, forbade Englishmen to dwell in the neighbourhood, and directed that, in memory of his great actions, Calcutta should thenceforward be called Alinagore, that is to say, the Port of God. In August the news of the fall of Calcutta reached Madras, and excited the fiercest and bitterest resentment. The cry of the whole settlement was for vengeance. Within forty-eight hours after the arrival of the intelligence it was determined that an expedition should be sent to the Hoogley, and that Clive should be at the head of the land forces. The naval armament was under the command of Admiral Watson. Nine hundred English infantry, fine troops and full of spirit, and 1,500 sepoys, composed the army which sailed to punish a Prince who had more subjects than Lewis XV. or the Empress Maria Theresa. In October the expedition sailed; but it had to make its way against adverse winds, and did not reach Bengal till December. The Nabob was revelling in fancied security at Moorshedabad. He was so profoundly ignorant of the state of foreign countries that he often used to say that there were not ten thousand men in all Europe; and it had never occurred to him as possible, that the English would dare to invade his dominions. But, though undisturbed by any fear of their military power, he began to miss them greatly. His revenues fell off. … He was already disposed to permit the company to resume its mercantile operations in his country, when he received the news that an English armament was in the Hoogley. He instantly ordered all his troops to assemble at Moorshedabad, and marched towards Calcutta. Clive had commenced operations with his usual vigour. He took Budgebudge, routed the garrison of Fort William, recovered Calcutta, stormed and sacked Hoogley. The Nabob, already disposed to make some concessions to the English, was confirmed in his pacific disposition by these proofs of their power and spirit. He accordingly made overtures to the chiefs of the invading armament, and offered to restore the factory, and to give compensation to those whom he had despoiled. Clive's profession, was war; and he felt that there was something discreditable in an accommodation with Surajah Dowlah. But his power was limited. … The promises of the Nabob were large, the chances of a contest doubtful; and Clive consented to treat, though he expressed his regret that things should not be concluded in so glorious a manner as he could have wished. With this negotiation commences a new chapter in the life of Clive. Hitherto he had been merely a soldier carrying into effect, with eminent ability and valour, the plans of others. Henceforth he is to be chiefly regarded as a statesman; and his military movements are to be considered as subordinate to his political designs."

Lord Macaulay, Lord Clive (Essays).

ALSO IN: Sir J. Malcolm, Life of Lord Clive, chapter 3 (volume 1).

J. Mill, History of British India, book 4, chapter 3 (volume 3).

H. E. Busteed, Echoes from Old Calcutta, chapter 1.

{1717}

INDIA: A. D. 1757. A Treacherous conspiracy against Surajah Dowlah. His overthrow at the battle of Plassey. The counterfeit Treaty with Omichund. Elevation of Meer Jaffier to the Subahdar's throne.

The unsatisfactory treaty entered into with Surajah Dowlah had been pressed upon Clive by the Calcutta merchants, who "thought the alliance would enable them to get rid of the rival French station at Chandernagore. The Subahdar gave a doubtful answer to their proposal to attack this settlement, which Clive interpreted as an assent. The French were overpowered, and surrendered their fort. Surajah Dowlah was now indignant against his recent allies; and sought the friendship of the French officers. Clive, called by the natives 'the daring in war,' was also the most adroit, and,—for the truth cannot be disguised,—the most unscrupulous in policy. The English resident at the Court of Moorshedabad, under Clive's instructions, encouraged a conspiracy to depose the Subahdar, and to raise his general, Meer Jaffier, to the supreme power. A Hindoo of great wealth and influence, Omichund, engaged in this conspiracy. After it had proceeded so far as to become the subject of a treaty between a Select Committee at Calcutta and Meer Jaffier, Omichund demanded that a condition should be inserted in that treaty, to pay him thirty lacs of rupees as a reward for his service. The merchants at Calcutta desired the largest share of any donation from Meer Jaffier, as a consideration for themselves, and were by no means willing that £300,000 should go to a crafty Hindoo. Clive suggested an expedient to secure Omichund's fidelity, and yet not to comply with his demands—to have two treaties drawn; a real one on red paper, a fictitious one on white. The white treaty was to be shown to Omichund, and he was to see with his own eyes that he had been properly cared for. Clive and the Committee signed this; as well as the red treaty which was to go to Meer Jaffier. Admiral Watson refused to sign the treacherous document. On the 19th of May, 1773, Clive stood up in his place in the House of Commons, to defend himself upon this charge against him, amongst other accusations. He boldly acknowledged that the stratagem of the two treaties was his invention;—that admiral Watson did not sign it; but that he should have thought himself authorised to sign for him in consequence of a conversation; that the person who did sign thought he had sufficient authority for so doing. 'He (Clive) forged admiral Watson's name, says lord Macaulay. … The courage, the perseverance, the unconquerable energy of Clive have furnished examples to many in India who have emulated his true glory. Thank God, the innate integrity of the British character has, for the most part, preserved us from such exhibitions of 'true policy and justice.' The English resident, Mr. Watts, left Moorshedabad. Clive wrote a letter of defiance to Surajah Dowlah, and marched towards his capital. The Subahdar had come forth from his city, as populous as the London of a century ago, to annihilate the paltry army of 1,000 English, and their 2,000 Sepoys disciplined by English officers, who dared to encounter his 60,000. He reached the village of Plassey with all the panoply of oriental warfare. His artillery alone appeared sufficient to sweep away those who brought only eight field pieces and two howitzers to meet his fifty heavy guns. Each gun was drawn by forty yoke of oxen; and a trained elephant was behind each gun to urge it over rough ground or up steep ascents. Meer Jaffier had not performed his promise to join the English with a division of the Subahdar's army. It was a time of terrible anxiety with the English commander. Should he venture to give battle without the aid of a native force? He submitted his doubt to a Council of War. Twelve officers, himself amongst the number, voted for delay. Seven voted for instant action. Clive reviewed the arguments on each side, and finally cast away his doubts. He determined to fight, without which departure from the opinion of the majority, he afterwards said, the English would never have been masters of Bengal. On the 22nd of June [1757], his little army marched fifteen miles, passed the Hooghly, and at one o'clock of the morning of the 23rd rested under the mangoe-trees of Plassey. As the day broke, the vast legions of the Subahdar,—15,000 cavalry, 45,000 infantry,—some armed with muskets, some with bows and arrows, began to surround the mangoe-grove and the hunting-lodge where Clive had watched through the night. There was a cannonade for several hours. The great guns of Surajah Dowlah did little execution. The small field-pieces of Clive were well served. One of the chief Mohammedan leaders having fallen, disorder ensued, and the Subahdar was advised to retreat. He himself fled upon a swift camel to Moorshedabad. When the British forces began to pursue, the victory became complete. Meer Jaffier joined the conquerors the next day. Surajah Dowlah did not consider himself safe in his capital; and he preferred to seek the protection of a French detachment at Patna. He escaped from his palace disguised; ascended the Ganges in a small boat; and fancied himself secure. A peasant whose ears he had cut off recognised his oppressor, and with some soldiers brought him back to Moorshedabad. In his presence-chamber now sat Meer Jaffier, to whose knees the wretched youth crawled for mercy. That night Surajah Dowlah was murdered in his prison, by the orders of Meer Jaffier's son, a boy as blood-thirsty as himself."

C. Knight, Popular History of England, volume 6, chapter 14.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, Founders of the Indian Empire: Clive, chapters 8-10.

G. B. Malleson, Lord Clive (Rulers of India).

G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapter 3.

E. Thornton, History of British Empire in India, volume 1, chapter 4.

INDIA: A. D. 1757-1772. Clive's Administration in Bengal. Decisive war with the Moghul Emperor and the Nawab of Oudh. English Supremacy established.

"The battle of Plassey was fought on June 23, 1757, an anniversary afterwards remembered when the Mutiny of 1857 was at its height. History has agreed to adopt this date as the beginning of the British Empire in the East. But the immediate results of the victory were comparatively small, and several years passed in hard fighting before even the Bengalis would admit the superiority of the British arms. {1718} For the moment, however, all opposition was at an end. Clive, again following in the steps of Dupleix, placed Mir Jafar upon the Viceregal throne at Murshidabad, being careful to obtain a patent of investiture from the Mughal court. Enormous sums were exacted from Mir Jafar as the price of his elevation. … At the same time, the Nawab made a grant to the Company of the zamindari or landholder's rights over an extensive tract of country round Calcutta, now known as the District of the Twenty-four Parganas. The area of this tract was 882 square miles. In 1757 the Company obtained only the zamindari rights—i. e., the rights to collect the cultivator's rents, with the revenue jurisdiction attached [see below: A. D. 1785-1793]. The superior lordship, or right to receive the land tax, remained with the Nawab. But in 1759, this also was granted by the Delhi Emperor, the nominal Suzerain of the Nawab, in favour of Clive, who thus became the landlord of his own masters, the Company. … Lord Clive's claims to the property as feudal Suzerain over the Company were contested in 1764; and on the 23d June, 1765, when he returned to Bengal, a new deed was issued, confirming the unconditional jagir to Lord Clive for ten years, with reversion afterwards to the Company in perpetuity. … In 1758, Clive was appointed by the Court of Directors the first Governor of all the Company's settlements in Bengal. Two powers threatened hostilities. On the west, the Shahzada or Imperial prince, known afterwards as the Emperor Shah Alam, with a mixed army of Afghans and Marhattas, and supported by the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, was advancing his own claims to the Province of Bengal. In the south, the influence of the French under Lally and Bussy was overshadowing the British at Madras. The name of Clive exercised a decisive effect in both directions. Mir Jafar was anxious to buy off the Shahzada, who had already invested Patna. But Clive marched in person to the rescue, with an army of only 450 Europeans and 2,500 sepoys, and the Mughal army dispersed without striking a blow. In the same year, Clive despatched a force southwards under Colonel Forde, which recaptured Masulipatam from the French, and permanently established British influence throughout the Northern Circars, and at the court of Haidarabad. He next attacked the Dutch, the only other European nation who might yet prove a rival to the English. He defeated them both by land and water; and their settlement at Chinsurah existed thenceforth only on sufferance. From 1760 to 1765, Clive was in England. He had left no system of government in Bengal, but merely the tradition that unlimited sums of money might be extracted from the natives by the terror of the English name. In 1761, it was found expedient and profitable to dethrone Mir Jafar, the English Nawab of Murshidabad, and to substitute his son-in-law, Mir Kasim, in his place. On this occasion, besides private donations, the English received a grant of the three Districts of Bardwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong, estimated to yield a net revenue of half a million sterling. But Mir Kasim soon began to show a will of his own, and to cherish dreams of independence. … The Nawab alleged that his civil authority was everywhere set at nought. The majority of the Council at Calcutta would not listen to his complaints. The Governor, Mr. Vansittart, and Warren Hastings, then a junior member of Council, attempted to effect some compromise. But the controversy had become too hot. The Nawab's officers fired upon an English boat, and forthwith all Bengal rose in arms [1763]. Two thousand of our sepoys were cut to pieces at Patna; about 200 Englishmen, who there and in other various parts of the Province fell into the hands of the Muhammadans, were massacred. But as soon as regular warfare commenced, Mir Kasim met with no more successes. His trained regiments were defeated in two pitched battles by Major Adams, at Gheriah and at Udha-nala; and he himself took refuge with the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, who refused to deliver him up. This led to a prolongation of the war. Shah Alam, who had now succeeded his father as Emperor, and Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, united their forces, and threatened Patna, which the English had recovered. A more formidable danger appeared in the English camp, in the form of the first sepoy mutiny. This was quelled by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, who ordered 24 of the ringleaders to be blown from guns, an old Mughal punishment. In 1764, Major Munro won the decisive battle of Baxar [or Buxar], which laid Oudh at the feet of the conquerors, and brought the Mughal Emperor as a suppliant to the English camp. Meanwhile, the Council at Calcutta had twice found the opportunity they loved of selling the government of Bengal to a new Nawab. But in 1765, Clive (now Baron Clive of Plassey in the peerage of Ireland) arrived at Calcutta, as Governor of Bengal for the second time. Two landmarks stand out in his policy. First, he sought the substance, although not the name, of territorial power, under the fiction of a grant from the Mughal Emperor. Second, he desired to purify the Company's service, by prohibiting illicit gains, and guaranteeing a reasonable pay from honest sources. In neither respect were his plans carried out by his immediate successors. But the beginning of our Indian rule dates from this second governorship of Clive, as our military supremacy had dated from his victory at Plassey. Clive landed, advanced rapidly up from Calcutta to Allahabad, and there settled in person the fate of nearly half of India. Oudh was given back to the Nawab Wazir, on condition of his paying half a million sterling towards the expenses of the war. The Provinces of Allahabad and Kora, forming the greater part of the Doab, were handed over to Shah Alam himself, who in his turn granted to the Company the diwani or fiscal administration of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and also the territorial jurisdiction of the Northern Circars. A puppet Nawab was still maintained at Murshidabad, who received an annual allowance from us of £600,000. Half that amount, or about £300,000, we paid to the Emperor as tribute from Bengal. Thus was constituted the dual system of government, by which the English received all the revenues and undertook to maintain the army; while the criminal jurisdiction, or nizamat, was vested in the Nawab. In Indian phraseology, the Company was diwan and the Nawab was nizam. The actual collection of the revenues still remained for some years in the hands of native officials. … Lord Clive quitted India for the third and last time in 1767. {1719} Between that date and the governorship of Warren Hastings, in 1772, little of importance occurred in Bengal beyond the terrible famine of 1770, which is officially reported to have swept away one-third of the inhabitants. The dual system of government, established in 1765 by Clive, had proved a failure. Warren Hastings, a tried servant of the Company, distinguished alike for intelligence, for probity, and for knowledge of oriental manners, was nominated Governor by the Court of Directors, with express instructions to carry out a predetermined series of reforms. In their own words, the Court had resolved to 'stand forth as diwan, and to take upon themselves, by the agency of their own servants, the entire care and administration of the revenues.' In the execution of this plan, Hastings removed the exchequer from Murshidabad to Calcutta, and appointed European officers, under the now familiar title of Collectors, to superintend the revenue collections and preside in the courts. Clive had laid the territorial foundations of the British Empire in Bengal. Hastings may be said to have created a British administration for that Empire."

Sir W. W. Hunter, India (article in Imperial Gazetteer of India) volume 4, pages 389-394.

ALSO IN: W. M, Torrens, Empire in Asia: How we came by it, chapters 4-6.

Sir C. Wilson, Lord Clive, chapters 7-9.

G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapter 7.

INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761. Overthrow of French domination in the Carnatic. The decisive Battle of Wandiwash.

"In 1758 the fortunes of the French in India underwent an entire change. In April a French fleet arrived at Pondicherry. It brought a large force under the command of Count de Lally, who had been appointed Governor-General of the French possessions in India. … No sooner had he landed at Pondicherry than he organised an expedition against Fort St. David; but he found that no preparations had been made by the French authorities. There was a want alike of coolies, draught cattle, provisions, and ready money. But the energy of Lally overcame all obstacles. … In June, 1758, Lally captured Fort St. David. He then prepared to capture Madras as a preliminary to an advance on Bengal. He recalled Bussy from the Dekhan to help him with his Indian experiences; and he sent the Marquis de Conflans to succeed Bussy in the command of the Northern Circars. [A strip of territory on the Coromandel coast, which had been ceded to the French in 1752 by Salabut Jung, Nizam of the Dekhun, was so called; it stretched along 600 miles of seaboard, from the Carnatic frontier northwards.] … The departure of Bussy from the Northern Circars was disastrous to the French. The Raja of Vizianagram revolted against the French and sent to Calcutta for help. Clive despatched an English force to the Northern Circars, under the command of Colonel Forde; and in December, 1758, Colonel Forde defeated the French under Conflans [at Condore, or Kondur, December 9], and prepared to recover all the English factories on the coast which had been captured by Bussy. Meanwhile Count de Lally was actively engaged at Pondicherry in preparations for the siege of Madras. He hoped to capture Madras, and complete the destruction of the English in the Carnatic; and then to march northward, capture Calcutta, and expel the English from Bengal. … Lally reached Madras on the 12th of December, 1758, and at once took possession of Black Town. He then began the siege of Fort St. George with a vigour and activity which commanded the respect of his enemies. His difficulties were enormous. … Even the gunpowder was nearly exhausted. At last, on the 16th of February, 1759, an English fleet arrived at Madras under Admiral Pocock, and Lally was compelled to raise the siege. Such was the state of party feeling amongst the French in India, that the retreat of Lally from Madras was received at Pondicherry with every demonstration of joy. The career of Lally in India lasted for two years longer, namely from February, 1759, to February, 1761; it is a series of hopeless struggles and wearying misfortunes. In the Dekhan, Salabut Jung had been thrown into the utmost alarm by the departure of Bussy and defeat of Conflans. He was exposed to the intrigues and plots of his younger brother, Nizam Ali, and he despaired of obtaining further help from the French. Accordingly he opened up negotiations with Colonel Forde and the English. Forde on his part recovered all the Captured factories [taking Masulipatam by storm, April 7, 1759, after a fortnight's siege], and drove the French out of the Northern Circars. He could not however interfere in the domestic affairs of the Dekhan, by helping Salabut Jung against Nizam Ali. In 1761 Salabut Jung was dethroned and placed in confinement; and Nizam Ali ascended the throne at Hyderabad as ruler of the Dekhan. In the Carnatic the French were in despair. In January, 1760, Lally was defeated by Colonel Coote at Wandiwash, between Madras and Pondicherry. Lally opened up negotiations with Hyder Ali, who was rising to power in Mysore; but Hyder Ali as yet could do little or nothing. At the end of 1760 Colonel Coote began the siege of Pondicherry. Lally … was ill in health and worn out with vexation and fatigue. The settlement was torn by dissensions. In January, 1761, the garrison was starved into a capitulation, and the town and fortifications were levelled with the ground. A few weeks afterwards the French were compelled to surrender the strong hill-fortress of Jingi, and their military power in the Carnatic was brought to a close." On the return of Count Lally to France "he was sacrificed to save the reputation of the French ministers. … He was tried by the parliament of Paris. … In May, 1766, he was condemned not only to death, but to immediate execution."

J. T. Wheeler, Short History of India, part 3, chapter 2.

"The battle of Wandewash, … though the numbers on each side were comparatively small, must yet be classed amongst the decisive battles of the world, for it dealt a fatal and decisive blow to French domination in India."

G. B. Malleson, History of the French in India, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapter 4.

INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769. The first war with Hyder Ali.

"At this period, the main point of interest changes from the Presidency of Bengal to the Presidency of Madras. There, the English were becoming involved in another war. There, they had now, for the first time, to encounter the most skilful and daring of all the enemies against whom they ever fought in India—Hyder Ali. {1720} He was of humble origin, the grandchild of a wandering 'fakir' or Mahomedan monk. Most versatile in his talents, Hyder was no less adventurous in his career; by turns a private man devoted to sports of the chase, a captain of free-booters, a partisan-chief, a rebel against the Rajah of Mysore, and commander-in-chief of the Mysorean army. Of this last position he availed himself to dethrone and supplant his master. … Pursuing his ambitious schemes, Hyder Ali became, not merely the successor of the Rajah, but the founder of the kingdom of Mysore. From his palace at Seringapatam, as from a centre, a new energy was infused through the whole of Southern India. By various wars and by the dispossession of several smaller princes, he extended his frontiers to the northward, nearly to the river Kistna. His posts on the coast of Malabar, Mangalore especially, gave him the means of founding a marine; and he applied himself with assiduous skill to train and discipline his troops according to the European models. The English at Madras were roused by his ambition, without as yet fully appreciating his genius. We find them at the beginning of 1767 engaged, with little care or forethought, in a confederacy against him with the Nizam and the Mahrattas. Formidable as that confederacy might seem, it was speedily dissipated by the arts of Hyder. At the very outset, a well-timed subsidy bought off the Mahrattas. The Nizam showed no better faith; he was only more tardy in his treason. He took the field in concert with a body of English commanded by Colonel Joseph Smith, but soon began to show symptoms of defection, and at last drew off his troops to join the army of Hyder. A battle ensued near Trincomalee, in September, 1767. Colonel Smith had under him no more than 1,500 Europeans and 9,000 Sepoys; while the forces combined on the other side were estimated, probably with much exaggeration, at 70,000 men. Nevertheless, Victory, as usual, declared for the English cause. … Our victory at Trincomalee produced as its speedy consequence a treaty of peace with the Nizam. Hyder was left alone; but even thus proved fully a match for the English both of Madras and of Bombay. … He could not be prevented from laying waste the southern plains of the Carnatic, as the territory of one of the staunchest allies of England, Mahomed Ali, the Nabob of Arcot. Through such ravages, the British troops often underwent severe privations. … At length, in the spring of 1769, Hyder Ali became desirous of peace, and resolved to extort it on favourable terms. First, by a dexterous feint he drew off the British forces 140 miles to the southward of Madras. Then suddenly, at the head of 5,000 horsemen, Hyder himself appeared at St. Thomas's Mount, within ten miles of that city. The terrified Members of the Council already, in their mind's eye, saw their country-houses given up to plunder and to flame, and were little inclined to dispute whatever might be asked by an enemy so near at hand. Happily his terms were not high. A treaty was signed, providing that a mutual restoration of conquests should take place, and that the contracting parties should agree to assist each other in all defensive wars. In the career of Hyder Ali, this was by no means the first, nor yet the last occasion, on which he showed himself sincerely desirous of alliance with the English. He did not conceal the fact, that, in order to maintain his power and secure himself, he must lean either on them or on the Mahrattas. … In this war with Hyder, the English had lost no great amount of reputation, and of territory they had lost none at all. But as regards their wealth and their resources, they had suffered severely. Supplies, both of men and of money, had been required from Bengal, to assist the government at Madras; and both had been freely given. In consequence of such a drain, there could not be made the usual investments in goods, nor yet the usual remittances to England. Thus at the very time when the proprietors of the East India Company had begun to wish each other joy on the great reforms effected by Lord Clive, and looked forward to a further increase of their half-yearly Dividend, they were told to prepare for its reduction. A panic ensued. Within a few days, in the spring of 1769, India Stock fell above sixty per cent."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 67.

ALSO IN: Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani, History of Hydur Naik, chapters 1-17.

L. B. Bowring, Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, chapter 8.

INDIA: A. D. 1770-1773. Climax of English misrule. Break-down of the East India Company's government. The Indian Act of Lord North.

"In 1770 Bengal was desolated by perhaps the most terrible of the many terrible famines that have darkened its history, and it was estimated that more than a third part of its inhabitants perished. Yet in spite of all these calamities, in spite of the rapidly accumulating evidence of the inadequacy of the Indian revenues, the rapacity of the proprietors at home prevailed, and dividends of 12 and 12½ per cent., as permitted by the last Act, were declared. The result of all this could hardly be doubtful. In July, 1772, the Directors were obliged to confess that the sum required for the necessary payments of the next three months was deficient to the extent of no less than £1,293,000, and in August the Chairman and Deputy Chairman waited on the Minister to inform him that nothing short of a loan of at least one million from the public could save the Company from ruin. The whole system of Indian government had thus for a time broken down. The division between the Directors and a large part of the proprietors, and between the authorities of the Company in England and those in India, the private and selfish interests of its servants in India, and of its proprietors at home, the continual oscillation between a policy of conquest and a policy of trade, and the great want in the whole organisation of any adequate power of command and of restraint, had fatally weakened the great corporation. In England the conviction was rapidly growing that the whole system of governing a great country by a commercial company was radically and incurably false. … The subject was discussed in Parliament, in 1772, at great length, and with much acrimony. Several propositions were put forward by the Directors, but rejected by the Parliament; and Parliament, under the influence of Lord North, and in spite of the strenuous and passionate opposition of Burke, asserted in unequivocal terms its right to the territorial revenues of the Company. A Select Committee, consisting of thirty-one members, was appointed by Parliament to make a full inquiry into the affairs of the Company. It was not, however, till 1773 that decisive measures were taken. {1721} The Company was at this time absolutely helpless. Lord North commanded an overwhelming majority in both Houses, and on Indian questions he was supported by a portion of the Opposition. The Company was on the brink of ruin, unable to pay its tribute to the Government, unable to meet the bills which were becoming due in Bengal. The publication, in 1773, of the report of the Select Committee, revealed a scene of maladministration, oppression, and fraud which aroused a wide-spread indignation through England; and the Government was able without difficulty, in spite of the provisions of the charter, to exercise a complete controlling and regulating power over the affairs of the Company. … By enormous majorities two measures were passed through Parliament in 1773, which mark the commencement of a new epoch in the history of the East India Company. By one Act, the ministers met its financial embarrassments by a loan of £1,400,000 at an interest of 4 per cent., and agreed to forego the claim of £400,000 till this loan had been discharged. The Company was restricted from declaring any dividend above 6 per cent. till the new loan had been discharged, and above 7 per cent. till its bond-debt was reduced to £1,500,000. It was obliged to submit its accounts every half-year to the Lords of the Treasury; it was restricted from accepting bills drawn by its servants in India for above 300,000 a year, and it was obliged to export to the British settlements within its limits British goods of a specified value. By another Act, the whole constitution of the Company was changed, and the great centre of authority and power was transferred to the Crown. … All the more important matters of jurisdiction in India were to be submitted to a new court, consisting of a Chief Justice and three puisne judges appointed by the Crown. A Governor-General of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, was to be appointed at a salary of £25,000 a year, with four Councillors, at salaries of £8,000 a year, and the other presidencies were made subordinate to Bengal. The first Governor-General and Councillors were to be nominated, not by the East India Company, but by Parliament; they were to be named in the Act, and to hold their offices for five years; after that period the appointments reverted to the Directors, but were subject to the approbation of the Crown. Everything in the Company's correspondence with India relating to civil and military affairs was to be laid before the Government. No person in the service of the King or of the Company might receive presents, and the Governor-General, the Councillors, and the judges were excluded from all commercial profits and pursuits. By this memorable Act the charter of the East India Company was completely subverted, and the government of India passed mainly into the hands of the ministers of the Crown. The chief management of affairs was vested in persons in whose appointment or removal the Company had no voice or share, who might govern without its approbation or sanction, but who nevertheless drew, by authority of an Act of Parliament, large salaries from its exchequer. Such a measure could be justified only by extreme necessity and by brilliant success, and it was obviously open to the gravest objections from many sides. … Warren Hastings was the first Governor-General: Barwell, Clavering, Monson, and Philip Francis were the four Councillors."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 13 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: J. Mill, History of British India, book 4, chapter 9 (volume 3).

INDIA: A. D. 1773-1785. The First English Governor-General. Administration of Warren Hastings. Execution of Nuncomar. The Rohilla War. Annexation of Benares. Treatment of the Begums of Oudh.

"The Governor-General was not at once the potential personage he has since become. The necessity of ruling by a Dictator (a dictator on the spot, though responsible to superiors at home) had not yet become obvious; and the Governor-General had no superiority in council, except the casting vote in case of an equal division. Whether he could govern or not depended chiefly on whether he had a party of two in the council. Two out of the four, with his own casting vote, were enough; and without it, he was not really governor. This is not the place in which to follow the history of the first general council and its factions, apart from the consequences to British interests. It must suffice to say that at the outset, three out of four of the council (and those the new officials from England) were opposed to Hastings. It has been related that the internal administration of Bengal under Clive's 'double system' was managed by the Nabob's prime-minister. This functionary had a salary of £100,000 a year, and enjoyed a high dignity and immense power. One man who aspired to hold the office in Clive's time was the great Hindoo, Nuncomar, … eminent in English eyes for his wealth, and his abilities, and much more in native estimation for his sanctity as a Brahmin, and his almost unbounded social power. … The Maharajah Nuncomar was a great scoundrel—there is no doubt of that; and his intrigues, supported by forgeries, were so flagrant as to prevent his appointment to the premiership under the Nabob. Such vices were less odious in Bengal than almost anywhere else; but they were inconvenient, as well as disgusting, to the British; and this was the reason why Clive set aside Nuncomar, and appointed his rival competitor, Mohammed Reza Khan, though he was highly reluctant to place the highest office in Bengal in the hands of a Mussulman. This Mussulman administered affairs for seven years before Hastings became Governor-General; and he also had the charge of the infant Nabob, after Surajah Dowla died. We have seen how dissatisfied the Directors were with the proceeds of their Bengal dominions. Nuncomar planted his agents everywhere; and in London especially; and these agents persuaded the Directors that Mohammed Reza Khan was to blame for their difficulties and their scanty revenues. Confident in this information, they sent secret orders to Hastings to arrest the great Mussulman, and everybody who belonged to him, and to hear what Nuncomar had to say against him." The Governor-General obeyed the order and made the arrests, "but the Mussulman minister was not punished, and Nuncomar hated Hastings accordingly. He bided his time, storing up materials of accusation with which to overwhelm the Governor at the first turn of his fortunes. That turn was when the majority of the Council were opposed to the Governor-General, and rendered him helpless in his office; and Nuncomar then presented himself, with offers of evidence to prove all manner of treasons and corruptions against Hastings. {1722} Hastings was haughty; the councils were tempestuous. Hastings prepared to resign, though he was aware that the opinion of the English in Bengal was with him; and Nuncomar was the greatest native in the country, visited by the Council, and resorted to by all his countrymen who ventured to approach him. Foiled in the Council, Hastings had recourse to the Supreme Court [of which Sir Elijah Impey was the Chief Justice]. He caused Nuncomar to be arrested on a charge brought ostensibly by a native of having forged a bond six years before. After a long trial for an offence which appeared very slight to Bengalee natives in those days, the culprit was found guilty by a jury of Englishmen, and condemned to death by the judges."

H. Martineau, British Rule in India, chapter 9.

"It may perhaps be said that no trial has been so often tried over again by such diverse authorities, or in so many different ways, as this celebrated proceeding. During the course of a century it has been made the theme of historical, political, and biographical discussions; all the points have been argued and debated by great orators and great lawyers; it has formed the avowed basis of a motion in Parliament to impeach the Chief-Justice, and it must have weighed heavily, though indirectly, with those who decided to impeach the Governor-General. It gave rise to rumours of a dark and nefarious conspiracy which, whether authentic or not, exactly suited the humour and the rhetoric of some contemporary English politicians. … Very recently Sir James Stephen, after subjecting the whole case to exact scrutiny and the most skilful analysis, after examining every document and every fact bearing upon this matter with anxious attention, has pronounced judgment declaring that Nuncomar's trial was perfectly fair, that Hastings had nothing to do with the prosecution, and that at the time there was no sort of conspiracy or understanding between Hastings and Impey in relation to it. Nothing can be more masterly or more effective than the method employed by Sir James Stephen to explode and demolish, by the force of a carefully-laid train of proofs, the loose fabric of assertions, invectives, and ill-woven demonstrations upon which the enemies of Hastings and Impey based and pushed forward their attacks, and which have never before been so vigorously battered in reply. … It may be accepted, upon Sir James Stephen's authority, that no evidence can be produced to justify conclusions adverse to the innocence of Hastings upon a charge that has from its nature affected the popular tradition regarding him far more deeply than the accusations of high-handed oppressive political transactions, which are little understood and leniently condemned by the English at large. There is really nothing to prove that he had anything to do with the prosecution, or that he influenced the sentence. … Nevertheless when Sir James Stephen undertakes to establish, by argument drawn from the general motives of human action, the moral certainty that Hastings was totally unconnected with the business, and that the popular impression against him is utterly wrong, his demonstration is necessarily less conclusive. … On the whole there is no reason whatever to dissent from Pitt's view, who treated the accusation of a conspiracy between Impey and Hastings for the purpose of destroying Nuncomar, as destitute of any shadow of solid proof. Whether Hastings, when Nuncomar openly tried to ruin him by false and malignant accusations, became aware and made use in self-defence of the fact that his accuser had rendered himself liable to a prosecution for forgery, is a different question, upon which also no evidence exists or is likely to be forthcoming."

Sir A. Lyall, Warren Hastings, chapter 3.

"James Mill says, 'No transaction perhaps of his whole administration more deeply tainted the reputation of Hastings than the tragedy of Nuncomar.' A similar remark was made by William Wilberforce. The most prominent part too in Nuncomar's story is played by Sir Elijah Impey. … Impey, in the present day, is known to English people in general only by the terrible attack made upon him by Lord Macaulay, in his essay on Warren Hastings. It stigmatises him as one of the vilest of mankind. 'No other such judge has dishonoured the English ermine since Jefferies drank himself to death in the Tower.' 'Impey, sitting as a judge, put a man unjustly to death, in order to serve a political purpose.' 'The time had come when he was to be stripped of that robe which he had so foully dishonoured.' These dreadful accusations I, upon the fullest consideration of the whole subject, and, in particular, of much evidence which Macaulay seems to me never to have seen, believe to be wholly unjust. For Macaulay himself I have an affectionate admiration. He was my own friend, and my father's, and my grandfather's friend also, and there are few injunctions which I am more disposed to observe than the one which bids us not to forget such persons. I was, moreover, his successor in office, and am better able than most persons to appreciate the splendour of the services which he rendered to India. These considerations make me anxious if I can to repair a wrong done by him, not intentionally, for there never was a kinder-hearted man, but because he adopted on insufficient grounds the traditional hatred which the Whigs bore to Impey, and also because his marvellous power of style blinded him to the effect which his language produced. He did not know his own strength, and was probably not aware that a few sentences which came from him with little effort were enough to brand a man's name with almost indelible infamy. … My own opinion is that no man ever had, or could have, a fairer trial than Nuncomar, and that Impey in particular behaved with absolute fairness and as much indulgence as was compatible with his duty. In his defence at the bar of the House of Commons, he said, 'Conscious as I am how much it was my intention to favour the prisoner in everything that was consistent with justice; wishing as I did that the facts might turn out favourable for an acquittal; it has appeared most wonderful to me that the execution of my purpose has so far differed from my intentions that any ingenuity could form an objection to my personal conduct as bearing hard on the prisoner.' My own earnest study of the trial has led me to the conviction that every word of this is absolutely true and just. Indeed, the first matter which directed my attention to the subject was the glaring contrast between Impey's conduct as ascribed in the State Trials and his character as described by Lord Macaulay. {1723} There is not a word in his summing-up of which I should have been ashamed had I said it myself, and all my study of the case has not suggested to me a single observation in Nuncomar's favour which is not noticed by Impey. As to the verdict, I think that there was ample evidence to support it. Whether it was in fact correct is a point on which it is impossible for me to give an unqualified opinion, as it is of course impossible now to judge decidedly of the credit due to the witnesses, and as I do not understand some part of the exhibits."

J. F. Stephen, The Story of Nuncomar, pages 2-3, 186-187.

"Sir John Strachey, in his work on Hastings and the Rohilla War, examines in detail one of the chief charges made against the conduct of Warren Hastings while Governor-General. The Rohilla charge was dropped by Burke and the managers, and was therefore not one of the issues tried at the impeachment; but it was, in spite of this fact, one of the main accusations urged against the Governor-General in Macaulay's famous essay. Macaulay, following James Mill, accuses Warren Hastings of having hired out an English army to exterminate what Burke called 'the bravest, the most honourable and generous nation on earth.' According to Macaulay, the Vizier of Oudh coveted the Rohilla country, but was not strong enough to take it for himself. Accordingly, he paid down forty lakhs of rupees to Hastings, on condition that the latter should help to strike down and seize his prey. … Sir John Strachey … shows beyond a shadow of doubt that the whole story is a delusion. … 'The English army was not hired out by Hastings for the destruction of the Rohillas; the Rohillas described by Burke as belonging to the bravest, the most honourable and generous nation on earth, were no nation at all, but a comparatively small body of cruel and rapacious Afghan adventurers, who had imposed their foreign rule on an unwilling Hindoo population; and the story of their destruction is fictitious.' … The north-west angle of the great strip of plain which follows the course of the Ganges was possessed by a clan which fifty years before had been a mere band of Afghan mercenaries, but which was now beginning to settle down as a dominant governing class, living among a vastly more numerous subject-population of Hindoos. This country was Rohilkhand, the warrior-horde the Rohillas. It must never be forgotten that the Rohillas were no more the inhabitants of Rohilkhand than were the Normans fifty years after the Conquest the inhabitants of England. … But the fact that the corner of what geographically was our barrier State was held by the Rohillas, made it necessary for us to keep Rohilkhand as well as Oudh free from the Mahrattas. Hence it became the key-note of Warren Hastings' policy to help both the Rohillas and the Vizier [of Oudh] to maintain their independence against the Mahrattas. In the year 1772, however, the Mahrattas succeeded in crossing the Ganges, in getting into Rohilkhand, and in threatening the Province of Oudh. … Hastings encouraged the Vizier and the Rohilla chiefs to make an alliance, under which the Rohillas were to be reinstated in their country by aid of the Vizier, the Vizier obtaining for such assistance forty lakhs,—that is, he coupled the Rohillas and the Vizier, for defence purposes, into one barrier-State. … If the Rohillas had observed this treaty, all might have been well. Unhappily for them, they could not resist the temptation to break faith." They joined the Mahrattas against Oudh, and it was after this had occurred twice that Hastings lent assistance to the Vizier in expelling them from Rohilkhand. "Instead of exterminating the Rohillas, he helped make a warrior-clan, but one generation removed from a 'free company,' recross the Ganges and release from their grip the land they had conquered."

The Spectator, April 2, 1892.

Sir John Strachey, Hastings and the Rohillas.

"The year 1781 opened for Hastings on a troubled sea of dangers, difficulties, and distress. Haidar Ali was raging in the Carnatic, Goddard and Camac were still fighting the Marathas, and French fleets were cruising in the Bay of Bengal. … It was no time for standing upon trifles. Money must be raised somehow, if British India was to be saved. Among other sources of supply, he turned to the Rajah of Banaras [or Benares]. Chait Singh was the grandson of an adventurer, who had ousted his own patron and protector from the lordship of the district so named. In 1775, his fief had been transferred by treaty from the Nawab of Oudh to the Company. As a vassal of the Company he was bound to aid them with men and money in times of special need. Five lakhs of rupees—£50,000—and two thousand horse was the quota which Hastings had demanded of him in 1780. In spite of the revenue of half-a-million, of the great wealth stored up in his private coffers, and of the splendid show which he always made in public, the Rajah pleaded poverty, and put off compliance with the demands of his liege lord. … Chait Singh had repeatedly delayed the payment of his ordinary tribute; his body-guard alone was larger than the force which Hastings required of him; he was enrolling troops for some warlike purpose, and Hastings' agents accused him of secret plottings with the Oudh Begams at Faizabad. … The Rajah, in fact, like a shrewd, self-seeking Hindu, was waiting upon circumstances, which at that time boded ill for his English neighbours. The Marathas, the French, or some other power might yet relieve him from the yoke of a ruler who restrained his ambition, and lectured him on the duty of preserving law and order among his own subjects. … It has often been argued that, in his stern dealings with the Rajah of Banaras, Hastings was impelled by malice and a desire for revenge. But the subsequent verdict of the House of Lords on this point, justifies itself to all who have carefully followed the facts of his life. … As a matter of policy, he determined to make an example of a contumacious vassal, whose conduct in that hour of need added a new danger to those which surrounded the English in India. A heavy fine would teach the Rajah to obey orders, and help betimes to fill his own treasury with the sinews of war. … Chait Singh had already tried upon the Governor-General those arts which in Eastern countries people of all classes employ against each other without a blush. He had sent Hastings a peace-offering of two lakhs—£20,000. Hastings took the money, but reserved it for the Company's use. Presently he received an offer of twenty lakhs for the public service. But Hastings was in no mood for further compromise in evasion of his former demands. {1724} He would be satisfied with nothing less than half a million in quittance of all dues. In July, 1781, he set out, with Wheeler's concurrence, for the Rajah's capital. … Traveling, as he preferred to do, with a small escort and as little parade as possible, he arrived on the 16th August at the populous and stately city. … On his way thither, at Baxar, the recusant Rajah had come to meet him, with a large retinue, in the hope of softening the heart of the great Lord Sahib. He even laid his turban on Hastings' lap. … With the haughtiness of an ancient Roman, Hastings declined his prayer for a private interview. On the day after his arrival at Banaras, the Governor-General forwarded to Chait Singh a paper stating the grounds of complaint against him, and demanding an explanation on each point. The Rajah's answer seemed to Hastings' so offensive in style and unsatisfactory in substance;' it was full, in fact, of such transparent, or, as Lord Thurlow afterwards called them, 'impudent' falsehoods, that the Governor-General issued orders for placing the Rajah under arrest. Early the next morning, Chait Singh was quietly arrested in his own palace. … Meanwhile his armed retainers were flocking into the city from his strong castle of Ramnagar, on the opposite bank. Mixing with the populace, they provoked a tumult, in which the two companies of Sepoys guarding the prisoner were cut to pieces. With unloaded muskets and empty pouches—for the ammunition had been forgotten—the poor men fell like sheep before their butchers. Two more companies, in marching to their aid through the narrow streets, were nearly annihilated. During the tumult Chait Singh quietly slipped out of the palace, dropped by a rope of turbans into a boat beneath, and crossed in safety to Ramnagar. … If Chait Singh's followers had not shared betimes their master's flight across the river, Hastings, with his band of thirty Englishmen and fifty Sepoys, might have paid very dearly for the sudden miscarriage of his plans. But the rabble of Banaras had no leader, and troops from the nearest garrisons were already marching to the rescue. … Among the first who reached him was the gallant Popham, bringing with him several hundred of his own Sepoys. … The beginning of September found Popham strong enough to open a campaign, which speedily avenged the slaughters at Banaras and Ramnagar, and carried Hastings back into the full stream of richly-earned success. … The capture of Bijigarh on the 10th November, closed the brief but brilliant campaign. The booty, amounting to £400,000, was at once divided among the captors; and Hastings lost his only chance of replenishing his treasury at the expense of Chait Singh. He consoled himself and improved the Company's finances, by bestowing the rebel's forfeit lordship on his nephew, and doubling the tribute hitherto exacted. He was more successful in accomplishing another object of his journey up the country."

L. J. Trotter, Warren Hastings, chapter 6.

"It is certain … that Chait Singh's rebellion was largely aided by the Begums or Princesses of Faizabad. On this point the evidence contained in Mr. Forrest's volumes ['Selections from Letters, Despatches and other State Papers in the Foreign Department of the Government of India,' edited by G. W. Forrest] leaves no shadow of reasonable doubt. In plain truth, the Begums, through their Ministers, the eunuchs, had levied war both against the Company and their own kinsmen and master, the new Wazir of Oudh. Some years before, when the Francis faction ruled in Calcutta, these ladies, the widow and the mother of Shuja, had joined with the British Agent in robbing the new Wazir, Asaf-ud-daula, of nearly all the rich treasure which his father had stored up in Faizabad. Hastings solemnly protested against a transaction which he was powerless to prevent. The Begums kept their hold upon the treasure, and their Jaghirs, or military fiefs, which ought by rights to have lapsed to the new Wazir. Meanwhile Asaf-ud-daula had to govern as he best could, with an empty treasury, and an army mutinous for arrears of pay. At last, with the suppression of the Benares revolt, it seemed to Hastings and the Wazir that the time had come for resuming the Jaghirs, and making the Begums disgorge their ill-gotten wealth. In accordance with the Treaty of Chunar, both these objects were carried out by the Wazir's orders, with just enough of compulsion to give Hastings' enemies a handle for the slanders and misrepresentations which lent so cruel a point to Sheridan's dazzling oratory, and to one of the most scathing passages in Macaulay's most popular essay. There are some points, no doubt, in Hastings' character and career about which honest men may still hold different opinions. But on all the weightier issues here mentioned there ought to be no room for further controversy. It is no longer possible to contend, for instance, that Hastings agreed, for a handsome bribe, to help in exterminating the innocent people of Rohilkhand; that he prompted Impey to murder Nand-Kumar; that any desire for plunder led him to fasten a quarrel upon Chait Singh; or that he engaged with the Oudh Wazir in a plot to rob the Wazir's own mother of vast property secured to her under a solemn compact, 'formally guaranteed by the Government of Bengal.'"

L. J. Trotter, Warren Hastings and his Libellers (Westminster Review, March, 1891).

ALSO IN: W. M. Torrens, Empire in Asia: How we came by it, chapters 7-11.

H. E. Busteed, Echoes from Old Calcutta.

G. W. Forrest, The Administration of Warren Hastings.

G. R. Gleig, Memoirs of Warren Hastings, volume 1, chapters 8-14, and volume 2.

INDIA: A. D. 1780-1783. The second war with Hyder Ali (Second Mysore War).

"The brilliant successes obtained by the English over the French in Hindostan at the beginning of the war had made all direct competition between the two nations in that country impossible, but it was still in the power of the French to stimulate the hostility of the native princes, and the ablest of all these, Hyder Ali, the great ruler of Mysore, was once more in the field. Since his triumph over the English, in 1769, he had acquired much additional territory from the Mahrattas. He had immensely strengthened his military forces, both in numbers and discipline. … For some years he showed no wish to quarrel with the English, but when a Mahratta chief invaded his territory they refused to give him the assistance they were bound by the express terms of the treaty of 1769 to afford, they rejected or evaded more than one subsequent proposal of alliance, and they pursued a native policy in some instances hostile to his interest. {1725} As a great native sovereign, too, he had no wish to see the balance of power established by the rivalry between the British and French destroyed. … Mysore was swarming with French adventurers. The condition of Europe made it scarcely possible that England could send any fresh forces, and Hyder Ali had acquired a strength which appeared irresistible. Ominous rumours passed over the land towards the close of 1779, but they were little heeded, and no serious preparations had been made, when in July, 1780, the storm suddenly burst. At the head of an army of at least 90,000 men, including 30,000 horsemen, 100 cannon, many European officers and soldiers, and crowds of desperate adventurers from all parts of India, Hyder Ali descended upon the Carnatic and devastated a vast tract of country round Madras. Many forts and towns were invested, captured, or surrendered. The Nabob and some of his principal officers acted with gross treachery or cowardice, and in spite of the devastations native sympathies were strongly with the invaders. … Madras was for a time in imminent danger. A few forts commanded by British officers held out valiantly, but the English had only two considerable bodies of men, commanded respectively by Colonel Baillie and by Sir Hector Munro, in the field. They endeavoured to effect a junction, but Hyder succeeded in attacking separately the small army of Colonel Baillie, consisting of rather more than 3,700 men, and it was totally defeated [September 10], 2,000 men being left on the field. Munro only saved himself from a similar fate by a rapid retreat, abandoning his baggage, and much of his ammunition. Arcot, which was the capital of the Nabob, and which contained vast military stores, was besieged for six weeks, and surrendered in the beginning of November. Velore, Wandewash, Permacoil, and Chingliput, four of the chief strongholds in the Carnatic, were invested. A French fleet with French troops was daily expected, and it appeared almost certain that the British power would be extinguished in Madras, if not in the whole of Hindostan. It was saved by the energy of the Governor-General, Warren Hastings, who, by extraordinary efforts, collected a large body of Sepoys and a few Europeans in Bengal, and sent them with great rapidity to Madras, under the command of Sir Eyre Coote, who had proved himself twenty years before scarcely second in military genius to Clive himself. I do not propose to relate in detail the long and tangled story of the war that followed. … It is sufficient to say that Coote soon found himself at the head of about 7,200 men, of whom 1,400 were Europeans; that he succeeded in relieving Wandewash, and obliging Hyder Ali to abandon for the present the siege of Velore; that the French fleet, which arrived off the coast in January, 1781, was found to contain no troops, and that on July 1, 1781, Coote, with an army of about 8,000 men, totally defeated forces at least eight times as numerous, commanded by Hyder himself, in the great battle of Porto Novo. … The war raged over the Carnatic, over Tanjore, in the Dutch settlements to the south of Tanjore, on the opposite Malabar coast, and on the coast of Ceylon, while at the same time another and independent struggle was proceeding with the Mahrattas. … The coffers at Calcutta were nearly empty, and it was in order to replenish them that Hastings committed some of the acts which were afterwards the subjects of his impeachment. … By the skill and daring of a few able men, of whom Hastings, Coote, Munro, and Lord Macartney were the most prominent, the storm was weathered. Hyder Ali died in December, 1782, about four months before Sir Eyre Coote. The peace of 1782 withdrew France and Holland from the contest, and towards the close of 1783, Tippoo, the son of Hyder Ali, consented to negotiate a peace, which was signed in the following March. Its terms were a mutual restoration of all conquests, and in this, as in so many other great wars, neither of the contending parties gained a single advantage by all the bloodshed, the expenditure, the desolation, and the misery of a struggle of nearly four years."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 14 (volume 5).

"The centre and heart of the English power lay in Bengal, which the war never reached at all, and which was governed by a man of rare talent and organizing capacity. No Anglo-Indian government of that time could carry on a campaign by war loans, as in Europe; the cost had to be provided out of revenue, or by requiring subsidies from allied native rulers; and it was Bengal that furnished not only the money and the men, but also the chief political direction and military leadership which surmounted the difficulties and repaired the calamities of the English in the western and southern Presidencies. And when at last the Marathas made peace, when Hyder Ali died, and Suffren, with all his courage and genius, could not master the English fleet in the Bay of Bengal, there could be no doubt that the war had proved the strength of the English position in India, had tested the firmness of its foundation. … With the termination of this war ended the only period in the long contest between England and the native powers, during which our position in India was for a time seriously jeoparded. That the English dominion emerged from this prolonged struggle uninjured, though not unshaken, is a result due to the political intrepidity of Warren Hastings. … Hastings had no aristocratic connexions or parliamentary influence at a time when the great families and the House of Commons held immense power; he was surrounded by enemies in his own Council; and his immediate masters, the East India Company, gave him very fluctuating support. Fiercely opposed by his own colleagues, and very ill obeyed by the subordinate Presidencies, he had to maintain the Company's commercial establishments, and at the same time to find money for carrying on distant and impolitic wars in which he had been involved by blunders at Madras or Bombay. These funds he had been expected to provide out of current revenues, after buying and despatching the merchandise on which the company's home dividends depended; for the resource of raising public loans, so freely used in England, was not available to him. He was thus inevitably driven to the financial transactions, at Benares and Lucknow, that were now so bitterly stigmatized as crimes by men who made no allowance for a perilous situation in a distant land, or for the weight of enormous national interests committed to the charge of the one man capable of sustaining them. When the storm had blown over in India, and he had piloted his vessel into calm water, he was sacrificed with little or no hesitation to party exigencies in England; the Ministry would have recalled him; they consented to his impeachment; they left him to be baited by the Opposition and to be ruined by the law's delay, by the incredible procrastination and the obsolete formalities of a seven years' trial before the House of Lords."

Sir A. Lyall, Rise of the British Dominion in India, chapter 11, section 2.

ALSO IN: Meer Hussein Ali Khan Kirmani, History of Hydur Naik, chapters 27-31.

G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapter 8.

L. B. Bowring, Haidar Ali and Tipu Sultan, chapters 14-15.

{1726}

INDIA: A. D. 1785-1793. State of India. Extent of English rule. Administration of Lord Cornwallis. War with Tippoo Saib (Third Mysore War). The "Permanent Settlement" of Land Revenue in Bengal, and its fruit.

"When Warren Hastings left India, the Mogul Empire was simply the phantom of a name. The warlike tribes of the north-west, Sikhs, Rajpoots, Jats, were henceforth independent; but the Rohillas of the north-east had been subdued and almost exterminated. Of the three greatest Soobahs or vice-royalties of the Mogul empire, at one time practically independent, that of Bengal had wholly disappeared, those of Oude and the Deckan had sunk into dependence on a foreign power, were maintained by the aid of foreign mercenaries. The only two native powers that remained were, the Mahrattas, and the newly-risen Mussulman dynasty of Mysore. The former were still divided between the great chieftaincies of the Peshwa, Scindia, Holkar, the Guicowar, and the Boslas of Berar. But the supremacy of the Peshwa was on the wane; that of Scindia, on the contrary, in the ascendant. Scindia ruled in the north; he had possession of the emperor's person, of Delhi, the old Mussulman capital. In the south, Hyder Ali and Tippoo [son of Hyder Ali, whom he had succeeded in 1782], Sultan of Mysore, had attained to remarkable power. They were dangerous to the Mahrattas, dangerous to the Nizam, dangerous, lastly, to the English. But the rise of the last-named power was the great event of the period. … They had won for themselves the three great provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, besides Benares,—forming a large compact mass of territory to the north-east. They had, farther down the east coast, the province of the Northern Circars, and farther still, the jagheer [land grant], of Madras; on the west, again, a large stretch of territory at the southern extremity of the peninsula. The two Mussulman sovereigns of Oude and Hyderabad were their dependent allies; they administered the country of the Nawab of the Carnatic, besides having hosts of smaller potentates under their protection. … The appointed successor to Hastings was Lord Macartney. … He lost his office, however, by hesitating to accept it, and going to England to urge conditions. … The great military event of Lord Cornwallis's government was the third Mysore war. It began with some disputes about the petty Raja of Cherika, from whom the English had farmed the customs of Tellicherry, and taken, in security for advances, a district called Randaterra, and by Tippoo's attack upon the lines of the Raja of Travancore, an ally of the English, consisting of a ditch, wall, and other defences, on an extent of about thirty miles. Tippoo was, however, repelled with great slaughter in an attack on the town (1789). Hearing this, Lord Cornwallis at once entered into treaties with the Nizam and the Peshwa for a joint war upon Mysore; all new conquests to be equally divided, all Tippoo's own conquests from the contracting powers to be restored. After a first inconclusive campaign, in which, notwithstanding the skill of General Meadows, the advantage rather remained to Tippoo, who, amongst other things, gave a decided check to Colonel Floyd (1790), Lord Cornwallis took the command in person, and carried Bangalore by assault, with great loss to both parties, but a tremendous carnage of the besieged. However, so wretched had been the English preparations, that, the cattle being 'reduced to skeletons, and scarcely able to move their own weight,' Lord Cornwallis, after advancing to besiege Seringapatam, was forced to retreat and to destroy the whole of his battering-train and other equipments; whilst General Abercrombie, who was advancing in the same direction from the Malabar coast, had to do the same (1791). A force of Mahrattas came in, well appointed and well provided, but too late to avert these disasters. The next campaign was more successful. It began by the taking of several of the hill-forts forming the western barrier of Mysore. … On the 5th February, 1792, however, Lord Cornwallis appeared before Seringapatam, situated in an island formed by the Cauvery: the fort and outworks were provided with 300 pieces of cannon; the fortified camp, outside the river, by six redoubts, with more than 100 pieces of heavy artillery. Tippoo's army consisted of 6,000 cavalry and 50,000 infantry, himself commanding. This first siege, which is celebrated in Indian warfare, continued with complete success on the English side till the 24th. 10,000 subjects of Coorg, whom Tippoo had enlisted by force, deserted. At last, when the whole island was carried and all preparations made for the siege, Tippoo made peace. The English allies had such confidence in Lord Cornwallis, that they left him entire discretion as to the terms. They were,—that Tippoo should give up half of his territory, pay a large sum for war expenses, and give up two of his sons as hostages. The ceded territory was divided between the allies, the Company obtaining a large strip of the Malabar coast, extending eastward to the Carnatic. … Meanwhile, on the breaking out of war between England and the French Republic, the French settlements in India were all again annexed (1792). Lord Cornwallis now applied himself to questions of internal government. Properly speaking, there was no English Government as yet. Mr. Kaye, the brilliant apologist of the East India Company, says, of Lord Cornwallis, that 'he gathered up the scattered fragments of government which he found, and reduced them to one comprehensive system.' He organized the administration of criminal justice, reorganized the police. He separated the connection of the revenues from the administration of justice, organizing civil justice in turn. … He next proceeded to organize the financial system of the Company's government. … Hence the famous 'Permanent Settlement' of Lord Cornwallis (22nd March, 1793)."

J. M. Ludlow, British India, lecture 9 (volume 1).

{1727}

"In 1793 the so-called Permanent Settlement of the Land Revenue was introduced. We found in Bengal, when we succeeded to the Government, a class of middle-men, called Zemindars [or Zamindars-see, also, TALUKDARS], who collected the land revenue and the taxes, and we continued to employ them. As a matter of convenience and expediency, but not of right, the office of zemindar was often hereditary. The zemindars had never been in any sense the owners of the land, but it was supposed by Lord Cornwallis and the English rulers of the time that it would be an excellent thing for Bengal to have a class of landlords something like those of England; the zemindars were the only people that seemed available for the purpose, and they were declared to be the proprietors of the land. It was by no means intended that injustice should thus be done to others. Excepting the State, there was only one great class, that of the ryots or actual cultivators, which, according to immemorial custom, could be held to possess permanent rights in the land. The existence of those rights was recognised, and, as it was supposed, guarded by the law. … There has been much dispute as to the exact nature of the rights given to the zemindars, but everyone agrees that it was not the intention of the authors of the Permanent Settlement to confiscate anything which, according to the customs of the country, had belonged to the cultivators. The right of property given to the zemindars was a portion of those rights which had always been exercised by the State, and of which the State was at liberty to dispose; it was not intended that they should receive anything else. The land revenue, representing the share of the produce or rental to which the State was entitled, was fixed in perpetuity. The ryots were to continue to hold their lands permanently at the 'rates established in the purgunnah;' when the amount of these rates was disputed it was to be settled by the courts; so long as rents at those rates were paid, the ryot could not be evicted. The intention was to secure to the ryot fixity of tenure and fixity of rent. Unfortunately, these rights were only secured upon paper. … The consequences at the present time are these:—Even if it be assumed that the share of the rent which the State can wisely take is smaller than the share which any Government, Native or English, has ever taken or proposed to take in India, the amount now received by the State from the land in Bengal must be held to fall short of what it might be by a sum that can hardly be less than £5,000,000 a year; this is a moderate computation; probably the loss is much more. This is given away in return for no service to the State or to the public; the zemindars are merely the receivers of rent; with exceptions so rare as to deserve no consideration, they take no part in the improvement of the land, and, until a very few years ago, they bore virtually no share of the public burdens. The result of these proceedings of the last century, to the maintenance of which for ever the faith of the British Government is said to have been pledged, is that the poorer classes in poorer provinces have to make good to the State the millions which have been thrown away in Bengal. If this were all, it would be bad enough, but worse remains to be told. … 'The original intention of the framers of the Permanent Settlement (I am quoting from Sir George Campbell) was to record all rights. The Canoongoes (District Registrars) and Putwarees (Village Accountants) were to register all holdings, all transfers, all rent-rolls, and all receipts and payments; and every five years there was to be filed in the public offices a complete register of all land tenures. But the task was a difficult one; there was delay in carrying it out. … The putwarees fell into disuse or became the mere servants of the zemindars; the canoongoes were abolished. No record of the rights of the ryots and inferior holders was ever made, and even the quinquennial register of superior rights, which was maintained for a time, fell into disuse.' … The consequences of the Permanent Settlement did not become immediately prominent. … But, as time went on, and population and wealth increased, as cultivators were more readily found, and custom began to give way to competition, the position of the ryots became worse and that of the zemindars became stronger. Other circumstances helped the process of confiscation of the rights of the peasantry. … The confiscation of the rights of the ryots has reached vast proportions. In 1793 the rental left to the zemindars under the Permanent Settlement, after payment of the land revenue, is supposed not to have exceeded £400,000; according to some estimates it was less. If the intentions of the Government had been carried out, it was to the ryots that the greater portion of any future increase in the annual value of the land would have belonged, in those parts at least of the province which were at that time well cultivated. It is not possible to state with confidence the present gross annual rental of the landlords of Bengal. An imperfect valuation made some years ago showed it to be £13,000,000. It is now called £17,000,000, but there can be little doubt that it is much more. Thus, after deducting the land revenue, which is about £3,800,000, the net rental has risen from £400,000 in the last century to more than £13,000,000 at the present time. No portion of this increase has been due to the action of the zemindars. It has been due to the industry of the ryots, to whom the greater part of it rightfully belonged, to the peaceful progress of the country, and to the expenditure of the State, an expenditure mainly defrayed from the taxation of poorer provinces. If ever there was an 'unearned increment,' it is this."

Sir J. Strachey, India, lecture 12.

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, The Administration of the East India Co., part 2, chapter 2.

J. Mill, History of British India, book 6, chapter 4 (volume 5).

W. S. Seton-Karr, The Marquess Cornwallis, chapter 2.

Sir R. Temple, James Thomason, chapter 9.

INDIA: A. D. 1785-1795. The Impeachment and Trial of Warren Hastings.

"Warren Hastings returned to England in the summer of 1785, and met with a distinguished reception. "I find myself," he wrote to a friend, "every where and universally treated with evidences, apparent even to my own observation, that I possess the good opinion of my country." But underneath this superficial "good opinion" there existed a moral feeling which had been outraged by the unscrupulous measures of the Governor-General of India, and which began soon to speak aloud through the eloquent lips of Edmund Burke. Joined in the movement by Fox and Sheridan, Burke laid charges before Parliament which forced the House of Commons, in the session of 1787 to order the impeachment of Hastings before the Lords. On the 13th of February, 1788, the sittings of the Court commenced. {1728} There have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with jewellery and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up children, than that which was then exhibited at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, an imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and to the past, were collected on one spot and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments which are developed by liberty and civilisation were now displayed, with every advantage that could be derived both from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of our constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters from right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the holy city of Benares, and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude. The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at-arms. The judges in their vestments of state attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three fourths of the Upper House as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. … The grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the emulations of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. … The Serjeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so borne himself, that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. … His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were afterwards raised by their talents and learning to the highest posts in their profession, the bold and strong-minded Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench; the more humane and eloquent Dallas, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Plomer who, near twenty years later, successfully conducted in the same high court the defence of Lord Melville, and subsequently became Vice-chancellor and Master of the Rolls. But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke at their head, appeared in full dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to remark that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and sword. Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of the impeachment; and his commanding, copious, and sonorous eloquence was wanting to that great muster of various talents. … The charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. The ceremony occupied two whole days, and was rendered less tedious than it would otherwise have been by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought and a splendour of diction, which more than satisfied the highly raised expectation of the audience, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had originated, and set forth the constitution of the Company and of the English presidencies. … When the Court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, opened the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and several days were spent in reading papers and hearing witnesses. The next article was that relating to the Princesses of Oude. The conduct of this part of the case was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded. His sparkling and highly finished declamation lasted two days; but the Hall was crowded to suffocation during the whole time. It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived, with a knowledge of stage effect which his father might have envied, to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms of Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration. June was now far advanced. The session could not last much longer; and the progress which had been made in the impeachment was not very satisfactory. There were twenty charges. On two only of these had even the case for the prosecution been heard; and it was now a year since Hastings had been admitted to bail. The interest taken by the public in the trial was great when the Court began to sit, and rose to the height when Sheridan spoke on the charge relating to the Begums. From that time the excitement went down fast. The spectacle had lost the attraction of novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were over. … The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the session of 1788, when the proceedings had the interest of novelty, and when the Peers had little other business before them, only thirty-five days were given to the impeachment. In 1789 … during the whole year only seventeen days were given to the case of Hastings. … At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pronounced, near eight years after Hastings had been brought by the Serjeant-at-arms of the Commons to the bar of the Lords. {1729} … Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found Hastings guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. On other charges, the majority in his favour was still greater. On some he was unanimously absolved. He was then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack that the Lords had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. He bowed respectfully and retired. We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It was also generally approved. … It was thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still an ill-used man, and that an impeachment of eight years was more than a sufficient punishment. It was also felt that, though, in the ordinary course of criminal law, a defendant is not allowed to set off his good actions against his crimes, a great political cause should be tried on different principles, and that a man who had governed an empire during thirteen years might have done some very reprehensible things, and yet might be on the whole deserving of rewards and honours rather than of fine and imprisonment."

Lord Macaulay, Warren Hastings (Essays).

"The trial had several beneficial results. It cleared off a cloud of misconceptions, calumnies, exaggerations, and false notions generally on both sides; it fixed and promulgated the standard which the English people would in future insist upon maintaining in their Indian administration; it bound down the East India Company to better behaviour; it served as an example and a salutary warning, and it relieved the national conscience. But the attempt to make Hastings a sacrifice and a burnt-offering for the sins of the people; the process of loading him with curses and driving him away into the wilderness; of stoning him with every epithet and metaphor that the English language could supply for heaping ignominy on his head; of keeping him seven years under an impeachment that menaced him with ruin and infamy—these were blots upon the prosecution and wide aberrations from the true course of justice which disfigured the aspect of the trial, distorted its aim, and had much to do with bringing it to the lame and impotent conclusion that Burke so bitterly denounced."

Sir A. Lyall, Warren Hastings, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: E. Burke, Works, volumes 8-12.

Speeches of Managers and Counsel in the Trial of Warren Hastings, edited by E. A. Bond.

INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805. The administration and imperial policy of the Marquis Wellesley. Treaty with the Nizam. Overthrow and death of Tippoo, Sultan of Mysore. War with the Mahrattas. Assaye and Laswari. Territorial acquisitions.

"The period of Sir John Shore's rule as Governor-General, from 1793 to 1798 [after which he became Lord Teignmouth], was uneventful. In 1798, Lord Mornington, better known as the Marquis of Wellesley, arrived in India, already inspired with imperial projects which were destined to change the map of the country. Mornington was the friend and favourite of Pitt, from whom he is thought to have derived his far-reaching political vision, and his antipathy to the French name. From the first he laid down as his guiding principle, that the English must be the one paramount power in the peninsula, and that Native princes could only retain the insignia of sovereignty by surrendering their political independence. The history of India since his time has been but the gradual development of this policy, which received its finishing touch when Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on the 1st of January, 1877. To frustrate the possibility of a French invasion of India, led by Napoleon in person, was the governing idea of Wellesley's foreign policy. France at this time, and for many years later, filled the place afterwards occupied by Russia in the minds of Indian statesmen. Nor was the danger so remote as might now be thought. French regiments guarded and overawed the Nizam of Haidarabad. The soldiers of Sindhia, the military head of the Marhatta Confederacy, were disciplined and led by French adventurers. Tipu Sultan of Mysore carried on a secret correspondence with the French Directorate, allowed a tree of liberty to be planted in his dominions, and enrolled himself in a republican club as 'Citizen Tipu.' The islands of Mauritius and Bourbon afforded a convenient half-way rendezvous for French intrigue and for the assembling of a hostile expedition. Above all, Napoleon Buonaparte was then in Egypt, dreaming of the conquests of Alexander, and no man knew in what direction he might turn his hitherto unconquered legions. Wellesley conceived the scheme of crushing for ever the French hopes in Asia, by placing himself at the head of a great Indian confederacy. In Lower Bengal, the sword of Clive and the policy of Warren Hastings had made the English paramount. Before the end of the century, our power was consolidated from the seaboard to Benares, high up the Gangetic valley. … In 1801, the treaty of Lucknow made over to the British the Doab, or fertile tract between the Ganges and the Jumna, together with Rohilkhand. In Southern India, our possessions were chiefly confined, before Lord Wellesley, to the coast Districts of Madras and Bombay. Wellesley resolved to make the British supreme as far as Delhi in Northern India, and to compel the great powers of the south to enter into subordinate relations to the Company's government. The intrigues of the Native princes gave him his opportunity for carrying out this plan without breach of faith. The time had arrived when the English must either become supreme in India, or be driven out of it. The Mughal Empire was completely broken up; and the sway had to pass either to the local Muhammadan governors of that empire, or to the Hindu Confederacy represented by the Marhattas, or to the British. Lord Wellesley determined that it should pass to the British. His work in Northern India was at first easy. The treaty of Lucknow in 1801 made us territorial rulers as far as the heart of the present North-Western Provinces, and established our political influence in Oudh. Beyond those limits, the northern branches of the Marhattas practically held sway, with the puppet emperor in their hands. Lord Wellesley left them untouched for a few years, until the second Marhatta war (1802-1804) gave him an opportunity for dealing effectively with their nation as a whole. In Southern India, he saw that the Nizam at Haidarabad stood in need of his protection, and he converted him into a useful follower throughout the succeeding struggle. The other Muhammadan power of the south, Tipu Sultan of Mysore, could not be so easily handled. {1730} Lord Wellesley resolved to crush him, and had ample provocation for so doing. The third power of Southern India—namely, the Marhatta Confederacy—was so loosely organized, that Lord Wellesley seems at first to have hoped to live on terms with it. When several years of fitful alliance had convinced him that he had to choose between the supremacy of the Marhattas or of the British in Southern India, he did not hesitate to decide. Lord Wellesley first addressed himself to the weakest of the three southern powers, the Nizam of Haidarabad. Here he won a diplomatic success, which turned a possible rival into a subservient ally. The French battalions at Haidarabad were disbanded, and the Nizam bound himself by treaty not to take any European into his service without the consent of the English Government,—a clause since inserted in every engagement entered into with Native powers. Wellesley next turned the whole weight of his resources against Tipu, whom Cornwallis had defeated, but not subdued. Tipu's intrigues with the French were laid bare, and he was given an opportunity of adhering to the new subsidiary system. On his refusal, war was declared, and Wellesley came down in viceregal state to Madras to organize the expedition in person, and to watch over the course of events. One English army marched into Mysore from Madras, accompanied by a contingent from the Nizam. Another advanced from the western coast. Tipu, after a feeble resistance in the field, retired into Seringapatam, and, when his capital was stormed, died fighting bravely in the breach (1799). Since the battle of Plassey, no event so greatly impressed the Native imagination as the capture of Seringapatam, which won for General Harris a peerage, and for Wellesley an Irish marquisate. In dealing with the territories of Tipu, Wellesley acted with moderation. The central portion, forming the old state of Mysore, was restored to an infant representative of the Hindu Rajas, whom Haidar Ali had dethroned; the rest of Tipu's dominion was partitioned between the Nizam, the Marhattas, and the English. At about the same time, the Karnatic, or the part of South-Eastern India ruled by the Nawab of Arcot, and also the principality of Tanjore, were placed under direct British administration, thus constituting the Madras Presidency almost as it has existed to the present day. … The Marhattas had been the nominal allies of the English in both their wars with Tipu. But they had not rendered active assistance, nor were they secured to the English side as the Nizam now was. The Marhatta powers at this time were five in number. The recognised head of the confederacy was the Peshwa of Poona, who ruled the hill country of the Western Ghats, the cradle of the Marhatta race. The fertile Province of Guzerat was annually harried by the horsemen of the Gaekwar of Baroda. In Central India, two military leaders, Sindhia of Gwalior and Holkar of Indore, alternately held the pre-eminence. Towards the east, the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur reigned from Berar to the coast of Orissa. Wellesley laboured to bring these several Marhatta powers within the net of his subsidiary system. In 1802, the necessities of the Peshwa, who had been defeated by Holkar, and driven as a fugitive into British territory, induced him to sign the treaty of Bassein. By this he pledged himself to the British to hold communications with no other power, European or Native, and granted to us Districts for the maintenance of a subsidiary force. This greatly extended the English territorial influence in the Bombay Presidency. But it led to the second Marhatta war, as neither Sindhia nor the Raja of Nagpur would tolerate the Peshwa's betrayal of the Marhatta independence. The campaigns which followed are perhaps the most glorious in the history of the British arms in India. The general plan, and the adequate provision of resources, were due to the Marquis of Wellesley, as also the indomitable spirit which refused to admit of defeat. The armies were led by Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) and General (afterwards Lord) Lake. Wellesley operated in the Deccan, where in a few short months, he won the decisive victories of Assaye [September 23, 1803] and Argaum [November 28], and captured Ahmednagar. Lake's campaign in Hindustan was equally brilliant, although it has received less notice from historians. He won pitched battles at Aligarh [August 29] and Laswari [November 1, 1803], and took the cities of Delhi and Agra. He scattered the French troops of Sindhia, and at the same time stood forward as the champion of the Mughal Emperor in his hereditary capital. Before the end of 1803, both Sindhia and the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur sued for peace. Sindhia ceded all claims to the territory north of the Jumna, and left the blind old Emperor Shah Alam once more under British protection. The Bhonsla forfeited Orissa to the English, who had already occupied it with a flying column in 1803, and Berar to the Nizam, who gained fresh territory by every act of complaisance to the British Government. … The concluding years of Wellesley's rule were occupied with a series of operations against Holkar, which brought little credit on the British name. The disastrous retreat of Colonel Monson through Central India (1804) recalled memories of the convention of Wargaum, and of the destruction of Colonel Baillie's force by Haidar Ali. The repulse of Lake in person at the siege of Bhartpur (Bhurtpore) is memorable as an instance of a British army in India having to turn back with its object unaccomplished (1805). Bhartpur was not finally taken till 1827. Lord Wellesley during his six years of office carried out almost every part of his territorial scheme. In Northern India, Lord Lake's campaigns brought the North-Western provinces (the ancient Madhyadesa) under British rule, together with the custody of the puppet emperor. The new Districts were amalgamated with those previously acquired from the Nawab Wazir of Oudh into the 'Ceded and Conquered Provinces.' This partition of Northern India remained till the Sikh wars of 1844 and 1847 gave us the Punjab."

W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: W. H. Maxwell, Life of the Duke of Wellington, volume 1, chapters 2-12.

J. M. Wilson. Memoir of Wellington, volume 1, chapters 2-9.

G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapters 9-10.

W. H. Hutton, The Marquess Wellesley.

J. S. Cotton, Mountstuart Elphinstone, chapter 4.

{1731}

INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816. Reversal of Lord Wellesley's policy. Sepoy revolt at Vellore. Influence established with Runjeet Singh and the Sikhs. Conquest of the Mauritius. The Ghorka War.

"The retreat of Monson was not only a disastrous blow to British prestige, but ruined for a while the reputation of Lord Wellesley. Because a Mahratta freebooter had broken loose in Hindustan, the Home authorities imagined that all the Mahratta powers had risen against the imperial policy of the Governor-General. Lord Wellesley was recalled from his post, and Lord Cornwallis was sent out to take his place, to reverse the policy of his illustrious predecessor, to scuttle out of Western Hindustan, to restore all the ceded territories, to surrender all the captured fortresses, and to abandon large tracts of country to be plundered and devastated by the Mahrattas, as they had been from the days of Sivaji to those of Wellesley and Lake. Before Lord Cornwallis reached Bengal the political outlook had brightened. … But Lord Cornwallis was sixty-seven years of age, and had lost the nerve which he had displayed in his wars against Tippu; and he would have ignored the turn of the tide, and persisted in falling back on the old policy of conciliation and non-intervention, had not death cut short his career before he had been ten weeks in the country. Sir George Barlow, a Bengal civilian, succeeded for a while to the post of Governor-General, as a provisional arrangement. He had been a member of Council under both Wellesley and Cornwallis, and he halted between the two. He refused to restore the conquered territories to Sindia and the Bhonsla, but he gave back the Indore principality to Holkar, together with the captured fortresses. Worst of all, he annulled most of the protective treaties with the Rajput princes on the ground that they had deserted the British government during Monson's retreat from Jaswant Rao Holkar. For some years the policy of the British government was a half-hearted system of non-intervention. … The Mahratta princes were left to plunder and collect chout [a blackmail extortion, levied by the Mahrattas for a century] in Rajputana, and practically to make war on each other, so long as they respected the territories of the British government and its allies. … All this while an under-current of intrigue was at work between Indian courts, which served in the end to revive wild hopes of getting rid of British supremacy, and rekindling the old aspirations for war and rapine. In 1806 the peace of India was broken by an alarm from a very different quarter. In those days India was so remote from the British Isles that the existence of the British government mainly depended on the loyalty of its sepoy armies. Suddenly it was discovered that the Madras army was on the brink of mutiny. The British authorities at Madras had introduced an obnoxious head-dress resembling a European hat, in the place of the old time-honoured turban, and had, moreover, forbidden the sepoys to appear on parade with earrings and caste marks. India was astounded by a revolt of the Madras sepoys at the fortress of Vellore, about eight miles to the westward of Arcot. … The garrison at Vellore consisted of about 400 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys. At midnight, without warning, the sepoys rose in mutiny. One body fired on the European barracks until half the soldiers were killed or wounded. Another body fired on the houses of the British officers, and shot them down as they rushed out to know the cause of the uproar. All this while provisions were distributed amongst the sepoys by the Mysore princes, and the flag of Mysore was hoisted over the fortress. Fortunately the news was carried to Arcot, where Colonel Gillespie commanded a British garrison. Gillespie at once galloped to Vellore with a troop of British dragoons and two field guns. The gates of Vellore were blown open; the soldiers rushed in; 400 mutineers were cut down, and the outbreak was over. … In 1807 Lord Minto succeeded Barlow as Governor-General. He broke the spell of non-intervention. … Lord Minto's main work was to keep Napoleon and the French out of India. The north-west frontier was still vulnerable, but the Afghans had retired from the Punjab, and the once famous Runjeet Singh had founded a Sikh kingdom between the Indus and the Sutlej. As far as the British were concerned, the Sikhs formed a barrier against the Afghans; and Runjeet Singh was apparently friendly, for he had refused to shelter Jaswant Rao Holkar in his flight from Lord Lake. But there was no knowing what Runjeet Singh might do if the French found their way to Lahore. To crown the perplexity, the Sikh princes on the British side of the river Sutlej, who had done homage to the British government during the campaigns of Lord Lake, were being conquered by Runjeet Singh, and were appealing to the British government for protection. In 1808-9 a young Bengal civilian, named Charles Metcalfe, was sent on a mission to Lahore. The work before him was difficult and complicated, and somewhat trying to the nerves. The object was to secure Runjeet Singh as a useful ally against the French and Afghans, whilst protecting the Sikh states on the British side of the Sutlej, namely, Jhind, Nabha, and Patiala. Runjeet Singh was naturally disgusted at being checked by British interference. It was unfair, he said, for the British to wait until he had conquered the three states, and then to demand possession. Metcalfe cleverly dropped the question of justice, and appealed to Runjeet Singh's self-interest. By giving up the three states, Runjeet Singh would secure an alliance with the British, a strong frontier on the Sutlej, and freedom to push his conquests on the north and west. Runjeet Singh took the hint. He withdrew his pretensions from the British side of the Sutlej, and professed a friendship which remained unbroken until his death in 1839; but he knew what he was about. He conquered Cashmere on the north, and he wrested Peshawar from the Afghans; but he refused to open his dominions to British trade, and he was jealous to the last of any attempt to enter his territories. … Meanwhile the war against France and Napoleon had extended to eastern waters. The island of the Mauritius had become a French depot for frigates and privateers, which swept the seas from Madagascar to Java, until the East India Company reckoned its losses by millions, and private traders were brought to the brink of ruin. Lord Minto sent one expedition [1810], which wrested the Mauritius from the French; and he conducted another expedition in person, which wrested the island of Java from the Dutch, who at that time were the allies of France. The Mauritius has remained a British possession until this day, but Java was restored to Holland at the conclusion of the war. … Meanwhile war clouds were gathering on the southern slopes of the Himalayas. {1732} Down to the middle of the 18th century, the territory of Nipal had been peopled by a peaceful and industrious race of Buddhists known as Newars, but about the year 1767, when the British had taken over the Bengal provinces, the Newars were conquered by a Rajput tribe from Cashmere, known as Ghorkas. The Ghorka conquest of Nipal was as complete as the Norman conquest of England. The Ghorkas established a military despotism with Brahmanical institutions, and parcelled out the country amongst feudal nobles known as Bharadars. … During the early years of the 19th century the Ghorkas began to encroach on British territory, annexing villages and revenues from Darjeeling to Simla without right or reason. They were obviously bent on extending their dominion southward to the Ganges, and for a long time aggressions were overlooked for the sake of peace. At last two districts were appropriated to which the Ghorkas had not a shadow of a claim, and it was absolutely necessary to make a stand against their pretensions. Accordingly, Lord Minto sent an ultimatum to Khatmandu, declaring that unless the districts were restored they would be recovered by force of arms. Before the answer arrived, Lord Minto was succeeded in the post of Governor-General by Lord Moira, better known by his later title of Marquis of Hastings. Lord Moira landed at Calcutta in 1813. Shortly after his arrival an answer was received from the Ghorka government, that the disputed districts belonged to Nipal, and would not be surrendered. Lord Moira at once fixed a day on which the districts were to be restored; and when the day had passed without any action being taken by the Ghorkas, a British detachment entered the districts and set up police stations. … The council of Bharadars resolved on war, but they did not declare it in European fashion. A Ghorka army suddenly entered the disputed districts, surrounded the police stations, and murdered many of the constables, and then returned to Khatmandu to await the action of the British government in the way of reprisals. The war against the Ghorkas was more remote and more serious than the wars against the Mahrattas. … Those who have ascended the Himalayas to Darjeeling or Simla may realise something of the difficulties of an invasion of Nipal. The British army advanced in four divisions by four different routes. … General David Ochterlony, who advanced his division along the valley of the Sutlej, gained the most brilliant successes. He was one of the half-forgotten heroes of the East India Company. … For five months in the worst season of the year he carried one fortress after another, until the enemy made a final stand at Maloun on a shelf of the Himalayas. The Ghorkas made a desperate attack on the British works, but the attempt failed; and when the British batteries were about to open fire, the Ghorka garrison came to terms, and were permitted to march out with the honours of war. The fall of Maloun shook the faith of the Ghorka government in their heaven-built fortresses. Commissioners were sent to conclude a peace. Nipal agreed to cede Kumaon in the west, and the southern belt of forest and jungle known as the Terai. It also agreed to receive a British Resident at Khatmandu. Lord Moira had actually signed the treaty, when the Ghorkas raised the question of whether the Terai included the forest or only the swamp. War was renewed. Ochterlony advanced an army within fifty miles of Khatmandu, and then the Ghorkas concluded the treaty [1816], and the British army withdrew from Nipal. The Terai, however, was a bone of contention for many years afterwards. Nothing was said about a subsidiary army, and to this day Nipal is outside the pale of subsidiary alliances; but Nipal is bound over not to take any European into her service without the consent of the British government."

J. T. Wheeler, India under British Rule, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: J. D. Cunningham, History of the Sikhs, chapters 5-6.

E. Thornton, History of British Empire in India, chapters 21-24 (volume 4).

INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819. Suppression of the Pindaris. Overthrow of the Mahratta power. The last of the Peshwas.

"For some time past the Pindaris, a vast brotherhood of mounted freebooters, who were ready to fight under any standard for the chance of unbounded plunder, had been playing a more and more prominent part in the wars of native princes. As Free Lances, they had fought for the Peshwa at Panipat, had shared in the frequent struggles of the Sindhias and Holkars in Hindustan and Southern India, and made war on their own account with every native prince whose weakness at any moment seemed to invite attack. … From the hills and glens of Central India thousands of armed ruffians sallied forth year after year in quest of plunder, sparing no cruelty to gain their ends, and widening the circle of their ravages with each new raid, until in 1811 the smoke of their camp-fires could be seen from Gaya and Mirzapur. … To thwart Maratha intrigues and punish Pindari aggressions was the Governor-General's next aim. In spite of hindrances offered by his own council and the Court of Directors, he set himself to revive and extend Lord Wellesley's policy of securing peace and order throughout India by means of treaties, which placed one native prince after another in a kind of vassalage to the paramount power that ruled from Fort William. … By means of a little timely compulsion, the able and accomplished Elphinstone baffled for a while the plots which the Peshwa, Baji Rao, and his villainous accomplice, Trimbakji Danglia, had woven against their English allies. The treaty of June, 1817, left Lord Hastings master of Sagar and Bundalkhand, while it bound the Peshwa to renounce his friend Trimbakji, his own claims to the headship of the Maratha League, to make no treaties with any other native prince, and to accept in all things the counsel and control of the Company's Government. Hard as these terms may seem, there was no choice, averred Lord Hastings, between thus crippling a secret foe and depriving him of the crown he had fairly forfeited. Meanwhile Lord Hastings' fearless energy had already saved the Rajputs of Jaipur from further suffering at the hands of their Pathan oppressor, Amir Khan, and forced from Sindia himself a reluctant promise to aid in suppressing the Pindari hordes, whose fearful ravages had at length been felt by the peaceful villagers in the Northern Sarkars. In the autumn of 1817 Hastings took the field at the head of an army which, counting native contingents, mustered nearly 120,000 strong, with some 300 guns. From east, west, north, and south, a dozen columns set forth to hunt down the merciless ruffians who had so long been allowed to harry the fairest provinces of India. {1733} In spite of the havoc wrought among our troops by the great cholera outbreak of that year, and of a sudden rising among the Maratha princes for one last struggle with their former conquerors, our arms were everywhere successful against Marathas and Pindaris alike. The latter, hunted into the hills and jungles of Central India, found no safety anywhere except in small bodies and constant flight … and the famous robber-league passed into a tale of yore. Not less swift and sure was the punishment dealt upon the Maratha leaders who joined the Peshwa in his sudden uprising against the British power. His late submission had been nothing but a mask for renewed plottings. Elphinstone, however, saw through the mask which had taken in the confiding Malcolm. Before the end of October an English regiment, summoned in hot haste from Bombay, pitched its camp at Kirki, about two miles from Puna, beside the small Sepoy brigade already quartered there. In the first days of November Baji Rao began to assume a bolder tone as his plans grew ripe for instant execution. On the 5th, a body of Marathas attacked and destroyed the Residency, which Elphinstone had quitted in the nick of time. A great Maratha army then marched forth to overwhelm the little garrison at Kirki, before fresh troops could come up to its aid from Sirur. Elphinstone, however, who knew his foe, had no idea of awaiting the attack. Colonel Burr at once led out his men, not 3,000 all told. A brilliant charge of Maratha horse was heavily repulsed by a Sepoy regiment, and the English steadily advancing drove the enemy from the field. A few days later General Smith, at the head of a larger force, advanced on Puna, occupied the city, and pursued the frightened Peshwa from place to place. The heroic defence of Karigaum, a small village on the Bhima, by Captain Staunton and 800 Sepoys, with only two light guns, against 25,000 Marathas during a whole day, proved once more how nobly native troops could fight under English leading. Happily for Staunton's weary and diminished band, Smith came up the next morning, and the desponding Peshwa continued his retreat. Turn where he would, there was no rest for his jaded soldiers. Munro with a weak force, partly of his own raising, headed him on his way to the Carnatic, took several of his strong places, and drove him northwards within reach of General Smith. On the 19th February, 1818, that officer overtook and routed the flying foe at the village of Ashti. Bapu Gokla, the Peshwa's staunchest and ablest follower, perished in the field, while covering the retreat of his cowardly master. For some weeks longer Baji Rao fled hither and thither before his resolute pursuers. But at length all hope forsook him as the circle of escape grew daily narrower; and in the middle of May the great-grandson of Balaji Vishwanath yielded himself to Sir John Malcolm at Indor, on terms far more liberal than he had any reason to expect. Even for the faithful few who still shared his fortunes due provision was made at his request. He himself spent the rest of his days a princely pensioner at Bithur, near Cawnpore; but the sceptre which he and his sires had wielded for a hundred years passed into English hands, while the Rajah of Satara, the long-neglected heir of the house of Sivaji, was restored to the nominal headship of the Maratha power. Meanwhile Appa Sahib, the usurping Rajah of Berar, had no sooner heard of the outbreak at Puna, than he, too, like the Peshwa, threw off his mask. On the evening of the 24th November, 1817, his troops, to the number of 18,000, suddenly attacked the weak English and Sepoy force of 1,400 men with four guns, posted on the Sitabaldi Hills, outside Nagpur. A terrible fight for eighteen hours ended in the repulse of the assailants, with a loss to the victors of more than 300 men and twelve officers. A few weeks later Nagpur itself was occupied after another fight. Even then the Rajah might have kept his throne, for his conquerors were merciful and hoped the best. But they hoped in vain. It was not long before Appa Sahib, caught out in fresh intrigues, was sent off a prisoner towards Allahabad. Escaping from his captors, he wandered about the country for several years, and died at Lahor a pensioner on the bounty of Ranjit Singh. The house of Holkar had also paid the penalty of its rash resistance to our arms. … On the 6th January, 1818, the young Holkar was glad to sign a treaty which placed him and his heirs under English protection at the cost of his independence and of some part of his realm. Luckily for himself, Sindia had remained quiet, if not quite loyal, throughout this last struggle between the English and his Maratha kinsfolk. Thus in one short and decisive campaign, the great Maratha power, which had survived the slaughter of Panipat, fell shattered to pieces by the same blow which crushed the Pindaris, and raised an English merchant-company to the paramount lordship of all India. The last of the Peshwas had ceased to reign, the Rajah of Berar was a discrowned fugitive, the Rajah of Satara a king only in name, while Sindia, Holkar, and the Nizam were dependent princes who reigned only by sufferance of an English Governor-General at Calcutta. The Moghal Empire lingered only in the Palace of Dehli; its former viceroy, the Nawab of Audh, was our obedient vassal; the haughty princes of Rajputana bowed their necks, more or less cheerfully, to the yoke of masters merciful as Akbar and mightier than Aurangzib. Ranjit Singh himself cultivated the goodwill of those powerful neighbours who had sheltered the Sikhs of Sirhind from his ambitious inroads. With the final overthrow of the Marathas a new reign of peace, order, and general progress began for peoples who, during a hundred and fifty years, had lived in a ceaseless whirl of anarchy and armed strife. With the capture of Asirgarh in April, 1819, the fighting in Southern India came to an end."

L. J. Trotter, History of India, book 5, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: W. M. Torrens, Empire in Asia: How we came by it, chapters 19-20.

J. G. Duff, History of the Mahrattas, volume 3, chapters 17-20.

Major Ross-of-Bladensburg, The Marquess of Hastings, chapters 4-7.

INDIA: A. D. 1823-1833. The first Burmese War. English acquisition of Assam and Aracan. Suppression of Suttee and Thuggee. Rechartering of the East India Company. It is deprived of its last trading monopoly.

"On Hastings' retirement, in 1823, the choice of the ministry fell upon Canning. … Canning ultimately resigning the Governor-Generalship, the choice of the authorities fell upon Lord Amherst. The new Governor-General reached India at a time when the authorities in London had a right to expect a long period of peace. {1734} In fact, both in Hindostan and in the Deccan, the victories of Hastings had left the Company no more enemies to conquer. Unfortunately, however, for the prospects of peace, nature, which had given India an impenetrable boundary on the north, had left her with an undefined and open frontier on the east. On the shores of the Bay of Bengal, opposite Calcutta, a struggle had raged during the eighteenth century between the inhabitants of Ava and Pegu. The former, known as Burmans or Burmese, had the good fortune to find a capable leader, who rapidly ensured their own victory and founded a Burmese Empire. The successful competitors were not satisfied with their own predominance in Pegu—they conquered Aracan, they overran Assam, and they wrested from Siam a considerable territory on the Tenasserim coast. The conquest of Aracan brought the Burmese to the confines of the Company's dominions in Chittagong. The conquered people, disliking the severe rule of the conquerors, crossed the frontier and settled in British territory. Many of them used their new home as a secure basis for hostile raids on the Burmese. … The river Naf ran for a portion of its course between the possessions of the British in Chittagong and those of the Burmese in Aracan. With the object of preventing the repetition of outrages, which had occurred on the river, a small British guard was stationed on a little island, called Shaporee, near its mouth. The Burmese, claiming the island as their own, attacked the guard and drove it from the post. It was impossible to ignore such a challenge. The island was reoccupied; but the Governor-General, still anxious for peace, offered to treat its occupation by the Burmese as an action unauthorised by the Burmese Government. The Burmese Court, however, instead of accepting this offer, sent an army to reoccupy the island; collisions almost simultaneously occurred between the British and the Burmese on other parts of the frontier, and in February 1824 the first Burmese war began. … If the war of 1824 may be excused as inevitable, its conduct must be condemned as careless. No pains were taken to ascertain the nature of the country which it was requisite to invade, or the strength of the enemy whom it was decided to encounter. … Burma is watered by two great rivers, the Irawaddy and the Salwen. … In its upper waters the Irawaddy is a rapid stream; in its lower waters it flows through alluvial plains, and finds its way through a delta with nine mouths into the Bay of Bengal. On one of its western mouths is the town of Bassein, on one of its eastern mouths the great commercial port of Rangoon. The banks of the river are clothed with jungle and with forest; and malaria, the curse of all low-lying tropical lands, always lingers in the marshes. The authorities decided on invading Burma through the Rangoon branch of the river. They gave Sir Archibald Campbell, an officer who had won distinction in the Peninsula, the command of the expedition, and, as a preliminary measure, they determined to seize Rangoon. Its capture was accomplished with ease, and the Burmese retired from the town. But the victory was the precursor of difficulty. The troops dared not advance in an unhealthy season; the supplies which they had brought with them proved insufficient for their support; and the men perished by scores during their period of forced inaction. … When more favourable weather returned with the autumn, Campbell was again able to advance. Burma was then attacked from three separate bases. A force under Colonel Richards, moving along the valley of the Bramaputra, conquered Assam; an expedition under General Morrison, marching from Chittagong, occupied Aracan; while Campbell himself, dividing his army into two divisions, one moving by water, the other by land, passed up the Irawaddy and captured Donabue and Prome. The climate improved as the troops ascended the river, and the hot weather of 1825 proved less injurious than the summer of 1824. … The operations in 1825-6 drove home the lesson which the campaign of 1824-5 had already taught. The Burmese realised their impotence to resist, and consented to accept the terms which the British were still ready to offer them. Assam, Aracan, and the Tenasserim Coast were ceded to the Company; the King of Burma consented to receive a Resident at his capital, and to pay a very large sum of money—£1,000,000—towards the expenses of the war. … The increasing credit which the Company thus acquired did not add to the reputation of the Governor-General. … The Company complained of the vast additions which his rule had made to expenditure, and they doubted the expediency of acquiring new and unnecessary territory beyond the confines of India itself. The ministry thought that these acquisitions were opposed to the policy which Parliament had laid down, and to the true interests of the empire. It decided on his recall. … William Bentinck, whom Canning selected as Amherst's successor, was no stranger to Indian soil. More than twenty years before he had served as Governor of Madras. … Bentinck arrived in Calcutta in difficult times. Amherst's war had saddled the Government with a debt, and his successor with a deficit. … Retrenchment, in the opinion of every one qualified to judge, was absolutely indispensable, and Bentinck, as a matter of fact, brought out specific instructions to retrench. … In two other matters … Bentinck effected a change which deserves to be recollected with gratitude. He had the courage to abolish flogging in the native Indian army; he had the still higher courage to abolish suttee. … In Bengal the suttee, or 'the pure and virtuous woman,' who became a widow, was required to show her devotion to her husband by sacrificing herself on his funeral pile. … Successive Governors-General, whose attention had been directed to this barbarous practice, had feared to incur the unpopularity of abolishing it. … Cornwallis and Wellesley, Hastings and Amherst, were all afraid to prohibit murder which was identified with religion, and it was accordingly reserved to Bentinck to remove the reproach of its existence. With the consent of his Council, suttee was declared illegal. The danger which others had apprehended from its prohibition proved a mere phantom. The Hindoos complied with the order without attempting to resist it, and the horrible rite which had disgraced the soil of India for centuries became entirely unknown. For these humane regulations Bentinck deserves to be remembered with gratitude. Yet it should not be forgotten that these reforms were as much the work of his age as of himself. … One other great abuse was terminated under Bentinck. {1735} In Central India life was made unsafe and travelling dangerous by the establishment of a secret band of robbers known as Thugs. The Thugs mingled with any travellers whom they met, disarmed them by their conversation and courtesy, and availed themselves of the first convenient spot in their journey to strangle them with a rope and to rob them of their money. The burial of the victim usually concealed all traces of the crime; the secrecy of the confederates made its revelation unlikely; and, to make treachery more improbable, the Thugs usually consecrated their murders with religious rites, and claimed their god as the patron of their misdoings. Bentinck selected an active officer, Major Sleeman, whom he charged to put down Thuggee. Sleeman's exertions were rewarded by a gratifying success. The Thugs, like all secret societies, were assailable in one way. The first discovery of crime always produces an approver. The timid conspirator, conscious of his guilt, is glad to purchase his own safety by sacrificing his associates, and when one man turns traitor every member of the band is anxious to secure the rewards and immunity of treachery. Hence the first clue towards the practices of the Thugs led to the unveiling of the whole organisation; and the same statesman, who had the merit of forbidding suttee, succeeded in extirpating Thuggee from the dominions over which he ruled. Social reforms of this character occupy the greater portion of the history of Bentinck's government. In politics he almost always pursued a policy of non-intervention. The British during his rule made few additions to their possessions; they rarely interfered in the affairs of Native states. … The privileges which the East India, Company enjoyed had from time to time been renewed by the British Parliament. The charter of the Company had been extended for a period of twenty years in 1773, in 1793, and in 1813. But the conditions on which it was continued in 1813 were very different from those on which it had been originally granted. Instead of maintaining its exclusive right of trade, Parliament decided on throwing open the trade with India to all British subjects. It left the Company a monopoly of the China trade alone. The Act of 1813 of course excited the strenuous opposition of the Company. The highest authorities were brought forward to prove that the trade with India would not be increased by a termination of the monopoly. Their views, however, were proved false by the result, and the stern logic of facts consequently pointed in 1833 to the further extension of the policy of 1813 [see CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842]. … The inclination towards free trade was, in fact, so prevalent, that it is doubtful whether, even if the Tories had remained in office, they would have consented to preserve the monopoly. … The fall of the Wellington administration made its termination a certainty [see ENGLAND: A. D. 1832-1833]. … The Government consented to compensate the Company for the loss of its monopoly by an annuity of £630,000 charged on the territorial revenues of India. It is a remarkable circumstance that the change of ministry which deprived the Company of its trade possibly preserved its political power for nearly a quarter of a century. … The Whig ministry shrank from proposing an alteration for which the country was not prepared, and which might have aroused the opposition by which the Coalition of 1783 had been destroyed. Though, however, it left the rule with Leadenhall Street, it altered the machinery of government. The Governor-General of Bengal was made Governor-General of India. A fourth member—an English jurist—was added to his Council, and the Governor-General in Council was authorised to legislate for the whole of India. At the same time the disabilities which still clung to the natives were in theory swept away, and Europeans were for the first time allowed to hold land in India. These important proposals were carried at the close of the first session of the first reformed Parliament."

S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 25 (volume 5).

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, Administration of the East India Company, parts 3-4.

Sir C. Trevelyan, The Thugs (Edin. Review, January, 1837).

Illustrations of the History of the Thugs.

M. Taylor, Confessions of a Thug, introduction.

D. C. Boulger, Lord William Bentinck, chapters 4-6.

INDIA: A. D. 1836-1845. The first Afghan war and its catastrophe. Conquest and annexation of Scinde. Threatened trouble with the Sikhs.

"With the accession of Lord Auckland, Bentinck's successor, began a new era in Anglo-Indian history, in which the long-sown seeds of fresh political complications, which even now seem as far from solution as ever, began to put forth fruit. All danger from French ambition had passed away: but Russian intrigue was busy against us. We had brought the danger on ourselves. False to an alliance with Persia, which dated from the beginning of the century, we had turned a deaf ear to her entreaties for help against Russian aggression, and had allowed her to fall under the power of her tyrant, who thenceforth used her as an instrument of his ambition. The result of our selfish indifference appeared in 1837, when Persia, acting under Russian influence, laid siege to Herat, which was then under Afghan rule. While Herat was still holding out, the Shah was at last threatened with war, and raised the siege. Then was the time for Auckland to destroy the Russian danger once for all, by making a friend of the power which seemed to be the natural barrier against invasion from the north-west. After a long series of revolutions, Dost Mahomed, the representative of the now famous tribe of Baruckzyes, had established himself upon the throne, with the warm approval of the majority of the people; while Shah Sooja, the leader of the rival Suddozyes, was an exile. The ruling prince did not wait for Auckland to seek his friendship. He treated the Russian advances with contempt, and desired nothing better than to be an ally of the English. Auckland was urged to seize the opportunity. It was in his power to deal Russia a crushing blow, and to avert those troubles which are even now harassing British statesmen. He did not let slip the opportunity. He flung it from him, and clutched at a policy that was to bring misery to thousands of families in England, in India, and in Afghanistan, and to prove disastrous to the political interests of all three countries. … Those who are least interested in Indian history are not likely to forget how the Afghan mob murdered the British Envoy and his associates; how the British commander, putting faith in the chiefs of a people whom no treaties can bind, began that retreat from which but one man escaped to tell how 16,000 had perished; how poor Auckland, unmanned by the disaster, lacked the energy to retrieve it; how the heroic Sale held out at Jellalabad till Pollock relieved him; how Auckland's successor, Lord Ellenborough, dreading fresh disasters, hesitated to allow his generals to act till, yielding to their indignant zeal, he threw upon them the responsibility of that advance to Cabul which retrieved the lost prestige of our arms.

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1838-1842, and 1842-1869.

{1736}

Thus closed the first act of a still unfinished drama. After celebrating the triumph of the victorious army, Ellenborough sent Charles Napier to punish the Ameers of Scinde [see SCINDE], who, emboldened by the retreat from Cabul, had violated a treaty which they had concluded with the British Government. The result of the war was the annexation of the country: but the whole series of transactions is only remembered now as having given rise to the dispute on the question of the guilt of the Ameers between Napier and James Outram. Less talked of at the time, but historically more important, was Ellenborough's reconstitution of the British relations with the Sindia of the day. Political disturbances had for some time agitated that prince's court, while his army had swollen to a dangerous size, and, like the Sikh army since Runjeet Singh's death, which had taken place a few years before, had passed beyond the control of the civil power. In these two armies Ellenborough saw a danger which might disturb the peace of Hindostan. He foresaw that the Sikh soldiers, released from the stern discipline of Runjeet Singh, would soon force a government which they despised to let them cross the Sutlej in quest of plunder. Two years later his character as a prophet was vindicated; and, if he had not now, in anticipation of the invasion which then took place, disbanded the greater part of Sindia's army, and over-awed the remainder by a native contingent under the command of British officers, the Sikhs would probably have joined their forces with the Mahrattas. … But the Directors took a different view of their Governor-General's conduct of affairs. In June, 1844, all India was astonished by the news that Ellenborough had been recalled. He had helped to bring about his own downfall, for in the controversies with his masters in which he, like some of the ablest of his predecessors, had found himself involved, he had shown an unfortunate want of discretion; but, though by bombastic proclamations and a theatrical love of display he had sometimes exposed himself to ridicule, many of his subordinates felt that in him they had lost a vigorous and able ruler. Sir Henry Hardinge, who was raised to the peerage before the close of his administration, succeeded to the office of Governor-General, and waited anxiously for the breaking of the storm which his predecessor had seen gathering. The Sikhs, the Puritans of India [see SIKHS], who were not strictly speaking a nation, but a religious brotherhood of warriors called the Khalsa, were animated by two passions equally dangerous to the peace of those around them, a fierce enthusiasm, half military, half religious, for the glory of their order, and an insatiable desire for plunder. By giving them full scope for the indulgence of these passions, and by punishing all disobedience with merciless severity, Runjeet Singh had governed his turbulent subjects for forty years: but, when he died, they broke loose from all control; and the weak Government of Lahore found that they could only save their own capital from being plundered by the Khalsa army by sending it to seek plunder in British territory. Thus began the first Sikh war."

T. R. E. Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: Sir L. Griffin, Ranjit Singh.

L. J. Trotter, The Earl of Auckland, chapters 4-13.

INDIA: A. D. 1843. Conquest of Scinde.

See SCINDE.

INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849. The Sikh Wars. Conquest and annexation of the Punjab.

"There had always been an expectation that whenever Runjeet Singh died, there would be trouble with his soldiery; and it soon appeared that some incursion was in contemplation, for which the Sikh troops were prepared by an able European training under French officers. While the strife about the succession was going on in the Punjaub, the military element of society there became supreme; and the government at Calcutta considered it necessary to move troops to the frontier to preserve peace, and reassure the inhabitants of whole districts which dreaded the incursions of a haughty and lawless soldiery. The Sikhs were alarmed at the approach of English troops, and adopted the same course towards us that we had tried with their western neighbours—they crossed the frontier to forestall our doing it. Whether this move was a device of the Sikh chiefs, as some say it was, to get rid of the army, and perhaps to cause its destruction by the British, and thus to clear the field for their own factions; or whether war with the British was considered so inevitable that the invasion of our territory was intended as a measure of prudence, we need not here decide. The fact was that the Sikh soldiery gathered round the tomb of Runjeet Singh, preparing themselves for a great battle soon to happen; and that war was virtually declared at Lahore in November, 1845, and fairly begun by the troops crossing the Sutlej on the 11th of December, and taking up a position near Ferozepore. The old error prevailed in the British councils, the mistake denounced by Charles Metcalfe as fatal—that of undervaluing the enemy. The Sikhs had been considered unworthy to be opposed to the Afghans in Runjeet's time; and now we expected to drive them into the Sutlej at once; but we had never yet, in India, so nearly met with our match. The battle of Moodkee was fought under Sir Hugh Gough, on the 18th of December, and 'the rabble' from the Punjaub astonished both Europeans and Sepoys by standing firm, manœuvring well, and rendering it no easy matter to close the day with honour to the English arms. This ill-timed contempt was truly calamitous, as it had caused miscalculations about ammunition, carriage, hospital-stores, and everything necessary for a campaign. All these things were left behind at Delhi or Agra; and the desperate necessity of winning a battle was only enough barely to save the day. The advantage was with the British in the battle of Moodkee, but not so decisively as all parties had expected. After a junction with reinforcements, the British fought the invaders again on the 21st and 22nd, at Ferozeshur. On the first night our troops were hardly masters of the ground they stood on, and had no reserve, while their gallant enemy had large reinforcements within reach. {1737} The next day might easily have been made fatal to the English army, at times when their ammunition fell short; but the Sikhs were badly commanded at a critical moment, then deserted by a traitorous leader, and finally driven back. For a month after this nothing was done by the British, and the Sikhs crossed the Sutlej at their ease. The valour of Gough and of Hardinge, who, while Governor-General, had put himself under the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, had saved the honour of the English; but their prestige was weakened among their own Sepoys, and even the European regiments; much more among the Sikhs; and most of all in the eyes of the vigilant surrounding states. It was a matter of life and death now to bring up guns, ammunition and treasure. A considerable portion fell into the enemy's hands on the 21st of January, on its way to the relief of Loodeeana; but the battle of Aliwal on the 28th was again a true British fight. The Sikhs were driven into the Sutlej; and as soon as they had collected in their stronghold of Sobraon on the other side, they were driven thence by a closing struggle on the 10th of February. The Sikhs were beaten, with a slaughter of 5,000 (some say 8,000) men; against 320 killed and 2,000 wounded on our side. The Maharajah submitted, the road to Lahore lay open, and the Governor-General could make his own terms. He flattered himself that he had arranged a protectorate of the Punjaub which would render annexation unnecessary; and all who could believe in it rejoiced that means had been found to escape the necessity of adding new conquests to a territory already much too large. As the Punjaub could not pay its amount of tribute to the Company, Cashmere and some other territory was accepted instead, and given, as a kingdom, to Gholab Singh … on his paying a portion of the debt, thus reimbursing the Company, and lessening the overgrown power of the Punjaub rulers. When, at the close of 1846, the English troops should be withdrawing from Lahore, the Sikh chiefs begged that they might remain, and take care of the Punjaub till the young Maharajah should grow up to manhood."

H. Martineau, British Rule in India, chapter 20.

"Lord Hardinge entrusted the government of the Punjab to a Council of Regency, consisting of Sikh nobles under the guidance of Sir Henry Lawrence as British Resident. He refused to create a subsidiary army, but he left a British force to protect the government until the boy Dhuleep Singh reached his majority. Two-thirds of the Sikh army of the Khalsa were disbanded. The Jullunder Doab between the Sutlej and the Beyas was added to the British empire. … Lord Dalhousie succeeded Lord Hardinge in 1848. Shortly afterwards the Punjab was again in commotion. Sikh government under British protection had failed to keep the peace. The army of the Khalsa had disappeared, but the old love of license and plunder was burning in the hearts of the disbanded soldiery. The Sikh governor of Multan revolted; two Englishmen were murdered. A British force besieged the rebels in Multan. It was joined by a Sikh force in the service of the Council of Regency commanded by Shere Singh. So far the revolt at Multan was regarded as a single outbreak which would be soon suppressed by the capture of the fortress. In reality it was the beginning of a general insurrection. Shere Singh, who commanded the Sikh force in the besieging army, suddenly deserted the British force and joined his father Chutter Singh, who was already in open rebellion. The revolt was secretly promoted by the queen mother, and spread over the Punjab like wildfire. The old soldiers of the Khalsa rallied round Shere Singh and his father. The half-and-half government set up by Lord Hardinge was unable to cope with a revolution which was restoring the old anarchy. In November, 1848, Lord Gough advanced against the rebel army. Then followed the famous campaign between the Chenab and Jhelum rivers about 100 miles to the north of Lahore. In January, 1849, Lord Gough fought the dubious battle of Chillianwallah, near the spot where Alexander the Great crossed the Jhelum and defeated the army of Porus. Meanwhile Multan surrendered, and the besieging force joined Lord Gough. In February the Sikh army was utterly defeated at Gujerat."

J. T. Wheeler, Indian History, chapter 11.

"Gujrat was essentially a forenoon battle, with the whole day before the combatants to finish their work. It commenced with a magnificent duel of artillery; the British infantry occupying post after post as they were abandoned by the enemy; and the British cavalry breaking up the Sikh masses and scattering them by pursuit. Of the sixty Sikh guns engaged, fifty-three were taken. Lord Dalhousie resolved to make the victory a final one. 'The war,' he declared, 'must be prosecuted now to the entire defeat and dispersion of all who are in arms against us, whether Sikhs or Afghans.' General Gilbert hurried out with a pursuing force of 12,000, horse, foot and artillery, the day after the battle. In the breathless chase which followed across the plains of the Punjab to the frontier mountain-wall, the Sikh military power was destroyed for ever. On the 12th of March, 1849, General Gilbert received the submission of the entire Sikh army at Rawal Pindi, together with the last forty-one of the 160 Sikh cannon captured by the British during the war. While the Sikh army heaped up their swords and shields and matchlocks in submissive piles, and salamed one by one as they passed disarmed along the British line, their Afghan allies were chased relentlessly westwards, and reached the safety of the Khaibar Pass panting, and barely twenty miles in front of the English hunters. The horsemen of Afghanistan, it was said, 'had ridden down through the hills like lions and ran back into them like dogs.' The question remained what to do with the Punjab. The victory of Sobraon in 1846 gave to Lord Hardinge the right of conquest: the victory at Gujrat in 1849 compelled Lord Dalhousie to assert that right. Lord Hardinge at the end of the first Punjab war in 1846, tried, as we have seen, an intermediate method of ruling the province by British officers for the benefit of the infant prince. This method had failed. … In determining the future arrangements for the Punjab, Lord Dalhousie had as his advisers the two Lawrences. Sir Henry Lawrence, the former Resident at Lahore; hurried back from his sick-leave in England on the breaking out of the war. He was of opinion that the annexation of the Punjab might perhaps be just, but that it would be inexpedient. His brother John, afterwards Lord Lawrence, who had also acted as Resident, although as much averse in general principle to annexation as Henry, was convinced that, in this case, annexation was not only just, but that its expediency was 'both undeniable and pressing.' {1738} Lord Dalhousie, after a full review of the efforts which had been made to convert the Sikh nation into a friendly power without annexation, decided that no course now remained to the British Government but to annex. … The annexation of the Punjab was deliberately approved of by the Court of Directors, by Parliament, and by the English nation."

W. W. Hunter, The Marquess of Dalhousie, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: Sir H. B. Edwardes and H. Merivale, Life of Sir Henry Lawrence.

R. B. Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, volume 1, chapters 7-11.

E. Arnold, The Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration of British India, volume 1, chapters 1-7.

H. B. Edwardes, A Year on the Punjab Frontier, 1848-49.

Sir R. Temple, Men and Events of My Time in India, chapters 3-4.

INDIA: A. D. 1848-1856. Lord Dalhousie's minor annexations. The lapse of dependent Native States. The case of Nana Sahib.

"In applying the doctrine of lapse to the Hindu chiefdoms, on default of natural successors or of an heir legally adopted with the sanction of the Ruling Power, Lord Dalhousie merely carried out the declared law of the case, and the deliberately formulated policy of the Government of India, years before he arrived in the country. In so doing, however, Lord Dalhousie became the unconscious but effective instrument by which the old India of Lord Wellesley at the beginning of the century was prepared for its conversion, in 1858, into the new India of the Queen. … The fundamental question was whether we should allow the government of a dependent State, in absence of natural heirs, to pass like mere private property to an adopted son. The Court of Directors had at one time permitted the adoption of a successor in special cases to a principality on failure of natural heirs. It declared, however, in 1834, that such an 'indulgence should be the exception, not the rule.' … As the evils of the old system of government by sham royalties further developed themselves, the Government of India determined in 1841 to enforce a more uniform policy. … What Lord Dalhousie did, therefore, was not to invent a new principle of Indian law, but to steadily apply an old principle. … The first case in which this principle came to be applied, shortly after Lord Dalhousie's arrival, was the Native State of Satara. That Maratha principality had been constituted by the British Government on the general break up of the Maratha power in 1818, and confirmed to the 'sons and heirs, and successors' of the recipient in 1819. In 1839 the reigning prince was deposed for misconduct by the British Government in the exercise of its Suzerain rights. By the same rights the British Government then set up the brother of the deposed prince on the throne. … The Raja, whom in 1839 we had placed on the throne, applied for permission to adopt a son. The British Government deliberately withheld the permission; and in the last hours of his life the Raja, in 1848, hastily adopted a son without the consent of the Government." Lord Dalhousie, with the advice of the Court of Directors, declared in this case that the territory of Satara had lapsed, on the death of the Raja, by failure of heirs, to the Power which deposed, and it was annexed, accordingly, to the British dominions. Under kindred circumstances the Native States of Sambalpur, on the south-western frontier of Lower Bengal, and Jhansi, a fragment of the Maratha dominions in Northern India, were absorbed. "The same principle of lapse on failure of heirs was applied by Lord Dalhousie to several other dependent States. Jaitpur in Bundelkhand, Baghat a petty hill Chiefdom of 36 square miles in the Punjab, Udaipur on the Western frontier of Lower Bengal, and Budawal in Khandesh, passed under direct British rule from this cause. The fort and military fief of Tanjore were annexed after Lord Dalhousie's departure from India, but practically on the grounds set forth by his government. … By far the largest accession of territory made during Lord Dalhousie's rule, to the British dominions on the failure of heirs, was the great central tract of India known as Nagpur. This Maratha principality as now constituted into the Central Provinces, and after various rectifications of frontier, has an area of 113,279 square miles, with a population of 12,000,000 souls. The territories annexed by Lord Dalhousie in 1854 make nearly four-fifths of the present Central Provinces. … It is difficult to find any ground for the charge which Mr. Kaye brought in 1865 against Lord Dalhousie, for 'harshness' towards the man afterwards known as the infamous Nana Sahib [see below: A. D. 1857 (MAY-AUGUST)]. As this charge, however, is still occasionally repeated, and as it has even been suggested that Lord Dalhousie was to some extent responsible for the Mutiny of 1857, in consequence of his action towards Nana Sahib in 1851, I must briefly state the facts. In 1818, the Peshwa of the Marathas, completely beaten in the field, threw himself on the generosity of the British. Sir John Malcolm, then the Governor-General's Agent in the Deccan, assured him of his protection, and engaged that he should receive an allowance of £80,000 a year for his support. … There could not be the slightest pretension that it was ever anything more than a personal annuity; and from first to last all mention of heirs is carefully excluded. The records show that the ex-Peshwa, Baji Rao, was well aware of this. Baji Rao lived until 1851, leaving to his adopted son, Nana Sahib, an immense fortune admitted to amount to £280,000, and believed by the Government of the North-western Provinces to greatly exceed that sum. The Government of India at once acknowledged the adopted son's title to this splendid heritage, and out of its own beneficence added to it the Jaghir, or grant of land, on which his father had resided in the North-western Provinces. But the pension, paid out of the tax-payers' pockets, lapsed upon the death of the annuitant."

Sir W. W. Hunter, The Marquess of Dalhousie, chapters 6-7.

Duke of Argyll, India under Dalhousie and Canning.

INDIA: A. D. 1849-1893. The life in exile of Dhuleep Singh, heir to the Sikh throne.

"Few careers have ever been more instructive to those who can see than that of the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, who died in Paris on Sunday [October 22, 1893] of apoplexy. He finished life a despised exile, but no man of modern days ever had such chances, or had seen them snatched, partly by fate, partly by fault, so completely from his lips. But for an accident, if there is such a thing as accident, he would have been the Hindoo Emperor of India. {1739} His father, Runjeet Singh, that strange combination of Louis XI. and Charles the Bold, had formed and knew how to control an army which would have struck down all the native powers of India much more easily than did any of the Tartar conquerors. Without its master at its head, that army defeated the British, and but for a magnificent bribe paid to its General (vide Cunningham's 'History of the Sikhs') would have driven the English from India, and placed the child, Dhuleep Singh, upon the throne of the Peninsula, to be supported there by Sikh and Rajpoot, Mahratta, and Beharee. Apart from the English, there was nothing to resist them; and they were guided by a woman, the Ranee Chunda Kour; who of all modern women was most like Mary of Scots as her enemies have painted her, and of whom, after her fall, Lord Dalhousie said that her capture would be worth the sacrifice of a brigade. How Dhuleep Singh would have reigned had Runjeet Singh's destiny completed itself is another matter—probably like a Hindoo Humayoon—for even if not the son of Runjeet Singh, who, be it remembered, acknowledged him, he inherited ability from his mother; he was a bold man, and he was, as his career showed, capable of wild and daring adventure. He fell, however, from his throne under the shock of the second Sikh War, and began a new and, to all appearance, most promising career. Lord Dalhousie had a pity for the boy, and the English Court—we never quite understood why—an unusually kindly feeling. A fortune of £40,000 a year was settled on him, he was sent to England, and he was granted rank hardly less than that of a Prince of the Blood. He turned Christian—apparently from conviction, though subsequent events throw doubt on that—a tutor, who was quite competent, devoted himself to his education, and from the time he became of age he was regarded as in all respects a great English noble. He knew, too, how to sustain that character,—made no social blunders, became a great sportsman, and succeeded in maintaining for years the sustained stateliness of life which in England is held to confer social dignity. Confidence was first shaken by his marriage, which, though it did not turn out unsuccessfully, and though the lady was in after-life greatly liked and respected, was a whim, his bride being a half Coptic, half English girl whom he saw in an Egyptian school-room, and who, by all English as well as Indian ideas of rank, was an unfitting bride. Then he began over-spending, without the slightest necessity, for his great income was unburdened by a vast estate; and at last reduced his finances to such a condition that the India Office, which had made him advance after advance, closed its treasury and left him, as he thought, face to face with ruin. Then the fierce Asiatic blood in him came out. He declared himself wronged, perhaps believed himself oppressed, dropped the whole varnish of civilisation from him, and resolved to make an effort for the vengeance over which he had probably brooded for years. He publicly repudiated Christianity, and went through a ceremony intended to readmit him within the pale of the Sikh variety of the Hindoo faith. Whether it did readmit him, greater doctors than we must decide. That an ordinary Hindoo who has eaten beef cannot be readmitted to his own caste, even if the eating is involuntary, is certain, as witness the tradition of the Tagore family; but the rights of the Royal are, even in Hindooism, extraordinarily wide, and we fancy that, had Dhuleep Singh succeeded in his enterprise, Sikh doctors of theology would have declared his re-admission legal. He did not, however, succeed. He set out for the Punjab intending, it can hardly be doubted, if the Sikhs acknowledged him, to make a stroke for the throne, if not of India, at least of Runjeet Singh; but he was arrested at Aden, and after months of fierce dispute, let go, on condition that he should not return to India. He sought protection in Russia, which he did not obtain, and at last gave up the struggle, made his peace with the India Office, took his pension again, and lived, chiefly in Paris, the life of a disappointed but wealthy idler. There was some spirit in his adventure, though it was unwisely carried out. The English generally thought it a bit of foolhardiness, or a dodge to extract a loan from the India Office; but those who were responsible held a different opinion, and would have gone nearly any length to prevent his reaching the Punjab. They were probably wise. The heir of Runjeet might have been ridiculed by the Sikhs as a Christian, but he might also have been accepted as a reconverted man; and one successful skirmish in a district might have called to arms all the 'children of the sugar and the sword,' and set all India on fire. The Sikhs are our very good friends, and stood by us against any revival of the Empire of Delhi, their sworn hereditary foe; but they have not forgotten Runjeet Singh, and a chance of the Empire for themselves might have turned many of their heads."

The Spectator, October 28, 1893.

INDIA: A. D. 1852. The second Burmese War. Annexation of Pegu.

"While Lord Dalhousie was laying out the Punjab like a Scotch estate, on the most approved principles of planting, road-making, culture, and general management, the chance of another conquest at the opposite extremity of his vice-kingdom summoned him to Calcutta. The master of a trading barque from Chittagong, who was charged unjustly with cruelty to a pilot, had been fined £100 by the authorities of Rangoon, and the captain of a brig had in like manner been amerced for alleged ill-treatment of his crew. To support a claim for restitution, two English ships of war had been sent to the mouth of the Irrawadi. … Misunderstandings arose on some inexplicable point of etiquette;" the British commodore seized a royal yacht which lay in the river; the angry Burmese opened fire on his ships from their forts; and, "with an unprecedented economy of time and trouble in the discovery or making of plausible pretexts, a second war with Burmah was thus begun. A long catalogue of affronts, wrongs, and injuries, now for the first time poured in. … The subjects of the 'Golden Foot' … must make an official apology for their misbehaviour, pay ten lacs compensation, and receive a permanent Resident at Rangoon. If these demands were not met within five weeks, further reparation would be exacted otherwise, and as there was no fear that they would, preparations were made for an expedition. … The Governor-General threw himself with enthusiasm into an undertaking which promised him another chance of gratifying, as his biographer says, his 'passion for imperial symmetry.' {1740} He resolved 'to take in kingdoms wherever they made a gap in the red line running round his dominions or broke its internal continuity.' There was a gap in the ring-fence between Arracan and Moulmein, which Pegu would fill. The logical inference was clear, the duty of appropriation obvious. Let us have Pegu. Ten millions of silver happening just then to lie in the coffers of Fort William, how could they be better invested than in a jungle on the sea coast, inhabited by quadrupeds and bipeds after their various kinds, alike unworthy of being consulted as to their future destiny? … In April, Martaban and Rangoon were taken with trifling loss. Operations being suspended during the rainy season, the city of Prome was not attacked till October, and after a few hours' struggle it fell, with the loss of a single sepoy on the side of the victors. There was in fact no serious danger to encounter, save from the climate; but that unfailing ally fought with terrible effect upon the side of Ava. … On the 20th December, 1852, a proclamation was issued, which, after reciting undisguisedly the ineffably inadequate pretext for the war, informed the inhabitants that the Governor in Council had resolved that the maritime province of Pegu should henceforth form a portion of the British territories in the East, and warning the King of Ava, 'should he fail to renew his former relations of friendship with the British Government, and seek to dispute its quiet possession of the province, the Governor-General would again put forth the power he held, which would lead to the total subversion of the Burman State, and to the ruin and exile of the King and his race.' But no depth of humiliation could bring the Sovereign or his Ministers to acknowledge the hopelessness of defeat or the permanency of dismemberment. … Twenty years have passed, and no treaty recognising the alienation of Pegu has yet [in 1872] been signed."

W. M. Torrens, Empire in Asia: How we came by it, chapter 24.

ALSO IN: E. Arnold, The Marquis of Dalhousie's Administration of British India, chapters 15-16 (volume 2).

INDIA: A. D. 1856. The annexation of Oudh.

See OUDH.

INDIA: A. D. 1857. Causes of the Sepoy Mutiny.

"The various motives assigned for the Mutiny appear inadequate to the European mind. The truth seems to be that Native opinion throughout India was in a ferment, predisposing men to believe the wildest stories, and to rush into action in a paroxysm of terror. Panic acts on an Oriental population like drink upon a European mob. The annexation policy of Lord Dalhousie, although dictated by the most enlightened considerations, was distasteful to the Native mind. The spread of education, the appearance at the same moment of the steam-engine and the telegraph wire, seemed to reveal a deep plan for substituting an English for an Indian civilisation. The Bengal sepoys especially thought that they could see further than the rest of their countrymen. Most of them were Hindus of high caste; many of them were recruited from Oudh. They regarded our reforms on Western lines as attacks on their own nationality, and they knew at first hand what annexation meant. They believed it was by their prowess that the Punjab had been conquered, and that all India was held. The numerous dethroned princes, or their heirs and widows, were the first to learn and to take advantage of this spirit of disaffection and panic. They had heard of the Crimean war, and were told that Russia was the perpetual enemy of England. Our munificent pensions had supplied the funds with which they could buy the aid of skilful intriguers. They had much to gain, and little to lose, by a revolution. In this critical state of affairs, of which the Government had no official knowledge, a rumour ran through the cantonments that the cartridges of the Bengal army had been greased with the fat of pigs,—animals unclean alike to Hindu and Muhammadan. No assurances could quiet the minds of the sepoys. Fires occurred nightly in the Native lines; officers were insulted by their men; confidence was gone, and only the form of discipline remained. In addition, the outbreak of the storm found the Native regiments denuded of many of their best officers. The administration of the great empire to which Dalhousie put the corner-stone, required a larger staff than the civil service could supply. The practice of selecting able military men for civil posts, which had long existed, received a sudden and vast development. Oudh, the Punjab, the Central Provinces, British Burma, were administered to a large extent by picked officers from the Company's regiments. Good and skilful commanders remained; but the Native army had nevertheless been drained of many of its brightest intellects and firmest wills at the very crisis of its fate."

W. W. Hunter, Brief History of the Indian People, chapter 15.

"The annexation of Oudh had nothing to do with the Mutiny in the first place, though that measure certainly did add to the number of our enemies after the Mutiny commenced. The old government of Oudh was extremely obnoxious to the mass of our native soldiers of the regular army, who came from Oudh and the adjacent province of Behar, and with whom the Mutiny originated. These men were the sons and kinsmen of the Hindu yeomen of the country, all of whom benefited more or less by annexation; while Oudh was ruled by a Muhammadan family which had never identified itself with the people, and whose government was extremely oppressive to all classes except its immediate creatures and followers. But when the introduction of the greased cartridges had excited the Native Army to revolt, when the mutineers saw nothing before them short of escape on the one hand or destruction on the other, they, and all who sympathised with them, were driven to the most desperate measures. All who could be influenced by love or fear rallied round them. All who had little or nothing to lose joined their ranks. All that dangerous class of religious fanatics and devotees who abound in India, all the political intriguers, who in peaceful times can do no mischief, swelled the numbers of the enemy, and gave spirit and direction to their measures. India is full of races of men, who, from time immemorial, have lived by service or by plunder, and who are ready to join in any disturbance which may promise them employment. Oudh was full of disbanded soldiers who had not had time to settle down. Our gaols furnished thousands of desperate men let loose on society. The cry throughout the country, as cantonment after cantonment became the scene of triumphant mutiny was, 'The English rule is at an end. Let us plunder and enjoy ourselves.' The industrious classes throughout India were on our side, but for a long time feared to act. {1741} On the one side they saw the few English in the country shot down or flying for their lives, or at the best standing on the defensive, sorely pressed; on the other side they saw summary punishment, in the shape of the plunder and destruction of their houses, dealt out to those who aided us. But when we evinced signs of vigour, when we began to assume the offensive and vindicate our authority, many of these people came forward and identified themselves with our cause."

Lord Lawrence, Speech at Glasgow, 1860 (quoted by Sir O. T. Burne, in "Clyde and Strathnairn," chapter 1).

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, History of the Sepoy War in India, book 2 (volume 1).

G. B. Malleson, The Indian Mutiny of 1857, chapters 1-5.

INDIA: A. D. 1857 (May). The outbreak at Meerut. Seizure of Delhi by the Mutineers. Massacre of Europeans. Explosion of the magazine.

"The station of Meerut, some 40 miles north-east of Delhi, was one of the very few in India where adequate means existed for quelling an outbreak of native troops. There was a regiment of English Dragoons, a battalion of the 60th Rifles, and a strong force of Horse and Foot Artillery, far more than sufficient to deal with the three native regiments who were also quartered in the cantonment. The court-martial on … eighty-five men of the 3rd N. C., who had refused to take their cartridges, had by this time completed its inquiry. The men were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The sentence was carried out with impressive solemnity. On a morning [May 9] presently to become historical—the heavens sombre with rolling clouds—the brigade assembled to hear their comrades' doom—to see them stripped of their uniform and secured with felons' manacles. The scene produced intense emotion. Resistance was impossible. There were entreaties, tears, imprecations, as the prisoners were marched away to jail. Discipline had been vindicated by a terrible example. The next day was Sunday. In the evening, as the European Riflemen were gathering for Church, a sudden movement took place in the native quarters. The Cavalry dashed off to the jail to rescue their imprisoned companions. The two Infantry regiments, after a moment's wavering, threw in their lot with the mutineers. Then ensued a scene such as, unhappily, became too familiar in Upper India within the next few weeks. Officers were shot, houses fired, Europeans—men, women, and children, wherever found, were put to the sword. A crowd of miscreants from the jail, suddenly set free, made a long night of pillage. Meanwhile, paralysed by the sudden catastrophe, the English General of the Division and the Brigadier of the Station forbore to act, refused to let their subordinates act, and the Sepoys who had fled, a disorganised mob, in different directions, soon found themselves gathering on the march for Delhi. In the early morning at Delhi, where courts and offices had already begun the day's work, a line of horsemen were descried galloping on the Meerut road. They found their way into the city, into the presence of the King; cut down the European officials, and, as they were gradually reinforced by the arrival of fresh companions, commenced a general massacre of the Christian population. A brave telegraph clerk, as the mutineers burst in upon him, had just time to flash the dreadful tidings to Lahore. Before evening, the native regiments fired upon their officers and joined the mutineers. After weary hours of hope for the help from Meerut which never came, the British officers in command were compelled to recognise that the only chance of safety lay in flight. Ere the day closed, every European who had risen that morning in Delhi, was dead, or awaiting death, or wandering about the country in the desperate endeavor to reach a place of safety. A day dark with disaster was, however, illumined by the first of those heroic acts which will make the siege of Delhi immortal. The insurgents had their first taste of the quality of the race whose ascendancy they had elected to assail. Lieutenant Willoughby, the officer in charge of the Magazine, and eight gallant companions, resolved, early in the day, that, if they could not defend their invaluable supply of ammunition, they would destroy it, though its destruction would almost certainly involve their own. For hours they defended their stronghold against an overpowering crowd of assailants. The train was laid: the sergeant who was to fire it stood ready: Willoughby took a last look out upon the Meerut road: the assailants were swarming on the walls. The word was spoken: a vast column of flame and smoke shot upward. Two thousand of the assailants were blown into the air [and five of the defenders perished, while Willoughby and three of his companions escaped]. The thunder of that explosion announced to the mutineers that one great object in the seizure of Delhi had escaped their grasp."

H. S. Cunningham, Earl Canning, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, History of the Sepoy War in India, book 4, chapters 1-3 (volume 2).

INDIA: A. D. 1857 (May-August). The situation at Delhi. Siege of the English at Cawnpur. Their surrender and massacre. The siege of Lucknow.

"A few days of inactivity allowed the flame to blaze up beyond possibility of immediate extinction. The unchallenged occupation of the Mughal capital by rebel sepoys and badmashes was followed by risings and massacres in almost every station within range of the example; and from Firozpur, Bareilly, Moradabad, Shahjahanpur, Cawnpur, and numerous other places came harrowing tales of massacre, suffering, and heroism. When this terrible news reached army head-quarters, it was received with a perhaps natural incredulity. Nevertheless, a force was hastily assembled at Ambala; and with the troops thus mobilised, General Anson, then Commander-in-Chief, made preparations to march against the renowned city of the Mughal. The little force had hardly started, however, when its leader died of cholera (May 27th). It was not until the 1st of June that General Barnard, who had succeeded temporarily to the chief command, advanced in earnest against the now jubilant rebels. Meanwhile, a small body of troops under Brigadier Archdale Wilson marched out from Meerut, after a disastrous delay; and the combined force, amounting to about 3,000 Europeans and one battalion of Gurkhas, fought its way onwards till it reached the outskirts of the city on the 8th of June, 1857. We may now refer to the three great points,—Delhi, Cawnpur, and Lucknow, round which the Mutiny was, so to speak, centred during the earlier period of the revolt; namely, from May, 1857, till the arrival in India of Sir Colin Campbell in August of that year. {1742} The modern city of Delhi was founded by the Emperor Jahangir in 1631. Situated on the right bank of a branch of the Jumna river it was, as it still is, surrounded by a high wall some seven miles in extent, strengthened by bastions and by a capacious dry ditch. The British force held the elevated ground known as the Ridge, which extends two miles along the northern and western faces of the city—a position taken up some centuries before by Timur Shah and his Tartar hordes when advancing to attack old Delhi. At intervals along the Ridge stood the Flagstaff Tower, the Observatory, a large mansion called Hindu Rao's house, and other defensible buildings. The space between the city and the Ridge was thickly planted, for the most part with trees and shrubs; in the midst of which might be seen numerous mosques and large houses, and the ruins of older buildings. It soon became evident that the position held by the British force on the Ridge was a false one; and the question arose whether the city might not be taken by a coup de main, seeing that it was impossible either to invest it or to attempt a regular siege with any chance of success. A plan of assault, to be carried out on the 12th of June, was drawn up by a young Engineer officer and sanctioned. Had this assault been delivered the city would in all likelihood have been taken and held. … But owing to a series of accidents, the plan fell through—a miscarriage the more to be regretted because the early recapture of the city would in all human probability have put a stop to further outbreaks. As matters stood, however, the gallant little force before Delhi could barely hold its own. It was an army of observation perpetually harassed by an active enemy. As time went on, therefore, the question of raising the siege in favour of a movement towards Agra was more than once seriously discussed, but was fortunately abandoned. On July 5th, 1857, General Barnard died, worn out with fatigue and anxiety. He was succeeded in command by General Archdale Wilson, an officer who, possessing no special force of character, did little more than secure the safe defence of the position until the arrival of Brigadier Nicholson from the Punjab, August 14th, 1857, with a moveable column of 2,500 men, Europeans and Sikhs. And here we may leave Delhi, for the moment, deferring till later any further details of the siege. The city of Cawnpur, situated on the south bank of the river Ganges, 42 miles south-west of Lucknow and 270 miles from Delhi, lies about a mile from the river in a large sandy plain. On the strip of land between the river and the town, a space broken by ravines, stretched the Civil Station and cantonments. A more difficult position to hold in an extremity cannot well be conceived, occupied as it was by four disaffected Sepoy regiments with but sixty European artillerymen to overawe them. There was, moreover, an incompetent commander. Realising after the disasters at Meerut and Delhi that his native garrison was not to be trusted, Sir Hugh Wheeler threw up a make-shift entrenchment close to the Sepoy lines. Commanded on all sides, it was totally unfitted to stand a siege. But a worse mistake was to follow. Alarmed as time went on at his growing difficulties, Sir Hugh Wheeler at length asked the notorious Nana Sahib [see above: A. D. 1848-1856], who lived a few miles off at Bithur, to assist him with troops to guard the Treasury. For some months previously this archtraitor's emissaries had been spreading discontent throughout India, but he himself had taken care to remain on good terms with his European neighbours. He now saw his opportunity. Cawnpur, delivered into his hands by the misplaced confidence of its defenders, was virtually in his keeping. Of European succour there was no immediate hope. The place was doomed. The crash came three days before General Barnard's force reached Delhi. With the exception of a few devoted natives who remained faithful to their salt, the whole Sepoy force on the 5th of June rose in revolt, opened the doors of the jail, robbed the treasury, and made themselves masters of the magazine. The Nana cast aside all further pretence of friendship and, joined by the mutinous troops, laid siege to the entrenchment already mentioned, which with culpable military ignorance had been thrown up in one of the worst positions that could have been chosen. The besieging army numbered some 3,000 men. The besieged could only muster about 400 English soldiers, more than 70 of which number were invalids. For twenty-one days the little garrison suffered untold horrors from starvation, heat, and the onslaughts of the rebels; until the General in command listened to overtures for surrender, and the garrison marched out on the 27th of June, to the number of about 450 souls, provided with a promise of safeguard from the Nana, who would allow them, as they thought, to embark in country boats for Allahabad. Tantia Topi, who afterwards became notorious in Central India, superintended the embarkation. No sooner, however, were the Europeans placed in the boats, in apparent safety, than a battery of guns concealed on the river banks opened fire, while at the same time a deadly fusillade of musketry was poured on the luckless refugees. The Nana at length ordered the massacre to cease. He celebrated what he called his glorious victory by proclaiming himself Peshwa or Maratha Sovereign, and by rewarding his troops for their 'splendid achievements,' while the wretched survivors of his treachery, numbering about 5 men and 206 women and children, were taken back to Cawnpur and confined in a small building for further vengeance and insult. On the 15th of July came the last act of this tragedy. The Nana, having suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Brigadier Havelock's force within a day's march of Cawnpur, as will presently be recorded, put the whole of his prisoners to death. The men were brought out and killed in his presence, while the women and children were hacked to pieces by Muhammadan butchers and others in their prison. Their bodies were thrown into what is now known as the Cawnpur Well.' Lucknow, at the time of the Mutiny, was in population, in extent, and in the number and importance of its principal buildings, one of the foremost cities of India. … The Residency stood on a hill gently sloping towards the river, and was an imposing edifice of three stories. Near it were the iron and stone bridges over the river. … At the outbreak of the Mutiny the Sepoy regiments were stationed in various localities within the city; while the 32nd Foot, the only European regiment on the spot, was quartered in a barrack about a mile or so from the Residency. {1743} As was the case elsewhere, so it happened at Lucknow. While the population and native garrison were seething with sedition, the British authorities were hampered by ignorance of popular feeling, by the want of European troops, and by divided counsels. So, by the end of May, 1857, the rebellion in Oudh became an accomplished fact, although matters went on with comparative smoothness in Lucknow itself. At length, after a serious disaster at Chinhat, the British garrison was forced to withdraw to the Residency and its adjacent buildings; and on the 1st of July commenced the famous investment of this position by the rebel forces. The position was ill adapted for defence; for the lofty windows of the Residency itself not only allowed free access to the enemy's missiles, but its roof was wholly exposed. On the opposite side of the street, leading from the Bailey Guard Gate, was the house of the Residency Surgeon, Dr. (now Sir Joseph) Fayrer. It was a large but not lofty building with a flat roof which, protected by sand bags, afforded a good cover for our riflemen, and with a tyekhana, or underground story, that afforded good shelter for the women and children. But as a whole, the defences of the Residency were more formidable in name than in reality, and were greatly weakened by the proximity of high buildings from which the rebels without danger to themselves poured an unceasing fire. The siege had an ominous commencement. On July 4th the much-beloved Sir Henry Lawrence, the Resident, died of a wound received two days before from an enemy's shell that had fallen into his room. Brigadier Inglis succeeded him in command; and for three months the heroic garrison of about 1,700 souls held their weak position, amid inconceivable hardships and dangers, against thousands of the rebels who were constantly reinforced by fresh levies. It was well said in a general order by Lord Canning that there could not be found in the annals of war an achievement more heroic than this defence."

General Sir O. T. Burne, Clyde and Strathnairn, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: J. W. Kaye, History of the Sepoy War, book 9, chapters 1-3 (volume 3).

G. O. Trevelyan, Cawnpore.

T. R. E. Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny, chapters 8-10.

Lady Inglis, The Siege of Lucknow.

INDIA: A. D. 1857 (June-September). The siege, the storming and the capture of Delhi. Murder of the Moghul princes.

"During the four months that followed the revolt at Delhi on the 11th of May, all political interest was centred at the ancient capital of the sovereigns of Hindustan. The public mind was occasionally distracted by the current of events at Cawnpore and Lukhnow, as well as at other stations which need not be particularised; but so long as Delhi remained in the hands of the rebels, the native princes were bewildered and alarmed; and its prompt recapture was deemed of vital importance to the prestige of the British government, and the re-establishment of British sovereignty in Hindustan. The Great Moghul had been little better than a mummy for more than half a century, and Bahadur Shah was a mere tool and puppet in the hands of rebel sepoys; but nevertheless the British government had to deal with the astounding fact that the rebels were fighting under his name and standard, just as Afghans and Mahrattas had done in the days of Ahmad Shah Durani and Mahadaji Sindia. To make matters worse, the roads to Delhi were open from the south and east; and nearly every outbreak in Hindustan was followed by a stampede of mutineers to the old capital of the Moghuls. Meanwhile, in the absence of railways, there were unfortunate delays in bringing up troops and guns to stamp out the fires of rebellion at the head centre. The highway from Calcutta to Delhi was blocked up by mutiny and insurrection; and every European soldier sent up from Calcutta was stopped for the relief of Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, or Lukhnow. But the possession of the Punjab at this crisis proved to be the salvation of the empire. Sir John Lawrence, the Chief Commissioner, was called upon to perform almost superhuman work:—to maintain order in a newly conquered province; to suppress mutiny and disaffection amongst the very sepoy regiments from Bengal who were supposed to garrison the country; and to send reinforcements of troops and guns, and supplies of all descriptions, to the siege of Delhi. Fortunately the Sikhs had been only a few short years under British administration; they had not forgotten the miseries that prevailed under the native government, and could appreciate the many blessings they enjoyed under British rule. They were staunch to the British government, and eager to be led against the rebels. In some cases terrible punishment was meted out to mutinous Bengal sepoys within the Punjab; but the imperial interests at stake were sufficient to justify every severity, although all must regret the painful necessity that called for such extreme measures. … The defences of Delhi covered an area of three square miles. The walls consisted of a series of bastions, about sixteen feet high, connected by long curtains, with occasional martello towers to aid the flanking fire. … There were seven gates to the city, namely, Lahore gate, Ajmir gate, Turkoman gate, Delhi gate, Mori gate, Kabul gate, and Kashmir gate. The principal street was the Chandni Chouk, which ran in a direct line from the Delhi gate to the palace of the Moghuls. … For many weeks the British army on the Ridge was unable to attempt siege operations. It was, in fact, the besieged, rather than the besiegers; for, although the bridges in the rear were blown up, the camp was exposed to continual assaults from all the other sides. On the 23rd of June, the hundredth anniversary of the battle of Plassy, the enemy made a greater effort than ever to carry the British position. The attack began on the right from the Subzi Mundi, its object being to capture the Mound battery. Finding it impossible to carry the battery, the rebels confined themselves to a hand to hand conflict in the Subzi Mundi. The deadly struggle continued for many hours; and as the rebels came up in overwhelming numbers, it was fortunate that the two bridges in the rear had been blown up the night before, or the assault might have had a different termination. It was not until after sunset that the enemy was compelled to retire with the loss of a thousand men. Similar actions were frequent during the month of August; but meanwhile reinforcements were coming up, and the end was drawing nigh. In the middle of August, Brigadier John Nicholson, one of the most distinguished officers of the time, came up from the Punjab with a brigade and siege train. On the 4th of September a heavy train of artillery was brought in from Ferozepore. {1744} The British force on the Ridge now exceeded 8,000 men. Hitherto the artillery had been too weak to attempt to breach the City walls; but now fifty-four heavy guns were brought into position and the siege began in earnest. From the 8th to the 12th of September four batteries poured in a constant storm of shot and shell; number one was directed against the Kashmir bastion, number two against the right flank of the Kashmir bastion, number three against the Water bastion, and number four against the Kashmir and Water gates and bastions. On the 13th of September the breaches were declared to be practicable, and the following morning was fixed for the final assault upon the doomed city. At three o'clock in the morning of the 14th September, three assaulting columns were formed in the trenches, whilst a fourth was kept in reserve. The first column was led by Brigadier Nicholson; the second by Brigadier Jones; the third by Colonel Campbell; and the fourth, or reserve, by Brigadier Longfield. The powder bags were laid at the Kashmir gate by Lieutenants Home and Salkeld. The explosion followed, and the third column rushed in, and pushed towards the Juma Musjid. Meanwhile the first column under Nicholson escaladed the breaches near the Kashmir gate, and pushed along the ramparts towards the Kabul gate, carrying the several bastions in the way. Here it was met by the second column under Brigadier Jones, who had escaladed the breach at the Water bastion. The advancing columns were met by a ceaseless fire from terraced houses, mosques, and other buildings; and John Nicholson, the hero of the day, whilst attempting to storm a narrow street near the Kabul gate, was struck down by a shot and mortally wounded."

J. T. Wheeler, Short History of India, part 3, chapter 25.

"The long autumn day was over, and we were in Delhi. But Delhi was, by no means, ours. Sixty-six officers and 1,100 men— nearly a third, that is, of the whole attacking force—had fallen; while, as yet, not a sixth part of the town was in our power. How many men, it might well be asked, would be left to us by the time that we had conquered the remainder? We held the line of ramparts which we had attacked and the portions of the city immediately adjoining, but nothing more. The Lahore Gate and the Magazine, the Jumma Musjid and the Palace, were still untouched, and were keeping up a heavy fire on our position. Worse than this, a large number of our troops had fallen victims to the temptation which, more formidable than themselves, our foes had left behind them, and were wallowing in a state of bestial intoxication. The enemy, meanwhile, had been able to maintain their position outside the town; and if only, at this supreme hour, a heaven-sent General had appeared amongst them, they might have attacked our camp, defended as it was mainly by the sick, and the maimed, and the halt. … Never, perhaps, in the history of the Mutiny were we in quite so perilous a position as on the night which followed our greatest military success. General Wilson, indeed, proposed, as might have been expected from a man in his enfeebled condition of mind and body, to withdraw the guns, to fall back on the camp and wait for reinforcements there; a step which, it is needless to point out, would have given us all the deadly work to do over again, even if our force should prove able to maintain itself on the Ridge till reinforcements came. But the urgent remonstrances of Baird Smith and others, by word of mouth; of Chamberlain, by letter; and, perhaps, also, the echoes which may have reached him from the tempest-tossed hero who lay chafing against his cruel destiny on his death-bed, and exclaimed in a wild paroxysm of passion, when he heard of the move which was in contemplation, 'Thank God, I have strength enough left to shoot that man,' turned the General once more from his purpose. On the following day, the 15th, vast quantities of the intoxicating drinks, which had wrought such havoc amongst our men, were destroyed by General Wilson's order, and the streets literally ran with rivers of beer, and wine, and brandy. Meanwhile, the troops were sleeping off their drunken debauch; and on the 16th active operations were resumed. On that day the Magazine was taken, and its vast stores of shot and shell, and of all the 'material' of war, fell once more into the hands of their proper owners. By sapping gradually from house to house we managed, for three days more, to avoid the street-fighting which, once and again, has proved so demoralising to Englishmen; and, slowly but surely, we pressed back the defenders into that ever-narrowing part of the city of which, fortunately for themselves, they still held the bolt-holes. Many of them had already begun, like rats, to quit the sinking vessel. And now the unarmed population of the city flocked in one continuous stream out of the open gates, hoping to save their lives, if nothing else, from our avenging swords. On the 19th, the palace of the Moguls, which had witnessed the last expiring flicker of life in an effete dynasty, and the cruel murder of English men, and women, and children, fell into our hands; and by Sunday, the 20th, the whole of the city—in large part already a city of the dead—was at our mercy. But what of the King himself and the Princes of the royal house? They had slunk off to the tomb of Humayoun, a huge building, almost a city in itself, some miles from the modern Delhi, and there, swayed this way and that, now by the bolder spirits of his army who pressed him to put himself at their head and fight it out to the death, as became the descendant of Tamerlane and Baber, now by the entreaties of his young wife, who was anxious chiefly for her own safety and that of her son, the heir of the Moguls; and now, again, by the plausible suggestions of a double-dyed traitor of his own house who was in Hodson's pay, and who, approaching the head of his family with a kiss of peace, was endeavoring to detain him where he was till he could hand him over to his employer and receive the price of blood, the poor old monarch dozed or fooled away the few hours of his sovereignty which remained, the hours which might still make or mar him, in paroxysms of imbecile vacillation and despair. The traitor gained the day, and Hodson, who could play the game of force as well as of fraud, and was an equal adept at either, learning from his craven-hearted tool that the King was prepared to surrender on the promise of his life, went to Wilson and obtained leave, on that condition, to bring him into Delhi. The errand, with such a promise tacked on to it, was only half to Hodson's taste. {1745} 'If I get into the Palace,' he had written in cool blood some days before, 'the house of Timour will not be worth five minutes' purchase, I ween.' … After two hours of bargaining for his own life and that of his queen and favourite son, the poor old Priam tottered forth and was taken back, in a bullock-cart, a prisoner, to his own city and Palace, and was there handed over to the civil authorities. But there were other members of the royal family, as Hodson knew well from his informants, also lurking in Humayoun's tomb. … With a hundred of his famous horse Hodson started for Humayoun's tomb, and, after three hours of negotiation, the three princes, two of them the sons, the other the grandson of the King, surrendered unconditionally into his hands. … Their arms were taken from them, and, escorted by some of his horsemen, they too were despatched in bullock-carts towards Delhi. With the rest of his horse, Hodson stayed behind to disarm the large and nerveless crowd, who, as sheep having no shepherd, and unable, in their paralysed condition, to see what the brute weight even of a flock of sheep might do by a sudden rush, were overawed by his resolute bearing. This done, he galloped after his prey and caught them up just before the cavalcade reached the walls of Delhi. He ordered the princes roughly to get out of the cart and strip,—for, even in his thirst for their blood, he had, as it would seem, an eye to the value of their outer clothes,—he ordered them into the cart again, he seized a carbine from one of his troopers, and then and there, with his own hand, shot them down deliberately one after the other. It was a stupid, cold-blooded, three-fold murder. … Had they been put upon their trial, disclosures of great importance as to the origin of the Mutiny could hardly fail to have been elicited. Their punishment would have been proportioned to their offence, and would have been meted out to them with all the patient majesty of offended law."

R. B. Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, volume 2, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: Sir R. Temple, Lord Lawrence, chapter 7.

Sir R. Temple, Men and Events of my Time in India, chapter 7.

J. Cave-Brown, The Punjab and Delhi in 1857.

G. B. Malleson, History of the Indian Mutiny, book 10, chapter 1 (volume 2).

Major Hodson, Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India, part 2: The Delhi Campaign.

INDIA: A. D. 1857-1858 (July-June). General Havelock's campaign. Sir Colin Campbell's. The Relief of Lucknow. Substantial suppression of the Mutiny.

"Meanwhile the greatest anxiety prevailed with regard to our countrymen and countrywomen at Lucknow and Cawnpore. The Indian government made every effort to relieve them; but the reinforcements which had been despatched from England and China came in slowly, and the demands made for assistance far exceeded the means at the disposal of the government. … The task of relieving the city was entrusted to the heroic General Havelock, who marched out with a mere handful of men, of whom only 1,400 were British soldiers, to encounter a large army and a whole country in rebellion. At Futtehpore, on the 12th of July, he defeated a vastly superior force, posted in a very strong position. After giving his men a day's rest, he advanced again on the 14th, and routed the enemy in two pitched battles. Next morning he renewed his advance, and with a force of less than 900 men attacked 5,000 strongly entrenched, and commanded by Nana Sahib. They were outmanœuvred, out-flanked, beaten and dispersed. But for this signal defeat they wreaked their vengeance on the unfortunate women and children who still remained at Cawnpore. On the very day on which the battle occurred, they were massacred under circumstances of cruelty over which we must throw a veil. The well of Cawnpore, in which their hacked and mutilated bodies were flung, presented a spectacle from which soldiers who had regarded unmoved the carnage of numerous battle-fields shrank with horror. Of all the atrocities perpetrated during this war, so fruitful in horrors, this was the most awful; and it was followed by a terrible retribution. It steeled the hearts, and lent a furious and fearless energy to the arms, of the British soldiery. Wherever they came, they gave no quarter to the mutineers; a few men often frantically attacked hundreds, frantically but vainly defending themselves; and never ceased till all had been bayoneted, or shot, or hewn in pieces. All those who could be shown to have been accomplices in the perpetration of the murders that had been committed were hung, or blown from the cannon's mouth. Though the intrepid Havelock was unable to save the women and children who had been imprisoned in Cawnpore, he pressed forward to Lucknow. But the force under his command was too small to enable him to drive off the enemy. Meanwhile Sir J. Outram, who was now returning from the Persian war, which had been brought to a successful conclusion, was sent to Oude as chief commissioner, with full civil and military power. This appointment was fully deserved; but it had the effect, probably not thought of by those who made it, of superseding Havelock just as he was about to achieve the crowning success of his rapid and glorious career. Outram, however, with a generosity which did him more real honour than a thousand victories would have conferred, wrote to Havelock to inform him that he intended to join him with adequate reinforcements; adding: 'To you shall be left the glory of relieving Lucknow, for which you have already struggled so much. I shall accompany you only in my civil capacity as commissioner, placing my military service at your disposal, should you please, and serving under you as a volunteer.' Thus Havelock, after gaining no fewer than twelve battles against forces far superior in numbers to the little band he originally led, was enabled at length, on the 25th of August, to preserve the civilians, the women, and children of Lucknow from the impending horrors of another massacre, which would no doubt have been as fearful as that of Cawnpore. The Highlanders were the first to enter, and were welcomed with grateful enthusiasm by those whom they had saved from a fate worse than death. However, the enemy, recovering from the panic which the arrival of Havelock and his troops had caused, renewed the siege. Sir Colin Campbell, who had assumed the command of the Indian army, had determined to march to the relief of Lucknow. He set out from Cawnpore on the 9th of November, but was obliged to wait till the 14th for reinforcements, which were on the way to join him, and which raised the force under his command to 5,000—a force numerically far inferior to that which it was to attack. {1746} On the 17th of November the relief of Lucknow was effected. The music of the Highland regiments, playing 'The Campbells are coming,' announced to their delighted countrymen inside the city that the commander-in-chief himself was with the relieving force. Little time, however, was allowed for congratulations and rejoicings. The ladies, the civilians, and the garrison were quietly withdrawn; the guns, which it was thought not desirable to remove, were burst; and a retreat effected, without affording the enemy the slightest suspicion of what was going on until some hours after the town had been evacuated by its defenders. The retreating force reached Dilhasha on the 24th, without having sustained any serious molestation. There the gallant Havelock sank under the trials and hardships to which he had been exposed, and yielded up the life which was instrumental in preserving so many others from the most terrible of deaths. While Sir Colin Campbell was engaged in effecting the relief of Lucknow, intelligence reached Cawnpore that a large hostile army was making towards it. General Windham, who commanded there, unacquainted with the number or the position of the approaching force, marched forth to meet it, in the hope that he should be able to rout and cut up the advanced guard before the main body of the enemy could come to its assistance. But in this expectation he was disappointed. Instead of having to deal with the van, he engaged with the whole rebel army, and his little force, assailed on all sides, was obliged to retire. He at once despatched a letter to the commander-in-chief, requesting him to hasten to his assistance; but it was intercepted by the enemy. Fortunately Sir Colin Campbell, though ignorant of the critical position of his subordinate, came up just at the moment when the danger was at its height. This was on the 28th of November. He was, however, in no haste to attack the foe, and was content for the present merely to hold them in check. His first care was for the safety of the civilians, the women, and the children, which was not secured till the 30th; and he continued to protect them till the 5th of December, when they were all safely lodged at Allahabad. The enemy, unaware of the motive of his seeming inaction, imputed it to fear, and became every day more confident and audacious. On the 6th he at length turned fiercely on them, completely defeated them, and seized their baggage; he then dispersed and drove away another large force, under the command of Nana Sahib, which was watching the engagement at a little distance. The army entered the residence of Nana Sahib at Bithoor, and took possession of much treasure, which had been concealed in a well. Nearly the whole of the enemy's artillery was captured; and the army, being overtaken as they were in the act of crossing into Oude, great numbers of them were destroyed. Of course, for the moment Lucknow, being no longer garrisoned, had fallen into the hands of the insurgents; but they were not long permitted to retain it. Strong reinforcements arrived, and the Indian government was enabled to send a force against Lucknow sufficient to overwhelm all resistance; and on the 15th of December this important city was in the undisputed possession of the British troops. This final recovery of the capital of Oude decided the reconquest of that country. A struggle was, indeed, maintained for some time longer; innumerable battles were fought; and the final subjugation of the country was effected in the month of June, 1858."

W. N. Molesworth, History of England, 1830-1874, volume 3, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: A. Forbes, Havelock, chapters 5-7.

General Sir O. T. Burne, Clyde and Strathnairn.

General Shadwell, Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde, volume 1, chapter 11, and volume 2, chapters 1-18.

T. Lowe, Central India during 1857-8.

INDIA: A. D. 1858. The Governor-General's Proclamation, Termination of the rule of the East India Company. The government transferred to the Crown.

"By a singular circumstance, when the mutiny was suppressed in 1858, the Governor-General, who in the previous year had been condemned for leniency which was thought ill-timed, was destined to receive censure for harshness which was declared unnecessary. On the eve of the fall of Lucknow, he drew up a proclamation confiscating the lands of all the great landowners in Oudh. Exceptions were, indeed, made to this sweeping decree. Landowners who could prove their loyalty were promised exemption from it, just as rebels who unconditionally surrendered, and whose hands were not stained with British blood, were offered pardon. There is no doubt that Canning, in drawing up this proclamation, relied on the exceptions which it contained, while there is equally no doubt that the critics who objected to it overlooked its parentheses. But its issue was made the basis of an attack which well-nigh proved fatal to the Governor-General's administration. The chances of party warfare had replaced Palmerston with Derby; and the Conservative minister had entrusted the Board of Control to the brilliant but erratic statesman who, fifteen years before, had astonished India with pageant and proclamation. … Ellenborough thought proper to condemn Canning's proclamation in a severe despatch, and to allow his censure to be made public. For a short time it seemed impossible that the Governor-General who had received such a despatch could continue his government. But the lapse of a few days showed that the minister who had framed the despatch, and not the Viceroy who had received it, was to suffer from the transaction. The public, recollecting the justice of Canning's rule, the mercy of his administration, almost unanimously considered that he should not have been hastily condemned for a document which, it was gradually evident, had only been imperfectly understood; and Ellenborough, to save his colleagues, volunteered to play the part of Jonah, and retired from the ministry. His retirement closes, in one sense, the history of the Indian Mutiny. But the transactions of the Mutiny had, almost for the first time, taught the public to consider the anomalies of Indian government. In the course of a hundred years a Company had been suffered to acquire an empire nearly ten times as large and as populous as Great Britain. It was true that the rule of the Company was in many respects nominal. The President of the Board of Control was the true head of the Indian Government, and spoke and acted through the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors. But this very circumstance only accentuated the anomaly. If the President of the Board of Control was in fact Indian minister, it was far simpler to make him Indian minister by name, and to do away with the clumsy expedient which alone enabled him to exercise his authority. {1747} Hence it was generally decided that the rule of the Company should cease, and that India should thenceforward become one of the possessions of the crown. … A great danger thus led to the removal of a great anomaly, and the vast Indian empire which Englishmen had won was thenceforward taken into a nation's keeping."

S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 27 (volume 5).

The act "for the better government of India," which was passed in the autumn of 1858, "provided that all the territories previously under the government of the East India Company were to be vested in her Majesty, and all the Company's powers to be exercised in her name. One of her Majesty's principal Secretaries of State was to have all the power previously exercised by the Company, or by the Board of Control. The Secretary was to be assisted by a Council of India, to consist of fifteen members, of whom seven were to be elected by the Court of Directors from their own body, and eight nominated by the Crown. The vacancies among the nominated were to be filled up by the Crown; those among the elected by the remaining members of the Council for a certain time, but afterward by the Secretary of State for India. The competitive principle for the Civil Service was extended in its application, and made thoroughly practical. The military and naval forces of the Company were to be deemed the forces of her Majesty. A clause was introduced declaring that, except for the purpose of preventing or repelling actual invasion of India, the Indian revenues should not, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament, be applicable to defray the expenses of any military operation carried on beyond the external frontiers of her Majesty's Indian possessions. Another clause enacted that whenever an order was sent to India directing the commencement of hostilities by her Majesty's forces there, the fact should be communicated to Parliament within three months, if Parliament were then sitting, or, if not, within one month after its next meeting. These clauses were heard of more than once in later days. The Viceroy and Governor-General was to be supreme in India, but was to be assisted by a Council. India now has nine provinces, each under its own civil government, and independent of the others, but all subordinate to the authority of the Viceroy. In accordance with this Act the government of the Company, the famed 'John Company,' formally ceased on September 1st, 1858; and the Queen was proclaimed throughout India in the following November, with Lord Canning for her first Viceroy."

J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, chapter 36 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Sir H. S. Cunningham, Earl Canning, chapters 7-9.

Duke of Argyll, India Under Dalhousie and Canning.

INDIA: A. D. 1861. Institution of the Order of the Star of India.

See STAR OF INDIA.

INDIA: A. D. 1862-1876. Vice-regal administrations of Lords Lawrence, Mayo and Northbrook.

Lord Canning was succeeded as Viceroy by Lord Elgin, in 1862; but Elgin only lived until November, 1863, and his successor was Sir John Lawrence, the savior of the Punjab. "Sir John Lawrence's Viceroyalty was an uneventful time. Great natural calamities by famine and cyclone fell upon the country, which called forth the philanthropic energies of Government and people. Commerce passed through an unexampled crisis, taxing skill and foresight. But the political atmosphere was calm. With the exception of little frontier wars, wasteful of resources that were sorely needed, there was nothing to divert the Government from the prosecution of schemes for the improvement of the physical and moral condition of the people." Sir John Lawrence held the Viceroyalty until January, 1869, when he was succeeded by Lord Mayo and returned to England. He was raised, in that year, to the peerage, under the title of Baron Lawrence of Punjab and Grateley. He died ten years later.

Sir C. Aitchison, Lord Lawrence, chapters 7-12.

Lord Lawrence's immediate successor, Lord Mayo, was assassinated, while Viceroy, in 1872, by a convict—a Highlander—at the convict settlement on the Andaman Islands, for no reason of personal hatred, but only because he represented the governing authority which had condemned the man. Lord Mayo was succeeded by Lord Northbrook, who held the office from 1872 to 1876.

Sir W. W. Hunter, The Earl of Mayo.

INDIA: A. D. 1876. Lord Lytton, Viceroy.

The successor of Lord Northbrook in the Vice-regal office was Lord Lytton, appointed in 1876.

INDIA: A. D. 1877. The Native States and their quasi feudatory relation to the British Crown. Queen Victoria's assumption of the title of Empress of India.

"In some sense the Indians were accustomed to consider the Company, as they now consider the Queen, to be the heir of the Great Mughal, and therefore universal suzerain by right of succession. But it is easy to exaggerate the force of this claim, which is itself a mere restatement of the fact of conquest. Politically, India is divided into two parts, commonly known as British territory and the native states. The first portion alone is ruled directly by English officials, and its inhabitants alone are subjects of the Queen. The native states are sometimes called feudatory—a convenient term to express their vague relation to the British crown. To define that relation precisely would be impossible. It has arisen at different times and by different methods; it varies from semi-independence to complete subjection. Some chiefs are the representatives of those whom we found on our first arrival in the country; others owe their existence to our creation. Some are parties to treaties entered into as between equal powers; others have consented to receive patents from their suzerain recording their limited rights; with others, again, there are no written engagements at all. Some have fought with us and come out of the struggle without dishonour. Some pay tribute; others pay none. Their extent and power vary as greatly as their political status. The Nizam of Haidarabad governs a kingdom of 80,000 square miles and 10,000,000 inhabitants. Some of the petty chieftains of Kathiawar exercise authority over only a few acres. It is, however, necessary to draw a line sharply circumscribing the native states, as a class, from British territory. Every native chief possesses a certain measure of local authority, which is not derivative but inherent. English control, when and as exercised, is not so much of an administrative as of a diplomatic nature. In Anglo-Indian terminology this shade of meaning is expressed by the word 'political.' … As a general proposition, and excepting the quite insignificant states, it may be stated that the government is carried on not only in the name but also by the initiative of the native chief. {1748} At all the large capitals, and at certain centres round which minor states are grouped, a British officer is stationed under the style of Resident or Agent. Through him all diplomatic affairs are conducted. He is at once an ambassador and a controller. His duty is to represent the majesty of the suzerain power, to keep a watchful eye upon abuses, and to encourage reforms."

J. S. Cotton, Colonies and Dependencies, part 1, chapter 3.

"The supremacy of the British Government over all the Native States in India was declared in 1877, in a more emphatic form than it had received before, by the assumption by the Queen of the title of Kaisar-i-Hind, Empress of India. No such gathering of chiefs and princes has taken place in historical times as that seen at Delhi in January, 1877, when the rulers of all the principal States of India formally acknowledged their dependence on the British Crown. The political effect of the assertion of the supremacy of the paramount power, thus formally made for the first time in India, has been marked and extremely important."

Sir J. Strachey, India, lecture 11.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, Historical Sketch of the Native States of India.

INDIA: A. D. 1878-1881. The second Afghan War.

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.

INDIA: A. D. 1880-1893. Recent Viceroys.

On the defeat of the Conservative Beaconsfield Ministry in England, in 1880, Lord Lytton resigned the Viceroyalty and was succeeded by the Marquis of Ripon, who gave place in turn to the Marquis of Dufferin in 1884. In 1888, the Marquis of Lansdowne succeeded Lord Dufferin, and was himself succeeded in 1893 by Sir Henry Norman.

INDIA: A. D. 1893. Suspension of the free coinage of silver.

In June, 1893, the Indian Government, with the approval of the British Cabinet, stopped the free coinage of silver, with a view to the introduction of a gold standard. The Government, it was announced, while stopping the coinage of the declining metal for private persons, would continue on its own account to coin rupees in exchange for gold at a ratio then fixed at sixteen pence sterling per rupee. "The closing of the mints of British India to the coinage of silver coins of full-debt-paying power is the most momentous event in the monetary history of the present century. It is the final and disastrous blow to the use of silver as a measure of value and as money of full-debt-paying power, and the relegation of it to the position of a subsidiary, or token metal. It is the culmination of the evolution from a silver to a gold standard which has been progressing with startling rapidity in recent years. … The remarkable series of events which have characterized, or made manifest, this evolution from a silver to a gold standard are nearly all condensed in the brief period of twenty years, and are probably without a parallel in ancient or modern monetary history. … With the single exception of England, all Europe forty years ago had the silver standard, not only legally but actually—silver coins constituting the great bulk of the money of actual transactions. To-day, not a mint in Europe is open to the coinage of full-debt-paying silver coins, and the gateways of the Orient have been closed against it. Twenty years ago one ounce of gold exchanged in the markets of the world for fifteen and one-half ounces of silver; to-day, one ounce of gold will buy nearly thirty ounces of silver. … There is a general impression that silver has been the money of India from remote generations. This is a fallacy. It has not been a great many years since India adopted the silver standard. The ancient money of the Hindoos was gold, which in 1818 was supplemented by silver, but gold coins remained legal tender until 1835, when silver was made the sole standard of value and legal tender money in British India, and gold was demonetized. … During the last fifty odd years, India has absorbed vast quantities of silver."

E. O. Leech, The Doom of Silver (The Forum, August, 1893).

----------INDIA: End--------

INDIAN EMPIRE, The Order of the.

An Order instituted by Queen Victoria in 1878.

----------INDIAN TERRITORY: Start--------

INDIAN TERRITORY: 1803. Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

INDIAN TERRITORY: A. D. 1824. Set off from Arkansas Territory.

See ARKANSAS: A. D. 1819-1836.

----------INDIAN TERRITORY: End--------

INDIANA. The Aboriginal Inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, ALLEGHANS, and DELAWARES.

INDIANA: A. D. 1700-1735. Occupation by the French.

See CANADA: A. D. 1700-1735.

INDIANA: A. D. 1763. Cession to Great Britain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.

INDIANA: A. D. 1763. The King's proclamation excluding settlers.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1763.

INDIANA: A. D. 1765. Possession taken by the English.

See ILLINOIS: A. D. 1765.

INDIANA: A. D. 1774. Embraced in the Province of Quebec.

See CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.

INDIANA: A. D. 1778-1779. Conquest from the British by the Virginian General Clark, and annexation to the Kentucky district of Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779, CLARK'S CONQUEST.

INDIANA: A. D. 1784. Included in the proposed states of Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Illinoia and Polypotamia.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1784.

INDIANA: A. D. 1786. Partially covered by the western land claims of Connecticut, ceded to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

INDIANA: A. D. 1787. The Ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory. Perpetual exclusion of Slavery.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1787.

INDIANA: A. D. 1790-1795. Indian War. Disastrous expeditions of Harmar and St. Clair, and Wayne's decisive victory.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1790-1795.

INDIANA: A. D. 1800. The Territory of Indiana organized.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1788-1802.

{1749}

INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818. Successive partitions of the Territory. Michigan and Illinois detached. The remaining Indiana admitted as a State.

"Indiana Territory as originally organized [in 1800] … included the county of Knox, upon the Wabash, from which has sprung the State of Indiana; the county of St. Clair, on the Upper Mississippi, or Illinois River, from which has sprung the State of Illinois; and the county of Wayne, upon the Detroit River, from which has sprung the State of Michigan. … At this time, the inhabitants contained in all of them did not amount to more than 5,640 souls, while the aggregate number of the Indian tribes within the extreme limits of the territory was more than 100,000. … By successive treaties, the Indian title was extinguished gradually to all the country lying upon the waters of the White River, and upon all the lower tributaries of the Wabash, upon the Little Wabash, the Kaskaskia, and east of the Mississippi, below the mouth of the Illinois. Thus, before the close of the year 1805, nearly all the southern half of the present State of Indiana, and one third of the State of Illinois, was open to the advance of the enterprising pioneer. … In 1807, the Federal government, in like manner, purchased from the Indians extensive regions west of Detroit River, and within the present State of Michigan, far beyond the limits of the white settlements in that quarter. Meantime, the settlements formerly comprised in Wayne county, having increased in inhabitants and importance, had been erected into a separate territorial government, known and designated as the 'Territory of Michigan.' On the 1st of July, 1805, the territory entered upon the first grade of territorial government, under the provisions of the ordinance of 1787; and William Hull, formerly a lieutenant in the Revolutionary army, was made the first governor. … Detroit … was made the seat of the territorial government. … By the close of the year 1808, the Indiana Territory east of the Wabash had received such an increase in numbers that it was desirable to assume the second grade of territorial government. Having a population of 5,000 free white males, Congress, with a view to a future state government, by an act approved February 3d, 1809, restricted its limits, and authorized a territorial Legislature. … The Indiana Territory, from this time, was bounded on the west by a line extending up the middle of the Wabash, from its mouth to Vincennes, and thence by a meridian due north to the southern extremity of Lake Michigan. On the north, it was bounded by the southern line of the Michigan Territory. That portion west of the Wabash was erected into a separate territorial government of the first grade, known and designated as the 'Illinois Territory.' The inhabitants of the Indiana Territory soon began to augment more rapidly. … In 1810 the people had increased in numbers to 24,500, and in the newly-erected Territory of Illinois there was an aggregate of 12,300 persons." In 1816 "it was ascertained that the Indiana Territory possessed a population which entitled it to an independent state government. Congress authorized the election of a convention to form a state Constitution," and "the new 'State of Indiana' was formally admitted into the Union on the 19th of April, 1816." Two years later, on the 3d of December, 1818, the Territory of Illinois was similarly transformed and became one of the states of the Union.

J. W. Monette, The Discovery and Settlement of the Mississippi Valley, book 5, chapter 16 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. B. Dillon, History of Indiana, chapters 31-47.

A. Davidson and B. Stuvé, History of Illinois, chapters 20-26.

T. M. Cooley, Michigan, chapter 8.

INDIANA: A. D. 1811. General Harrison's campaign against Tecumseh and his League. The Battle of Tippecanoe.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1811.

INDIANA: A. D. 1863. John Morgan's Rebel Raid.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: KENTUCKY).

----------INDIANS: Start--------

INDIANS: American: The Name.

"As Columbus supposed himself to have landed on an island at the extremity of India, he called the natives by the general appellation of Indians, which was universally adopted before the true nature of his discovery was known, and has since been extended to all the aboriginals of the New World."

W. Irving, Life and Voyages of Columbus, book 4, chapter 1 (volume 1).

"The Spanish writers from the outset, beginning with Columbus in his letters, call the natives of America, Indians, and their English translators do the same. So, too, Richard Eden, the earliest English writer on American travel, applies the name to the natives of Peru and Mexico. It is used in the same way, both in translations and original accounts, during the rest of the century, but it is always limited to those races with whom the Spaniards were in contact. In its wider and later application the word does not seem to have established itself in English till the next century. The earliest instance I can find, where it is applied to the natives of North America generally in any original work, is by Hakluyt. In 1587 he translated Laudonnière's 'History of the French Colony in Florida,' and dedicated his translation to Sir Walter Raleigh. In this dedication he once uses the term Indian for the natives of North America. Heriot and the other writers who describe the various attempts at settlement in Virginia during the sixteenth century, invariably call the natives 'savages.' Perhaps the earliest instance where an English writer uses the name Indian specially to describe the occupants of the land afterwards colonized by the English is in the account of Archer's voyage to Virginia in 1602. This account, written by James Rosier, is published in Purchas (volume iv. b. viii.). From that time onward the use of the term in the wider sense becomes more common. We may reasonably infer that the use of it was an indication of the growing knowledge of the fact that the lands conquered by the Spaniards and those explored by the English formed one continent."

J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, &c., appendix A.

INDIANS: The tribes and families.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES.

----------INDIANS: End--------

INDICTIONS, The.

The indiction "was a cycle of 15 years, used only by the Romans, for appointing the times of certain public taxes; as appears from the title in the Code, 'De tributo indicto.' It was established by Constantine, A. D. 312, in the room of the heathen Olympiads; and was used in the acts of the General Councils, Emperors, and Popes."

W. Hales, New Analysis of Chronology, volume 1, book 1.

"The indictions consisted of a revolution of 15 years, which are separately reckoned as indiction 1, indiction 2, &c., up to 15; when they recommence with indiction 1. … Doubt exists as to the commencement of the indictions; some writers assigning the first indiction to the year 312; the greater number to the year 313; others to 314; whilst some place it in the year 315. {1750} In 'L'Art de vérifier les Dates,' the year 313 is fixed upon as that of the first indiction. There are four descriptions of indictions. The first is that of Constantinople, which was instituted by Constantine in A. D. 312, and began on the 1st of September. The second, and more common in England and France, was the Imperial or Cæsarean indiction, which began on the 24th of September. The third kind of indiction is called the Roman or Pontifical, from its being generally used in papal bulls, at least from the ninth to the fourteenth century; it commences on the 25th of December or 1st of January, accordingly as either of these days was considered the first of the year. The fourth kind of indiction, which is to be found in the register of the parliaments of Paris, began in the month of October. … After the 12th century, the indiction was rarely mentioned in public instruments. … But in France, in private charters, and in ecclesiastical documents, the usage continued until the end of the 15th century."

Sir H. Nicolas, Chronology of History, pages 6-7.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 17.

INDO-EUROPEAN. INDO-GERMANIC.

See ARYAN.

INDULGENCE: Declarations of: by Charles II.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1672-1673.

INDULGENCE: By James II.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1687-1688.

INDULGENCES: The Doctrine. Tetzel's sale. Luther's attack.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1516-1517; and 1517.

INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1865-1886.

INE, Laws of (or Dooms of).

See DOOMS OF INE.

INEXPIABLE WAR, The.

See CARTHAGE: B. C. 241-238.

INFALLIBILITY, Promulgation of the Dogma of Papal.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1869-1870.

INGÆVONES, The.

See GERMANY: AS KNOWN TO TACITUS.

INGAGO, Battle of (1881).

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.

INGE I., King of Norway, A. D. 1157-1161.

Inge I. (called the Good), King of Sweden, 1090-1112.

Inge II., King of Norway, 1205-1207.

Inge II., King of Sweden, 1118-1129.

INGENUI. LIBERTINI.

"Free men [among the Romans] might be either persons born free (ingenui) and who had never been in slavery to a Roman, or persons who had once been slaves but had been emancipated (libertini)."

W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 3.

INI, King of West Saxons, A. D. 688-726.

INIS-FAIL. INIS-EALGA.

See IRELAND: THE NAME.

INITIATIVE, The Swiss.

See REFERENDUM.

INKERMANN, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

INNOCENT II., Pope, A. D. 1130-1143. Innocent III., Pope, 1198-1216.

Innocent IV., Pope, 1243-1254.

Innocent V., Pope, 1276, January to June.

Innocent VI., Pope, 1352-1362.

Innocent VII., Pope, 1404-1406.

Innocent VIII., Pope, 1484-1492.

Innocent IX., Pope, 1591, October to December.

Innocent X., Pope, 1644-1655.

Innocent XI., Pope, 1676-1689.

Innocent XII., Pope, 1691-1700.

Innocent XIII., Pope, 1721-1724.

INNUITS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ESKIMAUAN FAMILY.

----------INQUISITION: Start----------

INQUISITION, The: A. D. 1203-1525. Origin of the Holy Office. St. Dominic and the Dominicans. The Episcopal Inquisition. The Apostolical or Papal Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition and its terrible rule. Estimate of victims. Expulsion of Jews and Moors.

"In the earlier ages of the Church, the definition of heresy had been committed to episcopal authority. But the cognisance of heretics and the determination of their punishment remained in the hands of secular magistrates. At the end of the 12th century the wide diffusion of the Albigensian heterodoxy through Languedoc and Northern Italy alarmed the chiefs of Christendom, and furnished the Papacy with a good pretext for extending its prerogatives. Innocent III. in 1203 empowered two French Cistercians, Pierre de Castelnau and Raoul, to preach against the heretics of Provence. In the following year he ratified this commission by a Bull, which censured the negligence and coldness of the bishops, appointed the Abbot of Citeaux Papal delegate in matters of heresy, and gave him authority to judge and punish misbelievers. This was the first germ of the Holy Office as a separate Tribunal. … Being a distinct encroachment of the Papacy upon the episcopal jurisdiction and prerogatives, the Inquisition met at first with some opposition from the bishops. The people for whose persecution it was designed, and at whose expense it carried on its work, broke into rebellion; the first years of its annals were rendered illustrious by the murder of one of its founders, Pierre de Castelnau. He was canonised, and became the first Saint of the Inquisition. … In spite of opposition, the Papal institution took root and flourished. Philip Augustus responded to the appeals of Innocent; and a crusade began against the Albigenses, in which Simon de Montfort won his sinister celebrity. During those bloody wars the Inquisition developed itself as a force of formidable expansive energy. Material assistance to the cause was rendered by a Spanish monk of the Augustine order, who settled in Provence on his way back from Rome in 1206. Domenigo de Guzman, known to universal history as S. Dominic, organised a new militia for the service of the orthodox Church between the years 1215 and 1219. His order, called the Order of the Preachers, was originally designed to repress heresy and confirm the faith by diffusing Catholic doctrine and maintaining the creed in its purity. It consisted of three sections: the Preaching Friars; nuns living in conventual retreat; and laymen, entitled the Third Order of Penitence or the Militia of Christ, who in after years were merged with the Congregation of S. Peter Martyr, and corresponded to the familiars of the Inquisition. Since the Dominicans were established in the heat and passion of a crusade against heresy, by a rigid Spaniard who employed his energies in persecuting misbelievers, they assumed at the outset a belligerent and inquisitorial attitude. Yet it is not strictly accurate to represent S. Dominic himself as the first Grand Inquisitor. {1751} The Papacy proceeded with caution in its design of forming a tribunal dependent on the Holy See and independent of the bishops. Papal Legates with plenipotentiary authority were sent to Languedoc, and decrees were issued against the heretics, in which the Inquisition was rather implied than directly named; nor can I find that S. Dominic, though he continued to be the soul of the new institution until his death, in 1221, obtained the title of Inquisitor. Notwithstanding this vagueness, the Holy Office may be said to have been founded by S. Dominic; and it soon became apparent that the order he had formed was destined to monopolise its functions. … This Apostolical Inquisition was at once introduced into Lombardy, Romagna and the Marches of Treviso. The extreme rigour of its proceedings, the extortions of monks, and the violent resistance offered by the communes, led to some relaxation of its original constitution. More authority had to be conceded to the bishops; and the right of the Inquisitors to levy taxes on the people was modified. Yet it retained its true form of a Papal organ, superseding the episcopal prerogatives, and overriding the secular magistrates, who were bound to execute its biddings. As such it was admitted into Tuscany, and established in Aragon. Venice received it in 1289, with certain reservations that placed its proceedings under the control of Doge and Council. In Languedoc, the country of its birth, it remained rooted at Toulouse and Carcassonne; but the Inquisition did not extend its authority over central and northern France. In Paris its functions were performed by the Sorbonne. Nor did it obtain a footing in England, although the statute 'De Haeretico Comburendo,' passed in 1401 at the instance of the higher clergy, sanctioned the principles on which it existed. … The revival of the Holy Office on a new and far more murderous basis, took place in 1484. We have seen that hitherto there had been two types of inquisition into heresy. The first, which remained in force up to the year 1203, may be called the episcopal. The second was the Apostolical or Dominican: it transferred this jurisdiction from the bishops to the Papacy, who employed the order of S. Dominic for the special service of the tribunal instituted by the Imperial Decrees of Frederick II. The third deserves no other name than Spanish, though, after it had taken shape in Spain, it was transferred to Portugal, applied in all the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and communicated with some modifications to Italy and the Netherlands. Both the second and the third types of inquisition into heresy were Spanish inventions, patented by the Roman Pontiffs and monopolised by the Dominican order. But the third and final form of the Holy Office in Spain distinguished itself by emancipation from Papal and Royal control, and by a specific organisation which rendered it the most formidable of irresponsible engines in the annals of religious institutions. … Castile had hitherto been free from the pest. But the conditions of that kingdom offered a good occasion for its introduction at the date which I have named. During the Middle Ages the Jews of Castile acquired vast wealth and influence. Few families but felt the burden of their bonds and mortgages. Religious fanaticism, social jealousy, and pecuniary distress exasperated the Christian population; and as early as the year 1391, more than 5,000 Jews were massacred in one popular uprising. The Jews, in fear, adopted Christianity. It is said that in the 15th century the population counted some million of converts—called New Christians, or, in contempt, Marranos: a word which may probably be derived from the Hebrew Maranatha. These converted Jews, by their ability and wealth, crept into high offices of state, obtained titles of aristocracy, and founded noble houses. … It was a Sicilian Inquisitor, Philip Barberis, who suggested to Ferdinand the Catholic the advantage he might secure by extending the Holy Office to Castile. Ferdinand avowed his willingness; and Sixtus IV. gave the project his approval in 1478. But it met with opposition from the gentler-natured Isabella. … Then Isabella yielded; and in 1481 the Holy Office was founded at Seville. It began its work by publishing a comprehensive edict against all New Christians suspected of Judaising, which offence was so constructed as to cover the most innocent observance of national customs. Resting from labour on Saturday; performing ablutions at stated times; refusing to eat pork or puddings made of blood; and abstaining from wine, sufficed to colour accusations of heresy. … Upon the publication of this edict, there was an exodus of Jews by thousands into the fiefs of independent vassals of the crown—the Duke of Medina Sidonia, the Marquis of Cadiz, and the Count of Arcos. All emigrants were 'ipso facto' declared heretics by the Holy Office. During the first year after its foundation, Seville beheld 298 persons burned alive, and 79 condemned to perpetual imprisonment. A large square stage of stone, called the Quemadero, was erected for the execution of those multitudes who were destined to suffer death by hanging or by flame. In the same year, 2,000 were burned and 17,000 condemned to public penitence, while even a larger number were burned in effigy, in other parts of the kingdom. … In 1483 Thomas of Torquemada was nominated Inquisitor General for Castile and Aragon. Under his rule a Supreme Council was established, over which he presided for life. … In 1484 a General Council was held, and the constitution of the Inquisition was established by articles. … The two most formidable features of the Inquisition as thus constituted were the exclusion of the bishops from its tribunal and the secrecy of its procedure. … In the autumn of 1484 the Inquisition was introduced into Aragon; and Saragossa became its headquarters in that State. … The Spanish Inquisition was now firmly grounded. Directed by Torquemada, it began to encroach upon the crown, to insult the episcopacy, to defy the Papacy, to grind the Commons, and to outrage by its insolence the aristocracy. … The Holy Office grew every year in pride, pretensions and exactions. It arrogated to its tribunal crimes of usury, bigamy, blasphemous swearing, and unnatural vice, which appertained by right to the secular courts. It depopulated Spain by the extermination and banishment of at least three million industrious subjects during the first 139 years of its existence. … Torquemada was the genius of evil who created and presided over this foul instrument of human crime and folly. {1752} During his eighteen years of administration, reckoning from 1480 to 1498, he sacrificed, according to Llorente's calculation, above 114,000 victims, of whom 10,220 were burned alive, 6,860 burned in effigy, and 97,000 condemned to perpetual imprisonment or public penitence. He, too, it was who in 1492 compelled Ferdinand to drive the Jews from his dominions. … The edict of expulsion was issued on the last of March. Before the last of July all Jews were sentenced to depart, carrying no gold or silver with them. They disposed of their lands, houses, and goods for next to nothing, and went forth to die by thousands on the shores of Africa and Italy. … The exodus of the Jews was followed in 1502 by a similar exodus of Moors from Castile, and in 1524 by an exodus of Mauresques from Aragon. To compute the loss of wealth and population inflicted upon Spain by these mad edicts would be impossible. … After Torquemada, Diego Deza reigned as second Inquisitor General from 1498 to 1507. In these years, according to the same calculation, 2,592 were burned alive, 896 burned in effigy, 34,952 condemned to prison or public penitence. Cardinal Ximenes de Cisneros followed between 1507 and 1517. The victims of this decade were 3,564 burned alive. … Adrian, Bishop of Tortosa, tutor to Charles V., and afterwards Pope, was Inquisitor General between 1516 and 1525. Castile, Aragon, and Catalonia, at this epoch, simultaneously demanded a reform of the Holy Office from their youthful sovereign. But Charles refused, and the tale of Adrian's administration was 1,620 burned alive, 560 burned in effigy, 21,845 condemned to prison or public penitence. The total, during 43 years, between 1481 and 1525, amounted to 234,526, including all descriptions of condemned heretics. These figures are of necessity vague, for the Holy Office left but meagre records of its proceedings.".

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction, chapter 3 (part 1).

ALSO IN: H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages.

J. A. Llorente, History of the Inquisition, chapters 1-12.

W. H. Rule, History of the Inquisition, chapters 1-14.

W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, part 1, chapters 7 and 17.

See, also, JEWS: 8TH-15TH CENTURIES; and MOORS: A. D. 1492-1609.

INQUISITION: A. D. 1521-1568. Introduction and work in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1521-1555; 1559-1562; and 1568.

INQUISITION: A. D. 1546. Successful revolt against the Holy Office at Naples.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1528-1570.

INQUISITION: A. D. 1550-1816. Establishment in Peru.

See PERU: A. D. 1550-1816.

INQUISITION: A. D. 1814-1820. Restoration and abolition in Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.

----------INQUISITION: End----------

INSTITUTES OF JUSTINIAN.

See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.

INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (DECEMBER).

INSUBRIANS AND CENOMANIANS, The.

"North of the Po, in the country about Milan, dwelt [3d century, B. C.] the great people of the Insubrians, while to the east of these on the Mincio and the Adige lay the Cenomanians; but these tribes, little inclined, seemingly, to make common cause with their countrymen [the Boian and Senonian Gauls] remained neutral in all the hostilities against Rome." But the Insubrians were attacked and subdued, B. C. 223.

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 4, chapter 5 (volume 2).

See, also, ROME: B. C. 295-191.

INTERDICTS.

See EXCOMMUNICATIONS.

INTERIM OF CHARLES V., The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552.

"INTERNATIONAL," The.

"The year of the London Exhibition, and under the auspices of the Emperor Napoleon III., a number of Paris working-men visited the English capital. They were welcomed by a London Committee of artisans, and on this occasion the wish for a closer union between the labourers of different countries was expressed on both sides. Then the Polish insurrection broke out, and masses of London and Paris working-men took steps simultaneously to manifest sympathy with the insurgents. A deputation was again sent over from Paris, and the result of this measure was a resolution to delay preparations for co-operation no longer. For some time the international idea was carefully given prominence in labour circles in various countries, and on September 28th, 1864, a congress of many nations was held in St. Martin's Hall, London, under the presidency of Professor Beesly. A committee was appointed, representing England, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Switzerland, for the drawing up of statutes for an International Working Men's Association, whose seat should be London. … It was not long before the International Association became a power which caused alarm to not a few European Governments."

W. H. Dawson, German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle, chapter 13.

INTERREGNUM, The Great.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272.

INTERREX.

A temporary king, in ancient Rome.

See ROME: B. C. 509; also, SENATE, ROMAN.

INTRANSIGENTISTS.

In European politics, the extreme radicals—the uncompromising and irreconcilable factions—are frequently so called.

INVERLOCHY, Battle of (1645).

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.

INVESTITURES, The War of.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122; and GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122.

INVISIBLE EMPIRE, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1871.

IONA, Monastery and Schools of.

See COLUMBAN CHURCH; and EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: IRELAND AND SCOTLAND.

IONIA.

The Ionian cities on the coast of Asia Minor bore collectively the name Ionia, though no national union was signified by the designation.

See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES, and after.

IONIAN (DELIAN) CONFEDERACY, The.

See GREECE: B. C. 478-477; and ATHENS: B. C. 466-454, and after.

----------IONIAN ISLANDS: Start--------

IONIAN ISLANDS: To 1814. Under Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Venetian and French rule.

"Acarnania, as a glance at the map will show, is the most western part of continental Greece. But in close proximity to the mainland there stretch along the west coast a number of islands, some of them of considerable area, the history and traditions of which are inseparably intertwined with those of Hellas. They have long been known as the Ionian Islands, deriving the name, in all likelihood, from the sea in which they are situated; for their ancient inhabitants were not, so far as is known, of Ionic descent. {1753} They are very numerous, but only six of them are of any historic importance. The most northerly is Corcyra (Corfu), a long, narrow island, which extends like a lofty breakwater in front of the coast of Epirus." The other five are Paxos (Paxo), Leucadia (Santa Maura), Cephallenia (Cephalonia), Ithaca (Thiaki), Zacynthus (Zante), and Cythera (Cerigo). "Though not the largest, Corcyra is the most populous and important of the islands. It has a place in the mythic tradition, and a still greater one in the ascertained history, of ancient Hellas.

See KORKYRA; also, GREECE: B. C. 435-432, and 432.

… With the other islands in the Ionian Sea, Corcyra passed under the dominion of Rome, and subsequently became part of the Eastern Empire. In 540 A. D. the fleet of the Gothic leader Totila ravaged the coasts of the island, but did not capture the city, the fortifications of which had been greatly strengthened by the Romans. Five centuries later the island and its capital fell into the hands of a more formidable invader—the Norman Robert Guiscard, who captured them on his way from Italy to prosecute that invasion of the Byzantine Empire which was at one time so nearly attended with success. The first Norman supremacy did not last long; but in 1144 A. D., Roger, the Norman king of Sicily, took occasion of a rising of the Corcyreans (or, as they now began to be called, the Corfiotes) against the Byzantine Emperor Manuel to introduce a garrison into the city. Four years later Manuel, who was an energetic and warlike prince, laid siege to Corfu, and was assisted by the Venetians. The Norman garrison offered a most determined resistance, but were ultimately obliged to surrender on honourable terms. After the overthrow of the Byzantine emperors, in the early part of the 13th century, Corfu, with the other Ionian Islands, became part of the dominions of the Venetian republic, and so continued, with brief intervals, for nearly 500 years. The Venetian rule was on the whole favourable to the material prosperity of the island: it was admirably cultivated, and became the centre of a large commerce. Unlike most of the other possessions of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean, Corfu never fell into the hands of the Turks. They overran and ravaged the island in 1537, carrying off, according to their custom, many of the young women and children as slaves; and they besieged the capital, but its fortifications had been much strengthened by the Venetians, and the garrison was able to offer a successful resistance. In 1716 another memorable siege [see TURKS: A. D. 1714-1718] took place, during the war in which Sultan Achmet III. engaged with Austria and the Venetian republic. A large Ottoman army under Kara Mustapha beleaguered Corfu; but the garrison was commanded by a distinguished soldier, Count Schulemburg, who baffled an the efforts of the Turks, and at last compelled them to withdraw to their ships after they had lost 15,000 men. By the Treaty of Campo Formio, dictated in 1797 to Austria by Napoleon after his marvellous Italian campaign, the Ionian Islands were transferred to France [see FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER)], the rest of the Venetian territories falling to the share of Austria. The French garrisons were, however, expelled in 1799 by a Russo-Turkish expedition, and the islands constituted a republic [called the Republic of the Seven Islands]. But in 1807, when the course of events had changed Russia into an ally of the French emperor, the latter again obtained possession of the islands under the Treaty of Tilsit. The English, being masters of the Mediterranean, soon drove the French out of all the islands except Corfu. This was under French rule till 1814; and it is only fair to say that they did much for the improvement of the island, constructing some substantial roads in the interior. In 1814, during the general cataclysm of the gigantic empire of Napoleon, the French garrison was driven out of the island after a gallant resistance, and in the following year the Ionian Islands were reconstituted a republic under British protection and supremacy."

C. H. Hanson, The Land of Greece, chapter 4.

IONIAN ISLANDS: A. D. 1815-1862. The British protectorate. Its relinquishment. Annexation to the kingdom of Greece.

"These seven islands [the Ionian] were constituted a sort of republic or commonwealth by the Treaty of Vienna [1815]. But they were consigned to the protectorate of Great Britain; which had the right of maintaining garrisons in them. Great Britain used to appoint a Lord High Commissioner, who was generally a military man, and whose office combined the duties of Commander-in-Chief with those of Civil Governor. The little republic had a Senate of six members and a Legislative Assembly of forty members. It seems almost a waste of words to say that the islanders were not content with British government. For good or ill, the Hellenes, wherever they are found, are sure to be filled with an impassioned longing for Hellenic independence. The people of the Ionian Islands were eager to be allowed to enter into one system with the kingdom of Greece. It was idle to try to amuse them by telling them they constituted an independent republic, and were actually governing themselves, … while they saw themselves presided over by an English Lord High Commissioner who was also the Commander-in-Chief of a goodly British army garrisoned in their midst. … It is certain that they got a great deal of material benefit from the presence of the energetic road-making British power. But they wanted to be, above all things, Greek. … Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton [who was then—1858—Secretary for the Colonies in the British Government] … thought the causes of the complaints and the dissatisfaction were well worth looking into, and he resolved on sending a statesman of distinction out to the islands to make the enquiry. Mr. Gladstone had been for some years out of office. He had been acting as an independent supporter of Lord Palmerston's Government. It occurred to Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton that Mr. Gladstone was the man best fitted to conduct the enquiry. … He offered, therefore, to Mr. Gladstone the office of Lord High Commissioner Extraordinary to the Ionian Islands, and Mr. Gladstone accepted the offer and its duties." Arriving in Corfu in November, 1858, "he called together the Senate, and endeavoured to satisfy them as to the real nature of his mission. He explained that he had not come there to discuss the propriety of maintaining the English protectorate, but only to enquire into the manner in which the just claims of the Ionian Islands might be secured by means of that protectorate." {1754} But "the population of the islands persisted in regarding him, not as the commissioner of a Conservative English Government, but as 'Gladstone the Philhellene.' He was received wherever he went with the honours due to a liberator. … The visit of Mr. Gladstone, whatever purpose it may have been intended to fulfil, had the effect of making them [the Ionians] agitate more strenuously than ever for annexation to the kingdom of Greece. Their wish, however, was not to be granted yet. A new Lord High Commissioner was sent out after Mr. Gladstone's return. … Still … the idea held ground that sooner or later Great Britain would give up the charge of the islands. A few years after, an opportunity occurred for making the cession. The Greeks got rid quietly of their heavy German king Otho [see GREECE: A. D. 1830-1862], and on the advice chiefly of England they elected as sovereign a brother of the Princess of Wales. … The second son of the King of Denmark was made King of Greece; and Lord John Russell, on behalf of the English Government, then [1862] handed over to the kingdom of Greece the islands of which Great Britain had had so long to bear the unwilling charge."

J. McCarthy, History of our Own Times, chapter 39 (volume 3).

----------IONIAN ISLANDS: End--------

IONIAN REVOLT, The.

See PERSIA: B. C. 521-493.

IONIANS, The.

See DORIANS AND IONIANS.

IONIC (PAN-IONIC) AMPHIKTYONY.

"There existed at the commencement of historical Greece, in 776 B. C., besides the Ionians in Attica and the Cyclades, twelve Ionian cities of note on or near the coast of Asia Minor, besides a few others less important. Enumerated from south to north, they stand—Milêtus, Myûs, Priênê, Samos, Ephesus, Kolophôn, Lebedus, Teôs, Erythræ, Chios, Klazomenæ, Phôkæa. … Milêtus, Myûs and Priênê were situated on or near the productive plain of the river Mæander; while Ephesus was in like manner planted near the mouth of the Kaïster … : Kolophon is only a very few miles north of the same river. Possessing the best means of communication with the interior, these towns seem to have thriven with greater rapidity than the rest; and they, together with the neighbouring island of Samos, constituted in early times the strength of the Pan-Ionic Amphiktyony. The situation of the sacred precinct of Poseidôn (where this festival was celebrated) on the north side of the promontory of Mykalê, near Priênê, and between Ephesus and Milêtus, seems to show that these towns formed the primitive centre to which the other Ionian settlements became gradually aggregated. For it was by no means a centrical site with reference to all the twelve. … Moreover, it seems that the Pan-Ionic festival [the celebration of which constituted the Amphiktyony], though still formally continued, had lost its importance before the time of Thucydidês, and had become practically superseded by the more splendid festival of the Ephesia, near Ephesus, where the cities of Ionia found a more attractive place of meeting."

G. Grote, History of Greece part 2, chapter 13 (volume 3).

----------IOWA: Start--------

IOWA: The Aboriginal Inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALLEGHANS, and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

IOWA: A. D. 1803. Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

IOWA: A. D. 1834-1838. Joined to Michigan Territory; then to Wisconsin; then separately organized.

See WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.

IOWA: A. D. 1845. Admission into the Union, with Florida for a slave-state counterweight.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845.

----------IOWA: End--------

IOWAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY, and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

IPSUS, Battle of (B. C. 301).

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301.

IQUIQUE, Battle of (1891).

See CHILE: A. D. 1885-1891.

IRACA.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1536-1731.

IRAK.

At the time of the Mahometan conquest, "Chaldea and Babylonia occupied the rich region south of the river Tigris, watered by the Euphrates, and were known as Irak of the Arabs, as distinguished from Irak of the Persians, which corresponded somewhat nearly to the modern kingdom of Persia. … Irak of Arabia was at this time under the jurisdiction of Persia, and the wandering Arabs who roamed over the broad desert were tributary to Persia when they pitched their tents on the eastern side, and to Rome when sojourning on the side towards Syria; though they were at no time trusty allies or subjects. The region of Irak contains many relics of a former civilization; there are the mounds that mark the site of old Babylon."

A. Gilman, Story of the Saracens, pages 226-227.

IRAN, Table-Land of.

"Between the valley of the Indus and the land of the Euphrates and Tigris, bounded on the south by the ocean and the Persian Gulf, on the north by the broad steppes which the Oxus and Jaxartes vainly attempt to fertilise, by the Caspian Sea and the valley of the Aras [embracing modern Persia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan and Russian Turkestan], lies the table-land of Iran. Rising to an average height of 4,000 feet above the level of the sea, it forms an oblong, the length of which from east to west is something more than 1,500 miles. … As far back as our information extends, we find the table-land of Iran occupied by a group of nations closely related to each other, and speaking dialects of the same language."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 1.

See, also, ARYANS.

IRDJAR, Russian defeat at.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

----------IRELAND: Start--------

A Logical Outline of Irish History

In Which The Dominant Conditions And Influences Are Distinguished By Colors.

Physical or material. (Red) Ethnological. (Blue) Social and political. (Green) Intellectual, moral and religious. (Tan) Foreign. (Black)

(Blue) In the history of the two islands which form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland there is a contrast of fortune which nothing will account for save unexplainable qualities of race. The Celtic warmth prevailing on one side of St. George's Channel has worked ill in politics as against the Teutonic coolness on the other; and it is probable that no change of circumstances or conditions would have altered greatly the relations of the two peoples. In their situation as close neighbors, it was inevitable that one should dominate the other. It seems to have been no less inevitable that the mastery should settle where it did; and simply by the force of more masterful qualities in the English race.

(Red) If those who dwelt nearer to the mainland of Europe held advantages over those of the farther island, they took nothing from them in the earlier generations, but were overleaped and passed by when the first movements of Christianity and Christian culture into the West began; and it was Ireland, not England, for three centuries, which nourished the purest faith and the highest civilization of the age. If other advantages belonged to the island which was richer in iron and coal, the English were not helped by them to an ascendancy which they had won before the mining of their riches began.

(Green) In the early years of the eleventh century, when most of the island had submitted to the rule of Brian Born, and when he had shaken the grasp of the intruding Danes on the seaports of the eastern and southern coasts, the state and prospects of Ireland would have seemed to be well-nigh as good as those of England at the same time. But that appearance vanished soon, and it never returned. Among the English, the tendency toward national union grew stronger with every generation; among the Irish it got no growth. The political genius of the race, remarkable to the present day in municipal politics, but rarely successful in the greater political arenas, has always been tribal or provincial in its range, and wanting in a national comprehensiveness.

(Tan) The Norman conquest of England was helpful to the consolidation of an English kingdom. The Anglo-Norman conquest of Ireland occurring a century later, promoted, on the contrary, the divisions and disorders of the island. It brought a new faction into Irish quarrels, instead of a new sovereign to extinguish them. It was complete enough to forbid the growth of order from any native root of influence or authority, but not complete enough to carry order with itself. In the full sense of the term it was never a conquest. It was rather a persistent invasion, continued and repeated through more than five centuries. In every generation it inflamed anew the fierce animosity which an incomplete conquest will not suffer to die out, until the very descendants of the older intruders were infected with the native hatred of their later-coming kindred. After four hundred years of inconclusive conflict, the English were hardly nearer to mastery, the Irish hardly nearer to submission, than at first.

Then arose between them a new difference to embitter their antagonism. The Reformation of religion was accepted by one race as naturally as it was rejected by the other. But Protestantism under English patronage assumed a more hateful aspect in Irish eyes, and Irishmen as Papists became doubly odious to the English mind. So political hostilities and religious enmities fomented one another, from that time, while the primitive antagonism of race gave energy to both.

Under Cromwell and under William of Orange the subjugation was completed at last in the spirit of a Protestant crusade, and used as crusading victories have been wont to be used. The triumphant Church, planting its strong settlements in the land, assumed to itself all civil and political rights. Every office and every honorable profession were closed against the adherents of the defeated faith; its ministrations were forbidden; its priests were expelled.

(Green) But this was not all. As British commerce grew and British industries were built up, they contributed yet another to the malign confederacy of passions which oppressed the Irish people. The merchant, the manufacturer, the landowner and the farmer, on the English side, were banded by common jealousies to suppress competition in Ireland. They hindered the improvement of its resources and paralyzed its energies by atrocious legislation. They reduced its population to dependence on the most restricted production, leaving little except husbandry for a vocation, and that under grinding terms. They created by such measures a nation of peasants, as poor and as helpless as serfs, living wretchedly on precarious holdings of soil, at the mercy of landlords who regarded them with dislike and contempt.

It was under such crushing conditions as these that Ireland remained until near the end of the eighteenth century, always hating the oppressors, often resisting the oppression, but weakly or rashly, without judgment or enduring resolution. Then began a great change in the tenor of her history. Two influences of the age came into play, one acting on the conscience of the English people, the other on the mind and temper of the Irish. One has worked to the yielding of justice, the other to the firmer pressing of demands for it.

At this day it may be said that oppression in Ireland, whether religious or political, is wholly and forever extinct; that whatever remains in dispute between Celt and Saxon is from questions such as rise in every nation, and that the bitterness which stays in Anglo-Irish politics is the lingering rancor of a hateful past, not quickly to be extinguished.

----------A Logical Outline of Irish History: End--------

IRELAND: The name.

"Ireland was known by many names from very early ages. Thus, in the Celtic it was called Inis-Fall, the isle of destiny; Inis-Ealga, the noble island; Fiodh-Inis, the woody island; and Eire, Fodhla, and Banba. By the Greeks it was called Ierne, probably from the vernacular name of Eire, by inflection Erin; whence, also, no doubt, its Latin name of Juverna; Plutarch calls it Ogygia, or the ancient land; the early Roman writers generally called it Hibernia, probably from its Iberian inhabitants, and the later Romans and mediæval writers Scotia, and sometimes Hibernia; and finally its name of Ireland was formed by the Anglo-Normans from its native name of Eire."

M. Haverty, History of Ireland, page 76, note.

See, also, SCOTLAND: THE NAME; and IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

{1755}

IRELAND: The primitive inhabitants.

"The first people … of whose existence in Ireland we can be said to know anything are commonly asserted to have been of Turanian origin, and are known as 'Formorians.' As far as we can gather, they were a dark, low-browed, stunted race, although, oddly enough, the word Formorian in early Irish legend is always used as synonymous with the word giant. They were, at any rate, a race of utterly savage hunters and fishermen, ignorant of metal, of pottery, possibly even of the use of fire; using the stone hammers or hatchets of which vast numbers remain in Ireland to this day, and specimens of which may be seen in every museum. How long they held possession no one can tell, although Irish philologists believe several local Irish names to date from this almost inconceivably remote epoch. Perhaps if we think of the Lapps of the present day, and picture them wandering about the country, … it will give us a fairly good notion of what these very earliest inhabitants of Ireland were probably like.

See FOMORIANS.

Next followed a Belgic colony, known as the Firbolgs, who overran the country, and appear to have been of a somewhat higher ethnological grade, although, like the Formorians, short, dark, and swarthy. Doubtless the latter were not entirely exterminated to make way for the Firbolgs, any more than the Firbolgs to make way for the Danaans, Milesians, and other successive races; such wholesale exterminations being, in fact, very rare, especially in a country which like Ireland seems specially laid out by kindly nature for the protection of a weaker race struggling in the grip of a stronger one. After the Firbolgs, though I should be sorry to be obliged to say how long after, fresh and more important tribes of invaders began to appear. The first of these were the Tuatha-da-Danaans, who arrived under the leadership of their king Nuad, and took possession of the east of the country. These Tuatha-da-Danaans are believed to have been large, blue-eyed people of Scandinavian origin, kinsmen and possibly ancestors of those Norsemen or 'Danes' who in years to come were destined to work such woe and havoc upon the island. … What their end was no man can tell you, save that they, too, were, in their turn, conquered by the Milesians or 'Scoti,' who next overran the country, giving to it their own name' of Scotia, by which name it was known down to the end of the twelfth century, and driving the earlier settlers before them, who thereupon fled to the hills, and took refuge in the forests, whence they emerged, doubtless, with unpleasant effect upon their conquerors, as another defeated race did upon their conquerors in later days."

E. Lawless, The Story of Ireland, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: T. Moore, History of Ireland, volume 1, chapter 5.

IRELAND: Tribes of early Celtic inhabitants.

"On the northern coast dwelt the Veniconii, in the modern county of Donegal, and the Robogdii, in Londonderry and Antrim. Adjoining to the Veniconii, westward, were the Erdini or Erpeditani, and next to them the Magnatæ, all in Donegal. Farther south were the Auteri, in Sligo; the Gangani, in Mayo; and the Velibori, or Ellebri, in the district between Galway and the Shannon. The south-west part of the island, with a great portion of the interior, was inhabited by the Iverni, who gave name not only to the great river but to the whole island, and who may, perhaps, be considered as the aboriginal inhabitants. … In the modern counties of Waterford and Tipperary, Ptolemy places a tribe called the Usdiæ or Vodiæ, according to the variations of the manuscripts. In the modern county of Wexford dwelt the Brigantes; and northward from them were the Coriondi, in Wicklow; the Menapii, in Dublin; the Cauci, on the banks of the Boyne; the Blanii, or Eblani, on the bay of Dundalk; the Voluntii, in Down; and the Darini, bordering on the Robogdii, in Antrim. Three, at least, of the tribes who held the eastern coast of Ireland, the Brigantes, the Menapii, and the Voluntii, were, no doubt, colonies from the opposite shores of Britain."

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 2.

IRELAND: 5th-8th Centuries. The coming of St. Patrick and the Christianizing of the Island. Its Schools and its Missionaries.

"Lying on the extreme verge of Europe, the last land then known to the adventurous Scandinavian, and beyond which fable had scarcely projected its dreams, it was in the fifth century since the Redemption that Christianity reached them. Patricius, a Celt of Gaul it is said, carried into Erin as a slave by one of the Pagan kings, some of whom made military expeditions to North and South Britain, and even to the Alps and the Loire, became the Apostle of Ireland. Patrick escaped from slavery, was educated at Rome, but in mature manhood insisted on returning to the place of his bondage, to preach Christianity to a people who seem to have exercised over the imagination of the Apostle the same spell of sympathy which in later times subdued strangers of many nations. He was received with extraordinary favour, and before his death nearly the whole island had embraced Christianity. The coming of Patrick took place in the year of our Lord 432, and he laboured for sixty years after; planting churches and schools, rooting out the practices and monuments of Paganism, and disciplining the people in religion and humanity. It was a noble service, and it impressed itself for ever on the memory of the race whom he served. … In the succeeding century the Church which he planted became possessed by a passion which it has never entirely lost, the passion for missionary enterprise. Its fathers projected the conversion of the fierce natives of the Continent to the new creed of humility and self-denial, and by the same humane agents which Patrick had employed in Ireland—persuasion and prayer; a task as generous as any of which history has preserved the record. In this epoch Ireland may, without exaggeration, be said to have been a Christian Greece, the nurse of science and civilisation. The Pagan annals of the country are overlaid by fable and extravagance, but the foundation of Oxford or the mission of St. Augustine does not lie more visibly within the boundaries of legitimate history than the Irish schools, which attracted students from Britain and Gaul, and sent out missionaries through the countries now known as Western Europe.

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Among the forests of Germany, on the desert shores of the Hebrides, in the camp of Alfred, at the court of Charlemagne, in the capital of the Christian world, where Michelet describes their eloquence as charming the counsellors of the Emperor, there might be found the fervid preachers and subtle doctors of the Western Isle. It was then that the island won the title still fondly cherished, 'insula sanctorum'. The venerable Bede describes nobles and students at this epoch as quitting the island of Britain to seek education in Ireland, and he tells us that the hospitable Celts found them teachers, books, food and shelter at the cost of the nation. The school at Armagh, where St. Patrick had established the primacy of the Church, is reputed to have attracted 7,000 students, and there were schools at Lismore, Bangor, Clonmacnoise, and Mayo, which rivalled it in importance. Monasteries multiplied in a still greater number, and with results as beneficial. … Writers who are little disposed to make any other concession to Ireland admit that this was a period of extraordinary intellectual activity, and of memorable services to civilization. The arts, as far as they were the handmaidens of religion, attained a surprising development. The illuminated copies of the Scripture, the croziers and chalices which have come down to us from those days, the Celtic crosses and Celtic harps, the bells and tabernacles, are witnesses of a distinct and remarkable national culture. The people were still partly shepherds and husbandmen, partly soldiers, ruled by the Chief, the Brehon, and the Priest. … After this generous work had obtained a remarkable success, it was disturbed by contests with the Sea Kings. … The Cathedral and city of St. Patrick, the schools of Bangor, the cloisters of Clonmacnoise, and many more seats of piety and learning, fell into their hands. The sacred vessels of the altar were turned into drinking cups, and the missals, blazing with precious stones, were torn from their costly bindings to furnish ornaments for their sword hilts, and gifts to the Scalds who sang their achievements. These pagans burned monasteries, sacked churches, and murdered women and priests, for plunder or sport. … Before the dangers and troubles of a long internecine war, the School of the West gradually dwindled away, and it had fallen into complete decay before Brian Borhoime, at the beginning of the 11th century, finally subdued the invaders."

Sir C. G. Duffy, A Bird's Eye View of Irish History, revised edition, pages 7-12 (or chapter 4, in "Young Ireland").

"Ireland, that virgin island on which proconsul never set foot, which never knew either the orgies or the exactions of Rome, was also the only place in the world of which the Gospel took possession without bloodshed. … From the moment that this Green Erin, situated at the extremity of the known world, had seen the sun of faith rise upon her, she had vowed herself to it with an ardent and tender devotion which became her very life. The course of ages has not interrupted this; the most bloody and implacable of persecutions has not shaken it; the defection of all northern Europe has not led her astray; and she maintains still, amid the splendours and miseries of modern civilisation and Anglo-Saxon supremacy, an inextinguishable centre of faith, where survives, along with the completest orthodoxy, that admirable purity of manners which no conqueror and no adversary has ever been able to dispute, to equal, or to diminish. … The Irish communities, joined by the monks from Gaul and Rome, whom the example of Patrick had drawn upon his steps, entered into rivalry with the great monastic schools of Gaul. They explained Ovid there; they copied Virgil; they devoted themselves especially to Greek literature; they drew back from no inquiry, from no discussion. … A characteristic still more distinctive of the Irish monks, as of all their nation, was the imperious necessity of spreading themselves without, of seeking or carrying knowledge and faith afar, and of penetrating into the most distant regions to watch or combat paganism. This monastic nation, therefore, became the missionary nation 'par excellence'."

Count de Montalembert, The Monks of the West, book 7 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: T. Moore, History of Ireland, chapter 10-14 (volume 1), and chapter 18 (volume 2).

D. DeVinné, The Irish Primitive Church.

See, also, CHRISTIANITY; 5TH-9TH CENTURIES.

IRELAND: 9th-10th Centuries. The Danish conquests and settlements.

"The people popularly known in our history as Danes comprised swarms from various countries in the north of Europe, from Norway, Sweden, Zealand, Jutland, and, in general, from all the shores and islands of the Baltic. … In the Irish annals they are variously called Galls, or foreigners; Geinti, or Gentiles; and Lochlanni, or inhabitants of Lochlann, or Lake-land, that is, Norway; and they are distinguished as the Finn Galls, or White Foreigners, who are supposed to have been the inhabitants of Norway; and the Dubh Galls, or Black Foreigners, who were probably the people of Jutland, and of the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. A large tract of country north of Dublin still retains the name of the former. … The Danes never obtained the dominion of Ireland as they did that of England."

M. Haverty, History of Ireland, chapters 13-14.

"Ireland was as yet [in the 9th century] a more tempting prey for the pirates than even Gaul. It was at the monasteries that these earlier raids were mainly aimed; and nowhere were the monastic houses so many and so rich. It was in these retreats indeed, sheltered as men deemed by their holiness from the greed of the spoiler, that the whole wealth of the country was stored; and the gold work and jewelry of their shrines, their precious chalices, the silver-bound horn which king or noble dedicated at their altars, the curiously-wrought covering of their mass-books, the hoard of their treasure-chests, fired the imagination of the northern marauders as the treasures of the Incas fired that of the soldiers of Spain. News spread fast up dale and fiord how wealth such as men never dreamed of was heaped up in houses guarded only by priests and shavelings who dared not draw sword. The Wikings had long been drawing closer to this tempting prey. From the coast of Norway a sail of twenty-four hours with a fair wind brings the sailor in sight of the Shetlands; Shetlands and Orkneys furnished a base for the advance of the pirates along the western shores of Britain, where they found a land like their own in the dales and lochs of Ross and Argyll, and where the names of Caithness and Sutherland tell of their conquest and settlement on the mainland; while the physical appearance of the people still records their colonization of the Hebrides. Names such as that of the Orm's Head mark their entrance at last into the Irish Channel."

J. R. Green, The Conquest of England, chapter 2.

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"The 9th century was the period of Danish plunder, and of settlement along the coasts and in convenient places for purposes of plunder. Towards the latter end of this century the Irish in Ireland, like the English in England, succeeded in driving out the enemy, and there was peace for forty years. Then came the Danes again, but bent more definitely than before on permanent settlement; and their most notable work was the establishment of the Danish kingdom of Dublin, with its centre at one of their old haunts, Ath Cliath on the Liffey, where the city of Dublin was built by them. The establishment of this kingdom dates from the year 919, and its extent may be traced to-day as conterminous with the diocese of Dublin, extending from Holmpatrick and Skerries on the north, to Arklow and Wicklow on the south, and inland no farther than seven or eight miles to Leixlip. Until quite recently this was also the district over which extended the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of Dublin as Admiral of the Port of Dublin. On College Green used to be held the assembly of the freemen of the kingdom of Dublin, while the chiefs took their seats on the steep hill that once stood where St. Andrew's Church now stands, opposite to 'the old house on College Green,' which is so dear to the national aspirations of the modern Irishmen. There the Danes held their parliaments, agreeing on laws, consenting to judgments and contracts, feasting and making merry, just as the old Irish held their parliaments at Tara, Carman, Armagh, and elsewhere. Nor was Dublin the only Danish city. Limerick, Cork, Waterford, Wexford, all became the centres of petty Danish kingdoms, active in commerce, skilful for those times, in domestic architecture, and with political and legislative ideas identical in their essence with those of the people among whom they settled. In the course of the 10th century the Danes nominally became, for the most part, converts to Christianity. But it appears that they derived their Christianity mainly from English sources; and when they began to organize their Church, they did so after the Roman manner, and in connection with the see of Canterbury. It was not, however, till after the wars of Brian Born that Danish Christianity became either very real or at all organized."

S. Bryant, Celtic Ireland, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: C. Haliday, The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin.

C. F. Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom, chapter 6.

See, also, NORMANS: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES,

IRELAND: A. D. 1014. The Battle of Clontarf and the great defeat of the Danes.

By a revolution which occurred in the year 1000, Malachy II. of the dynasty which had reigned long at Tara, was deposed from the chief sovereignty, and Brian Boromh or Boru, of the royal family of Munster, who had fought his way up to masterful power, became the Ardrigh or over-king of Ireland. In 1014 Brian was called upon to face a great combination which the Danes of Dublin had effected with their fellow Northmen, including those of Denmark, Norway, Scotland and all the isles. It was the Danish intention now to accomplish completely the conquest of Ireland and bring their long struggle with its Celtic inhabitants to an effectual close, King Brian and his countrymen made equal exertions on their side to meet the attack, and the great battle of Clontarf, fought on Good Friday of the year 1014, gave them a decisive victory. "Clontarf, the lawn or meadow of bulls, stretches along the crescent-shaped north strand of Dublin harbor, from the ancient salmon weir at Ballyboght bridge, towards the promontory of Howth. Both horns of the crescent were held by the enemy, and communicated with his ships: the inland point terminating in the roofs of Dublin, and the seaward marked by the lion-like head of Howth. The meadow land between sloped gently upward and inward from the beach, and for the myriad duels which formed the ancient battle, no field could present less positive vantage ground to combatants on either side. The invading force had possession of both wings, so that Brian's army, which had first encamped at Kilmainham, must have crossed the Liffey higher up, and marched round by the present Drumcondra in order to reach the appointed field. The day seems to have been decided on by formal challenge. … The forces on both sides could not have fallen short of 20,000 men. … The utmost fury was displayed on all sides. … Hardly a nobly born man escaped, or sought to escape. The ten hundred in armor, and 3,000 others of the enemy, with about an equal number of the men of Ireland, lay dead upon the field. One division of the enemy were, towards sunset, retreating to their ships, when Brodar the Viking, perceiving the tent of Brian, standing apart, without a guard, and the aged king on his knees before the Crucifix, rushed in, cut him down with a single blow, and then continued his flight. … The deceased hero took his place at once in history, national and foreign. … The fame of the event went out through all nations. The chronicles of Wales, of Scotland, and of Man; the annals of Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas of Denmark and the Isles, all record the event. … 'Brian's battle,' as it is called in the Sagas, was, in short, such a defeat as prevented any general northern combination for the subsequent invasion of Ireland. Not that the country was entirely free from their attacks till the end of the 11th century; but, from the day of Clontarf forward, the long cherished Northern idea of a conquest of Ireland seems to have been gloomily abandoned by that indomitable people."

T. D'Arcy McGee, Popular History of Ireland, book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. Moore, History of Ireland, chapter 21 (volume 2).

See, also, NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: 10TH-13TH CENTURIES.

IRELAND: 12th Century. The great tribes and kingdoms and the ruling families.

"Ireland was now [immediately before Strongbow's conquest] divided into four confederations of tribes. The O'Neils held Ulidia, which is now called Ulster; the O'Connors Conacia, or Connaught; the O'Briens and the M'Carthys Mononia, or Munster; and the Macmurroughs Lagenia, or Leinster—all under the paramount but often-disputed rule of a branch of the Ulster O'Neils. The royal demesne of Meath, the appanage of the Ulster family, which included Westmeath, Longford, and a part of King's County, was sometimes counted a fifth kingdom. In the wild north, O'Neil, O'Donnel, O'Kane, O'Hara, O'Sheel, O'Carrol, were mighty names. {1758} On the northern-most peninsula, where the Atlantic runs into Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly, O'Dogherty reigned supreme. In Connaught, O'Rourke, O'Reilly, O'Kelly, O'Flaherty, O'Malley, O'Dowd, were lords. In Meath and Leinster, MacGeogeghan, O'Farrell, O'Connor, O'Moore, O'Brennan, Macmurrough, ruled. In Munster, by the western shore, MacCarthy More held sway. MacCarthy Reagh swayed the south, by the pleasant waters of Cork Bay. O'Sullivan Beare was lord of the fair promontory between Bantry Bay and Kenmare River. O'Mahony reigned by roaring Water Bay. O'Donoghue was chieftain by the haunted Killarney Lakes. MacMahon ruled north of the Shannon. O'Loglin looked on Galway Bay. All Ireland, with the exception of a few seaport towns where the Danes had settled, was in the hands of Irish chiefs of old descent and famous lineage. They quarrelled amongst themselves as readily and as fiercely as if they had been the heads of so many Greek states. The Danes had been their Persians; their Romans were now to come."

J. H. McCarthy, Outline of Irish History, chapter 3.

IRELAND: A. D. 1169-1175. The Anglo-Norman conquest.

"The conquest of Ireland is among the most important episodes in the reign of Henry II. … There were reasons, besides the mere lust of conquest, why an English king should desire to reduce Ireland. It had given harbours and recruits to the Northmen on their expeditions; Irish soldiers had fought at Brunanbeorh [or Brunnanburgh] against Athelstane; English exiles, like the sons of Harold, repeatedly fled to the island, and awaited the opportunity of reprisals upon their own government. Irish pirates infested the English coasts, and carried off prisoners, whom they sold as slaves. Accordingly, William the Conqueror had meditated subjugating Ireland, if he lived two years longer; William Rufus once declared, as he stood on the coast of Wales, that he would bridge St. George's Channel with a fleet of ships. But it was reserved for John of Salisbury to obtain from his intimate friend, the English pope, Adrian IV., a grant of Ireland to the English crown [by the Bull 'Laudabilitur'] as a hereditary fief (A. D. 1154). … Nevertheless, the difficulty of invading Ireland seemed greater than any profit likely to result from it. The king's council opposed the enterprise; and for some years the project was suffered to sleep. But the wretched disorders of Irish politics invited the invader." Diarmaid MacMurchad, king of Leinster, having been driven from his dominions, "repaired to the court of Henry II. in Aquitaine. The offer to hold Leinster, if Henry would reinstate him, as an English fief, procured Diarmaid free quarters in Bristol, to which he speedily returned, and letters patent authorizing any English subject to assist him. Diarmaid published these, and promised large rewards in land to those who would help him to win back his kingdom. The most powerful ally whom Diarmaid's offers attracted was Richard de Clare, surnamed Strongbow, earl of Pembroke, and distant cousin to the king. … Three other adventurers were enlisted. Two of them, Robert Fitz-Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, were sons, by different fathers, of Nest, a Welsh princess; the third was Maurice de Prendergast." In May, 1169, Fitz-Stephen, with a small following, crossed the channel and captured Wexford. Some other successes soon enabled Diarmaid to make peace with his enemies and recover his kingdom, even before Strongbow's expedition had left Wales. "Diarmaid was reinstated, and English subjects had no authority to carry on war on their own account in Ireland. Strongbow accordingly went to Normandy, and asked permission to push the advantages gained. Obtaining only an ambiguous answer from the king, he determined to consider it in his favour, and went back into Wales to prepare an expedition. In May, A. D. 1170, he sent over Raymond le Gros, Fitz-Stephen's half nephew, as his precursor." Raymond defeated the Irish with great slaughter, in a battle near Waterford, and savagely murdered seventy prisoners. "In August, A. D. 1170, as Strongbow was preparing to embark, he received an explicit order from the king not to proceed. Quietly disregarding it, he crossed with a little army of 1,200 men, out of whom 200 were knights. The storm of Waterford was his first exploit; and it illustrates the Irish architecture of the times, that the city walls were trenched by cutting away the wooden props of a house that was built into them. The frightful carnage of the storm was succeeded by the earl's marriage with Eva [daughter of King Diarmaid], who brought a kingdom as her dower. Then the united forces marched upon Dublin." The Danish city was treacherously stormed in the midst of a negotiation, and "the inhabitants experienced the worst miseries of the conquered. Hasculf [the Danish or Norse governor], and Asgall, king of the Northmen, escaped on board some small vessels to their countrymen in the Orkneys." The next year Hasculf reappeared with 60 ships from the Orkneys and Norway and laid siege to Dublin. He was defeated, taken prisoner and killed; but another fleet soon arrived and Dublin was again under siege. Reduced to a desperate strait, the small garrison sallied and routed the besiegers; but meantime Strongbow had lost ground elsewhere and Dublin and Waterford were the only possessions he retained. The anger of King Henry at his disobedience caused many of his followers to desert him, and he soon found it necessary to make peace with his offended sovereign. Crossing over to England, he succeeded in winning the royal pardon, and Henry returned to Ireland with him, to assist in the completing of the conquest. They were accompanied by a fleet of 400 ships and some 4,000 men. The appearance of the king was followed by a general submission of the Irish princes, and he made a royal progress to Cashel, where, in 1172, a synod was held to effect the Church reforms which were, ostensibly, the chief object of the conquest. "The court held at Lismore to establish order among the English settlers is better evidence than any synod of the real objects of the conquest. The country was partially distributed among Norman nobles; but as the English conquest of Ireland, more rapid than the Norman of England, had been effected by fewer men, and was more insecure, the changes in the property and laws of the nation were proportionately smaller. Meath, as the appanage of royalty, of course accrued to the English crown, and Henry assigned the whole of it to Hugh de Lacy, whom he made justiciary of the realm and governor of Dublin. The object of this enormous grant, no doubt, was to balance Strongbow's power. {1759} The families of Desmond, Ormond, and Vernon received other estates. But the number of those invested was small. … The slightness of the change, no doubt, mainly contributed to the readiness with which the supremacy of the English crown was accepted. In April, A. D. 1172, Henry was able to return to England, leaving only Ulster behind him nominally unsubdued. A series of petty wars between Irish chiefs and Norman nobles soon broke out. The precarious nature of the English dominion became manifest; and Henry was forced to publish the papal grant of Ireland, which he had hitherto suppressed. At last, in A. D. 1175, Roderic O'Connor [king of Connaught, and previously recognized over-king of Ireland] made a treaty with the English crown, and agreed to render homage and submission, and a tribute of every tenth hide, in return for royal rights in his own kingdom of Connaught. At the same time, the limits of the English pale, as it was afterwards called, were defined. This district, which was immediately subject to the king of England and his barons, comprised Dublin with its appurtenances, Meath, Leinster, and the country from Waterford to Dungarvon. … From the English point of view, the kings of England were henceforth lords-paramount of Ireland, with the fee of the soil vested in them, and all Irish princes in future were no more than tenants-in-chief. From the Irish point of view, the English kings were nothing more than military suzerains in the districts outside the pale."

C. H. Pearson, History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, volume 1, chapter 30.

ALSO IN: Mrs. J. R. Green, Henry the Second, chapter 8.

A. G. Richey, Short History of the Irish People, chapters 6-7.

W. A. O'Conor, History of the Irish People, book 2, chapters 1-2.

T. Moore, History of Ireland, chapters 26-29.

F. P. Barnard, editor, Strongbow's Conquest of Ireland: From Contemporary Writers.

IRELAND: 13th-14th Centuries. Under the Anglo-Norman conquerors.

"The feudal system as established in Ireland differed in important respects from that existing in England. It is usual for Irish writers to attribute much of the sufferings of Ireland to the misgovernment of England and the introduction of feudalism, whereas most of these evils may be referred rather to English non-government and to the peculiar anomalies of the Irish feudal system. The feudal system as introduced into Ireland, like most other institutions imported from England, was altered in such a manner as to retain all its evils, and lose all its advantages. The Crown in Ireland possessed no power of controlling its vassals. … In Ireland there were no manor or valuable estates that the Crown could appropriate—the entire country had to be conquered; and as the Crown did not assist in the conquest, it received no part of the spoils. Thus we find the Crown had absolutely no demesnes of its own, and, being deprived of any military force of its own, it had to rely upon such of the great feudal vassals as might remain loyal for the purpose of crushing those who might be in rebellion. The inevitable result of this policy was to kindle a civil war and excite personal feuds in the attempt to maintain order. … We have thus a feudal system, in which the Crown is powerless to fulfil its duties, yet active in preventing the greater nobles from exercising that influence which might have secured a reasonable degree of order. The whole energy of the nobles was turned away from government to war; and lest they should become local potentates, they were allowed to degenerate into local tyrants. But what, meanwhile, had become of the Irish nation? As the feudal system ignored their existence, we have permitted them to fall out of our view; but they still existed, and still were politically independent. The invaders had occupied the flat country, suitable for the operation of their forces, and the original inhabitants had retired into either the mountainous districts, impassable to cavalry, or into districts protected by the bogs, and difficult of access; nay, even in some parts of the island, where the Normans were not in force, they had re-occupied large portions of the open country. They did not retire as disorganised fugitives, but the tribes retreated, keeping their social organisation unbroken; and, although removed from their original habitations, still preserved their social identity. The remarkable point in the conquest was, that the Celtic population was not driven back upon anyone portion of the kingdom, but remained as it was, interpolated among the new arrivals. … The Celtic population possessed no definite legal position, filled no place in the feudal hierarchy, and was in the eyes of the English Government hostile and alien; the only exception to this was the case of the O'Briens, who, though not actually feudal vassals, had their estates secured by a charter, and five Irish families, through some unknown reason, were considered as the king's men and entitled to his protection; these were known as the five bloods, who enjoyed the law of England to the extent of the privilege to sue in the king's courts, viz., O'Neill, O'Molaghlin, O'Connor, O'Brien, and M'Murrough. … The Irish in Ireland were treated by the king's courts in Ireland as an alien and hostile nation; an Irishman out of the king's peace could not bring an action against an Englishman. … But, though legally ignored, the Irish tribes could not be politically disregarded. The English Government used their assistance to repress the rebellions of insurgent vassals. … They were called on to furnish assistance to the English armies, and on many occasions we find their chiefs summoned by writ of Parliament, as if feudal vassals; but the mode in which they were treated depended upon the immediate objects and want of the English Government, and the general course of conduct pursued towards them was such as has been previously stated. … We thus find the English and Irish races hopelessly at variance, and it would seem that one or other must have been crushed out in the contest; but such was not the result; they both survived, and, contrary to reasonable expectations, the Irish exhibited the greater vitality. The expulsion of the English colony was an effort beyond the power of the disunited Irish tribes; for in the darkest hours of the English settlement the power of England was ready, by some sudden effort, to reassert the English supremacy. But why did the Anglo-Normans wholly fail to subdue the Irish? …

1. The large extent comprised in the grants made to the first colonists led to a dispersion of the Norman nobles over the more fertile portions of the country. The English colony never formed one compact body capable of combined action. …

{1760}

2. The military equipment of the Normans, and their mode of carrying on war, rendered their forces wholly inefficient, when, leaving the flat country, they attempted to penetrate the fastnesses of the native tribes. …

3. From the absence of any central government, civil wars continually arose between the several Norman lords; thus the military power of the colonists was frittered away in dissensions. …

4. The English Government continually called upon the Irish barons for aids and military service, to be employed in wars elsewhere than in Ireland. …

5. Many of the estates of the Norman nobles descended to heiresses who married Englishmen already possessing estates in England: hence arose absenteeism.

6. Even the lords who resided constantly upon their Irish estates gradually lost their Norman habits, and tended to assimilate themselves to the manners, and to adopt the language, of the Irish."

A. G. Richey, Short History of the Irish People, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: P. W. Joyce, Short History of Ireland, part 3.

See, also, PALATINE, THE IRISH COUNTIES; and GERALDINES.

IRELAND: The Celticizing of the Anglo-Norman conquerors.

"Prior to experience, it would have been equally reasonable to expect that the modern Englishman would adopt the habits of the Hindoo or the Mohican, as that the fiery knights of Normandy would have stooped to imitate a race whom they despised as slaves; that they would have flung away their very knightly names to assume a barbarous equivalent [the De Burghs became Bourkes or Burkes, the M'Sweenies had been Veres in England, and the Munster Geraldines merged their family name in that of Desmond.—Foot-note]; and would so utterly have cast aside the commanding features of their Northern extraction, that their children's children could be distinguished neither in soul nor body, neither in look, in dress, in language, nor in disposition, from the Celts whom they had subdued. Such, however, was the extraordinary fact. The Irish who had been conquered in the field revenged their defeat on the minds and hearts of their conquerors; and in yielding, yielded only to fling over their new masters the subtle spell of the Celtic disposition. In vain the government attempted to stem the evil. Statute was passed after statute forbidding the 'Englishry' of Ireland to use the Irish language, or intermarry with Irish families, or copy Irish habits. Penalties were multiplied on penalties; fines, forfeitures, and at last death itself, were threatened for such offences. But all in vain. The stealthy evil crept on irresistibly. Fresh colonists were sent over to restore the system, but only for themselves or their children to be swept into the stream; and from the century which succeeded the Conquest till the reign of the eighth Henry, the strange phenomenon repeated itself, generation after generation, baffling the wisdom of statesmen, and paralysing every effort at a remedy."

J. A. Froude, History of England, chapter 8 (volume 2).

IRELAND: A. D. 1314-1318. Edward Bruce's invasion.

The crushing defeat of the English by the Scotch at Bannockburn (1314) rekindled a spirit of rebellion in Ireland, and the discontented chiefs made haste to solicit aid from Scotland, offering the sovereignty of their island to Edward Bruce, brother of king Robert, if he would come to their help and conquer it. "By consent of king Robert, who was pleased to make a diversion against England upon a vulnerable point, and not, perhaps, sorry to be rid of a restless spirit, which became impatient in the lack of employment, Edward invaded Ireland at the head of a force of 6,000 Scots. He fought many battles, and gained them all. He became master of the province of Ulster, and was solemnly crowned king of Ireland; but found himself amid his successes obliged to intreat the assistance of king Robert with fresh supplies; for the impetuous Edward, who never spared his own person, was equally reckless of exposing his followers; and his successes were misfortunes, in so far as they wasted the brave men with whose lives they were purchased. Robert Bruce led supplies to his brother's assistance, with an army which enabled him to overrun Ireland, but without gaining any permanent advantage. He threatened Dublin, and penetrated as far as Limerick in the west, but was compelled, by scarcity of provisions, to retire again into Ulster, in the spring of 1317. He shortly after returned to Scotland, leaving a part of his troops with Edward, though probably convinced that his brother was engaged in a desperate and fruitless enterprise. … After his brother's departure, Edward's career of ambition was closed at the battle of Dundalk, where, October 5th, 1318, fortune at length failed a warrior who had tried her patience by so many hazards. On that fatal day he encountered, against the advice of his officers, an Anglo-Irish army ten times more numerous than his own. A strong champion among the English, named John Maupas, singling out the person of Edward, slew him, and received death at his hands. … A general officer of the Scots, called John Thomson, led back the remnant of the Scottish force to their own country. And thus ended the Scottish invasion of Ireland, with the loss of many brave soldiers."

Sir W. Scott, History of Scotland, chapter 11 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. Moore, History of Ireland, volume 3, chapter 36.

IRELAND: A. D. 1327-1367. Oppressions of the reign of Edward III.

"Of all the legislative measures of this period the most notable was the Statute of Kilkenny, passed at a Parliament held in that town, in the last year of the decade, in the Lent session of 1367. This 'famous, or infamous,' enactment gathered up into one, and recapitulated with additional aggravations and insults, all the former oppressive, exasperating, and iniquitous ordinances by which English legislation for Ireland had hitherto been disgraced. … Among the earliest measures passed in the reign of Edward III. was a statute directed against absenteeism, obliging all Englishmen who were Irish proprietors either to reside on their estates or to provide soldiers to defend them. But this enactment was unproductive of good results. The O'Neills drove the colonists out of the 'liberty of Ulster,' and the English De Burghs, so far from helping to uphold English ascendency, appropriated to themselves the entire lordship of Connaught, made common cause with the native tribes, and adopting their dress, language, and customs, became 'Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores,' threw off their allegiance to King Edward, and bade defiance to the King's authority. Thus it came to pass that before many years of this reign had elapsed more than a third part of the territories of the Pale was again in the hands of its original possessors. … Edward III. inherited the barbarous and iniquitous traditions of English rule in Ireland, but he improved upon them. {1761} He ordered all his officers in that country who had Irish estates to be removed and give place to Englishmen with no Irish ties. He next declared void every grant of land in Ireland since the time of Edward II., and made new grants of the lands thus recovered to the Crown. The tendency of this monstrous measure was to create two more antagonistic parties in Ireland, destined by their bitter dissensions to bring about the result that ere long 'all the King's land in Ireland was on the point of passing away from the Crown of England,'— viz., the 'English by blood,' as the established settlers were called, and the 'English by birth,' or new grantees. Some of the chief of the former, in despair of a career, or even of a quiet life, at home, were about to bid good-bye to Ireland and seek their fortunes elsewhere, when they were arrested by a proclamation making it penal for any English subject capable of bearing arms to leave the country. … The 'English by blood' became more and more intimately connected and identified with the native Irish, and the 'English by birth' became more and more powerless to maintain the English ascendency; till at last, in 1361, the King determined on sending over a viceroy of the blood royal, and appointed to the post his son Lionel, created shortly afterwards Duke of Clarence, whom he had married to Elizabeth de Burgh, daughter and representative of the last Earl of Ulster. But though Prince Lionel, on his arrival, took the precaution of forbidding any man born in Ireland to approach his camp, his position soon became so critical that the King issued writs commanding all the absentee Irish lords to hasten to Ireland to the assistance of the Prince, 'for that his very dear son and his companions in Ireland were in imminent peril.' The next step was the passing of the Statute of Kilkenny. It re-enacted the prohibition of marriage and foster-nursing, rendered obligatory the adoption of the English language and customs, forbade the national games of 'hurlings and quoitings,' and the use of the ancient Gaelic code called the Senchus Mor; a code by which the native brehons, or judges, of the Irish septs had decided causes among them since the time of the conversion of the race to Christianity in the fifth century."

W. Warburton, Edward III., 4th decade, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: W. Longman, Life and Times of Edward III., volume 2, chapter 1.

T. Leland, History of Ireland, book 2, chapters 4-5 (volume 1).

IRELAND: A. D. 1494. Poynings' Laws.

During the Wars of the Roses, "if Ireland had any preference for either of the great contending parties in England, it was … for the House of York; and from this cause chiefly sprang the change of Henry VII.'s mode of governing the dependency which on ascending the throne he had found all but severed from his dominions. At first he had thought it best to employ the native nobility for this purpose, and had chosen for Deputy the Earl of Kildare—setting him, as the story ran, to rule all Ireland, because all Ireland could not rule him. When, however, he had time to reflect on the dangers springing from the Irish support of Simnel and Warbeck, from which he and his dynasty had escaped so narrowly, he perceived the necessity of bringing the country under a more regular government. Accordingly he sent over in 1494 (at the time when Warbeck was preparing for his descent on England) Sir Edward Poynings as Lord Deputy, a statesman and commander well experienced in the most important affairs of the time."

C. E. Moberly, The Early Tudors, chapter 6.

After some military operations, which he found to be beset with treacheries and difficulties, the new Lord Deputy held a Parliament at Drogheda—"perhaps the most memorable that was ever held in Ireland, as certainly no other Parliament in that country made laws which endured so long as two which were then enacted, and were known for centuries afterwards as the 'Poynings Acts.' By the first of these it was ordained that no Parliament should be held in Ireland in future until the king's Council in England had approved not only of its being summoned, but also of the Acts which the Lieutenant and Council of Ireland proposed to pass in it. By the second the laws enacted before that time in England were extended to Ireland also. Thus the Irish legislature was made entirely dependent upon England. The Irish Parliament had no power to originate anything, but was only free to accept or (if they were very bold) to reject measures drawn up by the Irish Council and approved already by the king and his Council in England before they were submitted to discussion. Little as this looks like parliamentary government, such was the state of subjection in which the Irish Parliament remained by virtue of this law for nearly three centuries later. Almost the whole time, that is to say, that Ireland had a separate Parliament at all it remained in this manner restricted in its action by the legislation of Sir Edward Poynings. … It should be remembered, however, that Henry VII. merely sought to do in Ireland what there is every reason to suppose he practically did in England. Legislation was not at this time considered to be the chief business of a Parliament."

J. Gairdner, Henry the Seventh, chapter. 8.

ALSO IN: R. Bagwell, Ireland Under the Tudors, chapter 8.

W. A. O'Conor, History of the Irish People, book 2, chapter 4, section 7.

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 18 (volume 3).

IRELAND: A. D. 1515. The English Pale and the Clans and Chiefs beyond it.

"The events on which we are about to enter require for their understanding a sketch of the position of the various chiefs, as they were at this time scattered over the island. The English pale, originally comprising 'the four shires,' as they were called, of Dublin, Kildare, Meath, and Uriel or Louth, had been shorn down to half its old dimensions. The line extended from Dundalk to Ardee; from Ardee by Castletown to Kells; thence through Athboy and Trim to the Castle of Maynooth; from Maynooth it crossed to Claine upon the Liffey, and then followed up the line of the river to Ballimore Eustace, from which place it skirted back at the rear of the Wicklow and Dublin mountains to the forts at Dalkey, seven miles south of Dublin. This narrow strip alone, some fifty miles long and twenty broad, was in any sense English. Beyond the borders the common law of England was of no authority; the king's writ was but a strip of parchment; and the country was parcelled among a multitude of independent chiefs, who acknowledged no sovereignty but that of strength, who levied tribute on the inhabitants of the pale as a reward for a nominal protection of their rights, and as a compensation for abstaining from the plunder of their farms. … {1762} These chiefs, with their dependent clans, were distributed over the four provinces in the following order. The Geraldines, the most powerful of the remaining Normans, were divided into two branches. The Geraldines of the south, under the Earls of Desmond, held Limerick, Cork, and Kerry; the Geraldines of Leinster lay along the frontiers of the English pale; and the heads of the house, the Earls of Kildare, were the feudal superiors of the greater portion of the English counties. To the Butlers, Earls of Ormond and Ossory, belonged Kilkenny, Carlow, and Tipperary. The De Burghs, or Bourkes, as they called themselves, were scattered over Galway, Roscommon, and the south of Sligo, occupying the broad plains which lie between the Shannon and the mountains of Connemara and Mayo. This was the relative position into which these clans had settled at the Conquest, and it had been maintained with little variation. The north, which had fallen to the Lacies and the De Courcies, had been wholly recovered by the Irish. The Lacies had become extinct. The De Courcies, once Earls of Ulster, had migrated to the south, and were reduced to the petty fief of Kinsale, which they held under the Desmonds. The Celtic chieftains had returned from the mountains to which they had been driven, bringing back with them, more intensely than ever, the Irish habits and traditions. … The O'Neils and O'Donnells had spread down over Ulster to the frontiers of the pale. The O'Connors and O'Carrolls had recrossed the Shannon and pushed forwards into Kildare; the O'Connor Don was established in a castle near Portarlington, said to be one of the strongest in Ireland; and the O'Carrolls had seized Leap, an ancient Danish fortress, surrounded by bog and forest, a few miles from Parsonstown. O'Brien of Inchiquin, Prince—as he styled himself—of Thomond, no longer contented with his principality of Clare, had thrown a bridge across the Shannon five miles above Limerick, and was thus enabled to enter Munster at his pleasure and spread his authority towards the south; while the M'Carties and O'Sullivans, in Cork and Kerry, were only not dangerous to the Earls of Desmond, because the Desmonds were more Irish than themselves, and were accepted as their natural chiefs. In Tipperary and Kilkenny only the Celtic reaction was held in check. The Earls of Ormond, although they were obliged themselves to live as Irish chieftains, and to govern by the Irish law, yet … remained true to their allegiance, and maintained the English authority as far as their power extended. … Wexford, Wicklow, and the mountains of Dublin, were occupied by the Highland tribes of O'Bryne and O'Toole, who, in their wild glens and dangerous gorges, defied attempts to conquer them, and who were able, at all times, issuing down out of the passes of the hills, to cut off communication with the pale. Thus the Butlers had no means of reaching Dublin except through the county of Kildare, the home of their hereditary rivals and foes. This is a general account of the situation of the various parties in Ireland at the beginning of the 16th century. I have spoken only of the leading families. … 'There be sixty counties, called regions, in Ireland,' says the report of 1515, 'inhabited with the king's Irish enemies.'"

J. A. Froude, History of England, chapter 8 (volume 2).

See, also, PALE, THE ENGLISH.

IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553. The reconquest under Henry VIII. and the fall of the Geraldines. The political pacification and the religious alienation.

"To Henry VIII. the policy which had been pursued by his father was utterly hateful. His purpose was to rule in Ireland as thoroughly and effectively as he ruled in England. … The Geraldines, who had been suffered under the preceding reign to govern Ireland in the name of the Crown, were quick to discover that the Crown would no longer stoop to be their tool. They resolved to frighten England again into a conviction of its helplessness; and the rising of Lord Thomas Fitzgerald followed the usual fashion of Irish revolts. A murder of the Archbishop of Dublin, a capture of the city, a repulse before its castle, a harrying of the Pale, ended in a sudden disappearance of the rebels among the bogs and forests of the border on the advance of the English forces. … Unluckily for the Geraldines, Henry had resolved to take Ireland seriously in hand, and he had Cromwell [Sir Thomas] to execute his will. Skeffington, the new Lord Deputy, brought with him a train of artillery, which worked a startling change in the political aspect of the island. The castles which had hitherto sheltered rebellion were battered into ruins. … Not only was the power of the great Norman house which had towered over Ireland utterly broken, but only a single boy was left to preserve its name. With the fall of the Geraldines Ireland felt itself in a master's grasp. … In seven years, partly through the vigour of Skeffington's successor, Lord Leonard Grey, and still more through the resolute will of Henry and Cromwell, the power of the Crown, which had been limited to the walls of Dublin, was acknowledged over the length and breadth of Ireland. … Chieftain after chieftain was won over to the acceptance of the indenture which guaranteed him in the possession of his lands, and left his authority over his tribesmen untouched, on conditions of a pledge of loyalty, of abstinence from illegal wars and exactions on his fellow-subjects, and of rendering a fixed tribute and service in war-time to the Crown. … [This] firm and conciliatory policy must in the end have won, but for the fatal blunder which plunged Ireland into religions strife at the moment when her civil strife seemed about to come to an end. … In Ireland the spirit of the Reformation never existed among the people at all. They accepted the legislative measures passed in the English Parliament without any dream of theological consequences, or of any change in the doctrine or ceremonies of the Church. … The mission of Archbishop Browne 'for the plucking-down of idols and extinguishing of idolatry' was the first step in the long effort of the English Government to force a new faith on a people who to a man clung passionately to their old religion. Browne's attempts at 'tuning the pulpits' were met by a sullen and significant opposition. … Protestantism had failed to wrest a single Irishman from his older convictions, but it succeeded in uniting all Ireland against the Crown. … The population within the Pale and without it became one, 'not as the Irish nation,' it has been acutely said, 'but as Catholics.' A new sense of national identity was found in the identity of religion."

J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, chapter 7, section 8.

ALSO IN: R. Bagwell, Ireland Under the Tudors, volume 1, chapters 9-15.

M. Haverty, History of Ireland, chapter 30.

{1763}

IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603. The wars of Shane O'Neil and Hugh O'Neil, Earls of Tyrone. The League of the Geraldines and the Ulster Confederacy.

"The Reformation begun under Henry VIII. was carried out with pitiless determination under Edward VI., and was met by the Catholics with unflinching opposition. Under Mary there was a period of respite, but the strife was renewed with greater fierceness in the succeeding reign. As authentic Irish history begins with St. Patrick, so with Elizabeth modern Irish history may be said to begin. … At her accession, Elizabeth was too much occupied with foreign complications to pay much heed to Ireland. Trouble first began in a conflict between the feudal laws and the old Irish law of Tanistry. Con O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone, had taken his title from Henry VIII., subject to the English law of succession; but when Con died, the clan O'Neil, disregarding the English principle of hereditary succession, chose Shane O'Neil, an illegitimate son of Con, and the hero of his Sept, to be The O'Neil. Shane O'Neil at once put himself forward as the champion of Irish liberty, the supporter of the Irish right to rule themselves in their own way and pay no heed to England. Under the pretence of governing the country, Elizabeth overran it with a soldiery who, as even Mr. Froude acknowledges, lived almost universally on plunder, and were little better than bandits. The time was an appropriate one for a champion of Irish rights. Shane O'Neil boldly stood out as sovereign of Ulster, and pitted himself against Elizabeth. … Shane fought bravely against his fate, but he was defeated [A. D. 1567], put to flight, and murdered by his enemies, the Scots of Antrim, in whose strongholds he madly sought refuge. His head was struck off, and sent to adorn the walls of Dublin Castle. His lands were declared forfeit, and his vassals, vassals of the Crown. English soldiers of fortune were given grants from Shane's escheated territory, but when they attempted to settle they were killed by the O'Neils. Others came in their place, under Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, and did their best to simplify the process of colonization by exterminating the O'Neils, men, women, and children, wherever they could be got at. After two years of struggle Essex was compelled to abandon his settlement. But other colonizers were not disheartened. Some West of England gentlemen, under Peter Carew, seized on Cork, Limerick and Kerry, and sought to hold them by extirpating the obnoxious natives. Against these English inroads the great Geraldine League was formed. In the reign of Mary, that boy of twelve whom Henry VIII. had not been able to include in the general doom of his house had been allowed to return to Ireland, and to resume his ancestral honours, Once more the Geraldines were a great and powerful family in Ireland." Defeated in their first rising, "the Geraldines and their companion chiefs got encouragement in Rome and pledges from Spain, and they rose again under the Earl of Desmond and Sir James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald. At first they had some successes, They had many wrongs to avenge. … Sir Francis Cosby, the Queen's representative in Leix and Offaly, had conceived and executed the idea of preventing any further possible rising of the chiefs in those districts by summoning them and their kinsmen to a great banquet in the fort of Mullaghmast, and there massacring them all. Out of 400 guests, only one man, a Lalor, escaped from that feast of blood. … With such memories in their minds, the tribes rose in all directions to the Desmond call. … Elizabeth sent over more troops to Ireland under the new Lord Deputy, Sir William Pelham, who had with him as ally Ormonde, the head of the house of Butler, hereditary foes of the Geraldines, and easily induced to act against them. Pelham and Ormonde cut their way over Munster, reducing the province by unexampled ferocity. Ormonde boasted that he had put to death nearly 6,000 disaffected persons. Just at this moment some of the chiefs of the Pale rose, and rose too late. They gained one victory over Lord Grey de Wilton in the pass of Glenmalure [August, 1580]. … Grey immediately abandoned the Pale to the insurgents, and turned to Smerwick [A. D. 1580], where some 800 Spanish and Italian soldiers had just landed, too late to be of any service to the rebellion, and had occupied the dismantled fort. It was at once blockaded by sea and by land. In Grey's army Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser both held commands. Smerwick surrendered at discretion, and the prisoners were killed by Raleigh and his men in cold blood. Flushed by this success, Grey returned to the Pale and carried all before him. The Geraldines were disheartened, and were defeated wherever they made a stand. … Munster was so vigorously laid waste that Mr. Froude declares that 'the lowing of a cow or the sound of a ploughboy's whistle was not to be heard from Valentia to the Rock of Cashel.' Holinshed declares the traveller would not meet any man, woman, or child, saving in towns or cities, and would not see any beast; and Spenser gives a melancholy picture of the misery of the inhabitants, 'as that any stony heart would rue the same.' … The next step was to confiscate the estates of the rebellious chieftains. … The estates of Desmond and some 140 of his followers came to the Crown. The land was then distributed at the cheapest rate in large tracts to English nobles and gentlemen adventurers, who were pledged to colonize it with English labourers and tradesmen. But of these labourers and tradesmen not many came over, and those who did soon returned, tired of struggling for their foothold with the dispossessed Irish." During all this Geraldine or Desmond rebellion Ulster had remained quiet; but in 1594 it began to show signs of disturbance. "Hugh O'Neil, the grandson of that Con O'Neil whom Henry VIII. had made Earl of Tyrone, had been brought up at the English court, and confirmed in the lordship of Tyrone by the English Government. In the brilliant court of Elizabeth the young Irish chief was distinguished for his gifts of mind and body. When he came of age he was allowed to return to Ireland to his earldom. Once within his own country, he assumed his ancestral title of The O'Neil, and revived all the customs of independent Irish chieftains. For long enough he took no part in any plots or movements against the Crown; but many things, the ties of friendship and of love, combined to drive him into rebellion.

{1764}

… Tyrone in the end consented to give the powerful support of his name and his arms to a skilfully planned confederation of the tribes. On all sides the Irish chiefs entered into the insurrection. O'Neil was certainly the most formidable Irish leader the English had yet encountered. … Victory followed victory [that of the Yellow Ford, 1598, being the most important]. In a little while all Ireland, with the exception of Dublin and a few garrison towns, was in the hands of the rebels. Essex, and the largest army ever sent to Ireland, crossed the Channel to cope with him; but Essex made no serious move, and after an interview with Tyrone, in which he promised more than he could perform, he returned to England to his death. His place was taken by Lord Mountjoy, who, for all his love of angling and of Elizabethan 'play-books,' was a stronger man. Tyrone met him, was defeated [at Kinsale, 1601]. From that hour the rebellion was over. … At last Tyrone was compelled to come to terms. He surrendered his estates, renounced all claim to the title of The O'Neil, abjured alliance with all foreign powers, and promised to introduce English laws and customs into Tyrone. In return he received a free pardon and a re-grant of his title and lands by letters patent. Rory O'Donnell, Red Hugh's brother, also submitted, and was allowed to retain the title of Earl of Tyrconnel. Elizabeth was already dead, and the son of Mary Stuart [James I.] was King of England when these terms were made; but they were not destined to do much good."

J. H. McCarthy, Outline of Irish History, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: T. D. McGee, Popular History of Ireland, book 8, chapters 3-11 (volumes 1-2).

M. Haverty, History of Ireland, chapters 32-35.

R. Bagwell, Ireland under the Tudors, volume 2.

T. Leland, History of Ireland, book 4, chapters 1-5 (volume 2).

IRELAND: A. D. 1607-1611. The flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster.

"With the submission of the Earl of Tyrone terminated the struggle between the Tudor princes and the native Celtic tribes. No chieftain henceforward claimed to rule his district in independence of the Crown of England. The Celtic land tenure, the Brehon laws, the language, customs, and traditions of the defeated race were doomed to gradual yet certain extinction. … Before Elizabeth was laid in the grave, the object for which during so many years she had striven was thus at length accomplished; … but between the wars of the Tudors and the civil government of the Stuarts, still remain (the intermediate link, as it were, between the two) the fall of the able man who had created and so long conducted an almost national resistance, and the colonisation by English settlers of his demesnes and the adjoining parts of Ulster."

A. G. Richey, Short History of the Irish People, chapter 20.

"Lord Bacon, with whom ideas grew plentifully, had a suggestion at the service of the new king as profitable as the 'princelie policie' which he taught his predecessor. He was of opinion that a great settlement of English husbandmen in Ireland, able to guard as well as to till the land, would help to secure the interest of the Crown. Till this was done Ireland was not effectually reduced, as Sir Edward Coke afterwards declared, 'for there was ever a back-door in the north.' The only question was where to plant them. O'Neill and Tyrconnell had proved dangerous adversaries; they possessed a fertile territory, and as their 'loose order of inheritance' had been duly changed into 'an orderly succession,' they were quite ripe for confiscation. But they had been ostentatiously received into favour at the close of the late war, and some decent pretence for destroying them so soon was indispensable. It was found in a letter conveniently dropped in the precincts of Dublin Castle, disclosing a new conspiracy. Of a conspiracy there was not then, and has not been since discovered, any evidence worth recording. The letter was probably forged, according to the practise of the times; but where so noble a booty was to be distributed by the Crown, one can conceive how ill-timed and disloyal any doubt of their treason would have appeared at the Court of James, or of the Lord Deputy. They were proclaimed traitors, and fled to the Continent to solicit aid from the Catholic Powers. Without delay James and his counsellors set to work. The King applied to the City of London to take up the lands of the wild Irish. They were well watered, he assured them, plentifully supplied with fuel, with good store of all the necessaries for man's sustenance; and moreover yielded timber, hides, tallow, canvas, and cordage for the purposes of commerce. The Companies of Skinners, Fishmongers, Haberdashers, Vintners and the like thereupon became Absentee Proprietors, and have guzzled Irish rents in city feasts and holiday excursions to Ireland from that day to this. Six counties in Ulster were confiscated, and not merely the chiefs, but the entire population dispossessed. The fruitful plains of Armagh, the deep pastoral glens that lie between the sheltering hills of Donegal, the undulating meadow lands stretching by the noble lakes and rivers of Fermanagh, passed from the race which had possessed them since before the redemption of mankind. … The alluvial lands were given to English courtiers whom the Scotch king found it necessary to placate, and to Scotch partisans whom he dared not reward in England. The peasants driven out of the tribal lands to burrow in the hills or bogs were not treated according to any law known among civilised men. Under Celtic tenure the treason of the chief, if he committed treason, affected them no more than the offences of a tenant for life affect a remainder man in our modern practice. Under the feudal system they were innocent feudatories who would pass with the forfeited land to the Crown, with all their personal rights undisturbed. The method of settlement is stated with commendable simplicity by the latest historian. The 'plantators' got all the land worth their having; what was not worth their having—the barren mountains and trackless morass, which after two centuries still in many cases yield no human food—were left to those who in the language of an Act of Parliament of the period were 'natives of the realm of Irish blood, being descended from those who did inherit and possess the land.' Lest the frugality of the Celts should enable them to peacefully regain some of their possessions, it was strictly conditioned that no plantator or servitor should alienate his portion, or any part thereof, to the mere Irish. The confiscated territory amounted to two millions of acres. 'Of these a million and a half' says Mr. Froude, 'bog, forest, and mountain were restored to the Irish. The half million acres of fertile land were settled with families of Scottish and English Protestants.' It was in this manner that the famous Plantation of Ulster was founded."

Sir C. G. Duffy, Bird's-Eye View of Irish History, revised edition, pages 74-78 (or book 1, chapter 4, of "Young Ireland").

{1765}

"The City of London had taken in hand the settlement of Derry, which was now to be rebuilt under the name of Londonderry, and to give its name to the county in which it stood, and which had hitherto been known as the county of Coleraine."

S. R. Gardiner, History of England, 1603-1642, chapter 10 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. D'Arcy McGee, Popular History of Ireland, book 9, chapter 1 (volume 2).

J. Harrison, The Scot in Ulster, chapter 3.

C. P. Meehan, Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O'Donel, Earl of Tyrconnel.

IRELAND: A. D. 1625. The Graces of Charles I.

On the accession of Charles I., "one more effort was made by the Irish gentry to persuade, or rather to bribe, the Government to allow them to remain undisturbed in the possession of their property. They offered to raise by voluntary assessment the large sum of £120,000 in three annual instalments of £40,000, on condition of obtaining certain Graces from the King. These Graces, the Irish analogue of the Petition of Rights, were of the most moderate and equitable description. The most important were that undisturbed possession of sixty years should secure a landed proprietor from all older claims on the part of the Crown, that the inhabitants of Connaught should be secured from litigation by the enrolment of their patents, and that Popish recusants should be permitted, without taking the Oath of Supremacy, to sue for livery of their estates in the Court of Arches, and to practise in the courts of law. The terms were accepted. The promise of the King was given. The Graces were transmitted by way of instruction to the Lord Deputy and Council, and the Government also engaged, as a further security to all proprietors, that their estates should be formally confirmed to them and to their heirs by the next Parliament which should be held in Ireland. The sequel forms one of the most shameful passages in the history of English government of Ireland. In distinct violation of the King's solemn promise, after the subsidies that were made on the faith of that promise had been duly obtained, without provocation or pretext or excuse, Wentworth, who now presided with stern despotism over the government of Ireland, announced the withdrawal of the two principal articles of the Graces, the limitation of Crown claims by a possession of sixty years and the legalisation of the Connaught titles."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 6 (volume 2).

IRELAND: A. D. 1633-1639. Wentworth's system of "Thorough."

In the summer of 1633, Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. "It was during his tenure of office as viceroy that he attempted to establish absolutism in Ireland, in order that, by the thereby enhanced power of the monarchy, he might be enabled to turn the scale in favour of a despotic government in England. And, never at a loss in the choice of his expedients, he contended for his scheme with an energy and a recklessness characteristic of the man. In the prosecution of his ends, he treated some of the most influential English noblemen resident in Ireland with the utmost indignity, simply with the object of intimidating them, at the outset, from any further opposition. One of them, Lord Mountnorris, was even condemned to death on a charge of sedition and mutiny, merely for having made use of a disrespectful expression with reference to the lord-lieutenant, the representative of the sovereign. … Every longing of the Irish Protestant Church for independence was suppressed by Wentworth. According to his views, supreme authority in Church matters belonged absolutely and unconditionally to the king. He, therefore, abolished, in 1634, the 'Irish Articles,' which granted some concessions to Puritanism, and which had been introduced by Archbishop Usher in the reign of James I., and, at the same time, he united the Irish Established Church indissolubly with that of England. But above all things he considered it to be his duty to increase the army, which had hitherto been in a disorganised condition, and to put it in a state of complete efficiency; in order to do this, however, it was of the first importance to augment the revenue of the Crown, and in pursuance of this object he disdained no means. He extorted large sums of money from the Catholics by reminding them that, in case their contributions were too niggardly, there still existed laws against the Papists which could easily be put into operation again. The City of London Company, which some years before had effected the colonization of Londonderry, was suddenly called to account for not having fulfilled the stipulations contained in its charter, and condemned to pay a fine of £70,000. In the same spirit he conceived the idea of obtaining additions to the royal exchequer by a fresh settlement of Connaught; and, accordingly, he induced the Government, regardless of the engagements made some years previously at the granting of the 'graces,' to re-assert the claims it had formerly advanced to the possession of this province. And now, as in the worst days of James I., there again prevailed the old system of investigation into the validity of the titles by which the landed gentry of Connaught held their estates. Such persons as were practised in disinterring these unregistered titles were looked upon with favour, and as a means of inciting to more vigorous efforts, a premium of 20 per cent. on the receipts realized during the first year by the confiscation of property thus imperfectly registered was guaranteed to the presidents of the commission. With a cynical frankness, Wentworth declared that no money was ever so judiciously expended as this, for now the people entered into the business with as much ardour and assiduity as if it were their own private concern. … The collective titles of the province of Connaught were at the unlimited disposal of the lord-lieutenant; and, although, notwithstanding this result, he, at the last moment, recoiled from the final act, and shrank from ejecting the present owners, and re-settling the province, it was not from any conscientious scruples that he refrained from taking this last decisive step: to the man whose motto was 'Thorough,' such scruples were unknown. … Practical considerations alone … induced Wentworth to pause in the path upon which he had entered. {1766} Just at that time the Crown was engaged in a contest with Puritanism in Scotland, while, in England, the attempts of Charles to make his rule absolute had produced a state of public feeling which was in the highest degree critical. … In view of these considerations, therefore, Strafford postponed the colonization of the western province to a more favourable season. While we turn with just abhorrence from the contemplation of the reckless and despotic acts of this remarkable man, we must not, on the other hand, fail to acknowledge that his administration has features which present a brighter aspect. … In the exercise of a certain toleration, dictated, it is true, only by policy, he declined to meddle directly in the religious affairs of the Catholics. His greatest merit, however, consists in having advanced the material well-being of the country. He took a lively interest in agriculture and cattle-rearing, and by causing the rude and antiquated methods of husbandry which prevailed among the Irish agriculturalists to be superseded by more modern appliances, he contributed very materially to the advancement of this branch of industry. He also largely encouraged navigation, in consequence of which the number of Irish ships increased from year to year; and although it can not be denied that he endeavoured to suppress the trade in woollen cloth, from an apprehension that it might come into dangerous competition with English manufactures, he, nevertheless, sought to compensate the Irish in other ways, and the development of the Irish linen industry in the north was essentially his work. … The Irish revenue annually increased, and the customs returns alone were trebled during the administration of Lord Strafford. He was, accordingly, in a position to place at the disposal of his royal master a standing army of 9,000 men. … It was, therefore, no idle boast, but a statement in strict accordance with the truth, which he made when writing to Archbishop Laud on 16th December, 1634: 'I can now say that the king is here as truly absolute as any sovereign in the world can be.'"

R. Hassencamp, History of Ireland, chapter 3.

"Of all the suggesters of the infamous counsels of Charles, Laud and Wentworth were the most sincere:—Laud, from the intense faith with which he looked forward to the possible supremacy of the ecclesiastical power, and to which he was bent upon going, 'thorough', through every obstacle;—Wentworth, from that strong sense, with which birth and education had perverted his genius, of the superior excellence of despotic rule. … The letters which passed between them partook of a more intimate character, in respect of the avowal of ulterior designs, than either of them, probably, chose to avow elsewhere. … Laud had to regret his position in England, contrasted with that of the Irish deputy. 'My lord,' he writes to Wentworth, speaking of the general affairs of church and state, 'to speak freely, you may easily promise more in either kind than I can perform: for, as for the church, it is so bound up in the forms of the common law, that it is not possible for me, or for any man, to do that good which he would, or is bound to do. … And for the state, indeed, my lord, I am for Thorough; but I see that both thick and thin stays somebody, where I conceive it should not; and it is impossible for me to go thorough alone.' … Every new act of despotism which struck terror into Ireland shot comfort to the heart of Laud. 'As for my marginal note,' exclaims the archbishop, 'I see you deciphered it well, and I see you make use of it too,—do so still; thorow and thorow. Oh that I were where I might go so too I but I am shackled between delays and uncertainties. You have a great deal of honour here for your proceedings. Go on a God's name!' And on Wentworth went, stopping at no gratuitous quarrel that had the slightest chance of pleasing the archbishop, even to the demolishing the family tomb of the earl of Cork,—since his grace, among his select ecclesiastical researches, had discovered that the spot occupied by my lord of Cork's family monuments, was precisely that spot upon which the communion-table, to answer the purposes of heaven, ought to stand!"

R. Browning, Thomas Wentworth (Eminent British Statesmen, volume 2, published under the name of John Forster).

ALSO IN: S. R. Gardiner, The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution, chapter 5, section 4.

S. R. Gardiner, History of England, chapter 76 (volume 8) and chapter 90 (volume 9).

W. A. O'Conor, History of the Irish People, volume 2, book 3, chapter 1.

T. Wright, History of Ireland, book 4, chapters 22-24.

T. Leland, History of Ireland, book 5, chapter 1.

IRELAND: A. D. 1641. The Catholic rising and alleged Massacres of Protestants.

"The government which Strafford had established in Ireland fell with him, the office of viceroy was entrusted to some of the judges, and shorn of the powers which gave it authority over the whole country. The Irish army, which had been formed with so much difficulty, and maintained in spite of so much opposition, was disbanded without any attention being vouchsafed to the King's wish that it should be allowed to enter the Spanish service. … Under the influence of events in England, government based on prerogative, and on its connexion with the English hierarchy, as it had existed in Ireland since Elizabeth's time, fell to the ground. This revolution however might entail important results. The Irish people was Catholic: while the Protestant settlers were split into two hostile factions, and thereby the highest authority in the land, which bore a really Protestant character, was systematically weakened and almost destroyed, the thought of ridding themselves of it altogether was sure to arise in the nation. The steed, never completely broken in, felt itself suddenly free from the tight rein which hitherto it had unwillingly obeyed. … It was the common object of all Catholics, alike of Anglo-Saxon and of Celtic origin, to restore to the Catholic Church the possession of the goods and houses that had been taken from her, and above all to put an end to the colonies established since James I. in which Puritan tendencies prevailed. The Catholics of the old settlements were as eager for this as the natives. The idea originated in a couple of chiefs of old Irish extraction, Roger O'More and Lord Macguire, who had been involved in Tyrone's ruin, but were connected by marriage with several English families. The first man whom O'More won over was Lord Mayo, the most powerful magnate of old English descent in Connaught, of the house of De Burgh. … The best military leader in the confederacy, Colonel Plunkett, was a Catholic of old English origin. … Among the natives the most notable personage was Phelim O'Neil, who, after having been long in England, and learning Protestantism there, on his return to Ireland went back to the old faith and the old customs: he was reckoned the rightful heir of Tyrone, and possessed unbounded popular influence. {1767} The plan for which the Catholics of both Irish and English extraction now united was a very far-reaching one. It involved making the Catholic religion altogether dominant in Ireland: even of the old nobility none but the Catholics were to be tolerated: all the lands that had been seized for the new settlements were to be given back to the previous possessors or their heirs. In each district a distinguished family was to be answerable for order, and to maintain an armed force for the purpose. They would not revolt from the King, but still would leave him no real share in the government. Two lords justices, both Catholic, one of Irish, the other of old English family, were to be at the head of the government. … The preparations were made in profound silence: a man could travel across the country without perceiving any stir or uneasiness. But on the appointed day, October 23, the day of St. Ignatius, the insurrection everywhere broke out." Dublin was saved, by a disclosure of the plot to the government, on the evening of the 22d, by a Protestant Irishman who had gained knowledge of it. "Several other places also held out, as Londonderry and Carrickfergus, and afforded places to which the Protestants might fly. But no one can paint the rage and cruelty which was vented, far and wide over the land, upon the unarmed and defenceless. Many thousands perished: their corpses filled the land and served as food for the kites. … Religious abhorrence entered into a dreadful league with the fury of national hatred. The motives of the Sicilian Vespers and of the night of St. Bartholomew were united. Sir Phelim, who at once was proclaimed Lord and Master in Ulster, with the title of the native princes, as Tyrone had been, and who in his proclamations assumed the tone of a sovereign, was not at all the man to check these cruelties. … With all this letting loose of ancient barbarism there was still some holding back. The Scottish settlements were spared, although they were the most hated of all, for fear of incurring the hostility of the Scottish as well as of the English nation. Immediately there was a rising in the five counties of the old English Pale: the gentry of Louth, under the leadership of the sheriff, took the side of the rebels. The younger men of Meath assembled on the Boyne, and commenced hostilities against the Protestants: so completely had their religious sympathies prevailed over their patriotism."

L. Von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 8, chapter 7 (volume 2).

"Some reference to the notorious story of the massacre of 1641 is required, not because the account of it is true and is a part of history, nor because it is false and needs refutation, but because it is a State fiction, a falsehood with a purpose, and as such deserves mention as much as the levying of troops or the passing of laws. The record of the period is not the history of a massacre, but of the deliberate invention of a massacre. … No word of massacre had been heard of in the first State document that referred to the so-called rebellion. The Catholic lords of the Pale would never have united their names and fortunes with those of murderers. … The royalists again and again urged in their treaties with their opponents that an investigation of the cruelties committed on both sides should be made, and the proposal was always absolutely refused."

W. A. O'Conor, History of the Irish People, book 3, chapter 1, section 5 (volume 2).

"There were few places of strength in Ulster which had not fallen by the end of the first week into the hands of the insurgents. Sir Phelim O'Neill already found himself at the head of some 30,000 men, as yet of course undisciplined, and but few of them efficiently armed; and it is not to be expected that such an irregular multitude, with wild passions let loose, and so many wrongs and insults to be avenged, could have been engaged in scenes of war, even so long, without committing some deeds of blood which the laws of regular warfare would not sanction. … Life was taken in some few instances where the act deserved the name of murder; but the cases of this nature, on the Irish side, at the commencement of the rebellion, were isolated ones; and nothing can be more unjust and false than to describe the outbreak of this war as a 'massacre'."

M. Haverty, History of Ireland, chapter 37.

"This [Sir Wm. Petty's] estimate of 37,000 Protestants supposed to have been murdered makes no allowance for those who escaped to England and Scotland, and never returned to Ireland. It seems to me more likely that about 27,000 Protestants were murdered by the sword, gun, rope, drowning, &c., in the first three or four years of the rebellion. The evidence of the depositions, after deducting all doubtful exaggerations, leaves little doubt that the number so destroyed could hardly have been less than 25,000 at all events. But the truth is that no accurate estimate is possible. After the Portnaw massacre the Protestants, especially the Scotch, took an awful vengeance on their enemies. Henceforward one side vied in cruelty with the other."

M. Hickson, Ireland in the 17th Century, introduction, page 163.

ALSO IN: T. Carte, Life of James, Duke of Ormond, book 3 (chapters 1-2).

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 6 (volume 2).

T. Leland, History of Ireland, book 5, chapters 3-4 (volume 3).

IRELAND: A. D. 1643. The king makes Peace with the rebels.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

IRELAND: A. D. 1645. King Charles' treaty with the Catholics.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE-DECEMBER).

IRELAND: A. D. 1646-1649. The Rebels become Royalists.

"The truce [offered by King Charles to the rebels in 1643] appears to have been well observed by each party, and resulted in a treaty of peace which was signed in July, 1646, by which the Roman Catholics obtained every demand which they put forward. This peace was nevertheless at once broken, and Ormond (who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant in January, 1643) was closely besieged in Dublin by a force, headed by Cardinal Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio, who had assumed the command of the Irish Catholics. Finding himself in so dangerous a position, Ormond, by express direction from the king, offered his submission to the English Parliament, to whom he surrendered Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and such other garrisons as remained in his hands. This transaction was completed on the 25th of July, 1647, when Colonel Jones took command of Dublin for the Parliament, and was made by them Commander-in-Chief in Ireland; his total force however amounted to but 5,000 men. The war now continued with varying success, the commanders for the Parliament being, in addition to Jones, Monk in Ulster and Lord Inchiquin in Munster; {1768} The latter in 1648 joined Ormond, who in September, upon the invitation of the Catholics, returned to Ireland, the Papal Nuncio having been driven from the country by his own party, who were alienated from him by his folly and insolence. At the end of 1648 there were therefore two parties in Ireland; the Parliamentary, which had been the English, holding Dublin and a few garrisons, and the Catholics, who, formerly rebels, were now held as Royalists, and whose new leader Ormond, on the death of Charles I., proclaimed the Prince of Wales, on the 16th of February, 1649, at Carrick, as King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland. The English Parliament now at last resolved to put an end to disorder in Ireland, and with this object, in March, 1649, appointed Cromwell to the supreme command." Before Cromwell arrived in Ireland, however, the Irish Royalists had reduced every garrisoned place except Dublin and Londonderry, defeating Monk, who held Dundalk, but being defeated (August 2) by Jones when they laid siege to the capital. Though fought at the gates of Dublin, this was called the battle of Rathmines, Ormond retreated with a loss of 4,000 killed and 2,500 prisoners.

N. L. Walford, Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: T. Carte, Life of James Duke of Ormond, books 4-5 (volume 3).

D. Murphy, Cromwell in Ireland, chapters 1-3.

IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650. Cromwell's campaign. The slaughter at Drogheda and Wexford.

'When Cromwell arrived in Ireland at the head of 12,000 men, he found almost the whole country under the power of the Royalists (August 15th). A Parliamentary garrison in Dublin itself had only escaped a siege by surprising the enemy on the banks of the Liffey (August 2nd). The general first marched against Drogheda, then called Droghdagh or Tredah, and summoned the garrison to surrender; Sir Arthur Ashton, the governor, refused; he had 3,000 of the choicest troops of the confederates and enough provisions to enable him to hold out till winter should compel the enemy to raise the siege. But within twenty-four hours the English batteries had made a breach in the wall, Oliver, after twice seeing his soldiers beaten off, led them on in person and carried the breach. A terrible massacre followed. 'Being in the heat of action I forbade them,' Cromwell wrote in his despatch to the Parliament, 'to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men.' Of these, one-half probably fell in the streets; the other half Cromwell describes as having been slain at early dawn in St. Peter's Church. This he looks upon as a judgment for their previous proceedings there. 'It is remarkable,' he writes, 'that these people at first set up the mass in some places of the town that had been monasteries; but afterwards grew so insolent that, the last Lord's day before the storm, the Protestants were thrust out of the great church called St. Peter's, and they had public mass there; and in this very place near 1,000 of them were put to the sword, fleeing thither for safety. I believe all the friars were knocked on the head promiscuously but two.' … Royalist accounts assert that many hundreds of women and children were slain in St. Peter's Church: It is, of course, possible that some of the townspeople, fleeing thither for safety, lost their lives in the general massacre of the garrison. There is, however, no trustworthy witness for any lives being taken except those of soldiers and friars. Cromwell did not sanction the killing of any but those with arms in their hands, though he seems to have approved of the fate of the friars. The fanatical zeal of his letter, and the fact that he takes the full credit, or discredit, for the slaughter of the garrison; makes it improbable that he concealed anything; and this substantiated by his subsequent declaration, in which he gives this challenge:—'Give us an instance of one man, since my coming into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished, concerning the massacre or the destruction of whom justice hath not been done, or endeavoured to be done.' With the enemy's troops Cromwell carried out the determined mode of warfare which he began at Drogheda. They were mostly scattered over the country, occupied in garrison duty. Before whatever town he came he demanded immediate surrender, or threatened to refuse quarter. Town after town opened its gates to this grim summons. Wexford, which refused to surrender, was stormed, and the whole garrison, 2,000 in number, put to the sword (October 11th). … In other respects, while Cromwell's rigour and determination saved bloodshed in the end by the rapidity and completeness of his conquests, his conduct in Ireland contrasted favourably on many points with that of the Royalists there. His own soldiers, for ill-using the people contrary to regulations, were sometimes cashiered the army, sometimes hanged. When a treaty was made, he kept faithfully to its terms. Garrisons that yielded on summons were allowed either to march away with arms and baggage, or else to go abroad and enter the service of any government at peace with England. Before the war was over he had rid the country, on these terms, of some 45,000 soldiers. Taking advantage of the divisions of his enemies, he persuaded several garrisons of English soldiers to desert the cause of Charles Stuart for the Commonwealth. His conduct of the war was so successful that, during the nine months of his stay in Ireland, the forces of the Royalists were shattered, and the provinces of Leinster and Munster recovered for the Parliament. Cromwell returned to England in May, 1650, leaving his son-in-law Ireton to complete the conquest of the country. The last garrisons in Ulster and Munster surrendered during the course of the ensuing summer and autumn. Ireton crossed the Shannon and drove the Irish back into the bogs and mountain fastnesses of Connaught, their last refuge, where fighting still continued for two years after all the rest of the country had been reduced (1651-2)."

B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts, King and Commonwealth, chapter 12.

"No admiration for Cromwell, for his genius, courage, and earnestness—no sympathy with the cause that he upheld in England—can blind us to the truth, that the lurid light of this great crime [the massacre at Drogheda] burns still after centuries across the history of England and of Ireland; that it is one of those damning charges which the Puritan theology has yet to answer at the bar of humanity."

F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 8.

{1769}

"Oliver's proceedings here [at Drogheda] have been the theme of much loud criticism, and sibylline execration; into which it is not our plan to enter at present. … To those who think that a land overrun with Sanguinary Quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very horrible. Terrible Surgery this: but is it Surgery and Judgment, or atrocious Murder merely? That is a question which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in God's Judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of Surgery;—which, in fact, is this Editor's case too. … Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds: what this man speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first King's face poor Ireland ever saw; the first Friend's face, little as it recognises him,—poor Ireland! … To our Irish friends we ought to say likewise that this Garrison of Tredah consisted, in good part, of Englishmen. Perfectly certain this:—and therefore let 'the bloody hoof of the Saxon,' &c., forbear to continue itself on that matter."

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 5.

"Cromwell met with little resistance: wherever he came, he held out the promise of life and liberty of conscience; … liberty of conscience he explained to mean liberty of internal belief, not of external worship; … but the rejection of the offer, though it were afterwards accepted, was punished with the blood of the officers; and, if the place were taken by force, with indiscriminate slaughter."

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 10, chapter 5, with foot-note.

ALSO IN: D. Murphy, Cromwell in Ireland.

IRELAND: A. D. 1651. The Massachusetts colonists invited to Ireland by Cromwell.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1649-1651.

IRELAND: A. D. 1652. The Kilkenny Articles.

"On 12th May, 1652, the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered on terms signed at Kilkenny, which were adopted successively by the other principal armies between that time and the September following, when the Ulster forces surrendered. By these Kilkenny articles, all except those who were guilty of the first blood were received into protection, on laying down their arms; those who should not be satisfied with the conclusions the Parliament might come to concerning the Irish nation, and should desire to transport themselves with their men to serve any foreign state in amity with the Parliament, should have liberty to treat with their agents for that purpose."

J. P. Prendergast, The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, part 1, section 2.

IRELAND: A. D. 1653. The Cromwellian Settlement.

"By the term Cromwellian Settlement is to be understood the history of the dealings of the Commonwealth of England with the lands and habitations of the people of Ireland after their conquest of the country in the year 1652. … The officers of the army were eager to take Irish lands in lieu of their arrears, though it does not appear that the common soldiers were, who had small debentures and no capital, and no chance of founding families and leaving estates to their posterity. But the adventurers [national creditors, who had loaned money to the government for the Irish War] must be first settled with, as they had a claim to about one million of acres, to satisfy the sums advanced for putting down the rebellion on the faith of the Act of 17 Charles I. (A. D. 1642), and subsequent Acts and Ordinances, commonly called 'The Acts of Subscription.' By these, lands for the adventurers must be first ascertained, before the rest of the country could be free for disposal by the Parliament to the army. … Towards the close of the year 1653, the island seemed sufficiently desolated to allow the English to occupy it. On the 26th of September in that year, the Parliament passed an Act for the new planting of Ireland with English. The government reserved for themselves all the towns, all the church lands and tithes; for they abolished all archbishops, bishops, deans, and other officers, belonging to that hierarchy, and in those days the Church of Christ sat in Chichester House on College-green. They reserved also for themselves the four counties of Dublin, Kildare, Carlow, and Cork. Out of the lands and tithes thus reserved, the government were to satisfy public debts, private favourites, eminent friends of the republican cause in Parliament, regicides, and the most active of the English rebels, not being of the army. They next made ample provision for the adventurers. The amount due to the adventurers was £360,000. This they divided into three lots, of which £110,000 was to be satisfied in Munster, £205,000 in Leinster, and £45,000 in Ulster, and the moiety of ten counties was charged with their payment:—Waterford, Limerick, and Tipperary, in Munster; Meath, Westmeath, King's and Queen's Counties, in Leinster; and Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in Ulster. But, as all was required by the Adventurers Act to be done by lot, a lottery was appointed to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for the 20th July, 1653. … A lot was then to be drawn by the adventurers, and by some officer appointed by the Lord General Cromwell on behalf of the soldiery, to ascertain which baronies in the ten counties should be for the adventurers, and which for the soldiers. The rest of Ireland, except Connaught, was to be set out amongst the officers and soldiers, for their arrears, amounting to £1,550,000, and to satisfy debts of money or provisions due for supplies advanced to the army of the Commonwealth, amounting to £1,750,000. Connaught was by the Parliament reserved and appointed for the habitation of the Irish nation; and all English and Protestants having lands there, who should desire to remove out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited by the English, were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal value, in exchange. … The Earl of Ormond, Primate Bramhall, and all the Catholic nobility, and many of the gentry, were declared incapable of pardon of life or estate, and were banished. … Connaught was selected for the habitation of all the Irish nation by reason of its being surrounded by the sea and the Shannon, all but ten miles, and the whole easily made into one line by a few forts. To further secure the imprisonment of the nation, and cut them off from relief by sea, a belt four miles wide, commencing one mile to the west of Sligo, and so winging along the coast and Shannon, was reserved by the Act of 27th September, 1653, from being set out to the Irish, and was given to the soldiery to plant. Thither all the Irish were to remove at latest by the first day of May, 1654, except Irish women married to English Protestants before the 2d December, 1650, provided they became Protestants; except, also, boys under fourteen and girls under twelve, in Protestant service and to be brought up Protestants; and, lastly, those who had shown during the ten years' war in Ireland their constant good affection to the Parliament of England in preference to the king. {1770} There they were to dwell without entering a walled town, or coming within five miles of some, on pain of death. All were to remove thither by the 1st of May, 1654, at latest, under pain of being put to death by sentence of a court of military officers, if found after that date on the English side of the Shannon." In the actual enforcement of the law—found impracticable in all its rigor—there were many special dispensations granted, and extensions of time.

J. P. Prendergast, The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland, preface, and parts 1-2.

ALSO IN: J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland in the 18th Century, book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 10, chapter 6.

IRELAND: A. D. 1655. Cromwell's deportation of Girls to Jamaica.

See JAMAICA: A. D. 1655.

IRELAND: A. D. 1660-1665. The restored Stuarts and their Act of Settlement.

"On the fall of Richard Cromwell, a council of officers was established in Dublin; these summoned a convention of deputies from the protestant proprietors; and the convention tendered to Charles the obedience of his ancient kingdom of Ireland. … To secure the royal protection, they made the king an offer of a considerable sum of money, assured him, though falsely, that the Irish Catholics meditated a general insurrection, and prayed him to summon a protestant parliament in Ireland, which might confirm the existing proprietors in the undisturbed possession of their estates. The present was graciously accepted, and the penal laws against the Irish Catholics were ordered to be strictly enforced; but Charles was unwilling to call a parliament, because it would necessarily consist of men whose principles, both civil and religious, he had been taught to distrust. The first measure recommended to him by his English advisers, with respect to Ireland, was the re-establishment of episcopacy. For this no legislative enactment was requisite. His return had given to the ancient laws their pristine authority. … In a short time the episcopal hierarchy was quietly restored to the enjoyment of its former rights, and the exercise of its former jurisdiction. To this, a work of easy accomplishment, succeeded a much more difficult attempt,—the settlement of landed property in Ireland. The military, whom it was dangerous to disoblige, and the adventurers, whose pretensions had been sanctioned by Charles I., demanded the royal confirmation of the titles by which they held their estates; and the demand was opposed by a multitude of petitioners claiming restitution or compensation [protestant royalists, loyal Catholics, &c.]. … Humanity, gratitude, and justice, called on the king to listen to many of these claims. … From an estimate delivered to the king, it appeared that there still remained at his disposal forfeited lands of the yearly rental of from eighty to one hundred thousand pounds; a fund sufficiently ample, it was contended, to 'reprize' or compensate all the Irish really deserving of the royal favour. Under this impression, Charles published his celebrated declaration for the settlement of Ireland. It provided that no person deriving his title from the adventurers under the parliament, or the soldiers under the commonwealth, should be disturbed in the possession of his lands, without receiving an equivalent from the fund for reprisals; that all innocents, whether protestants or Catholics, that is, persons who had never adhered either to the parliament or the confederates, should be restored to their rightful estates." After much contention between deputations from both sides sent to the king, an act was passed through the Irish parliament substantially according to the royal declaration. "But to execute this act was found to be a task of considerable difficulty. By improvident grants of lands to the church, the dukes of York, Ormond, and Albemarle, the earls of Orrery, Montrath, Kingston, Massarene, and several others, the fund for reprisals had been almost exhausted." New controversies and agitations arose, which finally induced the soldiers, adventurers, and grantees of the crown to surrender one third of their acquisitions, for the augmenting of the fund for reprisals. "The king, by this measure, was placed in a situation [August, 1665], not indeed to do justice, but to silence the most importunate or most deserving among the petitioners. … But when compensation had thus been made to a few of the sufferers, what, it may be asked, became of the officers who had followed the royal fortune abroad, or of the 3,000 Catholics who had entered their claims of innocence? To all these, the promises which had been made by the act of settlement were broken; the unfortunate claimants were deprived of their rights, and debarred from all hope of future relief. A measure of such sweeping and appalling oppression is perhaps without a parallel in the history of civilized nations. Its injustice could not be denied; and the only apology offered in its behalf was the stern necessity of quieting the fears and jealousies of the Cromwellian settlers, and of establishing on a permanent basis the protestant ascendancy in Ireland. … The following is the general result. The protestants were previously [i. e., before the Cromwellian Settlement] in possession of about one moiety of all the profitable lands in the island; of the second moiety, which had been forfeited under the commonwealth, something less than two-thirds was by the act confirmed to the protestants; and of the remainder a portion almost equal in quantity, but not in quality, to one-third, was appropriated to the Catholics."

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 11, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland, book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).

T. Carte, Life of James Duke of Ormond, book 6 (volume 4).

IRELAND: A. D. 1685-1688. The reign of James II. Domination of Tyrconnel and the Catholics.

"At the accession of James II., in 1685, he found the native Irish, all of whom were Roman Catholics, opposed to the English rule, as to that of a conquering minority. … Of the settlers, the Scotch Presbyterians shared the feelings of their brethren in their native country, and hated Episcopalians with the true religious fury. In the Irish Parliament the Presbyterians and Episcopalians were nearly balanced, whilst the Protestant Nonconformists, in numbers almost equalling the other two parties, had but few seats in the Parliament. The Episcopalians alone were hearty supporters of the house of Stuart; the Presbyterians and Nonconformists were Whigs. James was in a most favourable position for tranquilising Ireland, for, as a Roman Catholic, he was much more acceptable to the native Irish than his predecessors had been. {1771} Had he followed his true interests, he would have endeavoured, firstly, to unite together, as firmly as possible, the English settlers in Ireland, and secondly, by wise acts of mediation, to bridge over the differences between the English and Irish. Thus he might have welded them into one people. James, however, followed a directly opposite policy, and the results of this misgovernment of Ireland are visible at the present day. The Duke of Ormond was at the time of the death of Charles II. both lord lieutenant and commander of the forces. … Soon after his accession James recalled him, and the office of lord lieutenant was bestowed on his own brother-in-law, Lord Clarendon, whilst the post of general of the troops was given to Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel. Talbot … was a coarse, vulgar, truculent ruffian, greedy and unprincipled; but in the eyes of James he had great virtues, for he was devoted to the Romish Church and to his sovereign. 'Lying Dick Talbot,' as he was called, was raised by James to the peerage as Earl of Tyrconnel. Lord Clarendon was, from the time of his appointment, hampered by his associate," who, finally, in 1687, supplanted him, gathering the reins of government into his own hands, "not indeed as lord lieutenant, but with the power which Ormond had formerly held, although under a new title, that of lord deputy. The rule of Tyrconnel entirely subverted the old order of things. Protestants were disarmed and Protestant soldiers were disbanded. The militia was composed wholly of Roman Catholics. The dispensing power in the royal prerogative set aside the statutes of the kingdom, and the bench and privy council were occupied by Roman Catholics. Vacant bishoprics of the Established Church remained unfilled, and their revenues were devoted to Romish priests. Tithes were with impunity withheld from the clergy of the Establishment. … The hatred of the Irish Roman Catholics towards the Protestant settlers was excited to the utmost under Tyrconnel's rule. The former now hoped to mete out to the latter a full measure of retaliation. The breach was widened owing to the fear and distrust openly showed by the Protestants, and has never since been effectually repaired." Before the occurrence of the Revolution which drove James from his throne, in 1688, "Tyrconnel had disarmed all the Protestants, except those in the North. He had a large force of 20,000 men under arms, and of this force all the officers were trustworthy and Papists. He had filled the corporations of the towns with adherents of James. He had shown himself to be, as ever, tyrannical and unscrupulous. It was universally believed by the Protestants that a general massacre, a second St. Bartholomew, was intended. Even a day, December 9, was, they thought, fixed for the expected outbreak. The garrison of Londonderry had been temporarily withdrawn. On December 8, Lord Antrim arrived in command of 12,000 [1,200?] soldiers to form the new garrison. Without any warning, the Protestant apprentices ('the prentice boys of Derry') shut the gates of the city in his face. The inhabitants, in spite of the entreaties of the bishop and of the town council, refused to allow them to be opened. Antrim was compelled to withdraw. Thus one rallying-point was gained for the opponents of James. Another was found in Enniskillen, sixty miles south of Londonderry. Into these two towns poured all the Protestants from the surrounding districts. With these two exceptions, the boast of Tyrconnel that Ireland was true, was well founded."

E. Hale, The Fall of the Stuarts, chapters 10 and 13.

"He [James II.] deliberately resolved, not merely to give to the aboriginal inhabitants of Ireland the entire dominion of their own country, but also to use them as his instruments for setting up arbitrary government in England. The event was such as might have been foreseen. The colonists turned to bay with the stubborn hardihood of their race. The mother country justly regarded their cause as her own. Then came a desperate struggle for a tremendous stake. … The contest was terrible but short. The weaker went down. His fate was cruel; and yet for the cruelty with which he was treated there was, not indeed a defence, but an excuse: for though he suffered all that tyranny could inflict, he suffered nothing that he would not himself have inflicted. The effect of the insane attempt to subjugate England by means of Ireland was that the Irish became hewers of wood and drawers of water to the English. … The momentary ascendency of Popery produced such a series of barbarous laws against Popery as made the statute book of Ireland a proverb of infamy throughout Christendom. Such were the bitter fruits of the policy of James."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 6 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. R. O'Flanagan, Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, chapter 28 (volume 1).

IRELAND: A. D. 1688-1689. Enniskillen and the Battle of Newton Butler.

Enniskillen, then a village, surrounding an ancient castle, was, in 1688-89, one of the two rallying points of the Protestant colonists in Ireland, who supported the Revolution by which James II. was dethroned and William and Mary were crowned. The chief stronghold of their cause was Londonderry; but Enniskillen bore a scarcely less important part. "In December, 1688, Tyrconnel's troops, being two companies of Popish infantry, advanced upon Enniskillen. The inhabitants, reinforced by 200 foot and 150 horse, contributed by the neighbouring gentry, marched out to oppose them. Tyrconnel's men fled to Cavan. The Enniskilleners, then, arming themselves as well as they could, and converting all the country-houses round Lough Erne into garrisons, appointed Gustavus Hamilton their governor and resolved upon defence. … Early in May, 1689, the Enniskilleners routed Tyrconnel's troops, sent from Connaught into Donegal. They next drove 1,500 men out of the County Cavan—destroyed the Castle of Ballincarrig—and then entered the County Meath, whence they carried off oxen and sheep. Colonel Hugh Sutherland was sent with a regiment of dragoons and two regiments of foot against the Enniskilleners, who, however, defeated them, and took Belturbet, where they found muskets, gunpowder, and provisions; but unfortunately they were unable to relieve Derry, then beleaguered and sorely distressed. The Enniskilleners held out against all attacks, and refused all terms of surrender. They were now assailed from various points; by Macarthy (then by James created Viscount Mountcashel) from the east, by another body from the west, and by the Duke of Berwick from the north. {1772} The Enniskilleners sent to Colonel Kirke [commanding the English forces first sent to Ireland by William of Orange] who had arrived in Lough Foyle, and received from him some arms and ammunition; and Colonel Wolseley and Lieutenant-Colonel Berry came from him to their assistance. Colonel Wolseley took the command." Under Wolseley, the men of Enniskillen, 3,000 strong, encountered 5,000 of the enemy, under Mountcashel, near the town of Newton Butler, on the 31st of July, three days after Derry had been relieved. Their victory was complete. "The whole Irish force was totally and hopelessly routed. Their slaughter was dreadful—l,500 killed, and 500 drowned in Lough Erne, whither they were driven. Mountcashel was wounded and taken prisoner. The Enniskilleners lost only twenty killed and fifty wounded. They took 400 prisoners, some cannons, fourteen barrels of gunpowder, and all the colours and drums. … The victory became known at Strabane to the Irish army retreating from Derry, which thereupon broke up in confusion and fled to Omagh, and thence to Charlemont."

W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapter 21.

ALSO IN: Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 12 (volume 3).

IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691. The War of the Revolution. The Orange conquest.

Supported by a French fleet, supplied moderately with French gold, and accompanied by a picked body of French officers, for the organizing and disciplining of raw Irish troops, James II. landed in Ireland, at Kinsale, on the 12th of March, 1689, to take personal possession of the government still maintained there in his name. From Kinsale he hastened to Dublin, "and summoned a Parliament, which met on May 7, 1689, and sat until July 18. This Parliament of James has been described as a Parliament of Irish Celts, yet out of the 228 members of the House of Commons about one-fourth only belonged to the native race, and even including members of families Anglicized or of doubtful origin, not one-third of the House of Commons belonged to the so-called Celts. Of the thirty-two lay peers who attended, not more than two or three bore old Irish names. The four spiritual peers were Protestant bishops."

W. K. Sullivan, part 1, of Two Centuries of Irish History chapter 1.

"The members of the House of Commons were almost all new men, completely inexperienced in public business and animated by the resentment of the bitterest wrongs. Many of them were sons of some of the 3,000 proprietors who without trial and without compensation had been deprived by the Act of Settlement of the estates of their ancestors. To all of them the confiscations of Ulster, the fraud of Strafford, the long train of calamities that followed were recent and vivid events. … It will hardly appear surprising to candid men that a Parliament so constituted and called together amid the excitement of a civil war, should have displayed much violence, much disregard for vested interests. Its measures, indeed, were not all criminal. By one Act which was far in advance of the age, it established perfect religious liberty in Ireland. … By another Act, repealing Poynings' law, and asserting its own legislative independence, it anticipated the doctrine of Molyneux, Swift, and Grattan. … A third measure abolished the payments to Protestant clergy in the corporate towns, while a fourth ordered that the Catholics throughout Ireland should henceforth pay their tithes and other ecclesiastical dues to their own priests and not to the Protestant clergy. The Protestants were still to pay their tithes to their own clergy. … Several other measures—most of them now only known by their titles—were passed for developing the resources of the country or remedying some great abuse. … If these had been the only measures of the Irish Parliament it would have left an eminently honourable reputation. But, unfortunately, one of its main objects was to re-establish at all costs the descendants of the old proprietors in their land, and to annul by measures of sweeping violence the grievous wrongs and spoliations their fathers and their grandfathers had undergone. The first and most important measure with this object was the repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation. … The preamble asserts that the outbreak of 1641 had been solely due to the intolerable oppression and to the disloyal conduct of the Lords Justices and Puritan party, that the Catholics of Ireland before the struggle had concluded had been fully reconciled to the sovereign, that they had received from the sovereign a full and formal pardon, and that the royal word had been in consequence pledged to the restitution of their properties. This pledge by the Act of Settlement had been to a great extent broken, and the Irish legislators maintained that the twenty-four years which had elapsed since that Act had not annulled the rights of the old proprietors or their descendants. They maintained that these claims were not only valid but were prior to all others, and they accordingly enacted that the heirs of all persons who had possessed landed property in Ireland on October 22, 1641, and who had been deprived of their inheritance by the Act of Settlement, should enter at once into possession of their old properties. … The long succession of confiscations of Irish land which had taken place from the days of Mary to the Act of Settlement had been mainly based upon real or pretended plots of the owners of the soil, which enabled the Government, on the plea of high treason, to appropriate the land which they desired. In 1689 the great bulk of the English proprietors of Irish soil were in actual correspondence with William, and were therefore legally guilty of high treason. The Irish legislators now proceeded to follow the example of the British Governments, and by a clause of extreme severity they pronounced the real estates of all Irish proprietors who dwelt in any part of the three kingdoms which did not acknowledge King James, or who aided, abetted or corresponded with the rebels, to be forfeited and vested in the Crown, and from this source they proposed to compensate the purchasers under the Act of Settlement. … The measure of repeal, however, was speedily followed by another Act of much more sweeping and violent injustice. The Act of Attainder, which was introduced in the latter part of June, aimed at nothing less than a complete overthrow of the existing land system in Ireland. A list divided into several groups, but containing in all more than 2,000 names, was drawn up of landowners who were to be attainted of high treason. … {1773} Few persons will question the tyranny of an Act which in this manner made a very large proportion of the Irish landlords liable to the penalties of high treason, unless they could prove their innocence, even though the only crime that could be alleged against them was that of living out of Ireland in a time of civil war. … It is … a curious illustration of the carelessness or partiality with which Irish history is written, that no popular historian has noticed that five days before this Act, which has been described as 'without a parallel in the history of civilised countries,' was introduced into the Irish Parliament, a Bill which appears, in its essential characteristics, to have been precisely similar was introduced into the Parliament of England; that it passed the English House of Commons; that it passed, with slight amendments, the English House of Lords; and that it was only lost, in its last stage, by a prorogation. … These facts will show how far the Irish Act of Attainder was from having the unique character that has been ascribed to it. It is not possible to say how that Act would have been executed, for the days of Jacobite ascendency were now few and evil. The Parliament was prorogued on the 20th of July, one of its last Acts being to vest in the King the property of those who were still absentees."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 6 (volume 2).

While James' Irish Parliament sat, "sufficient men had presented themselves to form fifty regiments of infantry and a proportionate number of cavalry. But … these levies were undisciplined, and their officers, with few exceptions, were without military training and experience. There were no arsenals, and in the government stores only about 1,000 serviceable firearms were found; there was no artillery and no supply of ammunition. … What coin was in circulation was small in quantity and debased in quality. James's Government issued a brass coinage, which had no currency outside the kingdom, and even within it practically circulated only among the partisans of James, and could not consequently help in purchasing arms, ammunition, and military stores, which had to be imported from without. Under such unfavourable circumstances the war began. The first campaign comprised the siege, or rather blockade, of Derry—for the Irish, having no artillery, could not undertake a regular siege—which was gallantly defended by the Scoto-English colonists; the check of Mountcashel by the Enniskilleners, who had followed the example of Derry; the landing of Schomberg with an army of Dutch, French Protestants, and English, who went into winter quarters near Dundalk, where he lost nearly half his troops from sickness; and, lastly, the military parade of James, who marched out from Dublin, and, failing to force Schomberg to fight, went into winter quarters himself. The result of the campaign was the successful defence of Derry, and the signal exhibition of James's incapacity as a general. At the opening of the second campaign, an exchange of troops was made between James and Louis XIV., with the view of giving prestige to the cause of the former. Six thousand French troops, under a drawing-room general, the well-known Comte de Lauzun, arrived in Ireland, and the same ships carried back an equal number of Irish troops—the brigade of Mountcashel, the best-trained and best-equipped body of troops in the Irish army. … The wasted army of Schomberg was strengthened by the arrival of William himself on June 14, 1690, with a considerable force. The united armies, composed of the most heterogeneous materials, one-half being foreigners of various nationalities, amounted to between 36,000 and 48,000 men. … To meet William, James set out from Dublin with an army of about 23,000 men. The French troops and the Irish cavalry were good, but the infantry was not well trained, and the artillery consisted only of twelve field-pieces. The battle took place on July 1, 1690, at the passage of the River Boyne, a few miles above Drogheda the rout of James's army being complete and its loss about 1,500 men. William lost but 500; but the number included Schomberg, one of the great soldiers of his age. James was among the first in the flight, and he scarcely paused until he had put himself on board of a French frigate and quitted Ireland forever]. The Irish fell back on Dublin and thence retired behind the line of the Shannon. About 20,000 half-armed infantry and about 3,500 horse concentrated at Limerick. The English having failed in taking Athlone, the key of the upper Shannon, William gathered together about 38,000 men in the neighbourhood of Limerick. Lauzun having declared that Limerick could not be defended, and might be taken with roasted apples, withdrew with the whole of the French troops to Galway, to await the first opportunity of returning to France. On August 9, 1690, William moved his whole army close to the town and summoned the garrison to surrender; but having failed, with a loss of 2,000 men, to carry the town by assault, he raised the siege and went to England. The third and last campaign began late in 1691. The Irish received many promises of assistance from Louis XIV., but his ministers fulfilled few or none of them. With scarcely any loss of men, and with a small expenditure of stores and money, the Irish war enabled Louis to keep William and a veteran army of 40,000 men out of his way. … The campaign opened in the beginning of June with the advance of Ginkel [William's general] on Athlone. The chief defence of the place was the River Shannon, the works being weak, and mounting only a few field-pieces; yet so obstinately was the place defended that, but for the discovery of a ford, and some neglect on the part of D'Usson, who commanded, it is probable that the siege would have been raised. As it was, Ginkel became master of the heap of ruins. … St. Ruth [the French officer commanding the Irish] moved his camp to Aughrim [or Aghrim], and there was fought the final battle of the war on Sunday, July 12, 1691. … St. Ruth was killed at a critical moment, and his army defeated, with a loss of about 4,000 men, the English loss being about half that number. Part of the defeated Irish infantry retreated to Galway; but the bulk of the troops, including the whole of the cavalry, fell back on Limerick, which surrendered, after a gallant resistance, in October, 1691."

W. K. Sullivan, part 1 of Two Centuries of Irish History, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapters 12, 16 and 17.

W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapters 5 and 21-23.

J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland, chapter 3 (volume 1).

W. A. O'Conor, History of the Irish People, book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2).

Sir J. Dalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, part 2, books 2-5 (volume 2).

{1774}

IRELAND: A. D. 1691. The Treaty of Limerick and its violation.

The surrender of Limerick was under the terms of a treaty—or of two treaties, one military, the other civil—formally negotiated for the terminating of the war. This Treaty of Limerick was signed, October 3, 1691, by Baron De Ginkel, William's general, and by the lords justices of Ireland, on behalf of the English, and by Sarsfield and other chieftains on behalf of the Irish. "Its chief provisions were: 'The Roman Catholics of this kingdom shall enjoy such privileges in the exercise of their religion as are consistent with the laws of Ireland; or as they did enjoy in the reign of King Charles II.; and their Majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit them to summon a Parliament in this kingdom, will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such further security in that particular as may preserve them from any disturbance upon the account of their said religion. All the inhabitants or residents of Limerick, or any other garrison now in the possession of the Irish, and all officers and soldiers now in arms under any commission of King James, or those authorized by him to grant the same in the several counties of Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, and Mayo, or any of them, and all the commissioned officers in their Majesties' quarters that belong to the Irish regiments now in being that are treated with and who are not prisoners of war, or having taken protection, and who shall return and submit to their Majesties' obedience, and their and every of their heirs shall hold, possess, and enjoy all and every their estates of freehold and inheritance; and all the rights, titles, and interest, privileges and immunities, which they, or every or any of them, held, enjoyed, and were rightfully and lawfully entitled to in the reign of King Charles II.' … A general pardon was to be granted to all persons comprised within the treaty, and the Lords Justices and the generals commanding King William's army were to use their best endeavours to get the attainders of any of them attainted repealed. … In the copy of the rough draft engrossed for signature the following words, 'and all such as are under their protection in the said counties,' which immediately followed the enumeration of the several counties in the second article, were omitted. This omission, whether the result of design or accident, was, however, rectified by King William when confirming the treaty in February, 1692. The confirming instrument stated that the words had been casually omitted; that the omission was not discovered till the articles were signed, but was taken notice of before the town was surrendered; and that the Lords Justices or General Ginkel, or one of them, had promised that the clause should be made good, since it was within the intention of the capitulation, and had been inserted in the rough draft. William then for himself did 'ratify and confirm the said omitted words.' The colonists, or at all events the 'new interests'—that is, those who shared or expected to share in the confiscations—were indignant at the concessions made to the native race."

W. K. Sullivan, part 1 of Two Centuries of Irish History, chapter 1.

"The advantages secured to Catholics by the Treaty of Limerick were moderate. But when the flower of the Irish army had withdrawn to France, and the remnant could be hanged without ceremony, they began to look inordinate. The parliament of Cromwellian settlers and Government officials in Dublin having excluded Catholic members, by requiring from them an oath of abjuration, in direct infringement of one of the articles of surrender, were free to proceed at their discretion. They first passed a stringent statute depriving Catholics of arms, and another ordering all 'Popish archbishops, bishops, vicars-general, deans, Jesuits, monks, friars, and regulars of whatever condition to depart from the kingdom on pain of transportation,' and then proceeded to consider the treaty. They … resolved by a decisive majority not to keep the conditions affecting the Catholics. William … struggled for a time to preserve his honour; but it is not convenient for a new king to be in conflict with his friends, and after a time he gave way. … In Ireland the Treaty of Limerick can never be forgotten; it is one of the title deeds of the Irish race to their inheritance in their native land. For more than a century its sordid and shameless violation was as common a reproach to England on the Continent as the partition of Poland has been a reproach to Russia in our own day."

Sir C. G. Duffy, Bird's-Eye View of Irish History, revised edition, pages 155-156 (or book 1, chapter 4, of "Young Ireland").

"The Protestant rancour of parliament was more powerful than the good will of the prince. The most vital articles of the capitulation were ignored, especially in all cases where the Catholic religion and the liberties granted to its professors were concerned; and 4,000 Irish were denounced as traitors and rebels,—by which declamation a fresh confiscation of 1,060,000 acres was immediately effected. … It has been calculated that in 1692 the Irish Catholics, who quadrupled the Protestants in number, owned only one-eleventh of the soil, and that the most wretched and unproductive portion."

A. Perraud, Ireland under English Rule, introduction, section 8.

IRELAND: A. D. 1691-1782. The peace of despair. A century of national death. Oppression of the Penal Laws.

"By the military treaty [of Limerick], those of Sarsfield's soldiers who would were suffered to follow him to France; and 10,000 men, the whole of his force, chose exile rather than life in a land where all hope of national freedom was lost. When the wild cry of the women who stood watching their departure was hushed, the silence of death settled down upon Ireland. For a hundred years the country remained at peace, but the peace was a peace of despair. The most terrible legal tyranny under which a nation has ever groaned avenged the rising under Tyrconnell. The conquered people, in Swift's bitter words of contempt, became 'hewers of wood and drawers of water' to their conquerors; but till the very eve of the French Revolution Ireland ceased to be a source of terror and anxiety to England."

J. H. Green, Short History of England, chapter 9, section 8.

"In Ireland there was peace. The domination of the colonists was absolute. The native population was tranquil with the ghastly tranquillity of exhaustion and of despair. There were indeed outrages, robberies, fireraisings, assassinations. But more than a century passed away without one general insurrection. During that century, two rebellions were raised in Great Britain by the adherents of the House of Stuart. But neither when the elder Pretender was crowned at Scone, nor when the younger held his court at Holyrood, was the standard of that House set up in Connaught or Munster. {1775} In 1745, indeed, when the Highlanders were marching towards London, the Roman Catholics of Ireland were so quiet that the Lord Lieutenant could, without the smallest risk, send several regiments across Saint George's Channel to reinforce the army of the Duke of Cumberland. Nor was this submission the effect of content, but of mere stupefaction and brokenness of heart. The iron had entered into the soul. The memory of past defeats, the habit of daily enduring insult and oppression, had cowed the spirits of the unhappy nation. There were indeed Irish Roman Catholics of great ability, energy and ambition; but they were to be found everywhere except in Ireland,—at Versailles and at Saint lldefonso, in the armies of Frederic and in the armies of Maria Theresa. One exile became a Marshal of France. Another became Prime Minister of Spain. If he had staid in his native land he would have been regarded as an inferior by all the ignorant and worthless squireens who had signed the Declaration against Transubstantiation. … Scattered over all Europe were to be found brave Irish generals, dexterous Irish diplomatists, Irish Counts, Irish Barons, Irish Knights … who, if they had remained in the house of bondage, could not have been ensigns of marching regiments or freemen of petty corporations. These men, the natural chiefs of their race, having been withdrawn, what remained was utterly helpless and passive. A rising of the Irishry against the Englishry was no more to be apprehended than a rising of the women and children against the men."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 17.

"An act of 1695 'deprived the Roman Catholics of the means of educating their children, either at home or abroad, and of the privilege of being guardians either of their own or of any other person's children.' Another Act of the same year deprived the Roman Catholics of the right of bearing arms, or of keeping any horse which was worth more than £5. An Act of 1697 ordered the expulsion of every Roman Catholic priest from Ireland. The Parliament, which had imposed these disabilities on Irish Roman Catholics, proceeded to confirm the Articles of Limerick, or 'so much of them as may consist with the safety and welfare of your Majesty's subjects of this kingdom,' and by a gross act of injustice omitted the whole of the first of these articles, and the important paragraph in the second article which had been accidentally omitted from the original copy of the Treaty, and subsequently restored to it by letters patent under the Great Seal. Reasonable men may differ on the propriety or impropriety of the conditions on which the surrender of Limerick was secured; but it is difficult to read the story of their repudiation without a deep sense of shame. Three other acts relating to the Roman Catholics were passed during the reign of William. An Act of 1697 forbade the intermarriage of Protestants and Papists. An Act of 1698 prevented Papists from being solicitors. Another Act of the same year stopped their employment as gamekeepers. William died; and the breach of faith which he had countenanced was forgotten amidst the pressure of the legislation which disgraced the reign of his successor. Two Acts passed in this reign, for preventing the further growth of Popery, were styled by Burke the 'ferocious Acts of Anne.' By the first of these Acts a Papist having a Protestant son was debarred from selling, mortgaging, or devising any portion of his estate: however young the son might be, he was to be taken from his father's hands and confided to the care of a Protestant relation. The estate of a Papist who had no Protestant heir was to be divided equally among his sons. The Papist was declared incapable of purchasing real estate or of taking land on lease for more than thirty-one years. A Papist was declared incapable of inheriting real estate from a Protestant. He was disqualified from holding any office, civil or military. With twenty exceptions, a Papist was forbidden to reside in Limerick or Galway. Advowsons the property of Papists were vested in the Crown. Religious intolerance had now apparently done its uttermost. … But the laws failed. Their severity insured their failure. … The first of the ferocious Acts of Anne was almost openly disregarded. … Its failure only induced the intolerant advisers of Anne to supplement it with harsher legislation. The Act of 1704 had deprived the Papist of the guardianship of his apostate child. An Act of 1709 empowered the Court of Chancery to oblige the Papist to discover his estate, and authorized the Court to make an order for the maintenance of the apostate child out of the proceeds of it. The Act of 1704 had made it illegal for a Papist to take lands on lease; the Act of 1709 disabled him from receiving a life annuity. An Act of 1704 had compelled the registry of priests. The Act of 1709 forbade their officiating in any parish except that in which they were registered. These, however, were the least reprehensible features in the Act of 1709. Its worst features were the encouragement which it gave to the meaner vices of human nature. The wife of a Papist, if she became a Protestant, was to receive a jointure out of her husband's estate. A Popish priest abandoning his religion was to receive an annuity of £30 a year. Rewards were to be paid for 'discovering' Popish prelates, priests, and schoolmasters. Two justices might compel any Papist to state on oath where and when he had heard mass, who had officiated at it, and who had been present at it. Encouragement was thus given to informers; bribes were thus held out to apostates; and Parliament trusted to the combined effects of bribery and intimidation to stamp out the last remnant of Popery. The penal code, however, was not yet complete. The armoury of intolerance was not yet exhausted. An Act of George I. disabled Papists from serving in the Irish militia, but compelled them to find Protestant substitutes; to pay double towards the support of the militia, and rendered their horses liable to seizure for militia purposes. By Acts of George II. the Papists were disfranchised; barristers or solicitors marrying Papists were deemed Papists; all marriages between Protestants and Papists were annulled; and Popish priests celebrating any illegal marriages were condemned to be hanged. By an Act of George III. Papists refusing to deliver up or declare their arms were liable to be placed in the pillory or to be whipped, as the Court should think proper. Such were the laws which the intolerance of a minority imposed on the majority of their fellow-subjects. Utterly unjust, they had not even the bare merit of success. … {1776} 'The great body of the people,' wrote Arthur Young [1780], 'stripped of their all, were more enraged than converted: they adhered to the persuasion of their forefathers with the steadiest and the most determined zeal; while the priests, actuated by the spirit of a thousand inducements, made proselytes among the common Protestants in defiance of every danger. … Those laws have crushed all the industry and wrested most of the property from the Catholics; but the religion triumphs; it is thought to increase.'"

S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 8 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: R. R. Madden, Historical Notice of Penal Laws against Roman Catholics.

A. Perraud, Ireland under English Rule: introduction.

E. Burke, Letter to a Peer of Ireland on the Penal Laws (Works, volume 4).

E. Burke, Fragments of a Tract on the Popery Laws (Works, volume 6).

A. J. Thébaud, The Irish Race, chapter 12.

IRELAND: A. D, 1710. Colonization of Palatines in Munster.

See PALATINES.

IRELAND: A. D. 1722-1724. Wood's halfpence. The Drapier's Letters.

"A patent had been given [1722, by the Walpole administration] to a certain William Wood for supplying Ireland with a copper coinage. Many complaints had been made, and in September, 1723, addresses were voted by the Irish Houses of Parliament, declaring that the patent had been obtained by clandestine and false representations; that it was mischievous to the country; and that Wood had been guilty of frauds in his coinage. They were pacified by vague promises; but Walpole went on with the scheme on the strength of a favourable report of a committee of the Privy Council; and the excitement was already serious when (in 1724) Swift published the Drapier's Letters, which give him his chief title to eminence as a patriotic agitator. Swift either shared or took advantage of the general belief that the mysteries of the currency are unfathomable to the human intelligence. … There is, however, no real mystery about the halfpence. The small coins which do not form part of the legal-tender may be considered primarily as counters. A penny is a penny, so long as twelve are change for a shilling. It is not in the least necessary for this purpose that the copper contained in the twelve penny pieces should be worth or nearly worth a shilling. … At the present day bronze worth only twopence is coined into twelve penny pieces. … The effect of Wood's patent was that a mass of copper worth about £60,000 became worth £100,800 in the shape of halfpenny pieces. There was, therefore, a balance of about £40,000, to pay for the expenses of coinage. It would have been waste to get rid of this by putting more copper in the coins; but if so large a profit arose from the transaction, it would go to somebody. At the present day it would be brought into the national treasury. This was not the way in which business was done in Ireland. Wood was to pay £1,000 a year for fourteen years to the Crown. But £14,000 still leaves a large margin for profit. 'What was to become of it. According to the admiring biographer of Sir R. Walpole the patent had been originally given by Lord Sunderland to the Duchess of Kendal, a lady whom the King delighted to honour. … It was right and proper that a profit should be made on the transaction, but shameful that it should be divided between the King's mistress and William Wood, and that the bargain should be struck without consulting the Irish representatives, and maintained in, spite of their protests. The Duchess of Kendal was to be allowed to take a share of the wretched halfpence in the pocket of every Irish beggar. A more disgraceful transaction could hardly be imagined, or one more calculated to justify Swift's view of the selfishness and corruption of the English rulers. Swift saw his chance and went to work in characteristic fashion, with unscrupulous audacity of statement, guided by the keenest strategical instinct. … The patent was surrendered, and Swift might congratulate himself upon a complete victory. … The Irish succeeded in rejecting a real benefit at the cost of paying Wood the profit which he would have made, had he been allowed to confer it."

L. Stephen, Swift (English Men of Letters), chapter 7.

ALSO IN: Dean Swift, Works (Scott's edition), volume 6.

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 13 (volume 2).

J. McCarthy, History of the Four Georges, chapter 15.

IRELAND: A. D. 1760-1798. Whiteboys. Oak Boys. Steel Boys. Peep of Day Boys. Catholic Defenders.

"The peasantry continued to regard the land as their own; and with the general faith that wrong cannot last forever, they waited for the time when they would once more have possession of it. 'The lineal descendants of the old families,' wrote Arthur Young in 1774, 'are now to be found all over the kingdom, working as cottiers on the lands which were once their own.' … With the growth of what was called civilization, absenteeism, the worst disorder of the country, had increased. … The rise in prices, the demand for salt beef and salt butter for exportation and for the fleets, were revolutionizing the agriculture of Munster. The great limestone pastures of Limerick and Tipperary, the fertile meadow universally, was falling into the hands of capitalist graziers, in whose favour the landlords, or the landlords' agents, were evicting the smaller tenants. … To the peasantry these men were a curse. Common lands, where their own cows had been fed, were inclosed and taken from them. The change from tillage to grazing destroyed their employment. Their sole subsistence was from their potato gardens, the rents of which were heavily raised, while, by a curious mockery of justice, the grass lands were exempt from tithe, and the burden of maintaining the rectors and vicars of the Established Church was cast exclusively on the Catholic poor. Among a people who are suffering under a common wrong there is a sympathy of resentment which links them together without visible or discoverable bond. In the spring of 1760 Tipperary was suddenly overrun by bands of midnight marauders. Who they were was a mystery. Rumours reached England of insurgent regiments drilling in the moonlight; of French officers observed passing and repassing the Channel; but no French officer could be detected in Munster. The most rigid search discovered no stands of arms, such as soldiers use or could use. This only was certain, that white figures were seen in vast numbers, like moving clouds, flitting silently at night over field and moor, leaving behind them the tracks of where they had passed in levelled fences and houghed and moaning cattle; where the owners were specially hateful, in blazing homesteads, and the inmates' bodies blackening in the ashes. Arrests were generally useless. The country was sworn to secrecy. {1777} Through the entire central plains of Ireland the people were bound by the most solemn oaths never to reveal the name of a confederate, or give evidence in a court of justice. … Thus it was long uncertain how the movement originated, who were its leaders, and whether there was one or many. Letters signed by Captain Dwyer or Joanna Meskell were left at the doors of obnoxious persons, ordering lands to be abandoned under penalties. If the commands were uncomplied with, the penalties were inexorably inflicted. … Torture usually being preferred to murder, male offenders against the Whiteboys were houghed like their cattle, or their tongues were torn out by the roots."

J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland, book 5, chapter 1 (volume 2).

The Whiteboys took their name from the practice of wearing a white shirt drawn over their other clothing, when they were out upon their nocturnal expeditions. "The Oak Boy movement took place about 1761-2. … The injustice which led to the formation of the 'Oak Boys,' one of the best known of the colonial societies, was duty work on roads. Every householder was bound to give six days' labour in making and repairing the public roads; and if he had a horse, six days' labour of his horse. It was complained that this duty work was only levied on the poor, and that they were compelled to work on private job roads, and even upon what were the avenues and farm roads of the gentry. The name Oak Boys, or Hearts of Oak Boys, was derived from the members in their raids wearing an oak branch in their hats. The organization spread rapidly over the greater part of Ulster. Although the grievances were common to Protestant and Catholic workmen, and there was nothing religious in the objects or constitution of the Oak Boys, the society was an exclusively Protestant body, owing to the total absence at the period of any association between the Protestants and Catholics. … The Steel Boys, or Hearts of Steel Boys, followed the Oak Boys [about 1771]. They also were exclusively Protestant; the origin of this organization was the extravagance and profligacy of a bad landlord, the representative of the great land thief, Chichester, of the Plantation of King James I. … The Oak Boys and Steel Boys did not last long."

W. K. Sullivan, part 1 of Two Centuries of Irish History, chapter 5, with foot-note.

The landlord here referred to, as having provoked the organization of the Steel Boys, was the Marquis of Donegal. "Many of his Antrim leases having fallen in simultaneously, he demanded £100,000 in fines for the renewal of them. The tenants, all Protestants, offered the interest of the money in addition to the rent.' It could not be. Speculative Belfast capitalists paid the fine and took the lands over the heads of the tenants, to sublet. … The most substantial of the expelled tenantry gathered their effects together and sailed to join their countrymen in the New World. … Between those who were too poor to emigrate, and the Catholics who were in possession of their homes, there grew a protracted feud, which took form at last in the conspiracy of the Peep of Day Boys; in the fierce and savage expulsion of the intruders, who were bidden to go to hell or Connaught; and in the counter-organization of the Catholic Defenders, which spread over the whole island, and made the army of insurrection in 1798."

J. A. Froude, The English in Ireland, book 5, chapter 2, section 6 (volume 2).

IRELAND: A. D. 1778-1794. Concession of Legislative independence by the so-called Constitution of 1782.

"England's difficulty was Ireland's opportunity. Over in the American colonies Mr. Washington and his rebels were pressing hard upon the troops of King George. More than one garrison had been compelled to surrender, more than one general had given up his bright sword to a revolutionary leader. On the hither side of the Atlantic the American flag was scarcely less dreaded than at Yorktown and Saratoga. … Ireland, drained of troops, lay open to invasion. The terrible Paul Jones was drifting about the seas; descents upon Ireland were dreaded; if such descents had been made the island was practically defenceless. An alarmed Mayor of Belfast, appealing to the Government for military aid, was informed that no more serious and more formidable assistance could be rendered to the chief city of the North than might be given by half a troop of dismounted cavalry and half a troop of invalids. If the French-American enemy would consent to be scared by such a muster, well and good; if not Belfast, and for the matter of that, all Ireland, must look to itself. Thereupon Ireland, very promptly and decisively, did look to itself. A Militia Act was passed empowering the formation of volunteer corps—consisting, of course, solely of Protestants—for the defence of the island. A fever of military enthusiasm swept over the country; north and south and east and west men caught up arms, nominally to resist the French, really, though they knew it not, to effect one of the greatest constitutional revolutions in history. Before a startled Government could realise what was occurring 60,000 men were under arms. For the first time since the surrender of Limerick there was an armed force in Ireland able and willing to support a national cause. Suddenly, almost in the twinkling of an eye, Ireland found herself for the first time for generations in the possession of a well-armed, well-disciplined, and well-generalled military force. The armament that was organised to insure the safety of England was destined to achieve the liberties of Ireland. … All talk of organisation to resist foreign invasion was silenced; in its place the voice of the nation was heard loudly calling for the redress of its domestic grievances. Their leader was Charlemont; Grattan and Flood were their principal colonels."

J. H. McCarthy, Ireland Since the Union, chapter 3.

"When the Parliament met, Grattan moved as an amendment to the Address, 'that it was by free export and import only that the Nation was to be saved from impending ruin'; and a corps of Volunteers, commanded by the Duke of Leinster, lined Dame Street as the Speaker and the Commons walked in procession to the Castle. Another demonstration of Volunteers in College Green excited Dublin a little later on, and (15th November, 1779) a riotous mob clamoured for Free Trade at the very doors of the House. … These events resulted in immediate success. Lord North proposed in the British Parliament three articles of relief to Irish trade—

(1) to allow free export of wool, woollens, and wool-flocks; (2) to allow a free export of glass; (3) to allow, under certain conditions, a free trade to all the British colonies.

{1778}

When the news reached Ireland excessive joy prevailed. … But this was only a beginning. Poynings' Law, and the 6th of George I., required to be swept away too, so that Ireland might enjoy not only Free Trade, but also Self-government. Grattan moved his two famous resolutions:—

1. That the King, with the consent of the Lords and Commons of Ireland, is alone competent to enact laws to bind Ireland.

2. That Great Britain and Ireland are inseparably united under one Sovereign.

In supporting these resolutions, Grattan cited England's dealings with America, to show what Ireland too might effect by claiming her just rights. … The Earl of Carlisle became Viceroy in 1781, with Mr. Eden as Secretary. Viewing England's embroilment in war—in America, in India, with France, and Spain, and Holland—the Irish Volunteers, whose numbers had swelled, Grattan said, to well-nigh 100,000 men, held meetings and reviews in various parts of the country. … The 16th of April, 1782, was a memorable day for Dublin. On that date, in a city thronged with Volunteers, with bands playing, and banners blazoned with gilded harps fluttering in the wind, Grattan, in an amendment to the Address which was always presented to the King at the opening of Parliament, moved, 'That Ireland is a distinct Kingdom, with a separate Parliament, and that this Parliament alone has a right to make laws for her.' On the 17th of May, the two Secretaries of State, Lord Shelburne in the Lords, and Charles James Fox in the Commons of Great Britain—proposed the repeal of the 6th of George I., a statute which declared the right of the English Parliament to make laws for Ireland. The English Government frankly and fully acceded to the demands of Ireland. Four points were granted—

(1) an Independent Irish Parliament; (2) the abrogation of Poynings' Law, empowering the English Privy Council to alter Irish Bills; (3) the introduction of a Biennial Mutiny Bill; (4) the abolition of the right of appeal to England from the Irish law courts.

These concessions were announced to the Irish Parliament at once: in their joy the Irish Houses voted £100,000, and 20,000 men to the navy of Great Britain. Ireland had at last achieved political freedom. Peace and prosperity seemed about to bless the land. … That there might be no misunderstanding as to the deliberate intention of the English Parliament in granting Irish legislative independence, Lord Shelburne had passed an Act of Renunciation, declaring that 'the Right claimed by the people of Ireland, to be bound only by laws enacted by His Majesty and the Parliament of that Kingdom, is hereby declared to be established and ascertained for ever, and shall at no time hereafter be questioned or questionable.' During the same session (1782), the two Catholic Relief Bills proposed by Luke Gardiner, who afterwards became Viscount Mountjoy, were passed. These measures gave Catholics the right to buy freeholds, to teach schools, and to educate their children as they pleased. The Habeas Corpus Act was now extended to Ireland; and marriages by presbyterian ministers were made legal."

W. F. Collier, History of Ireland for Schools, period 5, chapter 3.

"Had the Irish demanded a complete separation it would have been yielded without resistance. It would have been better had it been. The two countries would have immediately joined on terms of equality and of mutual confidence and respect. But the more the English Cabinet gave way the less were the Irish disposed to press their advantage. A feeling of warm attachment to England rapidly took the place of distrust. There never existed in Ireland so sincere and friendly a spirit of spontaneous union with England as at this moment, when the formal bond of union was almost wholly dissolved. From the moment when England made a formal surrender of her claim to govern Ireland a series of inroads commenced on the various interests supposed to be left to their own free development by that surrender. Ireland had not, like England, a body of Cabinet Ministers responsible to her Parliament. The Lord Lieutenant and the Irish Secretary held their offices and received their instructions from the English minister. There was greater need than ever before for a bribed majority in the Irish Commons, and the machinery for securing and managing it remained intact."

W. A. O'Conor, History of the Irish People, book 4, chapter 2, section 2 (volume 2).

"The history of these memorable eighteen years [1782-1800] has never been written, and yet these years are the … key to Irish political opinion in the 19th [century]. The Government which granted the constitution of 1782 began to conspire against it immediately. They had taken Poynings' Act away from the beginning of its proceedings, and they clapped it on to the end of its proceedings, as effectually as if the change had not been made. They developed in the Irish mind that distrust of all government which has made it so turbulent and so docile—turbulent to its administrators, docile to its popular leaders."

J. E. Thorold Rogers, Ireland (A. Reid, editor), p. 25.

ALSO IN: W. E. H. Lecky, Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland: Henry Grattan.

J. G. MacCarthy, Henry Grattan.

IRELAND: A. D. 1784. Peep-o'-Day Boys and Defenders.

"Disturbances … commenced in the north between two parties called Peep-o'-Day Boys and Defenders. They originated in 1784 among some country people, who appear to have been all Protestants or Presbyterians; but Catholics having sided with one of the parties, the quarrel quickly grew into a religious feud, and spread from the county of Armagh, where it commenced, to the neighbouring districts of Tyrone and Down. Both parties belonged to the humblest classes of the community. The Protestant party were well armed, and assembling in numbers, attacked the houses of Catholics under pretence of searching for arms; insulting their persons, and breaking their furniture. These wanton outrages were usually committed at an early hour in the morning, whence the name of Peep-o'-Day Boys; but the faction was also known as 'Protestant Boys,' and 'wreckers,' and ultimately merged in the Orange Society."

M. Haverty, History of Ireland, p. 722.

IRELAND: A. D. 1793. Passage of the Catholic Relief Bill.

"On February 4 (1793) Hobart [Chief Secretary] moved for leave to bring in his Catholic Relief Bill, and stated the nature of its provisions. It was of a kind which only a year before would have appeared utterly impossible, and which was in the most glaring opposition to all the doctrines which the Government and its partisans had of late been urging. … This great measure was before Parliament, with several intermissions, for rather more than five weeks. … {1779} The vast preponderance of speakers were in favour of relief to Catholics, though there were grave differences as to the degree, and speakers of the highest authority represented the genuine Protestant feeling of the country as being in its favour. … Few things in Irish parliamentary history are more remarkable than the facility with which this great measure was carried, though it was in all its aspects thoroughly debated. It passed its second reading in the House of Commons with only a single negative. It was committed with only three negatives, and in the critical divisions on its clauses the majorities were at least two to one. The qualification required to authorise a Catholic to bear arms was raised in committee on the motion of the Chancellor, and in addition to the oath of allegiance of 1774, a new oath was incorporated in the Bill, copied from one of the declarations of the Catholics, and abjuring certain tenets which had been ascribed to them, among others the assertion that the infallibility of the Pope was an article of their faith. For the rest the Bill became law almost exactly in the form in which it was originally designed. It swept away the few remaining disabilities relating to property which grew out of the penal code. It enabled Catholics to vote like Protestants for members of Parliament and magistrates in cities or boroughs; to become elected members of all corporations except Trinity College; to keep arms subject to some specified conditions; to hold all civil and military offices in the kingdom from which they were not specifically excluded; to hold the medical professorships on the foundation of Sir Patrick Dun; to take degrees and hold offices in any mixed college connected with the University of Dublin that might hereafter be founded. It also threw open to them the degrees of the University, enabling the King to alter its statutes to that effect. A long clause enumerated the prizes which were still withheld. Catholics might not sit in either House of Parliament; they were excluded from almost all Government and judicial positions; they could not be Privy Councillors, King's Counsel, Fellows of Trinity College, sheriffs or sub-sheriffs, or generals of the staff. Nearly every post of ambition was still reserved for Protestants, and the restrictions weighed most heavily on the Catholics who were most educated and most able. In the House of Lords as in the House of Commons the Bill passed with little open opposition, but a protest, signed among other peers by Charlemont, was drawn up against it. … The Catholic Relief Bill received the royal assent in April, 1793, and in the same month the Catholic Convention dissolved itself. Before doing so it passed a resolution recommending the Catholics 'to co-operate in all loyal and constitutional means' to obtain parliamentary reform. … The Catholic prelates in their pastorals expressed their gratitude for the Relief Bill. The United Irishmen on their side issued a proclamation warmly congratulating the Catholics on the measure for their relief, but also urging in passionate strains that parliamentary reform was the first of needs."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 25 (volume 6).

IRELAND: A. D. 1793-1798. Organization of the United Irishmen. Attempted French invasions. The rising of '98.

"Nothing could be less sinister than the original aims and methods of the Society of United Irishmen, which was conceived in the idea of uniting Catholics and Protestants 'in pursuit of the same object—a repeal of the penal laws, and a (parliamentary) reform including in itself an extension of the right of suffrage.' This union was founded at Belfast, in 1791, by Theobald Wolfe Tone, a young barrister of English descent, and, like the majority of the United Irishmen, a Protestant. Some months later a Dublin branch was founded, the chairman being the hon. Simon Butler, a Protestant gentleman of high character, and the secretary a tradesman named James Napper Tandy. The society grew rapidly, and branches were formed throughout Ulster and Leinster. The religious strife of the Orange boys and Defenders was a great trouble to the United men, who felt that these creed animosities among Irishmen were more ruinous to the national cause than any corruption of parliament or coercion of government could possibly be. Ireland, united, would be quite capable of fighting her own battles, but these party factions rendered her contemptible and weak. The society accordingly set itself the impossible task of drawing together the Defenders and the Orange men. Catholic emancipation—one of the great objects of the union—naturally appealed very differently to the rival parties: it was the great wish of the Defenders, the chief dread of the Orangemen. Both factions were composed of the poorest and most ignorant peasantry in Ireland, men whose political views did not soar above the idea that 'something should be done for old Ireland.' The United Irishmen devoted themselves to the regeneration of both parties, but the Orangemen would have none of them, and the Protestant United men found themselves drifting into partnership with the Catholic Defenders. To gain influence with this party, Tandy took the Defenders' oath. He was informed against; and, as to take an illegal oath was then a capital offence in Ireland, he had to fly for his life to America. This adventure made Tandy the hero of the Defenders, who now joined the union in great numbers; but the whole business brought the society into disrepute, and connected it with the Defenders, who, like the Orange boys, were merely a party of outrage. … One night in the May of '94 a government raid was made upon the premises of the union. The officers of the society were arrested, their papers seized, the type of their newspaper destroyed, and the United Irish Society was proclaimed as an illegal organisation. Towards the close of this year all need for a reform society seemed to have passed. Fitzwilliam was made viceroy, and emancipation and reform seemed assured. His sudden recall, the reversal of his appointments, the rejection of Grattan's Reform Bill, and the renewal of the old coercive system, convinced the United men of the powerlessness of peaceful agitation to check the growth of the system of government by corruption. They accordingly reorganised the union, but as a secret society, and with the avowed aim of separating Ireland from the British empire. The Fitzwilliam affair had greatly strengthened the union, which was joined by many men of high birth and position, among them lord Edward Fitzgerald, brother of the duke of Leinster, and Arthur O'Connor, nephew to lord Longueville, both of whom had been members of the House of Commons. … But the ablest man of the party was Thomas Addis Emmet, a barrister, and the elder brother of Robert Emmet. {1780} The society gradually swelled to the number of 5,000 members, but throughout its existence it was perfectly riddled with spies and informers, by whom government was supplied with a thorough knowledge of its doings. It became known to Pitt that the French government had sent an Englishman, named Jackson, as an emissary to Ireland. Jackson was convicted of treason, and hanged, and Wolfe Tone was sufficiently implicated in his guilt … to find it prudent to fly to America. But before leaving Ireland he arranged with the directors of the union to go from America to France, and to try to persuade the French government to assist Ireland in a struggle for separation. While Tone was taking his circuitous route to Paris, government, to meet the military development of the society, placed Ulster and Leinster under a stringent Insurrection Act; torture was employed to wring confession from suspected persons, and the Protestant militia and yeomanry were drafted at free quarters on the wretched Catholic peasantry. The barbarity of the soldiers lashed the people of the northern provinces into a state of fury. … In the meantime the indomitable Tone—unknown, without credentials, without influence, and ignorant of the French language—had persuaded the French government to lend him a fleet, 10,000 men, and 40,000 stand of arms, which armament left Brest for Bantry Bay on the 16th December, 1796. Ireland was now in the same position as England had been when William of Orange had appeared outside Torbay. Injustice, corruption, and oppression had in both cases goaded the people into rebellion. A calm sea and a fierce gale made the difference between the English patriot of 1688 and the Irish traitor of 1796. Had the sea been calm in the Christmas week of '96, nothing could have stopped the French from marching on to Dublin, but just as the ships put in to Bantry Bay, so wild a wind sprang up that they were driven out to sea, and blown and buffetted about. For a month they tossed about within sight of land, but the storm did not subside, and, all chance of landing seeming as far off as ever, they put back into the French port."

Wm. S. Gregg, Irish History for English Readers, chapter 23.

"After the failure of Hoche's expedition, another great armament was fitted out in the Texel, where it long lay ready to come forth, while the English fleet, the only safeguard of our coasts, was crippled by the mutiny at the Nore. But the wind once more fought for England, and the Batavian fleet came out at last only to be destroyed at Camperdown. Tone was personally engaged in both expeditions, and his lively Diary, the image of his character, gives us vivid accounts of both. The third effort of the French Government was feeble, and ended in the futile landing of a small force under Humbert. … In the last expedition Tone himself was taken prisoner, and, having been condemned to death, committed suicide in prison. … It was well for Ireland, as well as for England, that Tone failed in his enterprise. Had he succeeded, his country would for a time have been treated as Switzerland and the Batavian Republic were treated by their French regenerators, and, in the end, it would have been surely reconquered and punished by the power which was mistress of the sea. … But now that all is over, we can afford to say that Tone gallantly ventured his life in what naturally appeared to him, and would to a high-spirited Englishman under the same circumstances have appeared, a good cause. One of his race had but too much reason then to 'hate the very name of England,' and to look forward to the burning of her cities with feelings in which pity struggled with revenge for mastery, but revenge prevailed. … From the Republicans the disturbance spread, as in 1641, to that mass of blind disaffection and hatred, national, social, agrarian, and religious, which was always smouldering among the Catholic peasantry. With these sufferers the political theories of the French Revolutionists had no influence; they looked to French invasion, as well as to domestic insurrection, merely as a deliverance from the oppression under which they groaned. … The leading Roman Catholics, both clerical and lay, were on the side of the government. The mass of the Catholic priesthood were well inclined to take the same side, They could have no sympathy with an Atheist Republic, red with the blood of priests, as well as with the blood of a son of St. Louis. If some of the order were concerned in the movement, it was as demagogues, sympathizing with their peasant brethren, not as priests. Yet the Protestants insisted on treating the Catholic clergy as rebels by nature. They had assuredly done their best to make them so. … No sooner did the Catholic peasantry begin to move and organize themselves than the Protestant gentry and yeomanry as one man became Cromwellians again. Then commenced a Reign of Terror scarcely less savage than that of the Jacobins, against whom Europe was in arms, as a hideous and portentous brood of evil, the scourge and horror of the whole human race. The suspected conspirators were intimidated, and confessions, or pretended confessions, were extorted by loosing upon the homes of the peasantry the license and barbarity of an irregular soldiery more cruel than a regular invader. Flogging, half-hanging, pitch-capping, picketing, went on over a large district, and the most barbarous scourgings, without trial, were inflicted in the Riding-house at Dublin, in the very seat of government and justice. This was styled, 'exerting a vigour beyond the law;' and to become the object of such vigour, it was enough, as under Robespierre, to be suspected of being suspect. No one has yet fairly undertaken the revolting but salutary task of writing a faithful and impartial history of that period; but from the accounts we have, it appears not unlikely that the peasantry, though undoubtedly in a disturbed state, and to a great extent secretly organized, might have been kept quiet by measures of lenity and firmness; and that they were gratuitously scourged and tortured into open rebellion. When they did rebel, they shewed, as they had shewn in 1641, what the galley-slave is when, having long toiled under the lash, he contrives in a storm to slip his chains and become master of the vessel. The atrocities of Wexford and Vinegar-Hill rivalled the atrocities of Portnadown. Nor when the rebellion was vanquished did the victors fail to renew the famous feats of Sir Charles Coote and of the regiment of Cole. We now possess terrible and overwhelming evidence of their sanguinary ferocity in the correspondence of Lord Cornwallis, who was certainly no friend to rebels, having fought against them in America, but who was a man of sense and heart, most wisely sent over to quench the insurrection, and pacify the country. … {1781} The murders and other atrocities committed by the Jacobins were more numerous than those committed by the Orangemen, and as the victims were of higher rank they excited more indignation and pity; but in the use of torture the Orangemen seem to have reached a pitch of fiendish cruelty which was scarcely attained by the Jacobins. … The Jacobin party was almost entirely composed of men taken from the lowest of the people, whereas among the Irish terrorists were found men of high social position and good education."

Goldwin Smith, Irish History and Irish Character, pages 166-175.

ALSO IN: R. R. Madden, The United Irishmen, their Lives and Times.

Theobald Wolfe Tone, Memoirs.

Marquis Cornwallis, Correspondence, chapter 19 (volume 2).

A. Griffiths, French Revolutionary Generals, chapter 16.

Viscount Castlereagh, Memoirs and Correspondence, volume 1.

W. H. Maxwell, History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798.

IRELAND: A. D. 1795-1796. Formation of the Orange Society. Battle of the Diamond. Persecution of Catholics by Protestant mobs.

"The year 1795 is very memorable in Irish history, as the year of the formation of the Orange Society, and the beginning of the most serious disturbances in the county of Armagh. … The old popular feud between the lower ranks of Papists and Presbyterians in the northern counties is easy to understand, and it is not less easy to see how the recent course of Irish politics had increased it. A class which had enjoyed and gloried in uncontested ascendency, found this ascendency passing from its hands. A class which had formerly been in subjection, was elated by new privileges, and looked forward to a complete abolition of political disabilities. Catholic and Protestant tenants came into a new competition, and the demeanour of Catholics towards Protestants was sensibly changed. There were boasts in taverns and at fairs, that the Protestants would speedily be swept away from the land and the descendants of the old proprietors restored, and it was soon known that Catholics all over the country were forming themselves into committees or societies, and were electing representatives for a great Catholic convention at Dublin. The riots and outrages of the Peep of Day Boys and Defenders had embittered the feeling on both sides. … Members of one or other creed were attacked and insulted as they went to their places of worship. There were fights on the high roads, at fairs, wakes, markets, and country sports, and there were occasionally crimes of a much deeper dye. … In September 1795 riots broke out in this county [Armagh], which continued for some days, but at length the parish priest on the one side, and a gentleman named Atkinson on the other, succeeded in so far appeasing the quarrel that the combatants formally agreed to a truce, and were about to retire to their homes, when a new party of Defenders, who had marched from the adjoining counties to the assistance of their brethren, appeared upon the scene, and on September 21 they attacked the Protestants at a place called the Diamond. The Catholics on this occasion were certainly the aggressors, and they appear to have considerably outnumbered their antagonists, but the Protestants were better posted, better armed, and better organised. A serious conflict ensued, and the Catholics were completely defeated, leaving a large number—probably twenty or thirty—dead upon the field. It was on the evening of the day on which the battle of the Diamond was fought, that the Orange Society was formed. It was at first a league of mutual defence, binding its members to maintain the laws and the peace of the country, and also the Protestant Constitution. No Catholic was to be admitted into the society, and the members were bound by oath not to reveal its secrets. The doctrine of Fitzgibbon, that the King, by assenting to Catholic emancipation, would invalidate his title to the throne, was remarkably reflected in the oath of the Orangemen, which bound them to defend the King and his heirs, 'so long as he or they support the Protestant ascendency.' The society took its name from William of Orange, the conqueror of the Catholics, and it agreed to celebrate annually the battle of the Boyne. In this respect there was nothing in it particularly novel. Protestant associations, for the purpose of commemorating the events and maintaining the principles of the Revolution, had long been known. … A very different spirit, however, animated the early Orangemen. The upper classes at first generally held aloof from the society; for a considerable time it appears to have been almost confined to the Protestant peasantry of Ulster, and the title of Orangemen was probably assumed by numbers who had never joined the organisation, who were simply Peep of Day Boys taking a new name, and whose conduct was certainly not such as those who instituted the society had intended. A terrible persecution of the Catholics immediately followed. The animosities between the lower orders of the two religions, which had long been little bridled, burst out afresh, and after the battle of the Diamond, the Protestant rabble of the county of Armagh, and of part of the adjoining counties, determined by continuous outrages to drive the Catholics from the country. Their cabins were placarded, or, as it was termed, 'papered,' with the words, 'To hell or Connaught,' and if the occupants did not at once abandon them, they were attacked at night by an armed mob. The webs and looms of the poor Catholic weavers were cut and destroyed. Every article of furniture was shattered or burnt. The houses were often set on fire, and the inmates were driven homeless into the world. The rioters met with scarcely any resistance or disturbance. Twelve or fourteen houses were sometimes wrecked in a single night. Several Catholic chapels were burnt, and the persecution, which began in the county of Armagh, soon extended over a wide area in the counties of Tyrone, Down, Antrim, and Derry. … The outrages continued with little abatement through a great part of the following year. As might have been expected, there were widely differing estimates of the number of the victims. According to some reports, which were no doubt grossly exaggerated, no less than 1,400 families, or about 7,000 persons, were driven out of the county of Armagh alone. Another, and much more probable account, spoke of 700 families, while a certain party among the gentry did their utmost to minimise the persecutions."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 27 (volume 7).

{1782}

IRELAND: A. D. 1798-1800. The Legislative Union with Great Britain.

"No sooner had the rebellion been suppressed than the Government proposed, to the Parliament of each country, the union of Great Britain and Ireland under a common legislature. This was no new idea. It had frequently been in the minds of successive generations of statesmen on both sides of the Channel; but had not yet been seriously discussed with a view to immediate action. Nothing could have been more safely predicted than that Ireland must, sooner or later, follow the precedent of Scotland, and yield her pretensions to a separate legislation. The measures of 1782, which appeared to establish the legislative independence of Ireland, really proved the vanity of such a pretension. … On the assembling of the British Parliament at the commencement of the year [1799], the question of the Union was recommended by a message from the Crown; and the address, after some opposition, was carried without a division. Pitt, at this, the earliest stage, pronounced the decision at which the Government had arrived to be positive and irrevocable. … Lord Cornwallis [then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland] also expressed his conviction that union was the only measure which could preserve the country. … The day before the intended Union was signified by a royal message to the English Parliament, the Irish Houses assembled; and the Viceroy's speech, of course, contained a paragraph relative to the project. The House of Lords, completely under the control of the Castle, agreed to an address in conformity with the speech, after a short and languid debate, by a large majority; but the Commons were violently agitated. … An amendment to the address pledging the House to maintain the Union was lost by one vote, after the House had sat twenty-one hours; but, on the report, the amendment to omit the paragraph referring to the Union was carried by a majority of four. … When it was understood that the Government was in earnest … there was little difficulty in alarming a people among whom the machinery of political agitation had, for some years, been extensively organised. The bar of Dublin took the lead, and it at once became evident that the policy of the Government had effected a union among Irishmen far more formidable than that which all the efforts of sedition had been able to accomplish. The meeting of the bar included not merely men of different religious persuasions, but, what was of more importance in Ireland, men of different sides in politics. … However conclusive the argument in favour of Union may appear to Englishmen, it was difficult for an Irishman to regard the Union in any other view than as a measure to deprive his country of her independent constitution, and to extinguish her national existence. Mr. Foster, the Speaker, took this view. … Sir John Parnell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, followed the Speaker. Mr. Fitzgerald, the Prime Serjeant, a law officer of the Crown, was on the same side. Ponsonby, the leader of the Whigs, was vehement against the scheme; so was Grattan; so was Curran. Great efforts were made by the Government to quiet the Protestants, and to engage the Catholics to support the Union. These efforts were so far successful that most of the Orange lodges were persuaded to refrain from expressing any opinion on the subject. The Catholic hierarchy were conciliated by the promise of a provision for the clergy, and of an adjustment of the Tithe question. Hopes were held out, if promises were not actually made, to the Catholic community, that their civil disabilities would be removed. … If the Union was to be accomplished by constitutional means, it could be effected only by a vote of the Irish Parliament, concurring with a vote of the English Parliament; and if the Irish assembly were to pronounce an unbiased judgment on the question of its extinction, it is certain that a very small minority, possibly not a single vote, would be found to support the measure. … The vote on the address was followed, in a few days, by an address to the Crown, in which the Commons pledged themselves to maintain the constitution of 1782. The majority in favour of national independence had already increased from five to twenty. … The votes of the Irish Commons had disposed of the question for the current session; but preparations were immediately made for its future passage through the Irish Houses. The foremost men in Ireland … had first been tempted, but had indignantly refused every offer to betray the independence of their country. Another class of leading persons was then tried, and from these, for the most part, evasive answers were received. The minister understood the meaning of these dubious utterances. There was one mode of carrying the Union, and one mode only. Bribery of every kind must be employed without hesitation and without stint."

W. Massey, History of England: Reign of George. III., chapter 38 (volume 4).

"Lord Cornwallis had to work the system of 'negotiating and jobbing,' by promising an Irish Peerage, or a lift in that Peerage, or even an English Peerage, to a crowd of eager competitors for honours. The other specific for making converts was not yet in complete operation. Lord Castlereagh [the Irish Chief Secretary] had the plan in his portfolio:—borough proprietors to be compensated; … fifty barristers in parliament, who always considered a seat as the road to preferment, to be compensated; the purchasers of seats to be compensated; individuals connected either by residence or property with Dublin to be compensated. 'Lord Castlereagh considered that £1,500,000 would be required to effect all these compensations.' The sum actually paid to the borough-mongers alone was £1,260,000. Fifteen thousand pounds were allotted to each borough; and 'was apportioned amongst the various patrons.' … It had become a contest of bribery on both sides. There was an 'Opposition stock-purse,' as Lord Castlereagh describes the fund against which he was to struggle with the deeper purse at Whitehall. … During the administration of Lord Cornwallis, 29 Irish Peerages were created; of which seven only were unconnected with the question of Union. Six English Peerages were granted on account of Irish services; and there were 19 promotions in the Irish Peerage, earned by similar assistance." The question of Union was virtually decided in the Irish House of Commons on the 6th of February, 1800. Lord Castlereagh, on the previous day, had read a message from the Lord Lieutenant, communicating resolutions adopted by the parliament of Great Britain in the previous year. "The question was debated from four o'clock in the afternoon of the 5th to one o'clock in the afternoon of the 6th. {1783} During that time the streets of Dublin were the scene of a great riot, and the peace of the city was maintained only by troops of cavalry. … On the division of the 6th there was a majority of 43 in favour of the Union." It was not, however, until the 7th of June, that the final legislative enactment—the Union Bill—was passed in the Irish House of Commons. The first article provided "that the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland should, upon the 1st of January, 1801, be united into one kingdom, by the name of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom was to be represented in one and the same parliament. In the United Parliament there were to be 28 temporal Peers, elected for life by the Irish Peerage; and four spiritual Peers, taking their places in rotation. There were to be 100 members of the Lower House; each county returning two, as well as the cities of Dublin and Cork. The University returned one, and 31 boroughs each returned one. Of these boroughs 23 remained close boroughs till the Reform Bill of 1831. … The Churches of England and Ireland were to be united. The proportion of Revenue to be levied was fixed at fifteen for Great Britain and two for Ireland, for the succeeding twenty years. Countervailing duties upon imports to each country were fixed by a minute tariff, but some commercial restrictions were to be removed."

C. Knight, Popular History of England, volume 7, chapter 21.

"If the Irish Parliament had consisted mainly, or to any appreciable extent, of men who were disloyal to the connection, and whose sympathies were on the side of rebellion or with the enemies of England, the English Ministers would, I think, have been amply justified in employing almost any means to abolish it. … But it cannot be too clearly understood or too emphatically stated, that the legislative Union was not an act of this nature. The Parliament which was abolished was a Parliament of the most unqualified loyalists; it had shown itself ready to make every sacrifice in its power for the maintenance of the Empire, and from the time when Arthur O'Connor and Lord Edward Fitzgerald passed beyond its walls, it probably did not contain a single man who was really disaffected. … It must be added, that it was becoming evident that the relation between the two countries established by the Constitution of 1782 could not have continued unchanged. … Even with the best dispositions, the Constitution of 1782 involved many and grave probabilities of difference. … Sooner or later the corrupt borough ascendency must have broken down, and it was a grave question what was to succeed it. … An enormous increase of disloyalty and religious animosity had taken place during the last years of the century, and it added immensely to the danger of the democratic Catholic suffrage, which the Act of 1793 had called into existence. This was the strongest argument for hurrying on the Union; but when all due weight is assigned to it, it does not appear to me to have justified the policy of Pitt."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 32 (volume 8).

ALSO IN: T. D. Ingram, History of the Legislative Union.

R. Hassencamp, History of Ireland, chapter 14.

Marquis Cornwallis, Correspondence, chapters 19-21 (volumes 2-3).

Viscount Castlereagh, Memoirs and Correspondence, volumes 2-3.

IRELAND: A. D. 1801. Pitt's promise of Catholic Emancipation broken by the king.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1801-1806.

IRELAND: A. D. 1801-1803. The Emmet insurrection.

"Lord Hardwicke succeeded Lord Cornwallis as viceroy in May [1801]; and for two years, so far as the British public knew, Ireland was undisturbed. The harvest of 1801 was abundant. The island was occupied by a military force of 125,000 men. Distant rumours of disturbances in Limerick, Tipperary, and Waterford were faintly audible. Imports and exports increased. The debt increased likewise, but, as it was met by loans and uncontrolled by any public assembly, no one protested, and few were aware of the fact. Landlords and middlemen throve on high rents, and peasants as yet could live. … Early in 1803 the murmurs in the southwest became louder. Visions of a fixed price for potatoes began to shape themselves, and the invasion of 'strangers' ready to take land from which tenants had been ejected was resisted. The magistrates urged the viceroy to obtain and exercise the powers of the Insurrection Act; but the evil was not thought of sufficient magnitude, and their request was refused: Amidst the general calm, the insurrection of Robert Emmett in July broke like a bolt from the blue. A young republican visionary, whose brother had taken an active part in the rebellion, he had inspired a few score comrades with the quixotic hope of rekindling Irish nationality by setting up a factory of pikes in a back street of Dublin. On the eve of St. James's Day, Quigley, one of his associates, who had been sowing vague hopes among the villages of Kildare, brought a mixed crowd into Dublin. When the evening fell, a sky-rocket was fired. Emmett and his little band sallied from Marshalsea Lane into St. James's Street, and distributed pikes to all who would take them. The disorderly mob thus armed proceeded to the debtors' prison, which they attacked, killing the officer who defended it. Emmett urged them on to the Castle. They followed, in a confused column, utterly beyond his power to control. On their war they fell in with the carriage of the Chief Justice, Lord Kilwarden, dragged him out, and killed him. By this time a few handfuls of troops had been collected. In half an hour two subalterns, with fifty soldiers each, had dispersed the whole gathering. By ten o'clock all was over, with the loss of 20 soldiers and 50 insurgents. Emmett and Russell, another of the leaders who had undertaken the agitation of Down and Antrim, were shortly afterwards taken and executed; Quigley escaped. Such was the last reverberation of the rebellion of 1798, or rather of the revolutionary fervour that led the way to that rebellion, before it had been tainted with religious animosity. Emmett died as Shelley would have died, a martyr and an enthusiast; but he knew little of his countrymen's condition, little of their aspirations, nothing of their needs. He had no successors."

J. H. Bridges, Two Centuries of Irish History, part 3, chapter 2.

"Emmet might easily have escaped to France if he had chosen, but he delayed till too late. Emmet was a young man, and Emmet was in love. 'The idol of his heart,' as he calls her in his dying speech, was Sarah Curran, the daughter of John Philpot Curran. … Emmet was determined to see her before he went. He placed his life upon the cast and lost it. … The White Terror which followed upon the failure of Emmet's rising was accompanied by almost all the horrors which marked the hours of repression after the rebellion of '98. … The old devil's dance of spies and informers went merrily forward; the prisons were choked with prisoners."

J. H. McCarthy, Ireland Since the Union, chapters 5-6.

ALSO IN: R. R. Madden, The United Irishmen, their Lives and Times, volume 3.

J. Wills, History of Ireland in the Lives of Irishmen, volume 6, pages 68-80.

{1784}

IRELAND: A. D. 1811-1829. O'Connell and the agitation for Catholic Emancipation and the Repeal of the Union. Catholic disabilities removed.

"There is much reason to believe that almost from the commencement of his career" Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish agitator, "formed one vast scheme of policy which he pursued through life with little deviation, and, it must be added, with little scruple. This scheme was to create and lead a public spirit among the Roman Catholics; to wrest emancipation by this means from the Government; to perpetuate the agitation created for that purpose till the Irish Parliament had been restored; to disendow the Established Church; and thus to open in Ireland a new era, with a separate and independent Parliament and perfect religious equality. It would be difficult to conceive a scheme of policy exhibiting more daring than this. The Roman Catholics had hitherto shown themselves absolutely incompetent to take any decisive part in politics. … O'Connell, however, perceived that it was possible to bring the whole mass of the people into the struggle, and to give them an almost unexampled momentum and unanimity by applying to politics a great power that lay dormant in Ireland—the power of the Catholic priesthood. To make the priests the rulers of the country, and himself the ruler of the priests, was his first great object. … There was a party supported by Keogh, the leader in '93, who recommended what was called 'a dignified silence'—in other words, a complete abstinence from petitioning and agitation. With this party O'Connell successfully grappled. His advice on every occasion was, 'Agitate, agitate, agitate!' and Keogh was so irritated by the defeat that he retired from the society." O'Connell's leadership of the movement for Catholic Emancipation became virtually established about the beginning of 1811. "He avowed himself repeatedly to be an agitator with an 'ulterior object,' and declared that that object was the repeal of the Union. 'Desiring, as I do, the repeal of the Union,' he said in one of his speeches, in 1813, 'I rejoice to see how our enemies promote that great object. … They delay the liberties of the Catholics, but they compensate us most amply because they advance the restoration of Ireland. By leaving one cause of agitation, they have created, and they will embody and give shape and form to, a public mind and a public spirit.' … Nothing can be more untrue than to represent the Repeal agitation as a mere afterthought designed to sustain his flagging popularity. Nor can it be said that the project was first started by him. The deep indignation that the Union had produced in Ireland was fermenting among all classes, and assuming the form, sometimes of a French party, sometimes of a social war, and sometimes of a constitutional agitation. … It would be tedious to follow into minute detail the difficulties and the mistakes that obstructed the Catholic movement, and were finally overcome by the energy or the tact of O'Connell. … Several times the movement was menaced by Government proclamations and prosecutions. Its great difficulty was to bring the public opinion of the whole body of the Roman Catholics actively and habitually into the question. … All preceding movements since the Revolution (except the passing excitement about Wood's halfpence) had been chiefly among the Protestants or among the higher order of the Catholics. The mass of the people had taken no real interest in politics, had felt no real pain at their disabilities, and were politically the willing slaves of their landlords. For the first time, under the influence of O'Connell, the great swell of a really democratic movement was felt. The simplest way of concentrating the new enthusiasm would have been by a system of delegates, but this had been rendered illegal by the Convention Act. On the other hand, the right of petitioning was one of the fundamental privileges of the constitution. By availing himself of this right O'Connell contrived, with the dexterity of a practised lawyer, to violate continually the spirit of the Convention Act, while keeping within the letter of the law. Proclamation after proclamation was launched against his society, but by continually changing its name and its form he generally succeeded in evading the prosecutions of the Government. These early societies, however, all sink into insignificance compared with that great Catholic Association which was formed in 1824. The avowed objects of this society were to promote religious education, to ascertain the numerical strength of the different religions, and to answer the charges against the Roman Catholics embodied in the hostile petitions. It also 'recommended' petitions (unconnected with the society) from every parish, and aggregate meetings in every county. The real object was to form a gigantic system of organisation, ramifying over the entire country, and directed in every parish by the priests, for the purpose of petitioning and in every other way agitating in favour of emancipation. The Catholic Rent [a system of small subscriptions—as small as a penny a month—collected from the poorest contributors, throughout Ireland] was instituted at this time, and it formed at once a powerful instrument of cohesion and a faithful barometer of the popular feeling. … The success of the Catholic Association became every week more striking. The rent rose with an extraordinary rapidity [from £350 a week in October to £700 a week in December, 1824]. The meetings in every county grew more and more enthusiastic, the triumph of priestly influence more and more certain. The Government made a feeble and abortive effort to arrest the storm by threatening both O'Connell and Sheil [Richard Lalor] with prosecution for certain passages in their speeches. … The formation of the Wellington Ministry [Wellington and Peel, 1828] seemed effectually to crush the present hopes of the Catholics, for the stubborn resolution of its leader was as well known as his Tory opinions. Yet this Ministry was destined to terminate the contest by establishing the principle of religious equality. … On the accession of the Wellington Ministry to power the Catholic Association passed a resolution to the effect that they would oppose with their whole energy any Irish member who consented to accept office under it. … {1785} An opportunity for carrying the resolution into effect soon occurred. Mr. Fitzgerald, the member for Clare, accepted the office of President of the Board of Trade, and was consequently obliged to go to his constituents for re-election." O'Connell entered the lists against him. "The excitement at this announcement rose at once to fever height. It extended over every part of Ireland, and penetrated every class of society. The whole mass of the Roman Catholics prepared to support him, and the vast system of organisation which he had framed acted effectually in every direction." For the first time, the landlords found that the voting of their tenants could not be controlled. Fitzgerald withdrew from the contest and O'Connell was elected. "Ireland was now on the very verge of revolution. The whole mass of the people had been organised like a regular army, and taught to act with the most perfect unanimity. … The Ministers, feeling further resistance to be hopeless, brought in the Emancipation Bill, confessedly because to withhold it would be to kindle a rebellion that would extend over the length and breadth of the land."

W. E. H. Lecky, Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland: O'Connell.

"Peel introduced the Relief Bill on the 5th March [1829]. The king had given to it a reluctant assent. At the last hour, the intrigues of Eldon and the Duke of Cumberland had so far influenced his weak and disingenuous mind that he withdrew his assent to his ministers' policy, on the pretence that he had not expected, and could not sanction, any modification of the Oath of Supremacy. He parted from his ministers with kisses and courtesy, and, for a few hours their resignation was in his hands. But with night his discretion waxed as his courage waned; his ministers were recalled, and their measure proceeded. In its main provisions it was thorough and far-reaching. It admitted the Roman Catholic to Parliament, and to all lay offices under the Crown, except those of Regent, Lord Chancellor, whether of England or of Ireland, and Lord Lieutenant. It repealed the oath of abjuration, it modified the oath of supremacy. … It approximated the Irish to the English county franchise by abolishing the forty-shilling freeholder, and raising the voters' qualifications to £10. All monasteries and institutions of Jesuits were suppressed; and Roman Catholic bishops were forbidden to assume titles of sees already held by bishops of the Church of Ireland. Municipal and other officials were forbidden to wear the insignia of their office at Roman Catholic ceremonies. Lastly, the new Oath of Supremacy was available only for persons thereafter to be elected to Parliament"—which nullified O'Connell's election at Clare. This petty stroke of malice is said to have been introduced in the bill for the gratification of the king. The vote in the Commons on the Bill was 353 against 180, and in the Lords 217 to 112. It received the Royal assent on the 13th of April.

J. A. Hamilton, Life of Daniel O'Connell, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: J. McCarthy, Sir Robert Peel, chapters 2-7.

W. J. Fitzpatrick, Correspondence of Daniel O'Connell, with notices of his Life and Times, volume 1, chapters 1-5.

W. J. Amherst, History of Catholic Emancipation.

W. C. Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel, volume 1, chapters 16-18 and volume 2, chapters 1-2.

IRELAND: A. D. 1820-1826. Rise of the Ribbon Society.

"Throughout the half-century extending from 1820 to 1870, a secret oath-bound agrarian confederacy, known as the 'Ribbon Society,' was the constant affliction and recurring terror of the landed classes of Ireland. The Vehmgericht itself was not more dreaded. … It is assuredly strange—indeed, almost incredible—that although the existence of this organisation was, in a general way, as well and as widely known as the fact that Queen Victoria reigned, or that Daniel O'Connell was once a living man; although the story of its crimes has thrilled judge and jury, and parliamentary committees have filled ponderous blue-books with evidence of its proceedings, there is to this hour the widest conflict of assertion and conclusion as to what exactly were its real aims, its origin, structure, character, and purpose. … I long ago satisfied myself that the Ribbonism of one period was not the Ribbonism of another; that the version of its aims and character prevalent amongst its own members in one county or district differed widely from that existing elsewhere. In Ulster it professed to be a defensive or retaliatory league against Orangeism. In Munster it was at first a combination against tithe-proctors. In Connaught it was an organisation against rack-renting and evictions. In Leinster it often was mere trade-unionism. … The Ribbon Society seems to have been wholly confined to small farmers, cottiers, labourers, and, in the towns, petty shopkeepers, in whose houses the 'lodges' were held. … Although from the inception, or first appearance, of Ribbonism the Catholic clergy waged a determined war upon it … the society was exclusively Catholic. Under no circumstances would a Protestant be admitted to membership. … The name 'Ribbon Society' was not attached to it until about 1826. It was previously known as 'Liberty Men'; the 'Religious Liberty System'; the 'United Sons of Irish Freedom'; 'Sons of the Shamrock'; and by other names. … It has been said, and probably with some truth, that it has been too much the habit to attribute erroneously to the Ribbon organisation every atrocity committed in the country, every deed of blood apparently arising out of agrarian combination or conspiracy. … But vain is all pretence that the Ribbon Society did not become, whatever the original design or intention of its members may have been, a hideous organisation of outrage and murder. … There was a period when Ribbon outrages had, at all events, a conceivable provocation; but there came a time when they sickened the public conscience by their wantonness. The vengeance of the society was ruthless and terrible. … From 1835 to 1855 the Ribbon organisation was at its greatest strength. … With the emigration of the labouring classes it was carried abroad, to England and to America. At one time the most formidable lodges were in Lancashire."

A. M. Sullivan, New Ireland, chapter 4.

IRELAND: A. D. 1831. Establishment of National Schools.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.—IRELAND.

IRELAND: A. D. 1832. Parliamentary Representation increased by the Reform Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1830-1832.

{1786}

IRELAND: A. D. 1840-1841. Discontent with the results of the Union. Condition of the people. O'Connell's revival of agitation for Repeal.

"The Catholics were at length emancipated in 1829; and now, surely, their enemies suggested, they must be contented and grateful for evermore? Perverse must the people be who, having got what they asked, are not satisfied. Let us see. What they asked was to be admitted to their just share, or, at any rate to some share, of the government of their native country, from which they had been excluded for five generations. But on the passing of the Emancipation Act not a single Catholic was admitted to an office of authority, great or small. The door was opened, indeed, but not a soul was permitted to pass in. There were murmurs of discontent, and the class who still enjoyed all the patronage of the State, the Church, the army, the magistracy, and the public service, demanded if there was any use in attempting to conciliate a people so intractable and unreasonable? The Catholic Association, which had won the victory, was rewarded for its public spirit by being dissolved by Act of Parliament. Its leader, who had been elected to the House of Commons, had his election declared void by a phrase imported into the Emancipation Act for this special purpose. The forty-shilling freeholders, whose courage and magnanimity had made the cause irresistible, were immediately deprived of the franchise. By means of a high qualification and an ingeniously complicated system of registry, the electors in twelve counties were reduced from upwards of 100,000 to less than 10,000. Englishmen cannot comprehend our dissatisfaction. … Emancipation was speedily followed by a Reform of the House of Commons. In England a sweeping and salutary change was made both in the franchise, and in the distribution of seats; but Ireland did not obtain either the number of representatives she was demonstrably entitled to by population and resources, or such a reduction of the franchise as had been conceded to England. The Whigs were in power, and Ireland was well-disposed to the party. … But the idea of treating Ireland on perfectly equal terms, and giving her the full advantage of the Union which had been forced on her, did not exist in the mind of a single statesman of that epoch. After Emancipation and Reform, O'Connell had a fierce quarrel with the Whigs, during which he raised the question of Ireland's right to be governed exclusively by her own Parliament. The people responded passionately to his appeal. The party of Protestant Ascendancy had demanded the Repeal of the Union before Emancipation, but that disturbing event altered their policy, and they withheld all aid from O'Connell. After a brief time he abandoned the experiment, to substitute for it an attempt to obtain what was called 'justice to Ireland.' In furtherance of this project he made a compact with the Whigs that the Irish Party under his lead should support them in parliament. The Whigs in return made fairer appointments to judicial and other public employments, restrained jury packing, and established an unsectarian system of public education; but the national question was thrown back for more than a generation. In 1840-1 O'Connell revived the question of Repeal, on the ground that the Union had wholly failed to accomplish the end for which it was said to be designed. Instead of bringing Ireland prosperity, it had brought her ruin. The social condition of the country during the half-century, then drawing to a close was, indeed, without parallel in Europe. The whole population were dependent on agriculture. There were minerals, but none found in what miners call 'paying quantities.' There was no manufacture except linen, and the remnant of a woollen trade, slowly dying out before the pitiless competition of Yorkshire. What the island chiefly produced was food; which was exported to richer countries to enable the cultivator to pay an inordinate rent. Foreign travellers saw with amazement an island possessing all the natural conditions of a great commerce, as bare of commerce as if it lay in some byeway of the world where enterprise had not yet penetrated. … The great proprietors were two or three hundred—the heirs of the Undertakers, for the most part, and Absentees; the mass of the country was owned by a couple of thousand others, who lived in splendour, and even profusion; and for these the peasant ploughed, sowed, tended, and reaped a harvest which he never shared. Rent, in other countries, means the surplus after the farmer has been liberally paid for his skill and labour; in Ireland it meant the whole produce of the soil except a potato-pit. If a farmer strove for more, his master knew how to bring him to speedy submission. He could carry away his implements of trade by the law of distress, or rob him of his sole pursuit in life by the law of eviction. He could, and habitually did, seize the growing crop, the stools and pots in his miserable cabin, the blanket that sheltered his children, the cow that gave them nourishment. There were just and humane landlords, men who performed the duties which their position imposed, and did not exaggerate its rights; but they were a small minority. … Famines were frequent, and every other year destitution killed a crowd of peasants. For a hundred and fifty years before, whoever has described the condition of Ireland—English official, foreign visitor, or Irish patriot—described a famine more or less acute. Sometimes the tortured serfs rose in nocturnal jacquerie against the system; and then a cry of 'rebellion' was raised, and England was assured that these intractable barbarians were again (as the indictment always charged) 'levying war against the King's majesty.' There were indeed causes enough for national disaffection, but of these the poor peasant knew nothing; he was contending for so much miserable food as would save his children from starvation. There were sometimes barbarous agrarian murders—murders of agents and bailiffs chiefly, but occasionally of landlords. It would be shameful to forget that these savage crimes were often the result of savage provocation. … The country was naked of timber, the cabins of the peasantry were squalid and unfurnished. Mr. Carlyle reproves a lazy, thriftless people, who would not perform the simple operation of planting trees; and Mr. Froude frowns upon cottages whose naked walls are never draped by climbing roses or flowering creepers. But how much more eloquent is fact than rhetoric? The Irish landlords made a law that when the tenant planted a tree it became not his own property but his master's; and the established practice of four-fifths of the Irish landlords, when a tenant exhibited such signs of prosperity as a garden, or a white-washed cabin, was to reward his industry by increasing his rent. {1787} Peasants will not plant or make improvements on these conditions, nor, I fancy, would philosophers. … It was sometimes made a boast in those days that rank, property, station, and professional success distinguished the minority in Ireland who were imperialists and Protestants. It was not an amazing phenomenon, that those upon whom the law had bestowed a monopoly of rank, property, and station, for a hundred and fifty years, should have still maintained the advantage a dozen years after Emancipation. It was a subject of scornful reproach that the districts inhabited by Protestants were peaceful and prosperous, while the Catholic districts were often poor and disorderly. There is no doubt of the facts; the contrast certainly existed. But the mystery disappears when one comes to reflect that in Down and Antrim the Squire regarded his tenantry with as much sympathy and confidence as a Squire in Devon or Essex, that their sons were trained to bear arms, and taught from the pulpit and platform that they belonged to a superior race, that all the local employments, paid out of the public purse, were distributed among them, that they had certain well understood rights over their holdings on which no landlord could safely trench, and that they met their masters, from time to time, in the friendly equality of an Orange lodge; while in Tipperary, the farmer was a tenant at will who never saw his landlord except when he followed the hounds across his corn, or frowned at him from the bench; whose rent could be raised, or his tenancy terminated at the pleasure of his master; who, on the smallest complaint, was carried before a bench of magistrates, where he had no expectation, and little chance, of justice; and who wanted the essential stimulus to thrift and industry, the secure enjoyment of his earnings. As a set-off to this long catalogue of discouragements, there were two facts of happy augury. In 1842 half a million of children were receiving education in the National Schools under a system designed to establish religious equality, and administered by Catholic and Protestant Commissioners. And the Teetotal movement was at its height. Thousands were accepting every week a pledge of total abstinence from Father Mathew, a young priest whom the gifts of nature and the accidents of fortune combined to qualify for the mission of a Reformer. … There was the beginning of political reforms also. The Whigs sent a Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary to Ireland who, for the first time since the fall of Limerick, treated the bulk of the nation as the social and political equals of the minority. The minority had been so long accustomed to make and administer the laws, and to occupy the places of authority and distinction, that they regarded the change as a revolt; and Lord Mulgrave and Thomas Drummond as the successors of Tyrconnel and Nugent. In the interval, since Emancipation, a few Catholics were elected to Parliament, two Catholic lawyers were raised to the bench, and smaller appointments distributed among laymen. … The exclusion of Catholics from juries was restrained, and the practice of appointing partisans of too shameful antecedents to public functions was interrupted. … It was under these circumstances that O'Connell for the second time summoned the Irish people to demand a Repeal of the Union."

Sir C. G. Duffy, A Bird's-Eye View of Irish History, revised edition, pages 242-275.

ALSO IN: Lord E. Fitzmaurice and J. R. Thursfield, Two Centuries of Irish History, part 4, chapters 1-2.

R. M. Martin, Ireland before and after the Union.

IRELAND: A. D. 1841-1848. O'Connell's last agitation. His trial, imprisonment and release. His death. The "Young Ireland" Party and its rebellion.

In 1841, O'Connell "left England and went to Ireland, and devoted himself there to the work of organization. A succession of monster meetings were held all over the country, the far-famed one on Tara Hill being, as is credibly asserted, attended by no less than a quarter of a million of people. Over this vast multitude gathered together around him the magic tones of the great orator's voice swept triumphantly; awakening anger, grief, passion, delight, laughter, tears, at its own pleasure. They were astonishing triumphs, but they were dearly bought. The position was, in fact, an impossible one to maintain long. O'Connell had carried the whole mass of the people with him up to the very brink of the precipice, but how to bring them safely and successfully down again was more than even he could accomplish. Resistance he had always steadily denounced, yet every day his own words seemed to be bringing the inevitable moment of collision nearer and nearer. The crisis came on October the 5th. A meeting had been summoned to meet at Clontarf, near Dublin, and on the afternoon of the 4th the Government suddenly came to the resolution of issuing a proclamation forbidding it to assemble. The risk was a formidable one for responsible men to run. Many of the people were already on their way, and only O'Connell's own rapid and vigorous measures in sending out in all directions to intercept them hindered the actual shedding of blood. His prosecution and that of some of his principal adherents was the next important event. By a Dublin jury he was found guilty, sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and conveyed to prison, still earnestly entreating the people to remain quiet, an order which they strictly obeyed. The jury by which he had been condemned was known to be strongly biassed against him, and an appeal had been forwarded against his sentence to the House of Lords. So strong there, too, was the feeling against O'Connell, that little expectation was entertained of its being favourably received. Greatly to its honour, however, the sentence was reversed and he was set free. … The enthusiasm shown at his release was frantic and delirious. None the less those months in Richmond prison proved the death-knell of his power. He was an old man by this time; he was already weakened in health, and that buoyancy which had hitherto carried him over any and every obstacle never again revived. The 'Young Ireland' party, the members of which had in the first instance been his allies and lieutenants, had now formed a distinct section, and upon the vital question of resistance were in fierce hostility to all his most cherished principles. The state of the country, too, preyed visibly upon his mind. By 1846 had begun that succession of disastrous seasons which, by destroying the feeble barrier which stood between the peasant and a cruel death, brought about a national tragedy, the most terrible perhaps with which modern Europe has been confronted. This tragedy, though he did not live to see the whole of it, O'Connell—himself the incarnation of the people—felt acutely. {1788} Deep despondency took hold of him. He retired, to a great degree, from public life, leaving the conduct of his organization in the hands of others. … In 1847 he resolved to leave Ireland, and to end his days in Rome. His last public appearance was in the House of Commons, where an attentive and deeply respectful audience hung upon the faltering and barely articulate accents which fell from his lips. In a few deeply moving words he appealed for aid and sympathy for his suffering countrymen, and left the House. … The camp and council chamber of the 'Young Ireland' party was the editor's room of 'The Nation' newspaper. There it found its inspiration, and there its plans were matured—so far, that is, as they can be said to have been ever matured. For an eminently readable and all things considered a wonderfully impartial account of this movement, the reader cannot do better than consult Sir Charles Gavan Duffy's 'Four Years of Irish History,' which has the immense advantage of being history taken at first hand, written that is by one who himself took a prominent part in the scenes which he describes. The most interesting figure in the party had, however, died before those memorable four years began. Thomas Davis, who was only thirty at the time of his death in 1845, was a man of large gifts, nay, might fairly be called a man of genius. … The whole movement in fact was, in the first instance; a literary quite as much as a political one. Nearly all who took part in it Gavan Duffy, John Mitchell, Meagher, Dillon, Davis himself—were very young men, many fresh from college, all filled with zeal for the cause of liberty and nationality. The graver side of the movement only showed itself when the struggle with O'Connell began. At first no idea of deposing, or even seriously opposing the great leader seems to have been intended. The attempt on O'Connell's part to carry a formal declaration against the employment under any circumstances of physical force was, the origin of that division, and what the younger spirits considered 'truckling to the Whigs' helped to widen the breach. When, too, O'Connell had partially retired into the background, his place was filled by his son, John O'Connell, the 'Head conciliator,' between whom and the 'Young Irelanders' there waged a fierce war, which in the end led to the indignant withdrawal of the latter from the Repeal council. Before matters reached this point, the younger camp had been strengthened by the adhesion of Smith O'Brien, who, though not a man of much intellectual calibre, carried no little weight in Ireland. … Early in January, 1847, O'Connell left on that journey of his which was never completed, and by the middle of May Ireland was suddenly startled by the news that her great leader was dead. The effect of his death was to produce a sudden and immense reaction. A vast revulsion of love and reverence sprang up all over the country; an immense sense of his incomparable services, and with it a vehement anger against all who had opposed him. Upon the 'Young Ireland' party, as was inevitable, the weight of that anger fell chiefly, and from the moment of O'Connell's death whatever claim they had to call themselves a national party vanished utterly. The men 'who killed the Liberator' could never again hope to carry with them the suffrages of any number of their countrymen. This contumely, to a great degree undeserved, naturally reacted upon the subjects of it. The taunt of treachery and ingratitude flung at them wherever they went stung and nettled. In the general reaction of gratitude and affection for O'Connell, his son John succeeded easily to the position of leader. The older members of the Repeal Association thereupon rallied about him, and the split between them and the younger men grew deeper and wider. A wild, impracticable visionary now came to play a part in the movement. A deformed misanthrope, called James Lalor, endowed with a considerable command of vague, passionate rhetoric, began to write incentives to revolt in 'The Nation.' These growing more and more violent were by the editor at length prudently suppressed. The seed, however, had already sown itself in another mind. John Mitchell is described by Mr. Justin McCarthy as 'the one formidable man amongst the rebels of '48; the one man who distinctly knew what he wanted, and was prepared to run any risk to get it.' … To him it was intolerable that any human being should be willing to go further and to dare more in the cause of Ireland than himself, and the result was that after awhile he broke away from his connection with The Nation,' and started a new organ under the name of 'The United Irishmen,' one definitely pledged from the first to the policy of action. From this point matters gathered speedily to a head. Mitchell's newspaper proceeded to fling out challenge after challenge to the Government, calling upon the people to gather and to 'sweep-this island clear of the English name and nation.' For some months these challenges remained unanswered. It was now, however, '48,' and nearly all Europe was in revolution. The necessity of taking some step began to be evident, and a Bill making all written incitement of insurrection felony was hurried through the House of Commons, and almost immediately after Mitchell was arrested. Even then he seems to have believed that the country would rise to liberate him. The country, however, showed no disposition to do anything of the sort. He was tried in Dublin, found guilty, sentenced to fourteen years' transportation, and a few days afterwards put on board a vessel in the harbour and conveyed to Spike Island, whence he was sent to Bermuda, and the following April in a convict vessel to the Cape, and finally to Tasmania. The other 'Young Irelanders,' stung apparently by their own previous inaction, thereupon rushed frantically into rebellion. The leaders—Smith O'Brien, Meagher, Dillon, and others—went about the country holding reviews of 'Confederates,' as they now called themselves, a proceeding which caused the Government to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and to issue a warrant for their arrest. A few more gatherings took place in different parts of the country, a few more ineffectual attempts were made to induce the people to rise, one very small collision with the police occurred, and then the whole thing was over. All the leaders in the course of a few days were arrested and Smith O'Brien and Meagher were sentenced to death, a sentence which was speedily changed into transportation. Gavan Duffy was arrested and several times tried, but the jury always disagreed, and in the end his prosecution was abandoned. The 'Young Ireland' movement, however, was dead, and never again revived."

E. Lawless, The Story of Ireland, chapters 55-56.

ALSO IN: Sir C. G. Duffy, Young Ireland.

Sir C. G. Duffy, Four Years of Irish History, 1845-1849.

Sir C. G. Duffy, Thomas Davis: Memoirs of an Irish Patriot, 1840-1846.

{1789}

IRELAND: A. D. 1843-1848. The Devon Commission. The Encumbered Estates Act.

In 1843, Mr. Sharman Crawford "succeeded in obtaining the appointment of a Royal Commission to investigate the 'occupation of land in Ireland.' This Commission, known from its chairman, Lord Devon, as the Devon Commission, marks a great epoch in the Irish land question. The Commissioners, in their Report, brought out strongly the facts that great misery existed in Ireland, and that the cause of the misery was the system of land tenure. The following extract from the Report indicates the general nature of its conclusions: 'A reference to the evidence of most of the witnesses will show that the agricultural labourer of Ireland continues to suffer the greatest privations and hardships; that he continues to depend upon casual and precarious employment for subsistence; that he is badly housed, badly fed, badly clothed, and badly paid for his labour. Our personal experience and observations during our enquiry have afforded us a melancholy confirmation of these statements, and we cannot forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the labouring classes have generally exhibited under sufferings greater, we believe, than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain.' And the remedy for the evil is to be found, continues the Report, in 'an increased and improved cultivation of the soil,' to be gained by securing for the tenant' fair remuneration for the outlay of his capital and labour.' No sooner was this Report issued than great numbers of petitions were presented to the House of Lords, and supported by Lord Devon, praying for legislative reform of the land evils; and in June, 1845, a bill was introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Stanley, on behalf of the government of Sir Robert Peel, for 'the purpose of providing compensation to tenants in Ireland, in certain cases, on being dispossessed of their holdings, for such improvements as they may have made during their tenancy.' By the selfish opposition of the Irish landlords this bill was thrown out. Two days after its rejection in the House of Lords Mr. Sharman Crawford brought into the House of Commons a Tenant Right Bill, and met with as little success. In 1846 a government bill was introduced, bearing a strong resemblance to that of Lord Stanley; but the ministry was overthrown, and the bill was dropped. A Liberal ministry under Lord John Russell came into power in July, 1846, and Irish hopes again began to rise. In 1847 the indefatigable Mr. Crawford brought in a bill, whose purpose was to extend the Ulster custom to the whole of Ireland; it was thrown out. A well-meant but in the end unsuccessful attempt to relieve the burdens of embarrassed landlords without redressing the grievances of rack-rented tenants, was made in 1848 by the measure well known as the Encumbered Estates Act. This Act had for its object to restore capital to the land; but with capital it brought in a class of proprietors who lacked the virtues as well as the vices of their predecessors, and were even more oppressive to the tenantry."

E. Thursfield, England and Ireland, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: H. L. Jephson, Notes on Irish Questions, chapter 15.

D. B. King, The Irish Question, chapter 9.

IRELAND: A. D. 1844. The Maynooth Grant.

Towards the close of the session of Parliament in 1844, Sir Robert Peel undertook a measure "dealing with higher education in Ireland. Means were to be found, in some way, for the education of the upper classes of the Irish, and for the more efficient education of candidates for the Roman Catholic priesthood. Some provision already existed for the education of the Irish people. Trinity College, with its considerable endowments, afforded opportunities to wealthy Irish. The National Board, which Stanley had instituted, had under its control 3,153 schools, and 395,000 scholars. But Trinity College retained most of its advantages for the benefit of its Protestant students, and the 395,000 scholars, whom the National Board was educating, did not, after all, include one person in every twenty alive in Ireland. The Roman Catholic, since 1793, had been allowed to graduate at Trinity; but he could hold neither scholarship nor professorship. … Some steps had, indeed, been taken for the education of the Roman Catholic priesthood. In 1795, Fitzwilliam had proposed, and his successor, Camden, had approved, the appropriation of an annual sum of money to a college formed at Maynooth for the education of Roman Catholic priests. The Irish parliament had readily sanctioned the scheme; the payment of the grant had been continued, after the Union, by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, and, though the sums voted had been reduced to £9,000 a year in 1808, this amount had been thenceforward regularly allotted to Maynooth. In some respects the grant was actually disadvantageous to the college; it was too small to maintain the institution; it was large enough to discourage voluntary contributions. The surroundings of the college were squalid; its professors were wretchedly paid; it was even impossible to assign to each of the 440 students a separate room; it was dubbed by Macaulay, in a memorable speech, a 'miserable Dotheboys' Hall,' and it was Peel's deliberate opinion that the absolute withdrawal of the grant would be better than the continuance of the niggardly allowance." The Government "asked Parliament to vote a sum of £30,000 to improve the buildings at Maynooth; it proposed that the Board of Works should in future be responsible for keeping them in repair; it suggested that the salaries of professors should be more than doubled; that the position of the students should be improved; that the annual grant should be raised from about £9,000 to about £26,000, and that this sum, instead of being subject to the approval of the legislature once a year, should be placed on the Consolidated Fund. Then arose a series of debates which have no parallel in the history of the British Parliament. … 'The Orangeman raises his howl,' said Macaulay, 'and Exeter Hall sets up its bray, and Mr. MacNeile is horrified to think that a still larger grant is intended for the priests of Baal at the table of Jezebel, and the Protestant operatives of Dublin call for the impeachment of Ministers in exceedingly bad English.' {1790} A few years later a man, who was both a Christian and a gentleman, declared the Irish famine to be a dispensation of Providence in return for the Maynooth grant. … Night after night it rained petitions; 298 petitions against the bill were presented on the 3rd of April, when Peel explained his scheme; 148 on the 8th; 254 on the 9th; 552 on the 10th; 2,262 on the 11th, when the bill was put down for a second reading; 662 on the 14th; 581 on the 15th; 420 on the 16th; 335 on the 17th; 371 on the 18th. The petitions hardly allowed a doubt to remain as to the opinion of the country. Peel, indeed, was again exposed to the full force of the strongest power which any British Minister can encounter. The Mussulman, driven to his last defence, raises the standard of the Prophet, and proclaims a holy war. But the Englishman, if Protestantism be in danger, shouts, 'No Popery!' and creates equal enthusiasm. … Yet, vast as was the storm which the Minister had provoked, the issues which he had directly raised were of the smallest proportions. Hardly anyone ventured to propose that the original vote to Maynooth should be withdrawn. A grant, indeed, which had been sanctioned by George III., which had been fixed by Perceval, which had been voted in an unreformed Parliament, almost without debate, and which had been continued for fifty years, could not be withdrawn. Peel's opponents, therefore, were compelled to argue that there was no harm in sacrificing £9,000 a year to Baal, but that a sacrifice of £26,000 was full of harm. … They debated the second reading of the bill for six nights, the third reading for three nights, and they seized other opportunities for protracting the discussion. Even the Lords forgot their customary habits and sat up till a late hour on three successive evenings to discuss an amendment for inquiring into the class of books used at Maynooth. But this unusual display of zeal proved useless. A majority in both Houses steadily supported the Minister, and zealous Protestants and old-fashioned Tories were unable to defeat a scheme which was proposed by Peel and supported by Russell."

S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 19 (volume 4).

ALSO IN;

H. Martineau, History of the Thirty Years' Peace, book 6, chapter 8.

IRELAND: A. D. 1845-1847. The Famine.

"In 1841 the population of Ireland was 8,175,124 souls. By 1845 it had probably reached to nearly nine millions. … To anyone looking beneath the surface the condition of the country was painfully precarious. Nine millions of a population living at best in a light-hearted and hopeful hand-to-mouth contentment, totally dependent on the hazards of one crop, destitute of manufacturing industries, and utterly without reserve or resource to fall back upon in time of reverse; what did all this mean but a state of things critical and alarming in the extreme? Yet no one seemed conscious of danger. The potato crop had been abundant for four or five years, and respite from dearth and distress was comparative happiness and prosperity. Moreover, the temperance movement [of Father Mathew] had come to make the 'good times' still better. Everything looked bright. No one concerned himself to discover how slender and treacherous was the foundation for this general hopefulness and confidence. Yet signs of the coming storm had been given. Partial famine caused by failing harvests had indeed been intermittent in Ireland, and, quite recently, warnings that ought not to have been mistaken or neglected had given notice that the esculent which formed the sole dependence of the peasant millions was subject to some mysterious blight. In 1844 it was stricken in America, but in Ireland the yield was healthy and plentiful as ever. The harvest of 1845 promised to be the richest gathered for many years. Suddenly, in one short month, in one week it might be said, the withering breath of a simoom seemed to sweep the land, blasting all in its path. I myself saw whole tracts of potato growth changed in one night from smiling luxuriance to a shrivelled and blackened waste. A shout of alarm arose. But the buoyant nature of the Celtic peasant did not yet give way. The crop was so profuse that it was expected the healthy portion would reach an average result. Winter revealed the alarming fact that the tubers had rotted in pit and store-house. Nevertheless the farmers, like hapless men who double their stakes to recover losses, made only the more strenuous exertions to till a larger breadth in 1846. Although already feeling the pinch of sore distress, if not actual famine, they worked as if for dear life; they begged and borrowed on any terms the means whereby to crop the land once more. The pawn-offices were choked with the humble finery that had shone at the village dance or the christening feast; the banks and local money-lenders were besieged with appeals for credit. Meals were stinted, backs were bared. Anything, anything to tide over the interval to the harvest of 'Forty-six.' O God, it is a dreadful thought that all this effort was but more surely leading them to ruin! It was this harvest of Forty-six that sealed their doom. Not partially but completely, utterly, hopelessly, it perished. As in the previous year, all promised brightly up to the close of July. Then, suddenly, in a night, whole areas were blighted; and this time, alas! no portion of the crop escaped. A cry of agony and despair went up all over the land. The last desperate stake for life had been played, and all was lost. The doomed people realised but too well what was before them. Last year's premonitory sufferings had exhausted them, and now?—they must die! My native district figures largely in the gloomy record of that dreadful time. I saw the horrible phantasmagoria—would God it were but that!—pass before my eyes. Blank stolid dismay, a sort of stupor, fell upon the people, contrasting remarkably with the fierce energy put forth a year before. It was no uncommon sight to see the cottier and his little family seated on the garden fence gazing all day long in moody silence at the blighted plot that had been their last hope. Nothing could arouse them. You spoke; they answered not. You tried to cheer them; they shook their heads. I never saw so sudden and so terrible a transformation. When first in the autumn of 1845 the partial blight appeared, wise voices were raised in warning to the Government that a frightful catastrophe was at hand; yet even then began that fatal circumlocution and inaptness which it maddens one to think of. It would be utter injustice to deny that the Government made exertions which judged by ordinary emergencies would be prompt and considerable. {1791} But judged by the awful magnitude of the evil then at hand or actually befallen, they were fatally tardy and inadequate. When at length the executive did hurry, the blunders of precipitancy outdid the disasters of excessive deliberation. … In October 1845 the Irish Mansion House Relief Committee implored the Government to call Parliament together and throw open the ports. The Government refused. Again and again the terrible urgency of the case, the magnitude of the disaster at hand, was pressed on the executive. It was the obstinate refusal of Lord John Russell to listen to these remonstrances and entreaties, and the sad verification subsequently of these apprehensions, that implanted in the Irish mind the bitter memories which still occasionally find vent in passionate accusation of 'England.' Not but the Government had many and weighty arguments in behalf of the course they took. … The situation bristled with difficulties. … At first the establishment of public soup-kitchens under local relief committees, subsidised by Government, was relied upon to arrest the famine. I doubt if the world ever saw so huge a demoralisation, so great a degradation, visited upon a once high-spirited and sensitive people. All over the country large iron boilers were set up, in which what was called 'soup' was concocted; later on Indian-meal stirabout was boiled. Around these boilers on the roadside there daily moaned and shrieked and fought and scuffled crowds of gaunt, cadaverous creatures that once had been men and women made in the image of God. The feeding of dogs in a kennel was far more decent and orderly. … I frequently stood and watched the scene till tears blinded me and I almost choked with grief and passion. … The conduct of the Irish landlords throughout the famine period has been variously described, and has been, I believe, generally condemned. I consider the censure visited on them too sweeping. … On many of them no blame too heavy could possibly fall. A large number were permanent absentees; their ranks were swelled by several who early fled the post of duty at home—cowardly and selfish deserters of a brave and faithful people. Of those who remained, some may have grown callous; it is impossible to contest authentic instances of brutal heartlessness here and there. But … the overwhelming balance is the other way. The bulk of the resident Irish landlords manfully did their best in that dread hour. … In the autumn of 1846 relief works were set on foot, the Government having received parliamentary authority to grant baronial loans for such undertakings. There might have been found many ways of applying these funds in reproductive employment, but the modes decided on were draining and road-making. … The result was in every sense deplorable failure. The wretched people were by this time too wasted and emaciated to work. The endeavour to do so under an inclement winter sky only hastened death. They tottered at day-break to the roll-call; vainly tried to wheel the barrow or ply the pick, but fainted away on the 'cutting,' or lay down on the wayside to rise no more. As for the roads on which so much money was wasted, and on which so many lives were sacrificed, hardly any of them were finished. Miles of grass-grown earth works throughout the country now mark their course and commemorate for posterity one of the gigantic blunders of the famine time. The first remarkable sign of the havoc which death was making was the decline, and disappearance of funerals. … Soon, alas! neither coffin nor shroud could be supplied. Daily in the street and on the footway some poor creature lay down as if to sleep, and presently was stiff and stark. In our district it was a common occurrence to find, on opening the front door in early morning, leaning against it, the corpse of some victim who in the night-time had 'rested' in its shelter. We raised a public subscription, and employed two men with horse and cart to go around each day and gather up the dead. One by one they were taken to a great pit at Ardnabrahair Abbey and dropped through the hinged bottom of a 'trap-coffin' into a common grave below. In the remoter rural districts even this rude sepulture was impossible. In the field and by the ditchside the victims lay as they fell, till some charitable hand was found to cover them with the adjacent soil. It was the fever which supervened on the famine that wrought the greatest slaughter and spread the greatest terror. … To come within the reach of this contagion was certain death. Whole families perished unvisited and unassisted. By levelling above their corpses the sheeling in which they died, the neighbours gave them a grave."

A. M. Sullivan, New Ireland, chapter 6.

"In July 1847 as many as three millions of persons were actually receiving separate rations. A loan of £8,000,000 was contracted by the Government, expressly to supply such wants, and every step was taken by two successive administrations, Sir Robert Peel's and Lord John Russell's, to alleviate the sufferings of the people. Nor was private benevolence lacking. The Society of Friends, always ready in acts of charity and love, was foremost in the good work. A British Association was formed for the relief of Ireland, including Jones Lloyd (Lord Overstone), Thomas Baring, and Baron Rothschild. A Queen's letter was issued. … Subscriptions were received from almost every quarter of the world. The Queen's letter alone produced £171,533. The British Association collected £263,000; the Society of Friends £43,000; and £168,000 more were entrusted to the Dublin Society of Friends. The Sultan of Turkey sent £1,000. The Queen gave £2,000, and £500 more to the British Ladies' Clothing Fund. Prince Albert gave £500. The National Club collected £17,930. America sent two ships of war, the 'Jamestown' and the 'Macedonian,' full of provisions; and the Irish residents in the United States sent upwards of £200,000 to their relatives, to allow them to emigrate."

L. Levi, History of British Commerce, part 4, chapter 4.

"By the end of 1847 cheap supplies of food began to be brought into the country by the ordinary operation of the laws of supply and demand, at far cheaper rates, owing to an abundant harvest abroad, than if the Government had tried to constitute itself the sole distributor. The potato harvest of 1847, if not bountiful, was at least comparatively good. … By March, 1848, the third and last period of the famine may be said to have terminated. But, though the direct period of distress was over, the economic problems which remained for solution were of overwhelming magnitude. … A million and a half of the people had disappeared. The land was devastated with fever and the diseases which dog the steps of famine. … The waters of the great deep were indeed going down, but the land was seen to be without form and void."

Lord E. Fitzmaurice and J. R. Thursfield, Two Centuries of Irish History, part 4, chapter 4.

{1792}

"The famine and plague of 1846-47 was accompanied, and succeeded, by a wholesale clearance of congested districts and by cruel evictions. The new landlords [who had acquired property under the Encumbered Estates Act], bent on consolidating their property, turned out their tenants by regiments, and in the autumn of 1847 enormous numbers were deported. It is absolutely necessary to bear this strictly in mind, if we would judge of the intense hatred which prevails amongst the Irish in America to Great Britain. The children of many of those who were exiled then have raised themselves to positions of affluence and prosperity in the United States. But they have often heard from their fathers, and some of them may perhaps recall, the circumstances under which they were driven from their old homes in Ireland. … But there is a further and awful memory connected with that time. The people who had been suffering from fever carried the plague with them on board, and the vessels sometimes became floating charnel-houses. During the year 1847, out of 106,000 emigrants who crossed the Atlantic for Canada and New Brunswick, 6,100 perished on the ocean, 4,100 immediately on landing, 5,200 subsequently in the hospitals, and 1,900 in the towns to which they repaired. … Undoubtedly, historical circumstances have … had much to do with the political hatred to Great Britain; but its newly acquired intensity is owing to the still fresh remembrances of what took place after the famine, and to the fact that the wholesale clearances of Irish estates were, to say the least, not discouraged in the writings and speeches of English lawgivers, economists and statesmen."

Sir R. Blennerhassett, Ireland ("Reign of Queen Victoria," edited by T. H. Ward, volume 1, pages 563-565).

"The deaths from fever in the year 1846 were 17,145, in the following year 57,000, to which 27,000 by dysentery must be added."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 4, page 164.

"Between the years 1847 and 1851 (both inclusive) the almost incredible number of over one million Irish—men, women, and children—were conveyed in emigrant ships to America—a whole population. In 1847, 215,444 emigrated; in 1849, 218,842, and in 1851, 249,721."

H. L. Jephson, Notes on Irish Questions, page 298.

"The population of Ireland by March 30, 1851, at the same ratio of increase as held in England and Wales, would have been 9,018,799—it was 6,552,385. It was the calculation of the Census Commissioners that the deficit, independently of the emigration, represented by the mortality in the five famine years, was 985,366."

T. P. O'Connor, The Parnell Movement, page 125.

IRELAND: A. D. 1846. Defeat of Peel's Coercion Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1846.

IRELAND: A. D. 1848-1852. Tenant organizations. The Ulster Tenant Right. The Tenant League.

"The famine … and the evictions that followed it made the people more discontented than ever with the land system. The Democratic Association, organized about this time, adopted as its rallying cry, 'the land for the people.' … This association, whose aims are said to have been 'largely communistic and revolutionary,' opposed the Irish Alliance, the Nationalist Society organized by Charles Gavan Duffy. … During the years '49 and '50 numerous Tenant Protection Societies were formed throughout the country, the Presbyterians of Ulster taking quite as active a part as the Celtic Catholics of the other provinces. In May, 1850, the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster … resolved, against the protest, it is true, of the more conservative men, to petition Parliament to extend to the rest of Ireland the benefits of rights and securities similar to those of the Ulster custom. … The Ulster tenant right … has occupied an important place in the Irish land question for a long time. … The right differs much on different estates. On no two does it seem to be precisely the same. It is therefore not a right capable of being strictly defined. Nor did it have any legal sanction until the year 1870. The law did not recognize it. One of its chief incidents was that the tenant was entitled to live on his farm from year to year indefinitely on condition of acting properly, and paying his rent, which the landlord might raise from time to time to a reasonable extent, but not so as to extinguish the tenant's interest. In the second place, if the tenant got in debt, and could not pay the rent, or wished for any other reason to leave the holding, he could sell his interest, but the landlord had a right to be consulted, and could object to the purchaser. In the third place, the landlord, if he wanted to take the land for his own purposes, must pay the tenant a fair sum for his tenant-right. In the fourth place, all arrears of rent must be paid before the interest was transferred. These are said to be universal characteristics of every Ulster tenant-right custom. There were often additional restrictions or provisions, usually in limitation of the tenant's right to sell, or of the landlord's right to raise the rent, veto the sale of land, or take it for his own use. There were commonly established usages in reference to fixing a fair rent. Valuators were generally employed, and on their estimates, and not on competition in open market, the rent was fixed. … The Irish Tenant League was organized August 6, 1850, in Dublin. Among the resolutions adopted was one, calling for 'a fair valuation of rent between landlord and tenant in Ireland,' and another, 'that the tenant should not be disturbed in his holding as long as he paid his rent.' The question of arrears received a great deal of attention. The great majority of the tenants of Ireland were in arrears, owing to the successive failures of the crops, and were of course liable to eviction. … The Tenant League was a very popular one and spread throughout the country. There was much agitation, and in the general election in 1852, when the excitement was at its height, fifty-eight Tenant Leaguers were elected to Parliament. The Tenant League members resolved to hold themselves 'independent of and in opposition to all governments which do not make it a part of their policy' to give the tenants a measure of relief such as the League desired. It looked as though the party would hold the balance of power and be able to secure its objects. When however Sadlier and Keogh, two of the most prominent men in the party and men of great influence, accepted positions in the new government, 'bribed by office,' it has always been charged by the Irish, 'to betray the cause to which they had been most solemnly pledged,' the party was broken up without accomplishing its purpose."

D. B. King, The Irish Question, chapters 5 and 9.

ALSO IN: Sir C. G. Duffy, League of the North and South.

A. M. Sullivan, New Ireland, chapter 13.

J. Godkin, The Land War in Ireland, chapter 17.

{1793}

IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867. The Fenian Movement.

"The Fenian movement differed from nearly all previous movements of the same kind in Ireland, in the fact that it arose and grew into strength without the patronage or the help of any of those who might be called the natural leaders of the people. … Its leaders were not men of high position, or distinguished name, or proved ability. They were not of aristocratic birth; they were not orators; they were not powerful writers. It was not the impulse of the American Civil War that engendered Fenianism; although that war had great influence on the manner in which Fenianism shaped its course. Fenianism had been in existence, in fact, although it had not got its peculiar name, long before the American War created a new race of Irishmen—the Irish-American soldiers—to turn their energies and their military inclination to a new purpose. … The suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, in consequence of the 1848 movement, led, as a matter of course, to secret association. Before the trials of the Irish leaders were well over in that year, a secret association was formed by a large number of young Irishmen in cities and towns. … After two or three attempts to arrange for a simultaneous rising had failed, or had ended only in little abortive and isolated ebullitions, the young men became discouraged. Some of the leaders went to France, some to the United States, some actually to England; and the association melted away. … Some years after this, the 'Phœnix' clubs began to be formed in Ireland. They were for the most part associations of the peasant class, and were on that account, perhaps, the more formidable and earnest. … The Phœnix clubs led to some of the ordinary prosecutions and convictions; and that was all. … After the Phœnix associations came the Fenians. 'This is a serious business now,' said a clever English literary man when he heard of the Fenian organisation; 'the Irish have got hold of a good name this time; the Fenians will last.' The Fenians are said to have been the ancient Irish militia. … There was an air of Celtic antiquity and of mystery about the name of Fenian which merited the artistic approval given to it by the impartial English writer whose observation has just been quoted. The Fenian agitation began about 1858, and it came to perfection about the middle of the American Civil War. It was ingeniously arranged on a system by which all authority converged towards one centre [called the Head-Centre], and those farthest away from the seat of direction knew proportionately less and less about the nature of the plans. They had to obey instructions only, and it was hoped that by this means weak or doubtful men would not have it in their power prematurely to reveal, to betray, or to thwart the purposes of their leaders. A convention was held in America, and the Fenian Association was resolved into a regular organised institution. A provisional government was established in the neighbourhood of Union Square, New York, with all the array and the mechanism of an actual working administration. … The Civil War had introduced a new figure to the world's stage. This was the Irish-American soldier. … Many of these men—thousands of them—were as sincerely patriotic in their way as they were simple and brave. It is needless to say that they were fastened on in some instances by adventurers, who fomented the Fenian movement out of the merest and the meanest self-seeking. … Some were making a living out of the organisation—out of that, and apparently nothing else. The contributions given by poor Irish hack-drivers and servant girls, in the sincere belief that they were helping to man the ranks of an Irish army of independence, enabled some of these self-appointed leaders to wear fine clothes and to order expensive dinners. … But in the main it is only fair to say that the Fenian movement in the United States was got up, organised and manned by persons who … were single-hearted, unselfish, and faithfully devoted to their cause. … After a while things went so far that the Fenian leaders in the United States issued an address, announcing that their officers were going to Ireland to raise an army there for the recovery of the country's independence. Of course the Government here were soon quite prepared to receive them; and indeed the authorities easily managed to keep themselves informed by means of spies of all that was going on in Ireland. … Meanwhile the Head Centre of Fenianism in America, James Stephens, who had borne a part in the movement of 1848, arrived in Ireland. He was arrested … [and] committed to Richmond Prison, Dublin, early in November, 1865; but before many days had passed the country was startled by the news that he had contrived to make his escape. The escape was planned with skill and daring. For a time it helped to strengthen the impression on the mind of the Irish peasantry that in Stephens there had at last been found an insurgent leader of adequate courage, craft, and good fortune. Stephens disappeared for a moment from the stage. In the meantime disputes and dissensions had arisen among the Fenians in America. The schism had gone so far as to lead to the setting up of two separate associations. There were of course distracted plans. One party was for an invasion of Canada; another pressed for operations in Ireland itself. The Canadian attempt actually was made. …

See CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.

Then Stephens came to the front again. It was only for a moment. He had returned to New York, and he now announced that he was determined to strike a blow in Ireland. Before long the impression was spread abroad that he had actually left the States to return to the scene of his proposed insurrection. The American-Irish kept streaming across the Atlantic, even in the stormy winter months, in the firm belief that before the winter had passed away, or at the farthest while the spring was yet young, Stephens would appear in Ireland at the head of an insurgent army. … Stephens did not reappear in Ireland. He made no attempt to keep his warlike promise. He may be said to have disappeared from the history of Fenianism. But the preparations had gone too far to be suddenly stopped. … It was hastily decided that something should be done. One venture was a scheme for the capture of Chester Castle [and the arms it contained]. … The Government were fully informed of the plot in advance; the police were actually on the look-out for the arrival of strangers in Chester, and the enterprise melted away. {1794} In March, 1867, an attempt at a general rising was made in Ireland. It was a total failure; the one thing on which the country had to be congratulated was that it failed so completely and so quickly as to cause little bloodshed. Every influence combined to minimise the waste of life. The snow fell that spring as it had scarcely ever fallen before in the soft, mild climate of Ireland. … It made the gorges of the mountains untenable, and the gorges of the mountains were to be the encampments and the retreats of the Fenian insurgents. The snow fell for many days and nights, and when it ceased falling the insurrectionary movement was over. The insurrection was literally buried in that unlooked-for snow. There were some attacks on police barracks in various places —in Cork, in Kerry, in Limerick, in Tipperary, in Louth; there were some conflicts with the police; there were some shots fired, many captures made, a few lives lost; and then for the time at least all was over. The Fenian attempt thus made had not from the beginning a shadow of hope to excuse it." Some months afterwards a daring rescue of Fenian prisoners at Manchester stirred up a fresh excitement in Fenian circles. A policeman was killed in the affair, and three of the rescuers were hanged for his murder. On the 13th of December, 1867, an attempt was made to blow up the Clerkenwell House of Detention, where two Fenian prisoners were confined. "Six persons were killed on the spot; about six more died from the effects of the injuries they received; some 120 persons were wounded. … It is not necessary to follow out the steps of the Fenian movement any further. There were many isolated attempts; there were many arrests, trials, imprisonments, banishments. The effect of all this, it must be stated as a mere historical fact, was only to increase the intensity of dissatisfaction and discontent among the Irish peasantry. … There were some public men who saw that the time had come when mere repression must no longer be relied upon as a cure for Irish discontent."

J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, chapter 53 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: T. P. O'Connor, The Parnell Movement, chapters 7.

G. P. Macdonell, Fenianism, Two Centuries of Irish History, part 5, chapter 4.

IRELAND: A. D. 1868. Parliamentary Reform.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1865-1868.

IRELAND: A. D. 1868-1870. Disestablishment of the Irish Church. Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1868-1870.

IRELAND: A. D. 1870-1894. The land question and the recent land laws.

"The reason for exceptional legislation in Ireland rested chiefly on the essential difference between the landlord and tenant systems in England and in Ireland. In 1845 the Devon Royal Commission reported that the introduction of the English system would be extremely difficult, if not impracticable. The difference, it said, between the English and Irish systems 'consisted in this, that in Ireland the landlord builds neither dwelling-house nor farm offices, nor puts fences, gates, etc., into good order before he lets his land. In most cases, whatever is done in the way of building or fencing is done by the tenant; and, in the ordinary language of the country, houses, farm buildings, and even the making of fences are described by the general word "improvements," which is thus employed to denote the necessary adjuncts to a farm without which in England or Scotland no tenant would be found to rent it.' Thirty years later, John Bright summarized the matter by saying that if the land of Ireland were stripped of the improvements made upon it by the labor of the occupier, the face of the country would be 'as bare and naked as an American prairie.' This fundamental difference between the English and Irish land systems has never been fully appreciated in England, where the landlord's expenditure on buildings, fences, drainage, farm roads, etc., and on maintenance absorbs a large part of the rental. Reform of the Irish system began in 1870. Before that time little had been done to protect the Irish tenant except to forbid evictions at night, on Christmas Day, on Good Friday, and the pulling off the roofs of houses until the inmates had been removed. The Land Act of 1870 recognized, in principle, the tenant's property in his improvements by giving him a right to claim compensation if disturbed or evicted. This was not what the tenants wanted, viz., security of tenure. The results of compensation suits by 'disturbed' tenants were uncertain; compensation for improvements was limited in various ways, and the animus of the courts administering the act was distinctly hostile to the tenants. Many works necessary to the existence of tenants on small farms were not improvements in the eyes of the landlord, of the law, or of the judges; it was often impossible to adduce legal evidence of costly works done little by little, and at intervals, representing the savings of labor embodied in drainage, reclamation, or fencing. Buildings and other works of a superior character might be adjudged 'unsuitable' to small farms, and therefore not the subject of any compensation; moreover, it was expressly laid down that the use and enjoyment by the tenant of works effected wholly at his expense were to be accounted compensation to him by the landlord, and that, therefore, by lapse of time, the tenant's improvements became the landlord's property. The act of 1870 tended to make capricious and heartless evictions expensive and therefore less common; but it gave no security of tenure, and left the landlord still at liberty to raise the rent of improving tenants. It left the tenant still in a state of dependence and servility; it gave him no security for his expenditure, for the landlord's right to keep the rent continually rising was freely exercised. Even if the act had been liberally administered, it would have failed to give contentment, satisfy the demands of justice, or encourage the expenditure of capital by tenant farmers. Measure after measure proposed by Irish members for further reforms were rejected by Parliament between 1870 and 1880, and discontent continued to increase. … The Land Law Act of 1881 was based on the Report in 1880 of the Bessborough Royal Commission, but many of the most useful suggestions made were disregarded. This act purported to give the Irish yearly tenants (1) the right to sell their tenancies and improvements; (2) the right to have a 'fair' rent fixed by the land courts at intervals of fifteen years; (3) security of tenure arising from this right to have the rent fixed by the court instead of by the landlord.

{1795}

… No definition of what constituted a fair rent was embodied in the act, but what is known as the Healy clause provided that 'no rent shall be allowed or made payable in respect of improvements made by a tenant or his predecessors.' … When the Irish courts came to interpret it, they held that the term improvements' meant only that interest in his improvements for which the tenant might have obtained compensation under the Land Act of 1870 if he had been disturbed or evicted, and that the time during which the tenant had had the use and enjoyment of his own expenditure was still to be accounted compensation made to him by his landlord, so that by mere lapse of time the tenant's improvements became the landlord's property. … In view of the continually falling prices of agricultural produce and diminishing farm profits, the operation of the land laws has not brought about peace between landlords and tenants. … In 1887 the Cowper Commission reported that the 200,000 rents which had been fixed were too high in consequence of the continued fall in prices. As a result of the report of this commission the fair-rent provisions of the law were extended to leaseholders holding for less than sixty years; but the courts still adhering to their former methods of interpretation, numbers of leaseholders who had made and maintained all the buildings, improvements, and equipments of their farms found themselves either excluded on narrow and technical points, or expressly rented on their own expenditure. In 1891 the fair-rent provisions were further extended to leaseholders holding for more than sixty years by the Redemption of Rent Act, under which long leasehold tenants could compel their landlords either to sell to them, or allow a fair rent to be fixed on their farms. … Concurrently with these attempts to place the relations of landlord and tenant on a peaceful and equitable basis, a system of State loans to enable tenants to buy their farms has been in operation. … It is now proposed to have an inquiry by a select committee of the House of Commons into

(1) the principles adopted in fixing fair rents, particularly with respect to tenants' improvements; (2) the system of purchase and security offered for the loans of public money; (3) the organization and administrative work of the Land Commission

—a department which has cost the country about £100,000 a year since 1881. The popular demand for inquiry and reform comes as much from the Protestant North as from the Catholic South."

The Nation, February 15, 1894.

IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879. The Home Rule Movement. Organization of the Land League.

"For some years after the failure of the Fenian insurrection there was no political agitation in Ireland; but in 1873 a new national movement began to make itself felt; this was the Home Rule Movement. It had been gradually formed since 1870 by one or two leading Irishmen, who thought the time was ripe for a new constitutional effort; chief among them was Mr. Isaac Butt, a Protestant, an eminent lawyer, and an earnest politician. The movement spread rapidly, and took a firm hold of the popular mind. After the General Election of 1874, some sixty Irish Members were returned who had stood before their constituencies as Home Rulers. The Home Rule demand is clear and simple enough; it asks for Ireland a separate Government, still allied with the Imperial Government, on the principles which regulate the alliance between the United States of America. The proposed Irish Parliament in College Green would bear just the same relation to the Parliament at Westminster that the Legislature and Senate of every American State bear to the head authority of the Congress in the Capitol at Washington. All that relates to local business it was proposed to delegate to the Irish Assembly; all questions of imperial policy were still to be left to the Imperial Government. There was nothing very startling, very daringly innovating, in the scheme. In most of the dependencies of Great Britain, Home Rule systems of some kind were already established. In Canada, in the Australasian Colonies, the principle might be seen at work upon a large scale; upon a small scale it was to be studied nearer home in the neighbouring Island of Man. … At first the Home Rule Party was not very active. Mr. Butt used to have a regular Home Rule debate once every Session, when he and his followers stated their views, and a division was taken and the Home Rulers were of course defeated. Yet, while the English House of Commons was thus steadily rejecting year after year the demand made for Home Rule by the large majority of the Irish Members, it was affording a strong argument in favour of some system of local Government, by consistently outvoting every proposition brought forward by the bulk of the Irish Members relating to Irish Questions. … Mr. Butt and his followers had proved the force of the desire for some sort of National Government in Ireland, but the strength of the movement they had created now called for stronger leaders. A new man was coming into Irish political life who was destined to be the most remarkable Irish leader since O'Connell. Mr. Charles Stuart Parnell, who entered the House of Commons in 1875 as Member for Meath, was a descendant of the English poet Parnell, and of the two Parnells, father and son, John and Henry, who stood by Grattan to the last in the struggle against the Union. He was a grand-nephew of Sir Henry Parnell, the first Lord Congleton, the advanced Reformer and friend of, Lord Grey and Lord Melbourne. He was Protestant, and a member of the Protestant Synod. Mr. Parnell set himself to form a party of Irishmen in the House of Commons who should be absolutely independent of any English political party, and who would go their own way with only the cause of Ireland to influence them. Mr. Parnell had all the qualities that go to make a good political leader, and he succeeded in his purpose. The more advanced men in and out of Parliament began to look up to him as the real representative of the popular voice. In 1878 Mr. Butt died. … The leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party was given to Mr. William Shaw, Member for Cork County, an able, intelligent man, who proved himself in many ways a good leader. In quieter times his authority might have remained unquestioned, but these were unquiet, times. The decorous and demure attitude of the early Home Rule Party was to be changed into a more aggressive action, and Mr. Parnell was the champion of the change. It was soon obvious that he was the real leader recognised by the majority of the Irish Home Rule Members, and by the country behind them. Mr. Parnell and his following have been bitterly denounced for pursuing an obstructive policy. {1796} They are often written about as if they had invented obstruction; as if obstruction of the most audacious kind had never been practised in the House of Commons before Mr. Parnell entered it. It may perhaps be admitted that the Irish Members made more use of obstruction than had been done before their time. … The times undoubtedly were unquiet; the policy which was called in England obstructive and in Ireland active was obviously popular with the vast majority of the Irish people. The Land Question, too, was coming up again, and in a stronger form than ever. Mr. Butt, not very long before his death, had warned the House of Commons that the old land war was going to break out anew, and he was laughed at for his vivid fancy by the English Press and by English public opinion; but he proved a true prophet. Mr. Parnell had carefully studied the condition of the Irish tenant, and he saw that the Land Act of 1870 was not the last word of legislation on his behalf. Mr. Parnell was at first an ardent advocate of what came to be known as the Three F's, fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale. But the Three F's were soon to be put aside in favour of more advanced ideas. Outside Parliament a strenuous and earnest man was preparing to inaugurate the greatest land agitation ever seen in Ireland. Mr. Michael Davitt was the son of an evicted tenant. … When he grew to be a young man he joined the Fenians, and in 1870, on the evidence of an informer, he was arrested and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude; seven years later he was let out on ticket-of-leave. In his long imprisonment he had thought deeply upon the political and social condition of Ireland and the best means of improving it; when he came out he had abandoned his dreams of armed rebellion, and he went in for constitutional agitation to reform the Irish land system. The land system needed reforming; the condition of the tenant was only humanly endurable in years of good harvest. The three years from 1876 to 1879 were years of successive bad harvests. … Mr. Davitt had been in America, planning out a land organization, and had returned to Ireland to carry out his plan. Land meetings were held in many parts of Ireland, and in October Mr. Parnell, Mr. Davitt, Mr. Patrick Egan, and Mr. Thomas Brennan founded the Irish National Land League, the most powerful political organization that had been formed in Ireland since the Union. The objects of the Land League were the abolition of the existing landlord system and the introduction of peasant proprietorship."

J. H. McCarthy, Outline of Irish History, chapter 11.

ALSO IN: T. P. O'Connor, The Parnell Movement, chapters 8-10.

A. V. Dicey, England's Case against Home Rule.

G. Baden-Powell, editor, The Truth about Home Rule.

IRELAND: A. D. 1880. The breach between the Irish Party and the English Liberals.

"The new Irish party which followed the lead of Mr. Parnell has been often represented by the humourist as a sort of Falstaffian 'ragged regiment.' … From dint of repetition this has come to be almost an article of faith in some quarters. Yet it is curiously without foundation. A large proportion of Mr. Parnell's followers were journalists. … Those who were not journalists in the Irish party were generally what is called well-to-do. … At first there seemed no reason to expect any serious disunion between the Irish members and the Liberal' party. … The Irish vote in England had been given to the Liberal cause. The Liberal speakers and statesmen, without committing themselves to any definite line of policy, had manifested friendly sentiments towards Ireland; and though indeed nothing was said which could be construed into a recognition of the Home Rule claim, still the new Ministry was known to contain men favourable to that claim. The Irish members hoped for much from the new Government; and, on the other hand, the new Government expected to find cordial allies in all sections of the Irish party. The appointment of Mr. Forster to the Irish Secretaryship was regarded by many Irishmen, especially those allied to Mr. Shaw and his following, as a marked sign of the good intentions of the Government towards Ireland. … The Queen's Speech announced that the Peace Preservation Act would not be renewed. This was a very important announcement. Since the Union Ireland had hardly been governed by the ordinary law for a single year. … Now the Government was going to make the bold experiment of trying to rule Ireland without the assistance of coercive and exceptional law. The Queen's Speech, however, contained only one other reference to Ireland, in a promise that a measure would be introduced for the extension of the Irish borough franchise. This was in itself an important promise. … But extension of the borough franchise did not seem, to the Irish members in 1880 the most important form that legislation for Ireland could take just then. The country was greatly depressed by its recent suffering; the number of evictions was beginning to rise enormously. The Irish members thought that the Government should have made some promise to consider the land question, and above all should have done something to stay the alarming increase of evictions. Evictions had increased from 463 families in 1877 to 980 in 1878, to 1,238 in 1879; and they were still on the increase, as was shown at the end of 1880, when it was found that 2,110 families were evicted. An amendment to the Address was at once brought forward by the Irish party, and debated at some length. The Irish party called for some immediate legislation on behalf of the land question. Mr. Forster replied, admitting the necessity for some legislation, but declaring that there would not be time for the introduction of any such measure that session. Then the Irish members asked for some temporary measure to prevent the evictions … ; but the Chief Secretary answered that while the law existed it was necessary to carry it out, and he could only appeal to both sides to be moderate. Matters slowly drifted on in this way for a short time. … Evictions steadily increased, and Mr. O'Connor Power brought in a Bill for the purpose of staying evictions. Then the Government, while refusing to accept the Irish measure, brought in a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, which adopted some of the Irish suggestions. … On Friday, June 25, the second reading of the Bill was moved by Mr. Forster, who denied that it was a concession to the anti-rent agitation, and strongly denounced the outrages which were taking place in Ireland. … This was the point at which difference between the Irish party and the Government first became marked. {1797} The increase of evictions in Ireland, following as it did upon the widespread misery caused by the failure of the harvests and the partial famine, had generated—as famine and hunger have always generated—a certain amount of lawlessness. Evictions were occasionally resisted with violence; here and there outrages were committed upon bailiffs, process-servers, and agents. In different places, too, injuries had been inflicted upon the cattle and horses of landowners and land agents. … There is no need, there should be no attempt, to justify these crimes. But, while condemning all acts of violence, whether upon man or beast, it must be remembered that these acts were committed by ignorant peasants of the lowest class, maddened by hunger, want, and eviction, driven to despair by the sufferings of their wives and children, convinced of the utter hopelessness of redress, and longing for revenge. … The Compensation for Disturbance Bill was carried in the Commons after long debates in which the Irish party strove to make its principles stronger. … It was sent up to the Lords, where it was rejected on Tuesday, August 3, by a majority of 231. The Government answered the appeals of Irish members by refusing to take any steps to make the Lords retract their decision, or to introduce any similar measure that session. From that point the agitation and struggle of the past four years [1880-1884] may be said to date."

J. H. McCarthy, England under Gladstone, 1880-1884, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: T. W. Reid, Life of William Edward Forster, volume 2, chapter 6-7.

IRELAND: A. D, 1881-1882. The Coercion Bill and the Land Act. Arrest of the Irish leaders. Suppression of the Land League. The alleged Kilmainham Treaty, and release of Mr. Parnell and others.

Early in 1881, the Government armed itself with new powers for suppressing the increased lawlessness which showed itself in Ireland, and for resisting the systematic policy of intimidation which the Nationalists appeared to have planned, by the passage of a measure known as the Coercion Bill. This was followed, in April, by the introduction of a Land Bill, intended to redress the most conspicuous Irish grievance by establishing an authoritative tribunal for the determination of rents, and by aiding and facilitating the purchase of small holdings by the peasants. The Land Bill became law in August; but it failed to satisfy the demands of the Land League or to produce a more orderly state of feeling in Ireland. Severe proceedings were then decided upon by the Government. "The Prime Minister, during his visit to Leeds in the first week of October, had used language which could bear only one meaning. The question, he said, had come to be simply this, 'whether law or lawlessness must rule in Ireland;' the Irish people must not be deprived of the means of taking advantage of the Land Act by force or fear of force. He warned the party of disorder that 'the resources of civilisation were not yet exhausted.' A few days later Mr. Gladstone, speaking at the Guildhall, amid enthusiastic cheers, was able to announce that the long-delayed blow had fallen. Mr. Parnell was arrested in Dublin under the Coercion Act, and his arrest was followed by those of Mr. Sexton, Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly, and other prominent leaders of the agitation. The warnings of the Government had been met at first with derision and defiance, and the earlier arrests were furiously denounced; but the energy and persistence of the Government soon began to make an impression. … A Parthian shot was fired in the issue of a manifesto, purporting to be signed, not only by the 'suspects' in Kilmainham, but also by [Michael] Davitt, … in Portland Prison, which adjured the tenantry to pay no rent whatever until the Government had done penance for its tyranny and released the victims of British despotism. This open incitement to defiance of legal authority and repudiation of legal right was instantly met by the Irish Executive in a resolute spirit. On the 20th of October a proclamation was issued declaring the League to be 'an illegal and criminal association, intent on destroying the obligation of contracts and subverting law,' and announcing that its operations would thenceforward be forcibly suppressed, and those taking part in them held responsible."

Annual Summaries reprinted from The Times, volume 2, page 155.

"In the month of April [1882] Mr. Parnell was released from Kilmainham on parole—urgent business demanding his presence in Paris. This parole the Irish National leader faithfully kept. Whether the sweets of liberty had special charms for Mr. Parnell does not appear; but certain it is that after his return to Kilmainham, the Member for Cork wrote to Captain O'Shea, one of the Irish Members, and indirectly to the Government, intimating that if the question of arrears could be introduced in Parliament by way of relieving the tenants of holdings and lessening greatly the number of evictions in the country for non-payment of rent, and providing the purchase clauses of the Land Bill were discussed, steps might be taken to lessen the number of outrages. The Government had the intimation conveyed to them, in short, which gave to their minds the conviction that Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly, once released, and having in view the reforms indicated to them, would range themselves on the side of law and order in Ireland. Without any contract with the three members the release of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly was ordered, after they had been confined for a period bordering on three months. Michael Davitt had been released, likewise, and had been elected for Meath; but the seat was declared vacant again, owing to the conditions of his ticket-of-leave not permitting his return. Much has been said, and much has been written with regard to the release of the three Irish M. P.'s. The 'Kilmainham Treaty' has been … a term of scorn addressed to Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues. … As a fact … there was no Kilmainham Treaty. … Mr. Forster [the Secretary for Ireland] resigned because he did not think it right to share the responsibility of the release of Messrs. Parnell, Dillon, and O'Kelly. The Government had detained the Queen's subjects in prison without trial for the purpose of preventing crime, not for punishment, Mr. Forster said in vindication. Mr. Forster contended that the unwritten law, as promulgated by them, had worked the ruin and the injury of the Queen's subjects by instructions of one kind and another—biddings carried out to such a degree that no power on earth could have allowed it to continue without becoming a Government not merely in name but in shame. {1798} Mr. Forster would have given the question of the release of the three consideration, if they had pledged themselves not to set their law up against the law of the land, or if Ireland had been quiet, or if there had been an accession of fresh powers on behalf of the Government: but these conditions were wanting. What Mr. Forster desired was an avowal of a change of purpose. He entreated his colleagues 'not to try to buy obedience,' as he termed it, and not to rely on appearances. The Government did rely on the intimation of Mr. Parnell … ; there was no treaty."

W. W. Pimblett, English Political History, 1880-1885, chapter 10.

IRELAND: A. D. 1882. The Phœnix Park murders.

Mr. Forster, Chief Secretary for Ireland, resigned in April, 1882, and was succeeded by Lord Frederick Cavendish, brother of the Marquis of Hartington and son of the Duke of Devonshire. Earl Spencer at the same time became Viceroy, in place of Lord Cowper, resigned. "On the night of Friday, May 5th, Earl Spencer and Lord Frederick Cavendish crossed over to Ireland, and arrived in Dublin on the following day. The official entry was made in the morning, when the reception accorded by the populace to the new officials was described as having been very fairly favourable. Events seemed to have taken an entirely prosperous turn, and it was hoped that at last the long winter of Irish discontent had come to an end. On Sunday morning there spread through the United Kingdom the intelligence that the insane hatred of English rule had been the cause of a crime, even more brutal and unprovoked than any of the numerous outrages that had, during the last three years, sullied the annals of Ireland. It appeared that Lord Frederick Cavendish, having taken the oaths at the Castle, took a car about half-past seven in order to drive to the Viceregal Lodge. On the way he met Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary, who, though his life had been repeatedly threatened, was walking along, according to his usual custom, without any police escort. Lord Frederick dismissed his car, and walked with him through the Phœnix Park. There, in broad daylight—for it was a fine summer evening—and in the middle of a public recreation ground, crowded with people, they were surrounded and murdered. More than one spectator witnessed what they imagined to be a drunken brawl, saw six men struggling together, and four of them drive off outside a car, painted red, which had been waiting for them the while, the carman sitting still and never turning his head. The bodies of the two officials were first discovered by two shop-boys on bicycles who had previously passed them alive. Lord Frederick Cavendish had six wounds, and Mr. Burke eleven, dealt evidently with daggers used by men of considerable strength. Lord Spencer himself had witnessed the struggle from the windows of the Viceregal Lodge, and thinking that some pickpockets had been at work sent a servant to make inquiries. A reward of £10,000, together with full pardon to anyone who was not one of the actual murderers, was promptly offered, but for many long months the telegrams from Dublin closed with the significant information—'No definite clue in the hands of the police.' All parties in Ireland at once united to express their horror and detestation at this dastardly crime."

Cassell's Illustrated History of England, volume 10, chapter 50.

ALSO IN: Sir C. Russell, The Parnell Commission: Opening Speech, pages 282-291.

IRELAND: A. D. 1884. Enlargement of the Suffrage. Representation of the People Act.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

IRELAND: A. D. 1885-1886. Change of opinion in England. Mr. Gladstone's first Home Rule Bill and Irish Land Bill and their defeat.

"All through the Parliament which sat from 1880 till 1885, the Nationalists' party, led by Mr. Parnell, and including at first less than half, ultimately about half, of the Irish members, was in constant and generally bitter opposition to the Government of Mr. Gladstone. But during these five years a steady, although silent and often unconscious, process of change was passing in the minds of English and Scotch members, especially Liberal members, due to their growing sense of the mistakes which Parliament committed in handling Irish questions, and of the hopelessness of the efforts which the Executive was making to pacify the country on the old methods. First, they came to feel that the present system was indefensible. Then, while still disliking the notion of an Irish Legislature, they began to think it deserved consideration. Next they admitted, though usually in confidence to one another, that although Home Rule might be a bad solution, it was a probable one, toward which events pointed. Last of all, and not till 1884, they asked themselves whether, after all, it would be a bad solution, provided a workable scheme could be found. But as no workable scheme had been proposed, they still kept their views, perhaps unwisely, to themselves, and although the language held at the general election of 1885 showed a great advance in the direction of favoring Irish self-government, beyond the attitude of 1880, it was still vague and hesitating, and could the more easily remain so because the constituencies had not (strange as it may now seem) realized the supreme importance of the Irish question. Few questions were put to candidates on the subject, for both candidates and electors wished to avoid it. It was disagreeable; it was perplexing; so they agreed to leave it on one side. But when the result of the Irish elections showed, in December, 1885, an overwhelming majority in favor of the Home Rule party, and when they showed, also, that this party held the balance of power in Parliament, no one could longer ignore the urgency of the issue. There took place what chemists call a precipitation of substance held in solution. Public opinion on the Irish question had been in a fluid state. It now began to crystallize, and the advocates and opponents of Irish self-government fell asunder into two masses, which soon solidified. This process was hastened by the fact that Mr. Gladstone's view, the indications of which, given by himself some months before, had been largely overlooked, now became generally understood. … In the spring of 1886 the question could be no longer evaded or postponed. It was necessary to choose between … two courses: the refusal of the demand for self-government, coupled with the introduction of a severe Coercion Bill, or the concession of it by the introduction of a Home Rule Bill. … {1799} How the Government of Ireland Bill was brought into the House of Commons on April 8th, amid circumstances of curiosity and excitement unparalleled since 1832: how, after debates of almost unprecedented length, it was defeated in June, by a majority of thirty; how the policy it embodied was brought before the country at the general election, and failed to win approval; how the Liberal party has been rent in twain upon the question; how Mr. Gladstone resigned, and has been succeeded by a Tory Ministry, which the dissentient Liberals, who condemn Home Rule, are now supporting—all this is … well known.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1886.

… But the causes of the disaster may not be equally understood. … First, and most obvious, although not most important, was the weight of authority arrayed against the scheme. … The two most eminent leaders of the moderate Liberal, or, as it is often called, Whig, party, Lord Hartington and Mr. Goschen, both declared against the bill, and put forth all their oratory and influence against it. At the opposite extremity of the party, Mr. John Bright, the veteran and honored leader of the Radicals, Mr. Chamberlain, the younger and latterly more active and prominent chief of that large section, took up the same position of hostility. Scarcely less important was the attitude of the social magnates of the Liberal party all over the country. … As, at the preceding general election, in December, 1885, the Liberals had obtained a majority of less than a hundred over the Tories, a defection such as this was quite enough to involve their defeat. Probably the name of Mr. Bright alone turned the issue in some twenty constituencies, which might otherwise have cast a Home Rule vote. The mention of this cause, however, throws us back on the further question, Why was there such a weight of authority against the scheme proposed by Mr. Gladstone? How came so many of his former colleagues, friends, supporters, to differ and depart from him on this occasion? Besides some circumstances attending the production of the bill, … which told heavily against it, there were three feelings which worked upon men's minds, disposing them to reject it. The first of these was dislike and fear of the Irish Nationalist members. In the previous House of Commons this party had been uniformly and bitterly hostile to the Liberal Government. Measures intended for the good of Ireland, like the Land Act of 1881, had been ungraciously received, treated as concessions extorted, for which no thanks were due—inadequate concessions, which must be made the starting-point for fresh demands. Obstruction had been freely practised to defeat not only bills restraining the liberty of the subject in Ireland, but many other measures. Some members of the Irish party, apparently with the approval of the rest, had systematically sought to delay all English and Scotch legislation, and, in fact, to bring the work of Parliament to a dead stop. … There could be no doubt as to the hostility which they, still less as to that which their fellow-countrymen in the United States, had expressed toward England, for they had openly wished success to Russia while war seemed impending with her, and the so-called Mahdi of the Sudan was vociferously cheered at many a Nationalist meeting. … To many Englishmen, the proposal to create an Irish Parliament seemed nothing more or less than a proposal to hand over to these men the government of Ireland, with all the opportunities thence arising to oppress the opposite party in Ireland and to worry England herself. It was all very well to urge that the tactics which the Nationalists had pursued when their object was to extort Home Rule would be dropped, because superfluous, when Home Rule had been granted; or to point out that an Irish Parliament would probably contain different men from those who had been sent to Westminster as Mr. Parnell's nominees. Neither of these arguments could overcome the suspicious antipathy which many Englishmen felt. … The internal condition of Ireland supplied more substantial grounds for alarm. … Three-fourths of the people are Roman Catholics, one-fourth Protestants, and this Protestant fourth sub-divided into bodies not fond of one another, who have little community of sentiment. Besides the Scottish colony in Ulster, many English families have settled here and there through the country. They have been regarded as intruders by the aboriginal Celtic population, and many of them, although hundreds of years may have passed since they came, still look on themselves as rather English than Irish. … Many people in England assumed that an Irish Parliament would be under the control of the tenants and the humbler class generally, and would therefore be hostile to the landlords. They went farther, and made the much bolder assumption that as such a Parliament would be chosen by electors, most of whom were Roman Catholics, it would be under the control of the Catholic priesthood, and hostile to Protestants. Thus they supposed that the grant of self-government to Ireland would mean the abandonment of the upper and wealthier class, the landlords and the Protestants, to the tender mercies of their enemies. … The fact stood out that in Ireland two hostile factions had been contending for the last sixty years, and that the gift of self-government might enable one of them to tyrannize over the other. True, that party was the majority, and, according to the principles of democratic government, therefore entitled to prevail. But it is one thing to admit a principle and another to consent to its application. The minority had the sympathy of the upper classes in England, because the minority contained the landlords. It had the sympathy of a large part of the middle class, because it contained the Protestants. … There was another anticipation, another forecast of evils to follow, which told most of all upon English opinion. This was the notion that Home Rule was only a stage in the road to the complete separation of the two islands."

J. Bryce, Past and Future of the Irish Question (New Princeton Review, Jan., 1887).

IRELAND: A. D. 1886. The "Plan of Campaign."

On the 11th of September Mr. Parnell had introduced in the House of Commons a bill to make temporary provision for the relief of suffering tenants in Ireland, and it had been defeated after a sharp debate by a majority of 95. The chief argument for the bill had been that "something must be done to stay evictions during the approaching winter. The rents would be due in November, and the fall in agricultural prices had been so great, that the sale of their whole produce by the tenants would not, it was contended, bring in money enough to enable them to pay in full. … The greatest public interest in the subject was roused by Lord Clanricarde's evictions at Woodford in Galway. … His quarrel with his Woodford tenants was of old standing. {1800} When the Home Rule Bill was before Parliament the National League urged them not to bring matters to a crisis, but their sufferings were too great to be borne, and they set the National League at defiance, and established a Plan of Campaign of their own. Lord Clanricarde would grant them no reduction, and they leagued themselves together, 316 in number, and when the November rent day came round in 1885 they resolved not to pay any rent at all if twenty-five per cent. reduction was refused. This was refused, and they withheld their rent. … The eviction of four of these tenants, in August, 1886, attracted general attention by the long fight the people made for their homes. Each house was besieged and defended like some mediæval city. One stone house, built by a tenant at a cost of £200, got the name of Saunders's fort. It was held by a garrison of 24, who threw boiling water on their assailants, and in one part of the fight threw out among them a hive of bees. … To evict these four men the whole available forces of the Crown in Galway were employed from Thursday the 19th of August to Friday the 27th. Seven hundred policemen and soldiers were present to protect the emergency men who carried out the evictions, and 60 peasants were taken to Galway gaol. It was to meet cases of this kind that, after the rejection of Mr. Parnell's Tenants' Relief Bill, the Plan of Campaign was started. In a speech at Woodford on the 17th of October Mr. John Dillon gave an outline of the scheme on which he thought a tenants' campaign against unjust rents might be started and carried on all over the country. … On the 23rd of October the 'Plan of Campaign' was published in full detail in 'United Ireland.' The first question to be answered, said the 'Plan,' was, How to meet the November demand for rent? On every estate the tenantry were to come together and decide whether to combine or not in resistance to exorbitant rent. When they were assembled, if the priest were not with them, they were to 'appoint an intelligent and sturdy member of their body as chairman, and after consulting, decide by resolution on the amount of abatement they will demand.' A committee of six or more and the chairman were then to be elected, to be called a Managing Committee, to take charge of the half year's rent of each tenant should the landlord refuse it. Everyone present was to pledge himself

(1) To abide by the decision of the majority; (2) To hold no communication with the landlord or his agents, except in presence of the body of the tenantry; (3) To accept no settlement for himself that was not given to every tenant on the estate.

Having thus pledged themselves each to the others they were to go to the rent office in a body on the rent day, or the gale day, as it is called in Ireland, and if the agent refused to see them in a body they were to depute the chairman to act as their spokesman and tender the reduced rent. If the agent refused to accept it, then the money was to be handed to the Managing Committee 'to fight the landlord with.' The fund thus got together was to be employed in supporting tenants who were dispossessed by sale or ejectment. The National League was to guarantee the continuance of the grants if needful after the fund was expended, or as long as the majority of the tenants held out."

P. W. Clayden, England under the Coalition, chapter. 8.

IRELAND: A. D. 1888-1889. The Parnell Commission.

Early in 1887, certain letters appeared in "The Times" newspaper, of London, one of which, printed in facsimile, "implied Mr. Parnell's sanction to the Park murders of 1882." It created a great sensation, and, "after many bitter debates in Parliament, a commission was appointed (1888) consisting of three judges to inquire not only into the authenticity of this and other letters attributed to several persons as their authors, but into the whole course of conduct pursued by many of the Irish Members of Parliament, in reference to the previous agitation in Ireland and their connexion with an extreme faction in America, who tried to intimidate this country by dastardly attempts to blow up our public buildings on several occasions between the years 1884 and 1887. The court sat from the winter months of 1888 until the summer of the following year, and examined dozens of witnesses, including Mr. Parnell and most of the other accused members, as well as dozens of the Irish peasantry who could give evidence as to outrages in their several districts. One of the witnesses, a mean and discarded Dublin journalist named Pigott, turned out to be the forger of the letters; and, having fled from the avenging hand of justice to Madrid, there put an end to his life by means of a revolver. Meantime, the interest in the investigation had flagged, and the report of the Commission, which deeply implicated many of the Irish members as to their connexion with the Fenian Society previous to their entrance to Parliament, on their own acknowledgment, fell rather flat on the public ear, wearied out in reiteration of Irish crime from the introduction of the Land League until the attempt to blow up London Bridge by American filibusters (1886). The unfortunate man Pigott had sold his forged letters to the over credulous Times newspaper at a fabulous price; and even experts in handwriting, so dexterously had they been manipulated, were ready to testify in open court to the genuineness of the letters before the tragic end of their luckless author left not a particle of doubt as to their origin."

R. Johnston, Short History of the Queen's Reign, page 65.

ALSO IN: Sir C. Russell, The Parnell Commission: Opening Speech for the Defence.

M. Davitt, Speech in Defence.

IRELAND: A. D. 1889-1891. Political fall and death of Mr. Parnell.

On the 28th of December, 1889, Captain O'Shea, one of the Irish Nationalist Members of Parliament, filed a petition for divorce from his wife on the ground of adultery with Mr. Parnell. The Irish leader tacitly confessed his guilt by making no answer, and in November, 1890, the divorce was granted to Captain O'Shea. In the following June Mr. Parnell and Mrs. O'Shea were married. The stigma which this affair put upon Mr. Parnell caused Mr. Gladstone, on behalf of the English Liberals, to demand his retirement from the leadership of the Home Rule Party. He refused to give way, and was supported in the refusal by a minority of his party. The majority, however, took action to depose him, and the party was torn asunder. A sudden illness ended Mr. Parnell's life on the 6th of October, 1891; but his death failed to restore peace, and the Irish Nationalists are still divided.

IRELAND: A. D. 1893. Passage of the Home Rule Bill by the British House of Commons. Its defeat by the House of Lords.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1892-1893.

----------IRELAND: End--------

{1801}

IRENE, Empress in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), A. D. 797-802.

IRISH NIGHT, The.

See LONDON: A. D. 1688.

IRMINSUL, The.

See SAXONS: A. D. 772-804.

IRON AGE.

See STONE AGE.

IRON CROSS, Order of the.

A Prussian order of knighthood instituted in 1815 by Frederick William III.

IRON CROWN, The Order of the,

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY, The.

See LOMBARDY, THE IRON CROWN OF.

IRON MASK, The Man in the.

"It is known that a masked and unknown prisoner, the object of extraordinary surveillance, died, in 1703, in the Bastille, to which he had been taken from the St. Marguerite Isles in 1698; he had remained about ten years incarcerated in these isles, and traces of him are with certainty found in the fort of Exilles, and at Pignerol, as far back as about 1681. This singular fact, which began to be vaguely bruited a little before the middle of the 18th century, excited immense curiosity after Voltaire had availed himself of it in his 'Siècle de Louis XIV.', wherein he exhibited it in the most touching and tragic light. A thousand conjectures circulated: no great personage had disappeared in Europe about 1680. What interest so powerful had the government of Louis XIV. for concealing this mysterious visage from every human eye? Many explanations more or less plausible, more or less chimerical, have been attempted in regard to the 'man with the iron mask' (an erroneous designation that has prevailed; the mask was not of iron, but of black velvet; it was probably one of those 'loups' so long in use), when, in 1837, the bibliophile Jacob (M. Paul Lacroix) published a very ingenious book on this subject, in which he discussed all the hypotheses, and skilfully commented on all the facts and dates, in order to establish that, in 1680, Fouquet was represented as dead; that he was masked, sequestered anew, and dragged from fortress to fortress till his real death in 1703. It is impossible for us to admit this solution of the problem; the authenticity of the minister Louvois' correspondence with the governor of the prison of Pignerol, on the subject of Fouquet's death, in March, 1680, appears to us incontestable; and did this material proof not exist, we still could not believe in a return of rigor so strange, so barbarous, and so unaccountable on the part of Louis XIV., when all the official documents attest that his resentment had gradually been appeased, and that an old man who asked nothing more than a little free air before dying had ceased to be feared. There are many more presumptions in favor of Baron Heiss' opinion, reproduced by several writers, and, in the last instance, by M. Delort ('Histoire de l'homme au masque de fer'; 1825),—the opinion that the 'man with a mask' was a secretary of the Duke of Mantua, named Mattioli, carried off by order of Louis XIV. in 1679, for having deceived the French government, and having sought to form a coalition of the Italian princes against it. But however striking, in certain respects, may be the resemblances between Mattioli and the 'iron mask,' equally guarded by the governor St. Mars at Pignerol and at Exilles, however grave may be the testimony according to which Mattioli was transferred to the St. Marguerite Isles, the subaltern position of Mattioli, whom Catinat and Louvois, in their letters, characterize as a 'knave' and St. Mars threatens with a cudgel, ill accords, we do not say with the traditions relating to the profound respect shown the prisoner by the keepers, the governor, and even the minister,—these traditions may be contested,—but with the authentic details and documents given by the learned and judicious Father Griffet in regard to the extreme mystery in which the prisoner at the Bastille was enveloped, more than twenty years after the abduction of the obscure Mattioli, in regard to the mask that he never put off, in regard to the precautions taken after his death to annihilate the traces of his sojourn at the Bastille, which explains why nothing was found concerning him after the taking of that fortress. Many minds will always persist in seeking, under this impenetrable mask, a more dangerous secret, a mysterious accusing resemblance; and the most popular opinion, although the most void of an proof, will always doubtless be that suffered to transpire by Voltaire, under cover of his publisher, in the eighth edition of his 'Dictionnaire philosophique' (1771). According to this opinion, the honor of the royal household was involved in the secret, and the unknown victim was an illegitimate son of Anne of Austria. The only private crime of which Louis XIV. was perhaps capable, was a crime inspired by fanaticism for monarchical honor. However this may be, history has no right to pronounce upon what will never emerge from the domain of conjecture."

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 1, page 40, foot-note.

"The Paris correspondent of the 'Daily Telegraph' records a fact which, if it is correctly reported, goes a long way towards clearing up one of the problems of modern history. A letter to Louvois by Louis XIV., written in cipher, has been long in the archives of the Ministry of War, and has at length been deciphered. In it the King orders Louvois to arrest General de Burlonde for having raised the siege of Conti without permission, to send him to Pignerol, and to conceal his features under a 'loup' or black-velvet mask. The order was executed, and the presumption is therefore violent that the 'Man in the Iron Mask'—it was a black-velvet one with iron springs—was General de Burlonde. The story tallies with the known fact that the prisoner made repeated attempts to communicate his name to soldiers, that he was treated with respect by his military jailors, and that Louis XV., who knew the truth of the whole affair, declared it to be a matter of no importance. The difficulty is to discover the King's motive for such a precaution; but he may have feared discontent among his great officers, or the soldiery."

The Spectator, October 14, 1893.

The cipher despatch above referred to, and the whole subject of the imprisonment of General de Burlonde, are discussed at length, in the light of official records and correspondence, by M. Émile Burgaud and Commandant Bazeries (the latter of whom discovered the key to the cipher), in a book entitled "Le Masque de Fer: Révélation de la correspondance chiffrée de Louis XIV.," published at Paris in 1893. It seems to leave small doubt that the mysteriously masked prisoner was no other than General de Burlonde,

ALSO IN: G. A. Ellis, True History of the State Prisoner commonly called the Iron Mask.

E. Lawrence, The Man in the Iron Mask (Harper's Magazine, volume 43, page 98).

M. Topin, The Man in the Iron Mask (Cornhill Magazine, volume 21, page 333).

Quarterly Review, volume 34, page 19.

{1802}

IRONCLAD OATH.

An oath popularly styled the "Ironclad oath" was prescribed by the Congress of the United States, during the War of the Rebellion, in July, 1862, to be taken by every person elected or appointed to any office under the Government of the United States, the President only excepted. He was required to swear that he had "never voluntarily borne arms against the United States"; that he had "voluntarily given no aid, countenance, counsel, or encouragement to persons engaged in armed hostility to the National Government"; that he had "neither sought nor accepted, nor attempted to exercise the functions of any office whatever under authority or pretended authority in hostility to the United States"; that he had "never yielded a voluntary support to any pretended Government within the United States, hostile or inimical thereto."

J. G. Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, volume 2, page 88.

IRONSIDES, Cromwell's.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (MAY).

"IRONSIDES, Old."

A name popularly given to the American frigate "Constitution."

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814.

IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, The.

According to their traditions, the founder of the League or confederacy which united the five nations of the Iroquois—the Mohawks, the Onondagas, the Oneidas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, was Hiawatha, the hero of Iroquois legend.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

He was an Onondaga chief, and is supposed to have lived about the middle of the 15th century. "Hiawatha had long beheld with grief the evils which afflicted not only his own nation, but all the other tribes about them, through the continual wars in which they were engaged, and the misgovernment and miseries at home which these wars produced. With much meditation he had elaborated in his mind the scheme of a vast confederation which would ensure universal peace. In the mere plan of a confederation there was nothing new. There are probably few, if any, Indian tribes which have not, at one time or another, been members of a league or confederacy. It may almost be said to be their normal condition. But the plan which Hiawatha had evolved differed from all others in two particulars. The system which he devised was to be not a loose and transitory league, but a permanent government. While each nation was to retain its own council and its management of local affairs, the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate, composed of representatives elected by each nation, holding office during good behavior, and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the confederation was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expansible. The avowed design of its proposer was to abolish war altogether. He wished the federation to extend until all the tribes of men should be included in it, and peace should everywhere reign. Such is the positive testimony of the Iroquois themselves: and their statement, as will be seen, is supported by historical evidence. … His conceptions were beyond his time, and beyond ours; but their effect, within a limited sphere, was very great. For more than three centuries the bond which he devised held together the Iroquois nations in perfect amity. It proved, moreover, as he intended, elastic. The territory of the Iroquois, constantly extending as their united strength made itself felt, became the 'Great Asylum' of the Indian tribes. … Among the interminable stories with which the common people [of the Five Nations] beguile their winter nights, the traditions of Atotarho and Hiawatha became intermingled with the legends of their mythology. An accidental similarity, in the Onondaga dialect, between the name of Hiawatha and that of one of their ancient divinities, led to a confusion between the two, which has misled some investigators. This deity bears, in the sonorous Canienga tongue, the name of Taronhiawagon, meaning 'the Holder of the Heavens.' The Jesuit missionaries style him 'the great god of the Iroquois.' Among the Onondagas of the present day, the name is abridged to Taonhiawagi, or Tahiawagi. The confusion between this name and that of Hiawatha (which, in another form, is pronounced Tahionwatha) seems to have begun more than a century ago. … Mr. J. V. H. Clark, in his interesting History of Onondaga, makes the name to have been originally Ta-own-ya-wat-ha, and describes the bearer as 'the deity who presides over fisheries and hunting-grounds.' He came down from heaven in a white canoe, and after sundry adventures, which remind one of the labors of Hercules, assumed the name of Hiawatha (signifying, we are told, 'a very wise man'), and dwelt for a time as an ordinary mortal among men, occupied in works of benevolence. Finally, after founding the confederacy and bestowing many prudent counsels upon the people, he returned to the skies by the same conveyance in which he had descended. This legend, or, rather, congeries of intermingled legends, was communicated by Clark to Schoolcraft, when the latter was compiling his 'Notes on the Iroquois.' Mr. Schoolcraft, pleased with the poetical cast of the story, and the euphonious name, made confusion worse confounded by transferring the hero to a distant region and identifying him with Manabozho, a fantastic divinity of the Ojibways. Schoolcraft's volume, which he chose to entitle 'The Hiawatha Legends,' has not in it a single fact or fiction relating either to Hiawatha himself or to the Iroquois deity Taronhiawagon. Wild Ojibway stories concerning Manabozho and his comrades form the staple of its contents. But it is to this collection that we owe the charming poem of Longfellow; and thus, by an extraordinary fortune, a grave Iroquois lawgiver of the fifteenth century has become, in modern literature, an Ojibway demigod, son of the West Wind, and companion of the tricksy Paupukkeewis, the boastful Iagoo, and the strong Kwasind. If a Chinese traveler, during the middle ages, inquiring into the history and religion of the western nations, had confounded King Alfred with King Arthur, and both with Odin, he would not have made a more preposterous confusion of names and characters than that which has hitherto disguised the genuine personality of the great Onondaga reformer."

H. Hale, editor, The Iroquois Book of Rites (Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature, number 2, pages 21-36).

{1803}

IRREDENTISTS.

"This is the name given to a political organisation formed in 1878, with the avowed object of freeing all Italians from foreign rule, and of reuniting to the Italian kingdom all those portions of the Italy of old which have passed under foreign dominion. The operations of the 'Italia Irredenta' party are chiefly carried on against Austria, in consequence of the retention by that Empire of Trieste and the Southern Tyrol. Until these territories have been relinquished, Italy, or at least a certain part of it, will remain unsatisfied."

J. S. Jeans, Italy (National Life and Thought, chapter 8).

ISAAC II. (Comnenus), Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), A. D. 1057-1059.

Isaac II. (Angelus), Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), 1185-1195.

ISABELLA, Queen of Castile (wife of Ferdinand II., King of Aragon), A. D. 1474-1504.

Isabella I., Queen of Spain, 1833-1868.

ISABELLA. The city founded by Columbus on the island of Hispaniola, or Hayti.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1493-1496.

ISANDLANA, The English disaster at (1879).

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1877-1879.

ISASZEG, Battle of (1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

ISAURIAN DYNASTY, The.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 717-797.

ISAURIANS, The.

The Isaurians were a fierce and savage race of mountaineers, who occupied anciently a district in Asia Minor, between Cilicia and Pamphylia on the south and Phrygia on the north. They were persistently a nation of robbers, living upon the spoils taken from their neighbors, who were never able to punish them justly in their mountain fastnesses. Even the iron hand of the Romans failed to reduce the Isaurians to order, although P. Servilius, in 78 B. C., destroyed most of their strongholds, and Pompey, eleven years later, in his great campaign against the pirates, put an end to the lawless depredations on sea and land of the Cilicians, who had become confederated with the Isaurians. Five centuries afterwards, in the days of the Eastern Empire, the Isaurians were the best soldiers of its army, and even gave an emperor to the throne at Constantinople in the person of Zeno or Zenon.

E. W. Brooks, The Emperor Zenon and the Isaurians (English Historical Review, April, 1893).

ISCA.

The name of two towns in Roman Britain, one of which is identified with modern Exeter and the other with Caerleon-on-Usk. The latter was the station of the 2d legion.

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 5.

See EXETER, ORIGIN OF; also, CAERLEON.

ISHMAELIANS, The. See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 908-1171; also, ASSASSINS; and CARMATHIANS.

ISIDORE, The False Decretals of.

See PAPACY: A. D. 829-847.

ISINÆ.

See CAUSENNÆ.

ISLAM.

"The religion founded by Mahomet is called Islam, a word meaning 'the entire surrender of the will to God'; its professors are called Mussulmans—'those who have surrendered themselves,' or 'Believers,' as opposed to the 'Rejectors' of the Divine messengers, who are named 'Kafirs,' or 'Mushrikin,' that is, 'those who associate, are [not?] companions or sharers with the Deity.' Islam is sometimes divided under the two heads of Faith and Practical Religion.

I. Faith (Iman) includes a belief in one God, omnipotent, omniscient, all-merciful, the author of all good; and in Mahomet as his prophet, expressed in the formula 'There is no God but God, and Mahomet is the Prophet of God.' It includes, also, a belief in the authority and sufficiency of the Koran, in angels, genii, and the devil, in the immortality of the soul, the resurrection, the day of judgment and in God's absolute decree for good and evil.

II. Practical religion (Din) consists of five observances: (1) Recital of the formula of Belief, (2) Prayer with Ablution, (3) Fasting, (4) Almsgiving, (5) the Pilgrimage.

… The standard of Moslem orthodoxy is essentially the Koran and to it primary reference is made; but … some more extended and discriminating code became necessary. The deficiency was supplied by the compilation of the 'Sunnah,' or Traditional Law, which is built upon the sayings and practices of Mahomet, and, in the opinion of the orthodox, is invested with the force of law, and with some of the authority of inspiration. … In cases where both the Koran and the Sunnah afford no exact precept, the 'Rule of Faith' in their dogmatic belief, as well as the decisions of their secular courts, is based upon the teaching of one of the four great Imams, or founders of the orthodox sects, according as one or another of these prevails in any particular country. … The great Sunni sect is divided among the orthodox schools mentioned above, and is so called from its reception of the 'Sunnah,' as having authority concurrent with and supplementary to the Koran. In this respect it differs essentially from the Shias, or partisans of the house of Ali [the nephew of Mahomet and husband of his daughter Fatima] who, adhering to their own traditions, reject the authority of the 'Sunnah.' These two sects, moreover, have certain observances and matters of belief peculiar to themselves, the chief of which is the Shia doctrine, that the sovereign Imamat, or temporal and spiritual lordship over the faithful, was by divine right vested in Ali and in his descendants, through Hasan and Hosein, the children of Fatima, the daughter of the prophet. And thus the Persian Shias add to the formula of belief the confession, 'Ali is the Caliph of God.' In Persia the Shia doctrines prevail, and formerly so intense was sectarian hatred that the Sunni Mahometans paid a higher capitation tax there than the infidels. In Turkey the great majority are Sunni. In India the Shias number about one in twenty. The Shias, who reject this name, and call themselves Adliyah, or the 'Society of the Just,' are subdivided into a great variety of minor sects; but these … are united in asserting that the first three Caliphs, Abu Bekr, Omar, and Othman were usurpers, who had possessed themselves of the rightful and inalienable inheritance of Ali."

J. W. H. Stobart, Islam and its Founder, chapter 10.

"The twelve Imams, or pontiffs, of the Persian creed, are Ali, Hassan, Hosein, and the lineal descendants of Hosein to the ninth generation. Without arms, or treasures, or subjects, they successively enjoyed the veneration of the people and provoked the jealousy of the reigning caliphs. … The twelfth and last of the Imams, conspicuous by the title of Mahadi, or the Guide, surpassed the solitude and sanctity of his predecessors. He concealed himself in a cavern near Bagdad: the time and place of his death are unknown; and his votaries pretend that he still lives and will appear before the day of judgment."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 50.

ALSO IN: E. Sell, The Faith of Islam.

S. Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, chapters 3 and 7.

R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Arabs, part 2, chapter 1.

W. C. Taylor, History of Mohammedanism, chapters 5-13.

R. Bosworth Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism

T. Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, chapter 3.

See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST.

{1804}

ISLAM, Dar-ul-, and Dar-ul-harb.

See DAR-UL-ISLAM.

ISLAND NUMBER TEN, The capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH-APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

ISLE OF FRANCE.

The old French province containing Paris. Also the French name of Mauritius island, taken by England in 1810.

ISLE ROYALE.

See CAPE BRETON: A. D. 1720-1745.

ISLES, Lords of the.

See HEBRIDES: A. D. 1346-1504, and HARLAW, BATTLE OF.

ISLES OF THE BLESSED.

See CANARY ISLANDS.

ISLY, Battle of (1843).

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1830-1846.

ISMAIL, Khedive of Egypt, The reign and the fall of.

See EGYPT: A. D. 1840-1869; 1870-1883; and 1875-1882.

Ismail I., Shah of Persia, A. D. 1502-1523.

Ismail II., Shah of Persia, 1576-1577.

ISMAIL, Siege and capture of (1790).

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

ISMAILEANS, OR ISHMAELIANS.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 908-1171; also, ASSASSINS; and CARMATHIANS.

ISONOMY. ISOTIMY. ISAGORIA.

"The principle underlying democracy is the struggle for a legalised equality which was usually described [by the ancient Greeks] by the expressions Isonomy, or equality of law for all,—Isotimy, or proportionate regard paid to all, —Isagoria, or equal freedom of speech, with special reference to courts of justice and popular assemblies."

G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 2, chapter 12.

ISONZO, Battle of the (A. D. 489).

See ROME: A. D. 488-526.

ISOPOLITY.

"Under Sp. Cassius [B. C. 493], Rome concluded a treaty with the Latins, in which the right of isopolity or the 'jus municipi' was conceded to them. The idea of isopolity changed in the course of time, but its essential features in early times were these: between the Romans and Latins and between the Romans and Caerites there existed this arrangement, that any citizen of the one state who wished to settle in the other, might forthwith be able to exercise there the rights of a citizen."

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lecture 13 (volume 1).

ISRAEL.

See JEWS.

ISRAEL, Lost Ten Tribes of.

See JEWS: THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.

ISSUS, Battle of (B. C. 333).

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 334-330.

ISTÆVONES, The.

See GERMANY: AS KNOWN TO TACITUS.

ISTAKR, OR STAKR.

The native name under the later, or Sassanian, Persian empire, of the ancient capital, Persepolis.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 3, footnote.

ISTER, The.

The ancient Greek name of the Danube, below the junction of the Theiss and the Save.

ISTHMIAN GAMES.

See NEMEAN.

----------ISTRIA: Start--------

ISTRIA: Slavonic Occupation of.

See SLAVONIC PEOPLES: SIXTH AND SEVENTH CENTURIES.

ISTRIA: A. D. 1797. Acquisition by Austria.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

----------ISTRIA: End--------

ISTRIANS, The.

See ILLYRIANS.

ISURIUM.

A Roman town in Britain, which had previously been the chief town of the British tribe of the Brigantes. It is identified with Aldborough, Yorkshire, "where the excavator meets continually with the tessellated floors of the Roman houses."

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

ITALI, The.

See ŒNOTRIANS.

ITALIAN WAR, The.

See ROME: B. C. 90-88.

ITALIOTES.

See SICELIOTEB.

----------ITALY: Start--------

ITALY: Ancient. Early Italians.

"It was not till the close of the Republic, or rather the beginning of the Empire, that the name of Italy was employed, as we now employ it, to designate the whole Peninsula, from the Alps to the Straits of Messina.

See ROME: B. C. 275.

The term Italia, borrowed from the name of a primæval tribe who occupied the southern portion of the land, was gradually adopted as a generic title in the same obscure manner in which most of the countries of Europe, or (we may say) the Continents of the world, have received their appellations. In the remotest times the name only included Lower Calabria: from these narrow limits it gradually spread upwards, till about the time of the Punic Wars, its northern boundary ascended the little river Rubicon (between Umbria and Cisalpine Gaul), then followed the ridge of the Appennines westward to the source of the Macra, and was carried down the bed of that small stream to the Gulf of Genoa. When we speak of Italy, therefore, in the Roman sense of the word, we must dismiss from our thoughts all that fertile country which was at Rome entitled the provincial district of Gallia Cisalpina, and Liguria."

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, introduction, section. 2.

"Philological research teaches us to distinguish three primitive Italian stocks, the Iapygian, the Etruscan, and that which we shall call the Italian. The last is divided into two main branches,—the Latin branch, and that to which the dialects of the Umbri, Marsi, Volsci and Samnites belong. As to the Iapygian stock, we have but little information. {1805} At the southeastern extremity of Italy, in the Messapian or Calabrian peninsula, inscriptions in a peculiar extinct language have been found in considerable numbers; undoubtedly remains of the dialect of the Iapygians, who are very distinctly pronounced by tradition also to have been different from the Latin and Samnite stocks. … With the recognition of … a general family relationship or peculiar affinity between the Iapygians and Hellenes (a recognition, however, which by no means goes so far as to warrant our taking the Iapygian language to be a rude dialect of Greek), investigation must rest content. … The middle of the peninsula was inhabited, as far back as reliable tradition reaches, by two peoples or rather two branches of the same people, whose position in the Indo-Germanic family admits of being determined with greater precision than that of the Iapygian nation. We may with propriety call this people the Italian, since upon it rests the historical significance of the peninsula. It is divided into the two branch-stocks of the Latins and the Umbrians; the latter including their southern off-shoots, the Marsians and Samnites, and the colonies sent forth by the Samnites in historical times. … These examples [philological examples, given in the work, but omitted from this quotation], selected from a great abundance of analogous phenomena, suffice to establish the individuality of the Italian stock as distinguished from the other members of the Indo-Germanic family, and at the same time show it to be linguistically the nearest relative, as it is geographically the next neighbour, of the Greek. The Greek and the Italian are brothers; the Celt, the German and the Slavonian are their cousins. … Among the languages of the Italian stock, again, the Latin stands in marked contrast with the Umbro-Samnite dialects. It is true that of these only two, the Umbrian and the Samnite or Oscan, are in some degree known to us. … A conjoint view, however, of the facts of language and of history leaves no doubt that all these dialects belonged to the Umbro-Samnite branch of the great Italian stock. … It may … be regarded as certain that the Italians, like the Indians, migrated into their peninsula from the north. The advance of the Umbro-Sabellian stock along the central mountain-ridge of Italy, in a direction from north to south, can still be clearly traced; indeed its last phases belong to purely historical times. Less is known regarding the route which the Latin migration followed. Probably it proceeded in a similar direction along the west coast, long, in all likelihood, before the first Sabellian stocks began to move."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 1, chapters 2-3.

See, also, ETRUSCANS; LATIUM; SABINES; SAMNITES; UMBRIANS; MAGNA GRÆCIA; also, ROME: B. C. 343-290, and 339-338.

"In the February number of the 'Civiltà Cattolica,' Padre de Cara pleads for a national effort on the part of Italian archaeologists to solve the question of the origin of their country's civilisation by the systematic exploration and excavation of Pelasgic Italy. … In a series of articles, extending over several years, the learned father has contended for the identity of the Hittites and Proto-Pelasgians on archaeological, etymological, and historical grounds; and he here repeats that, if 'Italic' means Aryan, then it is among the peoples speaking Oscan, Umbrian, Latin, and other dialects of the Indo-European family that the parentage of Italian civilisation must be sought; but that 'Italy' meant in the first place the country of the Hittites (Hethei), and hence of the Pelasgians, and that name and civilisation are alike Pelasgic. Those who hold it to have been Aryan have not only the testimony of Greek and Roman writers against them, but also the facts that there were Pelasgians in Italy whose stone constructions are standing to this day, and that the Etruscan language and culture had no Aryan affinities. The writer further points out that the walls of Pelasgic cities, whether in Italy, Greece, or Asia Minor, all resemble each other, and that the origin of Greek civilisation was also Pelasgian. In Greece, as in Italy, the Aryans followed centuries after the Hittite-Pelasgians, and Aryan Greece carried the arts of Pelasgic Greece to perfection. He believes that, of two migratory bands of Hittites, one invaded Greece and the other Italy, about the same time. He also draws attention to the coincidence that it is not very long since Greece, like Italy at the present time, could date its civilisation no further back than 700 or 800 B. C. Schliemann recovered centuries for Greece, but 'Italy still remains imprisoned in the iron circle of the seventh century.' To break it, she must follow Schliemann's plan; and as he had steady faith in the excavation of the Pelasgic cities and cemeteries of Greece, so will like faith and conduct on the part of Italian archaeologists let in light upon this once dark problem."

Academy, March 31, 1894, page 273.

ITALY: Under the dominion of Rome.

See ROME.

ITALY: Invasions Repelled by Rome.

See ROME: B. C. 390-347, 282-275; PUNIC WARS; CIMBRI AND TEUTONES; ALEMANNI; and RADAGAISUS.

ITALY: A. D. 400-410. Alaric's invasions.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 400-403; and ROME: A. D. 408-410.

ITALY: A. D. 452. Attila's invasion. The origin of Venice.

See HUNS: A. D. 452; and VENICE: A. D. 452.

ITALY: A. D. 476-553. The fall of the Western Roman Empire. The Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric, and its fall. Recovery of Italy by Justinian.

See ROME: A. D. 455-476, to 535-553.

ITALY: A. D. 539-553. Frank invasions.

See FRANKS: A. D. 539-553.

ITALY: A. D. 554-800. Rule of the Exarchs of Ravenna.

See ROME: A. D. 554-800; and PAPACY: A. D. 728-774.

ITALY: A. D. 568-800. Lombard conquests and kingdom. Rise of the Papal power at Rome. Alliance of the Papacy with the sovereigns of the Franks. Revival of the Roman Empire under Charlemagne.

"Since the invasion of Alboin, Italy had groaned under a complication of evils. The Lombards who had entered along with that chief in A. D. 568 [see LOMBARDS: A. D. 568-573, and after] had settled in considerable numbers in the valley of the Po, and founded the duchies of Spoleto and Benevento, leaving the rest of the country to be governed by the exarch of Ravenna as viceroy of the Eastern crown. This subjection was, however, little better than nominal. Although too few to occupy the whole peninsula, the invaders were yet strong enough to harass every part of it by inroads which met with no resistance from a population unused to arms, and without the spirit to use them in self-defence. … Tormented by their repeated attacks, Rome sought help in vain from Byzantium, whose forces, scarce able to repel from their walls the Avars and Saracens, could give no support to the distant exarch of Ravenna. {1806} The Popes were the Emperor's subjects; they it waited his confirmation, like other bishops; they had more than once been the victims of his anger. But as the city became more accustomed in independence, and the Pope rose to a predominance, real if not yet legal [see ROME: A. D. 590-640, and PAPACY: A. D. 728-774], his tone grew bolder than that of the Eastern patriarchs. In the controversies that had raged in the Church, he had had the wisdom or good fortune to espouse (though not always from the first) the orthodox side: it was now by another quarrel of religion that his deliverance from an unwelcome yoke was accomplished. The Emperor Leo, born among the Isaurian mountains, where a purer faith may yet have lingered, and stung by the Mohammedan taunt of idolatry, determined to abolish the worship of images, which seemed fast obscuring the more spiritual part of Christianity. An attempt sufficient to cause tumults among the submissive Greeks, excited in Italy a fiercer commotion. The populace rose with one heart in defence of what had become to them more than a symbol: the exarch was slain: the Pope, though unwilling to sever himself from the lawful head and protector of the Church, must yet excommunicate the prince whom he could not reclaim from so hateful a heresy.

See ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY.

Liudprand, king of the Lombards, improved his opportunity: falling on the exarchate as the champion of images, on Rome as the minister of the Greek Emperor, he overran the one, and all but succeeded in capturing the other. The Pope escaped for the moment, but saw his peril: placed between a heretic and a robber, he turned his gaze beyond the Alps, to a Catholic chief who had just achieved a signal deliverance for Christendom on the field of Poitiers. Gregory II. had already opened communications with Charles Martel, mayor of the palace, and virtual ruler of the Frankish realm. As the crisis becomes more pressing, Gregory III. finds in the same quarter his only hope, and appeals to him in urgent letters, to haste to the succour of Holy Church. … Charles died before he could obey the call; but his son Pipin (surnamed the Short) made good use of the new friendship with Rome. He was the third of his family who had ruled the Franks with a monarch's full power [see FRANKS: A. D. 511-752]: it seemed time to abolish the pageant of Merovingian royalty; yet a departure from the ancient line might shock the feelings of the people. A course was taken whose dangers no one then foresaw: the Holy See, now for the first time invoked as an international power, pronounced the deposition of Childric, and gave to the royal office of his successor Pipin a sanctity hitherto unknown. … The compact between the chair of Peter and the Teutonic throne was hardly sealed, when the latter was summoned to discharge its share of the duties. Twice did Aistulf the Lombard assail Rome, twice did Pipin descend to the rescue: the second time at the bidding of a letter written in the name of St. Peter himself. Aistulf could make no resistance; and the Frank bestowed on the Papal chair all that belonged to the exarchate in North Italy, receiving as the meed of his services the title of Patrician [754]. … When on Pipin's death the restless Lombards again took up arms and menaced the possessions of the Church, Pipin's son Charles or Charlemagne swept down like a whirlwind from the Alps at the call of Pope Hadrian, seized king Desiderius in his capital, assumed himself the Lombard crown, and made northern Italy thenceforward an integral part of the Frankish empire [see GERMANY: A. D. 68-800]. … For the next twenty-four years Italy remained quiet. The government of Rome was carried on in the name of the Patrician Charles, although it does not appear that he sent thither any official representative; while at the same time both the city and the exarchate continued to admit the nominal supremacy of the Eastern Emperor, employing the years of his reign to date documents."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 4.

"Thus, by German hands, the internal ascendancy of the German race in Italy, which had lasted, first under the Goths, and then under the Lombards, for 281 years, was finally broken. A German was still king over Italy, as for ages Germans were still to be. But Roman and native influence reconquered its supremacy in Italy, under the management and leadership of the bishops of Rome. The Lombards, already becoming Italianized, melted into provincial Italians. The Teutonic language disappeared, leaving a number of words to Italian dialects, and a number of names to Italian families. The last king of the Lombards bore an Italian name, Desiderius. The latest of Italian national heroes bears the Bavarian and Lombard name of Garibaldi. But the overthrow of the Lombards, and the gift of provinces and cities to St. Peter had even more eventful results. The alliance between the king of the Franks and the bishop of Rome had become one of the closest kind. … The German king and the Italian pope found themselves together at the head of the modern world of the West. But the fascination of the name of Rome still, as it had done for centuries, held sway over the Teutonic mind. … It was not unnatural that the idea should recommend itself, both to the king and the pope, of reviving in the West, in close connexion with the Roman primacy, that great name which still filled the imagination of the world, and which in Roman judgments, Greek Byzantium had wrongfully stolen away—the name of Cæsar Augustus, the claim to govern the world. There was a longing in the West for the restoration of the name and authority, 'lest,' as the contemporary writers express it, 'the heathen should mock at the Christian if the name of Emperor had ceased among them.' And at this moment, the government at Constantinople was in the hands of a woman, the Empress Irene. Charles's services to the pope were recompensed, and his victorious career of more than thirty years crowned, by the restoration at Rome, in his person, of the Roman empire and the imperial dignity. The same authority which had made him 'patrician,' and consecrated him king, now created him Emperor of the Romans. On Christmas day, 800, when Charles came to pay his devotions before the altar of St. Peter's, Pope Leo III.—without Charles's knowledge or wish, so Charles declared to his biographer, Einhard, and, it may be, prematurely, as regards Charles's own feeling—placed a golden crown on his head, while all the people shouted, 'to Charles, the most pious Augustus, crowned of God, the great and peace-giving Emperor of the Romans, life and victory.' … {1807} Thus a new power arose in Europe, new in reality and in its relations to society, though old in name. It was formally but the carrying on the line of the successors of Augustus and Constantine. But substantially it was something very different. Its authors could little foresee its destinies; but it was to last, in some sort the political centre of the world which was to be, for 1,000 years. And the Roman Church, which had done such great things, which had consecrated the new and mighty kings of the Franks, and had created for the mightiest of them the imperial claim to universal dominion, rose with them to a new attitude in the world. … The coronation of Charles at Rome, in the face of an imperial line at Constantinople, finally determined, though it did not at once accomplish, the separation of East and West, of Greek and Latin Christianity. This separation had long been impending, perhaps, becoming inevitable. … One Roman empire was still the only received theory. But one Roman empire, with its seat in the West, or one Roman empire, governed in partnership by two emperors of East and West, had become impossible in fact. The theory of its unity continued for ages; but whether the true successor of Augustus and Theodosius sat at Constantinople, or somewhere in the West, remained in dispute, till the dispute was ended by the extinction of the Eastern empire by the Turks on May 29, 1453."

R. W. Church, The Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 7.

See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

ITALY: A. D. 685-1014. The founding of the duchy of Tuscany.

See TUSCANY: A. D. 685-1115.

ITALY: A. D. 781. Erected into a separate kingdom by Charlemagne.

In the year 781 Charlemagne erected Italy and Aquitaine into two separate kingdoms, placing his infant sons Pipin and Ludwig on the thrones.

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapter 16.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 800-1016. Conflict of Greeks, Saracens and Franks.

"The southern provinces [of Italy], which now compose the kingdom of Naples, were subject, for the most part [in the 8th and 9th centuries], to the Lombard dukes and princes of Beneventum—so powerful in war that they checked for a moment the genius of Charlemagne—so liberal in peace that they maintained in their capital an academy of thirty-two philosophers and grammarians. The division of this flourishing state produced the rival principalities of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua; and the thoughtless ambition or revenge of the competitors invited the Saracens to the ruin of their common inheritance. During a calamitous period of two hundred years, Italy was exposed to a repetition of wounds which the invaders were not capable of healing by the union and tranquillity of a perfect conquest. Their frequent and almost annual squadrons issued from the port of Palermo and were entertained with too much indulgence by the Christians of Naples: the more formidable fleets were prepared on the African coasts. … A colony of Saracens had been planted at Bari, which commands the entrance of the Adriatic Gulf; and their impartial depredations provoked the resentment and conciliated the union of the two emperors. An offensive alliance was concluded between Basil the Macedonian [of the Byzantine Empire], the first of his race, and Lewis, the great grandson of Charlemagne; and each party Supplied the deficiencies of his associate. … The fortress of Bari was invested by the infantry of the Franks and by the cavalry and galleys of the Greeks; and, after a defence of four years, the Arabian emir submitted [A. D. 871] to the clemency of Lewis, who commanded in person the operations of the siege. This important conquest had been achieved by the concord of the East and West; but their recent amity was soon embittered by the mutual complaints of jealousy and pride. … Whoever might deserve the honour, the Greek emperors, Basil and his son Leo, secured the advantage of the reduction of Bari. The Italians of Apulia and Calabria were persuaded or compelled to acknowledge their supremacy, and an ideal line from Mount Garganus to the Bay of Salerno leaves the far greater part of the [modern] kingdom of Naples under the dominion of the Eastern empire. Beyond that line the dukes or republics of Amalfi and Naples, who had never forfeited their voluntary allegiance, rejoiced in the neighbourhood of their lawful sovereign; and Amalfi was enriched by supplying Europe with the produce and manufactures of Asia. But the Lombard princes of Benevento, Salerno, and Capua, were reluctantly torn from the communion of the Latin world, and too often violated their oaths of servitude and tribute. The city of Bari rose to dignity and wealth as the metropolis of the new theme or province of Lombardy; the title of Patrician, and afterwards the singular name of Catapan, was assigned to the supreme governor. … As long as the sceptre was disputed by the princes of Italy, their efforts were feeble and adverse; and the Greeks resisted or eluded the forces of Germany which descended from the Alps under the imperial standard of the Othos. The first and greatest of those Saxon princes was compelled to relinquish the siege of Bari: the second, after the loss of his stoutest bishops and barons, escaped with honour from the bloody field of Crotona (A. D. 983). On that day the scale of war was turned against the Franks by the valour of the Saracens. … The Caliph of Egypt had transported 40,000 Moslems to the aid of his Christian ally. The successors of Basil amused themselves with the belief that the conquest of Lombardy had been achieved, and was still preserved, by the justice of their laws, the virtues of their ministers, and the gratitude of a people whom they had rescued from anarchy and oppression. A series of rebellions might dart a ray of truth into the palace of Constantinople; and the illusions of flattery were dispelled by the easy and rapid success of the Norman adventurers."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 56.

ITALY: A. D. 803-810. Charlemagne's boundary treaties with the Byzantine Emperor. Attempts of Pipin against the Venetians. The founding of Modern Venice.

See VENICE: A. D. 697-810.

ITALY: A. D. 810-961. Spread of Venetian commerce and naval prowess.

See VENICE: A. D. 810-961.

{1808}

ITALY: A. D. 843-951. In the breaking up of Charlemagne's Empire. The founding of the Holy Roman Empire.

In the partition of Charlemagne's Empire among his three grandsons, by the treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, Italy, together with the new kingdom called Lotharingia, or Lorraine, was assigned to the elder, Lothar, who bore the title of Emperor. Lothar, who died in 855, redivided his dominions among three sons, and Lorraine, separated from Italy, was soon dismembered and shared between Germany and France. The Italian kingdom fell to Louis or Ludwig II., who was crowned Emperor, and on his death without issue, A. D. 875, it was seized, together with the imperial title, by the French Carlovingian king, Charles the Bald. Two years afterwards he died, and Italy, together with the imperial crown, was acquired by the last legitimate survivor of the German Carlovingian line, Charles the Fat, who died in 888. "At that memorable era (A. D. 888) the four kingdoms which this prince [Charles the Fat] had united fell asunder: West France, where Odo or Eudes [Duke of Paris, ancestor of the royal line of Capet] then began to reign, was never again united to Germany; East France (Germany) chose Arnulf; Burgundy split up into two principalities, in one of which (Transjurane) Rudolf proclaimed himself king, while the other (Cisjurune with Provence) submitted to Boso; while Italy was divided between the parties of Berengar of Friuli and Guido of Spoleto. The former was chosen king by the estates of Lombardy; the latter, and on his speedy death his son Lambert, was crowned Emperor by the Pope. Arnulf's [the German king's] descent chased them away and vindicated the claims of the Franks, but on his flight Italy and the anti-German faction at Rome became again free. Berengar was made king of Italy, and afterwards Emperor. Lewis of Burgundy, son of Boso, renounced his fealty to Arnulf, and procured the imperial dignity, whose vain title he retained through years of misery and exile, till A. D. 928. None of these Emperors were strong enough to rule well even in Italy; beyond it they were not so much as recognized. … In A. D. 924 died Berengar, the last of these phantom Emperors. After him Hugh of Burgundy and Lothar his son reigned as kings of Italy, if puppets in the hands of a riotous aristocracy can be so called. Rome was meanwhile ruled by the consul or senator Alberic [called variously senator, consul, patrician, and prince of the Romans], who had renewed her never quite extinct republican institutions, and in the degradation of the papacy was almost absolute in the city." Affairs in Italy were at this stage when Otto or Otho, the vigorous and chivalrous German king of the new line, came in 951 to re-establish and reconstitute the Roman Empire of Charlemagne and to make it a lasting entity in European politics—the "Holy Roman Empire" of modern history.

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 6.

See GERMANY: A. D. 936-973.

ALSO IN: F. Guizot, History of Civilization, lecture 24.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 49.

See, also, ROME: A. D. 903-964; and ROMAN EMPIRE, THE HOLY: A. D. 963.

ITALY: A. D. 900-924. Ravaged by the Hungarians.

"The vicinity of Italy had tempted their early inroads; but from their camp on the Brenta they beheld with some terror the apparent strength and populousness of the new-discovered country. They requested leave to retire; their request was proudly rejected by the Italian king; and the lives of 20,000 Christians paid the forfeit of his obstinacy and rashness. Among the cities of the West the royal Pavia was conspicuous in fame and splendour; and the pre-eminence of Rome itself was only derived from the relies of the apostles. The Hungarians appeared; Pavia was in flames; forty-three churches were consumed; and, after the massacre of the people, they spared about 200 wretches who had gathered some bushels of gold and silver (a vague exaggeration) from the smoking ruins of their country. In these annual excursions from the Alps to the neighbourhood of Rome and Capua, the churches that yet escaped resounded with a fearful litany: 'Oh! save and deliver us from the arrows of the Hungarians!' But the saints were deaf or inexorable; and the torrent rolled forward, till it was stopped by the extreme land of Calabria."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 55.

ITALY: A. D. 961-1039. Subjection to Germany.

"Otho I., his son Otho II., and his grandson Otho III., were successively acknowledged emperors and kings of Italy, from 961 to 1002. When this branch of the house of Saxony became extinct, Henry II. of Bavaria, and Conrad the Salic of Franconia, filled the throne from 1004 to 1039. During this period of nearly eighty years, the German emperors twelve times entered Italy at the head of their armies, which they always drew up in the plains of Roncaglia near Placentia; there they held the states of Lombardy, received homage from their Italian feudatories, caused the rents due to be paid, and promulgated laws for the government of Italy. A foreign sovereign, however, almost always absent, known only by his incursions at the head of a barbarous army, could not efficaciously govern a country which he hardly knew, and where his yoke was detested. … The emperors were too happy to acknowledge the local authorities, whatever they were, whenever they could obtain from them their pecuniary dues: sometimes they were dukes or marquises, whose dignities had survived the disasters of various invasions and of civil wars; sometimes the archbishops and bishops of great cities, whom Charlemagne and his successors had frequently invested with duchies and counties escheated to the crown, reckoning that lords elected for life would remain more dependent than hereditary lords; sometimes, finally, they were the magistrates themselves, who, although elected by the people, received from the monarch the title of imperial vicars, and took part with the nobles and prelates in the Plaids (placita), or diets of Roncaglia. After a stay of some months, the emperor returned with his army into Germany; the nobles retired to their castles, the prelates and magistrates to their cities: neither of these last acknowledged a superior authority to their own, nor reckoned on any other force than what they could themselves employ to assert what they called their rights. Opposite interests could not fail to produce collision, and the war was universal."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 1.

{1809}

During the reign of Henry II. (A. D. 1002-1024), against whom a rival king of Italy was set up by the Italians, "there was hardly any recognised government, and the Lombards became more and more accustomed, through necessity, to protect themselves, and to provide for their own internal police. Meanwhile the German nation had become odious to the Italians. The rude soldiery, insolent and addicted to intoxication, were engaged in frequent disputes with the citizens, wherein the latter, as is usual in similar cases, were exposed first to the summary vengeance of the troops, and afterwards to penal chastisement for sedition. In one of these tumults, at the entry of Henry II. in 1004, the city of Pavia was burned to the ground, which inspired its inhabitants with a constant animosity against that emperor. Upon his death, in 1024, the Italians were disposed to break once more their connexion with Germany, which had elected as sovereign Conrad duke of Franconia. They offered their crown to Robert king of France and to William duke of Guienne." But neither of these princes would accept the troublesome diadem; and, in the end, the archbishop of Milan and other Lombard lords "repaired to Constance and tendered the crown to Conrad, which he was already disposed to claim as a sort of dependency upon Germany. It does not appear that either Conrad or his successors were ever regularly elected to reign over Italy; but whether this ceremony took place or not, we may certainly date from that time the subjection of Italy to the Germanic body. It became an unquestionable maxim, that the votes of a few German princes conferred a right to the sovereignty of a country which had never been conquered, and which had never formally recognised this superiority."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1).

"The Italian Kingdom of the Karlings, the kingdom which was reunited to Germany under Otto the Great, was … a continuation of the old Lombard kingdom. It consisted of that kingdom, enlarged by the Italian lands which fell off from the Eastern Empire in the eighth century; that is by the Exarchate and the adjoining Pentapolis, and the immediate territory of Rome itself."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 8, section 3.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1000-1090. Conquests and settlement of the Normans.

"A pilgrimage first took the Normans to Southern Italy, where they were to found a kingdom. Here there were, if I may so speak, three wrecks, three ruins of nations—Lombards in the mountains, Greeks in the ports, Sicilian and African Saracens rambling over the coasts. About the year 1000, some Norman pilgrims assist the inhabitants of Salerno to drive out a party of Arabs, who were holding them to ransom. Being well paid for the service, these Normans attract others of their countrymen hither. A Greek of Bari, named Melo or Meles, takes them into pay to free his city from the Greeks of Byzantium. Next they are settled by the Greek republic of Naples at the fort of Aversa, which lay between that city and her enemies, the Lombards of Capua (A. D. 1026). Finally, the sons of a poor gentleman of the Cotentin, Tancred of Hauteville, seek their fortune here. Tancred had twelve children; seven by the same mother. It was during William's [the Conqueror's] minority, when numbers of the barons endeavoured to withdraw themselves from the Bastard's yoke, that these sons of Tancred's directed their steps towards Italy, where it was said that a simple Norman knight had become count of Aversa. They set off penniless, and defrayed the expenses of their journey by the sword (A. D. 1037?). The Byzantine governor, or Katapan, engaged their services, and led them against the Arabs. But their countrymen beginning to flock to them, they no sooner saw themselves strong enough than they turned against their paymasters, seized Apulia [A. D. 1042], and divided it into twelve countships. This republic of Condottieri held its assemblies at Melphi. The Greeks endeavoured to defend themselves, but fruitlessly. They collected an army of 60,000 Italians; to be routed by the Normans, who amounted to several hundreds of well-armed men. The Byzantines then summoned their enemies, the Germans, to their aid; and the two empires, of the East and West, confederated against the sons of the gentleman of Coutances. The all-powerful emperor, Henry the Black (Henry III.), charged Leo IX., who had been nominated pope by him, and who was a German and kin to the imperial family, to exterminate these brigands. The pope led some Germans and a swarm of Italians against them [1053]; but the latter took to flight at the very beginning of the battle, and left the warlike pontiff in the hands of the enemy. Too wary to ill-treat him, the Normans piously cast themselves at their prisoner's feet, and compelled him to grant them, as a fief of the Church, all that they had taken or might take possession of in Apulia, Calabria, and on the other side of the strait; so that, in spite of himself, the pope became the suzerain of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (A. D. 1052-1053)."

J. Michelet, History of France, book 4, chapter 2.

The two elder of the sons of Tancred were now dead, and the third son, Humphrey, died not long after. A fourth brother, Robert, surnamed Guiscard, who had lately arrived from Normandy with reinforcements, then established himself (A. D. 1057) with some difficulty in the leadership and succession. "He accomplished the reduction of almost all the country which composes the present kingdom of Naples, and, extinguishing the long dominion of the Beneventine Lombards and of the eastern empire in Italy [see BENEVENTUM, and AMALFI], finally received from Pope Nicholas II. the confirmation of the titles which he had assumed, of duke of Calabria and Apulia [A. D. 1080]. … While Robert Guiscard was perfecting his dominion on the continent, his younger brother Roger engaged in the astonishing design of conquering the large and beautiful island of Sicily from the Saracens with a few Norman volunteers. An air of romantic extravagance breathes over all the enterprises of the Normans in Italy; and, even if we discard the incredible tales which the legends and chronicles of the times have preserved of the valour and corporeal strength of these northern warriors, enough will remain in the authentic results of their expeditions to stagger the reason and warm the imagination with attractive visions of chivalrous achievement. … We are assured that 300 Christian knights were the greatest number which Roger could for many years bring into the field; and that 136 routed a prodigious host of Saracens at the battle of Ceramio. … But the Saracens were embroiled in internal discord, and their island was broken up into numerous petty states; we may, therefore, attribute to their dissensions a great part of the success which the chroniclers of the Normans have assigned to their good swords alone. Roger had, however, embarked in an arduous and laborious undertaking, which it required the unbending perseverance and patient valour of thirty years [A. D. 1060-1090] to accomplish. … At length, all Sicily bowed to his sway; Norman barons were infeuded over its surface; and Roger, with the title of great count, held the island as a fief of his brother's duchy."

G. Proctor, History of Italy, chapter 2, part 2.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 56.

J. W. Barlow, Short History of the Normans in South Europe, chapters 1-7.

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ITALY: A. D. 1056-1122. Beginning of the conflict of the Popes with the Emperors. Hildebrand and Henry IV. The War of Investitures.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1056-1122; and GERMANY: A. D. 973-1122.

ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152. The rise of the republican cities.

"The war of investitures, which lasted more than sixty years, accomplished the dissolution of every tie between the different members of the kingdom of Italy. Civil wars have at least this advantage,—that they force the rulers of the people to consult the wishes of their subjects, oblige them to gain affections which constitute their strength, and to compensate, by the granting of new privileges, the services which they require. The prelates, nobles, and cities of Italy obeyed, some the emperor, others the pope; not from a blind fear, but from choice, from affection, from conscience, according as the political or religious sentiment was predominant in each. The war was general, but everywhere waged with the national forces. Every city armed its militia, which, headed by the magistrates, attacked the neighbouring nobles or towns of a contrary party. While each city imagined it was fighting either for the pope or the emperor, it was habitually impelled exclusively by its own sentiments: every town considered itself as a whole, as an independent state, which had its own allies and enemies; each citizen felt an ardent patriotism, not for the kingdom of Italy, or for the empire, but for his own city. At the period when either kings or emperors had granted to towns the right of raising fortifications, that of assembling the citizens at the sound of a great bell, to concert together the means of their common defence, had been also conceded. This meeting of all the men of the state capable of bearing arms was called a parliament. It assembled in the great square, and elected annually two consuls, charged with the administration of justice at home, and the command of the army abroad. … The parliament, which named the consuls, appointed also a secret council, called a Consilio di Credenza, to assist the government, composed of a few members taken from each division; besides a grand council of the people, who prepared the decisions to be submitted to the parliament. … As industry had rapidly increased, and had preceded luxury,—as domestic life was sober, and the produce of labour considerable,—wealth had greatly augmented. The citizens allowed themselves no other use of their riches than that of defending or embellishing their country. It was from the year 900 to the year 1200 that the most prodigious works were undertaken and accomplished by the towns of Italy. … These three regenerating centuries gave an impulse to architecture, which soon awakened the other fine arts. The republican spirit which now fermented in every city, and gave to each of them constitutions so wise, magistrates so zealous, and citizens so patriotic, and so capable of great achievements, had found in Italy itself the models which had contributed to its formation. The war of investitures had given wing to this universal spirit of liberty and patriotism in all the municipalities of Lombardy, in Piedmont, Venetia, Romagna, and Tuscany. But there existed already in Italy other free cities. … Venice, … Ravenna, … Genoa, … Pisa, … Rome, Gaëta, Naples, Amalfi, Bari, were either never conquered by the Lombards, or in subjection too short a time to have lost their ancient walls, and the habit of guarding them. These cities served as the refuge of Roman civilization. … Those cities which had accumulated the most wealth, whose walls inclosed the greatest population, attempted, from the first half of the twelfth century, to secure by force of arms the obedience of such of the neighbouring towns as did not appear sufficiently strong to resist them, … to force them in to a perpetual alliance, so as to share their good or evil fortune, and always place their armed force under the standard of the dominant city. … Two great towns in the plains of Lombardy surpassed every other in power and wealth: Milan, which habitually directed the party of the church; and Pavia, which directed that of the empire. Both towns, however, seem to have changed parties during the reigns of Lothario III. and Conrad II., who, from the year 1125 to 1152 placed in opposition the two houses of Guelphs and Ghibelines in Germany. … Among the towns of Piedmont, Turin took the lead, and disputed the authority of the counts of Savoy, who called themselves imperial vicars in that country. … The family of the Veronese marquises, … who from the time of the Lombard kings had to defend the frontier against the Germans, were extinct; and the great cities of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, Treviso, and Mantua, nearly equal in power, maintained their independence. Bologna held the first rank among the towns south of the Po. … Tuscany, which had also had its powerful marquises, saw their family become extinct with the countess Matilda, the contemporary and friend of Gregory VII. Florence had since risen in power, destroyed Fiesole, and … was considered the head of the Tuscan league; and the more so that Pisa at this period thought only of her maritime expeditions. … Such was the state of Italy, when the Germanic diet, assembled at Frankfort in 1152, conferred the crown on Frederick Barbarossa, duke of Swabia, and of the house of Hohenstaufen."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapters 1-2.

ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 8, section 3.

W. K. Williams, The Communes of Lombardy (Johns Hopkins University Studies, 9th series, 5-6).

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1).

Europe during the Middle Ages (Lardner's Cabinet Cyclop., volume 1, chapter 1).

See, also, FLORENCE: 12TH CENTURY.

ITALY: A. D. 1063. Birth of Pisan architecture.

See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.

ITALY: A. D. 1077-1102. Countess Matilda's donation to the Holy See.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.

{1811}

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1081-1194. Robert Guiscard's invasions of the Eastern Empire. Union of Sicily with Apulia, and creation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, or Naples.

"The success of his brother [Roger, in Sicily—see above: A. D. 1000-1090] furnished another spur to the ambition of Robert Guiscard. Taking advantage of a dynastic revolution at Constantinople, he and his son Bohemund commenced a series of invasions of the Eastern Empire [see BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1081-1085] which only ended with his death. These, though unsuccessful in their ultimate result, were influential causes of the first crusade, and deeply affected the relations of East and West for years to come. Meanwhile in Sicily Roger had been succeeded by his son [Roger II.], and, in 1127, this heir of the destinies of his race added the dukedom of Apulia to that of Sicily, obtained from Pope Anacletus the title of king, and finally established the Norman kingdom of Naples [also called the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies]. His character is thus described by a contemporary chronicler: 'He was a lover of justice and most severe avenger of crime. He abhorred lying; did everything by rule, and never promised what he did not mean to perform. He never persecuted his private enemies; and in war endeavoured on all occasions to gain his point without shedding of blood. Justice and peace were universally observed throughout his dominions.' During his reign the intercourse between England and Sicily was close. The government was organized on principles very similar to that of England. … Under his wise rule and that of his immediate successors, the south of Italy and Sicily enjoyed a transient gleam of prosperity and happiness. Their equal and tolerant government, far surpassing anything at that day in Europe, enabled the Saracen, the Greek, and the Italian to live together in harmony elsewhere unknown. Trade and industry flourished, the manufacture of silk enriched the inhabitants, and the kingdom of Naples was at peace until she was crushed under the iron heel of a Teutonic conqueror."

A. H. Johnson, The Normans in Europe, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, The Normans at Palermo (Historical Essays, 3d series).

J. W. Barlow, Short History of the Normans in South Europe, chapters 8-11.

ITALY: A. D. 1096-1102. The First Crusades.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099; and 1101-1102.

ITALY: A. D. 1138. The accession of the Hohenstaufens to the Imperial throne, and the origin, in Germany, of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268.

ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162. The first and second expeditions of Frederick Barbarossa.

Frederick I., the second of the emperors of the Hohenstaufen line, called by the Italians Frederick Barbarossa (Red beard), was elected king at Frankfort in March, 1152. In October, 1154, he crossed the Alps and entered Italy with a strong German army, having two purposes in view:

1. To receive the imperial crown, from the hands of the Pope, and to place on his own head, at Pavia, the iron crown of Lombardy or Italy.

2. To reduce to order and submission the rising city-republics of Lombardy and Tuscany, which had been growing rapidly in independence and power during the last four troubled imperial reigns.

At Roncaglia, he held the diet of the kingdom, and listened to many complaints, especially against Milan, which had undoubtedly oppressed the weaker towns of its neighbourhood and abused its strength. Then he moved through the country, making a personal inspection of affairs, and giving a taste of his temper by burning the villages which failed to supply provisions to his troops with satisfactory promptitude. At Tortona he ordered the inhabitants to renounce their alliance with the Milanese. They refused, and endured in the upper portion of the city a siege of two months. Forced by want of water to surrender, at last, they were permitted to go free, but their town was sacked and burned. Asti, Chieri, Rosate, and other places of more or less importance, were destroyed. Frederick did not venture yet to attack Milan, but proceeded to Rome, demanding the imperial crown. The pope (Adrian IV.) and the Romans were alike distrustful of him, and he was not permitted to bring his army into the city. After no little wrangling over ceremonious details, and after being compelled to lead the horse and to hold the stirrup of the haughty pontiff, Barbarossa was finally crowned at St. Peter's, in the Vatican suburb. The Romans attempted to interrupt the coronation, and a terrible tumult occurred in which a thousand of the citizens were slain. But the Germans made no attempt to take possession of the city. On the contrary, they withdrew with haste, and the emperor led his army back to Germany, burning Spoleto on the way, because it failed in submissiveness, and marking a wide track of ruin and desolation through Italy as he went. This was in the summer of 1155. Three years passed, during which the Italian cities grew more determined in their independence, the emperor and his German subjects more bitter in hostility to them, and the pope and the emperor more antagonistic in their ambitions. In 1158 Frederick led a second expedition into Italy, especially determined to make an end of the contumacy of Milan. He began operations by creating a desert of blackened country around the offending city, being resolved to reduce it by famine. Mediators, however, appeared, who brought about a treaty of pacification, which interrupted hostilities for a few weeks. Then the Milanese found occasion to accuse the emperor of a treacherous violation of the terms of the treaty and again took up arms. The war was now to the death. But, before settling to the siege of Milan, Frederick gave himself the pleasure, first, of reducing the lesser city of Crema, which continued to be faithful among the allies of the Milanese. He held some children of the town in his hands, as hostages, and he bound them to the towers which he moved against the walls, compelling the wretched citizens to kill their own offspring in the act of their self-defense. By such atrocities as this, Crema was taken, at the end of seven months, and destroyed. Then Milan was assailed and beleaguered, harassed and blockaded, until, at the beginning of March, 1162, the starved inhabitants gave up their town. Frederick ordered the doomed city "to be completely evacuated, so that there should not be left in it a single living being. On the 25th of March, he summoned the militias of the rival and Ghibeline cities, and gave them orders to rase to the earth the houses as well as the walls of the town, so as not to leave one stone upon another. Those of the inhabitants of Milan whom their poverty, labour and industry attached to the soil, were divided into four open villages, built at a distance of at least two miles from the walls of their former city. Others sought hospitality in the neighbouring towns of Italy. … {1812} Their sufferings, the extent of their sacrifices, the recollection of their valour, and the example of their noble sentiments, made proselytes to the cause of liberty in every city into which they were received." Meantime Frederick Barbarossa returned to Germany, with his fame as a puissant monarch much augmented.

J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: U. Balzani, The Popes and the Hohenstaufen, chapters 3-5.

G. B. Testa, History of the War of Frederick I. against the Communes of Lombardy, books 1-6.

E. A. Freeman, Frederick the First, King of Italy (Historical Essays, 1st series).

ITALY: A. D. 1163-1164. Third visitation of Frederick Barbarossa. The rival Popes.

Frederick Barbarossa entered Italy for the third time in 1163, without an army, but imposingly escorted by his German nobles. He imagined that the country had been terrorized sufficiently by the savage measures of his previous visitation to need no more military repression. But he found the Lombard cities undismayed in the assertion of their rights, and drawing together in unions which had never been possible among them before. The hostility of his relations with the Papacy and with the greater part of the Church gave encouragement to political revolt. His quarrel with Pope Hadrian had been ended by the death of the latter, in 1159, but only to give rise to new and more disturbing contentions. It had grown so bitter before Hadrian died that the Pope had allied himself by treaty with Milan, Crema, and other cities resisting Frederick, and had promised to excommunicate the emperor within forty days. Sudden death frustrated the combination. At the election of Hadrian's successor there was a struggle of factions, each determined to put its representative in the papal chair, and each claiming success. Two rival popes were proclaimed and consecrated, one under the name of Alexander III., the other as Victor IV. Frederick recognized the latter, who made himself the emperor's creature. The greater part of Christendom soon gave its recognition to the former, although he had been driven to take refuge in France. Pope Alexander excommunicated Frederick and Frederick's pope, and Pope Victor retorted like anathemas. Whether the curses of Alexander were more effectual, or for other reasons, the authority of Victor dwindled, and he himself presently died (April 1164), while Frederick was making his third inspection of affairs in Italy. The emperor found it impossible to execute his unbending will without an army. Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso held a congress and openly associated themselves for common defense. Frederick attempted to make use of the militia forces of Pavia, Cremona, and other Ghibelline towns against them; but he found even these citizen-soldiers so mutinous with disaffection that he dared not pursue the undertaking. He returned to Germany for an army more in sympathy with his obstinate designs against Italian liberty.

U. Balzani, The Popes and the Hohenstaufen, chapters 4-5.

ALSO IN: H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 8, chapters 7-8.

G. B. Testa, History of the War of Frederick I. against the Communes of Lombardy, book 7.

ITALY: A. D. 1166-1167. The fourth expedition of Frederick Barbarossa. The League of Lombardy.

"When Frederick, in the month of October, 1166, descended the mountains of the Grisons to enter Italy [for the fourth time] by the territory of Brescia, he marched his army directly to Lodi, without permitting any act of hostility on the way. At Lodi, he assembled, towards the end of November, a diet of the kingdom of Italy, at which he promised the Lombards to redress the grievances occasioned by the abuses of power by his podestas, and to respect their just liberties; he was desirous of separating their cause from that of the pope and the king of Sicily; and to give greater weight to his negotiation, he marched his army into central Italy. … The towns of the Veronese marches, seeing the emperor and his army pass without daring to attack them, became bolder: they assembled a new diet, in the beginning of April, at the convent of Pontida, between Milan and Bergamo. The consuls of Cremona, of Bergamo, of Brescia, of Mantua and Ferrara met there and joined those of the marches. The union of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, for the common liberty, was hailed with universal joy. The deputies of the Cremonese, who had lent their aid to the destruction of Milan, seconded those of the Milanese villages in imploring aid of the confederated towns to rebuild the city of Milan. This confederation was called the League of Lombardy. The consuls took the oath, and their constituents afterwards repeated it, that every Lombard should unite for the recovery of the common liberty; that the league for this purpose should last twenty years; and, finally, that they should aid each other in repairing in common any damage experienced in this sacred cause, by anyone member of the confederation: extending even to the past this contract for reciprocal security, the league resolved to rebuild Milan. The militias of Bergamo, Brescia, Cremona, Mantua, Verona, and Treviso, arrived the 27th of April, 1167, on the ground covered by the ruins of this great city. They apportioned among themselves the labour of restoring the inclosing walls; all the Milanese of the four villages, as well as those who had taken refuge in the more distant towns, came in crowds to take part in this pious work; and in a few weeks the new-grown city was in a state to repel the insults of its enemies. Lodi was soon afterwards compelled, by force of arms, to take the oath to the league; while the towns of Venice, Placentia, Parma, Modena, and Bologna voluntarily and gladly joined the association."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 2.

Meantime Frederick Barbarossa had made himself master of the city of Rome. The Roman citizens had boldly ventured out to meet his German army and its allies on the Tusculan hills and had suffered a frightful defeat. Then some part of the walls of the Leonine City were carried by assault and the castellated church of St. Peter's was entered with ax and sword. Two German archbishops were among the leaders of the force which took the altars of the temple by storm and which polluted its floors with blood. Frederick's new 'anti-pope, Paschal III., successor to Victor IV., was now enthroned, and the empress was formally crowned in the apostolic basilica. Pope Alexander, who had been in possession of the city, withdrew, and the victorious emperor appeared to have the great objects of his burning ambition within his grasp. "Destiny willed otherwise. It was now August; the sun was burning the arid Campagna and oppressing the weary German troops. A slight rain came to refresh them, but the following day sudden destruction fell upon the camp. {1813} Deadly fever attacked the army with terrible violence and reduced it daily. The men fell in heaps, and when struck down in the morning were dead by night. The disease took stronger hold owing to the superstitious fears of the army and the idea of divine vengeance, for the soldiers remembered in terror the profanation of St. Peter's, and they felt the keen edge of the destroying angel's sword. Decimated, dismayed, demoralised, the imperial army was hopelessly defeated, and Frederick was compelled to strike his tents and fly before the in visible destroyer. … The flower of his troops lay unburied in the furrows, and with difficulty could he manage to carry back to their native land the bodies of his noblest and trustiest knights. Never perhaps before had Frederick given proofs of such unshaken strength of mind. … He returned to Germany alone and almost a fugitive, his bravest knights dead, his army destroyed, and leaving behind him a whole nation of proud and watchful enemies. He returned alone, but his spirit was undaunted and dreamt of future victory and of final revenge."

U. Balzani, The Popes and the Hohenstaufen, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: J. Miley, History of the Papal States, book 6, chapter 2.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 8, chapter 10.

G. B. Testa, History of the War of Frederick I., books 8-9.

ITALY: A. D. 1174-1183. The last expedition of Frederick Barbarossa. The Battle of Legnano, and the Peace of Constance.

It was not until 1174—seven years after his flight from the Roman pestilence—that Barbarossa was able to return to Italy and resume his struggle with Pope Alexander and the Lombard cities. He had been detained by troubles in Germany—the growing quarrel with his most powerful vassal, Henry the Lion, of Saxony, more particularly. Meantime, the League of the Lombard cities had spread and gained strength, and Pope Alexander III. was in active co-operation with it. To better fortify the frontiers of Lombardy, the League had built a strong new city, at the junction of the Tanaro and Bormida, had given it an immediate population of 15,000 people and had named it Alessandria, after the Pope. "The Emperor, whose arrival in Italy was urgently implored, was retained in Germany by his mistrust of Henry the Lion, who, in order to furnish himself with a pretext for refusing his assistance in the intended campaign without coming to an open breach, undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, A. D. 1171; whence, after performing his devotions at the holy sepulchre, without unsheathing his sword in its defence, he returned to his native country. … At length, in 1174, Frederick Barbarossa persuaded the sullen duke to perform his duty in the field, and for the fourth time [with an army] crossed the Alps. A terrible revenge was taken upon Susa, which was burnt to the ground. Alexandria [Alessandria] withstood the siege. The military science of the age, every 'ruse de guerre,' was exhausted by both the besiegers and the besieged, and the whole of the winter was fruitlessly expended without any signal success on either side. The Lombard league meanwhile assembled an immense army in order to oppose Frederick in the open field, whilst treason threatened him on another side. … Henry also at length acted with open disloyalty, and declared to the emperor, who lay sick at Chiavenna, on the lake of Como, his intention of abandoning him; and, unshaken by Frederick's exhortation in the name of duty and honour to renounce his perfidious plans, offered to provide him with money on condition of receiving considerable additions to his power in Germany, and the free imperial town of Goslar in gift. … Frederick, reduced to the alternative of either following his insolent vassal, or of exposing himself and his weakened forces to total destruction by remaining in his present position, courageously resolved to abide the hazard, and to await the arrival of fresh reinforcements from Germany; the Lombards, however, saw their advantage, and attacked him at Legnano, on the 29th of May, 1176. The Swabians (the southern Germans still remaining true to their allegiance) fought with all the courage of despair, but Berthold von Zähringen was taken prisoner, the emperor's horse fell in the thickest of the fight, his banner was won by the 'Legion of Death,' a chosen Lombard troop, and he was given up as dead. He escaped almost by a miracle, whilst his little army was entirely overwhelmed."

W. Menzel, History of Germany, chapter 151.

After the disastrous battle of Legnano, Frederic "was at length persuaded, through the mediation of the republic of Venice, to consent to a truce of six years, the provisional terms of which were all favourable to the league. … At the expiration of the truce Frederic's anxiety to secure the crown for his son overcame his pride, and the famous Peace of Constance [A. D. 1183] established the Lombard republics in real independence. By the treaty of Constance the cities were maintained in the enjoyment of all the regalian rights, whether within their walls or in their district, which they could claim by usage. Those of levying war, of erecting fortifications, and of administering civil and criminal justice, were specially mentioned. The nomination of their consuls, or other magistrates, was left absolutely to the citizens; but they were to receive the investiture of their office from an imperial legate. The customary tributes of provision during the emperor's residence in Italy were preserved; and he was authorized to appoint in every city a judge of appeal in civil causes. The Lombard league was confirmed, and the cities were permitted to renew it at their own discretion; but they were to take every ten years an oath of fidelity to the emperor. This just compact preserved, along with every security for the liberties and welfare of the cities, as much of the imperial prerogatives as could be exercised by a foreign sovereign consistently with the people's happiness. … The Peace of Constance presented a noble opportunity to the Lombards of establishing a permanent federal union of small republics. … But dark, long-cherished hatreds, and that implacable vindictiveness which, at least in former ages, distinguished the private manners of Italy, deformed her national character. … For revenge she threw away the pearl of great price, and sacrificed even the recollection of that liberty which had stalked like a majestic spirit among the ruins of Milan."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 3, part 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: U. Balzani, The Popes and the Hohenstaufen, chapter 6.

G. B. Testa, History of the War of Frederick I., book 10.

See, also, VENICE: A.D. 1177.

{1814}

A. D. 1183-1250. Frederick II. and the end of the Hohenstaufen struggles.

After the settlement of the Peace of Constance, Frederick Barbarossa made no further attempt to destroy the now well established liberties of the north Italian cities. On the contrary, he devoted himself, with considerable success, to the regaining of their confidence and good-will, as against the papacy, with which his relations were not improved. In southern Italy, he acquired an important footing by the marriage of his son Henry (already crowned King of Rome, as Henry VI.), to Constance, the sole heiress of the Norman kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Soon after which he went crusading to the Holy Land, and perished in Asia Minor (A. D. 1190). His son and successor, Henry VI., who survived him but seven years, was occupied so much in securing the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, already fallen to his wife (1194) by the death of the last of the Norman kings, that he had little time to trouble the peace of Lombardy or Germany. He was one of the meanest of kings, faithless and cold-blooded,—brutal to the Normans of the Sicilies and contemptible in his treatment of the English King Richard, when his vassal of Austria made a chance captive of the lion-hearted prince. He died in 1197, leaving as his heir a son but four years old—the Frederick II. of later years. There was war at once. Two rival kings were elected in Germany, by the two factions, Guelf and Ghibelline. The next year, one of them, Philip I., the Ghibelline, a younger son of Frederick Barbarossa, was assassinated; the other, Otho IV., a son of Henry the Lion, was recognized by his opponents, and went to Rome to claim the imperial crown. He received it, but soon quarrelled, as all his predecessors had done, with the pope (the great pope Innocent III. being now on the throne), and, Guelf as he was, began to put himself in alliance with the Ghibellines of Italy. Meantime, the boy Frederick had become king of the Two Sicilies by the death of his mother, and Pope Innocent was his guardian. He was now brought forward by the latter as a claimant of the Germanic crown, against Otho, and was sent into Germany to maintain his claim. The civil war which followed was practically ended by the battle of Bouvines (July 27, 1214—see BOUVINES) in which Otho's cause was lost. Four years after, the latter died, and Frederick reigned in Germany, Italy and the Two Sicilies, without a rival, holding the three separate crowns for five years before he received the imperial crown, in 1220. Meantime Innocent III. died, and Frederick became involved, even more bitterly than his father or his grandfather had been, in quarrels with the succeeding popes. He was a man far beyond his age in intellectual independence (see GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268) and freedom from superstitious servility to the priesthood. His tastes were cultivated, his accomplishments were many. He welcomed the refinements which Europe at that time could borrow from the Saracens, and his court was one of gaiety and splendor. His papal enemies execrated him as a heretic, a blasphemer and an "apocalyptic beast." His greatest original offenses had grown out of two promises which he made in his youth:

1. To lead a crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem,—which he was slow in fulfilling;

2. To resign his Italian possessions to his son, retaining only the sovereignty of Germany for himself,—which promise he did not fulfil at all.

The war of the Church against him was implacable, and he was under its ban when he died. The pope even pursued him with maledictions when he went, at last, upon his crusade, in 1228, and when he did, by negotiations, free Jerusalem for a time from the Moslems (see CRUSADES: A. D. 1216-1229). He was involved, moreover, in conflicts with the Lombard cities (see FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: MEDIÆVAL LEAGUE) which the papacy encouraged and stimulated, and, in 1236, he won a great victory over the League, at Cortenuova, capturing the famous "Carroccio" of the Milanese and sending it as a gift to the Roman Senate. But, attempting to use his victory too inflexibly, he lost the fruits of it, and all his later years were years of trouble and disastrous war—disastrous to Italy and to himself. He died on the 13th of December 1250. "Out of the long array of the Germanic successors of Charles, he [Frederick II.] is, with Otto III., the only one who comes before us with a genius and a frame of character that are not those of a Northern or a Teuton. There dwelt in him, it is true, all the energy and knightly valour of his father Henry and his grandfather Barbarossa. But along with these, and changing their direction, were other gifts, inherited perhaps from his Italian mother and fostered by his education among the orange-groves of Palermo—a love of luxury and beauty, an intellect refined, subtle, philosophical. Through the mist of calumny and fable it is but dimly that the truth of the man can be discerned, and the outlines that appear serve to quicken rather than appease the curiosity with which we regard one of the most extraordinary personages in history. A sensualist, yet also a warrior and a politician; a profound lawgiver and an impassioned poet; in his youth fired by crusading fervour, in later life persecuting heretics while himself accused of blasphemy and unbelief; of winning manners and ardently beloved by his followers, but with the stain of more than one cruel deed upon his name, he was the marvel of his own generation, and succeeding ages looked back with awe, not unmingled with pity, upon the inscrutable figure of the last Emperor who had braved all the terrors of the Church and died beneath her ban, the last who had ruled from the sands of the ocean to the shores of the Sicilian sea. But while they pitied they condemned. The undying hatred of the Papacy threw round his memory a lurid light; him and him alone of all the imperial line, Dante, the worshipper of the Empire, must perforce deliver to the flames of hell."

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapter 13.

"The Emperor Frederick was a poet who could not only celebrate the charms of his sovereign lady, 'the flower of all flowers, the rose of May,' but could also exhibit his appreciation for the beauties of nature. … Frederick also delighted in sculpture, painting, and architecture. … Under his fostering influence every branch of learning was starting into life after the slumber of ages. Frederick's age can only be compared to that glorious era of the Renaissance, when the sun of learning, no longer shorn of his beams, poured a flood of light over the dark places of Europe. Frederick was not only distinguished for his love of polite literature, but also for his ardour in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. He was himself an author on medical subjects. {1815} He was a great patron of natural history. He used his friendly relations with eastern kings to form a collection of animals not often seen in Europe—the elephant, camel, giraffe, and camelopard. He also wrote a treatise on Hawking, which is still cited with respect. He classifies birds, and treats generally of their habits. … But poetry and science were very far from occupying all the thoughts of this distinguished monarch. His great concern was the internal regulation of the kingdom committed to his charge. His code in Sicily and Naples was framed with the special view of securing equal rights to all classes of his subjects, and of delivering them from the yoke of the feudal oppressor. He stripped the nobles and prelates of their jurisdiction in criminal cases. He also decreed that any count or baron, carrying on war on his own account, should lose his head and his goods. These were amazing strides in the right direction, but the former was quite unprecedented in feudal kingdoms. Many justiciaries were appointed throughout the kingdom. No one might hold this office without the authorisation of the crown. He strove to make his officials as righteous as he was himself. He himself came before his courts. So great was his love of justice, that he would rather lose his cause than win it if he were in the wrong. No advocates were allowed to practise without an examination by the judicial bench. They were obliged to take an oath that they would allege nothing against their conscience. The court furnished widows, orphans, and the poor with champions free of expense. The law, by which it was guided, endeavoured to secure an even-handed administration of justice."

A. B. Pennington, The Emperor Frederick II. (Royal Historical Society, Transactions, new series, volume 1).

Although arbitrary and despotic in temper, the political intelligence of Frederick led him to practical ideas of government which were extraordinarily liberal for his age. In his Sicilian kingdom "the towns were shorn to a great extent of their local privileges, but were taught to unite their strength for the common good. Twice, at least, in the course of his reign, in 1232 and in 1240, Frederick summoned their deputies to a conference or Parliament, 'for the weal of the Kingdom and the general advantage of the State.' Forty-seven cities, all belonging to the Imperial domain, sent two deputies each to the Assembly convoked, which must not be confounded with the Solemn Courts held by the Sovereign and his Barons for the purpose Of revising charters, enacting Constitutions, and regulating the government. We should be mistaken in supposing that the Sicilian Parliament enjoyed much of the power implied by the name. There is no trace of any clamour against grievances, of any complaints against officials, or of any refusal to grant supplies. The only function of the deputies summoned seems to have been the assessing of the public burdens. The Emperor demanded a certain sum of money, and the deputies, meekly complying, regulated the ways and means of raising it. 'Send your messengers,' thus runs the writ, 'to see the Serenity of our face on your behalf, and to bring you back our will.' Later in the century, the Assembly acquired greater authority. It is just possible that Simon de Montfort, who is known to have visited the Imperial Court, may have borrowed his famous improvement on the old English constitution from an Apulian source; the gathering of the Commons at Foggia certainly preceded their first meeting at Westminster by thirty years. Other countries besides our own were indebted to Frederick for a better mode of legislation. Shortly after his death, many of his innovations were borrowed by his cousin Alonzo the Wise, and were inserted in Las Siete Partidas, the new Code of Castile. The ideas of the Suabian Emperor were evidently the model followed by St. Louis and his successors; in France, as well as in Southern Italy, the lawyer was feeling his way towards the enjoyment of the power wielded of old by the knight and the churchman; Philip the Fair was able to carry out the projects which Frederick had merely been able to sketch. The world made rapid strides between 1230 and 1300. The Northern half of Italy, distracted by endless struggles, was not insensible to the improvements introduced into the South by her mighty son. But in the North two fatal obstacles existed, the Papal power and the municipal spirit of the various States, which marred all Frederick's efforts in behalf of Italian unity." Frederick's court was the most brilliant and refined in Europe. Mr. Kington, his historian, introduces us to one of the Emperor's banquets, in the following description: "A great variety of strangers meet at the banqueting hour. Ambassadors from the Greek Monarch arrive with a present of falcons. Some clerical visitors from Germany are astounded to find themselves seated close to the turbaned men of the East, and shudder on hearing that these are envoys from the Sultan of Cairo and the Old Man of the Mountain. The honest Germans whisper among themselves some remarks on the late end of the Duke of Bavaria, who was stabbed at Kelheim by a man, suspected to be an assassin, employed by the mysterious Old Man on Frederick's behalf. The Emperor himself eats and drinks very little. He is the very model of a host. … The Emperor, it must be allowed, is rather loose in his talk. Speaking of his late Crusade, he remarks: 'If the God of the Jews had seen my Kingdom, the Terra di Lavoro, Calabria, Sicily, and Apulia, he would not have so often praised that land which he promised to the Jews and bestowed upon them.' The Bishops treasure up this unlucky speech, which will one day be noised abroad all over Italy. When the meal is over, the company are amused by the feats of some of the Almehs, brought from the East. Two young Arab girls of rare beauty place themselves each upon two balls in the middle of the flat pavement. On these they move backwards and forwards, singing and beating time with cymbals and castanets, while throwing themselves into intricate postures. Games and musical instruments, procured for the Empress, form part of the entertainment. We hear moreover of a Saracen dancer from Aquitaine. Such sports are relished by the guests quite as much as the Greek wine and the viands prepared by Berard the Court cook, who is famous for his scapece; this dish, consisting of fish boiled in salt water and sprinkled with saffron, popular to this day in the province of Lecce, has been derived from Apicius. … The Emperor now shows his guests the wild beasts, which he has brought from Africa and the East. There is the huge elephant, soon to be sent to Cremona, the bearer of the Imperial banner, guarded by a troop of Saracens. {1816} There is the female camelopard, called Seraph by the Arabs and Italians. Next come the camels and dromedaries which carry the Emperor's treasures when he is on the march. Lions, leopards, panthers, and rare birds form part of the collection, and are tended by Saracen keepers. Frederick perhaps wishes to show his friends some sport in the Apulian plains; he has hawks of all breeds, each of which has its name; but what most astonishes strangers is his method of bringing down the deer. The cheetahs, or hunting leopards of the East, are mounted on horseback behind their keepers; these animals, as the Emperor says, 'know how to ride.' He is a strict preserver of game; he gives orders that the wolves and foxes, which prey upon the small animals in his warren at Melazzo, be destroyed by means of a poison called wolf's powder. He has many parks and fishponds, to which he contrives to attend, even in the midst of Lombard wars. He directs the plantation of woods, and when a storm blows down his trees, the timber is to be sold at Naples. … The treasures, with which Frederick dazzles the eyes of his visitors, rival those of Solomon. The Sultan of Egypt has given his Christian brother a tent of wonderful workmanship, displaying the movements of the sun and moon, and telling the hours of the day and night. This prodigy, valued at 20,000 marks, is kept at Venosa. There is also a throne of gold, decked with pearls and precious stones, doomed to become the prey of Charles of Anjou and Pope Clement. There are purple robes embroidered with gold, silks from Tripoli, and the choicest works of the Eastern loom. Frederick charms the ears of his guests with melodies played on silver trumpets by black slaves, whom he has had trained. He himself knows how to sing. Travellers, jesters, poets, philosophers, knights, lawyers, all find a hearty welcome at the Apulian Court; if they are natives of the Kingdom they address its Lord in the customary second person singular, 'Tu, Messer.' He can well appreciate the pretensions of each guest, since he is able to converse with all his many subjects, each in his own tongue. The Arab from Palestine, the Greek from Calabria, the Italian from Tuscany, the Frenchman from Lorraine, the German from Thuringia, find that Cæsar understands them all. With Latin, of course, he is familiar. Very different is Frederick from his Northern grandsire, who could speak nothing but German and very bad Latin. Troubadour, Crusader, Lawgiver; German by blood, Italian by birth, Arab by training; the pupil, the tyrant, the victim of Rome; accused by the world of being by turns a Catholic persecutor, a Mohammedan convert, an Infidel freethinker; such is Frederick the Second. His character has been sketched for us by two men of opposite politics, Salimbene the Guelf and Jamsilla the Ghibelline, both of whom knew him well. Each does justice to the wonderful genius of the Emperor, and to the rapid development of the arts and commerce under his fostering care. But all is not fair, whatever appearances may be. Every generation of the Hohenstaufen Kaisers seemed to add a vice to the shame of their house. Cruelty is the one dark stain in the character of Barbarossa; cruelty and treachery mar the soaring genius of Henry the Sixth; cruelty, treachery, and lewdness are the three blots that can never be wiped away from the memory of Frederick the Second. He has painted his likeness with his own hand. His Registers with their varied entries throw more light upon his nature than any panegyrics or diatribes can do. One example will be enough. If he wishes to get an impregnable castle into his hands, he thus writes to his general:—'Pretend some business, and warily call the Castellan to you; seize on him if you can, and keep him till he cause the castle to be surrendered to you.' … Frederick's cruelty is indisputable. His leaden copes, which weighed down the victims of his wrath until death came to the rescue, were long the talk of Italy and are mentioned by Dante."

T. L. Kington, History of Frederick the Second, Emperor of the Romans, volume 1, chapter 9.

"After the death of Frederick II., an interval of twenty-three years passed without the appointment of a king of the Romans [the Great Interregnum—see GERMANY: A. D. 1250-1272], and an interval of sixty years without the recognition of an emperor in Italy." Frederick's son Conrad, whom he had caused to be crowned, was driven out of Germany and died in 1254. Another son, Manfred, acquired the crown of Sicily and reigned for a time; but the unrelenting pope persuaded Charles of Anjou to make a conquest of the kingdom, and Manfred was slain in battle (A. D. 1266). Conrad's young son, Conradin, then attempted to recover the Sicilian throne, but was defeated, taken prisoner, and perished on the scaffold (1268). He was the last of the Hohenstaufen.

O. Browning, Guelfs and Ghibellines, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapters 11-13.

E. A. Freeman, The Emperor Frederick the Second (Historical Essays, volume 1, Essay 10).

Mrs. W. Busk, Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders, book 4 (volumes 3-4).

ITALY: A. D. 1198-1216. The establishing of Papal Sovereignty in the States of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1198-1216.

ITALY: 13th Century. Political conditions which prepared the way for the despots.

"The struggle between the Popes and the Hohenstaufen left Italy in a political condition which differed essentially from that of the other countries of the West. While in France, Spain, and England the feudal system was so organised that, at the close of its existence, it was naturally transformed into a unified monarchy, and while in Germany it helped to maintain, at least outwardly, the unity of the empire, Italy had shaken it off almost entirely. The Emperors of the fourteenth century, even in the most favourable case, were no longer received and respected as feudal lords, but as possible leaders and supporters of powers already in existence; while the Papacy, with its creatures and allies, was strong enough to hinder national unity in the future, not strong enough itself to bring about that unity. Between the two lay a multitude of political units—republics and despots—in part of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it. In them for the first time we detect the modern political spirit of Europe, surrendered freely to its own instincts, often displaying the worst features of an unbridled egoism, outraging every right, and killing every germ of a healthier culture. {1817} But, wherever this vicious tendency is overcome or in any way compensated, a new fact appears in history—the state as the outcome of reflection and calculation, the state as a work of art. This new life displays itself in a hundred forms, both in the republican and in the despotic states, and determines their inward constitution, no less than their foreign policy. … The internal condition of the despotically governed states had a memorable counterpart in the Norman Empire of Lower Italy and Sicily, after its transformation by the Emperor Frederick II. Bred amid treason and peril in the neighbourhood of the Saracens, Frederick, the first ruler of the modern type who sat upon a throne, had early accustomed himself, both in criticism and action, to a thoroughly objective treatment of affairs. His acquaintance with the internal condition and administration of the Saracenic states was close and intimate; and the mortal struggle in which he was engaged with the Papacy compelled him, no less than his adversaries, to bring into the field all the resources at his command. Frederick's measures (especially after the year 1231) are aimed at the complete destruction of the feudal state, at the transformation of the people into a multitude destitute of will and of the means of resistance, but profitable in the utmost degree to the exchequer. He centralised, in a manner hitherto unknown in the West, the whole judicial and political administration by establishing the right of appeal from the feudal courts, which he did not, however, abolish, to the imperial judges. No office was henceforth to be filled by popular election, under penalty of the devastation of the offending district and of the enslavement of its inhabitants. Excise duties were introduced; the taxes, based on a comprehensive assessment, and distributed in accordance with Mohammedan usages, were collected by those cruel and vexatious methods without which, it is true, it is impossible to obtain any money from Orientals. Here, in short, we find, not a people, but simply a disciplined multitude of subjects. … The internal police, and the kernel of the army for foreign service, was composed of Saracens who had been brought over from Sicily to Nocera and Luceria—men who were deaf to the cry of misery and careless of the ban of the Church. At a later period the subjects, by whom the use of weapons had long been forgotten, were passive witnesses of the fall of Manfred and of the seizure of the government by Charles of Anjou; the latter continued to use the system which he found already at work. At the side of the centralising Emperor appeared an usurper of the most peculiar kind: his vicar and son-in-law, Ezzelino da Romano. … The conquests and usurpations which had hitherto taken place in the Middle Ages rested on real or pretended inheritance and other such claims, or else were effected against unbelievers and excommunicated persons. Here for the first time the attempt was openly made to found a throne by wholesale murder and endless barbarities, by the adoption, in short, of any means with a view to nothing but the end pursued. None of his successors, not even Cæsar Borgia, rivalled the colossal guilt of Ezzelino; but the example once set was not forgotten. … Immediately after the fall of Frederick and Ezzelino, a crowd of tyrants appeared upon the scene. The struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline was their opportunity. They came forward in general as Ghibelline leaders, but at times and under conditions so various, that it is impossible not to recognise in the fact a law of supreme and universal necessity."

J. Burckhardt, The Renaissance in Italy, part 1, chapter 1, (volume 1).

ITALY: A. D. 1215. The beginning, at Florence, the causes and the meaning of the strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.

"In the year 1215 it chanced that a quarrel occurred at a festival between some young nobles of Florence. It was an event of as frivolous, and apparently unimportant, a character as thousands of other such broils; but this obscure quarrel has been treated by the whole body of Florentine historians as the origin and starting point of that series of civil wars which shaped the entire future fortunes of the community, and shook to its centre the whole fabric of society throughout central Italy. The story of it has become memorable therefore in Florentine annals, and has been rendered famous not only by the writers of history, but by many generations of poets, painters, novelists, and sculptors." Briefly sketched, the story is this: A handsome youth of the Buondelmonti family, mixing in a quarrel at the festival alluded to, struck one Oddo Arringhi dei Fifanti with his poniard. Common friends of the two brought about a reconciliation, by means of an arrangement of marriage between Buondelmonte and a niece of the injured man. But the lady was plain, and Buondelmonte, falling madly in love with another, more charming, whom evil chance and a scheming mother threw temptingly in his way, did not scruple to break his engagement, and to do it with insult. He wedded his new love, who was of the Donati family, on Easter Day, and on that same day he was slain by the Amidei, whose house he had so grossly affronted. "The assassins retired to their fortress houses, and left the bridal party to form itself as it might into a funeral procession. 'Great was the uproar in the city. He was placed on a bier; and his wife took her station on the bier also, and held his head in her lap, violently weeping; and in that manner they carried him through the whole of the city; and on that day began the ruin of Florence.' The last phrase of the above citation marks the significance which the Tuscan historians have attributed to this incident, and the important place that has always been assigned to it in Florentine history. We are told by all the earliest historians, especially by Malispini, in whose childhood these events must have happened, and whom Villani copies almost word for word, that from this quarrel began the great, fatal, and world-famous division of Florence into the parties of Guelph and Ghibelline. Dante goes so far as to consider the conduct of Buondelmonte in this affair so entirely the cause of the evils that arose from the Guelph and Ghibelline wars, that, had that cause not existed, no such misfortunes would have arisen. … Yet the historians admit that the party names of Guelph and Ghibelline were known in Florence long before; but they say that not till then did the city divide itself into two hostile camps under those rallying cries. It is curiously clear, from the accounts of Malispini and Villani, that, as usual in such matters, the Florentines had but a very hazy notion as to the meaning and origin of the two names [see GUELFS AND GHIBELLINES, and GERMANY: A. D. 1138-1268], for the sake of which they were prepared to cut each other's throats. {1818} Any name or watchword is good enough for a party rallying cry, when once passions have been connected with it; but the Florentines understood that Ghibelline meant attachment to the Empire in opposition to the Church, and Guelph attachment to the Church in opposition to the Empire. … But the quarrel of Guelph with Ghibelline in Florence was the expression of a still wider spread and more perennial conflict. … The Ghibellines were the old Imperial nobles, who, whether more anciently or more recently incorporated into the body of Florentine citizens, formed the aristocracy of the social body, and were naturally Imperialist in their sympathies. These Ghibellines were the high Tories of the Florentine community. The body of the people were Guelphs, naming themselves after the party professing attachment to the Church only because the Papacy was in opposition to the Empire. The Guelphs were the Whigs of Florence. The Radicals appeared on the scene in due time and normal sequence." From Florence, as its center, the strife of the two factions spread throughout Italy. "Ghibellinism was nearly universal in the north of Italy, divided among a number of more or less well known great families, of whom the principal were the Visconti at Milan, and the Della Scala at Verona. Naples and the States of the Church were Guelph; the former, as need hardly be suggested, from political circumstances, from opposition to the Empire, and from connection, rather than from principle. Tuscany and the whole of Central Italy were divided between the two, although the real strength and stronghold of genuine Guelphism was there. Without Florence, there would have been no Guelph party. Had those stout sandalled and leather-jerkined Florentine burghers of the 13th century not undertaken and persevered in that crusade against the feudal nobles and the Ghibelline principle, which … was the leading occupation and idea of the Commonwealth during all that century, Ghibellinism and Imperialism would have long since possessed and ruled Italy from the Alps to the toe of the boot."

T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 1, chapter 3, and book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).

"One party called themselves the Emperor's liegemen, and their watchword was authority and law; the other side were the liegemen of Holy Church, and their cry was liberty; and the distinction as a broad one is true. But a democracy would become Ghibelline, without scruple, if its neighbour town was Guelf; and among the Guelf liegemen of the Church and liberty, the pride of blood and love of power were not a whit inferior to that of their opponents. Yet … it is not impossible to trace in the two factions differences of temper, of moral and political inclinations, which, though visible only on a large scale and in the mass, were quite sufficient to give meaning and reality to their mutual opposition. … The Ghibellines as a body reflected the worldliness, the license, the irreligion, the reckless selfishness, the daring insolence, and at the same time the gaiety and pomp, the princely magnificence and generosity and largeness of mind of the House of Swabia [the Hohenstaufen]; they were the men of the court and camp. … The Guelfs, on the other hand, were the party of the middle classes; they rose out of and held to the people; they were strong by their compactness, their organisation in cities, their commercial relations and interests, their command of money. Further, they were professedly the party of strictness and religion. … The genuine Guelf spirit was austere, frugal, independent, earnest, religious; fond of its home and Church, and of those celebrations which bound together Church and home; … in its higher form intolerant of evil, but intolerant always of whatever displeased it. Yet there was a grave and noble manliness about it which long kept it alive in Florence."

R. W. Church, Dante and other Essays, pages 15-18.

See, also, FLORENCE: A. D. 1215-1250.

ITALY: A. D. 1236-1259. The tyranny of Eccelino di Romano in the Veronese or Trevisan Marches, and the crusade against him.

See VERONA: A. D. 1236-1259.

ITALY: A. D. 1248-1278. The wars of a generation of the Guelfs and Ghibellines in Tuscany.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1250-1268. Invasion and conquest of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Charles of Anjou, on the invitation of the Pope.

"The death of the Emperor Frederic II., in 1250, had been followed in less than four years by that of his son and successor Conrad IV., from whose son Conradin, at that time an infant, the Crown of the Two Sicilies was usurped by his uncle Manfred, a natural child of the deceased Frederic. The hatred of the See of Rome, notwithstanding the frequent changes which had occurred in the Papal Chair, still pursued the Line of Hohenstauffen, even in this illegitimate branch, and it was transmitted as an hereditary possession from Innocent IV. through Alexander IV. and Urban IV., to Clement IV. Interference in Germany itself was forbidden by the independence of the Electoral Princes: and when it was found impossible to obtain the nomination of an Emperor decidedly in the Guelph interest, Alexander contented himself by endeavouring to separate the Throne of the Two Sicilies from that of Germany, and to establish upon the former a Feudatory, and therefore a Champion, of the Church. Various alliances for this purpose were projected by Alexander, and by his successors who adopted a similar policy; and the Crown, which was in truth to be conquered from Manfred, was offered as an investiture which Rome had a full right to bestow." After long negotiations with Henry III. of England, who coveted the Sicilian prize for his second son, Edmund, and who paid large sums to the papal treasury by way of earnest money, but who showed little ability to oust the possessor, Pope Urban, at length, closed a bargain with that ambitious speculator in royal claims and titles, Charles of Anjou, brother of St. Louis, king of France. The honesty of Louis was somewhat troubled by the unscrupulous transaction; but his conscience submitted itself to the instructions of the Holy Father, and he permitted his brother to embark in the evil enterprise. "Charles, accordingly, having first accepted the Senator-ship of Rome, with which high magistracy he was invested by her citizens, negotiated with the Holy See, most ably and much to his advantage, for the loftier dignity of Kingship. In little more than a month after he had received his Crown from the hands of Clement IV., who had become Pope, he totally defeated and killed his opponent Manfred, in the battle of Grandella [near Benevento, February, 1266]. {1819} Conradin, who had now arrived at years of discretion, was still his rival; but the capture of the young Prince at Tagliacozzo [1268], and his speedy committal to the executioner, confirmed Charles of Anjou in his Kingdom, at the everlasting ex-pense of his good name. Few incidents in History are more calculated to awaken just indignation than the untimely end of the brave, wronged, and gallant Conradin. Charles of Anjou thus founded the first dynasty of his House which reigned over the Sicilies. The pretensions which Aragon afterwards advanced to the Crown of that Kingdom rested on a marriage between Pedro, the eldest son of King James, and Constance, a daughter of Manfred."

E. Smedley, History of France, part 1, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: J. Michelet, History of France, book 4, chapter 8.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 11, chapter 3 (volume 5).

Mrs. W. Busk, Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings, and Crusaders, book 5 (volume 4).

ITALY: A. D. 1250-1293. Development of the popular Constitution of the Florentine Commonwealth.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1250-1293.

ITALY: A. D. 1250-1520. The Age of the Despots. The rise of Principalities.

"From the death of Frederick the Second [A. D. 1250] … all practical power of an imperial kingdom in Italy may be said to have passed away. Presently begins the gradual change of the commonwealths into tyrannies, and the grouping together of many of them into larger states. We also see the beginning of more definite claims of temporal dominion on behalf of the Popes. In the course of the 300 years between Frederick the Second and Charles the Fifth, these processes gradually changed the face of the Italian kingdom. It became in the end a collection of principalities, broken only by the survival of a few oligarchic commonwealths and by the anomalous dominion of Venice on the mainland. Between Frederick the Second and Charles the Fifth, we may look on the Empire as practically in abeyance in Italy. The coming of an Emperor always caused a great stir for the time, but it was only for the time. After the grant of Rudolf of Habsburg to the Popes, a distinction was drawn between Imperial and papal territory in Italy. While certain princes and commonwealths still acknowledged at least the nominal superiority of the Emperor, others were now held to stand in the same relation of vassalage to the Pope."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 8, section 3.

"During the 14th and 15th centuries we find, roughly speaking, six sorts of despots in Italian cities. Of these the First class, which is a very small one, had a dynastic or hereditary right accruing from long seignorial possession, of their several districts. The most eminent are the houses of Montferrat and Savoy, the Marquises of Ferrara, the Princes of Urbino. … The Second class comprise those nobles who obtained the title of Vicars of the Empire, and built an illegal power upon the basis of imperial right in Lombardy. Of these, the Della Scala and Visconti families are illustrious instances. … The Third class is important. Nobles charged with military or judicial power, as Capitani or Podestas, by the free burghs, used their authority to enslave the cities they were chosen to administer. It was thus that almost all the numerous tyrants of Lombardy, Carraresi at Padua, Gonzaghi at Mantua, Rossi and Correggi at Parma, Torrensi and Visconti at Milan, Scotti at Piacenza, and so forth, erected their despotic dynasties. … In the Fourth class we find the principle of force still more openly at work. To it may be assigned those Condottieri who made a prey of cities at their pleasure. The illustrious Uguccione della Faggiuola, who neglected to follow up his victory over the Guelfs at Monte Catini, in order that he might cement his power in Lucca and Pisa, is an early instance of this kind of tyrant. His successor, Castruccio Castracane, the hero of Machiavelli's romance, is another. But it was not until the first half of the 15th century that professional Condottieri became powerful enough to found such kingdoms as that, for example, of Francesco Sforza at Milan. The Fifth class includes the nephews or sons of Popes. The Riario principality of Forli, the Della Rovere of Urbino, the Borgia of Romagna, the Farnese of Parma, form a distinct species of despotisms; but all these are of a comparatively late origin. Until the papacy of Sixtus IV. and Innocent VIII. the Popes had not bethought them of providing in this way for their relatives. … There remains the Sixth and last class of despots to be mentioned. This again is large and of the first importance. Citizens of eminence, like the Medici at Florence, the Bentivogli at Bologna, the Baglioni of Perugia, the Gambacorti of Pisa, like Pandolfo Petrucci in Siena (1502), Romeo Pepoli, the usurer of Bologna (1323), the plebeian Alticlinio and Agolanti of Padua (1313), acquired more than their due weight in the conduct of affairs, and gradually tended to tyranny. In most of these cases great wealth was the original source of despotic ascendancy. It was not uncommon to buy cities together with their Signory. … But personal qualities and nobility of blood might also produce despots of the Sixth class."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Age of the Despots, chapter 2.

ITALY: A. D. 1261-1264. The supplanting of the Venetians by the Genoese at Constantinople and in the Black Sea. War between the Republics.

See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.

ITALY: A. D. 1273-1291. Indifference of Rodolph of Hapsburg to his Italian dominions. His neglect to claim the imperial crown.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.

ITALY: A. D. 1277-1447. Tyranny of the Visconti at Milan. Their domination in Lombardy and their fall.

See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447.

ITALY: A. D. 1282-1293. War between Genoa and Pisa. Battle of Meloria. War of Florence and Lucca against Pisa.

See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1282-1300. The Sicilian Vespers. Severance of the Two Sicilies. End of the House of Anjou in the insular kingdom.

"Peter, King of Aragon, had married Constance, the daughter of Manfred, and laid claim to the kingdom of Sicily in her right. He sent for help to Michael Palaiologos, the restorer of the Eastern Empire. The Emperor agreed to his proposals, for his Empire was threatened by Charles of Anjou. These negotiations were, it is said, carried on through Giovanni di Procida, a Sicilian exile, who, as the story goes, had suffered cruel wrongs from the French. Charles knew something of the plans of the allies, and both parties were preparing for war, but affairs were brought to a crisis by a chance occurrence. {1820} On March 30, 1282, a brutal insult was offered by a French soldier to a bride in the presence of her friends and neighbours outside the walls of Palermo, and the smothered hatred of the people broke out into open violence. The cry 'Death to the French' was raised, and all who belonged to that nation in Palermo were slain without mercy. This massacre, which is called 'The Sicilian Vespers,' spread through the whole island; the yoke of the oppressor was broken and the land was delivered. Charles laid siege to Messina, but he was forced to retire by Peter of Aragon, who landed and was received as King. Pope Martin in vain excommunicated the rebels and their allies, and, in 1284, Charles received a great blow, for his son was defeated and taken prisoner by Roger of Loria, the Admiral of the Catalan fleet. Charles of Anjou died in 1286, and two years later his son, also called Charles, ransomed himself from prison."

W. Hunt, History of Italy, chapter 4.

Charles of Anjou "died of grief, leaving his son, the prince of Salerno, a prisoner, and Martin followed him, before he could proclaim a general crusade against the invader of the apostolic fief. Pedro, having enjoyed his two crowns to the day of his death, left them to his sons, Alphonso and James respectively, and both were excommunicated by Honorius IV. for their accession. The prince of Salerno, obtaining his release by the mediation of Edward of England, was absolved by Nicholas IV. from the conditions to which he had sworn, and crowned at Rome king of Apulia (i. e., Naples) and Sicily, A. D. 1289. His hopes of regaining the island were constantly disappointed. James, having succeeded to the crown of Arragon by the death of Alphonso, was persuaded to resign Sicily to Charles on condition of receiving his daughter in marriage, with an ample dowry. Boniface VIII. also graciously gave him leave to conquer the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, from the republics of Pisa and Genoa. The Sicilians, however, declining to be so bartered, bestowed their crown on James's brother Frederic [1295]; and though James contributed his fleet to reduce him, he retained the island throne [1300], while Charles and the pope were obliged to rest content with the continental kingdom. Their only satisfaction was to persist in calling Naples by the name of Sicily, and to stigmatise their rival as king of 'Trinacria.'"

G. Trevor, Rome: from the Fall of the Western Empire, page 240.

ALSO IN: S. A. Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, book 3, section 2, chapter 4.

ITALY: A. D. 1294-1299. War between Venice and Genoa.

See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.

ITALY: A. D. 1297-1319. The perfected aristocratic Constitution of Venice.

See VENICE: A. D. 1032-1319.

ITALY: A. D. 1300-1313. New factions of Florence and Tuscany. Bianchi and Neri.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300, and 1301-1313.

ITALY: 14th Century. The Renaissance in its beginning.

"It was not the revival of antiquity alone, but its union with the genius of the Italian people, which achieved the conquest of the Western world. … The civilisation of Greece and Rome, which, ever since the fourteenth century, obtained so powerful a hold on Italian life, as the source and basis of culture, as the object and ideal of existence, partly also as an avowed reaction against preceding tendencies—this civilisation had long been exerting a partial influence on mediæval Europe, even beyond the boundaries of Italy. The culture of which Charles the Great was a representative was, in face of the barbarism of the seventh and eighth centuries, essentially a Renaissance, and could appear under no other form. … But the resuscitation of antiquity took a different form in Italy from that which it assumed in the North. The wave of barbarism had scarcely gone by before the people, in whom the former life was but half effaced, showed a consciousness of its past and a wish to reproduce it. Elsewhere in Europe men deliberately and with reflection borrowed this or the other element of classical civilisation; in Italy the sympathies both of the learned and of the people were naturally engaged on the side of antiquity as a whole, which stood to them as a symbol of past greatness. The Latin language, too, was easy to an Italian, and the numerous monuments and documents in which the country abounded facilitated a return to the past. With this tendency other elements—the popular character which time had now greatly modified, the political institutions imported by the Lombards from Germany, chivalry and other northern forms of civilisation, and the influence of religion and the Church—combined to produce the modern Italian spirit, which was destined to serve as a model and ideal for the whole western world. How antiquity began to work in plastic art, as soon as the flood of barbarism had subsided, is clearly shown in the Tuscan buildings of the twelfth and in the sculptures of the thirteenth centuries. … But the great and general enthusiasm of the Italians for classical antiquity did not display itself before the fourteenth century. For this a development of civic life was required, which took place only in Italy, and there not till then. It was needful that noble and burgher should first learn to dwell together on equal terms, and that a social world should arise which felt the want of culture, and had the leisure and the means to obtain it. But culture, as soon as it freed itself from the fantastic bonds of the Middle Ages, could not at once and without help find its way to the understanding of the physical and intellectual world. It needed a guide, and found one in the ancient civilisation, with its wealth of truth and knowledge in every spiritual interest. Both the form and the substance of this civilisation were adopted with admiring gratitude; it became the chief part of the culture of the age."

J. Burckhardt, The Renaissance in Italy, part 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: Age of the Despots, chapter 1.

See RENAISSANCE.

ITALY: A. D. 1305-1309. Removal of the Papal Court to Lyons and then to Avignon. The "Babylonish Captivity."

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348.

ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313. Visitation of the Emperor Henry VII. Hostility of Florence and siege of the city. Repulse from Rome. The Emperor's death.

"No Emperor had come into Italy since the death of Frederic II. [1250]. Neither Rudolf nor his two successors [see GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308] had been crowned Emperor, but on the death of Albert of Austria, the King of the Romans, in 1308, the electors chose Henry, Count of Luxemburg [Henry VII.]. In 1310 he entered Italy with a small German army. Unlike most of these Imperial expeditions, this was approved of by the Pope. {1821} The French King Philip IV. was really master of Pope Clement V., who did not live in Italy, but sometimes within the French kingdom, or in the English territory of Bordeaux, or in Avignon, a city of the Empire. But Clement did not like bearing the French yoke, and was fearful lest some one of greater talents than Charles of Valois should make an attempt on Italy, and make it impossible for the Pope to get free from the power of the French. He therefore favoured the expedition of King Henry, and hoped that it would revive the Ghibelin party and counteract the influence of the Guelfs, who were on the side of France. Dante tells us the feelings which were roused by the coming of the King. He seemed to come as God's vicegerent, to change the fortunes of men and bring the exiled home; by the majesty of his presence to bring the peace for which the banished poet longed, and to administer to all men justice; judgment and equity. Henry was worthy of these high hopes; for he was wise, just, and gracious, courageous in fight and honourable in council: but the task was too hard for him. At first all seemed to go well with him. The Ghibelins were ready to receive him as their natural lord; the Guelfs were inclined towards him by the Pope. In Milan the chief power was in the hands of Guido della Torre, the descendant of Pagano della Torre, who had done good service to the city after the battle of Corte Nuova. He was a strong Guelf, and was at the head of a large number of troops; for he was very rich. His great enemy was the Ghibelin Matteo Visconti, who continually struggled with Guido for the mastery. The king was willingly received by the Milanese, and Guido was not behindhand in bidding him welcome. While he was at Milan, on Christmas Day, 1310, he was crowned with the iron crown of the Italian kingdom, which was made of steel in the shape of laurel leaves, and studded with gems. He made both parties enter into an outward reconciliation, and the chiefs of both vied with one another in making him large presents. The King's need of money soon tired out the Milanese, and an insurrection was made in which both Matteo and Guido joined; but Matteo betrayed his rival, and Guido and all the Guelfs were driven out of Milan, which henceforth remained in the power of the Ghibelin Visconti [see MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447]. The King's demands for money made him unpopular, and each city, as he left it, rose against him. Pisa, and the other Tuscan enemies of Florence, received him with joy. But the great Guelfic city shut her gates against him, and made alliance with Robert, the Angevin King of Naples, the grandson of Charles of Anjou, and afterwards gave him [Robert] the signoria. Rome received a garrison from Naples, and the Imperial coronation had to be performed in the Church of St. John Lateran,"—Henry being repulsed in an attempt to force his entrance to the quarter of the Vatican.

W. Hunt, History of Italy, chapter 4.

"The city [of Rome] was divided in feeling, and the emperor's position so precarious that he retired to Tivoli at the end of August, and moved towards Tuscany, ravaging the Perugian territory on his way, being determined to bring Florence and all her allies to submission." By rapid movements he reached Florence and invested the city before his intentions were understood. "A sudden assault would probably have carried the city, for the inhabitants were taken by surprise, were in a state of consternation, and could scarcely believe that the emperor was there in person: their natural energy soon returned, the Gonfaloniers assembled their companies, the whole population armed themselves, even to the bishop and clergy; a camp was formed within the walls, the outer ditch palisaded, the gates closed, and thus for two days they remained hourly expecting an assault. At last their cavalry [which had been cut off by the emperor's movement] were seen returning by various ways and in small detachments; succours also poured in from Lucca, Prato, Pistoia, Volterra, Colle, and San Gimignano; and even Bologna, Rimini, Ravenna, Faenza, Cesina, Agobbio, Città di Castello with several other places rendered their assistance: indeed so great and extensive was Florentine influence and so rapid the communication, that within eight days after the investment 4,000 men at arms and innumerable infantry were assembled at Florence! As this was about double the imperial cavalry and four times its infantry, the city gates were thrown open and business proceeded as usual, except through that entrance immediately opposite to the enemy. For two and forty days did the emperor remain within a mile of Florence, ravaging all the country, but making no impression on the town; after which he raised the siege and moved to San Casciano, eight miles south." Later, the Imperialist army was withdrawn to Poggibonzi, and in March, 1313, it was moved to Pisa, to prepare for a new campaign. "The Florentines had thus from the first, without much military skill or enterprise, proved themselves the boldest and bitterest enemies of Henry; their opposition had never ceased; by letters, promises, and money, they corrupted all Lombardy. … Yet party quarrels did not cease. … The emperor now turned all his energies to the conquest of Naples, as the first step towards that of Italy itself. For this he formed a league with Sicily and Genoa; assembled troops from Germany and Lombardy; filled his treasury in various ways, and soon found himself at the head of 2,500 German cavalry and 1,500 Italian men-at-arms, besides a Genoese fleet of 70 galleys under Lamba Doria and 50 more supplied by the King of Sicily, who with 1,000 men-at-arms had already invaded Calabria by capturing Reggio and other places." On the 5th of August, the emperor left Pisa upon his expedition against Naples; on the 24th of the same month he died at Buonconvento —not without suspicions of poison, although his illness began before his departure from Pisa. "The intelligence of this event spread joy and consternation amongst his friends and enemies; the army soon separated, and his own immediate followers with the Pisan auxiliaries carried his body back to Pisa where it was magnificently interred."

H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book 1, chapter 15 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1).

ITALY: A. D. 1312-1338. The rising power and the reverses of the Scaligeri of Verona. Mastino's war with Florence and Venice.

See VERONA: A. D. 1260-1338:

{1822}

ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330. Guelf leadership of King Robert of Naples. Wars of Pisa and Florence. The rise and threatening power of Castruccio Castracani. Siege of Genoa. Visit of the Emperor Louis of Bavaria. Subjection and deliverance of Pisa.

"While the unexpected death of Henry VII. deprived the Ghibelin party of its leader, and long wars between rival candidates for the succession to the German throne placed the imperial authority over Italy in abeyance [see GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347], Robert, king of Naples, the chief of the Guelf party, the possessor of Provence, and the favourite of the church, began to aspire to the general sovereignty of Italy. He had succeeded to the crowns of Naples and Provence on the death of his father, Charles II., in opposition to the recognized laws of inheritance (A. D. 1309). His elder brother, Charles Martel, by his marriage with the heiress of Hungary, had been called to the throne of that kingdom, and had died before his father. His son, Carobert, the reigning king of Hungary, on the death of his grandfather, Charles II., asserted his just rights to all the dominions of that monarch; but Robert, hastening to Avignon, whither Clement V. had now removed his court, obtained from the pope, as feudal superior of the royal fief of Naples, a sentence which set aside the claims of his nephew in his own favour. The king of Hungary did not seriously attempt to oppose this decision, and Robert, a prince of wisdom and address, though devoid of military talents, soon extended his ambitious views beyond the kingdom over which he reigned undisturbed." The death of Henry VII. "left him every opportunity both to attempt the subjugation of the Ghibelin states, and to convert his alliance with the Guelfs into the relation of sovereign and subject. … It was in Tuscany that the storm first broke over the Ghibelins after the loss of their imperial chief, and that the first ray of success unexpectedly beamed on their cause. Florence and the other Guelf cities of the province were no sooner delivered from the fear of Henry VII. than they prepared to wreak their vengeance against Pisa for the succours which she had furnished to the emperor. But that republic, in consternation at her danger, had taken into pay 1,000 German cavalry, the only part of the imperial army which could be prevailed upon to remain in Italy, and had chosen for her general Uguccione della Faggiuola, a celebrated Ghibelin captain. The ability of this commander, and the confidence with which he inspired the Pisans, turned the tide of fortune. … The vigour of his arms reduced the Guelf people of Lucca to sue for peace; they were compelled to restore their Ghibelin exiles; and then Uguccione, fomenting the dissensions which were thus created within the walls, easily subjected one of the most wealthy and flourishing cities of Tuscany to his sword (A. D. 1314). The loss of so valuable an ally as Lucca alarmed the Florentines, and the whole Guelf party. … King Robert sent two of his brothers into Tuscany with a body of gens-d'armerie; the Florentines and all the Tuscan Guelfs uniting their forces to this succour formed a large army; and the confederates advanced to relieve the castle of Montecatini which Uguccione was besieging." The Ghibelin commander had a much smaller force to resist them with; but he gained, notwithstanding, "a memorable victory, near Montecatini, in which both a brother and a nephew of the king of Naples were numbered with the slain (A. D. 1315). This triumph rendered Uguccione more formidable than ever; but his tyranny became insupportable both to the Pisans and Lucchese, and a conspiracy was formed in concert in both cities. … Excluded from both places and deserted by his troops, he retired to the court of the Scala at Verona (A. D. 1316). So Pisa recovered her liberty, but Lucca was less fortunate or wise, for her citizens only transferred the power which Uguccione had usurped to the chief of the Ghibelins. Castruccio Castracani degl' Interminelli, one of the most celebrated names in Italian history. This extraordinary man … had early in life shared the common fate of exile with the White Guelfs or Ghibelins of Lucca. Passing ten years of banishment in England, France, and the Ghibelin cities of Lombardy, he had served a long apprenticeship to arms under the best generals of the age. … He had no sooner returned to Lucca with the Ghibelin exiles, who were restored by the terms of the peace with Pisa, than he became the first citizen of the state. His skill and courage mainly contributed to the subsequent victory of Montecatini, and endeared him to the Lucchese; his influence and intrigues excited the jealousy of Uguccione, and caused his imprisonment; and the insurrection which delivered Lucca from that chief, liberated Castruccio from chains and impending death to sovereign command. Chosen annual captain of the people at three successive, elections, he at length demanded and obtained the suffrages of the senate and citizens for his elevation to the dignity of signor (A. D. 1320): … Under his government Lucca enjoyed repose for some years. … During these transactions in Tuscany, the Lombard plains were still desolated by incessant and unsparing warfare. The efforts of the Neapolitan king were mainly directed to crush Matteo Visconti [see MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447] and the Ghibelins in this part of Italy;" but the power of the latter was continually spreading. "In this prosperous state of the Ghibelin interests the domestic feuds of Genoa attracted the tide of war to her gates. The ambitious rivalry of her four great families, of the Grimaldi, the Fieschi, the Spinola, and the Doria, had long agitated the bosom of the republic; and at the period before us the two former, who headed the Guelf party, had, after various convulsions, gained possession of the government. The Spinola and Doria, retiring from the city, fortified themselves in the smaller towns of the Genoese territory, and immediately invited the Ghibelin chiefs of Lombardy to their aid. The lords of Milan and Verona promptly complied with the demand, … and laid siege to the capital. The rulers of Genoa could then resort in their terror to no other protection than that of the Neapolitan king. Robert, conscious of the importance of preserving the republic from subjection to his enemies, hastened by sea to its defence, and obtained the absolute cession of the Genoese liberties into his hands for ten years as the price of his services. … After the possession of the suburbs and outworks of Genoa had been obstinately contested during ten months, the Ghibelins were compelled to raise the siege. But Robert had scarcely quitted the city to pass into Provence, when the exiles with aid from Lombardy again approached Genoa, and during four years continued a war of posts in its vicinity. {1823} But neither the Lombard signors nor Robert engaged in this fruitless contest, and Lombardy again became the great theatre of warfare." But the power which Matteo Visconti was steadily building at Milan, for his family, could not be shaken, even though an invasion from France (1320), and a second from Germany (1322), was brought about through papal influence. At the same time Castruccio Castracani, having consolidated his despotism at Lucca, was making war upon the Florentines. When, in 1325, he succeeded in gaining possession of the Guelf city of Pistoia, "this acquisition, which was highly dangerous to Florence, produced such alarm in that republic that she called out her whole native force for the more vigorous prosecution of the war." Castruccio was heavily outnumbered in the campaign, but he gained, nevertheless, a great victory over the Florentines near the castle of Altopascio (November 23, 1325). "The whole Florentine territory was ravaged and plundered, and the conqueror carried his insults to the gates of the capital. … In the ruin which threatened the Guelf party in Tuscany, the Florentines had recourse to King Robert of Naples, with entreaties for aid," which he brought to them in 1326, but only on the condition "that his absolute command over the republic, which had expired in 1321, should be renewed for ten years in favour of his son Charles, duke of Calabria." But now a new danger to the Guelf interests appeared, in the approach of the emperor, Louis IV. of Bavaria. "After a long contest for the crown of Henry VII., Louis of Bavaria had triumphed over his rival, Frederic of Austria, and taken him prisoner at the sanguinary battle of Muhldorf, in 1322. Having since passed five years in confirming his authority in Germany, Louis was now tempted by ambition and cupidity to undertake an expedition into Italy (A. D. 1327)." Halting for some time at Milan, where he received the iron crown of Lombardy, and where he deposed and imprisoned Galeazzo Visconti, he proceeded into Tuscany "on his march to Rome, where he intended to receive the imperial crown. He was welcomed with joy by the signor of Lucca, and the superior genius of Castruccio at once acquired the entire ascendant over the weaker mind of Louis. Against the united forces of the emperor and of Castruccio, the duke of Calabria and his Guelf army cautiously maintained themselves on the defensive; but the passage of Louis through Tuscany was attended with disastrous consequences to the most famous Ghibelin city of that province." Pisa, notwithstanding the long fidelity of that republic to the Ghibelin cause, was sacrificed by the emperor to the covetous ambition of Castruccio. The forces of the two were joined in a siege to which the unfortunate city submitted after a month. "She thus fell in reality into the hands of Castruccio, who shortly established his absolute authority over her capital and territory. After extorting a heavy contribution from the Pisans, and rewarding the services of Castruccio by erecting the state of Lucca into an imperial duchy in his favour, the rapacious emperor pursued his march to Rome. There he consumed in the frivolous ceremony of his coronation [January 17, 1328], and in the vain endeavour to establish an antipope, the time which he might have employed, with the forces at his command, and in conjunction with Frederic, king of Sicily, in crushing for ever the power of Robert of Naples and of all the Guelfs of Italy who depended on that monarch." In August of the same year Castruccio, who "had now attained an elevation which seemed to threaten … the total subjugation of all Italy," died suddenly of a fever. "Florence breathed again from impending oppression, Pisa recovered her freedom, and Lucca sank from ephemeral splendour into lasting obscurity. By the death of Castruccio the emperor had lost his best counsellor and firmest support, and he soon ceased to be formidable to the Guelfs. … Hastily returning into Tuscany, he plundered the infant orphans of Castruccio of their inheritance to sell Lucca to a new signor, and to impose ruinous contributions upon the Pisans, before his return into Lombardy delivered them from tyranny. … The first proceeding of Louis in Lombardy had been to ruin the Visconti, and to drain their states of money: almost his last act in the province was to make the restoration of this family to power a new source of profit." In 1330 the emperor returned to Germany, recalled by troubles in that part of his dominions.

G. Procter, History of Italy, chapter 4, part 2.

ALSO IN: N. Machiavelli, The Florentine Histories, book 2.

H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book 1, chapters 15-18 (volume 1).

ITALY: A. D. 1314-1327. The election and contest of rival emperors, Louis of Bavaria and Frederick of Austria.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347.

ITALY: A. D. 1341-1343. Defeat of the Florentines by the Pisans, before Lucca. Brief tyranny of the Duke of Athens at Florence.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1341-1343.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1343-1389. Troubled reign of Joanna I. in Naples. Murder of her husband, Andrew of Hungary. Political effects of the great Schism in the Church. The war of Charles of Durazzo and Louis of Anjou. Violent course of Pope Urban VI.

"In Naples itself the house of Anjou fell into disunion. Charles II. of Naples gained by marriage the dowry of Hungary [see HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1342], which passed to his eldest son Charles Martel, while his second son, Robert, ruled in Naples. But Robert survived his only son, and left as heiress of the kingdom [1343] his grand-daughter Giovanna [better known as Joan, or Joanna]. The attempt to give stability to the rule of a female by marriage with her cousin, Andrew of Hungary, only aroused the jealousy of the Neapolitan nobles and raised up a strong party in opposition to Hungarian influence. Charles II. of Naples, Giovanna's great-grand-father, had left many sons and daughters, whose descendants of the great houses of Durazzo and Tarento, like those of the sons of Edward III. in England, hoped to exercise the royal power. When, in 1845, Pope Clement VI. was on the point of recognising Andrew as King of Naples, a conspiracy was formed against him, and he was murdered, with the connivance, as it was currently believed, of the Queen. Hereon the feuds in the kingdom blazed forth more violently than before; the party of Durazzo ranged itself against that of Tarento, and demanded punishment of the murderers; Giovanna I., to protect herself, married Lewis of Tarento in 1347. King Lewis of Hungary, aided by the party of Durazzo, entered Naples to avenge his brother's death, and for a while all was confusion. On the death of Lewis of Tarento (1362), Giovanna I. married James, King of Majorca, and on his death (1374), Otto, Duke of Brunswick. {1824} Giovanna I. was childless, and the slight lull which in the last years had come over the war of factions in Naples was only owing to the fact that all were preparing for the inevitable conflict which her death would bring." Neapolitan affairs were at this stage when the great schism occurred (see PAPACY; A. D. 1377-1417), which enthroned two rival popes, one (Urban VI.) at Rome, and one (Clement VII.) at Avignon. Queen Giovanna had inclined first to Urban, but was repelled, and gave her adhesion to Clement. Thereupon, Urban, on the 21st of April, 1380, "declared her deposed from her throne as a heretic, schismatic, and traitor to the Pope. He looked for help in carrying out his decree to King Lewis of Hungary, who had for a time laid aside his desire for vengeance against Giovanna, but was ready to resume his plans of aggrandisement when a favourable opportunity offered. … Lewis was not himself disposed to leave his kingdom; but he had at his court the son of his relative, Lewis of Durazzo, whom he had put to death in his Neapolitan campaign for complicity in Andrew's murder. Yet he felt compassion for his young son Charles, brought him to Hungary, and educated him at his court. As Giovanna was childless, Charles of Durazzo, or Carlo della Pace, as he was called in Italy, had a strong claim to the Neapolitan throne at her death." Charles of Durazzo was accordingly furnished with Hungarian troops for an expedition against Naples, and reached Rome in November, 1380. "Clement VII. on his side bestirred himself in behalf of his ally Giovanna, and for this purpose could count on the help of France. Failing the house of Durazzo, the house of Valois could put forward a claim to the Neapolitan throne, as being descended from the daughter of Charles II. The helpless Giovanna I. in her need adopted as her heir and successor Louis, Duke of Anjou, brother of the French king, and called him to her aid. Clement VII. hastened to confer on Louis everything that he could; he even formed the States of the Church into a kingdom of Adria, and bestowed them on Louis; only Rome itself, and the adjacent lands in Tuscany, Campania Maritima, and Sabina were reserved for the Pope. The Avignonese pretender was resolved to show how little he cared for Italy or for the old traditions of the Italian greatness of his office. Charles of Durazzo was first in the field, for Louis of Anjou was detained in France by the death of Charles V. in September, 1380. The accession of Charles VI. at the age of twelve threw the government of the kingdom upon the Council of Regency, of which Louis of Anjou was the chief member. He used his position to gratify his chief failing, avarice, and gathered large sums of money for his Neapolitan campaign. Meanwhile Charles of Durazzo was in Rome, where Urban VI. equipped him for his undertaking." In June, 1381, Charles marched against Naples, defeated Otto, the husband of Giovanna, at San Germano, and had the gates of Naples opened to him by a rising within the city on the 16th of July. Giovanna took refuge in the Castel Nuovo, but surrendered it on the 26th of August. After nine months of captivity, the unfortunate queen was "strangled in her prison on May 12, 1382, and her corpse was exposed for six days before burial that the certainty of her death might be known to all. Thenceforth the question between Charles III. and Louis was not complicated by any considerations of Giovanna's rights. It was a struggle of two dynasties for the Neapolitan crown, a struggle which was to continue for the next century. Crowned King of Naples by Clement VII., Louis of Anjou quitted Avignon at the end of May, accompanied by a brilliant array of French barons and knights. He hastened through North Italy, and disappointed the hopes of the fervent partisans of Clement VII. by pursuing his course over Aquila, through the Abruzzi, and refusing to turn aside to Rome, which, they said, he might have occupied, seized Urban VI., and so ended the Schism. When he entered the territory of Naples he soon received large accessions to his forces from discontented barons, while 22 galleys from Provence occupied Ischia and threatened Naples." Charles, having inferior forces, could not meet his adversary in the field, but showed great tactical skill, acting on the defensive, "cutting off supplies, and harassing his enemy by unexpected sallies. The French troops perished miserably from the effects of the climate; … Louis saw his splendid army rapidly dwindling away." But quarrels now arose between Charles and Pope Urban; the latter went to Naples to interfere in affairs; the King made him practically a prisoner and extorted from him agreements which were not to his liking. But Urban, on the 1st of January, 1384, "proclaimed a crusade against Louis as a heretic and schismatic, and Charles unfurled the banner of the Cross." In May the Pope withdrew from Naples to Nocera, and there began a series of interferences which convinced Charles "that Urban was a more serious adversary than Louis." With the summer came attacks of the plague upon both armies; but that of Louis suffered most, and Louis himself died, in September, bequeathing his claims on Naples to his eldest son. "On the death of Louis the remnant of his army dispersed, and Charles was free from one antagonist. … War was now declared between the Pope and the King. … Charles found adherents amongst Urban's Cardinals." Urban discovered the plots of the latter and threw six of them into a dungeon, where he tortured them with brutality. Charles attacked Nocera and took the town, but the castle in which the Pope had fortified himself resisted a long siege. "Three or four times a day the dauntless Pope appeared at a window, and with bell and torch cursed and excommunicated the besieging army." In August, 1385, Urban was rescued by some of his partisans, who broke through the camp of the besiegers and carried him off, still clinging to his captive cardinals, all but one of whom he subsequently put to death. He made his way to Trani and was there met by Genoese galleys which conveyed him and his party to Genoa. He resided in Genoa rather more than a year, very much to the discomfort and expense of the Genoese, and then, after much difficulty, found shelter at Lucca until September, 1387. Meantime Charles III. had left Naples, returning to Hungary to head a revolt against the widowed queen and young daughter of Lewis, who died in 1382. There he was assassinated in February, 1386. "The death of Charles III. again plunged the kingdom of Naples into confusion. The Angevin party, which had been powerless against Charles, raised against his son Ladislas, a boy of twelve years old, the claims of Louis II. of Anjou. {1825} The exactions of the Queen Regent Margaret awoke dissatisfaction, and led to the appointment in Naples of a new civic magistracy, called the Otto di Buono Stato, who were at variance with Margaret. The Angevins rallied under Tommaso of Sanseverino, and were reinforced by the arrival of Otto of Brunswick. The cause of Louis was still identified with that of Clement VII., who, in May 1385, had solemnly invested him with the kingdom of Naples. Urban VI., however, refused to recognise the claims of the son of Charles, though Margaret tried to propitiate him … and though Florence warmly supported her prayers for help." The Pope continued obstinate in this refusal until his death. He declared that the kingdom of Naples had lapsed to the Holy See, and he tried to gather money and troops for an expedition to secure it. As a means to that end, he ordered that the year 1390 should be a year of jubilee—a decade before the end of the century. It was his last desperate measure to obtain money. On the 15th of October 1389 he died and one of the most disastrous pontificates in the history of the Papacy came to an end.

M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, book 1, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: Historical Life of Joanna of Sicily.

Mrs. Jameson, Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns, volume 1, chapter 4.

St. C. Baddeley, Charles III. of Naples and Urban VI.

ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393. The "Free Companies." Their depredations and the wars employing them. The Great Company. The Company of Sir John Hawkwood.

"The practice of hiring troops to fight the battles of the Commonwealth [of Florence—but in other Italian states no less] had for some time past been continually on the increase. … The demand for these mercenary troops,—a demand which … preferred strangers from beyond the Alps,—had filled Italy with bands of free lances, ready to take service with any tyrant, or any free city that was willing to pay them. They passed from one service to another, and from one side of a quarrel to the other, with the utmost indifference and impartiality. But from this manner of life to setting up for themselves and warring for their own behoof there was but one step. And no prudent man could have doubted that this step would ere long be taken. Every circumstance of the age and country combined to invite and facilitate it. … Already, immediately after the fall of the Duke of Athens [at Florence, 1343], a German adventurer, one Werner, known in Italian history as the Duke Guarnieri, had induced a large number of the hired troops, who were then 'unattached' in Italy, mainly those dismissed at that time from the service of Pisa, to form themselves into an independent company and recognize him as their leader. With equal effrontery and accuracy this ruffian styled himself 'The enemy of God, of Pity, and of Mercy.' … This gang of bandits numbered more than 2,000 horsemen. Their first exploit was to threaten the city of Siena. Advancing through the Sienese territory towards the city, plundering, killing, and burning indiscriminately as they went, they inspired so sudden and universal a terror that the city was glad to buy them off with a sum of 12,000 florins. From the Sienese territory they passed to that of Arezzo, and thence to the district around Perugia; and then turning towards the Adriatic, overran Romagna, and the Rimini country, then governed by the Malatesat family. It is difficult adequately to describe, or even to conceive the sufferings, the destruction, the panic, the horror, which marked the track of such a body of miscreants." Finally, by the skilful management of the Lord of Bologna, the company was bought up and sent across the Alps, out of Italy, in detachments. "The relief was obtained in a manner which was sure to operate as an encouragement to the formation of other similar bands. And now, after the proclamation of the peace between Florence and the Visconti, on the 1st of April, 1353, … the experiment which had answered so well in the hands of the German 'Enemy to God and to Mercy,' was repeated on a larger scale by a French Knight Hospitaller of the name of Montreal, known in Italian history as Frà Moriale. … Being out of place, it occurred to him to collect all the fighting men in Italy who were similarly circumstanced, and form an independent company after the example of Guarnieri, with the avowed purpose of living by plunder and brigandage. He was so successful that he collected in a very short time 1,500 men-at-arms and 2,000 foot soldiers; who were subsequently increased to 5,000 cavaliers and 7,000 infantry; and this band was known as 'the Great Company.'" There was an attempt made, at first, to combine Florence, Siena and Perugia, with the Romagna, in resistance to the marauders; but it failed. "The result was that the Florentines were obliged to buy off the terrible Frà Moriale with a bribe of 28,000 florins, and Pisa with one of 16,000. … The chief … after Frà Moriale himself, was one Conrad, Count of Lando; and under him the Company marched towards Lombardy in search of fresh booty, while Moriale himself, remaining temporarily behind, went to Rome to confer privately, as it was believed, with the Colonna chiefs, respecting a project of employing his band against Rienzi, the tribune. But whether such was the object of his journey to Rome or not, it was fatal to the brigand chief. For Rienzi no sooner knew that the notorious Frà Moriale was within his jurisdiction than he arrested him, and summarily ordered him to execution as a common malefactor. The death of the chief, however, did not put an end to 'the Great Company'; for Conrad of Lando remained, and succeeded to the command of it." From 1356 to 1359, Italy in different parts was preyed upon by 'the Great Company,' sometimes in the service of the league of the lesser Lombard princes against the Visconti of Milan, and once in the employ of Siena against Perugia; but generally marauding on their own account, independently. Florence, alone, stood out in resistance to their exactions, and finally sent into the field against them 2,000 men-at-arms, all tried troops, 500 Hungarians: and 2,500 cross-bowmen, besides the native troops of the city. Subsequently the Florentine forces were joined by others from Milan, Padua, and elsewhere. The bandits marched all around the Florentine frontier, with much bluster, making great threats, but constantly evading an engagement. At length, on the 20th of July, 1359, the two armies were in such a position that "it was thought in the Florentine camp that a decisive battle would be fought on the morrow. But when that July morning dawned, Lando and his bandit host were already in full march northwards towards Genoa, with a precipitation that had all the appearance of flight. … 'The Great Company never again dared to show its face in Tuscany.'"

T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 3, chapter 6 (volume 2).

{1826}

"Another company, consisting principally of Englishmen [lately turned loose in France by the Peace of Bretigny, 1360, which terminated the invasion of Edward III.], was brought into Italy at a somewhat later period by the Marquis of Montferrat. … About the same time another, composed principally of Germans, and commanded by Amichino Baumgarten, was raised by Galeazzo Visconti, and afterwards employed by the Pisans. Another, entitled that of St. George, was formed by Ambrose, the natural son of Bernabos Visconti, and let loose by him on the territories of Perugia and Sienna. Thus, at the end of the 14th century, Italy was devastated at one and the same time by these four companies of adventurers, or, as they might more justly be called, professional robbers. … Of all these companies, the military reputation of the English was undoubtedly the greatest—a circumstance which may be ascribed, in some degree, to the physical superiority of the men, but still more to the talents of Sir John Hawkwood, by whom they were commanded."

W. P. Urquhart, Life and Times of Francesco Sforza, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

One of the marauding companies left in France after the Peace of Bretigny, and which afflicted that wretched country so sorely (see FRANCE: A. D. 1360-1380), was called the White Company, and Sir John Hawkwood was one of its commanders. "The White Company crossed into Lombardy, under the command of one Albaret, and took service under the Marquis of Montferrat, then at war with the Duke of Milan. Hawkwood [called Giovanni Aguto by the Italians] entered the Pisan service, and next year, when the marquis, being unable to maintain his English troops, disbanded them, the Pisans engaged them, and gave Hawkwood the command." Hawkwood and his company served Pisa, in war with Florence, until 1364, when they experienced a great defeat, which led to peace and their discharge. During the next three years they lived as independent freebooters, the territories of Siena suffering most from their depredations. Then they took service with Bernabo Visconti, Lord of Milan, making war for him on Florence and its allies; but very soon their arms were turned against Milan, and they were fighting in the pay of Florence and the Pope. "Within the next five years he changed sides twice. He served Galeazzo Visconti against the Papal States; and then, brought back to fight for Holy Church, defeated his late employer in two pitched battles." After this, when the league against an aggressive and ambitious pontiff extended, and Florence, Bologna and other cities joined Milan, Hawkwood took money from both at the same time, and cheated both, preliminarily to fighting each in turn. While serving the Pope his ruffians wantonly destroyed the captured town of Casena, massacring between 4,000 and 5,000 people, women and children included. In 1378, when Gregory XI. died, peace followed, and Hawkwood's company resumed its old freebooting. In 1381 he was engaged in the Neapolitan civil war. In 1387 he seems to have become permanently engaged in the service of Florence against the Duke of Milan. "In 1391, Florence concluded a general peace with all her enemies. Her foreign auxiliaries were dismissed, with the exception or Sir John Hawkwood and 1,000 men. Hawkwood henceforth remained in her service till his death, which took place on the 6th of March, 1393. He was buried at the public expense, as a valiant servant of the State."

Sir John Hawkwood (Bentley's Miscellany, volume 54, pages 284-291).

ALSO IN: O. Browning, Guelphs and Ghibellines, chapter 12.

ITALY: A. D. 1347-1354. Rienzi's Revolution at Rome.

See ROME: A. D. 1347-1354.

ITALY: A. D. 1348-1355. War of Genoa against Venice, the Greeks and Aragonese.

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.

ITALY: A. D. 1352-1378. Subjugation and revolt of the States of the Church. War of the Pope with Florence.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1352-1378.

ITALY: A. D. 1378-1427. The democratizing of Florence. Tumult of the Ciompi. First appearance of the Medici.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1378-1427.

ITALY: A. D. 1379-1381. Final triumph of Venice over Genoa in the War of Chioggia.

See VENICE: A. D. 1379-1381.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1386-1414. Renewed Civil War in Naples. Defeat of the Angevins and triumph of Ladislas. His ambitious career. His capture and recapture of Rome.

"The death of Charles III. involved the kingdom of Naples in the most ruinous anarchy; and delivered it for many years a prey to all the disorders of a long minority and a disputed throne. Charles had left two children, Ladislaus, a boy of ten years old, and a daughter, Joanna; and his widow Margaret acted as regent for her son. On the other hand, the Sanseverini and other baronial families, rallying the Angevin party, proclaimed the young son of the late duke of Anjou king,—also under the guardianship of his mother, Maria,—by the title of Louis II. Thus Naples was disturbed by the rival pretensions of two boys, placed beneath the guidance of ambitious and intriguing mothers, and severally protected by two popes, who excommunicated each other, and laboured to crush the minors whom they respectively opposed, only that they might establish their own authority over the party which they supported. … For several years the Angevin party seemed to maintain the ascendancy. Louis II. was withheld in Provence from the scene of danger by his mother; but the barons who had raised his standard, forcing Margaret of Durazzo and the adherents of her son to retire to Greta, possessed themselves of the capital and great part of the kingdom. When Louis II., therefore, was at length suffered by his mother to appear at Naples, attended by a powerful fleet and a numerous train of the warlike nobles of France (A. D. 1390), he disembarked at the capital amidst the acclamations of his people, and would probably have overpowered the party of Durazzo with ease, if, as he advanced towards manhood, he had displayed any energy of character. But he proved very unequal, by his indolence and love of pleasure, to contend with the son of Charles III. Educated in the midst of alarms and danger, and surrounded from his infancy by civil wars and conspiracies, Ladislaus had early been exercised in courageous enterprise, and trained to intrigue and dissimulation. {1827} At the age of 16, his mother Margaret committed him to the barons of her party to make his first essay in arms; and from this period he was ever at the head of his troops. … A fortunate marriage, which his mother had effected for him with Constance di Clermont, the heiress of the most opulent noble of Sicily, increased his resources by an immense dowry; and while he made an able use of these riches [meanly and heartlessly divorcing the wife who brought them to him, when they had been spent], the new Italian pope, Boniface IX., the successor of Urban VI., recognized him for the legitimate son and vassal of the church, because Louis was supported by the Avignon pontiff. This decision gained him many partizans; … his talents and valour hourly advanced his success; and at last the Sanseverini and all the barons of the Angevin party, following the tide of fortune, went over to his standards, and opened to him the gates of Naples (A. D. 1399). Louis … retired by sea to his Provençal dominions, and finally abandoned the kingdom of Naples. Ladislaus, having thus triumphed over his sluggish antagonist, had leisure to consolidate his stern authority over the licentious and turbulent feudal aristocracy of his kingdom. … He … crushed the Sanseverini and other great families, whose power might make them dangerous; and having rooted out the seeds of all resistance to his sway in his own dominions, he prepared to direct his vigorous ambition to schemes of foreign conquest."

G. Procter, History of Italy, chapter 5, part 3.

Until the death of Pope Boniface IX., Ladislas supported that pontiff through the hard struggle in which he crushed the rebellious Colonna and made himself master of the city of Rome. But when Boniface died, in 1404, the Neapolitan king began to scheme for bringing the ancient capital and the possessions of the Church under his own control. "His plan was to set the Pope [the newly elected Innocent, VII.] and the Roman people against one another, and by helping now one and now the other to get them both into his power. … He trusted that the rebellious Romans would drive the Pope from the city, and would then be compelled to submit to himself." He had entered Rome, four days after the papal election, ostensibly as a mediator between the rival factions, and between the Pope and the Roman people; and he was easily able to bring about an arrangement which gave him every opportunity for interference and for turning circumstances to his own advantage. Events soon followed as he had expected them, and as he helped, through his agents, to guide them. The turbulence of the people increased, until, in 1405, the Pope was driven to flight. "No sooner had the Pope left Rome than Giovanni Colonna, at the head of his troops, burst into the Vatican, where he took up his quarters. … The Vatican was sacked; even the Papal archives were pillaged, and Bulls, letters and registers were scattered about the streets. Many of these were afterwards restored, but the loss of historic documents must have been great." Ladislas now thought his time for seizing Rome was come; but when he sent 5,000 horse to join the Colonna, the Romans took alarm, repelled the Neapolitan troops, and called back the Pope, who returned in January, 1406, but who died in the following November. Under the next Pope, Gregory XII., there were negotiations with Avignon for the ending of the great schism; and all the craft of Ladislas was exerted to defeat that purpose; because a reunion of western Christendom would not be favorable to his designs. At last, a conference of the rival popes was arranged, to take place at Savona, near Genoa, and in August, 1407, Gregory XII. left Rome, moving slowly northwards, but finding reasons, equally with his competitor, for never presenting himself at the appointed meeting-place. In his absence the disorders of Rome increased, and when Ladislas, in April, 1408; appeared before the city with an army of 12,000 horse and as many foot, it was surrendered to him without resistance. "The craft of Ladislas had gained its end, and the temporal power of the Papacy had passed into his hands. … So utterly had the prestige of Rome, the memories of her glories, passed away from men's minds, that her sister republic of Florence could send and congratulate Ladislas on the triumphal victory which God and his own manhood had given him in the city of Rome." When, in 1408, the disgusted cardinals of both papal courts joined in calling a general Council of the Church, to meet at Pisa the following year, Ladislas threatened to prevent it. By this time "Gregory had sank to the lowest pitch of degradation: he sold to Ladislas for the small sum of 25,000 florins the entire States of the Church, and even Rome itself. After this bargain Ladislas set out for Rome, intending to proceed into Tuscany and break up the Council." Early in April, 1409, he marched northwards and threatened Siena. But Florence had now undertaken the defense of the Council, and resisted him so effectually that the meeting at Pisa was undisturbed. The immediate result of the Council was the election of a third claimant of the Papacy, Alexander V. (see PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417). Around the new Pope a league was now formed which embraced Florence, Siena, and Louis of Anjou, whose claim upon Naples was revived. The league made an attempt on Rome in the autumn of 1409, and failed; but the following January the Neapolitans were expelled and the city was occupied by the papal forces. In May, 1410, Alexander V. died, and was succeeded by Baldassare Cossa, who took the name of John XXIII. The new Pope hastened to identify his cause with Louis of Anjou, and succeeded, by his energy, in putting into the field an army which comprised the four chief "condottieri" in Italy, with their veteran followers. Ladislas was attacked and routed completely at Rocca Secca, on the 19th of May, 1411. But the worthlessness of Louis and the mercenary character of his generals made the victory of no effect. Ladislas bought over the best of the troops and their leaders, and before the end of summer Louis was back in Provence, again abandoning his Neapolitan claims. Ladislas made peace, first, with Florence, by selling Cortona to that city, and then with the Pope, who recognized him as king, not only of Naples, but of Sicily as well. But Ladislas was only gaining time by these treaties. In June, 1413, he drove the Pope from Rome, and his troops again occupied the city. He seemed to be now well prepared for realizing his ambition to found an extended Italian kingdom; but his career was cut short by a mortal disease, which ended his life on the 6th of August, 1414.

M. Creighton, History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, book 1, chapters 3-8 (volume 1).

{1828}

ITALY: A. D. 1390-1402. Resistance of Florence to the spreading tyranny of the Duke of Milan.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1390-1402.

ITALY: A. D. 1391-1451. Extension of the Italian dominions of the House of Savoy.

See SAVOY: 11TH-15TH CENTURIES.

ITALY: A. D. 1396-1409. The sovereignty of Genoa yielded to the King of France.

See GENOA: A. D. 1381-1422.

ITALY: A. D. 1402-1406. The crumbling of the Visconti dominion. Aggrandizement of Venice. Florentine purchase and conquest of Pisa. Decline of that city.

"The little states of Romagna, which had for the most part been conquered by Gian-Galeazzo [Visconti, Duke of Milan], were at his death [1402] overrun by the Count of Barbiano, who with his famous company entered the service of Pope Boniface IX. … The Count of Savoy, the Marquess of Montferrat, and the lords of Padua, Ferrara, and Mantua, were the only independent Sovereigns in North Italy in 1402. Of these Francesco, lord of Padua, was soon to fall. On the death of Gian-Galeazzo he seized on Verona. Venice would not allow her old enemy to gain this advantage, and made alliance with Francesco di Gonzaga, lord of Mantua, and with his help took Verona, and closely besieged Padua. After a gallant resistance Francesco da Carrara was forced to yield, and he and his two sons were taken prisoners to Venice, and were there strangled by order of the Council of Ten. This war gave the Venetians great power on the mainland. They reconquered Treviso, and gained Feltro, Verona [1405], Vicenza, and Padua [1405], and from this time Venice became an Italian power. In Tuscany, the death of her great enemy delivered Florence from her distress, and Siena, which now regained her liberty, placed herself under her protection. Pisa [which had been betrayed to Gian-Galeazzo in 1399] had been left to Gabriello Visconti, a bastard son of the late Duke. He put himself under the protection of Jean Boucicault, who governed Genoa for Charles VI., King of France, and with his consent he sold Pisa to the Florentines. The Pisans resisted this sacrifice of their freedom, and the war lasted a year, but in 1406 the city was forced to surrender. Many of the people left their homes; for, though Florence acted fairly towards her old enemy and new subject, yet the Pisans could not bear the yoke, and the greatness of the city, its trade and its wealth, vanished away."

W. Hunt, History of Italy, chapter 6.

"From that day to this it [Pisa] has never recovered,—not its former greatness, wealth, and energy,—but even sufficient vitality to arrest it on the downward course. … Of the two great political tendencies which were then disputing the world between them it made itself the champion and the symbol of the losing one. Pisa went down in the world together with the feudalism and Ghibellinism with which it was identified."

T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 4, chapter 6 (volume 2).

The City in the Sea, chapter 16.

ALSO IN: W. C. Hazlitt, History of the Venetian Republic, chapter 21 (volume 3).

A. M. F. Robinson, The End of the Middle Ages, pages 340-367.

ITALY: A. D. 1409. The Council of Pisa.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1377-1417.

ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447. Renewed civil war in Naples. Defeat of the Angevins by Alfonso of Aragon and Sicily. Reconquest of Lombardy by Filippo Maria Visconti, and his wars with Florence, Venice and Naples.

On the death of Ladislaus, king of Naples (1414), "his sister, Joan II., widow of the son of the duke of Austria, succeeded him. She was 40 years of age; and, like her brother, abandoned to the most unrestrained libertinism. She left the government of her kingdom to her lovers, who disputed power by arms: they called into her service, or into that of her second husband, or of the rival princes whom she in turn adopted, the two armies of Sforza and Braccio [the two great mercenary captains of that time]. The consequence was the ruin of the kingdom of Naples, which ceased to menace the rest of Italy. The moment Ladislaus disappeared, a new enemy arose to disturb the Florentines—Filippo Maria Visconti [duke of Milan, second son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and successor to his elder brother Gian Maria, on the assassination of the latter, in 1412]. … Filippo … married the widow of Facino Cane, the powerful condottiere who had retained Gian Maria in 'his dependence, and who died the same day that Gian Maria was assassinated. By this sudden marriage he secured the army of Facino Cane,— which was, in fact, master of the greater part of the Milanese: with its aid he undertook, without delay, to recover the rest of his states from the hands of those tyrants who had divided amongst them the dominions of his father. … During the first year of his reign, which was to decide his existence as prince or subject, he fought with determined courage; but from that time, though he continually made war, he never showed himself to his armies. … In the battle of Monza, by which he acquired his brother's inheritance, and the only battle in which he was ever present, he remarked the brilliant courage of Francesco Carmagnola, a Piedmontese soldier of fortune, and immediately gave him a command. Carmagnola soon justified the duke's choice by the most distinguished talents for war, the most brilliant victories, and the most noble character. Francesco Carmagnola was, after a few years, placed at the head of the duke's armies; and, from the year 1412 to that of 1422, successively attacked all the tyrants who had divided the heritage of Gian Galeazzo, and brought those small states again under the dominion of the duke of Milan. Even the republic of Genoa submitted to him, in 1421, on the same conditions as those on which it had before submitted to the king of France,—reserving all its liberties; and granting the duke's lieutenant, who was Carmagnola himself, only those prerogatives which the constitution yielded to the doge. As soon as Filippo Maria had accomplished the conquest of Lombardy, he resumed the projects of his father against Romagna and Tuscany. He … renewed his intrigues against the republic of Florence, and combined them with those which he at the same time carried on in the kingdom of Naples. Joan, who had sent back to France her second husband, Jaques, count de la Marche, and who had no children, was persuaded, in 1420, by one of her lovers, to adopt Alphonso the Magnanimous, king of Aragon and Sicily, to whom she intrusted some of the fortresses of Naples. She revoked this adoption in 1423; and substituted in his place Louis III. of Anjou, son of Louis II. The former put himself at the head of the ancient party of Durazzo; the latter, of that of Anjou. {1829} The consequence was a civil war, in which the two great captains, Sforza and Braccio, were opposed to each other, and acquired new titles to glory. The duke of Milan made alliance with Joan II. and Louis III. of Anjou: Sforza, named great constable of the kingdom, was their general. The Florentines remained constant to Braccio, whom Alphonso had made governor of the Abruzzi; and who had seized, at the same time, the signoria of Perugia, his native city. … But Sforza and Braccio both perished, as Italy awaited with anxiety the result of the struggle about to be commenced. Sforza was drowned at the passage of the Pescara, on the 4th of January, 1424; Braccio was mortally wounded at the battle of Aquila, on the 2d of June of the same year. Francesco, son of the former, succeeded to his father's name and the command of his army, both of which he was destined to render still more illustrious. The son of Braccio, on the contrary, lost the sovereignty of Perugia, which resumed its freedom on the 29th of July of the same year; and the remnant of the army formed by this great captain elected for his chief his most able lieutenant, Nicolo Piccinino. This was the moment which Filippo Maria chose to push on his army to Romagna, and vigorously attack the Florentines. … The Florentines, having no tried general at the heart of their troops, experienced, from the 6th of September, 1423, to the 17th of October, 1425, no less than six successive defeats, either in Liguria or Romagna [at Forli, 1423, Zagonara, 1424, Lamone, Rapallo, Anghiari and Faggiola, 1425]. Undismayed by defeat, they reassembled their army for the seventh time: the patriotism of their rich merchants made up for the penury of their exhausted treasury. They, at the same time, sent their most distinguished statesmen as ambassadors to Venice, to represent to that republic that, if it did not join them while they still stood, the liberty of Italy was lost forever. … An illustrious fugitive, Francesco Carmagnola, who arrived about this time at Venice, accomplished what Florence had nearly failed in, by discovering to the Venetians the project of the duke of Milan to subjugate them." Carmagnola had been disgraced and discharged from employment by Filippo Maria, whose jealousy was alarmed by his great reputation, and he now took service against his late patron. "A league, formed between Florence and Venice, was successively joined by the marquis of Ferrara, the lord of Mantua, the Siennese, the duke Amadeus VIII. of Savoy, and the king Alphonso of Naples, who jointly declared war against Filippo Maria Visconti, on the 27th of January, 1426. … The good fortune of Carmagnola in war still attended him in the campaign of 1426. He was as successful against the duke of Milan as he had been for him: he took from him the city and whole province of Brescia. The duke ceded this conquest to the Venetians by treaty on the 30th of December; but he employed the winter in assembling his forces; and in the beginning of spring renewed the war." An indecisive engagement occurred at Casalsecco, July 12, 1427, and on the 11th of October following, in a marsh near Macalo, Carmagnola completely defeated the Milanese army commanded by Carlo Malatesta. A new peace was signed on the 18th of April, 1428; but war recommenced in the latter part of 1430. Fortune now abandoned Carmagnola. He suffered a surprise and defeat at Soncino, May 17, 1431, and the suspicious senate of Venice caused him to be arrested, tortured and put to death. "During the remainder of the reign of Filippo Maria he was habitually at war with the two republics of Venice and Florence. He … almost always lost ground by his distrust of his own generals, his versatility, his taste for contradictory intrigues, his eagerness to sign peace every year, and to recommence hostilities a few weeks afterwards." In 1441, on making peace with the two republics, he granted his daughter Bianca in marriage to their general, Francesco Sforza, with two lordships for her dowry. But he was soon intriguing against his son-in-law, soon at war again with Florence and Venice, and Sforza was again in the service of the latter. But in 1447 he made offers of reconciliation which were accepted, and Sforza was on his way to Milan when news came to him of the death of the duke, which occurred August 13. "The war of Lombardy was complicated by its connexion with another war which at the same time ravaged the kingdom of Naples. The queen, Joan II., had died there, on the 2d of February, 1435; three months after the death of her adopted son, Louis III. of Anjou: by her will she had substituted for that prince his brother René, duke of Lorraine. But Alphonso, king of Aragon and Sicily, whom she had primarily adopted, … claimed the succession, on the ground of this first adoption, as well as of the ancient rights of Manfred, to whom he had succeeded in the female line. The kingdom of Naples was divided between the parties of Aragon and Anjou. The Genoese, who had voluntarily ranged themselves under the protection of the duke of Milan, offered their assistance to the duke of Anjou. … On the 5th of August, 1435, their fleet met that of Alphonso, before the island of Ponza. They defeated it in a great battle, in which Alphonso had been made prisoner." Delivered to the duke of Milan, Alphonso soon convinced the latter that his alliance with the French interest at Naples was a mistake and a danger to him, and was set at liberty, with promises of aid. The Genoese were indignant at this and drove the Milanese garrison from their city, in December, 1435, recovering their freedom. "Alphonso, seconded by the duke of Milan, recommenced the war against René of Anjou with greater advantage. On the 2d of June, 1442, he took from him the city of Naples; from that time peace was re-established in that kingdom, and Alphonso … established himself amidst a people which he had conquered, but whose hearts he gained; and returned no more either to Sicily or Aragon. He died at Naples, on the 27th of June, 1458."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapters 9-10.

ALSO IN: W. P. Urquhart, Life and Times of Francesco Sforza, books 3-4 (volume 1).

Mrs. Jameson, Memoirs of Celebrated Female Sovereigns, volume 1, chapter 5.

M. A. Hookham, Life and Times of Margaret of Anjou, volume 1, introduction and chapter 1.

ITALY: A. D. 1433-1464. The ascendancy of Cosimo de' Medici at Florence.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1433-1464.

{1830}

ITALY: A. D. 1447-1454. End of the Visconti in the duchy of Milan. Disputed succession. Francesco Sforza in possession. War of Venice, Naples and other states against Milan and Florence.

See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.

ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480. The Pontificate of Nicolas V. Regeneration of the Papacy. Revival of letters and art. Threatening advance of the Turks. Fresh troubles in Naples. Expulsion of the French from Genoa.

"The failure of the Council of Basel [see PAPACY: A. D. 1431-1448] restored the position of the Papacy, and set it free from control. The character and ability of Pope Nicolas [V., 1447-1455] made him respected, and the part which he took in politics made him rank amongst the great temporal powers in Italy. From this time onwards to the end of our history we shall see the Popes the undisputed Princes of Rome, and the lords of all that part of Italy which they claimed from the gift of Kings and Emperors, and not least from the will of the Countess Matilda. Pope Nicolas used this power better than any of those who came after him, for he used it in the cause of peace, and to forward learning and artistic taste. He applied himself to the general pacification of Italy, and brought about the Peace of Lodi in 1454, which was signed by Venice and Milan and by King Alfonso. Christendom had great need of peace, for, in 1453, Constantinople had been taken by the Infidels and Mahomet the Second was spreading his conquest over the East of Europe. Before the fall of the city a great many Greeks had come to Italy, on different missions, and especially to attend a Council at Florence, where terms of union were made between the Greek and Latin Churches. Their coming revived the taste for Greek learning, which had been so powerfully felt by Petrarca and Boccaccio. Pope Nicolas made Rome the centre of this literature, and others followed his example. Theodore of Gaza, George of Trebizond, and many more, found enlightened patrons in the Pope, the King of Naples, Cosmo de'Medici, and Federigo, Count of Urbino. The Pope was a lover and patron of art as well as of literature. He rebuilt the churches, palaces, and fortifications of Rome and the Roman States, and formed the scheme of raising a church worthy of the memory of St. Peter, and left behind him the Vatican Palace as a worthy residence for the Apostle's successors. The Papal Library had been scattered during the Captivity and the Schism, but Pope Nicolas made a large collection of manuscripts, and thus founded the Library of the Vatican. The introduction of printing into Italy about this time gave great strength to the revival of learning. In 1452 the Pope crowned Frederic the Third Emperor at Rome with great magnificence. But he was not without danger in his city, for the next year a wild plot was made against him. A large number of Romans were displeased at the great power of the Pope. They were headed by Stefano Porcaro, who declared that he would free the city which had once been mistress of the world from the yoke of priests. The rising was to be ushered in by the slaughter of the Papal Court and the plunder of its treasures. The plot was discovered, and was punished with great severity. This was the last and most unworthy of the various attempts of the Romans to set up self-government. The advance of the Ottoman Turks during the latter part of the 15th century [see TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481] caused the greatest alarm in Italy. Venice, from her possessions and her trade in the Levant, was most exposed to the attacks of the Infidels, and she became the great champion against them. The learned Æneas Sylvius was chosen Pope, in 1458, and took the title of Pius the Second. He caused a crusade to be preached against the Turks, but he died in 1464, while the forces were gathering. The Venetians were constantly defeated in the Archipelago, and lost Eubœa, Lesbos, and other islands [see GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479]. In 1477 a large Turkish army entered Italy by Friuli, defeated the Venetians, and crossed the Tagliamento. They laid waste the country as far as the Piave, and their destroying fires could be seen from the Campanile of St. Mark's. In 1480 Mahomet's great general, Ahmed Keduk, took the strong city of Otranto, and massacred its inhabitants. This expedition was secretly favoured by the Venetians to spite the King of Naples. The danger to all Italy was very great, for the Sultan eagerly longed to conquer the older Rome, but the death of Mahomet the Second, and a disputed succession to his throne, fortunately checked the further advance of the invaders. When Alfonso, King of Aragon, Naples, and Sicily, died in 1458, he left Aragon and Sicily, which he had inherited, to his legitimate son John; but the crown of Naples, which he had won for himself, he left to Ferdinand, his illegitimate son. Ferdinand was a cruel and suspicious man, and the barons invited John of Calabria to come and help them against him. John of Calabria was the son of Réné, who had been adopted by Queen Joanna, and who called himself King. He was the French Governor of Genoa, and so already had a footing in Italy. He applied to Sforza to help him, but the Duke of Milan was firmly attached to the Peace of Lodi, and was too justly fearful of the French power to do so. Lewis the Eleventh, King of France, was too wise to meddle in Italian politics. Florence, which was usually on the French side, was now under the influence of Cosmo de' Medici, and Cosmo was under the influence of Francesco Sforza, so that the Duke of Calabria found no allies. The Archbishop of Genoa, Paola Fregoso, excited the people to drive out the French [see GENOA: A. D. 1458-1464] and the Doge Prospero Adorno, who belonged to their party. He then defeated King Réné, and the Duke of Calabria was forced to give up his attempt on Naples [1464]. The new government of Genoa was so oppressive that the Genoese put themselves under the protection of Francesco; Lewis the Eleventh ceded all his rights to him, and the city thus became part of the Duchy of Milan. The hopes of the French party in Italy were thus for the present entirely crushed."

W. Hunt, History of Italy, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: M. Creighton, History of the Papacy, book 4, chapters 3-4 (volume 2).

W. P. Urquhart, Life and Times of Francesco Sforza, book 7 (volume 2).

L. Pastor, History of the Popes, volume 2.

ITALY: A. D. 1466-1469. Florence under the five agents of Piero de' Medici.

See FLORENCE: 1458-1469.

ITALY: A. D. 1469-1492. The government of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, at Florence.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492.

ITALY: A. D. 1490-1498. Savonarola at Florence.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1490-1498.

{1831}

ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494. Charles VIII. of France invited across the Alps to possess Naples. The hostile disunion of the Italian states.

With the death of Lorenzo de Medici, which occurred at Florence in the spring of 1492, "the power vanished which had hitherto kept Naples and Milan quiet, and which, with subtle diplomatic skill, had postponed the breach of the peace in Italy. We find the comparison used, that Florence with Lorenzo at her head stood like a rocky dam between two stormy seas. Italy was at that time a free land and independent of foreign policy. Venice, with her well-established nobles at her head; Naples under the Aragonese, a branch of the family ruling in Spain; Milan, with Genoa, under Sforza—all three able powers by land and sea—counterbalanced each other. Lorenzo ruled central Italy; the small lords of the Romagna were in his pay, and the pope was on the best terms of relationship with him. But in Milan the mischief lay hidden. Ludovico Sforza, the guardian of his nephew Gian Galeazzo, had completely usurped the power. He allowed his ward to pine away mentally and bodily; he was bringing the young prince slowly to death. But his consort, a Neapolitan princess, saw through the treachery, and urged her father to change by force their insufferable position. Sforza could not alone have resisted Naples. No dependence was to be placed on the friendship of Venice; Lorenzo mediated as long as he lived, but now, on his death, Naples was no longer to be restrained. The first thing that happened was [Piero de Medici's] alliance with this power, and at the same time Ludovico's appeal for help to France, where a young and ambitious king had ascended the throne. The death of Innocent VIII., and the election of Alexander Borgia to the papacy, completed the confusion which was impending. Long diplomatic campaigns took place before war actually broke out. The matter in question was not the interests of nations—of this there was no thought—nor even the caprices of princes alone. The nobles of Italy took a passionate concern in these disputes. The contests of corresponding intrigues were fought out at the French court. France had been robbed of Naples by the Aragonese. The exiled Neapolitan barons, French in their interests, whose possessions the Arngonese had given to their own adherents, ardently seized the idea of returning victoriously to their country; the cardinals, hostile to Borgia—foremost among these stood the Cardinal of San Piero in Vincula, a nephew of the old Sixtus, and the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, Ludovico's brother—urged for war against Alexander VI.; the Florentine nobles, anticipating Piero's violent measures, hoped for deliverance through the French, and advocated the matter at Lyons, where the court was stationed, and a whole colony of Florentine families had in time settled. Sforza held out the bait of glory and his just claims to the old legitimate possession. The Aragonese, on the other hand, proposed an accommodation. Spain, who would not forsake her belongings, stood at their side; the pope and Piero dei Medici adhered to Naples, and the French nobility were not in favour of an expedition to Italy. Venice remained neutral; still she might gain by the war, and she did not dissuade from it; and this opinion, that something was to be gained, gradually took possession of all parties, even of those who had at first wished to preserve peace. Spain was a direct gainer from the first. France ceded to King Ferdinand a disputed province, on the condition that he would afford no support to his Neapolitan cousins. Sforza, as lord of Genoa, wished to have Lucca and Pisa again, with all that belonged to them; the Visconti had possessed them of old, and he raised their claims afresh. We have said what were the hopes of Piero dei Medici [that he should be able to make himself Duke of Florence]. Pisa hoped to become free. The pope hoped by his alliance with Naples to make the first step towards the attainment of the great plans which he cherished for himself and his sons; he thought one day of dividing Italy among them. The French hoped to conquer Naples, and then to drive away the Turks in a vast crusade. As if for a crusade, the king raised the loan in his own country, which he required for the campaign. The Venetians hoped to bring the coast cities of the Adriatic Sea as much as possible under their authority. In the autumn of 1494, Charles of France placed himself at the head of his knights and mercenary troops, and crossed the Alps; whilst his fleet and artillery, the most fearful weapon of the French, went by sea from Marseilles to Genoa."

H. Grimm, Life of Michael Angelo, chapter 3, section 2 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 8, chapter 5.

ITALY: A. D. 1492-1503. The Papacy in the hands of the Borgias.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1471-1513.

ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496. The invasion by Charles VIII. His triumphant march, his easy conquest of Naples, and the speedy retreat. Effects of the expedition on France and Europe.

"On the 1st of March [1494] Charles VIII. made his state entry into Lyons, to assume the command of the expedition; an advanced guard under the Scotchman d'Aubigny was already pushing towards the Neapolitan frontier, and the Duke of Orleans was at Genoa. The Neapolitans on their side sent the Prince of Altamura with 30 galleys towards Genoa, while the Duke of Calabria, an inexperienced youth, entered the Pontifical States, under the guidance of tried generals. … The Pope seemed to have lost his head, and no longer knew what course to adopt. … Charles the VIII., having passed the Monginevra, entered Asti in the first days of September. He soon received intelligence that Don Federico and the Neapolitan fleet had been repulsed with heavy losses before Porto Venere, and that the Duke of Orleans and his Swiss had entered Rapallo, sacked the place, and put all the inhabitants, even the sick in the hospital, to the sword, thereby striking terror into the Italians, who were unaccustomed to carry on war in so sanguinary a fashion. On reaching Piacenza, the king learnt that Gio. Galeazzo, whom he had recently seen at Pavia, had just died there, poisoned, as all men said, by the Moor [Lodovico, the usurping uncle of Gio. Galeazzo the young Duke of Milan, was so called], who, after celebrating his obsequies at Milan, had entered St. Ambrogio, at the hour indicated by his astrologer, to consecrate the investiture already granted to him by Maximilian, King of the Romans. All this filled the minds of the French with suspicion, almost with terror; they were beginning to understand the nature of their closest ally's good faith. {1832} In fact, while Ludovico with one hand collected men and money for their cause, with the other he wove the threads of a league intended to drive them from Italy, when the moment should arrive. … Nevertheless the fortunes of the French prospered rapidly. The Duke of Calabria, having entered Romagna, withdrew across the Neapolitan frontier at the first glimpse of D'Aubigny's forces; and the bulk of the French army, commanded by the King in person, marched through the Lunigiana without encountering obstacles of any kind. After taking Fivizanno, sacking it, and putting to the sword the hundred soldiers who defended it, and part of the inhabitants, they pushed on towards Sarzana, through a barren district, between the mountains and the sea, where the slightest resistance might have proved fatal to them. But the small castles, intended for the defence of these valleys, yielded one after the other, without any attempt to resist the invaders; and hardly had the siege of Sarzana commenced than Piero dei Medici arrived, frightened out of his senses, surrendered at discretion, and even promised to pay 200,000 ducats. But on Piero's return to Florence, on the 8th of November, he found that the city had risen in revolt, and sent ambassadors to the French King on its own account to offer him an honourable reception; but that at the same time it was making preparations for defence in case of need [see FLORENCE: A. D. 1490-1498]. So great was the public indignation that Piero took flight to Venice, where his own ambassador, Soderini, hardly deigned to look at him, having meanwhile declared for the republican government just proclaimed in Florence, where everything had been rapidly changed. The houses of the Medici and their garden at St. Mark had been pillaged, exiles had been recalled and acquitted; a price put on Piero's head and that of his brother, the Cardinal. … The fabric, so long and so carefully built up by the Medici, was now suddenly crumbling into dust. On the 17th November Charles VIII., at the head of his formidable army, rode into Florence with his lance in rest, believing that that fact sufficed to make him master of the city. But the Florentines were armed, they had collected 6,000 soldiers within the walls, and they knew perfectly well that, from the vantage posts of towers and houses, they could easily worst an army scattered through the streets. They therefore repulsed the King's insolent proposals, and when he threatened to sound his trumpets, Piero Capponi, tearing up the offered treaty, replied that the Florentines were more ready to ring their bells. Through this firmness equitable terms were arranged. The Republic was to pay 120,000 florins in three quotas; the fortresses, however, were to be speedily restored to her. On the 28th November the French left the city, but not without stealing all that remained of the collection of antiquities in the Medici Palace. … Nevertheless the citizens were thankful to be finally delivered alike from old tyrants and new invaders. Having reached Rome, Charles VIII., in order to have done with the Pope, who now seemed inclined for resistance, pointed his guns against the Castle of St. Angelo, and thus matters were soon settled. … Scarcely encountering any obstacles, Charles led his army on to Naples." Ferdinand I., or Ferrante, had died on the 25th of January, 1494, and had been succeeded by his son Alfonso II, a prince more cruel and more hated than himself. The latter now renounced the throne in favor of his son, Ferdinand II., and fled to Sicily. "Ferdinand II., or Ferrandino, as he was called, after vainly seeking aid from all, even from the Turk, made a fruitless stand at Monte San Giovanni, which was taken, destroyed, and all its population put to the sword. … Naples rebelled in favour of the French, who marched in on the 22d of February [1495]. The following day Ferrandino fled to Ischia, then to Messina. And shortly the ambassadors of the Italian States appeared to offer congratulations to the conqueror. Now at last the Venetians were aroused, and having sent their envoys to Milan to know if Ludovico were disposed to take up arms to drive out the French, they found him not only ready to do so, but full of indignation. … He advised that money should be sent to Spain and to Maximilian, to induce them to attack France; but added that care must be taken not to call them into Italy; 'since having already one fever here, we should then have two.' A league was in fact concluded between the Venetians, Ludovico, the Pope, Spain and Maximilian. … The Neapolitans, soon wearied of bad government, had risen in revolt, and Charles VIII. after a stay of only 50 days in Naples had to make his departure with excessive haste, before every avenue of retreat should be cut off, leaving hardly more than 6,000 men in the kingdom, and taking with him a numerous army, which however only numbered 10,000 real combatants. On the 6th of July a pitched battle took place at Fornuovo near the river Taro. The allies had assembled about 30,000 men, three-fourths of whom were Venetians, the rest composed of Ludovico's soldiers and a few Germans sent by Maximilian. … The battle was bloody, and it was a disputed question which side obtained the victory; but although the Italians were not repulsed, remaining indeed masters of the field, the French succeeded in cutting their way through, which was the chief object they had in view. … Ludovico, taking advantage of the situation, soon made an agreement with the French on his own account, without concerning himself about the Venetians. … The fortunes of the French now declined rapidly in Italy, and all the more speedily owing to their bad government in the Neapolitan kingdom, and their abominable behaviour towards the few friends who had remained faithful to them. … Ferdinand II., with the aid of the Spaniards under Consalvo di Cordova, advanced triumphantly through Calabria and entered Naples on the 7th of July, 1496. In a short time all the Neapolitan fortresses capitulated, and the French who had held them returned to their own country, more than decimated and in an altogether deplorable condition. On the 6th of October Ferdinand II. breathed his last, worn out by the agitation and fatigues of the war, and was succeeded by his uncle Don Federico, the fifth King [counting Charles VIII. of France] who had ascended the Neapolitan throne within the last five years. … Naples was now in the absolute power of the Spaniards, who were already maturing their iniquitous designs upon the kingdom; these, however, were only discovered at a later period."

P. Villari, Machiavelli and his Times, volume 1, chapter 4, section 2.

{1833}

"In spite of its transitory character the invasion of Charles VIII. … was a great fact in the history of the Renaissance. It was, to use the pregnant phrase of Michelet, no less than the revelation of Italy to the nations of the North. Like a gale sweeping across a forest of trees in blossom, and bearing their fertilizing pollen, after it has broken and deflowered their branches, to far distant trees that hitherto have bloomed in barrenness, the storm of Charles's army carried far and wide through Europe thought-dust, imperceptible, but potent to enrich the nations. The French, alone, says Michelet, understood Italy. … From the Italians the French communicated to the rest of Europe what we call the movement of the Renaissance. There is some truth in this panegyric of Michelet's. The passage of the army of Charles VIII. marks a turning point in modern history, and from this epoch dates the diffusion of a spirit of culture over Europe."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Age of the Despots, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: P. Villari, History of Savonarola and his Times, book 2, chapters 1-3 (volume 1).

J. Dennistoun, Memoirs of the Dukes of Urbino, chapters 14-15 (volume 1).

P. de Commines, Memoirs, books 7-8.

L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514, book 1, chapter 1.

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1492-1515.

ITALY: A. D. 1494-1503. The growing power of Venice and the jealousies excited by it. See

VENICE: A. D. 1494-1503.

ITALY: A. D. 1424-1509. The French deliverance of Pisa. The long struggle and the Florentine reconquest.

See PISA: A. D. 1494-1509.

ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500. Invasion and conquest of the Milanese by Louis XII. of France. His claim in right of Valentine Visconti.

Charles VIII. died in April, 1498, and was succeeded by Louis of Orleans, who ascended the throne as Louis XII. On his coronation, Louis XII. "assumed, besides his title of King of France, the titles of King of Naples and of Jerusalem, and Duke of Milan. This was as much as to say that he would pursue … a warlike and adventurous policy abroad. … By his policy at home Louis XII. deserved and obtained the name of 'Father of the People;' by his enterprises and wars abroad he involved France still more deeply than Charles VIII. had in that mad course of distant, reckless, and incoherent conquests for which his successor, Francis I., was destined to pay by capture at Pavia and by the lamentable treaty of Madrid, in 1526, as the price of his release. … Outside of France, Milaness (the Milanese district) was Louis XII.'s first thought, at his accession, and the first object of his desire. He looked upon it as his patrimony: His grandmother, Valentine Visconti, widow of that Duke of Orleans who had been assassinated at Paris in 1407 by order of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, had been the last to inherit the duchy of Milan, which the Sforzas, in 1450, had seized. When Charles VIII. invaded Italy in 1494, 'Now is the time,' said Louis, 'to enforce the rights of Valentine Visconti, my grandmother, to Milaness.' And he, in fact, asserted them openly, and proclaimed his intention of vindicating them so soon as he found the moment propitious. When he became king, his chance of success was great. The Duke of Milan, Ludovic, the Moor, had by his sagacity and fertile mind, by his taste for arts and sciences and the intelligent patronage he bestowed upon them, by his ability in speaking, and by his facile character, obtained in Italy a position far beyond his real power. … Ludovic was, nevertheless, a turbulent rascal and a greedy tyrant. … He had, moreover, embroiled himself with his neighbours, the Venetians, who were watching for an opportunity of aggrandizing themselves at his expense." Louis XII. promptly concluded a treaty with Venice, which provided for the making of war in common upon the Duke of Milan, to recover the patrimony of the king—the Venetians to receive Cremona and certain forts and territory adjacent as their share of the expected spoils. "In the month of August, 1499, the French army, with a strength of from 20,000 to 25,000 men, of whom 5,000 were Swiss, invaded Milaness. Duke Ludovic Sforza opposed to it a force pretty near equal in number, but far less full of confidence and of far less valour. In less than three weeks the duchy was conquered; in only two cases was any assault necessary; all the other places were given up by traitors or surrendered without a show of resistance. The Venetians had the same success on the eastern frontier of the duchy. … Louis was at Lyons when he heard of his army's victory in Milaness and of Ludovic Sforza's flight. He was eager to go and take possession of his conquest, and, on the 6th of October, 1499, he made his triumphal entry into Milan amidst cries of 'Hurrah! for France.' He reduced the heavy imposts established by the Sforzas, revoked the vexatious game-laws, instituted at Milan a court of justice analogous to the French parliaments, loaded with favours the scholars and artists who were the honour of Lombardy, and recrossed the Alps at the end of some weeks, leaving as governor of Milaness John James Trivulzio, the valiant Condottiere, who, four years before, had quitted the service of Ferdinand II., King of Naples, for that of Charles VIII. Unfortunately Trivulzio was himself a Milanese and of the faction of the Guelphs. He had the passions of a partisan and the habits of a man of war; and he soon became as tyrannical and as much detested in Milaness as Ludovic the Moor had but lately been. A plot was formed in favour of the fallen tyrant, who was in Germany expecting it, and was recruiting, during expectancy, amongst the Germans and Swiss, in order to take advantage of it. On the 25th of January, 1500, the insurrection broke out; and two months later Ludovic Sforza had once more became master of Milaness, where the French possessed nothing but the castle of Milan. … Louis XII., so soon as he heard of the Milanese insurrection, sent into Italy Louis de la Trémoille, the best of his captains, and the Cardinal d' Amboise, his privy councillor and his friend. … The campaign did not last long. The Swiss who had been recruited by Ludovic and those who were in Louis XII.'s service had no mind to fight one another; and the former capitulated, surrendered the strong place of Novara, and promised to evacuate the country on condition of a safe-conduct for themselves and their booty." Ludovic attempted flight in disguise, but fell into the hands of the French and remained in captivity, at the castle of Loches, in Touraine, during the remainder of his life,—eight years. "And 'thus was the duchy of Milan, within seven months and a half, twice conquered by the French,' says John d' Auton in his 'Chronique,' 'and for the nonce was ended the war in Lombardy, and the authors thereof were captives and exiles.'"

F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 27.

ALSO IN: A. M. F. Robinson, The End of the Middle Ages: Valentine Visconti; The French claim to Milan.

E. Walford, Story of the Chevalier Bayard, chapters 3-4.

{1834}

ITALY: 15-16th Centuries. Renaissance. Intellectual advance and moral decline.

"At the end of the fifteenth century, Italy was the centre of European civilization: while the other nations were still plunged in a feudal barbarism which seems almost as far removed from all our sympathies as is the condition of some American or Polynesian savages, the Italians appear to us as possessing habits of thought, a mode of life, political, social, and literary institutions, not unlike those of to-day; as men whom we can thoroughly understand, whose ideas and aims, whose general views, resemble our own in that main, indefinable characteristic of being modern. They had shaken off the morbid monastic ways of feeling, they had thrown aside the crooked scholastic modes of thinking, they had trampled under foot the feudal institutions of the Middle Ages; no symbolical mists made them see things vague, strange, and distorted; their intellectual atmosphere was as clear as our own, and, if they saw less than we do, what they did see appeared to them in its true shape and proportions. Almost for the first time since the ruin of antique civilization; they could show well-organized, well-defined States; artistically disciplined armies; rationally devised laws; scientifically conducted agriculture; and widely extended, intelligently undertaken commerce. For the first time, also, they showed regularly built, healthy, and commodious towns; well-drained fields; and, more important than all, hundreds of miles of country owned not by feudal lords, but by citizens; cultivated not by serfs, but by free peasants. While in the rest of Europe men were floundering among the stagnant ideas and crumbling institutions of the effete Middle Ages, with but vague half-consciousness of their own nature, the Italians walked calmly through a life as well arranged as their great towns, bold, inquisitive, and sceptical; modern administrators, modern soldiers, modern politicians, modern financiers, scholars, and thinkers. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, Italy seemed to have obtained the philosophic, literary, and artistic inheritance of Greece; the administrative, legal, and military inheritance of Rome, increased threefold by her own strong, original, essentially modern activities. Yet, at that very time, and almost in proportion as all these advantages developed, the moral vitality of the Italians was rapidly decreasing, and a horrible moral gangrene beginning to spread: liberty was extinguished; public good faith seemed to be dying out; even private morality flickered ominously; every free State became subject to a despot, always unscrupulous and often infamous; warfare became a mere pretext for the rapine and extortions of mercenaries; diplomacy grew to be a mere swindle; the humanists inoculated literature with the filthiest refuse cast up by antiquity; nay, even civic and family ties were loosened; assassinations and fratricides began to abound, and all law, human and divine, to be set at defiance. … The men of the Renaissance had to pay a heavy price for … intellectual freedom and self-cognizance, which they not only enjoyed themselves, but transmitted to the rest of the world; the price was the loss of all moral standard, of all fixed public feeling. They had thrown aside all accepted rules and criteria, they had cast away all faith in traditional institutions, they had destroyed and could not yet rebuild. In their instinctive and universal disbelief in all that had been taught them, they lost all respect for opinion, for rule, for what had been called right and wrong. Could it be otherwise? Had they not discovered that what had been called right had often been unnatural, and what had been called wrong often natural? Moral teachings, remonstrances, and judgments belonged to that dogmatism from which they had broken loose; to those schools and churches where the foolish and the unnatural had been taught and worshiped; to those priests and monks who themselves most shamefully violated their teachings. To profess morality was to be a hypocrite; to reprobate others was to be narrow-minded. There was so much error mixed up with truth that truth had to share the discredit of error."

Vernon Lee, Euphorion, volume 1, pages 27-29, 47-48.

"The conditions under which the Italians performed their task in the Renaissance were such as seem at first sight unfavourable to any great achievement. Yet it is probable that, the end in view being the stimulation of mental activity; no better circumstances than they enjoyed could have been provided. Owing to a series of adverse accidents, and owing also to their own instinctive preference for local institutions, they failed to attain the coherence and the centralised organisation which are necessary to a nation as we understand that word. Their dismemberment among rival communities proved a fatal source of political and military weakness, but it developed all their intellectual energies by competition to the utmost. At the middle of the fifteenth century their communes had lost political liberty, and were ruled by despots. Martial spirit declined. Wars were carried on by mercenaries; and the people found itself in a state of practical disarmament, when the neighboring nations quarrelled for the prize of those rich provinces. At the same time society underwent a rapid moral deterioration. When Machiavelli called Italy 'the corruption of the world,' he did not speak rhetorically. An impure and worldly clergy; an irreligious, though superstitious, laity; a self-indulgent and materialistic middle class; an idle aristocracy, excluded from politics and unused to arms; a public given up to pleasure and money-getting; a multitude of scholars, devoted to trifles, and vitiated by studies which clashed with the ideals of Christianity—from such elements in the nation proceeded a widely-spread and ever-increasing degeneracy. Public energy, exhausted by the civil wars and debilitated by the arts of the tyrants, sank deep and deeper into the lassitude of acquiescent lethargy. Religion expired in laughter, irony and licence. Domestic simplicity yielded to vice, whereof the records are precise and unmistakable. The virile virtues disappeared. What survived of courage assumed the forms of ruffianism, ferocity and treasonable daring. Still, simultaneously with this decline in all the moral qualities which constitute a powerful people, the Italians brought their arts and some departments of their literature to a perfection that can only be paralleled by ancient Greece. The anomaly implied in this statement is striking; but it is revealed to us by evidence too overwhelming to be rejected. … It was through art that the creative instincts of the people found their true and adequate channel of expression. {1835} Paramount over all other manifestations of the epoch, fundamental beneath all, penetrative to the core of all, is the artistic impulse. The slowly self-consolidating life of a great kingdom, concentrating all elements of national existence by the centripetal force of organic unity, was wanting. Commonwealths and despotisms, representing a more imperfect stage of political growth, achieved completion and decayed. But art survived this disintegration of the medieval fabric; and in art the Italians found the cohesion denied them as a nation. While speaking thus of art, it is necessary to give a wide extension to that word. It must be understood to include literature. … We are justified in regarding the literary masterpieces of the sixteenth century as the fullest and most representative expression of the Italian temperament at the climax of its growth. The literature of the golden age implies humanism, implies painting. … It is not only possible but right to speak of Italy collectively when we review her work in the Renaissance. Yet it should not be forgotten that Italy at this time was a federation, presenting upon a miniature scale the same diversities in her component parts as the nations of Europe do now. … At the beginning of such a review, we cannot fail to be struck with the predominance of Florence. The superiority of the Tuscans was threefold. In the first place, they determined the development of art in all its branches. In the second place, they gave a language to Italy, which, without obliterating the local dialects, superseded them in literature when the right moment for intellectual community arrived. That moment, in the third place, was rendered possible by the humanistic movement, which began at Florence. … What the Lombards and Venetians produced in fine art and literature was of a later birth. Yet the novelists of Lombardy, the Latin lyrists of Garda, the school of romantic and dramatic poets at Ferrara, the group of sculptors and painters assembled in Milan by the Sforza dynasty, the maccaronic Muse of Mantua, the unrivalled magnificence of painting at Venice, the transient splendour of the Parmese masters, the wit of Modena, the learning of the princes of Mirandola and Carpi, must be catalogued among the most brilliant and characteristic manifestations of Italian genius. In pure literature Venice contributed but little. … Her place, as the home of Aldo's Greek press, and as the refuge for adventurers like Aretino and Folengo, when the rest of Italy was yielding to reactionary despotism, has to be commemorated. … The Romans who advanced Italian culture, were singularly few. The work of Rome was done almost exclusively by aliens, drawn for the most part from Tuscany and Lombardy. After Frederick II.'s brilliant reign, the Sicilians shared but little in the intellectual activity of the nation."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: Italian Literature, chapter 17.

ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504. Perfidious treaty for the partition of Naples between Louis XII. of France and Ferdinand of Aragon. Their joint conquest. Their quarrel and war. The French expelled. The Spaniards in possession.

"In the spring of 1501, the French army was ready to pursue its march to Naples. King Frederick, alarmed at the storm which was gathering round his head, had some months before renewed the propositions formerly made by his father Ferdinand to Charles VIII.; namely, to acknowledge himself a feudatory of France, to pay an annual tribute, and to pledge several maritime towns as security for the fulfilment of these conditions. Louis, however, would not hear of these liberal offers, although Ferdinand the Catholic [of Aragon] undertook to guarantee the payment of the tribute proffered by Frederick, and strongly remonstrated against the contemplated expedition of the French King. Ferdinand finding that he could not divert Louis from his project, proposed to him to divide Naples between them, and a partition was arranged by a treaty concluded between the two monarchs at Granada, November 11th, 1500. Naples, the Terra di Lavoro, and the Abruzzi were assigned to Louis, with the title of King of Naples and Jerusalem; while Ferdinand was to have Calabria and Apulia with the title of Duke." This perfidious arrangement was kept secret, of course, from Frederick. "Meanwhile the forces of Ferdinand, under Gonsalvo of Cordova [the 'Great Captain,' as he was styled after his Italian campaign], were admitted as friends into the Neapolitan fortresses, which they afterwards held as enemies. Frederick opened to them without suspicion his ports and towns, and thus became the instrument of his own ruin. The unhappy Frederick had in vain looked around for assistance. He had paid the Emperor Maximilian 40,000 ducats to make a diversion in his favour by attacking Milan, but Maximilian was detached from the Neapolitan alliance by a counter bribe, and consented to prolong the truce with France. Frederick had then had recourse to Sultan Bajazet II., with as little effect; and this application only served to throw an odium on his cause. … The French army, which did not exceed 13,000 men, began its march towards Naples about the end of May, 1501, under the command of Stuart d'Aubigny, with Cæsar Borgia [son of Pope Alexander VI.] for his lieutenant. When it arrived before Rome, June 25th, the French and Spanish ambassadors acquainted the Pope with the treaty of Granada, and the contemplated partition of Naples, in which the suzerainty of this kingdom was guaranteed to the Holy See; a communication which Alexander received with more surprise than displeasure, and he proceeded at once to invest the Kings of France and Aragon with the provinces which they respectively claimed. Attacked in front by the French, in the rear by Gonsalvo, Frederick did not venture to take the field. He cantoned his troops in Naples, Averso, and Capua, of which the last alone made any attempt at defence. It was surprised by the French while in the act of treating for a capitulation (July 24th), and was subjected to the most revolting cruelty; 7,000 of the male inhabitants were massacred in the streets; the women were outraged; and forty of the handsomest reserved for Borgia's harem at Rome; where they were in readiness to amuse the Court at the extraordinary and disgusting fete given at the fourth marriage of Lucretia. Rather than expose his subjects to the horrors of a useless war, Frederick entered into negociations with d'Aubigny, with the view of surrendering himself to Louis XII. … In October, 1501, he sailed for France with a small squadron, which remained to him. {1836} In return for his abandonment of the provinces assigned to the French King, he was invested with the county of Maine, and a life pension of 30,000 ducats, on condition that he should not attempt to quit France; a guard was set over him to enforce the latter proviso, and this excellent prince died in captivity in 1504. Meanwhile Gonsalvo of Cordova was proceeding with the reduction of Calabria and Apulia. … The Spaniards entered Taranto March 1st, 1502; the other towns of southern Italy were soon reduced, and the Neapolitan branch of the House of Aragon fell for ever, after reigning 65 years. In the autumn of 1501, Louis had entered into negociations with the Emperor, in order to obtain formal investiture of the Duchy of Milan. With this view, Louis's daughter Claude, then only two years of age, was affianced to Charles [afterwards the Emperor, Charles V.], grandson of Maximilian, the infant child of the Archduke Philip and Joanna of Aragon. A treaty was subsequently signed at Trent, October 13th, 1501, by Maximilian and the Cardinal d'Amboise, to which the Spanish sovereigns find the Archduke Philip were also parties. By this instrument Louis engaged, in return for the investiture of Milan, to recognise the pretensions of the House of Austria to Hungary and Bohemia, and to second Maximilian in an expedition which he contemplated against the Turks. It was at this conference that those schemes against Venice began to be agitated, which ultimately produced the League of Cambray. The treaty between Louis and Ferdinand for the partition of Naples was so loosely drawn, that it seemed purposely intended to produce the quarrels which occurred." Disputes arose as to the possession of a couple of provinces, and the Spaniards were driven out. "In the course of 1502 the Spaniards were deprived of everything, except Barletta and a few towns on the coast of Bari. It was in the combats round this place that Bayard, by his deeds of courage and generosity, won his reputation as the model of chivalry, and became the idol of the French soldiery." The crafty and unscrupulous king of Aragon now amused Louis with the negotiation of a treaty for the relinquishment of the whole Neapolitan domain to the lately affianced infants, Charles of Austria and Claude of France, while he diligently reinforced the "Great Captain." Then "Gonsalvo suddenly resumed the offensive with extraordinary vigour and rapidity, and within a week two decisive battles were fought"—at Seminara, in Calabria, April 21, 1503, and at Cerignola, near Barletta, April 28. In the last named battle the French army was dispersed and almost destroyed. On the 14th of May, Gonsalvo entered Naples, and by the end of July the French had completely evacuated the Neapolitan territory. The king of France made prompt preparations for vigorous war, not only in Naples but in Spain itself, sending two armies to the Pyrenees and one across the Alps. The campaign of the latter was ruined by Cardinal d'Amboise, who stopped its march near Rome, to support his candidacy for the papal chair, just vacated by the death of Alexander VI. Malaria made havoc in the ranks of the French, and they were badly commanded. They advanced to the seat of war in October, and forced the passage of the Garigliano, November 9. "Here their progress was arrested. … The seasons themselves were hostile to the French; heavy rains set in with a constancy quite unusual in that climate; and the French soldiers perished by hundreds in the mud and swamps of the Garigliano. The Spanish army, encamped near Sessa, was better supplied and better disciplined; and at length, after two months of inaction, Gonsalvo, having received some reinforcements, assumed the offensive, and in his turn crossed the river. The French, whose quarters were widely dispersed, were not prepared for this attack, and attempted to fall back upon Gaeta; but their retreat soon became a disorderly flight; many threw down their arms without striking a blow; and hence the affair has sometimes been called the rout of the Garigliano [December 29, 1503]. Peter de' Medici, who was following the French army, perished in this retreat. … Very few of the French army found their way back to France. Gaeta surrendered at the first summons, January 1st, 1504. This was the most important of all Gonsalvo's victories, as it completed the conquest of Naples. The two attacks on Spain had also miscarried. … A truce of five months was concluded, November 15th, which was subsequently converted into a peace of three years."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 1, chapters 5-6 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations, 1494-1514, book 1, chapter 4, and book 2, chapter 1.

T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 9, chapters 8-9 (volume 4).

M. J. Quintana, The Great Captain (Lives of Celebrated Spaniards)

G. P. R. James, Memoirs of Great Commanders, volume 1: Gonzalvez de Cordoba.

L. Larchey, History of Bayard, book 2.

ITALY: A. D. 1504-1506. The Treaties of Blois. Tortuous diplomacy of Louis XII. His double renunciation of Naples.

"There was danger [to Louis XII. of France] that the loss of the Milanese should follow that of the kingdom of Naples. Maximilian was already preparing to assert his imperial rights beyond the Alps, and Gonsalvo de Cordova was marching toward the northern part of the peninsula. Louis XII. divided and disarmed his enemies by three treaties, signed at Blois on the same day (1504). By the first Louis and Maximilian agreed to attack Venice, and to divide the spoil; by the second Louis promised the king of the Romans 200,000 francs in return for the investiture of the Milanese; by the third he renounced the kingdom of Naples in favor of Maximilian's grandson Charles, who was to marry Claude,' daughter of Louis XII., and receive as her dowry three French provinces,—Burgundy, Brittany, and Blois. A more disastrous agreement could not have been made. Charles was to obtain by inheritance from his father, Philip the Handsome, the Netherlands; from his mother, Castile; from his paternal grandfather, Austria; from his maternal grandfather, Aragon. And now he was assured of Italy, and France was to be dismembered for him. This was virtually giving him the empire of Europe. France protested, and Louis XII. seized the first occasion to respond to her wishes. He found it in 1505, when Ferdinand the Catholic married Germaine de Foix, niece of Louis XII. Louis by treaty made a second cession of his rights over the kingdom of Naples to his niece, thus breaking one of the principal conditions of his treaty with Maximilian. He convoked the States-General at Tours in order openly to break the others (1506). {1837} The Assembly declared that the fundamental law of the state did not permit alienations of the domains of the crown, and besought the king to give his daughter in marriage to his heir presumptive, Francis, Duke of Angoulême, in order to insure the integrity of the territory and the independence of France. Louis XII. found little difficulty in acceding to their request. Maximilian and Ferdinand were at the time unable to protest."

V. Duruy, History of France, chapter 38.

ITALY: A. D. 1508-1509. The League of Cambrai against Venice. The continental provinces of the Republic torn away.

See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.

ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513. Dissolution of the League of Cambrai and formation of the Holy League against France. The French expelled from Milan and all Italy. Restoration of the Medici. Recovery of Venetian territories.

As the League of Cambrai began to weaken and fall in pieces, the vigorous republic of Venice "came forth again, retook Padua, and kept it through a long and terrible siege, at last forcing the Emperor to withdraw and send back his French allies. The Venetians recovered Vicenza, and threatened Verona; Maximilian, once more powerless, appealed to France to defend his conquests. Thus things stood [1510] when Julius II. made peace with Venice and began to look round him for allies against Louis XII. He negotiated with the foreign kings; but that was only in order thereby to neutralise their influence, sowing discord among them; it was on the Swiss mercenaries that he really leant. Now that he had gained all he wanted on the northern frontier of the States of the Church, he thought that he might safely undertake the high duty of protecting Italy against the foreigner: he would accomplish what Cæsar Borgia had but dreamed of doing, he would chase the Barbarian from the sacred soil of culture. … He 'thanked God,' when he heard of the death of the Cardinal of Amboise, 'that now he was Pope alone!' … He at once set himself to secure the Swiss, and found a ready and capable agent in Matthew Schynner, Bishop of Sion in the Valais. … Bishop Schynner was rewarded for this traffic with a cardinal's hat. And now, deprived by death of the guiding hand [of Cardinal d'Amboise], Louis XII. began to follow a difficult and dangerous line of policy: he called a National Council at Tours, and laid before it, as a case of conscience, the question whether he might make war on the Pope. The Council at once declared for the King, distinguishing, as well they might under Julius II., between the temporal and the spiritual in the Papacy, and declaring that any papal censure that might be launched would be null and void. Above all, an appeal was made to a General Council. … Meanwhile war went on in Italy. A broadly-planned attack on the Milanese, on Genoa, and Ferrara, concerted by Julius II. with the Venetians and Swiss, had come to nothing. Now the warlike pontiff—one knows his grim face from Raphael's picture, and his nervous grasp of the arms of his chair, as though he were about to spring forward into action—took the field in person. At Bologna he fell ill; they thought he would die; and Chaumont of Amboise was marching up with the French at his heels to surround and take him there. But by skilful treating with the French general Julius gained time, till a strong force of Venetians had entered Bologna. Then the Pope rose from his sick-bed, in the dead of winter, 1511, and marched out to besiege Mirandola," which capitulated. "Bayard soon after attacked him, and all but took him prisoner. A congress at Mantua followed: but the Pope sternly refused to make terms with the French: the war must go on. Then Louis took a dangerous step. He convoked an ecclesiastical council at Pisa, and struck a medal to express his contempt and hatred for Julius II. … The Pope had gone back to Rome, and Bologna had opened her gates to the French; the coming council, which should depose Julius, was proclaimed through Northern Italy. But, though the moment seemed favourable, nothing but a real agreement of the European powers could give success to such a step. And how far men were from such an agreement Louis was soon to learn; for Julius, finding that the French did not invade the States of the Church, resumed negociations with such success that in October 1511 a 'Holy League' was formed between the Pope, Venice, Ferdinand of Aragon, and Henry VIII. of England. Maximilian wavered and doubted; the Swiss were to be had—on payment. At first Louis showed a bold front; in spite of this strange whirl of the wheel of politics from the League of Cambrai to the Holy League, he persevered, giving the command of Milan to his nephew, Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours, a man of 23 years, the most promising of his younger captains. He relieved Bologna, seized Brescia, and pillaged it [1512]; and then pushed on to attack Ravenna; it is said that the booty of Brescia was so great that the French soldiers, having made their fortunes, deserted in crowds, and left the army much weakened. With this diminished force Gaston found himself caught between the hostile walls of Ravenna, and a relieving force of Spaniards, separated from him only by a canal. The Spaniards, after their usual way of warfare, made an entrenched camp round their position. The French first tried to take the city by assault; but being driven back, determined to attack the Spanish camp." They made the assault [on Easter Day, 1512] and took the camp, with great slaughter; but in his reckless pursuit of the retreating enemy Gaston de Foix was slain. "The death of the young Prince more than balanced the great victory of the day: for with Gaston, as Guicciardini says, perished all the vigour of the French army. … Though Ravenna was taken, the French could no longer support themselves. Their communications with Milan were threatened by the Swiss: they left garrisons in the strong places and fell back. The council of Pisa also had to take refuge at Milan. When the Swiss came down from their mountain-passes to restore the Sforza dynasty, the harassed council broke up from Milan, and fled to Lyons; there it lingered a while, but it had become contemptible; anon it vanished into thin air. The Pope retook Bologna, Parma, Piacenza; the Medici returned to Florence [see FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569]; Maximilian Sforza was re-established [see MILAN: A. D. 1512], while the Grisons Leagues received the Valteline as their reward: the English annoyed the coast without any decisive result. … Ferdinand seized Navarre, which henceforward became Spanish to the Pyrenees. {1838} Before winter, not one foot of Italian soil remained to the French. Julius II., the formidable centre of the Alliance, died at this moment (1513). … The allies secured the election of a Medicean Pope, Leo X., a pontiff hostile to France, and certain not to reverse that side of his predecessor's policy. … Louis, finding himself menaced on every side, suddenly turned about and offered his friendship to Venice. … Natural tendencies overbore all resentments on both sides, and a treaty between them both guaranteed the Milanese to Louis and gave him a strong force of Venetian soldiers. Meanwhile, Ferdinand had come to terms with Maximilian and boyish Henry VIII., who … had framed a scheme for the overthrow of France. The French king, instead of staying at home to defend his frontiers, was eager to retake Milan, and to join hands with the Venetians. … But the Swiss round Maximilian Sforza defended him without fear or treachery; and catching the French troops under La Trémoille in a wretched position not far from Novara, attacked and utterly defeated them (1513). The French withdrew beyond the Alps; the Venetians were driven off with great loss by the Spaniards, who ravaged their mainland territories down to the water's edge. For the short remainder of his life Louis XII. had no leisure again to try his fortunes in Italy: he was too busy elsewhere."

G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 2, book 2, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: P. Villari, Life and Times of Machiavelli, book 1, chapters 12-14 (volume 3).

M. Creighton, History of the Papacy, book 5, chapters 15-16 (volume 4).

L. von Ranke, History of the Latin and Teutonic Nations from 1494 to 1514, book 2, chapter 3.

Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapters 37-38 (volume 2).

L. Larchey, History of Bayard, book 2, chapters 21-44.

H. E. Napier, Florentine History, book 2, chapter 9 (volume 4).

ITALY: A. D. 1515-1516. Invasion and reconquest of Milan by Francis I. His treaty with the Pope.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1515; and 1515-1518.

ITALY: A. D. 1516-1517. Abortive attempt against Milan by the Emperor, Maximilian. His peace with Venice and surrender of Verona.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.

ITALY: A. D. 1520-1542. Early Reformation movements and their want of popular support. The Council of Trent.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1537-1563.

ITALY: A. D. 1521-1522. Re-expulsion of the French from Milan. The treason of the Constable Bourbon. His appointment to the command of the Imperial army.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.

ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527. The double dealings of Pope Clement VII. Invasion of Milanese by Francis I. and his defeat and capture at Pavia. The Holy League against Charles V. The attack on Rome by Constable Bourbon.

Giulio de' Medici, natural son of Guiliano de' Medici, and cousin of Leo X., had succeeded Adrian VI. in the Papacy in 1523, under the name of Clement VII. "Nothing could have been more unfortunate than the new Pope's first steps on the zig-zag path which he proposed to follow. Becoming alarmed at the preponderating power of Charles [the Fifth, Emperor, King of Spain and Naples; Duke of Burgundy, and ruler of all the Netherlands, in 1524 be entered into a league with Francis [the First, king of France];

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1496-1526; and GERMANY: A. D. 1519.

but scarcely had this been concluded when the memorable battle of Pavia resulting in the entire defeat of the French, on the 24th of February, 1525, and the captivity of the French king, frightened him back again into seeking anew the friendship of Charles, in April of that year.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1523-1525

Each of these successive treaties was of course duly sworn to and declared inviolable; but it could hardly be expected that he who exercised the power of annulling other men's oaths would submit to be bound by his own, when the observance of them became inconvenient. Clement accordingly was not prevented by the solemn treaty of April, 1525, from conspiring against his new ally in the July following. The object of this conspiracy was to induce Ferdinando Francesco d'Avalos, Marquis of Pescara, who commanded the army of Charles V. before Milan, to revolt against his sovereign, and join the Italians in an attempt to put an end for ever to Spanish sway in Italy. … But the Spanish general had no sooner secured clear evidence of the plans of the conspirators, by pretending to listen to their proposals, than he reported the whole to Charles. The miscarriage of this scheme, and the exposure consequent upon it, necessarily threw the vacillating and terrified Pontiff once more into the arms of Francis. 'The Most Christian'—as the old Italian historians often elliptically call the Kings of France—obtained his release from his Madrid prison by promising on oath, on the 17th of January, 1526, all that Charles, driving a hard bargain, chose to demand of him.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1525-1526.

And Clement hastened to prove the sincerity of his renewed friendship by a professional contribution to the success of their new alliance, in the welcome shape of a plenary absolution from all observance of the oaths so sworn. … On the 22nd of May following [at Cognac], the Pope entered into a formal league with Francis [called 'Holy' for the reason that the Pope was a party to it]. Venice joined her troops to those of the Ecclesiastical States, and they marched together to the support of the Milanese, who had risen in revolt against the Emperor. Assistance had also been promised by Henry of England, who had stipulated, however, that he should not be named as a party to the alliance, but only considered as its protector. This was the most strenuous and most united attempt Italy had yet made to rid herself of the domination of the stranger, and patriotic hopes beat high in several Italian hearts. … It may be easily imagined that the 'Most Catholic' monarch [Charles V.] felt towards Clement at this time in a manner which led him to distinguish very nicely between the infallible head of the universal Church and the sovereign of the Ecclesiastical States. … Though he retained the utmost respect and reverence for the vicegerent of heaven, he thought that a little correction administered to the sovereign of Rome would not be amiss, and nothing could be easier than to find means ready to his hand for the infliction of it. The Colonnas were of course ready for a rebellion on the slightest encouragement. … So when Don Ugo di Moncada, Charles's general at Naples, proposed to the Colonnas to join him in a little frolic at Clement's expense, the noble and most reverend members of that powerful family jumped at the proposal. … The united forces of the Viceroy and the Colonnas accordingly one morning entered Rome, altogether without opposition, and marched at once to the Vatican. {1839} They completely sacked, not only the Pope's palace, and the residences of many gentlemen and prelates, but also, says the historian [Varchi], 'with unheard-of avarice and impiety,' robbed the sacristy of St. Peter of everything it contained. Clement had barely time to escape into the castle of St. Angelo; but as he found there neither soldiers nor ammunition, nor even food for above three days, … he consented to a treaty by which the Pope agreed to pardon the Colonnas freely for all they had done against him; to take no steps to revenge himself on them; to withdraw his troops from Lombardy; and to undertake nothing in any way, or under any pretext, against the Emperor." As a hostage for the fulfilment of this treaty, Pope Clement gave his dear friend Filippo Strozzi; but no sooner was he delivered from his captors than he hired seven "black companies" of adventurers and 2,000 Swiss, and began a furious war of extermination upon the Colonnas and all their dependents. At the same time he wrote private letters to the heads of his "Holy League," "warning them to pay no heed to any statement respecting a treaty made by him with the Emperor, and assuring them of his intention to carry on the war with the utmost energy." A little later, however, this remarkable Holy Father found it convenient to make another treaty with the Viceroy of Naples, for the release of his friend Strozzi, which bound him still more to friendly relations with the Emperor. This latter treaty, of March, 1527, "would seem in some sort to imply the reconciliation once again of the Pope and the Emperor." But Charles had already set forces in motion for the chastisement of the faithless Pope and his allies, which either he could not or did not care to arrest. "The Constable Bourbon, whom the gross injustice of Francis I., and the intolerable persecution of his infamous mother, Louise de Savoie, had driven to abandon his country and allegiance [see FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523], … was now … marching southwards, with the imperial troops, to chastise the different members of the League against the Emperor, which Clement, as has been seen, had formed. George Frundsberg, a German leader of reputation, had also crossed the Alps with 15,000 men,—'all Lutherans and Lanzknechts,' as the Italians write with horror and dismay,—and had joined these forces to the Spaniards under Bourbon. … The combined force was in all respects more like a rabble rout of brigands and bandits than an army; and was assuredly such as must, even in those days, have been felt to be a disgrace to any sovereign permitting them to call themselves his soldiers. Their pay was, as was often the case with the troops of Charles V., hopelessly in arrear, and discipline was of course proportionably weak among them. … The progress southward of this bandit army … filled the cities exposed to their inroad with terror and dismay. They had passed like a destroying locust swarm over Bologna and Imola, and crossing the Apennines, which separate Umbria from Tuscany, had descended into the valley of the Arno not far from Arezzo. Florence and Rome both trembled. On which would the storm burst? That was the all-absorbing question. Pope Clement, with his usual avarice-blinded imbecility, had, immediately on concluding the above-mentioned treaty with the Neapolitan viceroy, discharged all his troops except a body-guard of about 600 men. Florence was nearly in as defenceless a position"; but a small army of the League, under the Duke of Urbino, was at Incisa, and it was "probably the presence of this army, little as it had hitherto done to impede the progress of the enemy, which decided Bourbon eventually to determine on marching towards Rome. It seems doubtful how far they were in so doing, executing the orders, or carrying out the wishes, of the Emperor. … Upon the whole we are warranted in supposing that Bourbon and Frundsberg would hardly have ventured on the course they took, if they had not had reason to believe that it would not much displease their master. … On the 5th of May [1527] Bourbon arrived beneath the walls of Rome. … On the evening of the 6th of May the city was stormed and given over to the unbridled cupidity and brutality of the soldiers. … Bourbon himself had fallen in the first moments of the attack."

T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 10, chapter 3 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: T. A. Trollope, Filippo Strozzi, chapter 7.

W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., book 4 (volume 2).

L. von Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, book 4, chapters 1-3.

ITALY: A. D. 1527. The Sack of Rome by the Spanish and German Imperialists.

"Bourbon fell at the first assault; but by evening the Vatican suburb was in the hands of the enemy. Clement, who was even best informed of the state of things, had not anticipated such an issue. He scarcely saved himself by flight from the Vatican to the castle of St. Angelo, whither the fugitive population hurried, as the shipwrecked crew of an entire fleet hastens to a single boat which cannot receive them. In the midst of the thronging stream of men, the portcullis was lowered. Whoever remained without was lost. Benvenuto Cellini was at that time in Rome, and was among the defenders of the walls. He boasted that his ball had destroyed Bourbon. He stole fortunately into the citadel, before it was closed, and entered the Pope's service as bombardier. Even at this last moment, Clement might have saved Rome itself, which, situated on the opposite shore of the river, had not yet been entered by the enemy. They offered to spare it for a ransom; but finding this too high, and awaiting hourly Urbino's army, to which, though nothing was yet to be seen of it, he looked as a deliverer in the time of need, he would hear nothing of it. And thus the undefended city fell into the hands of the imperialists. Almost without resistance they entered Trastevere, a small quarter of the city lying to the west of the Tiber; and then crossing the bridges, which no one had demolished, they pressed forwards into the heart of Rome. It was the depth of the night. Benvenuto Cellini was stationed on the tower of the castle of St. Angelo, at the foot of the colossal angel, and saw the flames bursting forth in the darkness, and heard the sorrowful cry all around. For it was late before the soldiers began to cast off all restraint. They had entered quietly. The Germans stood in battalions. But when they saw the Spaniards broken up and plundering, the desire was aroused in them also; and now a spirit of emulation appeared, as to which nation could outdo the other in cruelty. The Spaniards, it is asserted by impartial Italians, carried the day. {1840} There had been no siege, no bombardment, no flight of any great extent; but as if the earth had opened, and had disgorged a legion of devils, so suddenly came these hosts. Everything was in a moment abandoned to them. We must endeavour to conceive what kind of men these German soldiers were. They formed an intermediate class between the prime and the refuse of the people. Gathered together by the hope of booty, indifferent what end was assigned them, rendered wild by hunger and tardy pay, left without a master after the death of their commander, they found themselves unrestrained in the most luxurious city of the world—a city abounding with gold and riches, and at the same time decried for centuries in Germany, as the infernal nest of the popes, who lived there as incarnate devils, in the midst of their Babylonian doings. The opinion that the pope of Rome, and Clement VII. in particular, was the devil, prevailed not only in Germany, but in Italy and in Rome the people called him so. In the midst of plague and famine he had doubled the taxes and raised the price of bread. What with the Romans, however, was an invective arising from indignation, was an article of faith among the Germans. They believed they had to do with the real antichrist, whose destruction would be a benefit to Christendom. We must remember, if we would understand this fury of the German soldiery, in whose minds, as in those of all Germans, Lutheran ideas at that time prevailed, how Rome had been preached and written upon in the north. The city was represented to people as a vast abyss of sin; the men as villains, from the lowest up to the cardinals; the women as courtesans; the business of all as deceit, theft, and murder; and the robbing and deluding of men that had for centuries been emanating from Rome, was regarded as the universal disease from which the world was languishing. Thither for centuries the gold of Germany had flowed; there had emperors been humbled or poisoned; from Rome every evil had sprung. And thus, while satiating themselves with rapine and murder, they believed a good work was being done for the welfare of Christendom, and for the avenge of Germany. Never, however—this we know—does the nature of man exhibit itself more beast-like, than when it becomes furious for the sake of ideas of the highest character. Before the castle of St. Angelo, which, carefully fortified with walls and fosses, alone afforded resistance, the German soldiers proclaimed Martin Luther as pope. Luther's name was at that time a war-cry against pope and priestcraft. The rude multitude surmised not what Luther desired when he attacked the papacy. In front of St. Peter's church, they represented an imitation of the papal election with the sacred garments and utensils. They compelled one priest to give extreme unction to a dying mule. One protested that he would not rest until he had consumed a piece of the pope's flesh. It is true, Italians for the most part relate this, but the German reports themselves do not deny the excessive barbarity which was permitted. Ten millions of precious metal was carried away. How much blood did this money involve, and what was done to those from whom it was taken? Fewer were put to death than were plundered, says one of the records, but what does that imply? It is true, the Germans often quarrelled with the Spaniards, because the horrors which they saw them practise were too terrible for them. Otherwise the sparing of human life was less an act of clemency than of covetousness. Prisoners of war were at that time regarded as slaves; they were carried away as personal property, or a ransom was extorted. … This system was carried to a great pitch in Rome. The possessors of palaces were obliged to purchase their ransom, the Spanish cardinals as well as the Italian—no difference was made. Thus at least escape was possible. … And as the people were treated, so were the things. Upon the inlaid marble floor of the Vatican, where the Prince of Orange took up his abode—the command of the army devolving upon him after Bourbon's death—the soldiers lighted their fire. The splendid stained glass windows, executed by William of Marseilles, were broken for the sake of the lead. Raphael's tapestries were pronounced excellent booty; in the paintings on the walls the eyes were put out; and valuable documents were given as straw to the horses which stood in the Sistine Chapel. The statues in the streets were thrown down; the images of the Mother of God in the churches were broken to pieces. For six months the city thus remained in the power of the soldiery, who had lost all discipline, Pestilence and famine appeared. Rome had more than 90,000 inhabitants under Leo X.; when Clement VII. returned a year after the conquest, scarcely a third of that number then existed—poor, famished people, who had remained behind, because they knew not whither to turn. All this lay on the conscience of the man who now for months had been condemned to look down upon this misery from the castle of St. Angelo, in which the Spaniards held him completely blockaded, and where pestilence and want of provisions appeared just as much as down below in Rome. At last, after waiting day after day, he saw Urbino's army approaching from afar: their watch-fires were to be perceived; and every moment he expected that the duke would attack and deliver the city. But he moved not. It is thought he intended now to avenge the rapine which the Medici under Leo. X. had carried on against him. … After having rested for some time in sight of the city, in which the imperialists had opened their intrenchments round the castle of St. Angelo for a regular siege, he withdrew back again to the north, and left the pope to his fate."

H. Grimm, Life of Michael Angelo, chapter 10, section 3 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Benvenuto Cellini, Life, translated by J. A. Symonds, book 1, sections 34-38 (volume 1).

Benvenuto Cellini, Life, translated by T. Roscoe, chapter 7.

J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry VIII., chapter 25 (volume 2).

ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529. Siege and captivity of the Pope. New league against the Emperor. French invasion and disastrous siege of Naples. Genoese independence recovered. Treaties of Barcelona and Cambrai. Francis renounces all pretensions beyond the Alps. Charles V. supreme.

Shut up in Castle St. Angelo, the Pope, Clement VII., "deprived of every resource, and reduced to such extremity of famine as to feed on asses' flesh, was obliged to capitulate on such conditions as the conquerors were pleased to prescribe. He agreed to pay 400,000 ducats to the army; to surrender to the emperor all the places of strength belonging to the Church; and, besides giving hostages, to remain a prisoner himself until the chief articles were performed. … The account of this extraordinary and unexpected event was no less surprising than agreeable to the emperor. {1841} But in order to conceal his joy from his subjects, who were filled with horror at the success and crimes of their countrymen, and to lessen the indignation of the rest of Europe, he declared that Rome had been assaulted without any order from him. He wrote to all the princes with whom he was in alliance, disclaiming his having had any knowledge of Bourbon's intention. He put himself and court into mourning; commanded the rejoicings which had been ordered for the birth of his son Philip to be stopped; and, employing an artifice no less hypocritical than gross, he appointed prayers and processions throughout all Spain for the recovery of the pope's liberty, which, by an order to his generals, he could have immediately granted him. … Francis and Henry [of France and England], alarmed at the progress of the imperial arms in Italy, had, even before the taking of Rome, entered into a closer alliance; and, in order to give some check to the emperor's ambition, had agreed to make a vigorous diversion in the Low Countries. The force of every motive which had influenced them at that time was now increased; and to these was added the desire of rescuing the pope out of the emperor's hands, a measure no less politic than it appeared to be pious. This, however, rendered it necessary to abandon their hostile intentions against the Low Countries, and to make Italy the seat of war. … Besides all … public considerations, Henry was influenced by one of a more private nature: having begun, about this time, to form his great scheme of divorcing Catharine of Aragon, towards the execution of which he knew that the sanction of papal authority would be necessary, he was desirous to acquire as much merit as possible with Clement, by appearing to be the chief instrument of his deliverance. … Henry … entered so eagerly into this new alliance, that, in order to give Francis the strongest proof of his friendship and respect, he formally renounced the ancient claim of the English monarchs to the crown of France, which had long been the pride and ruin of the nation; as a full compensation for which he accepted a pension of 50,000 crowns, to be paid annually to himself and his successors. The pope, being unable to fulfil the conditions of his capitulation, still remained a prisoner. … The Florentines no sooner heard of what had happened at Rome, than they ran to arms … and, declaring themselves a free state, reëstablished their ancient popular government.

See FLORENCE: A. D.1502-1569.

The Venetians, taking advantage of the calamity of their ally, the pope, seized Ravenna, and other places belonging to the church, under pretext of keeping them in deposite." On the other hand, Lannoy, Charles' viceroy at Naples, "marched to Rome, together with Moncada and the Marquis del Guasto, at the head of all the troops which they could assemble in the kingdom of Naples. The arrival of this reinforcement brought new calamities on the unhappy citizens of Rome; for the soldiers, envying the wealth of their companions, imitated their license, and with the utmost rapacity gathered the gleanings which had escaped the avarice of the Spaniards and Germans. There was not now any army in Italy capable of making head against the imperialists." But the troops who had enjoyed months of license and riotous pillage in Rome could not be brought back to discipline, and refused to quit the perishing city. They had chosen for their general the Prince of Orange, who "was obliged to pay more attention to their humours than they did to his commands. … This gave the king of France and the Venetians leisure to form new schemes, and to enter into new arrangements for delivering the pope, and preserving the liberties of Italy. The newly-restored republic of Florence very imprudently joined with them, and Lautrec … was … appointed generalissimo of the league. … The best troops in France marched under his command; and the king of England, though he had not yet declared war against the emperor, advanced a considerable sum towards carrying on the expedition. Lautrec's first operations [1527] were prudent, vigorous and successful. By the assistance of Andrew Doria, the ablest sea-officer of that age, he rendered himself master of Genoa, and reëstablished in that republic the faction of the Fregosi, together with the dominion of France. He obliged Alexandria to surrender after a short siege, and reduced all the country on that side of the Tessino. He took Pavia, which had so long resisted the arms of his sovereign, by assault, and plundered it with … cruelty. … But Lautrec durst not complete a conquest which would have been so honourable to himself and of such advantage to the league. Francis … was afraid that, if Sforza were once reëstablished in Milan, they [his confederates] would second but coldly the attack which he intended to make on the kingdom of Naples. … Happily the importunities of the pope and the solicitations of the Florentines, the one for relief, and the other for protection, were so urgent as to furnish him with a decent pretext for marching forward. … While Lautrec advanced slowly towards Rome, the emperor" came to terms with the pope, and Clement obtained his liberty at the cost of 350,000 crowns, a tenth of the ecclesiastical revenues of Spain, and an agreement to take no part in the war against Charles. The latter next made overtures to the French king, offering some relaxation of the treaty of Madrid; but they were received in a manner that irritated even his cold temper. He, in turn, provoked his antagonist, until a ridiculous exchange of defiances to personal combat passed between them. Meantime "Lautrec continued his operations, which promised to be more decisive. His army, which was now increased to 35,000 men, advanced by great marches towards Naples." The remains of the imperial army retreated, as he advanced, from Rome, where it had held riot for ten months, and took shelter behind the fortifications of the Neapolitan capital. Lautrec undertook (April, 1528) the siege of Naples, with the co-operation of the Genoese admiral, Doria, who blockaded its port. But he was neglected by his own frivolous king, and received little aid from the Pope, the king of England, or other confederates of the league. Moreover, Doria and the Genoese suffered treatment so insolent, oppressive and threatening, from the French court that the former opened negotiations with the emperor for a transfer of his services. "Charles, fully sensible of the importance of such an acquisition, granted him whatever terms he required. {1842} Doria sent back his commission, together with the collar of St. Michael, to Francis, and, hoisting the imperial colours, sailed with all his galleys towards Naples, not to block up the harbour of that unhappy city, as he had formerly engaged, but to bring them protection and deliverance. His arrival opened the communication with the sea, and restored plenty in Naples, which was now reduced to the last extremity; and the French … were soon reduced to great straits for want of provisions." With the heat of summer came pestilence; Lautrec died, and the wasted French army, attempting to retreat, was forced to lay down its arms and march under guard to the frontiers of France. "The loss of Genoa followed immediately upon the ruin of the army in Naples." Doria took possession of the town; the French garrison in the citadel capitulated (September 12, 1528), and the citadel was destroyed. "It was now in Doria's power to have rendered himself the sovereign of his country, which he had so happily delivered from oppression." But he magnanimously refused any preeminence among his fellow citizens. "Twelve persons were elected to new-model the constitution of the republic. The influence of Doria's virtue and example communicated itself to his countrymen; the factions which had long torn and ruined the state seemed to be forgotten; prudent precautions were taken to prevent their reviving; and the same form of government which hath subsisted with little variation since that time in Genoa, was established with universal applause." In Lombardy, the French army, under St. Pol, was surprised, defeated and ruined at Landriano (June, 1529), as completely as the army in Naples had been a few months before. All parties were now desirous of peace, but feared to seem too eager in making overtures. Two women took the negotiations in hand and carried them to a conclusion. "These were Margaret of Austria, dutchess dowager of Savoy, the emperor's aunt, and Louise, Francis's mother. They agreed on an interview at Cambray, and, being lodged in two adjoining houses, between which a communication was opened, met together without ceremony or observation, and held daily conferences, to which no person whatever was admitted." The result was a treaty signed August 5, 1529, known as the Peace of Cambray, or "the Ladies' Peace," or "Peace of the Dames." By its terms, Francis was to pay 2,000,000 crowns for the ransom of his sons; restore such towns as he still held in the Milanese; resign and renounce his pretensions to Naples, Milan, Genoa, and every other place beyond the Alps, as well as to Flanders and Artois; and consummate his marriage with the emperor's sister, Eleanora. On the other hand, the emperor only agreed not to press his claims on Burgundy, for the present, but reserved them, in full force. Another treaty, that of Barcelona, had already, in 1529, been concluded between the emperor and the pope. The former gave up the papal states which he occupied, and agreed to reëstablish the dominion of the Medici in Florence; besides giving his natural daughter in marriage to Alexander, the head of that family. In return he received the investiture of Naples, absolution for all concerned in the plundering of Rome, and the grant to himself and his brother of a fourth of the ecclesiastical revenues throughout their dominions.

W. Robertson, History of the Reign of Charles V., books 4-5.

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 28.

C. Coignat, Francis I. and his Times, chapter 9.

G. B. Malleson, Studies from Genoese History, chapter 1.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1528-1570. Naples under the Spanish Viceroys. Ravages of the Turks along the coast. Successful revolt against the Inquisition. Unsuccessful French invasion under Guise.

"After the memorable and unfortunate expedition of Lautrec, in 1528, Philibert of Chalons, Prince of Orange, who commanded the Imperial army, exercised the severest vengeance [in Naples] on the persons and estates of all those nobles who had joined the French, or who appeared to demonstrate any attachment towards that nation. … These multiplied … acts of oppression received no effectual redress during the short administration [1529-1532] of Cardinal Colonna, who succeeded to the Prince of Orange. … In the place of Cardinal Colonna was substituted Don Pedro de Toledo, who governed Naples with almost unlimited powers, during the space of near 21 years. His viceroyalty, which forms a memorable Epocha in the annals of the country, demands and fixes attention. We are impressed with horror at finding, by his own confession, … that during the progress of his administration, he put to death near 18,000 persons, by the hand of the executioner. Yet a fact still more extraordinary is that Giannoné, himself a Neapolitan, and one of the ablest as well as most impartial historians whom the 18th century has produced, not only acquits, but even commends Toledo's severity, as equally wholesome and necessary," on account of the terrible lawlessness and disorder which he found in the country. "The inflexible and stern character of the viceroy speedily redressed these grievances, and finally restored order in the capital. … All the provinces experienced equal attention, and became the objects of his personal inspection. The unprotected coasts of Calabria and of Apulia, subject to the continual devastation of the Turks, who landed from their gallies, were fortified with towers and beacons to announce the enemy's approach. … Repeated attempts were made by Solyman II., Emperor of the Turks, either alone or in conjunction with the fleets of France, to effect the conquest of Naples, during this period: but the exertions of Toledo were happily attended with success in repulsing the Turkish invaders. … In no part of the middle ages … were the coasts of Naples and Sicily so frequently plundered, ravaged, and desolated, as at this period. Thousands of persons of both sexes, and of all conditions, were carried off by Barbarossa, Dragut, Sinan, and the other Bashaws, or admirals of the Porte. Not content with landing on the shores and ravaging the provinces, their squadrons perpetually appeared in sight of Naples; laid waste the islands of Ischia and Procida, situate in its immediate vicinity; attacked the towns of Pouzzoli and Baiæ; and committed every outrage of wanton barbarity. … The invasion of 1552, when Dragut blocked up the harbour of Naples, with 150 large gallies, during near four weeks, spread still greater consternation; and if the fleet of France had arrived, as had been concerted, it is more than probable that the city must have fallen into their hands. But the delays of Henry II., Solyman's ally, proved its preservation. The Turkish admiral, corrupted by a present of 200,000 ducats, which the Viceroy found means of conveying to him, retired and made sail for Constantinople. … {1843} The administration of Toledo … was … completely subverted from the moment that he attempted [1546] to introduce the Inquisition. … The Neapolitans, patient under every other species of oppression, instantly revolted. … They even forgot, in the general terror, the distinction of ranks; and the Barons united with their fellow-citizens to oppose that formidable tribunal. The Viceroy, returning to the capital, reinforced by 3,000 veteran Spaniards, determined nevertheless, to support the measure. Hostilities took place, and the city, during near three months, was abandoned to anarchy, while the inhabitants, having invested the castle, besieged their governor. … The Emperor, convinced by experience of the impracticability of success in his attempt, at length desisted." Toledo died in 1553, and "was succeeded by the Cardinal Pacheco, as Viceroy; and the abdication of Charles V., in the following year, devolved on his son Philip II. the sovereignty of Naples. Alarmed at the preparations made by Henry II., King of France, in conjunction with Paul IV., who had newly ascended the papal throne, Philip dispatched Ferdinand, Duke of Alva, to the aid of his Neapolitan subjects; and to the vigorous measures embraced by him on his arrival was due the safety of the kingdom.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

… The administration of the Duke of Alcala, to whom Philip delegated the supreme power soon after the recall of Alva [1558], lasted near 12 years, and was marked by almost every species of calamity."

Sir N. W. Wraxall, History of France, 1574-1610, chapter 9 (volume 2).

"The march of the Mareschal of Lautrec was the last important attempt of the French to reconquer Naples. … Spain remained in possession of this beautiful country for two centuries. … Their [the Spaniards'] ascendancy was owing as well to an iron discipline as to that inveterate character of their race, the firmness of purpose which had gradually developed itself in the long struggle for the country which they wrenched inch by inch from their tenacious enemies. The Neapolitans found that they had in the Spaniards different rulers from the French."

A. de Reumont, The Carafas of Maddaloni: Naples under Spanish Dominion, book 1.

ITALY: A. D. 1529. Siege of Florence by the Imperial forces. Reinstatement of the Medici.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569.

ITALY: A. D. 1530-1600. Under the Spanish domination, and the Papacy of the Counter-Reformation. The Inquisition. The Jesuits. The Vice-regal rule. Deplorable state of the country.

"It will be useful, at this point, to recapitulate the net results of Charles's administration of Italian affairs in 1530. The kingdom of the Two Sicilies, with the island of Sardinia and the Duchy of Milan, became Spanish provinces, and were ruled henceforth by viceroys. The House of Este was confirmed in the Duchy of Ferrara, including Modena and Reggio. The Duchies of Savoy and Mantua and the Marquisate of Montferrat, which had espoused the Spanish cause, were undisturbed. Genoa and Siena, both of them avowed allies of Spain, the former under Spanish protection, the latter subject to Spanish coercion, remained with the name and empty privileges of republics. Venice had made her peace with Spain, and though she was still strong enough to pursue an independent policy, she showed as yet no inclination, and had, indeed, no power, to stir up enemies against the Spanish autocrat. The Duchy of Urbino, recognised by Rome and subservient to Spanish influence, was permitted to exist. The Papacy once more assumed a haughty tone, relying on the firm alliance struck with Spain. This league, as years went by, was destined to grow still closer, still more fruitful of results. Florence alone had been excepted from the articles of peace. It was still enduring the horrors of the memorable siege when Clement left Bologna at the end of May. … Finally, on August 12, the town capitulated. Alessandro de' Medici, who had received the title of Duke of Florence from Charles at Bologna, took up his residence there in July 1531, and held the State by help of Spanish mercenaries under the command of Alessandro Vitelli. … Though the people endured far less misery from foreign armies in the period between 1530 and 1600 than they had done in the period from 1494 to 1527, yet the state of the country grew ever more and more deplorable. This was due in the first instance to the insane methods of taxation adopted by the Spanish viceroys, who held monopolies of corn and other necessary commodities in their hands, and who invented imposts for the meanest articles of consumption. Their example was followed by the Pope and petty princes. … The settlement made by Charles V. in 1530, and the various changes which took place in the duchies between that date and the end of the century, had then the effect of rendering the Papacy and Spain omnipotent in Italy. … What they only partially effected in Europe at large, by means of S. Bartholomew massacres, exterminations of Jews in Toledo and of Mussulmans in Granada, holocausts of victims in the Low Countries, wars against French Huguenots and German Lutherans, naval expeditions and plots against the state of England, assassinations of heretic princes, and occasional burning of free thinkers, they achieved with plenary success in Italy. … It is the tragic history of the eldest and most beautiful, the noblest and most venerable, the freest and most gifted of Europe's daughters, delivered over to the devilry that issued from the most incompetent and arrogantly stupid of the European sisterhood, and to the cruelty, inspired by panic, of an impious theocracy. When we use these terms to designate the Papacy of the Counter-Reformation, it is not that we forget how many of those Popes were men of blameless private life and serious views for Catholic Christendom. When we use these terms to designate the Spanish race in the sixteenth century, it is not that we are ignorant of Spanish chivalry and colonising enterprise, of Spanish romance, or of the fact that Spain produced great painters, great dramatists, and one great novelist in the brief period of her glory. We use them deliberately, however, in both cases; because the Papacy at this period committed itself to a policy of immoral, retrograde, and cowardly repression of the most generous of human impulses under the pressure of selfish terror; because the Spaniards abandoned themselves to a dark fiend of religious fanaticism; because they were merciless in their conquests and unintelligent in their administration of subjugated provinces; because they glutted their lusts of avarice and hatred on industrious folk of other creeds within their borders; because they cultivated barren pride and self-conceit in social life; because at the great epoch of Europe's reawakening they chose the wrong side and adhered to it with fatal obstinacy. … {1844} After the year 1530 seven Spanish devils entered Italy. These were the devil of the Inquisition, with stake and torture-room, and war declared against the will and soul and heart and intellect of man; the devil of Jesuitry, with its sham learning, shameless lying, and casuistical economy of sins; the devil of vice-royal rule, with its life-draining monopolies and gross incapacity for government; the devil of an insolent soldiery, quartered on the people, clamorous for pay, outrageous in their lusts and violences; the devil of fantastical taxation, levying tolls upon the bare necessities of life, and drying up the founts of national well-being at their sources; the devil of petty-princedom, wallowing in sloth and cruelty upon a pinchbeck throne; the devil of effeminate hidalgoism, ruinous in expenditure, mean and grasping, corrupt in private life, in public ostentatious, vain of titles, cringing to its masters, arrogant to its inferiors. In their train these brought with them seven other devils, their pernicious offspring: idleness, disease, brigandage, destitution, ignorance, superstition, hypocritically sanctioned vice. These fourteen devils were welcomed, entertained, and voluptuously lodged in all the fairest provinces of Italy. The Popes opened wide for them the gates of outraged and depopulated Rome. … After a tranquil sojourn of some years in Italy, these devils had every where spread desolation and corruption. Broad regions, like the Patrimony of S. Peter and Calabria, were given over to marauding bandits; wide tracts of fertile country, like the Sienese Maremma, were abandoned to malaria; wolves prowled through empty villages round Milan; in every city the pestilence swept off its hundreds daily; manufactures, commerce, agriculture, the industries of town and rural district, ceased; the Courts swarmed with petty nobles, who vaunted paltry titles, and resigned their wives to cicisbei and their sons to sloth; art and learning languished; there was not a man who ventured to speak out his thought or write the truth; and over the Dead Sea of social putrefaction floated the sickening oil of Jesuitical hypocrisy."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Catholic Reaction, part 1, chapter 1.

ITALY: A. D. 1536-1544. French invasion of Piedmont. French and Turkish siege of Nice. Turkish ravages on the coast. The Treaty of Crespy.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.

ITALY: A. D. 1545-1556. Creation of the duchy of Parma and Placentia, under the rule of the House of Farnese.

See PARMA: A. D. 1545-1592.

ITALY: A. D. 1559-1580. End of the French occupation of Savoy and Piedmont. The notable reign of Emanuel Philibert.

See SAVOY AND PIEDMONT: A. D. 1559-1580; and FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

ITALY: A. D. 1559-1600. Peace without Prosperity. Foreign and domestic Despotism. Exhaustion and helplessness of the country.

"From the epoch of the treaty of Château Cambresis [1559] to the close of the 16th century, Italy remained, in one sense, in profound and uninterrupted peace. During this long period of 41 years, her provinces were neither troubled by a single invasion of foreign armies, nor by any hostilities of importance between her own feeble and nerveless powers. But this half century presented, nevertheless, anything rather than the aspect of public happiness and prosperity. Her wretched people enjoyed none of the real blessings of peace. Subject either to the oppressive yoke of their native despots, or to the more general influence of the arch-tyrant of Spain, they were abandoned to all the exactions of arbitrary government, and compelled to lavish their blood in foreign wars and in quarrels not their own. While France, torn by religious and civil dissensions, sank for a time from her political station among the powers of the continent, and was no longer capable of affording protection or exciting jealousy, Philip II. was left free to indulge in the peninsula all the obdurate tyranny of his nature. … The popes were interested in supporting his career of bigotry and religious persecution; the other powers of Italy crouched before him in abject submission. To feed the religious wars, in which he embarked as a principal or an accessory, in the endeavour to crush the protestant cause in France, in the Low Countries, and in Germany, he drained Italy of her resources in money and in men. … While the Italian soldiery fought with the courage of freemen, they continued the slaves of a despot, and while the Italian youth were consumed in transalpine warfare, their suffering country groaned under an iron yoke, and was abandoned a prey to the unresisted assaults of the infidels. Her coasts, left without troops, or defences in fortifications and shipping, were insulted and ravaged by the constant descents of the corsairs of Turkey and Barbary. Her maritime villages were burnt, her maritime population dragged off into slavery; and her tyrants, while they denied the people the power of defending themselves, were unable or careless also to afford them protection and safety."

G. Procter, History of Italy, chapter 9.

ITALY: A. D. 1569. Creation of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1502-1569.

ITALY: A. D. 1597. Annexation of Ferrara to the States of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.

ITALY: A. D. 1605-1607. Venice under the guidance of Fra Paolo Sarpi. Successful contest of the Republic with the Papacy.

See VENICE: A. D. 1606-1607; and PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.

ITALY: A. D. 1620-1626. The Valtelline War.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631. Disputed succession to the Duchy of Mantua. War of France with Spain, Savoy and the Emperor.

"About Christmas in the year 1627, Vincenzo II., Duke of Mantua, of the house of Gonzaga, died without issue. His next of kin, beyond all controversy, was Charles Gonzaga, Duke of Nevers, whose family had settled in France some fifty years before, and acquired by marriage the dukedoms of Nevers and Rethel. Although there was a jealousy on the part both of Austria and Spain that French influences should be introduced into Upper Italy, there seems to have been no intention, in the first instance, of depriving Charles of his Italian inheritance. … But … when the old Duke Vincenzo's days were evidently numbered, Charles's son, the young Duke of Rethel, by collusion with the citizens, arrived at Mantua to seize the throne which in a little while death would make vacant." {1845} At the same time, he took from a convent in the city a young girl who represented whatever claims might exist in the direct native line, and married her, the pope granting a dispensation. "Both the King of Spain and the Emperor … were incensed by conduct which both must needs have regarded as indicative of hostility, and the latter as an invasion of his feudal rights. Spain flew to arms at once. The emperor summoned the young duke before his tribunal, to answer the charges of having seized the succession without his investiture, and married his ward without his consent. … Charles, supported by the promises of Richelieu, refused to acknowledge the emperor's rights of superiority, or to submit to his jurisdiction."

B. Chapman, History of Gustavus Adolphus, chapter 8.

"The emperor … sequestered the disputed territory, and a Spanish army invaded Montferrat [embraced in the dominions of the Duke of Mantua] and besieged Casale, the capital. Such was the paramount importance attached by Richelieu to his principle of opposition to the house of Austria, that he induced Louis to cross the Alps in person with 36,000 men, in order to establish the Duke of Nevers in his new possessions. The king and the cardinal forced the pass of Susa in March, 1629, in spite of the Duke of Savoy, who was another competitor for Montferrat, and so decisive was the superiority of the French arms that the duke immediately afterward signed a treaty of peace and alliance with Louis, by which he undertook to procure the abandonment of the siege of Casale and the retreat of the Spaniards into their own territory. This engagement was fulfilled, and the Duke of Nevers took possession of his dominions without farther contest. But the triumph was too rapid and easy to be durable."

N. W. Jervis, Students' History of France, chapter 19.

"The Spaniards remained, however, in Milaness, ready to burst again upon the Duke of Mantua. The king was in a hurry to return to France, in order to finish the subjugation of the Reformers in the south, commanded by the Duke of Rohan. The cardinal placed little or no reliance upon the Duke of Savoy. … A league … was formed between France, the republic of Venice, the Duke of Mantua, and the Duke of Savoy, for the defence of Italy in case of fresh aggression on the part of the Spaniards; and the king, who had just concluded peace with England, took the road back to France. Scarcely had the cardinal joined him before Privas when an Imperialist army advanced into the Grisons and, supported by the celebrated Spanish general Spinola, laid siege to Mantua. Richelieu did not hesitate: he entered Piedmont in the month of March, 1630, to march before long on Pignerol, an important place commanding the passage of the Alps; it, as well as the citadel, was carried in a few days. … The Duke of Savoy was furious, and had the soldiers who surrendered Pignerol cut in pieces. The king [Louis XIII.] had put himself in motion to join his army. … The inhabitants of Chambéry opened their gates to him; Annecy and Montmélian succumbed after a few days' siege; Maurienne in its entirety made its submission, and the king fixed his quarters there, whilst the cardinal pushed forward to Casale [the siege of which had been resumed by Spinola] with the main body of the army. Rejoicings were still going on for a success gained before Veillane over the troops of the Duke of Savoy, when news arrived of the capture of Mantua by the Imperialists. This was the finishing blow to the ambitious and restless spirit of the Duke of Savoy. He saw Mantua in the hands of the Spaniards, 'who never give back aught of what falls into their power' … ; it was all hope lost of an exchange which might have given him back Savoy; he took to his bed and died on the 26th of July, 1630, telling his son that peace must be made on any terms whatever." A truce was arranged, followed by negotiations at Ratisbon, and Casale was evacuated by both parties—the Spaniards having had possession of the city, while the citadel was held by the French. "It was only in the month of September, 1631, that the states of Savoy and Mantua were finally evacuated by the hostile troops. Pignerol had been given up to the new Duke of Savoy, but a secret agreement had been entered into between that prince and France: French soldiers remained concealed in Pignerol; and they retook possession of the place in the name of the king, who had purchased the town and its territory, to secure himself a passage into Italy. … The affairs of the emperor in Germany were in too bad a state for him to rekindle war, and France kept Pignerol."

F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 41.

"The peace left all parties very nearly in the condition in which they were when the war began; the chief loser was the emperor, who was now compelled to acknowledge De Nevers as Duke of Mantua and Montserrat; and the chief gainer was the Duke of Savoy, whose territories were enlarged by the addition of Alba, Trino, and some portions of the territory of Montserrat which lay nearest to his Piedmontese dominions. France; too, made some permanent acquisitions to compensate her for the cost of the war. She eluded the stipulation which bound her to evacuate Casal, and Victor Amedée subsequently suffered her to retain both that fortress and Pignerol, such permission, as was generally believed, … having furnished the secret reason which influenced Richelieu to consent to the duke's obtaining the portion of Montserrat already mentioned, the cardinal thus making the Duke of Mantua furnish the equivalent for the acquisitions made by Louis."

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, chapter 7 (volume 1).

ITALY: A. D. 1631. Annexation of Urbino to the States of the Church.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.

ITALY: A. D. 1635. Italian alliances of Richelieu against the Spaniards in Milan.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659. Invasion of Milanese by French and Italian armies. Civil war and foreign war in Savoy and Piedmont. The extraordinary siege of Turin. Treaty of the Pyrenees. Restoration of territory to Savoy.

"Richelieu … having obtained the alliance of the Dukes of Savoy, Parma, and Mantua, and having secured the neutrality of the Republics of Venice and Genoa, now bent all his efforts to expel the Spaniards from Milan, which was at that time but weakly defended. … In 1635, a French army of 15,000 men was accordingly assembled in Dauphiny, and placed under the command of Mareschal Crequi. Having crossed the Alps, it formed a junction with 8,000 troops under the Duke of Parma, and 12,000 under the Duke of Savoy, to whom the supreme command of this formidable army of 35,000 men was entrusted. {1846} Such a force, if properly employed, ought to have proved sufficient to overwhelm the Dutchy of Milan, in its present unprotected condition. … But the confederates were long detained by idle disputes among themselves, their licentiousness and love of plunder." When they did advance into Milanese, their campaign was ineffective, and they finally "separated with mutual disgust," but "kept the field, ravaging the open and fertile plains of Milan. They likewise took possession of several towns, particularly Bremi, on the Po. … On hearing of the distress of Milan, the King of Spain took immediate steps for the relief of that bulwark of his Italian power. In 1636 he appointed to its government Diego Guzman, Marques of Leganez, who was a near relative of Olivarez. … He had not long entered on the government intrusted to him when he succeeded in expelling the enemy from every spot in Milan, with exception of Bremi, which they still retained. Milan having been thus delivered, Leganez transferred the theatre of war to the States of the Duke of Parma, and completely desolated those fertile regions," compelling the Duke to renounce his French alliance (1637). "The Duke of Savoy, Victor Amadeus, did not long survive these events; and it was strongly suspected, both in Spain and Italy, though probably on no just grounds, that he had been poisoned. … The demise of the Duke of Mantua occurred nearly about the same period; and on the decease of these two princes, the Court of Spain used every exertion to detach their successors from the French confederacy. Its efforts succeeded, at least to a certain extent, with the Dutchess-dowager of Mantua. … But the Dutchess of Savoy, … being the sister of Louis XIII., could not easily be drawn off from the French interests. Olivarez [the Spanish minister], despairing to gain this princess, excited by his intrigues the brothers of the late Duke [Cardinal Maurice and Prince Thomas] to dispute with her the title to the regency." Leganez, now (1638) laid siege to Bremi, and Marshal Crequi, in attempting to relieve the place, was killed by a cannon shot. "By the loss of Bremi, the French were deprived of the last receptacle for their supplies or forces in the Dutchy of Milan; and in consequence of the death of Crequi, they had now no longer any chief of their own nation in Italy. The few French nobility who were still in the army returned to their own country, and the soldiery dispersed into Montferrat and Piedmont. Leganez, availing himself of this favourable posture of affairs, marched straightway into Piedmont, at the head of an army of 20,000 men. … He first laid siege to Vercelli, which, from its vicinity to Milan, had always afforded easy access for the invasion of that dutchy, by the French and Savoyards." A new French army, of 13,000 men, under Cardinal La Valette, was sent to the relief of the place, but did not save it from surrender. "After the capture of Vercelli, the light troops of Leganez ravaged the principality of Piedmont as far as the gates of Turin."

J. Dunlop, Memoirs of Spain, from 1621 to 1700, volume 1, chapter 4.

Fabert and Turenne were now sent from France to the assistance of La Valette, "and soon changed the aspect of affairs. Turenne aided powerfully in driving back Leganez and Prince Thomas from Turin, in seizing Chivasso and in organizing a decisive success." In November, 1639, the French, through want of provisions, were forced to retreat to Carignano, repelling an attack made upon them in the course of the retreat. The command was now handed over to Turenne, "with instructions to revictual the citadel of Turin, which was defended by French troops against Prince Thomas, who had gained most of the town. Turenne succeeded … in conveying food and munitions into the citadel. In the following spring d'Harcourt [resuming command] undertook to relieve Casale, which belonged to the Duke of Mantua. … The place was besieged by Leganez." The attempt succeeded, the besieging army was beaten, and the siege raised. "After the relief of Casale d'Harcourt resolved, on the advice of Turenne, to besiege Turin. The investment was made on the 10th May, 1640. This siege offered a curious spectacle; the citadel which the French held was besieged by Prince Thomas, who held the town. He himself was besieged by the French army, which in its turn was besieged in its lines of circumvallation by the Spanish army of Leganez. The place capitulated on the 17th September. … Prince Thomas surrendered; Leganez recrossed the Po; Marie Christine [the Dowager-Duchess] re-entered Turin; and d'Harcourt, being recalled to France by the cardinal, left the command of the army to Turenne."

H. M. Hozier, Turenne, chapter 2.

"The fall of Turin did not put an end to the civil war, but its main exploits were limited to the taking of Cuneo by Harcourt (September 15th, 1641), … and of Revel, which was reduced by the Piedmontese troops who fought on the French side. … In the meantime the Regent, no less than her opponents, began to grow weary of the burdensome protection of their respective allies. … Under such circumstances, a reconciliation between the hostile parties became practicable, and was indeed effected on the 24th of July, 1642. The Princes were admitted to a share of the Regent's power, and from that time they joined the French standard, and took from the Spaniards most of the places they had themselves placed in their hands. … In the meanwhile the great agitator of Europe, Richelieu, had died (1642), and had been followed by the King, Louis XIII., five months later. … The struggle between the two great rival powers, France and Spain, scarcely interrupted by the celebrated peace of Westphalia, which put an end to the Thirty Years' War in the North, in 1648, continued throughout the greatest part of this period; but the rapid decline of Spain, the factions of Alessio in Sicily and of Massaniello in Naples, as much paralysed the efforts of the Court of Madrid as the disorders of the Fronde weakened that of Paris. The warlike operations in North Italy were languid and dull. The taking of Valenza by the French (September 3rd, 1656) is the greatest event on record, and even that [was] void of results. By the treaty of the Pyrenees (November 17th, 1059) Savoy was restored to her possessions, and Vercelli was evacuated by the Spaniards. The citadel of Turin had been given up by the French two years before, owing to the influence of Mazarin, who married on that occasion his niece Olimpia Mancini to Eugene Maurice, son of Thomas, Prince of Carignano, and first cousin to Charles Emanuel II. From that union, it is well known, was born in Paris, in 1663, Prince Eugene of Savoy. {1847} The French nation were highly displeased at the loss of the Turin citadel, and never forgave the Cardinal this mere act of just and tardy restitution. Pinerola and Perosa, however, still remained in their hands, and placed the Court of Turin entirely at their discretion. During all this lapse of years, and until the latter end of the century, the history of Piedmont presents but a melancholy blank."

A. Gallenga, History of Piedmont, volume 3, chapter 2.

ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654. French hostility to the Pope. Siege of Orbitello. Masaniello's revolt at Naples. French intrigue and failures.

"The war [of France and Spain] in Italy had for some years languished, but hostility to the Pope [on the election of Innocent X., which Cardinal Mazarin, then supreme in France, had opposed] stirred it again into life. New vessels were fitted out for the navy, and large preparations were made for the invasion of Italy. … On April 26, 1646, the expedition set sail, and on the 9th of May it cast anchor off the important city of Orbitello. The fleet consisted of 156 sail, and was expected to land 10,000 men, and Mazarin wrote that all Italy was in terror. The ships were commanded by the Duke of Brézé, and no more skilful or gallant leader could have been found. … The command of the land forces was, however, entrusted to a leader whose deficiencies more than counterbalanced Brézé's skill. Mazarin desired an Italian prince to lead his expedition, and Prince Thomas of Savoy had been chosen for the command. … Fearing that disease would come with the hot weather, Mazarin urged Prince Thomas to press forward with the siege. But the most simple advances seemed beyond his skill. … A severe misfortune to the navy made the situation worse. In a sharp and successful engagement with the Spanish fleet, a cannon ball struck and killed the Duke of Brézé. His death was more disastrous than would have been the loss of 20 sail. The French fleet retired to Provence and left the sea open to the Spanish. Sickness was fast reducing the army on land, and on July 18th Prince Thomas raised the siege, which was no further advanced than when it was begun, and led back the remains of his command to Piedmont. … So mortifying an end to this expensive venture only strengthened Mazarin's resolution to make his power felt in Italy. The battered ships and fever-wasted soldiers were scarcely back in Provence, when the minister began to prepare a second expedition for the same end. … By September a fleet of 200 sail, with an army of 8,000 men commanded by the Marshals of La Meilleraie and Du Plessis, was under way. The expedition was conducted with skill and success. Orbitello was not again attacked, but Porto Longone, on the island of Elba, and Piombino, on the mainland, both places of much strategic importance, were captured after brief sieges. With this result came at once the change in the feelings of Innocent X. for which Mazarin had hoped," and certain objects of the latter's desire—including a cardinal's hat for his brother Michael—were brought within his reach. His attention was now turned to the more southerly portion of the peninsula. "During the expedition to Orbitello in 1646, Mazarin had closely watched Naples, whose coming revolution he foresaw. The ill-suppressed discontents of the city now showed themselves in disturbances, sudden and erratic as the eruptions of Vesuvius, and they offered to France an opportunity for seizing the richest of the remaining possessions of Spain. After the vicissitudes of centuries, Naples and Sicily were now subject to the Spanish crown. They were governed by a viceroy, and were subjected to the drain of men and money which was the result of Spain's necessities and the characteristic of her rule. Burdened with taxation, they complained that their viceroy, the Duke of Arcos, was sending to Spain money raised solely for their own defence. The imposition of a duty on fruits, in a country where fruit formed a cheap article of diet for the poor, and where almost all were poor, kindled the long smouldering discontent. Under the leadership of a fisherman [Tommaso Aniello], nicknamed Masaniello, the people of Naples in 1647 rose in revolt. Springing from utter obscurity, this young man of twenty-seven, poor and illiterate, became powerful almost in a day. While the Duke of Arcos hid himself away from the revolt, Masaniello was made Captain-General of Naples. So sudden a change turned his head. At first he had been bold, popular, and judicious. He sought only, he said, to deliver the people from their taxes, and when that was done, he would return again to selling soles and red mullets. But political delirium seized him when he reached an elevation which, for him, was as dizzy as the throne of the Roman emperors, and like some who reached that terrible eminence, his brain was crazed by the bewilderment and ecstasy of power. He made wild and incoherent speeches. He tore his garments, crying out against popular ingratitude, attacking groups of passers-by, riding his horse wildly through the multitude, and striking with his lance to the right and left. The populace wearied of its darling. Exalted to power on July 7th, he was murdered on the 16th, with the approval of those who had worshipped him a week before. But the revolution did not perish with him. Successive chiefs were chosen and deposed by a fickle people. When the insurrection was active, the representatives of Spain promised untaxed fruits and the privileges allowed by Charles V., and they revoked their promises when it appeared to subside. In the meantime, Mazarin watched the movement, uncertain as to the course he should pursue. … While the minister hesitated, the chance was seized by one who was never accused of too great caution." This was the Duke of Guise—the fifth Henry of that Dukedom—a wild, madcap young nobleman, who accepted an invitation from the Neapolitan insurgents to become their chief. Guise landed at Naples on the 15th of November, 1647, with half a dozen attendants, and a month later he was followed by a French fleet. But the latter did nothing, and Guise was helplessly without means. "The truth was that Mazarin, even if desirous of crippling the Spaniards, was very averse to assisting Guise. He believed that the duke either desired to form a republic, of which he should be chief, or a monarchy, of which he should be king, and neither plan was agreeable to the cardinal." At the end of a fortnight the fleet sailed away. Guise held his ground as the leader of the revolt until the following April, when certain of the Neapolitan patriots, corrupted by the enemy, betrayed the city into the hands of the Spaniards. {1848} "Guise endeavored, with a handful of followers, to escape towards Capua, but they were captured by a detachment of Spaniards. … By the petition of powerful friends, and by the avowal of France, Guise was saved from the public execution which some of his enemies demanded, but he was presently taken to Spain, and there was kept a prisoner during four years." Meantime, Mazarin had prepared another expedition, which appeared before Naples in the summer of 1648, but only to discover that the opportunity for deriving any advantage from the popular discontent in that city was past. "Receiving no popular aid, the expedition, after some ineffective endeavors, was abandoned." Six years afterwards, in 1654, Mazarin sent a third expedition to Naples, and entrusted it to the command of the Duke of Guise, who had lately been released from his captivity in Spain. "Guise hoped that the Neapolitans would rise in revolt when it was known that their former leader was so near, but not a person in the city showed any desire to start a movement in behalf of the Duke of Guise. The Spanish met him with superior forces." After some slight encounters the expedition sailed back to France.

J. B. Perkins, France under Mazarin, chapter 8 (volume 1), and chapter 16 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: A. De Reumont, The Carafas of Maddaloni: Naples under Spanish Dominion, book 3.

F. Midon, Rise and Fall of Masaniello.

Mrs. H. R. St. John, Masaniello of Naples.

H. G. Smith, Romance of History, chapter 1.

ITALY: A. D. 1648. The Peace of Westphalia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713. Savoy and Piedmont. The War of the Spanish Succession. The Peace of Utrecht.

"Compelled to take part, with one of the contending parties [in the War of the Spanish Succession—see SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700, and 1701-1702], Victor [Duke of Savoy] would have been prompted by his interest to an alliance with Austria; but he was beset on all sides by the combined forces of France and Spain, and was all the more at their mercy as Louis XIV. had (April 5th, 1701) obtained from Ferdinand Gonzaga of Mantua permission to garrison his capital, in those days already one of the strongest places in Italy. The Duke of Savoy had already, in 1697, married his daughter, Adelaide, to one of Louis's grandsons, the Duke of Burgundy; he now gave his younger daughter, Mary Louise, to Burgundy's brother, the new King of Spain (September 11th, 1701), and took the field as French commander-in-chief. He was opposed by his own cousin, Prince Eugene, at the head of the Imperial armies. The war in Lombardy was carried on with some remissness, partly owing to the natural repugnance or irresolution of the Duke of Savoy, partly to the suspicion with which, on that very account, he was looked upon by Catinat and Vaudemont, the French and Spanish commanders under him. The King, in an evil hour, removed his able marshal, Catinat, and substituted for him Villeroi, a carpet knight and court warrior, who committed one fault after another, allowed himself to be beaten by Eugene at Chiari (September 1st), and to be surprised and taken prisoner at Cremona (1702, January 21st), to the infinite relief of his troops. Vendôme restored the fortunes of the French, and a very brilliant but undecisive action was fought at Luzzara (August 15th), after which Prince Eugene was driven from the neighbourhood of Mantua, and fell back towards the mountains of Tyrol. With the success of the French their arrogance increased, and with their arrogance the disgust and ill-will of Victor Amadeus." The Duke withdrew from the camp and began to listen to overtures from the Powers in the Grand Alliance. "Report of the secret intercourse of the Duke with Austrian agents reached Louis XIV., who sent immediate orders to Vendôme to secure and disarm the Piedmontese soldiers (3,800 to 6,000 in number) who were fighting under French standards at Mantua. This was achieved by treachery, at San Benedetto, on the 29th of September, 1703. An attempt to seize the Duke himself, whilst hunting near Turin, miscarried. Savoy retaliated by the arrest of the French and Spanish ambassadors, and war was declared (October 5th). The moment was ill-chosen. Victor had barely 4,000 men under his orders. The whole of Savoy was instantly overrun; and in Piedmont Vercelli, Ivrea, Verrua, as well as Susa, Bard, and Pinerolo, and even Chivasso, fell into the enemy's hands during the campaigns of 1704 and 1705. In the ensuing year the tide of invasion reached Nice and Villafranca; nothing was left to Victor Amadeus but Cuneo and Turin, and the victorious French armies appeared at last under the very walls of the capital (March, 1706). The war had, however, been waged with different results beyond the Alps, where the allies had crushed the French at Blenheim (1704) and at Ramillies (1705). One of the heroes of those great achievements, Prince Eugene, now hastened to the rescue of his cousin. He met with a severe check at Cassano (August 16th, 1705), and again at Calcinato (April 19th, 1706); but his skilful antagonist, Vendôme, was called away to Flanders, and Prince Eugene so out-manœuvred his successors as to be able to join Victor at Turin. The French had begun the siege of this place on the 13th of May, 1706. They had between 50,000 and 60,000 men, and 170 pieces of artillery with them." When Prince Eugene, early in September, reached the neighborhood of Turin, he concerted with Victor Amadeus an attack on the investing army which destroyed it completely. "Its relics withdrew in awful disorder towards Pinerolo, pursued not only by the victorious troops but also by the peasantry, who, besides attachment to their princes, obeyed in this instance an instinct of revenge against the French, who had barbarously used them. Out of 50,000 or 60,000 men who had sat down before Turin in March, hardly 20,000 recrossed the Alps in September. Three of the French generals lay dead on the field; … 6,000 prisoners were marched through the streets of the liberated town, and 55 French banners graced the main altar of the cathedral. In the following year, Victor and Eugene, greatly against their inclination, were induced by the allies to undertake an expedition against Toulon, which, like all previous invasions of Provence, led to utter discomfiture, and the loss of 10,000 combatants (1707, July 1st to September 1st). An attack upon Briançon, equally undertaken against the sound judgment of the Duke of Savoy, in 1708, led to no better results; but Savoy won back Exilles, Perosa, Fenestrelles, and, one by one, all the redoubts with which during those wars the Alps were bristling. {1849} The war slackened in Italy, and the fates of Europe were decided in the Netherlands. … By the Peace of Utrecht [A. D. 1713] France renounced to Savoy all the invaded territories, and, besides, the valleys of Oulx, Cesanne, Bardonneche, and Castel Delfino, ancient possessions of Dauphiny, east of the Alps, from the 12th century, whilst, for her own part, Savoy gave up the western valley of Barcellonette; thus the limits between the two nations (with the exception of Savoy and Nice) were at last fixed on the mountain-crest, at 'the parting of the waters.' By virtue of an agreement signed with Austria, November 8th, 1703, the whole of Montferrat, as well as Alessandria, Valenza, Lomellina, and Val Sesia, dependencies of the duchy of Milan, and the imperial fiefs in the Langhe (province of Alba), were ceded to Savoy."

A. Gallenga, History of Piedmont, volume 3, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: Colonel G. B. Malleson, Prince Eugene of Savoy, chapters 5, and 7-9.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapters 5-6.

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapters 68, 69, 73-75, 77 (volume 2-3).

See, also, UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

ITALY: A. D. 1713-1714. Milan, Naples and Sardinia ceded to the House of Austria and Sicily to the Duke of Savoy.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735. Ambitions of Elizabeth Farnese, the Spanish queen. The Austro-Spanish conflict. The Quadruple Alliance. Acquisition of Naples by the Spanish Bourbons.

By the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht, Philip V. of Spain was left with no dominions in Italy, the Italian possessions of the Spanish monarchy having been transferred to Austria. Philip might have accepted this arrangement without demur. Not so his wife—"Elizabeth Farnese, a lady of the Italian family for whom the Duchy of Parma had been created by the Pope. The crown of Spain was settled on her step-son. For her own child the ambitious queen desired the honours of a crown. Cardinal Alberoni, a reckless and ambitious ecclesiastic, was the minister of the Spanish court. Under his advice and instigated by the queen, Philip claimed the possessions in Italy, which in the days of his grandfather had belonged to the Spanish crown. When his title to that crown was admitted, he denied the right of the other powers of Europe to alienate from it its possessions. This was not all: in right of his queen he claimed the duchies of Parma and of Tuscany. She determined to recover for him all the Italian possessions of the Spanish crown, and to add to them the duchies of Parma and Tuscany. The Duke of Parma was old and childless. The extinction of the reigning line of the Medici was near. Cosmo di Medici, the reigning sovereign, was old. His only son, Jean Gaston, was not likely to leave heirs. To Parma Elizabeth advanced her claims as heiress of the family of Farnese; to Tuscany she asserted a more questionable title in right of a descent from the family of Medici. These duchies she demanded for her son, Don Carlos, in whose behalf she was ready to waive her own claims. The success of these demands would have given to the Spanish monarchy even greater power than it had before enjoyed. To Naples, Sicily, and Milan, would have been added the territories of Parma and Tuscany. All Europe denounced the ambitious projects of Alberoni as entirely inconsistent with that balance of power which it had then become a political superstition to uphold. Philip's French relatives were determined in opposition to his claims; and to resist them the quadruple alliance was formed between Holland, England, France and the emperor. The parties to this alliance offered to the Spanish Bourbons that the emperor should settle on Don Carlos the reversion to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany on their lapsing to him by the failure of the reigning families without heirs. These proposals were rejected, and it was not until the Spanish court found the combination of four powerful monarchs too strong for them, that they reluctantly acceded to the terms of the Quadruple Alliance, and accepted for Don Carlos the promised reversion of Parma and Tuscany. To induce the emperor to accede to this arrangement the Duke of Savoy was compelled to surrender to him his newly-acquired kingdom of Sicily, receiving instead the island of Sardinia with its kingly title. It is as kings of Sardinia that the princes of Savoy have since been known in European history. The treaty of the quadruple alliance was thus the second by which at this period the European powers attempted to arrange the affairs of Italy. This treaty left the house of Austria in possession of Sicily and Naples. It was assented to by Spain in 1720. European complications unconnected with Italy produced new wars and a new treaty; and the treaty of Seville in 1724, followed by one entered into at Vienna two years later, confirmed Don Carlos in the duchy of Parma, of which, on the death of the last of the Farnese in 1734, he entered into possession. A dispute as to the election of a king of Poland gave the Spanish court an opportunity of once more attempting the resumption of the Neapolitan dominions. Don Carlos, the second son of Philip and Elizabeth, was now just grown to man's estate. His father placed in his hand the sword which he himself had received from Louis XIV. Don Carlos was but seventeen years old when he took possession of his sovereignty of Parma. In the same year [1734] he was called from it to invade the Sicilian dominions of Austria. He conquered in succession the continental territories, and the island of Sicily; and on the 15th of June, 1734, he was proclaimed as King of the Two Sicilies. The war of the Polish Succession was ended in the following year by a peace, the preliminaries of which were signed at Vienna. In this treaty an entirely new arrangement of Italian affairs was introduced. The rights of Don Carlos to the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily were recognised. Parma was surrendered to the emperor; and, lastly, the duchy of Tuscany was disposed of to a new claimant [Francis of Lorraine] for the honours of an Italian prince."

I. Butt, History of Italy, volume 1, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: E. Armstrong, Elisabeth Farnese, chapters 2-10.

P. Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, 1734-1856, book 1, chapter 1-2.

See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; and FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

ITALY: A. D. 1719. The Emperor and the Duke of Savoy exchange Sardinia for Sicily.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725.

ITALY: A. D. 1733-1735. Franco-Austrian War. Invasion of the Milanese by the French. Naples and Sicily occupied by the Spaniards and erected into a kingdom for Don Carlos.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

{1850}

ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743. The War of the Austrian Succession: Ambitious undertakings of Spain.

"The struggle between England and Spain had altogether merged in the great European war, and the chief efforts of the Spaniards were directed against the Austrian dominions in Italy.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.

The kingdom of Naples, which had passed under Austrian rule during the war of the [Spanish] Succession, had, as we have seen, been restored to the Spanish line in the war which ended in 1740, and Don Carlos, who ruled it, was altogether subservient to Spanish policy. The Duke of Lorraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, was sovereign of Tuscany; and the Austrian possessions consisted of the Duchy of Milan, and the provinces of Mantua and Placentia. They were garrisoned at the opening of the war by only 15,000 men, and their most dangerous enemy was the King of Sardinia, who had gradually extended his dominions into Lombardy, and whose army was, probably, the largest and most efficient in Italy. 'The Milanese,' his father is reported to have said, 'is like an artichoke, to be eaten leaf by leaf,' and the skill and perseverance with which for many generations the House of Savoy pursued that policy, have in our own day had their reward. Spanish troops had landed at Naples as early as November 1741. The King of Sardinia, the Prince of Modena, and the Republic of Genoa were on the same side. Venice was completely neutral, Tuscany was compelled to declare herself so, and a French army was soon to cross the Alps. The King of Sardinia, however, at this critical moment, was alarmed by the ambitious projects openly avowed by the Spaniards, and he was induced by English influence to change sides. He obtained the promise of certain territorial concessions from Austria, and of an annual subsidy of £200,000 from England; and on these conditions he suddenly marched with an army of 30,000 men to the support of the Austrians. An the plans of the confederates were disconcerted by this defection. The Spaniards went into winter quarters near Bologna in October, fought an unsuccessful battle at Campo Santo in the following February [1743], and then retired to Rimini, leaving Lombardy in complete tranquillity. The British fleet in the Mediterranean had been largely strengthened by Carteret, and it did good service to the cause. It burnt a Spanish squadron in the French port of St. Tropez, compelled the King of Naples, by the threat of bombardment, to withdraw his troops from the Spanish army, and sign an engagement of neutrality, destroyed large provisions of corn collected by the Genoese for the Spanish army, and cut off that army from all communications by sea."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 3 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 102 (volume 3).

ITALY: A. D. 1743. The War of the Austrian Succession: Treaty of Worms.

"By a treaty between Great Britain, the Queen of Hungary, and the King of Sardinia, signed at Worms September 23rd, 1743, Charles Emanuel renounced his pretensions to Milan; the Queen of Hungary ceding to him the Vigevanesco, that part of the duchy of Pavia between the Po and the Tessino, the town and part of the duchy of Piacenza, and a portion of the district of Anghiera. Also whatever rights she might have to the marquisate of Finale hoping that the Republic of Genoa would facilitate this agreement, in order that the King of Sardinia might have a communication with the sea. The Queen of Hungary promised to increase her army in Italy to 30,000 men as soon as the affairs of Germany would permit; while the King of Great Britain engaged to keep a strong fleet in the Mediterranean, and to pay Charles Emanuel annually £200,000, so long as the war lasted, he keeping in the field an army of 45,000 men."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 4 (volume 3).

ITALY: A. D. 1743. The Bourbon Family Compact (France and Spain) for establishing Spanish claims.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1743 (OCTOBER).

ITALY: A. D. 1744. The War of the Austrian Succession: Indecisive campaigns.

"In Italy, the discordant views and mutual jealousies of Maria Theresa and the king of Sardinia prevented the good effects which might have been derived from their recent union. The king was anxious to secure his own dominions on the side of France, and to conquer the marquisate of Finale; while Maria Theresa was desirous to direct her principal force against Naples, and recover possession of the two Sicilies. Hence, instead of co-operating for one great object, their forces were divided; and, after an arduous and active campaign, the Austrians were nearly in the same situation as at the commencement of the year. Prince Lobcowitz being reinforced, compelled the Spaniards to retreat successively from Pesara and Senegallia, attacked them at Loretto and Reconati, and drove them beyond the Fronto, the boundary of the kingdom of Naples. Alarmed by the advance of the Austrians, the king of Naples broke his neutrality, quitted his capital at the head of 15,000 men, and hastened to join the Spaniards. But Prince Lobcowitz … turned towards Rome, with the hope of penetrating into Naples on that side; and, in the commencement of June, reached the neighbourhood of Albano. His views were anticipated by the king of Naples, who, dividing the Spanish and Neapolitan troops into three columns, which were led by himself, the duke of Modena, and the count de Gages, passed through Anagm, Valmonte, and Monte Tortino, and reunited his forces at Veletri, in the Campagna di Roma. In this situation, the two hostile armies, separated only by a deep valley, harassed each other with continual skirmishes. At length prince Lobcowitz, in imitation of prince Eugene at Cremona, formed the project of surprising the head-quarters of the king of Naples. In the night of August 10th, a corps of Austrians, led by count Brown, penetrated into the town of Veletri, killed all who resisted, and would have surprised the king and the duke of Modena in their beds, had they not been alarmed by the French ambassador, and escaped to the camp. The Austrian troops, giving way to pillage, were vigorously attacked by a corps of Spaniards and Neapolitans, despatched from the camp, and driven from the town with great slaughter, and the capture of the second in command, the marquis de Novati. In this contest, however, the Spanish army lost no less than 3,000 men. This daring exploit was the last offensive attempt of the Austrian forces. Prince Lobcowitz perceiving his troops rapidly decrease by the effects of the climate, and the unwholesome air of the Pontine marshes, began his retreat in the beginning of November, and though followed by an army superior in number, returned without loss to Rimini, Pesaro, Cesano, and Immola; while the combined Spaniards and Neapolitans took up their quarters between Viterbo and Civita Vecchia. {1851} In consequence of the expedition against Naples, the king of Sardinia was left with 30,000 men, many of them new levies, and 6,000 Austrians, to oppose the combined army of French and Spaniards, who advanced on the side of Nice. After occupying that place, the united army forced the intrenched camp of the Sardinians, though defended by the king himself, made themselves masters of Montalbano and Villafranca, and prepared to penetrate into Piedmont along the sea coast. The Genoese, irritated by the transfer of Finale, were inclined to facilitate their operations; but were intimidated by the presence of an English squadron which threatened to bombard their capital. The prince of Conti, who commanded under the infant Don Philip, did not, however, relinquish the invasion of Piedmont, but formed the spirited project of leading his army over the passes of the Alps, although almost every rock was a fortress, and the obstacles of nature were assisted by all the resources of art. He led his army, with a large train of artillery, and numerous squadrons of cavalry, over precipices and along beds of torrents, carried the fort of Chateau Dauphin, forced the celebrated Barricades which were deemed impregnable, descended the valley of the Stura, took Demont after a slight resistance, and laid siege to Coni. The king of Sardinia, having in vain attempted to stop the progress of this torrent which burst the barriers of his country, indignantly retired to Saluzzo, to cover his capital. Being reinforced by 6,000 Austrians, he attempted to relieve Coni, but was repulsed after a severe engagement, though he succeeded in throwing succours into the town. This victory, however, did not produce any permanent advantage to the confederate forces; Coni continuing to hold out, the approach of winter and the losses they had sustained, amounting to 10,000 men, compelled them to raise the siege and repass the Alps, which they did not effect without extreme difficulty."

W. Coxe, History of the House of Austria, chapter 105 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: W. Russell, History of Modern Europe, part 2, chapter 28.

ITALY: A. D. 1745. The War of he Austrian Succession: Successes of the Spaniards, French and Genoese.

"The Italian campaign of 1745, in boldness of design and rapidity of execution, scarcely finds a parallel in military history, and was most unpropitious to the Queen of Hungary and King of Sardinia. The experience of preceding years had taught the Bourbon Courts that all attempts to carry their arms across the Alps would be fruitless, unless they could secure a stable footing in the dominions of some Italian state on the other side, to counteract the power of their adversary, who had the entire command of the passes between Germany and Italy, by means of which reinforcements could be continually drafted to the scene of action. Accordingly they availed themselves of the jealousy and alarm excited at Genoa, by the transfer of Finale to the King of Sardinia, to engage that republic on their side. The plan was to unite the two armies which had wintered on the distant frontiers of Naples and Provence, in the vicinity of Genoa, where they were to be joined by 10,000 auxiliaries on the part of the republic. Charles Emanuel was sensible of the terrible consequences to himself, should the Genoese declare openly for the house of Bourbon, and sent General Pallavicini, a man of address and abilities, to renounce his pretensions to Finale, while Admiral Rowley, with a British fleet, hovered on their coasts. In spite of all this, nevertheless, the treaty of Aranjuez was concluded between France, Spain, and Genoa. After surmounting amazing difficulties, and making the most arduous and astonishing marches, the army commanded by Don Philip, who was accompanied by the French General Maillebois, and that commanded by Count de Gages, effected their junction on the 14th of June, near Genoa, when their united forces, now under Don Philip, amounted to 78,000 men. All that the King of Sardinia could do under these circumstances, was to make the best dispositions to defend the Milanese, the Parmesan, and the Plaisantine; but the whole disposable force under the King and Count Schulenburg, the successor of Lobkowitz, did not amount to above 45,000 men. Count Gages with 30,000 men was to be opposed to Schulenburg, and took possession of Serravalle, on the Scrivia; then advancing towards Alessandria he obliged the Austrians to retire under the cannon of Tortona. Don Philip made himself master of Acqui, so that the King of Sardinia, with the Austrian General, Count Schulenburg, had to retreat behind the Tanaro. On the 24th of July the strong citadel of Tortona was taken by the Spaniards, which opened the way to the occupation of Parma and Placentia. The combined army of French, Spanish, Neapolitans, and Genoese being now masters of an extensive tract with all the principal towns south of the Po, they readily effected a passage near the confluence of the Ticino, and with a detachment surprised Pavia. The Austrians, fearful for the Milanese, separated accordingly from the Sardinian troops. The Bourbon force seeing this, suddenly reunited, gained the Tanaro by a rapid movement on the night of the 27th of September, forded it in three columns, although the water reached to the very necks of the soldiers, fell upon the unsuspecting and unprepared Sardinians, broke their cavalry in the first charge, and drove the enemy in dismay and confusion to Valenza. Charles Emanuel fled to Casale, where he reassembled his broken army, in order to save it from utter ruin. The confederate armies still advanced, drove the King back and took Trino and Verua, which last place lay but twenty miles from his capital: fearful now that this might be bombarded he hastened thither, withdrew his forces under its cannon, and ordered the pavement of the city to be taken up. Maillebois, on his side, penetrated into the Milanese, and by the month of October the territories of the house of Austria in Italy were wholly subdued. The whole of Lombardy being thus open, Don Philip made a triumphant entry into Milan on the 20th of December, fondly hoping that he had secured for himself an Italian kingdom, as his brother, Don Carlos, had done at Naples. The Austrian garrison, however, still maintained the citadel of Milan and the fortress of Mantua."

Sir E. Cust, Annals of the Wars of the 18th Century, volume 2, pages 75-76.

ALSO IN: A. Gallenga, History of Piedmont, volume 3, chapter 4.

{1852}

ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747. The War of the Austrian Succession: A turn of fortune. The Spaniards and French abandon North Italy. The Austrians in Genoa, and their expulsion from the city.

"Of all the Austrian possessions in Lombardy, little remained except the fortress of Mantua and the citadel of Milan; while the citadels of Asti and Alessandria, the keys of Piedmont, were expected to fall before the commencement of the ensuing campaign. On the return of the season for action, the struggle for the mastery of Italy was renewed, and the queen of Spain already saw in imagination the crown of Lombardy gracing the brow of her second son. On the east, the French and Spanish armies had extended themselves as far as Reggio, Placentia, and Guastalla; on the north they were masters of the whole country between the Adda and Tesino; they blockaded the passages by the lake of Como and the Lago Maggiore, and were preparing to reduce the citadel of Milan; on the west their posts extended as far as Casale and Asti, though of the last the citadel was still held by the Sardinians. The main body of the French secured the communication with Genoa and the country south of the Po; a strong body at Reggio, Parma, and Placentia, covered their conquests on the east; and the Spaniards commanded the district between the Po and the mountains of Tyrol. The Sardinians were collected into the neighbourhood of Trino; while the Austrians fell back into the Novarrese to effect a junction with the reinforcements which were daily expected from Germany. In this situation, a sudden revolution took place in the fortune of the war. The empress queen [Maria Theresa], by the conclusion of a peace with Prussia, was at liberty to reinforce her army in Italy, and before the end of February 30,000 men had already descended from the Trentine Alps, and spread themselves as far as the Po." This change of situation caused the French court to make overtures to the king of Sardinia, which gave great offense to Spain. The wily Sardinian gained time by his negotiations with the French, until he found an opportunity, by suddenly ending the armistice, to capture the French garrison in Asti, to relieve the citadel of Alessandria and to lay siege to Valenza. "These disasters compelled Maillebois [the French general] to abandon his distant posts and concentrate his forces between Novi and Voghera, in order to maintain the communication with Genoa. Nor were the Spaniards beyond the Po in a less critical situation. A column of 10,000 Austrians under Berenclau having captured Codogno, and advanced to Lodi, the Spanish general was compelled to withdraw his troops from the passes towards the lakes, to send his artillery to Pavia and draw towards the Po. The infant had scarcely quitted Milan before a party of Austrian hussars entered the place." Meantime, the Spanish general Castelar, blockaded in Parma by the Austrians, broke through their lines and gained the eastern Riviera, with the loss of half his force. In June, the Spaniards and French, concentrated at Placentia, made a powerful attack on the Austrians, to arrest their progress, but were repulsed with heavy loss. The Sardinians soon afterwards formed a junction with the Austrians, which compelled the Spaniards and French to evacuate Placentia and retreat to Genoa, abandoning stores and artillery and losing many men. In the midst of these disasters, the Spanish king, Philip V., died, and his widowed queen, Elizabeth Farnese —the "Spanish termagant," Carlyle calls her—who had been the moving spirit of the struggle for Italy, lost the reins of government. His son (by his first wife, Maria Louisa of Savoy) who succeeded him, had no ambitions and no passions to interest him in the war, and resolved to escape from it. The marquis Las Minas, whom he sent to take command of the retreating army, speedily announced his intention to abandon Italy. "Thus deserted, the situation of the French and Genoese became desperate. … Maillebois, after exhorting the Genoese to defend their territory to the last extremity, was obliged to follow the example of Las Minas in withdrawing towards Provence. Abandoned to their fate, the Genoese could not withstand the combined attacks of the Austro-Sardinians, assisted by the British fleet. The city surrendered almost at discretion; the garrison were made prisoners of war; the stores, arms and artillery were to be delivered; the doge and six senators to repair to Vienna and implore forgiveness. The marquis of Botta, who had replaced Lichtenstein in the command, took possession of the place with 15,000 men, while the king of Sardinia occupied Finale and reduced Savona. In consequence of this success the Austrian court meditated the re-conquest of Naples and Sicily, which had been drained of troops to support the war in Lombardy." But this project was overruled by the British government, and the allied army crossed the Var, to carry the war into the southeastern provinces of France. "Their progress was, however, instantly arrested by an insurrection at Genoa, occasioned by the exactions and oppressions of the Austrian commanders. The garrison was expelled by the tumultuary efforts of the populace; and the army, to obviate the mischiefs of this unexpected reverse, hastily measured back its steps. Instead of completing the disasters of the Bourbon troops, the Austro-Sardinians employed the whole winter in the investment of Genoa." The siege was protracted but unsuccessful, and the allies were forced to abandon it the following summer, on the approach of the Bourbon forces, which resumed the offensive under Marshal Belleisle. After delivering Genoa, the latter sent a detachment of his army into Piedmont, where it met with disaster. No further operations of importance were undertaken before the conclusion of the peace, which was then being negotiated at Aix-la-Chapelle.

W. Coxe, Memoirs of the Bourbon Kings of Spain, chapters 46-48 (volumes 3-4).

ALSO IN: J. T. Bent, Genoa, chapter 16.

ITALY: A. D. 1749-1792. Peace in the Peninsula.

The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle "left nothing to Austria in Italy except the duchies of Milan and Mantua. Although the grand-duchy of Tuscany was settled on the family of Hapsburg-Lorraine, every precaution was taken to prevent that province from being united with the German possessions of their house. The arrangements of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle continued up to the period of the French revolution undisturbed. Those arrangements, although the result of a compromise of the interests and ambitions of rival statesmen, were not, considering the previous state of Italy, unfavourable to the cause of Italian independence. {1853} Piedmont, already recognised as the protector of Italian nationality, gained not only in rank, but in substantial territory, by the acquisition of the island of Sardinia, still more by that of the High Novarese, and by extending her frontier to the Ticino. Naples and Sicily were released from the tyranny of viceroys, and placed under a resident king, with a stipulation to secure their future independence, that they should never be united to the Spanish crown. … In the 45 [?] years which elapsed between the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and the French revolution, Italy enjoyed a perfect and uninterrupted peace. In some, at least, of its principalities, its progress in prosperity and in legislation was rapid. Naples and Sicily, under the government of Charles III., and subsequently under the regency of his minister, Tanucci, were ruled with energy and prudence. Tuscany prospered under the sway of the princes of Lorraine, Milan and Mantua were mildly governed by the Austrian court; and Lombardy rose from the misery to which the exactions of Spanish viceroys had reduced even the great resources of that rich and fertile province. In the other Italian States at least no change had taken place for the worse. Industry everywhere flourished under the presence of the most essential of all blessings,—peace."

I. Butt, History of Italy, volume 1, chapter 5.

ITALY: A. D. 1792-1793. Annexation of Savoy and Nice to the French Republic. Sardinia and the Two Sicilies in the coalition against France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER); and 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

ITALY: A. D. 1794-1795. Passes of the Maritime Alps secured by the French. The coalition abandoned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. French successes at Loano.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY); and 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER).

ITALY: A. D. 1796-1797. French invasion. Bonaparte's first campaigns. His victories and his pillage. Expulsion of the Austrians. French treaties with Genoa and Naples. The Cispadane and Cisalpine Republics. Surrender of Papal territories. Peace preliminaries of Leoben.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER), and (OCTOBER); and 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

ITALY: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER). Creation of the Ligurian and Cisalpine Republics. The Peace of Campo-Formio. Lombardy relinquished by Austria. Venice and Venetian territory made over to her.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

ITALY: A. D. 1797-1798 (December-May). French occupation of Rome. Formation of the Roman Republic. Removal of the Pope.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797-1798 (DECEMBER-MAY).

ITALY: A. D. 1798-1799. Overthrow of the Neapolitan Kingdom. Creation of the Parthenopeian Republic. Relinquishment of Piedmont by the king of Sardinia. French reverses.

See FRANCE: A. D.1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

ITALY: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-AUGUST). Successful Austro-Russian campaign. Suwarrow's victories. French evacuation of Lombardy, Piedmont and Naples.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).

ITALY: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER). Austrian successes. Expulsion of the French. Fall of the Parthenopeian and Roman Republics.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).

ITALY: A. D. 1800. Bonaparte's Marengo campaign. Northern Italy recovered by the French. Siege and capture of Genoa by the Austrians.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

ITALY: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY). The king of Naples spared by Napoleon. Restoration of Papal authority at Rome.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).

ITALY: A. D. 1802. Name of the Cisalpine Republic changed to Italian Republic. Bonaparte president. Annexation of part of Piedmont, with Parma and Elba, to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803, and 1802 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

ITALY: A. D. 1805. Transformation of the Italian Republic into the Kingdom of Italy. Election and coronation of Napoleon. Annexation of Genoa to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

ITALY: A. D. 1805. Cession of Venetian territory by Austria to the Kingdom of Italy.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806.

ITALY: A. D. 1805-1806. Napoleon's dethronement of the dynasty of Naples. Joseph Bonaparte made king of the Two Sicilies.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER).

ITALY: A. D. 1807-1808. Napoleon's visit. His arbitrary changes in the constitution. His public works. His despotism. His annexation of Tuscany to France, and seizure of the Papal States.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).

ITALY: A. D. 1808 (JULY). The crown of Naples resigned by Joseph Bonaparte (now king of Spain) and conferred on Joachim Murat.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1808-1809. Beginning of the reign of Murat at Naples. Expulsion of the English from Capri. Insolence of Murat's soldiery. Popular discontent and hatred. Rise of the Carbonari. Civil war in Calabria.

"Joachim Murat, the new King of Naples, announced his accession to the nation [July, 1808]. 'The august Napoleon,' he said, 'had given him the kingdom of the two Sicilies. Gratitude to the donor, and a desire to benefit his subjects, would divide his heart.' … The commencement of Murat's reign was felicitous; the English, however, occupied the island of Capri, which, being placed at the opening of the gulf, is the key of the bay of Naples. Their presence stimulated all who were averse to the new government, intimidated its adherents, and impeded the freedom of navigation, to the manifest injury of commerce; besides, it was considered disgraceful, that one of the Napoleonides should suffer an enemy so near, and that enemy the English, who were at once so hated and so despised. The indolence of Joseph had patiently suffered the disgrace; but Joachim, a spirited soldier, was indignant at it, and he thought it necessary to commence his reign by some important enterprise. He armed therefore against Capri: Sir Hudson Lowe was there in garrison with two regiments collected from all the nations of Europe, and which were called the Royal Corsican and the Royal Maltese. … A body of French and Neapolitans were sent from Naples and Salerno, under the command of General Lamarque, to reduce the island; and they effected a landing, by means of ladders hung to the rocks by iron hooks, and thus possessed themselves of Anacarpi, though not without great difficulty, as the English resolutely defended themselves. … {1854} The siege proceeded but slowly—succours of men and ammunition reached the besieged from Sicily; but fortune favoured the enemy, as an adverse wind drove the English out to sea. The King, who superintended the operations from the shore of Massa, having waited at the point of Campanella, seizing the propitious moment, sent fresh squadrons in aid of Lamarque, and the English, being already broken, and the forts dismantled, now yielded to the conqueror. The Neapolitans were highly gratified by the acquisition of Capri, and from that event augured well of the new government. The kingdom of Naples contained three classes of people—barons, republicans, and populace. The barons willingly joined the party of the new king, because they were pleased by the honours granted to them, and they were not without hopes of recovering their ancient privileges, or at least of acquiring new ones. … The republicans were, on the contrary, inimical to Joachim, not because he was a king, for they easily accommodated themselves to royalty; but because his conduct in Tuscany, where he had driven them forth or bound them in chains like malefactors, had rendered him personally obnoxious to them. They were moreover disgusted by his incredible vanity, which led him to court and caress with the most zealous adulation every bearer of a feudal title. … The populace, who cared no more for Joachim than they had done for Joseph, would easily have contented themselves with the new government, if it had protected them from the oppressions of the barons, and had procured for them quiet and abundance. But Joachim, wholly intent on courting the nobles, neglected the people, who, oppressed by the barons and soldiery, became alienated from him. … The spirit of discontent was further increased by his introduction of the conscription laws of France. … Joachim, a soldier himself, permitted every thing to his soldiery; and an insupportable military license was the result. Hence, also, they became the sole support of his power, and it took no root in the affections of the people. The insolence of the troops continually augmented not only every desire, but every caprice of the head of a regiment, nay, even of the inferior officers, was to be complied with, as if they were the laws of the realm; and whosoever even lamented his subjection to their will was ill-treated and incurred some risk of being declared an enemy to the King. … The discontents produced by the enormities committed by the troops of Murat gave hopes to the court of Palermo that its fortunes might be re-established in the kingdom beyond the Faro. Meanwhile, the civil war raged in Calabria; nor were the Abruzzi tranquil. In these disturbances there were various factions in arms, and various objects were pursued: some of those who fought against Joachim, and had fought against Joseph, were adherents of Ferdinand,—others were the partisans of a republican constitution. … The sect of the Carbonari arose at this period."

C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapter 5.

"The most famous, the most widely disseminated, and the most powerful of all the secret societies which sprang up in Italy was that of the Carbonari, or Charcoal-makers. … The Carbonari first began to attract attention in the Kingdom of Naples about the year 1808. A Genoese named Maghella, who burned with hatred of the French, is said to have initiated several Neapolitans into a secret order whose purpose it was to goad their countrymen into rebellion. They quitted Naples, where Murat's vigilant policy kept too strict a watch on conspirators, and retired to the Abruzzi, where in order to disarm suspicion they pretended to be engaged in charcoal-burning. As their numbers increased, agents were sent to establish lodges in the principal towns. The Bourbon king, shut up in Sicily, soon heard of them, and as he had not hesitated at letting loose with English aid galley-prisoners, or at encouraging brigands, to harass Murat, so he eagerly connived with these conspirators in the hope of recovering his throne. Murat, having striven for several years to suppress the Carbonari, at last, when he found his power slipping from him, reversed his policy towards them, and strove to conciliate them. But it was too late: neither he nor they could prevent the restoration of the Bourbons under the protection of Austria. The sectaries who had hitherto foolishly expected that, if the French could be expelled, Ferdinand would grant them a Liberal government, were soon cured of their delusion, and they now plotted against him as sedulously as they had plotted against his predecessor. Their membership increased to myriads; their lodges, starting up in every village in the Kingdom of Naples, had relations with branch-societies in all parts of the Peninsula: to the anxious ears of European despots the name Carbonaro soon meant all that was lawless and terrible; it meant anarchy, chaos, assassination. But when we read the catechism, or confession of faith, of the Carbonari we are surprised by the reasonableness of their aims and tenets. The duties of the individual Carbonaro were, 'to render to the Almighty the worship due to Him; to serve the fatherland with zeal; to reverence religion and laws; to fulfil the obligations of nature and friendship; to be faithful to promises; to observe silence, discretion, and charity; to cause harmony and good morals to prevail; to conquer the passions and submit the will; and to abhor the seven deadly sins.' The scope of the Society was to disseminate instruction; to unite the different classes of society under the bond of love; to impress a national character on the people, and to interest them in the preservation and defense of the fatherland and of religion; to destroy by moral culture the source of crimes due to the general depravity of mankind; to protect the weak and to raise up the unfortunate. … It went still farther and asserted the un-Catholic doctrine of liberty of conscience: 'to every Carbonaro,' so reads one of its articles, 'belongs the natural and unalterable right to worship the Almighty according to his own intuition and understanding.' We must not be misled, however, by these enlightened professions, into a wrong notion of the real purposes of Carbonarism. Politics, in spite of a rule forbidding political discussion, were the main business, and ethics but the incidental concern of the conspirators. They organized their Order under republican forms as if to prefigure the ideal towards which they aspired. The Republic was subdivided into provinces, each of which was controlled by a grand lodge, that of Salerno being the 'parent.' There were also four 'Tribes,' each having a council and holding an annual diet. {1855} Each tribe had a Senate, which advised a House of Representatives, and this framed the laws which a magistracy executed. There were courts of the first instance, of appeal, and of cessation, and no Carbonaro might bring suit in the civil courts against a fellow member, unless he had first failed to get redress in one of these. … The Carbonari borrowed some of their rites from the Freemasons, with whom indeed they were commonly reported to be in such close relations that Freemasons who joined the 'Carbonic Republic' were spared the formality of initiation; other parts of their ceremonial they copied from the New Testament, with such additions as the special objects of the order called for."

W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence, book 2, chapter 4 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: P. Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, book 7 (volume 2).

T. Frost, Secret Societies of the European Revolution, volume 1, chapter 5.

General Sir H. Bunbury, The Great War with France, page 343, and after.

The Chevalier O'Clery, History of the Italian Revolution chapter 3.

ITALY: A. D. 1809 (APRIL-MAY). Renewed war of Austria with France. Austrian advance and retreat.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).

ITALY: A. D. 1809 (MAY-JULY). Annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire. Removal of the Pope to Savona. Rome declared to be a free and imperial city.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

ITALY: A. D. 1812. Removal of the captive Pope to Fontainebleau.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814.

ITALY: A. D. 1812. Participation in Napoleon's disastrous Russian campaign.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER), and after.

ITALY: A. D. 1813. Participation in the war in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (APRIL-MAY).

ITALY: A. D. 1814. Desertion of Napoleon by Murat. His treaty with the Allies. Expulsion of the French from the Peninsula.

Murat, king of Naples, "foreseeing the downfall of the Emperor, had attempted to procure from Napoleon, as the price of his fidelity, the union under his own sceptre of all Italy south of the Po; but, failing in this, he prepared to abandon the cause of his benefactor. On the 11th January, 1814, he concluded a treaty with the Allies, by which he was guaranteed possession of Naples; and forthwith advancing on Rome with 20,000 men, occupied the second city in his brother-in-law's empire (January 19); having previously published a flaming proclamation, in which the perfidy and violence of the imperial government were denounced in terms which came strangely from a chief of the Revolution. … At the end of December, 1813, Eugene had withdrawn to the Adige with 36,000 men, before Bellegarde and 50,000 Austrians; and he was already taking measures for a further retreat, when the proclamation of Murat, and his hostile advance, rendered such a movement inevitable. He had accordingly fallen back to the Mincio, when, finding himself threatened on the flank by a British expedition from Sicily under Lord William Bentinck, he determined on again advancing against Bellegarde, so as to rid himself of one enemy before he encountered another. The two armies, however, thus mutually acting on the offensive, passed each other, and an irregular action at last ensued on the Mincio (February 8), in which the advantage was rather with the French, who made 1,500 prisoners, and drove Bellegarde shortly after over the Mincio, about 3,000 being killed and wounded on each side. But, in other quarters, affairs were going rapidly to wreck. Verona surrendered to the Austrians on the 14th, and Ancona to Murat on the 16th; and the desertion of the Italians, unequal to the fatigues of a winter campaign, was so great that the Viceroy was compelled to fall back to the Po. Fouché, meanwhile, as governor of Rome, had concluded a convention (February 20) with the Neapolitan generals for the evacuation of Pisa, Leghorn, Florence, and other garrisons of the French empire in Italy. A proclamation, however, by the hereditary prince of Sicily, who had accompanied Bentinck from Sicily, gave Murat such umbrage that he separated his troops from the British, and commenced operations, with little success, against Eugene on the Po, in which the remainder of March passed away. Bentinck, having at length received reinforcements from Catalonia, moved forward with 12,000 men, and occupied Spezia on the 29th of March, and, driving the French (April 8) from their position at Sestri, forced his way through the mountains, and appeared on the 16th in front of Genoa. On the 17th the forts and positions before the city were stormed; and the garrison, seeing preparations made for a bombardment, capitulated on the 18th, on condition of being allowed to march out with the honours of war. Murat had by this time recommenced vigorous operations, and after driving the French (April 13) from the Taro, had forced the passage of the Stura; but the news of Napoleon's fall put an end to hostilities. By a convention with the Austrians, Venice, Palma-Nuova, and the other fortresses still held by the French, were surrendered; the whole of Lombardy was occupied by the Germans; and in the first week of May the French troops finally repassed the Alps."

Epitome of Alison's History of Europe, sections 775, and 807-808.

ITALY: A. D. 1814-1815. Return of the Despots. Restoration of Austrian tyranny in the North. The Pope in Rome again.

"With little resistance, Northern Italy was taken from the French. Had it been otherwise, had Murat and Beauharnais joined their forces, they might have long held the Austrians in check, perhaps even have made a descent on Vienna; and although this might not have hindered the ultimate overthrow of Napoleon, yet it must have compelled the Allies, at the day of settlement, to respect the wishes of the Italians. But disunited, and deluded into the belief that they were partners in a war of liberation, the Italians woke up to find that they had escaped from the talons of the French eagle, only to be caught in the clutch of the two-headed monstrosity of Austria. They were to be used, in the language of Joseph De Maistre, like coins, wherewith the Allies paid their debts. This was plain enough when the people of the just-destroyed Kingdom of Italy prepared to choose a ruler for themselves: one party favored Beauharnais, another wished an Austrian prince, a third an Italian, but all agreed in demanding independence. Austria quickly informed them that they were her subjects, and that their affairs would be decided at Vienna. Thus, almost without striking a blow, and without a suspicion of the lot awaiting them, the Northern Italians fell back under the domination of Austria. In the spring and early summer of 1814 the exiled princelings returned: Victor Emanuel I. from his savage refuge in Sardinia to Turin; Ferdinand III. from Würzburg to Florence; Pius VII. from his confinement at Fontainebleau and Savona to Rome.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1808-1814;

{1856}

Francis IV. to Modena. Other aspirants anxiously waited for the Congress of Vienna to bestow upon them the remaining provinces. The Congress … dragged on into the spring of the following year. … In Lombardy and Venetia, Metternich soon organized a thoroughly Austrian administration. The government of the two provinces was separate, that of Lombardy being centred at Milan, that of Venetia at Venice; but over all was placed an Austrian archduke as Viceroy. Each district had its civil and military tribunals, but the men who composed these being appointees of the viceroy or his deputies, their subservience could usually be reckoned upon. The trials were secret, a provision which, especially in political cases, made convictions easy. … Feudal privileges, which had been abolished by the French, could be recovered by doing homage to the Emperor and by paying specific taxes. In some respects there was an improvement in the general administration, but in others the deterioration was manifest. … Art, science, and literature were patronized, and they throve as potted plants thrive under the care of a gardener who cuts off every new shoot at a certain height. … We may liken the people of the Austro-Italian provinces to those Florentine revelers who, at the time of the plague, tried to drive away their terror by telling each other the merry stories reported by Boccaccio. The plague which penetrated every corner of Lombardy and Venetia was the Austrian police. Stealthy, but sure, its unseen presence was dreaded in palace and hovel, in church, tribunal, and closet. … Every police-office was crammed with records of the daily habits of each citizen, of his visitors, his relatives, his casual conversations,—even his style of dress and diet were set down. … Such was the Metternichian system of police and espionage that counteracted every mild law and every attempt to lessen the repugnance of the Italians. They were not to be deceived by blandishments: Lombardy was a prison, Venetia was a prison, and they were all captives, although they seemed to move about unshackled to their work or pleasure."

W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence, book 2, chapter 2 (volume 1).

See, also, VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF; AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1846; and HOLY ALLIANCE.

ITALY: (Southern): A. D. 1815. Murat's attempt to head a national movement. His failure, downfall and death. Restoration of the Bourbons at Naples.

"Wild as was the attempt in which, after Napoleon's return from Elba, the King of Naples lost his crown, we must yet judge of it both by his own character and the circumstances in which he was placed. … In the autumn of 1813 communications took place at Milan between Murat and the leaders of the secret societies which were then attempting to organise Italian patriotism in arms. In 1814, when the restoration of Austrian rule in Lombardy so cruelly disappointed the national hopes, these communications were renewed. The King of Naples was assured that he needed but to raise the standard of Italian independence to rally round him thousands and tens of thousands of volunteers. … These calculations … were readily adopted by the rash and vain-glorious monarch to whom they were presented. … His proud spirit chafed and fretted under the consciousness that he had turned upon Napoleon, and the mortification of finding himself deserted by those in reliance upon whose faith this sacrifice had been made. The events in France had taken him by surprise. In joining the alliance against Napoleon he had not calculated on the deposition of the emperor, still less had he dreamed of the destruction of the empire. … He bitterly reproached his own conduct for having lent himself to such results. … When his mind was agitated with these mingled feelings, the intelligence reached him that Napoleon had actually left Elba, on that enterprise in which he staked everything upon regaining the imperial throne of France. It came to him direct from Napoleon. … He foresaw that the armies of the allied powers would be engaged in a gigantic struggle with the efforts which Napoleon would be sure to make. Under such circumstances, he fancied Italy an easy conquest; once master of this he became a power with whom, in the conflict of nations, any of the contending parties could only be too happy to treat. He determined to place himself at the head of Italian nationality, and strike one daring blow for the chieftainship of the nation. … His ministers, his friends, the French generals, even his queen, Napoleon's sister, dissuaded him from such a course. … But with an obstinacy by which the vacillating appear sometimes to attempt to atone for habitual indecision, he persevered in spite of all advice. … He issued a proclamation and ordered his troops to cross the Papal frontier. … The Pope appointed a regency and retired, accompanied by most of the cardinals, to Florence. … On the 30th of March his [Murat's] troops attacked the Austrian forces at Cesena. The Germans were driven, without offering much resistance, from the town. On the evening of that day he issued from Rimini his proclamation to the Italian people, which was against Austria a declaration of war. … A declaration of war on the part of Austria immediately followed. … The whole of the Italian army of Austria was ordered at once to march upon Naples; and a treaty was concluded with Ferdinand, by which Austria engaged to use all her endeavours to recover for him his Neapolitan dominions. … The army which Murat led northward, instead of numbering 80,000 as he represented in his proclamation, certainly never exceeded 34,000. … Nearly 60,000 Austrians defended the banks of the Po. … On the 10th of April, the troops of Murat, under the command of General Pepe, were driven back by the Austrians, who now in their turn advanced. … A retreat to the frontiers of Naples was unanimously resolved on. This retreat was one that had all the disasters without any of the redeeming glories of war. … At last, as they approached the confines of the Neapolitan kingdom, an engagement which took place between Macerata and Tolentino, on the 4th of May, ended in a total and ignominious rout. … At Macerata most of the troops broke up into a disorganised rabble, and with difficulty Murat led to Capua a small remnant of an army, that could hardly be said to be defeated, because they were worsted without anything that deserves to be called a fight. {1857} From Capua, on the 12th of May, the king sent to Naples a proclamation granting a free constitution. To conceal the fact that this was wrung from him only in distress, he resorted to the miserable subterfuge of ante-dating it from Rimini, on the 30th of March." On the evening of the 18th of May, Murat entered Naples quietly on foot, and had his last interview with his queen and children. A British squadron was already in the harbor. The next night he slipped away to the island of Ischia, and thence to Frejus, while Queen Caroline remained to discharge the last duties of sovereignty. On the 20th Naples was surrendered to the Austrians, and the ex-queen took refuge on an English vessel to escape from a threatening mob of the lazzaroni. She was conveyed to Trieste, where the Austrian emperor had offered her an asylum. The restored Bourbon king, Ferdinand, made his entry into the capital on the 17th of June. Meantime, Murat, in France, had offered his services to Napoleon and they had been declined. After Waterloo, he escaped to Corsica, whence, in the following October, he made a foolhardy attempt to recover his kingdom, landing with a few followers at Pizzo, on the Neapolitan coast, expecting a rising of the people to welcome his return. But the rising that occurred was hostile instead of friendly. The party was quickly overpowered, Murat taken prisoner and delivered to Ferdinand's officers. He was summarily tried by court martial and shot, October 13, 1815.

I. Butt, History of Italy, volume 2, chapters 10-11.

ALSO IN: P. Colletta, History of Naples, book 7, chapter 5, and book 8, chapter 1 (volume 2).

ITALY: A. D. 1820-1821. Revolutionary insurrections in Naples and Sicily. Perjury and duplicity of the king. The revolt crushed by Austrian troops. Abortive insurrection in Piedmont. Its end at Novara. Abdication of Victor Emmanuel I. Accession of Charles Felix.

"In the last days of February, 1820, a revolution broke out in Spain. The object of its leaders was to restore the Constitution of 1812, which had been suppressed on the return of the Bourbons to the throne. … The Revolution proved successful, and for a short time the Spaniards obtained possession of a democratic Constitution. Their success stirred up the ardour of the Liberal party in the kingdom of the two Sicilies, and before many weeks were over a revolutionary movement occurred at Naples. The insurrection originated with the army under the command of General Pepé, and it is worthy of note that the movement was not directed against the reigning dynasty, and was not, even nominally, associated with any demand for national unity. All the insurgents asked for was the establishment of a Constitution similar to that then existing in Spain. After a very brief and feeble resistance, the King yielded to the demands of the military conspirators, who were strongly supported by popular feeling. On the 1st of October, a Parliament of the Neapolitan kingdom was opened by His Majesty Francis the First, who then and there took a solemn oath to observe the Constitution, and even went out of his way to profess his profound attachment for the principles on which the new Government was based. General Pepé thereupon resigned the Dictatorship he had assumed, and constitutional liberty was deemed to have been finally established in Southern Italy by a bloodless revolution. The rising on the mainland was followed after a brief interval by a popular insurrection in Sicily. The main object, however, of the Sicilian Constitutionalists was to bring about a legislative separation between the island and the kingdom of Naples proper. … The Sicilian insurrection afforded Francis I. the pretext he had looked for, from the commencement, for overthrowing the Constitution to which he had personally plighted his faith. The Allied Sovereigns took alarm at the outbreak of the revolutionary spirit in Sicily, and a Congress of the Great Powers was convoked at Laibach [see VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF] to consider what steps required to be taken for the protection of social order in the kingdom of Naples. … By the Neapolitan Constitution the Sovereign was not at liberty to leave the kingdom without the consent of the Parliament. This consent was only given, after much hesitation, in reliance upon the reiterated assurances of the King, both publicly and privately, that his one object in attending the Congress was to avert, if possible, a foreign intervention. His Majesty also pledged himself most solemnly not to sanction any change in the Constitution to which he had sworn allegiance, and … he promised further that he would not be a party to any reprisals being inflicted upon his subjects for the part they might have taken in the establishment of Constitutional liberty. As soon, however, as Francis the First had arrived at Laibach, he yielded without a protest to the alleged necessity for a foreign occupation of his kingdom, with the avowed object of putting down the Constitution. Without any delay being given, the Austrian regiments crossed the frontier, preceded by a manifesto from the King, calling upon his faithful subjects to receive the army of occupation not as enemies, but as friends. … The national troops, under General Pepé, were defeated with ease by the Austrians, who in the course of a few weeks effected, almost without opposition, the military occupation of the whole kingdom [February-March, 1821]. Forthwith reprisals commenced in grim earnest. On the plea that the resistance offered by the Constitutionalists to the invading army constituted an act of high treason, the King declared himself absolved from all promises he had given previously to his departure. A reign of terror was set on foot. … Signor Botta thus sums up the net result of the punishments inflicted after the return of the King in the Neapolitan provinces alone. 'About a thousand persons were condemned to death, imprisoned, or exiled. Infinitely greater was the number of officers and officials who were deprived of their posts by the Commissioners of Investigation.' … The establishment of Constitutional Government in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and the resolution adopted at the instigation of Austria, by the Congress of Laibach, to suppress the Neapolitan Constitution by armed force, produced a profound effect throughout Italy, and especially in Sardinia. The fact that internal reforms were incompatible with the ascendency of Austria in the Peninsula was brought home to the popular mind, and, for the first time in the history of Italy, the desire for civil liberty became identified with the national aversion to foreign rule. {1858} In Piedmont there was a powerful Constitutional party, composed chiefly of professional men, and a strong military caste, aristocratic by birth and conviction, but opposed on national grounds to the domination of Austria over Italy. These two parties coalesced for a time upon the common platform of Constitutional Reform and war with Austria; and the result was the abortive rising of 1821. The insurrection, however, though directed against the established Government, had about it nothing of an anti-dynastic, or even of a revolutionary character. On the contrary, the leaders of the revolt professed, and probably with sincerity, that they were carrying out the true wishes of their Sovereign. Their theory was, that Victor Emmanuel I. was only compelled to adhere to the Holy Alliance by considerations of foreign policy, and that, if his hands were forced, he would welcome any opportunity of severing himself from all complicity with Austria. Acting on this belief, they determined to proclaim the Constitution by a sort of coup d' état, and then, after having declared war on Austria, to invade Lombardy, and thus create a diversion in favour of the Neapolitans. It is certain that Victor Emmanuel I. gave no sanction to, and was not even cognisant of, this mad enterprise. … The troubles and calamities of his early life had exhausted his energy; and his one desire was to live at peace at home and abroad. On the other hand, it is certain that Charles Albert [prince of Savoy-Carignan, heir presumptive to the throne of Sardinia] was in communication with the leaders of the insurrection, though how far he was privy to their actual designs has never yet been clearly ascertained. The insurrection broke out just about the time when the Austrian troops were approaching the Neapolitan frontiers. … The insurrection gained head rapidly, and the example of Alexandria was followed by the garrison of Turin. Pressure was brought to bear upon Victor Emmanuel I., and he was led to believe that the only means of averting civil war was to grant the Constitution. The pressure, however, overshot its mark. On the one hand, the King felt that he could not possibly withstand the demand for a Constitution at the cost of having to order the regiments which had remained loyal to fire upon the insurgents. On the other hand, he did not feel justified in granting the Constitution without the sanction of his brother and [immediate] heir. In order, therefore, to escape from this dilemma, his Majesty abdicated suddenly in favour of Charles Felix [his brother]. As, however, the new Sovereign happened to be residing at Modena, at the Court of his brother-in-law, the Prince of Savoy-Carignan was appointed Regent until such time as Charles Felix could return to the capital. Immediately upon his abdication, Victor Emmanuel quitted Turin, and Charles Albert was left in supreme authority as Regent of the State. Within twelve hours of his accession to power, the Regent proclaimed the Spanish Constitution as the fundamental law of Piedmont. … The probability is … that Charles Albert, or rather his advisers, were anxious to tie the hands of the new Sovereign. They calculated that Charles Felix, who was no longer young, and who was known to be bitterly hostile to all Liberal theories of Government, would abdicate sooner than accept the Crown of a Constitutional kingdom. This calculation proved erroneous. … As soon as his Majesty learned the news of what had occurred in his absence, he issued a manifesto [March, 1821], declaring all the reforms granted under the Regency to be null and void, describing the authors of the Constitution as rebels, and avowing his intention, in the case of necessity, of calling upon the Allied Powers to assist him in restoring the legitimate authority of the Crown. Meanwhile, he refused to accept the throne till the restoration of order had given Victor Emmanuel full freedom to reconsider the propriety of abdication. This manifesto was followed by the immediate advance of an Austrian corps d'armée to the frontier stream of the Ticino, as well as by the announcement that the Russian Government had ordered an army of 100,000 men to set out on their march towards Italy, with the avowed object of restoring order in the Peninsula. The population of Piedmont recognised at once, with their practical good sense, that any effective resistance was out of the question. … The courage of the insurgents gave way in view of the obstacles which they had to encounter, and the last blow was dealt to their cause by the sudden defection of the Prince Regent. … Unable either to face his coadjutors in the Constitutional pronunciamento, or to assume the responsibility of an open conflict with the legitimate Sovereign, the Regent left Turin secretly [March 21, 1821], without giving any notice of his intended departure, and, on arriving at Novara, formally resigned his short-lived power. The leaders, however, of the insurrection had committed themselves too deeply to follow the example of the Regent. A Provisional Government was established at Turin, and it was determined to march upon Novara, in the hope that the troops collected there would fraternise with the insurgents. As soon as it was known that the insurgents were advancing in force from Turin, the Austrians, under General Bübner, crossed the Ticino, and effected a junction with the Royal troops. When the insurgents reached Novara, they suddenly found themselves confronted, not by their own fellow-countrymen, but by an Austrian army. A panic ensued, and the insurrectionary force suffered a disastrous, though, fortunately, a comparatively bloodless, defeat. After this disaster the insurrection was virtually at an end. … The Austrians, with the consent of Charles Felix, occupied the principal fortresses of Piedmont. The old order of things was restored, and, upon Victor Emmanuel's formal refusal to withdraw his abdication, Charles Felix assumed the title of King of Sardinia. As soon as military resistance had ceased, the insurrection was put down with a strong hand."

E. Dicey, Victor Emmanuel, chapters 3-4.

"Henceforth the issue could not be misunderstood. The conflict was not simply between the Neapolitans and their Bourbon king, or between the Piedmontese and Charles Felix, but between Italian Liberalism and European Absolutism. Santarosa and Pepé cried out in their disappointment that the just cause would have won had their timid colleagues been more daring, had promises but been kept; we, however, see clearly that though the struggle might have been prolonged, the result would have been unchanged. Piedmont and Naples, had each of their citizens been a hero, could not have overcome the Holy Alliance [see HOLY ALLIANCE], which was their real antagonist. {1859} The revolutionists had not directly attacked the Holy Alliance; they had not thrown down the gauntlet to Austria; they had simply insisted that they had a right to constitutional government; and Austria, more keen-witted than they, had seen that to suffer a constitution at Naples or Turin would be to acknowledge the injustice of those principles by which the Holy Alliance had decreed that Europe should be repressed to the end of time. So when the Carbonari aimed at Ferdinand they struck Austria, and Austria struck back a deadly blow. … But Austria and the Reactionists were not content with simple victory; treating the revolution as a crime, they at once proceeded to take vengeance. … Ferdinand, the perjured Neapolitan king, tarried behind in Florence, whilst the Austrians went down into his kingdom. … But as soon as Ferdinand was assured that the Austrian regiments were masters of Naples, he sent for that Prince of Canosa whom he had been forced unwillingly to dismiss on account of his outrageous cruelty five years before, and deputed to him the task of restoring genuine Bourbon tyranny in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. A better agent of vindictive wrath than Canosa could not have been found; he was troubled by no humane compunctions, nor by doubts as to the justice of his fierce measures; to him, as to Torquemada, persecution was a compound of duty and pleasure. … The right of assembling, no matter for what purpose, being denied, the universities, schools, and lyceums had to close; proscription lists were hurriedly drawn up, and they contained not only the names of those who had been prominent in the recent rising, but also of all who had incurred suspicion for any political acts as far back as 1793. … Houses were searched without warrant; seals were broken open; some of the revelations of the confessional were not sacred. The church-bells tolled incessantly for victims led to execution. To strike deeper terror, Canosa revived the barbarous torture of scourging in public. … How many victims actually suffered during this reign of terror we cannot tell. Canosa's list of the proscribed had, it is said, more than four thousand names. The prisons were choked with persons begging for trial; the galleys of Pantelleria, Procida, and the Ponza Islands swarmed with victims condemned for life; the scaffolds, erected in the public squares of the chief towns, were daily occupied. … At length, when his deputies had terrorized the country into apparent submission, and when the Austrian regiments made it safe for him to travel, Ferdinand quitted Florence and returned to Naples. … In Sicily the revolution smouldered and spluttered for years, in spite of remorseless efforts to stamp it out; on the mainland, robberies and brigandage, and outbreaks now political and now criminal, proved how delusive was a security based on oppression and lies. Amid these conditions Ferdinand passed the later years of his infamous reign. … In Piedmont the retaliation was as effectual as in Naples, but less blood was shed there. Della Torre took command of the kingdom in the name of Charles Felix. … Seventy-three officers were condemned to death, one hundred and five to the galleys; but as nearly all of them had escaped, they were hanged in effigy; only two, Lieutenant Lanari and Captain Garelli, were executed. The property of the condemned was sequestrated, their families were tormented, and the commission, not content with sentencing those who had taken an active part in the revolution, cashiered two hundred and twenty-one officers who, while holding aloof from Santarosa, had refused to join Della Torre at Novara and fight against their countrymen. … The King … had soon reason to learn the truth of a former epigram of his, 'Austria is a bird-lime which you cannot wash off your fingers when you have once touched it'; for Austria soon showed that her motive in bolstering falling monarchs on their shaky thrones was not simply philanthropic nor disinterested. General Bubna, on taking possession of Alessandria, sent the keys of that fortress to Emperor Francis, in order, he said,—and we wonder whether there was no sarcasm in his voice,—in order to give Charles Felix 'the pleasure of receiving them back from the Emperor's hand.' 'Although I found this a very poor joke,' wrote Charles Felix to his brother, 'I dissembled.' How, indeed, could he do otherwise? … Charles Felix had in truth become but the vassal of the hereditary enemy of his line, and that not by conquest, but by his own invitation."

W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence, book 2, chapter 7 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: P. Colletta, History of Naples, books 9-10 (volume 2).

A. Gallenga, History of Piedmont, volume 3, chapter 6.

R. H. Wrightson, History of Modern Italy, chapters 2-3, and 6.

ITALY: A. D. 1820-1822. The Congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona.

See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF.

ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832. Revolt in Modena, Parma, and the Papal States, suppressed by Austrian troops.

"The Revolution of 1830 [in France] made a natural impression in a country which had many evils to complain of and which had so lately been connected with France. The duke of Modena, Francis IV., sought to make use of the liberal movement to extend his rule over northern Italy. But at the last moment he was terrified by threats from Vienna, turned against his fellow-conspirators, and imprisoned them (February 3, 1831). The people, however, were so alienated by his treachery that he fled with his prisoners to seek safety in Austrian territory. A provisional government was formed, and Modena was declared a free state. Meanwhile the election of a new pope, Gregory XVI., gave occasion for a rising in the papal states. Bologna took the lead in throwing off its allegiance to Rome, and in a few weeks its example was followed by the whole of Romagna, Umbria, and the Marches. The two sons of Louis Bonaparte, the late king of Holland, hastened to join the insurgents, but the elder died at Forli (17 March), and thus an eventful career was opened to the younger brother, the future Napoleon III. Parma revolted against Maria Louisa, who followed the example of the duke of Modena and fled to Austria. The success of the movement, however, was very short-lived. Austrian troops marched to the assistance of the papacy, the rebellion was put down by force, and the exiled rulers were restored. Louis Philippe, on whom the insurgents had relied, had no sympathy with a movement in which members of the Bonaparte family were engaged. But a temporary revival of the insurrection brought the Austrians back to Romagna, and a great outcry was raised in France against the king. {1860} To satisfy public opinion, Louis Philippe sent a French force to seize Ancona (February 22, 1832), but it was a very harmless demonstration, and had been explained beforehand to the papal government. In Naples and Sardinia no disturbances took place. Ferdinand II. succeeded his father Francis I. on the Neapolitan throne in 1830, and satisfied the people by introducing a more moderate system of government. Charles Albert became king of Sardinia on the death of Charles Felix (27 April, 1831), and found himself in a difficult position between Austria, which had good reason to mistrust him, and the liberal party, which he had betrayed."

R. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 25.

ALSO IN: L. G. Farini, The Roman State, 1815-1850, volume 1, chapters 3-5.

ITALY: A. D. 1831-1848. The Mission of Mazzini, the Revolutionist. Young Italy.

"The Revolution of 1830, ineffectual as it seemed to its promoters, was yet most significant. It failed in Italy and Poland, in Spain and Portugal; it created a mongrel monarchy, neither Absolute nor Constitutional, in France; only in Belgium did it attain its immediate purpose. Nevertheless, if we look beneath the surface, we see that it was one of those epoch-marking events of which we can say, 'Things cannot be again what until just now they were.' … The late risings in the Duchies and Legations had brought no comfort to the conspirators, but had taught them, on the contrary, how ineffectual, how hopeless was the method of the secret societies. After more than fifteen years they had not gained an inch; they had only learned that their rulers would concede nothing, and that Austria, their great adversary, had staked her existence on maintaining thraldom in Italy. Innumerable small outbursts and three revolutions had ended in the death of hundreds and in the imprisonment or proscription of thousands of victims. … Just when conspiracy, through repeated failures, was thus discredited, there arose a leader so strong and unselfish, so magnetic and patient and zealous, that by him, if by anyone, conspiracy might be guided to victory. This leader, the Great Conspirator, was Joseph Mazzini, one of the half dozen supreme influences in European politics during the nineteenth century, whose career will interest posterity as long as it is concerned at all in our epoch of transition. For just as Metternich was the High Priest of the Old Regime, so Mazzini was the Prophet of a Social Order, more just, more free, more spiritual than any the world has known. He was an Idealist who would hold no parley with temporizers, an enthusiast whom half-concessions could not beguile: and so he came to be decried as a fanatic or a visionary. … Mazzini joined the Carbonari, not without suspecting that, under their complex symbolism and hierarchical mysteries they concealed a fatal lack of harmony, decision, and faith. … As he became better acquainted with Carbonarism, his conviction grew stronger that no permanent good could be achieved by it. … The open propaganda of his Republican and Unitarian doctrines was of course impossible; it must be carried on by a secret organization. But he was disgusted with the existing secret societies: they lacked harmony, they lacked faith, they had no distinct purpose; their Masonic mummeries were childish and farcical. … Therefore, Mazzini would have none of them; he would organize a new secret society, and call it 'Young Italy,' whose principles should be plainly understood by every one of its members. It was to be composed of men under forty, in order to secure the most energetic and disinterested members, and to avoid the influence of older men, who, trained by the past generation, were not in touch with the aspirations and needs of the new. It was to awaken the People, the bone and sinew of the nation; whereas the earlier sects had relied too much on the upper and middle classes, whose traditions and interests were either too aristocratic or too commercial. Roman Catholicism had ceased to be spiritual; it no longer purified and uplifted the hearts of the Italians. … Young Italy aimed, therefore, to substitute for the mediæval dogmas and patent idolatries of Rome a religion based on Reason, and so simple as to be within the comprehension of the humblest peasant. … The doctrines of the new sect spread, but since secret societies give the census-taker no account of their membership, we cannot cite figures to illustrate the growth of Young Italy. Contrary to Mazzini's expectations, it was recruited, not so much from the People, as from the Middle Class, the professional men, and the tradesmen." In 1831 Mazzini was forced into exile, at Marseilles, from which city he planned an invasion of Savoy. The project was discovered, and the Sardinian government revenged itself cruelly upon the patriots within its reach. "In a few weeks, eleven alleged conspirators had been executed, many more had been sentenced to the galleys, and others, who had escaped; were condemned in contumacy. Among the men who fled into exile at this time were … Vincent Gioberti and Joseph Garibaldi. … To an enthusiast less determined than Mazzini, this calamity would have been a check; to him, however, it was a spur. Instead of abandoning the expedition against Savoy, he worked with might and main to hurry it on. … One column, in which were fifty Italians and twice as many Poles, … was to enter Savoy by way of Annemasse. A second column had orders to push on from Nyon; a third, starting from Lyons, was to march towards Chambéry. Mazzini, with a musket on his shoulder, accompanied the first party. To his surprise, the peasants showed no enthusiasm when the tricolor flag was unfurled and the invaders shouted 'God and People! Liberty and the Republic!' before them. At length some carabineers and a platoon of troops appeared. A few shots were fired. Mazzini fainted; his comrades dispersed across the Swiss border, taking him with them. … His enemies attributed his fainting to cowardice; he himself explained it as the result of many nights of sleeplessness, of great fatigue, fever and cold. … To all but the few concerned in it, this first venture of Young Italy seemed a farce, the disproportion between its aim and its achievement was so enormous, and Mazzini's personal collapse was so ignominious. Nevertheless, Italian conspiracy had now and henceforth that head for lack of which it had so long floundered amid vague and contradictory purposes. The young Idealist had been beaten in his first encounter with obdurate Reality, but he was not discouraged. … Now began in earnest that 'apostolate' of his, which he laid down only at his death. {1861} Young Italy was established beyond the chance of being destroyed by an abortive expedition; Young Poland, Young Hungary, Young Europe itself, sprang up after the Mazzinian pattern; the Liberals and revolutionists of the Continent felt that their cause was international, and in their affliction they fraternized. No one could draw so fair and reasonable a Utopia for them as Mazzini drew; no one could so fire them with a sense of duty, with hope, with energy. He became the mainspring of the whole machine—truly an infernal machine to the autocrats—of European conspiracy. The redemption of Italy was always his nearest aim, but his generous principle reached out over other nations, for in the world that he prophesied every people must be free. Proscribed in Piedmont, expelled from Switzerland, denied lodging in France, he took refuge in London, there to direct, amid poverty and heartache, the whole vast scheme of plots. His bread he earned by writing critical and literary essays for the English reviews,—he quickly mastered the English language so as to use it with remarkable vigor,—and all his leisure he devoted to the preparation of political tracts, and to correspondence with numberless confederates. … He was the consulting physician for all the revolutionary practitioners of Europe. Those who were not his partisans disparaged his influence, asserting that he was only a man of words; but the best proof of his power lies in the anxiety he caused monarchs and cabinets, and in the precautions they took to guard against him. … Mazzini and Metternich! For nearly twenty years they were the antipodes of European politics. One in his London garret, poor, despised, yet indomitable and sleepless, sending his influence like an electric current through all barriers to revivify the heart of Italy and of Liberal Europe; the other in his Vienna palace, haughty, famous, equally alert and cunning, … shedding over Italy and over Europe his upas-doctrines of torpor and decay!"

W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence, book 3, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: W. L. Garrison, Joseph Mazzini, chapters 2-5.

J. Mazzini, Collected Works, volume 1.

ITALY: A. D. 1848. Expulsion of Jesuits.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871.

ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849. Insurrection and revolution throughout the peninsula. French occupation of Rome. Triumph of King "Bomba" in Naples and Sicily. Disastrous war of Sardinia with Austria. Lombardy and Venice enslaved anew.

"The revolution of 1831, which affected the States of the Church, Modena, and Parma, had been suppressed, like the still earlier rebellions in Naples and Piedmont, by Austrian intervention. … Hence, all the hatred of the Italians was directed against foreign rule, as the only obstacle to the freedom and unity of the peninsula. … The secret societies, and the exiles in communication with them—especially Joseph Mazzini, who issued his commands from London—took care that the national spirit should not be buried beneath material interests, but should remain ever wakeful. Singularly, the first encouragement came from" Rome. "Pope Gregory XVI., … had died June 1st, 1846, and been succeeded by the fifty-four-year-old Cardinal Count Mastai Ferretti, who took the name of Pius IX. If the pious world which visited him was charmed by the amiability and clemency of its new head, the cardinals were dismayed at the reforms which this new head would fain introduce in the States of the Church and in all Italy. He published an amnesty for all political offences; permitted the exiles to return with impunity; allowed the Press freer scope; threw open the highest civil offices to laymen; summoned from the notables of the provinces a council of state, which was to propose reforms; bestowed a liberal municipal constitution on the city of Rome; and endeavored to bring about an Italian confederation. … After the French revolution of 1848 he granted a constitution. There was a first chamber, to be named by the Pope, and a second chamber, to be elected by the people, while the irresponsible college of cardinals formed a sort of privy council. A new era appeared to be dawning. The old-world capital, Rome, once the mistress of the nations, still the mistress of all Roman Catholic hearts, was to become the central point of Italy. … But when the flames of war broke out in the north [see below], and the fate of Italy was about to be decided between Sardinia and Austria on the old battle fields of Lombardy, the Romans demanded from the Pope a declaration of war against Austria, and the despatch of Roman troops to join Charles Albert's army. Pius rejected their demands as unsuited to his papal office, and so broke with the men of the extreme party. … In this time of agitation Pius thought that in Count Pellegrino Rossi, of Carrara, … he had found the right man to carry out a policy of moderate liberalism, and on the 17th of September, 1848, he set him at the head of a new ministry. The anarchists … could not forgive Rossi for grasping the reins with a firm hand." On the 15th of November, as he alighted from his carriage at the door of the Chambers, he was stabbed in the neck by an assassin, and died on the spot. He was about, when murdered, to open the Chambers with a speech, in which he intended "to promise abolition of the rule of the cardinals and introduction of a lay government, and to insist upon Italy's independence and unity. … The next day an armed crowd appeared before the Quirinal and attacked the guard, which consisted of Swiss mercenaries, some of the bullets flying into the Pope's antechamber. He had to accept a radical ministry and dismiss the Swiss troops. … Pius fled in disguise from Rome to Gaeta, November 24th, and sought shelter with the King of Naples. Mazzini and his party had free scope. A constitutional convention was summoned, which declared the temporal power of the Pope abolished (February 5th, 1849), and Rome a republic. To them attached itself Tuscany. Grand-duke Leopold II. had granted a constitution, February 17th, 1848, but nevertheless the republican-minded ministry of Guerrazzi compelled him to join the Pope at Gaeta, February 21st, 1849. The republic was then proclaimed in Tuscany and union with Rome resolved upon." But Louis Napoleon, President of the French republic, intervened. "Marshal Oudinot was despatched with 8,000 men. He landed in Civita Vecchia, April 26th, 1849, and appeared before the walls of Rome on the 30th, expecting to take the city without any trouble. But … after a fight of several hours, he had to retreat to Civita Vecchia with a loss of 700 men. {1862} A few days later the Neapolitan army, which was to attack the rebels from the south, was defeated at Velletri; and the Spanish troops, the third in the league against the red republic, prudently avoided a battle. But Oudinot received considerable re-enforcements, and on June 3d he advanced against Rome for the second time, with 35,000 men, while the force in the city consisted of about 19,000, mostly volunteers and national guards. In spite of the bravery of Garibaldi and the volunteers, into whom he breathed his spirit, Rome had to capitulate, after a long and bloody struggle, owing to the superiority of the French artillery. On the 4th of July Oudinot entered the silent capital. Garibaldi, Mazzini, and their followers fled. … Pius, for whose nerves the Roman atmosphere was still too strong, did not return until the 4th of April, 1850. His ardor for reform was cooled. … In the Legations they had to protect themselves by Austrian bayonets, and in Rome and Civita Vecchia by French. This lasted in the Legations until 1859, and in Rome and Civita Vecchia until 1866 and 1870. Simultaneously with Rome the south of Italy had entered into the movement so characteristic of the year 1848. The scenes of 1820 and 1821 were repeated." The Sicilians again demanded independence; expelled the Neapolitan garrison from Palermo; refused to accept a constitution proffered by King Ferdinand II., which created a united parliament for Naples and Sicily; voted in a Sicilian parliament the perpetual exclusion of the Bourbon dynasty from the throne, and offered the crown of Sicily to a son of the king of Sardinia, who declined the gift. In Naples, Ferdinand yielded at first to the storm, and sent, under compulsion, a force of 13,000 Neapolitan troops, commanded by the old revolutionist, General Pepé, to join the Sardinians against Austria. This was in April, 1848. A month later he crushed the revolution with his Swiss mercenaries, recalled his army from northern Italy, and was master, again, in his capital and his peninsular kingdom. The following summer he landed 8,000 troops in Sicily; his army bombarded and stormed Messina in September; defeated the insurgents at the foot of Mount Etna; took Catania by storm in April, 1849, and entered Palermo, after a short bombardment, on the 17th of May, having gained for its master the nickname of "King Bomba." "He ordered a general disarmament, and established an oppressive military rule over the whole island; and there was no more talk of parliament and constitution. All these struggles in central and southern Italy stood in close connection with the events of 1848 and 1849 in upper Italy. … In the north the struggle was to shake off the Austrian yoke. … During the month of January, 1848, there was constant friction between the citizens and the military in Milan and the university cities of Pavia and Padua. … March 18th, Milan rose. All classes took part in the fight; and the eighty-two-year-old field-marshal Count Joseph Radetzky … was obliged, after a street fight of two days, to draw his troops out of the city, call up as quickly as possible the garrisons of the neighboring cities, and take up his position in the famous Quadrilateral, between Peschiera, Verona, Legnano, and Mantua. March 22d, Venice, where Count Zichy commanded, was lost for the Austrians," who yielded without resistance, releasing their political prisoners, one of whom, the celebrated Daniel Manin, a Venetian lawyer, took his place at the head of a provisional government. "Other cities followed the lead of Venice. The little duchies of Modena and Parma could hold out no longer; Dukes Francis and Charles fled to Austria, and provisional governments sprung up behind them. Like Naples, the duchies and Tuscany also sent their troops across the Po to help the Sardinians in the decisive struggle. The hopes of all Italy were centred on Sardinia and its king. … Charles Albert, called to the aid of Lombardy, entered Milan to win for himself the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom and the hegemony of Italy. He presented himself as the liberator of the peninsula, but it was not a part for which he was qualified by his antecedents. … He was a brave soldier, but a poor captain. … His opponent, Radetzky, was old, but his spirit was still young and fresh. … Radetzky received re-enforcements from Austria, and on the 6th of May repelled the attack of the Sardinian king south-west of Verona [at Santa Lucia]. May 29th, he carried the intrenchments at Cartatone; but as the Sardinians were victorious at Goito and took Peschiera, while Garibaldi with his Alpine rangers threatened the Austrian rear, he had to desist from further advances, and limit his operations to the recapture of Vicenza and the other cities of the Venetian main-land. In the mean time the Austrian court, chiefly at the instigation of the British embassy, had opened negotiations with the Lombards, and offered them their independence on condition of their assuming a considerable share of the public debt, and concluding a favorable commercial treaty with Austria. But, as the Lombards felt sure of acquiring their freedom more cheaply, they did not accept the proposition. Radetzky was now in a position to assume an active offensive. He won a brilliant victory at Custozza, July 25th. The Sardinians attempted to make a stand at Goito and again at Volta, but were driven back, and Radetzky advanced on Milan. Charles Albert had to evacuate the city," and on the 9th of August he concluded an armistice, withdrawing his troops from Lombardy and the duchies. But in the following March (1849) he was persuaded to renew the war, and he placed his army under the command of the Polish general Chrzanowski. It was the intention of the Sardinians to advance again into Lombardy, but they had no opportunity. "Radetzky crossed the Ticino, and in a four days' campaign on Sardinian soil defeated the foe so completely—March 21st at Mortara, and March 23d at Novara—that there could be no more thought of a renewal of the struggle. … Charles Albert, who had vainly sought death upon the battle-field, was weary of his throne and his life. In the night of March 23d, at Novara, he laid down the crown and declared his eldest son king of Sardinia, under the title of Victor Emmanuel II. He hoped that the latter would obtain a more favorable peace from the Austrians. … Then, saying farewell to his wife by letter, attended by but two servants, he travelled through France and Spain to Portugal. He died at Oporto, July 26th, 1849, of repeated strokes of apoplexy." After long negotiations, the new king concluded a treaty of peace with Austria on the 6th of August. "Sardinia retained its boundaries intact, and paid 75,000,000 lire as indemnity. The false report of a Sardinian victory at Novara had caused the population of Brescia to fall upon the Austrian garrison and drive them into the citadel. {1863} General Haynau hastened thither with 4,000 men well provided with artillery. The city was bombarded, and on the 1st of April it was reoccupied, after a fearful street fight, in which even women took part; but Haynau stained his name by inhuman cruelties, especially toward the gentler sex. Venice was not able to hold out much longer. It had at first attached itself to Sardinia, but after the defeat of the Sardinians the republic was proclaimed. Without the city, in Haynau's camp, swamp fever raged; within, hunger and cholera. On the news of the capitulation of Hungary, August 22d, it surrendered, and the heads of the revolution, Manin and Pepe, went into exile. All Italy was again brought under its old masters."

W. Müller, Political History of Recent Times, section 16.

The siege of Venice, "reckoning from April 2, when the Assembly voted to resist at any cost, lasted 146 days; but the blockade by land began on June 18, 1848, when the Austrians first occupied Mestre. During the twenty-one weeks of actual siege, 900 Venetian troops were killed, and probably 7,000 or 8,000 were at different times on the sick-list. Of the Austrians, 1,200 were killed in engagements, 8,000 succumbed to fevers and cholera, and as many more were in the hospitals: 80,000 projectiles were fired from the Venetian batteries; from the Austrian, more than 120,000. During the seventeen months of her independence, Venice raised sixty million francs, exclusive of patriotic donations in plate and chattels. When Gorzkowsky came to examine the accounts of the defunct government he exclaimed, 'I did not believe that such Republican dogs were such honest men.' With the fate of Venice was quenched the last of the fires of liberty which the Revolution had kindled throughout Europe in 1848. Her people, whom the world had come to look down upon as degenerate,—mere trinket-makers and gondoliers,—had proved themselves second to none in heroism, superior to all in stability. At Venice, from first to last, we have had to record no excesses, no fickle changes, no slipping down of power from level to level till it sank in the mire of anarchy. She had her demagogues and her passions, but she would be the slave of neither; and in nothing did she show her character more worthily than in recognizing Manin and making him her leader. He repaid her trust by absolute fidelity. I can discover no public act of his to which you can impute any other motive than solicitude for her welfare. The common people loved him as a father, revered him as a patron saint; the upper classes, the soldiers, the politicians, whatever may have been the preferences of individuals or the ambition of cliques, felt that he was indispensable, and gave him wider and wider authority as danger increased. … The little lawyer, with the large, careworn face and blue eyes, had redeemed Venice from her long shame of decadence and servitude. But Europe would not suffer his work to stand; Europe preferred that Austria rather than freedom should rule at Venice. At daybreak on August 28 a mournful throng of the common people collected before Manin's house in Piazza San Paterniano. 'Here is our good father, poor dear fellow,' they were heard to say. 'He has endured so much for us. May God bless him!' They escorted him and his family to the shore, whence he embarked on the French ship Pluton, for he was among the forty prominent Venetians whom the Austrians condemned to banishment. At six o'clock the Pluton weighed anchor and passed through the winding channel of the lagune, out into the Adriatic. Long before the Austrian banners were hoisted that morning on the flagstaffs of St. Mark's, Venice, with her fair towers and glittering domes, had vanished forever from her Great Defender's sight. Outwardly, the Revolutionary Movement had failed; in France it had resulted in a spurious Republic, soon to become a tinsel Empire; elsewhere, there was not even a make-believe success to hide, if but for a while, the failure. In Italy, except in Piedmont, Reaction had full play. Bomba filled his Neapolitan and Sicilian prisons with political victims, and demonstrated again that the Bourbon government was a negation of God. Pius IX., having loitered at Naples with his Paragon of Virtue until April, 1850, returned to Rome, to be henceforth now the puppet and now the accomplice of Cardinal Antonelli in every scheme for oppressing his subjects, and for resisting Liberal tendencies. He held his temporal sovereignty through the kindness of the Bonapartist charlatan in France; it was fated that he should lose it forever when that charlatan lost his Empire. In Tuscany, Leopold thanked Austria for permitting him to rule over a people the intelligent part of which despised him. In Modena, the Duke was but an Austrian deputy sheriff. Lombardy and Venetia were again the prey of the double-beaked eagle of Hapsburg. Only in Piedmont did Constitutionalism and liberty survive to become, under an honest king and a wise minister, the ark of Italy's redemption."

W. R. Thayer, The Dawn of Italian Independence, book 5, chapter 6 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: W. E. Gladstone, Gleanings of Past Years, volume 4, chapters 1-4.

L. C. Farini, The Roman State from 1815 to 1850, books 2-7 (volumes 1-4).

H. Martin, Daniel Manin and Venice in 1848-49.

G. Garibaldi, Autobiography, period 2 (volumes 1-2).

L. Mariotti, Italy in 1848.

E. A. V., Joseph Mazzini, chapters 4-5.

The Chevalier O'Clery, History of the Italian Revolution, chapters 6-7.

ITALY: A. D. 1855. Sardinia in the alliance of the Crimean War against Russia.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856.

ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859. Austro-Italy before Europe in the Congress of Paris. Alliance of France with Sardinia. War with Austria. Emancipation of Lombardy. Peace of Villa-franca.

"The year 1856 brought an armistice between the contending powers [in the Crimea—see RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854 to 1854-1856], followed by the Congress of Paris, which settled the terms of peace. At that Congress Count Cavour and the Marquis Villamarina represented their country side by side with the envoys of the great European States. The Prime Minister of Piedmont, while taking his part in the re-establishment of the general peace with a skill and tact which won him the favour of his brother plenipotentiaries, never lost sight of the further object he had in view, namely, that of laying before the Congress the condition of Italy. … His efforts were rewarded with success. {1864} On the 30th March, 1856, the treaty of peace was signed, and on the 8th April Count Walewski called the attention of the members of the Congress to the state of Italy. … Count Buol, the Austrian plenipotentiary, would not admit that the Congress had any right to deal with the Italian question at all; he declined courteously, but firmly, to discuss the matter. … But although Austria refused to entertain the question, the fact remained that the condition of Italy now stood condemned, not by revolutionary chiefs, nor by the rulers of Piedmont alone, but by the envoys of some of the leading powers of Europe speaking officially in the name of their respective sovereigns. It was in truth a great diplomatic victory for Italy. … No one in Europe was more thoroughly convinced than Napoleon III. that the discontent of Italy and the plots of a section of Italians had their origin in the despotism which annihilated all national life in the Peninsula with the single exception of Piedmont. He felt keenly, also, how false, was his own position at Rome. … France upheld the Pope as a temporal sovereign, but, nevertheless, the latter ruled in a manner which pleased Austria and which displeased France. … Count Cavour went privately to meet the French Emperor at Plombières in July, 1858. During that interview it was arranged that France should ally herself actively with Piedmont against Austria. … The first public indication of the attitude taken up by France with regard to Austria and Italy was given on the 1st January, 1859, when Napoleon III. received the diplomatic corps at the Tuileries. Addressing Baron Hubner, the Austrian Ambassador, the French Emperor said: 'I regret that the relations between us are bad; tell your sovereign, however, that my sentiments towards him are not changed.' … The ties which united France to Piedmont were strengthened by the marriage, in the end of January, 1859, of the Princess Clotilde, the eldest daughter of Victor Emmanuel, with Prince Napoleon, the first cousin of the French Emperor. … An agreement was made by which the Emperor Napoleon promised to give armed assistance to Piedmont if she were attacked by Austria. The result, in case the allies were successful, was to be the formation of a northern kingdom of Italy. … Both Austria and Piedmont increased their armaments and raised loans in preparation for war. Men of all ranks and conditions of life flocked to Turin from the other States of Italy to join the Piedmontese army, or enrol themselves among the volunteers of Garibaldi, who had hastened to offer his services to the king against Austria. … Meanwhile, diplomacy made continual efforts to avert war. … The idea of a European Congress was started. … Then came the proposition of a general disarmament by way of staying the warlike preparations, which were taking ever enlarged proportions. On the 18th April, 1859, the Cabinet of Turin agreed to the principle of disarmament at the special request of England and France, on the condition that Piedmont took her seat at the Congress. The Cabinet of Vienna had made no reply to this proposition. Then suddenly it addressed, on the 23rd April, an ultimatum to the Cabinet of Turin demanding the instant disarmament of Piedmont, to which a categorical reply was asked for within three days. At the expiration of the three days Count Cavour, who was delighted at this hasty step of his opponent, remitted to Baron Kellerberg, the Austrian envoy, a refusal to comply with the request made. War was now inevitable. Victor Emmanuel addressed a stirring proclamation to his army on the 27th April, and two days afterwards another to the people of his own kingdom and to the people of Italy. … On the 30th April some French troops arrived at Turin. On the 13th May Napoleon III. disembarked at Genoa. … Although the Austrian armies proceeded to cross the Ticino and invade the Piedmontese territory, they failed to make a decisive march on Turin. Had Count Giúlay, the Austrian commander, done so without hesitation, he might well have reached the capital of Piedmont before the French had arrived in sufficient force to enable the little Piedmontese army to arrest the invasion. As it was, the opportunity was lost never to occur again. In the first engagements at Montebello and Palestro [May 20, 30 and 31] the advantage rested decidedly with the allies. … On the 4th June the French fought the battle of Magenta, which ended, though not without a hard struggle, in the defeat of the Austrians. On the 8th the Emperor Napoleon and King Victor Emmanuel entered Milan, where they were received with a welcome as sincere as it was enthusiastic. The rich Lombard capital hastened to recognise the king as its sovereign. While there he met in person, Garibaldi, who was in command of the volunteer corps, whose members had flocked from all parts of Italy to carry on under his command the war in the mountainous districts of the north against Austria. … The allied troops pursued their march onwards towards the River Mincio, upon whose banks two of the fortresses of the famous Quadrilateral are situated. On the 24th June they encountered the Austrian army at Solferino and San Martino. French, Piedmontese, and Austrians, fought with courage and determination. Nor was it until after ten or eleven hours of hard fighting that the allies forced their enemy to retreat and took possession of the positions he had occupied in the morning. While victory thus crowned the efforts of France and Piedmont in battle, events of no little importance were taking place in Italy. Ferdinand II. of Naples died on the 22nd May, just after he had received the news of the successes of the allies at Montebello and Palestro. He was succeeded by his son, Francis II. … Count Salmour was at once despatched by the Piedmontese Government … with the offer of a full and fair alliance between Turin and Naples. The offer was rejected. Francis determined to follow his father's example of absolutism at home while giving all his influence to Austria. Thus it was that the young Neapolitan king sowed, and as he sowed so he reaped. Leopold, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, had in April refused the proffered alliance of Piedmont. … Finally he left Florence and took refuge in the Austrian camp. A provisional Government was formed, which placed the Tuscan forces at the disposal of Victor Emmanuel. This change was effected in a few hours without bloodshed or violence. The Duchess of Parma went away to Switzerland with her young son, Duke Robert. Francis Duke of Modena betook himself, with what treasures he had time to lay his hands on, to the more congenial atmosphere of the head-quarters of the Austrian army. … 'The deputations which hastened from Tuscany, Parma, and Modena, to offer their allegiance to Victor Emmanuel, were received without difficulty. It was agreed that their complete annexation should be deferred until after the conclusion of peace. {1865} In the meanwhile the Piedmontese Government was to assume the responsibility of maintaining order and providing for military action. … The French and Piedmontese armies had won the battle of Solferino, and driven the enemy across the Mincio; their fleets were off the lagoons of Venice, and were even visible from the lofty Campanile of St. Mark. Italy was throbbing with a movement of national life daily gathering volume and force. Europe was impatiently expecting the next move. It took the unexpected form of an armistice, which the Emperor of the French proposed, on his sole responsibility, to the Emperor Francis Joseph on the 8th July. On the 12th the preliminaries of peace were signed at Villafranca. Victor Emmanuel was opposed to this act of his ally, but was unable to prevent it. The Italians were bitterly disappointed, and their anger was only too faithfully represented by Cavour himself. He hastened to the headquarters of the king, denounced in vehement language the whole proceeding, advised his majesty not to sign the armistice, not to accept Lombardy [see below], and to withdraw his troops from the Mincio to the Ticino. But Victor Emmanuel, though sympathising with the feelings of Italy and of his Minister, took a wiser and more judicious course than the one thus recommended. He accepted Cavour's resignation and signed the armistice, appending to his signature these words:—'J'accepte pour ce qui me concerne.' He reserved his liberty of action for the future and refused to pledge himself to anything more than a cessation of hostilities."

J. W. Probyn, Italy from 1815 to 1890, chapters 9-10.

ALSO IN: C. Bossoli, The War in Italy.

C. de Mazade, Life of Count Cavour, chapters 2-5.

C. Arrivabene, Italy under Victor Emmanuel, chapters 1-13 (volume 1).

C. Adams, Great Campaigns, 1796-1870, pages 271-340.

L. Kossuth, Memories of My Exile.

Countess E. M. Cesaresco, Italian Characters in the Epoch of Unification.

ITALY: A. D. 1859-1861. The Treaty of Zurich and its practical negation. Annexation of Central Italy to Sardinia by Plebiscite. Revolution in Sicily and Naples. Garibaldi's great campaign of liberation. The Sardinian army in the Papal States. The new Kingdom of Italy proclaimed.

"The treaty concluded at Zurich in November [1859] between the ambassadors of France, Austria, and Sardinia substantially ratified the preliminaries arranged at Villafranca. Lombardy passed to the king of Sardinia; Venetia was retained by Austria. The rulers of Modena and Parma were to be restored, the papal power again established in the Legations, while the various states of the peninsula, excepting Sardinia and the Two Sicilies, were to form a confederation under the leadership of the Pope. According to the terms of the treaty Lombardy was the only state directly benefited by the war. … The people of central Italy showed no inclination to resume the old régime. They maintained their position firmly and consistently, despite the decisions of the Zurich Congress, the advice of the French emperor, and the threatening attitude of Naples and Rome. … The year closed without definite action, leaving the provisional governments in control. In fact, matters were simply drifting, and it seemed imperative to take some vigorous measures to terminate so abnormal a condition of affairs. Finally the project of a European congress was suggested. There was but one opinion as to who should represent Italy in such an event. … Cavour … returned to the head of affairs in January. This event was simultaneous with the removal of M. Walewski at Paris and a change in the policy of the French government. The emperor no longer advised the central Italians to accept the return of their rulers. His influence at Rome was exercised to induce the Pope to allow his subjects in the Legations to have their will. … The scheme of a European congress was abandoned. With France at his back to neutralize Austria, Cavour had nothing to fear. … He suggested to the emperor that the central Italians be allowed to settle their fate by plebiscite. This method was to a certain extent a craze with the emperor, … and Cavour was not surprised at the affirmative reply he received to his proposal. The elections took place in March, and by an overwhelming majority the people of Parma, Modena, Tuscany, and the Legations declared for annexation to Sardinia. Austria protested, but could do no more in the face of England and France. Naples followed the Austrian example, while almost simultaneously with the news of the elections there arrived at Turin the papal excommunication for Victor Emmanuel and his subjects. On the 2d of April the king opened the new parliament and addressed himself to the representatives of 12,000,000 Italians. The natural enthusiasm attending the session was seriously dampened by the royal announcement that, subject to the approval of their citizens and the ratification of parliament, Nice and Savoy were to be returned to France. It was, in fact, the concluding installment of the price arranged at Plombières to be paid for the French troops in the campaign of the previous year. … General Garibaldi, who sat in the parliament for Nice, was especially prominent in the angry debates that followed. … When the transfer had been ratified he withdrew to a humble retreat in the island of Caprera. … But the excitement over the loss of Nice and Savoy was soon diminished by the startling intelligence which arrived of rebellion in the Neapolitan dominions. Naples was mutinous, while in Sicily, Palermo and Messina were in open revolt. Garibaldi's time had come. Leaving Caprera, he made for Piedmont, and hastily organized a band of volunteers to assist in the popular movement. On the night of May 6, with about a thousand enthusiastic spirits, he embarked from the coast near Genoa in two steamers and sailed for Sicily. Cavour in the mean time winked at this extraordinary performance. He dispatched Admiral Persano with a squadron ostensibly to intercept the expedition, but in reality 'to navigate between it and the hostile Neapolitan fleet.' On the 11th Garibaldi landed safely at Marsala under the sleepy guns of a Neapolitan man-of-war. On the 14th he was at Salemi, where he issued the following proclamation: 'Garibaldi, commander-in-chief of the national forces in Sicily, on the invitation of the principal citizens, and on the deliberation of the free communes of the island, considering that in times of war it is necessary that the civil and military powers should be united in one person, assumes in the name of Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy, the Dictatorship in Sicily.'" On the 26th Garibaldi attacked Palermo; on the 6th of June he was in possession of the city and citadel; on the 25th of July Messina was surrendered to him. {1866} "Perhaps the excitement at Turin during these days was second only to that which animated the great Sicilian cities. The guns of Bomba's fleet at Palermo were no more active than the diplomatic artillery which the courts of Central Europe trained upon the government at Turin. … Cavour's position at this time was a trying, delicate, and from some points of view a questionable one. He had publicly expressed regret for Garibaldi's expedition, while privately he encouraged it. … Cavour's desire to see Garibaldi in Calabria was changed, a little later. La Farina was at Palermo in behalf of the Sardinian government, to induce Garibaldi to consent to the immediate annexation of Sicily to the new Italian kingdom. This Garibaldi declined to do, preferring to wait until he could lay the entire Neapolitan realm and Rome as well at the feet of Victor Emmanuel. This altered the aspect of affairs. It was evident that Garibaldi was getting headstrong. It was Cavour's constant solicitude to keep the Italian question in such a shape as to allow no foreign power a pretext for interference. Garibaldi's design against Rome garrisoned by French troops would be almost certain to bring on foreign complications and ruin the cause of Italian unity." On the 19th of August, Garibaldi crossed his army from Sicily to the mainland and advanced on Naples. "On the evening of September 6 the king embarked on a Spanish ship, and leaving his mutinous navy at anchor in the bay, quit forever those beautiful shores which his race had too long defiled. On the morning of September 7 Garibaldi was at Salerno; before night he had reached Naples, and its teeming thousands had run mad. … The Neapolitan fleet went over en masse to Garibaldi, and by him was placed under the orders of the Sardinian admiral. The Garibaldian troops came swarming into the city, some by land and others by sea. … Francis II. had shut himself up in the fortress of Gaeta with the remnants of his army, holding the line of the Volturno. … At Turin the state of unrest continued. Garibaldi's presence at Naples was attended with grave perils. Of course his designs upon Rome formed the principal danger, but his conspicuous inability as an organizer was one of scarcely less gravity. … Sardinian troops had become a necessity of the situation. … There was no time to lose. There could be no difficulty in finding an excuse to enter papal territory. The inhabitants of Umbria and the Marches, who had never ceased to appeal for annexation to the new kingdom, were suppressed by an army of foreign mercenaries that the Pope had mustered beneath his banner. … Cavour had interceded in vain with the Vatican to alter its course toward its disaffected subjects. At last, on September 7, the day Garibaldi entered Naples, he sent the royal ultimatum to Cardinal Antonelli at Rome. … On the 11th the unfavorable reply of Antonelli was received, and the same day the Sardinian troops crossed the papal frontier. … Every European power except England, which expressed open satisfaction, protested against this action. There was an imposing flight of ambassadors from Turin, and an ominous commotion all along the diplomatic horizon. Cavour had not moved, however, without a secret understanding with Napoleon. … The Sardinian army advanced rapidly in two columns. General Fanti seized Perugia and Spoleto, while Cialdini on the east of the Apennines utterly destroyed the main papal army under the French general Lamoricière at Castelfidardo [September 17]. Lamoricière with a few followers gained Ancona, but finding that town covered by the guns of the Sardinian fleet, he was compelled to surrender. 'The pontifical mercenary corps' became a thing of the past, Cavour could turn his whole attention to Naples. He had obtained from parliament an enthusiastic permission to receive, if tendered, the allegiance of the Two Sicilies. The army was ordered across the Neapolitan frontier, and the king left for Ancona to take command. In the mean time on October 1 Garibaldi had inflicted another severe defeat to the royal Neapolitan army on the Volturno. The Sardinian advance was wholly unimpeded. … On November 7 the king entered Naples, and on the following day was waited upon by a deputation to announce the result of the election that Garibaldi had previously decreed. 'Sire,' said their spokesman, 'The Neapolitan people, assembled in Comitia, by an immense majority have proclaimed you their king.' … Then followed an event so sublime as to be without parallel in these times of selfish ambition. Garibaldi bade farewell to his faithful followers, and, refusing all rewards, passed again to his quiet home in Caprera. … The people of Umbria and the Marches followed the lead of Naples in declaring themselves subjects of Victor Emmanuel. Except for the patrimony of St. Peter surrounding the city of Rome and the Austrian province of Venetia, Italy was united under the tricolor. While Garibaldi returned to his humble life, Cavour went to Turin to resume his labors. … On the 18th of February, 1861, the first national parliament representing the north and south met at Turin. Five days before, the last stronghold of Francis II. had capitulated, and the enthusiasm ran high. The kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, and the king confirmed as 'Victor Emmanuel II., by the grace of God and the will of the nation King of Italy.' … The work was almost done. The scheme that a few years before would have provoked a smile in any diplomatic circle in Europe had been perfected almost to the capstone. But the man who had conceived the plan and carried it through its darkest days was, not destined to witness its final consummation. Cavour was giving way. On May 29 he was stricken down with a violent illness." On June 6 he died. "To Mazzini belongs the credit of keeping alive the spirit of patriotism; Garibaldi is entitled to the admiration of the world as the pure patriot who fired men's souls; but Cavour was greater than either, and Mazzini and Garibaldi were but humble instruments in his magnificent plan of Italian regeneration."

H. Murdock, The Reconstruction of Europe, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: C. de Mazade, Life of Count Cavour, chapters 5-7.

G. Garibaldi, Autobiography, 3d period (volume 2).

E. Dicey, Victor Emmanuel, chapters 27-34.

E. About, The Roman Question.

The Chevalier O'Clery, The Making of Italy, chapters 7-12.

{1867}

ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866. The Roman question and the Venetian question. Impatience of the nation. Collision of Garibaldi with the government. Alliance with Prussia. War with Austria. Liberation and annexation of Venetia.

"The new ministry was formed by Baron Ricasoli. … In the month of July, Russia and Prussia followed the example of England and France, and acknowledged Italian unity. … Baron Ricasoli only held office about nine months; not feeling equal to the difficulties he had to encounter, he resigned in March, 1862, and Signor Ratazzi was empowered to form a new ministry. … The volunteer troops had become a source of serious embarrassment to the government. … It was found disagreeable and dangerous to have two standing armies under separate heads and a separate discipline, and it was proposed to amalgamate the Garibaldians with the royal troops. Endless disagreements arose out of this question. … As soon as this question was in a manner accommodated, a more serious one arose. The central provinces lost all patience in waiting so long for a peaceful solution of the Roman question. The leaders of the Young Italy party became more warlike in their language, and excited the peasantry to riotous proceedings, which the government had to put down forcibly, and this disagreeable fact helped to make the Ratazzi ministry unpopular. Garibaldi's name had been used as an incentive to those disturbances, and now the hot-headed general embarked for Sicily, to take the command of a troop who were bound for the Eternal City, resolved to cut with the sword the Gordian knot of the Roman question. The government used energetic measures to maintain its dignity, and not allow an irregular warfare to be carried on without its sanction. The times were difficult, no doubt, and the ministry had a hard road to tread. … The Garibaldians were already in the field, and having crossed from Sicily, were marching through Calabria with ever-increasing forces and the cry of 'Rome or death' on their lips. Victor Emmanuel had now no choice left him but to put down rebellion by force of arms. General Cialdini's painful duty it was to lead the royal troops on this occasion. He encountered the Garibaldians at Aspromonte, in Calabria, and on their refusing to surrender to the king, a fight ensued in which the volunteers were of course defeated, and their officers arrested. Garibaldi, with a ball in his foot, from the effects of which he has never recovered, was carried a state prisoner to Piedmont. … This unhappy episode was a bitter grief to Victor Emmanuel. … Aspromonte gave a final blow to the Ratazzi ministry. Never very popular, it was utterly shaken by the reaction in favour of Garibaldi. … After a good deal of worry and consultation, the king decided to call Luigi Carlo Farini to office. … Unhappily his health obliged him to retire very soon from public life, and he was succeeded by Minghetti. On the whole this first year without Cavour had been a very trying one to Victor Emmanuel. … Meantime the Roman question remained in abeyance—to the great detriment of the nation, for it kept Central and Southern Italy in a state of fermentation which the government could not long hold in check. The Bourbon intrigues at Rome, encouraging brigandage in the Two Sicilies, destroyed all security of life and property, and impeded foreigners from visiting the country. The Emperor of the French, occupying the false position of champion of Italian independence and protector of the temporal power of the Pope, would not do anything, nor let the Italian Government do anything, towards settling the momentous question. … Victor Emmanuel, who had his eye on Venice all the time, having a fixed impression that if it could be recovered he would find less difficulty in getting rid of the foreign occupation in Rome, now adopted energetic measures to bring about a settlement of this Venetian question, urging the English Government to use its influence with Austria to induce her to accept some compromise and surrender the Italian province peaceably. … Meantime the Italian Government continued to invite the French to withdraw their forces from the Roman States, and leave the Pope face to face with his own subjects without the aid of foreign bayonets. This the emperor, fearing to offend the papal party, could not make up his mind to do. But to make the road to Rome easier for the Italians, he proposed a transfer of the capital from Turin to some more southern town, Florence or Naples—he did not care which. The French minister, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, said:—'Of course in the end you will go to Rome. But it is important that between our evacuation and your going there, such an interval of time and such a series of events should elapse as to prevent people establishing any connection between the two facts. France must not have any responsibility.' … The king accepted the conditions, which provided that the French were to evacuate Rome in two years, and fixed on Florence as the residence of the court. … On November 18, 1860, the first Parliament was opened in Florence. … The quarrel between Austria and Prussia [see GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866] was growing all this time, and Italy proposed an alliance defensive and offensive with the latter power. … The treaty was concluded April 8, 1866. When this fact became known, Austria, on the brink of war with Prussia, began to think that she must rid herself in some way of the worry of the Italians on her southern frontier, in order to be free to combat her powerful northern enemy. The cabinet of Vienna did not apply directly to the cabinet of Florence, but to that arbiter of the destinies of nations, Napoleon III., proposing to cede Venetia on condition that the Italian government should detach itself from the Prussian alliance. … After an ineffectual attempt to accommodate matters by a congress, war was declared against Austria, on June 20, 1866, and La Marmora, having appointed Ricasoli as his deputy at the head of the council, led the army northwards. … Victor Emmanuel appointed his cousin regent, and carried his sons along with him to the seat of war. … The forces of Austria were led by the able and experienced commander, the Archduke Albert, who had distinguished himself at Novara. On the ill-omened field of Custozza, where the Italians had been defeated in 1849, the opposing armies met [June 24]; and both being in good condition, well disciplined and brave, there was fought a prolonged and bloody battle, in which the Italians were worsted, but not routed. … On July 20 the Italian navy suffered an overwhelming defeat at Lissa in the Adriatic, and these two great misfortunes plunged Victor Emmanuel into the deepest grief. He felt disabled from continuing the war: all the sacrifice of life had been in vain: national unity was as far off as ever. … Meantime the Prussian arms were everywhere victorious over Austria, and about ten days after the battle of Custozza it was announced in the Moniteur that Austria had asked the Emperor Napoleon's mediation, offering to cede him Venice, and that he was making over that province to the King of Italy. {1868} Italy could not accept it without the consent of her ally Prussia; and while negotiations were going forward on the subject, the brief seven weeks' campaign was brought to a conclusion by the great victory of Sadowa, and on July 26 the preliminaries of peace were signed by the Austrian and Prussian plenipotentiaries. … Venice was restored to Italy by the Emperor of France, with the approval of Prussia. There was a sting in the thought that it was not wrung from the talons of the Austrian eagle by the valour of Italian arms, but by the force of diplomacy; still it was a delightful fact that Venice was free, with the tricolour waving on St. Mark's. The Italian soil was delivered from foreign occupation. … As soon as the treaty was signed at Vienna, October 2, the Venetian Assemblies unanimously elected Victor Emmanuel with acclamations, and begged for immediate annexation to the Kingdom of Italy. On November 4, in the city of Turin, Victor Emmanuel received the deputation which came to proffer him the homage of the inhabitants of Venetia. … On November 7 Victor Emmanuel made a solemn entry into the most beautiful, and, after Rome, the most interesting city of the Italian peninsula. … Hot upon the settlement of the Venetian question, came the discussion of that of Rome, which after the evacuation of the French troops [November, 1866] seemed more complicated than ever. The Catholic powers were now anxious to accommodate the quarrel between Italy and the Pope, and they offered to guarantee him his income and his independence if he would reconcile himself to the national will. But Pius IX. was immovable in his determination to oppose it to the last."

G. S. Godkin, Life of Victor Emmanuel II., chapters 23-25 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. W. Probyn, Italy from 1815 to 1890, chapter 11.

G. Garibaldi, Autobiography, 4th period, chapter 1 (volume 2), and volume 3, chapter 8.

ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870. Settlement of the Roman question. Defeat of Garibaldi at Mentana. Rome in the possession of the king of Italy.

Progress made by diplomacy in the settlement of the Roman question "was too slow for Garibaldi. He had once more fallen under the influence of the extreme republicans, and in 1867 he declared that he would delay no longer in planting the republican banner on the Vatican. Between these hot-headed and fanatical republicans on the one side, the Italian Ultramontanes on another, and the French Emperor on the third, the position of Victor Emmanuel was anything but enviable. In the autumn of 1867 Garibaldi was suddenly arrested by the Government, but released on condition that he would remain quietly at Caprera. But meanwhile the volunteers under Menotti Garibaldi (the great chief's son) had advanced into the Papal States. The old warrior was burning to be with them. On the 14th of October he effected his escape from Caprera, and managed eventually to join his son in the Romagna. Together they advanced on Rome, and won, after tremendous fighting, the great victory at Monte Rotundo. Meanwhile an army of occupation sent by the Government from Florence had crossed the Roman frontier, and a French force had landed on the coast. Garibaldi's position was already critical, but his resolution was unbroken. 'The Government of Florence,' he said, in a proclamation to the volunteers, 'has invaded the Roman territory, already won by us with precious blood from the enemies of Italy; we ought to receive our brothers in arms with love, and aid them in driving out of Rome the mercenary sustainers of tyranny; but if base deeds, the continuation of the vile convention of September, in mean consort with Jesuitism, shall urge us to lay down our arms in obedience to the order of the 2d December, then will I let the world know that I alone, a Roman general, with full power, elected by the universal suffrage of the only legal Government in Rome, that of the republic, have the right to maintain myself in arms in this the territory subject to my jurisdiction; and then, if any of these my volunteers, champions of liberty and Italian unity, wish to have Rome as the capital of Italy, fulfilling the vote of parliament and the nation, they must not put down their arms until Italy shall have acquired liberty of conscience and worship, built upon the ruin of Jesuitism, and until the soldiers of tyrants shall be banished from our land.' The position taken up by Garibaldi is perfectly intelligible. Rome we must have, if possible, by legal process, in conjunction with the royal arms'; but if they will stand aside, even if they will oppose, none the less Rome must be annexed to Italy. Unfortunately Garibaldi had left out of account the French force despatched by Napoleon III. to defend the Temporal dominions of the Pope, a force which even at this moment was advancing to the attack. The two armies met near the little village of Mentana, ill matched in every respect. The volunteers, numerous indeed but ill disciplined and badly armed, brought together, held together simply by the magic of a name, the French, admirably disciplined, armed with the fatal chassepots, fighting the battle of their ancient Church. The Garibaldians were terribly defeated. Victor Emmanuel grieved bitterly, like a true, warm-hearted father for the fate of his misguided but generous-hearted sons. … To the Emperor of the French he wrote an ardent appeal begging him to break with the Clericals and put himself at the head of the Liberal party in Europe, at the same time warning him that the old feeling of gratitude towards the French in Italy had quite disappeared. 'The late events have suffocated every remembrance of gratitude in the heart of Italy. It is no longer in the power of the Government to maintain the alliance with France. The chassepot gun at Mentana has given it a mortal blow.' At the same time the rebels were visited with condign punishment. Garibaldi himself was arrested, but after a brief imprisonment at Varignano was permitted to retire once more to Caprera. A prisoner so big as Garibaldi is always an embarrassment to gaolers. But the last act in the great drama … was near at hand. In 1870 the Franco-German War broke out. The contest, involving as it did the most momentous consequences, was as brief as it was decisive. The French, of course, could no longer maintain their position as champions of the Temporal power. Once more, therefore, the King of Italy attempted, with all the earnestness and with all the tenderness at his command, to induce the Pope to come to terms and accept the position, at once dignified and independent, which the Italian Government was anxious to secure to him. … {1869} But the Pope still unflinchingly adhered to the position he had taken up. … A feint of resistance was made, but on the 20th of September (1870) the royal troops entered Rome, and the Tricolour was mounted on the palace of the Capitol. So soon as might be a plebiscite was taken. The numbers are significant—for the King, 40,788, for the Pope, 46. But though the work was thus accomplished in the autumn of 1870, it was not until 2d June 1871 that the King made his triumphal entry into the capital of Italy."

J. A. R. Marriott, The Makers of Modern Italy, pages 72-76.

ALSO IN: G. Garibaldi, Autobiography, volume 3, chapters 8-9.

G. S. Godkin, Life of Victor Emmanuel, chapter 32 (volume 2).

ITALY: A. D. 1870-1894. The tasks and burdens of the United Nation. Military and colonial ambitions. The Triple Alliance.

"Italy now [In 1870] stood before the world as a nation of twenty-five million inhabitants, her frontiers well defined, her needs very evident. Nevertheless, if her national existence was to be more than a name, she must have discipline in self-government, and she must as quickly as possible acquire the tools and methods of the civilization prevailing among those nations into whose company her victories had raised her. Two thirds of her people lagged behind the Western world not only in material inventions, but in education and civic training. Railroads and telegraphs, the wider application of steam to industries, schools, courts, the police, had all to be provided, and provided quickly. Improvements which England and France had added gradually and paid for gradually, Italy had to organize and pay for in a few years. Hence a levying of heavy taxes, and exorbitant borrowing from the future in the public debt. Not only this, but ancient traditions, the memories of feuds between town and town, had to be obliterated; the people had to be made truly one people, so that Venetians, or Neapolitans, or Sicilians should each feel that they were first of all Italians. National uniformity must supplant provincial peculiarity; there must be one language, one code of laws, one common interest; in a word, the new nation must be Italianized. The ease and rapidity with which the Italians have progressed in all these respects have no parallel in modern times. Though immense the undertaking, they have, in performing it, revealed an adaptability to new conditions, a power of transformation which are among the most remarkable characteristics of their race, and the strongest proofs that ruin will not now engulf them. Only a race incapable of readjusting itself need despair. Happy had Italy been if, undistracted by temptation, she had pursued the plain course before her; still happy, had she resisted such temptation. But nations, like individuals, are not made all of one piece: they, too, acknowledge the better reason, but follow the worse; they, too, through pride or vanity or passion, often forfeit the winnings from years of toil. … Italy was recognized as a great power by her neighbors, and she willingly persuaded herself that it was her duty to do what they did. In this civilized age, the first requisite of a great power is a large standing army. … A large standing army being the first condition of ranking among the great powers, Italy set about preparing one. … Perhaps more than any other European nation she was excusable in desiring to show that her citizens could become soldiers, for she had been taunted time out of mind with her effeminacy, her cowardice. It might be argued, too, that she received a larger dividend in indirect compensation for her capital invested in the army than her neighbors received from theirs. Uniform military service helped to blot out provincial lines and to Italianize all sections; it also furnished rudimentary education to the vast body of illiterate conscripts. These ends might have been reached at far less cost by direct and natural means; but this fact should not lessen the credit due to the Italian military system for furthering them. Tradition, example, national sensitiveness, all conspired in this way to persuade Italy to saddle an immense army on her back. … One evidence of being a 'great power,' according to the political standard of the time, consists in ability to establish colonies, or at least a protectorate, in distant lands; therefore Italian Jingoes goaded their government on to plant the Italian flag in Africa. France was already mistress of Algiers; Spain held a lien on Morocco; Italy could accordingly do no less than spread her influence over Tunis. For a few years Italy complacently imagined that she was as good as her rivals in the possession of a foreign dependency. Then a sudden recrudescence of Jingoism in France caused the French to occupy Tunis. The Italians were very angry; but when they sounded the situation, they realized that it would be folly to go to war over it. … Not warned by this experience, Italy, a few years later, plunged yet more deeply into the uncertain policy of colonization. England and France having fallen out over the control of Egypt, then England, having virtually made the Khedive her vassal, suggested that it would be a very fine thing for Italy to establish a colony far down on the coast of the Red Sea, whence she could command the trade of Abyssinia. Italian Jingoes jumped at the suggestion, and for ten years the red-white-and-green flag has waved over Massaua. But the good that Italy has derived from this acquisition has yet to appear. … Equally slow have they been to learn that their partnership in the Triple Alliance [see TRIPLE ALLIANCE] has entailed upon them sacrifices out of all proportion to the benefits. To associate on apparently even terms with Germany and Austria was doubtless gratifying to national vanity, … but who can show that Italy has been more secure from attack since she entered that league than she was before? … For the sake … of a delusive honor,—the honor of posing as the partner of the arbiters of Europe,—Italy has, since 1882, seen her army and her debt increase, and her resources proportionately diminish. None of her ministers has had the courage to suggest quitting a ruinous policy; on the contrary, they have sought hither and thither to find means to perpetuate it without actually breaking the country's back. … Yet not on this account shall we despair of a country which, in spite of folly, has achieved much against great odds, and which has shown a wonderful capacity for sloughing off her past. Hardship itself, though it be the penalty of error, may, by restricting her ability to go astray, lead her back to the path of reason."

W. R. Thayer, Some Causes of the Italian Crisis (Atlantic, April, 1894).

See, also, IRREDENTISTS.

{1670}

ITHACA.

One of the seven Ionian islands, small and unimportant, but interesting as being the Homeric island-kingdom of Ulysses—the principal scene of the story of the Odyssey. The island has been more or less explored, with a view to identifying the localities mentioned in the epic, by Sir William Gell, by Colonel Leake, and by Dr. Schliemann. Some account of the latter's work and its results is given in the introduction to his "Ilios."

E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 3, note I (volume 1).

ITHOME.

See SPARTA: B. C. 743-510; also, MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD.

ITOCOS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CHIBCHAS.

ITONOMOS, The.

See BOLIVIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS; also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

ITURBIDE, Empire of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1820-1826.

ITUZAINGO, Battle of (1827).

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1819-1874.

IUKA, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: MISSISSIPPI).

IVAN I., Grand Prince of Moscow, A. D. 1328-1340.

Ivan II., Grand Prince of Moscow, 1352-1359.

Ivan III. (called The Great), the first Czar of Muscovy, of Russia, 1462-1505.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.

Ivan IV. (called The Terrible), Czar of Russia, 1533-1584.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1533-1682.

Ivan V., Czar of Russia, 1682-1689.

Ivan VI., Czar of Russia, 1740-1741.

IVERNI, The.

See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

IVRY, Battle of (1590).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1589-1590.

IVY LANE CLUB, The.

See CLUBS, DR. JOHNSON'S.

J.

JACK CADE'S REBELLION.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1450.

JACK'S LAND.

See NO MAN'S LAND (ENGLAND).

JACKSON, ANDREW. Campaign against the Creek Indians.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).

JACKSON, ANDREW. Victory at New Orleans.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815 (JANUARY).

JACKSON, ANDREW. Campaign in Florida.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1816-1818.

JACKSON, ANDREW. Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1828, to 1837.

JACKSON, STONEWALL (General Thomas J.) At the first Battle of Bull Run.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY: VIRGINIA).

JACKSON, STONEWALL First campaign in the Shenandoah.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (DECEMBER-APRIL: VIRGINIA).

JACKSON, STONEWALL Second campaign in the Shenandoah.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).

JACKSON, STONEWALL Peninsular campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).

JACKSON, STONEWALL Last flank movement. Death.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-MAY: VIRGINIA).

JACKSON, Mississippi: A. D. 1863. Capture and recapture by the Union forces. Sack and ruin.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI); and (JULY: MISSISSIPPI).

JACOBIN CLUBS. JACOBINS, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790, to 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

JACOBITE CHURCH, The.

The great religious dispute of the 5th century, concerning the single or the double nature of Christ, as God and as man, left, in the end, two extreme parties, the Monophysites and the Nestorians, exposed alike to the persecutions of the orthodox church, as established in its faith by the Council of Chalcedon, by the Roman Pope and by the emperors Justin and Justinian. The Monophysite party, strongest in Syria, was threatened with extinction; but a monk named James, or Jacobus, Baradæus—"Al Baradai," "the man in rags,"—imparted new life to it by his zeal and activity, and its members acquired from him the name of Jacobites. Amida (now Diarbekir) on the Tigris became the seat of the Jacobite patriarchs and remains so to this day. Abulpharagius, the oriental historian of the 13th century, was their most distinguished scholar, and held the office of Mafrian or vice-patriarch, so to speak, of the East. Their communities are mostly confined at present to the region of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and number less than 200,000 souls.

H. F. Tozer, The Church and the Eastern Empire, chapter 5.

See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.

JACOBITES.

After the revolution of 1688 in England, which expelled James II. from the throne, his partisans, who wished to restore him, were called Jacobites, an appellation derived from the Latin form of his name—Jacobus. The name adhered after James' death to the party which maintained the rights of his son and grandson, James Stuart and Charles Edward, the "Old Pretender" and the "Young Pretender," as they were respectively called.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1707-1708.

The Jacobites rose twice in rebellion.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1715; and 1745-1746.

JACQUERIE, The Insurrection of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1358.

----------JAFFA: Start--------

JAFFA (ANCIENT JOPPA): A. D. 1196-1197. Taken and retaken by the German Crusaders.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1196-1197.

JAFFA: A. D. 1799. Capture by Bonaparte. Massacre of prisoners. Reported poisoning of the sick.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST).

----------JAFFA: End--------

JAGELLONS, The dynasty of the.

See POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572.

JAGIR.

"A jagir [in India] is, literally, land given by a government as a reward for services rendered."

G. B. Malleson, Lord Clive, page 123, foot-note.

JAHANGIR (Salim), Moghul Emperor or Padischah of India, A. D. 1605-1627.

JAINISM. JAINS.

See INDIA: B. C. 312

JAITCHE, DEFENSE OF (1527).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 9TH-16TH CENTURIES (BOSNIA, ETC.).

JALALÆAN ERA.

See TURKS (THE SELJUK): A. D. 1073-1092.

{1871}

JALULA, Battle of.

One of the battles in which the Arabs, under the first successors of Mahomet, conquered the Persian empire. Fought A. D. 637.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 26.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651.

----------JAMAICA: Start--------

JAMAICA: A. D. 1494. Discovery by Columbus.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1493-1496.

JAMAICA: A. D. 1509. Granted to Ojeda and Nicuesa.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1509-1511.

JAMAICA: A. D. 1655 The English conquest and colonization.

In the spring of 1655, having determined upon an alliance with France and war with Spain, Cromwell fitted out an expedition under admirals Venables and Pen, secretly commissioned to attack Cuba and St. Domingo. Frustrated in an attempt against the latter island, the expedition made a descent on the island of Jamaica with better success. "This great gain was yet held insufficient to balance the first defeat; and on the return of Pen and Venables they were both committed to the Tower. I may pause for an instant here to notice a sound example of Cromwell's far-seeing sagacity. Though men scouted in that day the acquisition of Jamaica, he saw its value in itself, and its importance in relation to future attempts on the continent of America. Exerting the inhuman power of a despot—occasionally, as hurricanes and other horrors, necessary for the purification of the world—he ordered his son Henry to seize on 1,000 young girls in Ireland and send them over to Jamaica, for the purpose of increasing population there. A year later, and while the Italian Sagredo was in London, he issued an order that all females of disorderly lives should be arrested and shipped for Barbadoes for the like purpose. Twelve hundred were accordingly sent in three ships."

J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell.

ALSO IN: G. Penn, Memorials of Sir Wm. Penn, Admiral, volume 2, page 124, and appendix H.

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1655-1658.

JAMAICA: A. D. 1655-1796. Development of the British colony. The Buccaneers. The Maroon wars.

"Cromwell set himself to maintain and develop his new conquest. He issued a proclamation encouraging trade and settlement in the island by exemption from taxes. In order to 'people and plant' it, he ordered an equal number of young men and women to be sent over from Ireland, he instructed the Scotch government to apprehend and transport the idle and vagrant, and he sent agents to the New England colonies and the other West Indian islands in order to attract settlers. After the first three or four years this policy of encouraging emigration, continued in spite of the Protector's death, bore due fruit, and Jamaica became to a singular extent a receptacle for the most varied types of settlers, for freemen as well as for political offenders or criminals from Newgate, and for immigrants from the colonies as well as from the mother country. … The death of Cromwell brought over adherents of the Parliamentary party, ill content with the restoration of the Stuarts; the evacuation of Surinam in favour of the Dutch brought in a contingent of planters in 1675; the survivors of the ill-fated Scotch colony at Darien came over in 1699; and the Rye House Plot, Sedgmoor, and the risings of 1715 and 1745 all contributed to the population of the island. Most of all, however, the buccaneers made Jamaica great and prosperous. … Situated as the island was, well inside the ring of the Spanish possessions, the English occupation of Jamaica was a godsend to the buccaneers, while their privateering trade was exactly suited to the restless soldiers who formed the large bulk of the early colonists. So Port Royal became in a few years a great emporium of ill-gotten wealth, and the man who sacked Panama became Sir Henry Morgan, Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica. … In 1661 Charles II. sanctioned the beginnings of civil government. … Municipal institutions were introduced, judges and magistrates were appointed, land grants were issued, and the island began to take the form and substance of an English colony. The constitution thenceforward consisted of a Governor, a nominated Council, and an elected Assembly; and the first Assembly, consisting of 30 persons, met in January, 1664. … It was not long before the representative body began to assert its independence by opposition to the Crown, and in 1678 the Home government invited conflict by trying to apply to Jamaica the system which had been introduced into Ireland by the notorious Poynings' law. Under this system no Assembly could be summoned for legislative purposes except under special directions from home, and its functions would have been limited to registering consent to laws which had already been put into approved shape in England." Conflict over this, attempt to deal with Jamaica as "a conquered and tributary dependency" did not end until 1728, when the colonists bought relief from it by settling on the Crown an "irrevocable revenue" of £8,000 per annum. "About the time when the constitutional difficulty was settled, the Maroon question was pressing itself more and more upon the attention of the colonial government. The penalty which Jamaica paid for being a large and mountainous island was, that it harboured in its forests and ravines a body of men who, throughout its history down to the present century, were a source of anxiety and danger. The original Maroons, or mountaineers, for that is the real meaning of the term, were … the slaves of Spaniards who retreated into the interior when the English took the island, and sallied out from time to time to harass the invaders and cut off stragglers and detached parties. … Maroon or Maron is an abbreviation of Cimaron, and is derived from the Spanish or Portuguese 'Cima,' or mountain top. Skeat points out that the word is probably of Portuguese origin, the 'C' having been pronounced as 'S.' Benzoni (edited by the Hakluyt Society), who wrote about 1565, speaks of 'Cimaroui' as being the Spanish name for outlawed slaves in Hispaniola. … It is probable that the danger would have been greater if the outlaws had been a united band, but there were divisions of race and origin among them. The Maroons proper, the slaves of the Spaniards and their descendants, were mainly in the east of the island among the Blue Mountains, while the mountains of the central district were the refuge of runaways from English masters, including Africans of different races, as well as Madagascars or Malays. Towards the end of the seventeenth century the newer fugitives had found in a negro named Cudjoe an able and determined leader, and thenceforward the resistance to the government became more organised and systematic. … {1872} Finally, in 1738, Governor Trelawny made overtures of peace to the rebels, which were accepted. … By this treaty the freedom of the negroes was guaranteed, special reserves were assigned to them, they were left under the rule of their own captains assisted by white superintendents, but were bound over to help the government against foreign invasion from without and slave rebellions from within. A similar treaty was made with the eastern Maroons, and the whole of these blacks, some 600 in number, were established in five settlements. … Under these conditions the Maroons gave little trouble till the end of the 18th century. … The last Maroon war occurred in 1795." When the insurgent Maroons surrendered, the next year, they were, in violation of the terms made with them, transported to Nova Scotia, and afterwards to the warmer climate of Sierra Leone. "Thus ended the last Maroon rebellion; but … it affected only one section of these negro freemen, and even their descendants returned in many cases to Jamaica at a later date."

C. P. Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies, volume 2, section 2, chapter 3, with foot-note.

ALSO IN: G. W. Bridges, Annals of Jamaica, volume 1, and volume 2, chapters 1-16.

R. C. Dallas, History of the Maroons.

JAMAICA: A. D. 1689-1762. The English slave trade.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1698-1776.

JAMAICA: A. D. 1692. Destructive Earthquake.

"An earthquake of terrible violence laid waste in less than three minutes the flourishing colony of Jamaica. Whole plantations changed their place. Whole villages were swallowed up. Port Royal, the fairest and wealthiest city which the English had yet built in the New World, renowned for its quays, for its warehouses, and for its stately streets, which were said to rival Cheapside, was turned into a mass of ruins. Fifteen hundred of the inhabitants were buried under their own dwellings."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 19 (volume 4).

JAMAICA: A. D. 1834-1838. Emancipation of Slaves.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1834-1838.

JAMAICA: A. D. 1865. Governor Eyre's suppression of Insurrection.

In October, 1865, there occurred an insurrection among the colored people of one district of Jamaica, the suppression of which throws "a not altogether pleasant light upon English methods, when applied to the government of a subject race. … The disturbances were confined to the district and parish of St. Thomas in the East. There were local grievances arising from a dispute between Mr. Gordon, a native [colored] proprietor, and Baron Ketelholdt, the custos of the parish. Mr. Gordon, a dissenter, and apparently a reformer of abuses and unpopular among his fellows, had been deprived of his place among the magistrates, and prevented from filling the office of churchwarden to which he was elected. The expenses of the suits against him had been defrayed from the public purse. The native Baptists, the sect to which he belonged, were angry with what they regarded as at once an act of persecution and a misappropriation of the public money. Indignation meetings had been held. … Behind this quarrel, which would not of itself have produced much result, there lay more general grievances. … There was a real grievance in the difficulty of obtaining redress through law administered entirely by landlords; and as a natural consequence there had grown up a strong mistrust of the law itself, and a complete alienation between the employer and the employed. To this was added a feeling on the part of the class above the ordinary labourer, known as the free settlers, that they were unduly rented, and obliged to pay rent for land which they should have held free; and there was a very general though vague expectation that in some way or other the occupiers would be freed from the payment of rent. The insurrection broke out in October;" a small riot, at first, at Morant Bay, in which a policeman was beaten; then an attempt to arrest one of the alleged rioters, a colored preacher, Paul Bogle by name, and a formidable resistance to the attempt by 400 of his friends. "On the next day, when the Magistrates and Vestry were assembled in the Court-House at Morant Bay, a crowd of insurgents made their appearance, the volunteers were called out, and the Riot Act read; and after a skirmish the Court-House was taken and burnt, 18 of the defenders killed and 30 wounded. The jail was broken open and several stores sacked. There was some evidence that the rising was premeditated, and that a good deal of drilling had been going on among the blacks under the command of Bogle. From Morant Bay armed parties of the insurgents passed inland through the country attacking the plantations, driving the inhabitants to take refuge in the bush, and putting some of the whites to death. The Governor of the Island at the time was Mr. Eyre [former explorer of Australia]. He at once summoned his Privy Council, and with their advice declared martial law over the county of Surrey, With the exception of the town of Kingston. Bodies of troops were also at once despatched to surround the insurgent district. … 439 persons fell victims to summary punishment, and not less than 1,000 dwellings were burnt; besides which, it would appear that at least 600 men and women were subjected to flogging, in some instances with circumstances of unusual cruelty. But the event which chiefly fixed the attention of the public in England was the summary conviction and execution of Mr. Gordon. He was undoubtedly a troublesome person, and there were circumstances raising a suspicion that he possessed a guilty knowledge of the intended insurrection. They were however far too slight to have secured his conviction before a Court of Law. But Governor Eyre caused him to be arrested in Kingston, where martial law did not exist, hurried on board ship and carried to Morant Bay, within the proclaimed district. He was there tried by a court-martial, consisting of three young officers," was sentenced to death, and immediately hanged.

J. F. Bright, History of England: period 4, pages 413-415.

"When the story reached England, in clear and trustworthy form, two antagonistic parties were instantly formed. The extreme on the one side glorified Governor Eyre, and held that by his prompt action he had saved the white population of Jamaica from all the horrors of triumphant negro insurrection. The extreme on the other side denounced him as a mere fiend. The majority on both sides were more reasonable; but the difference between them was only less wide. An association called the Jamaica Committee was formed for the avowed purpose of seeing that justice was done. It comprised some of the most illustrious Englishmen. … {1873} Another association was founded, on the opposite side, for the purpose of sustaining Governor Eyre; and it must be owned that it too had great names. Mr. Mill may be said to have led the one side, and Mr. Carlyle the other. The natural bent of each man's genius and temper turned him to the side of the Jamaica negroes, or of the Jamaica Governor. Mr. Tennyson, Mr. Kingsley, Mr. Ruskin, followed Mr. Carlyle; we know now that Mr. Dickens was of the same way of thinking. Mr. Herbert Spencer, Professor Huxley, Mr. Goldwin Smith, were in agreement with Mr. Mill. … No one needs to be told that Mr. Bright took the side of the oppressed, and Mr. Disraeli that of authority." A Commission of Inquiry sent out to investigate the whole matter, reported in April, 1866, commending the vigorous promptitude with which Governor Eyre had dealt with the disturbances at the beginning, but condemning the brutalities which followed, under cover of martial law, and especially the infamous execution of Gordon. The Jamaica Committee made repeated efforts to bring Governor Eyre's conduct to judicial trial; but without success. "The bills of indictment never got beyond the grand jury stage. The grand jury always threw them out. On one memorable occasion the attempt gave the Lord Chief Justice [Cockburn] of England an opportunity of delivering … to the grand jury … a charge entitled to the rank of a historical declaration of the law of England, and the limits of the military power even in cases of insurrection."

J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, chapter 49 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: G. B. Smith, Life and Speeches of John Bright, volume 2, chapter 5.

W. F. Finlason, History of the Jamaica Case.

----------JAMAICA: End----------

JAMES I., King of Aragon, A. D. 1213-1276.

James I., King of England, A. D. 1603-1625 (he being, also, James VI., King of Scotland, 1567-1625).

James I., King of Scotland, 1406-1437.

James II., King of Aragon, 1291-1327; King of Sicily, 1285-1295.

James II:, King of England, 1685-1689.

James II., King of Scotland, 1437-1460.

James III., King of Scotland, 1460-1488.

James IV., King of Scotland, 1488-1513.

James V., King of Scotland, 1513-1542.

JAMES ISLAND, Battle on.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: SOUTH CAROLINA).

JAMESTOWN, Virginia: A. D. 1607-1610. The founding of the colony.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607; and 1607-1610.

JAMNIA, Battle of.

A defeat by Gorgias, the Syrian general, of part of the army of Judas Maccabæus which he left under his generals Joseph and Azarius, B. C. 164.

Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews, book 12, chapter 8.

JAMNIA, The School of.

A famous school of Jewish theology, established by Jochanan, who escaped from Jerusalem during the siege by Titus.

H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 2, page 327.

JANICULUM, The.

See LATIUM, and VATICAN.

JANISSARIES, Creation and destruction of the.

See TURKS: A. D. 1326-1359; and 1826.

JANKOWITZ, Battle of (1645).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.

JANSENISTS, The.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS.

JANUS, The Temple of.

See TEMPLE OF JANUS.

----------JAPAN: Start----------

JAPAN: Sketch of history to 1869.

"To the eye of the critical investigator, Japanese history, properly so-called, opens only in the latter part of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century after Christ, when the gradual spread of Chinese culture, filtering in through Korea, had sufficiently dispelled the gloom of original barbarism to allow of the keeping of records. The whole question of the credibility of the early history of Japan has been carefully gone into during the last ten years by Aston and others, with the result that the first date pronounced trustworthy is A. D. 461, and it is discovered that even the annals of the 6th century are to be received with caution. We have ourselves no doubt of the justice of this negative criticism, and can only stand in amazement at the simplicity of most European writers, who have accepted without sifting them the uncritical statements of the Japanese annalists. … Japanese art and literature contain frequent allusions to the early history (so-called) of the country … as preserved in the works entitled Kojiki and Nihongi, both dating from the 8th century after Christ. … We include the mythology under the same heading, for the reason that it is absolutely impossible to separate the two. Why, indeed, attempt to do so, where both are equally fabulous? … Arrived at A. D. 600, we stand on terra firma. … About that time occurred the greatest event of Japanese history, the conversion of the nation to Buddhism (approximately A. D. 552-621). So far as can be gathered from the accounts of the early Chinese travellers, Chinese civilisation had slowly—very slowly—been gaining ground in the archipelago ever since the 3rd century after Christ. But when the Buddhist missionaries crossed the water, all Chinese institutions followed them and came in with a rush. Mathematical instruments and calendars were introduced; books began to be written (the earliest that has survived, and indeed nearly the earliest of all, is the already mentioned Kojiki, dating from A. D. 712); the custom of abdicating the throne in order to spend old age in prayer was adopted—a custom which, more than anything else, led to the effacement of the Mikado's authority during the Middle Ages. Sweeping changes in political arrangements began to be made in the year 645, and before the end of the 8th century, the government had been entirely remodelled on the Chinese centralised bureaucratic plan, with a regular system of ministers responsible to the sovereign, who, as 'Son of Heaven,' was theoretically absolute. In practice this absolutism lasted but a short time, because the entourage and mode of life of the Mikados were not such as to make of them able rulers. They passed their time surrounded only by women and priests, oscillating between indolence and debauchery, between poetastering and gorgeous temple services. This was the brilliant age of Japanese classical literature, which lived and moved and had its being in the atmosphere of an effeminate court. The Fujiwara family engrossed the power of the state during this early epoch (A. D. 670-1050). While their sons held all the great posts of government, the daughters were married to puppet emperors. The next change resulted from the impatience of the always manly and warlike Japanese gentry at the sight of this sort of petticoat government. {1874} The great clans of Taira and Minamoto arose, and struggled for and alternately held the reins of power during the second half of the 11th and the whole of the 12th century. … By the final overthrow of the Taira family at the sea fight of Dan-no-Ura in A. D. 1185, Yoritomo, the chief of the Minamotos, rose to supreme power, and obtained from the Court at Kyoto the title of Shogun [converted by western tongues into Tycoon], literally 'Generalissimo,' which had till then been applied in its proper meaning to those generals who were sent from time to time to subdue the Ainos or rebellious provincials, but which thenceforth took to itself a special sense, somewhat as the word Imperator (also meaning originally 'general') did in Rome. The coincidence is striking. So is the contrast. For, as Imperial Rome never ceased to be theoretically a republic, Japan contrariwise, though practically and indeed avowedly ruled by the Shoguns from A. D. 1190 to 1867, always retained the Mikado as theoretical head of the state, descendant of the Sun-Goddess, fountain of all honour. There never were two emperors, acknowledged as such, one spiritual and one secular, as has been so often asserted by European writers. There never was but one emperor—an emperor powerless it is true, seen only by the women who attended him, often a mere infant in arms, who was discarded on reaching adolescence for another infant in arms. Still, he was the theoretical head of the state, whose authority was merely delegated to the Shogun as, so to say, Mayor of the Palace. By a curious parallelism of destiny, the Shogunate itself more than once showed signs of fading away from substance into shadow. Yoritomo's descendants did not prove worthy of him, and for more than a century (A. D. 1205-1333) the real authority was wielded by the so-called 'Regents' of the Hojo family. … Their rule was made memorable by the repulse of the Mongol fleet sent by Kublai Khan with the purpose of adding Japan to his gigantic dominions. This was at the end of the 13th century, since which time Japan has never been attacked from without. During the 14th century, even the dowager-like calm of the Court of Kyoto was broken by internecine strife. Two branches of the Imperial house, supported each by different feudal chiefs, disputed the crown. One was called the Hokucho, or 'Northern Court,' the other the Nancho, or 'Southern Court.' After lasting some sixty years, this contest terminated in A. D. 1392 by the triumph of the Northern dynasty, whose cause the powerful Ashikaga family had espoused. From 1338 to 1565, the Ashikagas ruled Japan as Shoguns. … Meanwhile Japan had been discovered by the Portuguese (A. D. 1542); and the imprudent conduct of the Portuguese and Spanish friars (bateren, as they were called—a corruption of the word padre) made of the Christian religion an additional source of discord. Japan fell into utter anarchy. Each baron in his fastness was a law unto himself. Then, in the latter half of the 16th century, there arose successively three great men—Ota Nobunaga, the Taiko Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu. The first of these conceived the idea of centralising all the authority of the state in a single person; the second, Hideyoshi, who has been called the Napoleon of Japan, actually put the idea into practice, and joined the conquest of Korea (A. D. 1592-1598) to his domestic triumphs. Death overtook him in 1598, while he was revolving no less a scheme than the conquest of China. Ieyasu, setting Hideyoshi's youthful son aside, stepped into the vacant place. An able general, unsurpassed as a diplomat and administrator, he first quelled all the turbulent barons, then bestowed a considerable portion of their lands on his own kinsmen and dependents, and either broke or balanced, by a judicious distribution of other fiefs over different provinces of the Empire, the might of those greater feudal lords, such as Satsuma and Choshu, whom it was impossible to put altogether out of the way. The Court of Kyoto was treated by him respectfully, and investiture as Shogun for himself and his heirs duly obtained from the Mikado. In order further to break the might of the daimyos, Ieyasu compelled them to live at Yedo, which he had chosen for his capital in 1590, during six months of the year, and to leave their wives and families there as hostages during the other half. What Ieyasu sketched out, the third Shogun of his line, Iemitsu, perfected. From that time forward, 'Old Japan,' as we know it from the Dutch accounts, from art, from the stage, was crystallised for two hundred and fifty years. … Unchangeable to the outward eye of contemporaries, Japan had not passed a hundred years under the Tokugawa régime before the seeds of the disease which finally killed that regime were sown. Strangely enough, the instrument of destruction was historical research. Ieyasu himself had been a great patron of literature. His grandson, the second Prince of Mito, inherited his taste. Under the auspices of this Japanese Maecenas, a school of literati arose to whom the antiquities of their country were all in all—Japanese poetry and romance as against the Chinese Classics; the native religion, Shinto, as against the foreign religion, Buddhism; hence, by an inevitable extension, the ancient legitimate dynasty of the Mikados, as against the upstart Shoguns. … When Commodore Perry came with his big guns (A. D. 1853-4), he found a government already tottering to its fall, many who cared little for the Mikado's abstract rights, caring a great deal for the chance of aggrandising their own families at the Shogun's expense. The Shogun yielded to the demands of Perry and of the representatives of the other foreign powers—England, France, Russia—who followed in Perry's train, and consented to open Yokohama, Hakodate, and certain other ports to foreign trade and residence (1857-9). He even sent embassies to the United States and to Europe in 1860 and 1861. The knowledge of the outer world possessed by the Court of Yedo, though not extensive, was sufficient to assure the Shogun and his advisers that it was vain to refuse what the Western powers claimed. The Court of Kyoto had had no means of acquiring even this modicum of worldly wisdom. According to its view, Japan, 'the land of the gods,' should never be polluted by outsiders, the ports should be closed again, and the 'barbarians' expelled at any hazard. What specially tended to complicate matters at this crisis was the independent action of certain daimyos. One of them, the Prince of Choshu, acting, as is believed, under secret instructions from the Court of Kyoto, fired on ships belonging to Great Britain, France, Holland, and the United States—this, too, at the very moment (1863) when the Shogun's government … was doing its utmost to effect by diplomacy the departure of the foreigners whom it had been driven to admit a few years before. {1875} The consequence of this act was what is called 'the Shimonoseki Affair,' namely, the bombardment of Shimonoseki, Choshu's chief sea-port, by the combined fleets of the powers that had been insulted, and the exaction of an indemnity of $3,000,000. Though doubtless no feather, this broke the Shogunate's back. The Shogun Iemochi attempted to punish Choshu for the humiliation which he had brought on Japan, but failed, was himself defeated by the latter's troops, and died. Hitotsubashi, the last of his line, succeeded him. But the Court of Kyoto, prompted by the great daimyos of Choshu and Satsuma, suddenly decided on the abolition of the Shogunate. The Shogun submitted to the decree, and those of his followers who did not were routed—first at Fushimi near Kyoto (17th January, 1868), then at Ueno in Yedo (4th July, 1868), then in Aizu (6th November, 1868), and lastly at Hakodate (27th June, 1869), where some of them had endeavoured to set up an independent republic. The government of the country was reorganised during 1867-8, nominally on the basis of a pure absolutism, with the Mikado as sole wielder of all authority both legislative and executive. Thus the literary party had triumphed. All their dreams were realised. They were henceforth to have Japan for the Japanese. … From this dream they were soon roughly wakened. The shrewd clansmen of Satsuma find Choshu, who had humoured the ignorance of the Court and the fads of the scholars only as long as their common enemy, the Shogunate, remained in existence, now turned round, and declared in favour, not merely of foreign intercourse, but of the Europeanisation of their own country. History has never witnessed a more sudden 'volte-face.' History has never witnessed a wiser one."

B. H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, pages 143-160.

ALSO IN: F. O. Adams, History of Japan.

Sir E. J. Reed, Japan, volume 1, chapters 2-16.

W. E. Griffis, The Mikado's Empire, book 1.

R. Hildreth, Japan, as it was and is.

JAPAN: A. D. 1549-1686. Jesuit Missions. The Century of Christianity. Its introduction and extirpation

Francis Xavier, "the Apostle of the Indies, was both the leader and director of a widely spread missionary movement, conducted by a rapidly increasing staff, not only of Jesuits, but also of priests and missionaries of other orders, as well as of native preachers and catechists. Xavier reserved for himself the arduous task of travelling to regions as yet unvisited by any preachers of Christianity; and his bold and impatient imagination was carried away by the idea of bearing the Cross to the countries of the farthest East. The islands of Japan, already known to Europe through the travels of Marco Polo, had been reached by the Portuguese only eight years before, namely, in 1541, and Xavier, while at Malacca, had conversed with navigators and traders who had visited that remote coast. A Japanese, named Angero (Hansiro), pursued for homicide, had fled to Malacca in a Portuguese ship. He professed a real or feigned desire to be baptized, and was presented to Xavier at Malacca, who sent him to Goa. There he learned Portuguese quickly, and was baptized under the name of Paul of the Holy Faith. … Having carefully arranged the affairs of the Seminary of the Holy Faith at Goa and the entire machinery of the mission, Francis Xavier took ship for Malacca on the 14th April, 1549. On the 24th of June he sailed for Japan, along with Angero and his two companions, in a Chinese junk belonging to a famous pirate, an ally of the Portuguese, who left in their hands hostages for the safety of the apostle on the voyage. After a dangerous voyage they reached Kagosima, the native town of Angero, under whose auspices Xavier was well received by the governor, magistrates, and other distinguished people. The apostle was unable to commence his mission at once, though, according to his biographers, he possessed the gift of tongues. 'We are here,' he writes, 'like so many statues. They speak to us, and make signs to us, and we remain mute. We have again become children, and all our present occupation is to learn the elements of the Japanese grammar.' His first impressions of Japan were very favourable. … Xavier left Japan on the 20th November, 1551, after a stay of two years and four months. In his controversies with the Japanese, Xavier had been continually met with the objection—how could the Scripture history be true when it had escaped the notice of the learned men of China? It was Chinese sages who had taught philosophy and history to the Japanese, and Chinese missionaries who had converted them to Buddhism. To China, then, would he go to strike a blow at the root of that mighty superstition. Accordingly he sailed from Goa about the middle of April, 1552. … Being a prey to continual anxiety to reach the new scene of his labours, Xavier fell ill, apparently of remittent fever, and died on the 2nd of December, 1552. … The result of Xavier's labours was the formation of a mission which, from Goa as a centre, radiated over much of the coast of Asia from Ormuz to Japan. … The two missionaries, whom Xavier had left at Japan, were soon after joined by three others: and in 1556 they were visited by the Provincial of the Order in the Indies, Melchior Nunez, who paid much attention to the Japanese mission and selected for it the best missionaries, as Xavier had recommended. … The Jesuits attached themselves to the fortunes of the King of Bungo, a restless and ambitious prince, who in the end added four little kingdoms to his own, and thus became master of a large part of the island of Kiusiu. In his dominions Christianity made such progress that the number of converts began to be counted by thousands. … The missionaries perseveringly sought to spread their religion by preaching, public discussion, the circulation of controversial writings, the instruction of the youth, the casting out of devils, the performance of those mystery plays so common in that age, by the institution of 'confréries' like those of Avignon, and, above all, by the well-timed administration of alms. Nor need we be surprised to learn that their first converts were principally the blind, the infirm, and old men one foot in the grave. There are, however, many proofs in their letters that they were able both to attract proselytes of a better class and to inspire them with an enthusiasm which promised well for the growth of the mission. In those early days the example of Xavier was still fresh; and his immediate successors seem to have inherited his energetic and self-denying disposition, though none of them could equal the great mental and moral qualities of the Apostle of the Indies. They kept at the same time a watchful eye upon the political events that were going on around them, and soon began to bear a part in them. The hostility between them and the Bonzes became more and more bitter."

The Hundred Years of Christianity in Japan (Quarterly Review, April, 1871).

{1876}

"In several of the provinces of Kyushu the princes had become converts and had freely used their influence, and sometimes their authority, to extend Christianity among their subjects. In Kyoto and Yamaguchi, in Osaka and Sakai, as well as in Kyusbu, the Jesuit fathers had founded flourishing churches and exerted a wide influence. They had established colleges where the candidates for the church could be educated and trained. They had organized hospitals and asylums at Nagasaki and elsewhere, where those needing aid could be received and treated. It is true hat the progress of the work had met with a severe setback in A. D. 1587, when Taiko Sam a issued an edict expelling all foreign religious teachers from Japan. In pursuance of this edict nine foreigners who had evaded expulsion were burnt at Nagasaki. The reason for this decisive action on the part of Taiko Sama is usually attributed to the suspicion which had been awakened in him by the loose and unguarded talk of a Portuguese sea captain. But other causes undoubtedly contributed to produce in him this intolerant frame of mind. … In several of the provinces of Japan where the Jesuits had attained the ascendancy, the most forcible measures had been taken by the Christian princes to compel all their subjects to follow their own example and adopt the Christian faith. Takeyama, whom the Jesuit fathers designate as Justo Ucondono, carried out in his territory at Akashi a system of bitter persecution. He gave his subjects the option of becoming Christians or leaving his territory. Konishi Yukinaga, who received part of the province of Higo as his fief after the Korean war, enforced with great persistency the acceptance of the Christian faith, and robbed the Buddhist priests of their temples and their lands. The princes of Omura and Arima, and to a certain extent the princes of Bungo, followed the advice of the Jesuit fathers in using their authority to advance the cause of Christianity. The fathers could scarcely complain of having the system of intolerance practised upon them, which, when circumstances were favorable, they had advised to be applied to their opponents. … During the first years of Ieyasu's supremacy the Christians were not disturbed. … He issued in 1606 what may be called a warning proclamation, announcing that he had learned with pain that, contrary to Taiko Sama's edict, many had embraced the Christian religion. He warned all officers of his court to see that the edict was strictly enforced, He declared that it was for the good of the state that none should embrace the new doctrine; and that such as had already done so must change immediately. … In the meantime both the English and Dutch had appeared on the scene. … Their object was solely trade, and as the Portuguese monopoly hitherto had been mainly secured by the Jesuit fathers, it was natural for the new-comers to represent the motive of these fathers in an unfavorable and suspicious light. 'Indeed,' as Hildreth says, 'they had only to confirm the truth of what the Portuguese and Spanish said of each other to excite in the minds of the Japanese rulers the gravest distrust as to the designs of the priests of both nations.' Whether it is true as charged that the minds of the Japanese rulers had been poisoned against the Jesuit fathers by misrepresentation and falsehood, it may be impossible to determine definitely; but it is fair to infer that the cruel and intolerant policy of the Spanish and Portuguese would be fully set forth and the danger to the Japanese empire from the machinations of the foreign religious teachers held up in the worst light. … Ieyasu, evidently having made up his mind that for the safety of the empire Christianity must be extirpated, in 1614 issued an edict that the members of all religious orders, whether European or Japanese, should be sent out of the country: that the churches which had been erected in various localities should be pulled down, and that the native adherents of the faith should be compelled to renounce it. In part execution of this edict all the members of the Society of Jesus, native and foreign, were ordered to be sent to Nagasaki. Native Christians were sent to Tsugaru, the northern extremity of the Main island. … In accordance with this edict, as many as 300 persons are said to have been shipped from Japan October 25, 1614. All the resident Jesuits were included in this number, excepting eighteen fathers and nine brothers, who concealed themselves and thus escaped the search. Following his deportation of converts the most persistent efforts continued to be made to force the native Christians to renounce their faith. The accounts given, both by the foreign and by the Japanese writers, of the persecutions which now broke upon the heads of the Christians are beyond description horrible. … Rewards were offered for information involving Christians of every position and rank, even of parents against their children and of children against their parents. … The persecution began in its worst form about 1616. This was the year in which Ieyasu died, but his son and successor carried out the terrible programme with heartless thoroughness. It has never been surpassed for cruelty and brutality on the part of the persecutors, or for courage and constancy on the part of those who suffered. … Mr. Gubbins … says: 'We read of Christians being executed in a barbarous manner in sight of each other, of their being hurled from the tops of precipices, of their being buried alive, of their being torn asunder by oxen, of their being tied up in rice-bags, which were heaped up together, and of the pile thus formed being set on fire. Others were tortured before death by the insertion of sharp spikes under the nails of their hands and feet, while some poor wretches by a refinement of horrid cruelty were shut up in cages and there left to starve with food before their eyes. Let it not be supposed that we have drawn on the Jesuit accounts solely for this information. An examination of the Japanese records will show that the case is not overstated.'"

D. Murray, Story of Japan, chapter 11.

"The persecutions went on, the discovery of Christians occasionally occurring for several years, but in 1686 'the few remaining had learnt how to conceal their belief and the practice of their religion so well, that the Council issued a circular to the chief Daimios of the south and west, stating that none of the Kirishitan sect had been discovered of late years, owing perhaps to laziness on the part of those whose duty it was to search for them, and enjoining vigilance' (Satow). Traces of the Christian religion and people lingered in the country down to our own time."

Sir E. J. Reed, Japan, page 301.

{1877}

JAPAN: A. D. 1852-1888. Opening the ports to foreigners. The treaty with the United States and the other treaties which followed.

"It is estimated that about the middle of the present century, American capital to the amount of seventeen million dollars was invested in the whaling industry in the seas of Japan and China. We thus see that it was not a mere outburst of French enthusiasm when M. Michelet paid this high tribute to the service of the whale to civilization: 'Who opened to men the great distant navigation? Who revealed the ocean and marked out its zones and its liquid highways? Who discovered the secrets of the globe? The Whale and the Whaler.' … There were causes other than the mere safety of whalers which led to the inception of the American expedition to Japan. On the one hand, the rise of industrial and commercial commonwealths on the Pacific, the discovery of gold in California, the increasing trade with China, the development of steam navigation—necessitating coal depots and ports for shelter, the opening of highways across the Isthmus of Central America, the missionary enterprises on the Asiatic continent, the rise of the Hawaiian Islands,—on the other hand, the knowledge of foreign nations among the ruling class in Japan, the news of the British victory in China, the progress of European settlements in the Pacific, the dissemination of western science among a progressive class of scholars, the advice from the Dutch government to discontinue the antiquated policy of exclusion—all these testified that the fulness of time for Japan to turn a new page in her history was at hand. … About this time, a newspaper article concerning some Japanese waifs who had been picked up at sea by the barque Auckland—Captain Jennings—and brought to San Francisco, attracted the attention of Commodore Aulick. He submitted a proposal to the government that it should take advantage of this incident to open commercial relations with the Empire, or at least to manifest the friendly feelings of the country. This proposal was made on the 9th of May, 1851. Daniel Webster was then Secretary of State, and in him Aulick found a ready friend. … Clothed with full power to negotiate and sign treaties, and furnished with a letter from President Fillmore to the Emperor, Commodore Aulick was on the eve of departure when for some reason he was prevented. Thus the project which began at his suggestion was obstructed when it was about to be accomplished, and another man, perhaps better fitted for the undertaking, entered into his labors. … Commodore [Matthew Calbraith] Perry shared the belief in the expediency of sending a special mission for the purpose. When Commodore Aulick was recalled, Perry proposed to the U. S. Government an immediate expedition. The proposal was accepted, and an expedition on the most liberal scale was resolved upon. He was invested with extraordinary powers, naval and diplomatic. The East India and China Seas and Japan were the official designation of the field of service, but the real object in view was the establishment of a coal depot in Japan. The public announcement of the resolution was followed by applications from all quarters of Christendom for permission to accompany the expedition; all these were, however, refused on prudential grounds. … Impatient of the delay caused by the tardy preparations of his vessels, Perry sailed from Norfolk on the 24th of November, 1852, with one ship, the Mississippi, leaving the rest to follow as soon as ready. … The Mississippi … touching at, several ports on her way, reached Loo Choo in May, where the squadron united. … In the afternoon of the 8th of July, 1853, the squadron entered the Bay of Yedo in martial order, and about 5 o'clock in the evening was anchored off the town of Uraga. No sooner had 'the black ships of the evil mien' made their entry into the Bay, than the signal guns were fired, followed by the discharge of rockets; then were seen on the shore companies of soldiers moving from garrison to garrison. The popular commotion in Yedo at the news of 'a foreign invasion' was beyond description. The whole city was in an uproar. In all directions were seen mothers flying with children in their arms, and men with mothers on their backs. Rumors of an immediate action, exaggerated each time they were communicated from mouth to mouth, added horror to the horror-stricken. … As the squadron dropped anchor, it was surrounded by junks and boats of all sorts, but there was no hostile sign shown. A document in French was handed on board, which proved to be a warning to any foreign vessel not to come nearer. The next day was spent in informal conference between the local officials of Uraga and the subordinate officers of the squadron. It was Commodore Perry's policy to behave with as much reserve and exclusiveness as the Japanese diplomats had done and would do. He would neither see, nor talk with, any except the highest dignitary of the realm. Meanwhile, the governor of Uraga came on board and was received by captains and lieutenants. He declared that the laws forbade any foreign communication to be held elsewhere than Nagasaki; but to Nagasaki the squadron would never go. The vexed governor would send to Yedo for further instructions, and the 12th was fixed as a day for another conference. Any exchange of thought was either in the Dutch language, for which interpreters were provided on both sides, or in Chinese, through Dr. S. Wells Williams, and afterward in Japanese, through Manjiro Nakahama. … On the 12th, the Governor of Uraga again appeared on board and insisted on the squadron's leaving the Yedo Bay for Nagasaki, where the President's letter would be duly received through the Dutch or the Chinese. This the Commodore firmly refused to do. It was therefore decided at the court of Yedo that the letter be received at Kurihama, a few miles from the town of Uraga. This procedure was, in the language of the commissioners, 'in opposition to the Japanese law;' but, on the ground that 'the Admiral, in his quality as Ambassador of the President, would be insulted by any other course,' the original of Mr. Fillmore's letter to the Japanese Emperor, enclosed in a golden box of one thousand dollars in value, was delivered on the 14th of July to the commissioners appointed by the Shogun. … {1878} Fortunately for Japan, the disturbed state of affairs in China made it prudent for Perry to repair to the ports of that country, which he did as though he had consulted solely the diplomatic convenience of our country. He left word that he would come the ensuing spring for our answer. … It was the Taiping Rebellion which called for Perry's presence in China. The American merchants had large interests at stake there—their property in Shanghai alone amounting, it is said, to $1,200,000. … While in China, Commodore Perry found that the Russian and French admirals, who were staying in Shanghai, contemplated a near visit to Japan. That he might not give any advantage to them, he left Macao earlier than he had intended, and, on the 13th of February, found himself again in the Bay of Yedo, with a stately fleet of eight ships. As the place where the conference had been held at the previous visit was out of the reach of gun-shot from the anchorage, Perry expressed a desire of holding negotiations in Yedo, a request impossible for the Japanese to comply with. After some hesitation, the suburb Kanagawa was mutually agreed upon as a suitable site, and there a temporary building was accordingly erected for the transaction of the business. On the 8th of May, Commodore Perry, arrayed in the paraphernalia befitting his rank, was ushered into the house. The reply of the Shogun to the President's letter was now given—the purport of which was, decidedly in word but reluctantly in spirit, in favor of friendly intercourse. Conferences were repeated in the middle and latter part of the month, and after many evasions and equivocations, deliberations and delays, invitations to banquets and exchanges of presents, at last, on Friday, the 31st of May, the formal treaty was signed; a synopsis of which is here presented:

1. Peace and friendship. 2. Ports of Shimoda and Hakodate open to American ships, and necessary provisions to be supplied them. 3. Relief to shipwrecked people; expenses thereof not to be refunded. 4. Americans to be free as in other countries, but amenable to just laws. 5. Americans at Shimoda and Hakodate not to be subject to restrictions; free to go about within defined limits. 6. Careful deliberation in transacting business which affects the welfare of either party. 7. Trade in open ports subject to local regulations. 8. Wood, water, provisions, coal, etc., to be procured through Japanese officers only. 9. Most-favored nation clause. 10. U. S. ships restricted to ports of Shimoda and Hakodate, except when forced by stress of weather. 11. U. S. Consuls or agents to reside at Shimoda. 12. Ratifications to be exchanged within eighteen months. …

His labors at an end, Perry bade the last farewell to Japan and started on his home-bound voyage. This was in June, 1854. … No sooner had Perry left, carrying off the trophy of peaceful victory—the treaty (though the Yedo government was in no enjoyment of peaceful rest), than the Russian Admiral Pontiatine appeared in Nagasaki. He urged that the same privileges be granted his country as were allowed the Americans. … Soon, the English Rear Admiral, Sir James Stirling, arrives at the same harbor, very kindly to notify the government that there may be some fighting in Japanese waters between Russians and his countrymen. … The British convention was signed October 14, 1854, and followed, in 1858, by the Elgin treaty. The treaty with Russia was signed January 26, 1855; Netherlands, 9th of November the same year; France, October 9, 1858; Portugal, 3rd of August, 1860; German Customs Union, 25th of January, 1861. The other nations which followed the United States were Italy, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Sweden and Norway, Peru, Hawaii, China, Corea and Siam; lastly Mexico, with whom we concluded a treaty on terms of perfect equality (November 30, 1888)."

Inazo (Ota) Nitobe, The Intercourse between the U. S. and Japan, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: F. L. Hawks, Narrative of the Expedition under Commander Perry.

W. E. Griffis, Matthew Calbraith Perry, chapters 27-33.

JAPAN: A. D. 1869-1890. Constitutional development.

"In 1869 was convened the Kogisho or 'Parliament,' as Sir Harry Parkes translates it in his despatch to the Earl of Clarendon. … The Kogisho was composed mostly of the retainers of the Daimios, for the latter, having no experience of the earnest business of life, 'were not eager to devote themselves to the labors of an onerous and voluntary office.' … The object of the Kogisho was to enable the government to sound public opinion on the various topics of the day, and to obtain the assistance of the country in the work of legislation by ascertaining whether the projects of the government were likely to be favorably received. The Kogisho, like the Councils of Kuges and Daimios, was nothing but an experiment, a mere germ of a deliberative assembly, which only time and experience could bring to maturity. … It was a quiet, peaceful, obedient debating society. It has left the record of its abortive undertakings in the 'Kogisho Nishi' or journal of 'Parliament.' The Kogisho was dissolved in the year of its birth. And the indifference of the public about its dissolution proves how small an influence it really had. But a greater event than the dissolution of the Kogisho was pending before the public gaze. This was the abolition of feudalism. … The measure to abolish feudalism was much discussed in the Kogisho before its dissolution. … In the following noted memorial, after reviewing the political history of Japan during the past few hundred years, these Daimios said: 'Now the great Government has been newly restored and the Emperor himself undertakes the direction of affairs. This is, indeed, a rare and mighty event. We have the name (of an Imperial Government), we must also have the fact. Our first duty is to illustrate our faithfulness and to prove our loyalty. … The place where we live is the Emperor's land and the food which we eat is grown by the Emperor's men. How can we make it our own? We now reverently offer up the list of our possessions and men, with the prayer that the Emperor will take good measures for rewarding those to whom reward is due and for taking from those to whom punishment is due. Let the imperial orders be issued for altering and remodelling the territories of the various clans. Let the civil and penal codes, the military laws down to the rules for uniform and the construction of engines of war, all proceed from the Emperor; let all the affairs of the empire, great and small, be referred to him.' This memorial was signed by the Daimios of Kago, Hizen, Satsuma, Choshiu, Tosa, and some other Daimios of the west. {1879} But the real author of the memorial is believed to have been Kido, the brain of the Restoration. Thus were the fiefs of the most powerful and most wealthy Daimios voluntarily offered to the Emperor. The other Daimios soon followed the example of their colleagues. And the feudalism which had existed in Japan for over eight centuries was abolished by the following laconic imperial decree of August, 1871: 'The clans are abolished, and prefectures are established in their places.' … While the government at home was thus tearing down the old framework of state, the Iwakura Embassy in foreign lands was gathering materials for the new. This was significant, inasmuch as five of the best statesmen of the time, with their staff of forty-four able men, came into association for over a year with western peoples, and beheld in operation their social, political and religious institutions. … In 1873, Count Itagaki with his friends had sent in a memorial to the government praying for the establishment of a representative assembly, but they had not been heeded by the government. In July, 1877, Count Itagaki with his Ri-shi-sha again addressed a memorial to the Emperor, 'praying for a change in the form of government, and setting forth the reasons which, in the opinion of the members of the society, rendered such a change necessary.' These reasons were nine in number and were developed at great length. … The civil war being ended, in 1878, the year which marks a decade from the establishment of the new regime, the government, persuaded that the time for popular institutions was fast approaching, not alone through representations of the Tosa memorialists, but through many other signs of the times, decided to take a step in the direction of establishing a national assembly. But the government acted cautiously. Thinking that to bring together hundreds of members unaccustomed to parliamentary debate and its excitement, and to allow them a hand in the administration of affairs of the state, might be attended with serious dangers, as a preparation for the national assembly the government established first local assemblies. Certainly this was a wise course. These local assemblies have not only been good training schools for popular government, but also proved reasonably successful. … The qualifications for electors (males only) are: an age of twenty years, registration, and payment of a land tax of $5. Voting is by ballot, but the names of the voters are to be written by themselves on the voting papers. There are now 2,172 members who sit in these local assemblies. … The gulf between absolute government and popular government was thus widened more and more by the institution of local government. The popular tide raised by these local assemblies was swelling in volume year by year. New waves were set in motion by the younger generation of thinkers. Toward the close of the year 1881 the flood rose so high that the government thought it wise not to resist longer. His Imperial Majesty, hearing the petitions of the people, graciously confirmed and expanded his promise of 1868 by the famous proclamation of October 12, 1881: 'We have long had it in view to gradually establish a constitutional form of government. … It was with this object in view that in the eighth year of Meiji (1875) we established the Senate, and in the eleventh year of Meiji (1878) authorized the formation of local assemblies. … We therefore hereby declare that we shall, in the twenty-third year of Meiji (1890) establish a parliament, in order to carry into full effect the determination we have announced; and we charge our faithful subjects bearing our commissions to make, in the meantime, all necessary preparations to that end.'"

T. Iyenaga, The Constitutional Development of Japan, 1853-1881 (Johns Hopkins University Studies, 9th Series, number 9).

See CONSTITUTION OF JAPAN.

JAPAN: A. D. 1871-1872.

Organization of National Education.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: ASIA.

----------JAPAN: End----------

JAQUELINE OF HOLLAND AND HAINAULT, The Despoiling of.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1417-1430.

JAQUES-GILMORE PEACE MISSION.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY).

JARL.

See EARL; and ETHEL.

JARNAC, Battle of (1569).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

JASPER, Sergeant, The exploit of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JUNE).

JASSY, Treaty of (1792).

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

JATTS OR JAUTS.

See GYPSIES.

JAVA: A. D. 1811-1813. Taken from the Dutch by the English. Restored to Holland.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

JAVAN.

The Hebrew form of the Greek race-name Ionian; "but in the Old Testament it is generally applied to the island of Cyprus, which is called the Island of Yavnan, or the Ionians, on the Assyrian monuments."

A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 2.

JAXARTES, The.

The ancient name of the river now called the Sir, or Sihun, which empties into the Sea of Aral.

JAY, John, In the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (SEPTEMBER); and NEW YORK: A. D. 1777.

In diplomatic service.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1782 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

And the adoption of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.

Chief justice of the Supreme Court.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792.

And the second Treaty with Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794-1795.

JAYHAWKERS AND RED LEGS.

During the conflict of 1854-1859 in Kansas, certain "Free-state men in the Southeast, comparatively isolated, having little communication with [the town of] Lawrence, and consequently almost wholly without check, developed a successful if not very praiseworthy system of retaliation. Confederated at first for defense against pro-slavery outrages, but ultimately falling more or less completely into the vocation of robbers and assassins, they have received the name—whatever its origin may be—of jayhawkers."

L. W. Spring, Kansas, page 240.

"The complaints in former years of Border Ruffian forays from Missouri into Kansas [see KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859], were, as soon as the civil war began, paid with interest by a continual accusation of incursions of Kansas 'Jayhawkers' and 'Red Legs' into Missouri."

J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 6, page 370.

JAYME.

See JAMES.

{1880}

JAZYGES, OR IAZYGES.

See LIMIGANTES.

JEAN.

See JOHN.

JEANNE I., Queen of Navarre, A. D. 1274-1305.

Jeanne II., Queen of Navarre, 1328-1349.

Jeanne D'Albret, Queen of Navarre, and the Reformation in France.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.

JEBUSITES, The.

The Canaanite inhabitants of the city of Jebus, or ancient Jerusalem, which they held against the Israelites until David took the place by storm and made it the capital of his kingdom.

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 3, section 1 (volume 3).

See JERUSALEM.

JECKER CLAIMS, The.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.

JEFFERSON, Thomas: Authorship of the Declaration of Independence.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).

In the Cabinet of President Washington.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792; 1793.

Leadership of the Anti-Federalist or Republican Party.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792; and 1798.

Presidential administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1800, to 1806-1807.

JEFFERSON, Provisional Territory of.

See COLORADO: A. D.1806-1876.

JEFFREYS, and the "Bloody Assizes."

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1685.

JEHAD.

See DAR-UL-ISLAM.

JELLALABAD, Defense of (1842).

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1838-1842.

JEM, OR DJEM, Prince, The story of.

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

JEMAPPES, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

JEMMINGEN, Battle of (1568).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1568-1572.

JENA, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER).

JENGIS KHAN, Conquests of.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.

JENKINS' EAR, The War of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741.

JENKINS' FERRY, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS—MISSOURI).

JENNY GEDDES' STOOL.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1637.

JERBA, OR GELVES, The disaster at.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.

JERSEY AND GUERNSEY, The Isles of.

"Jersey, Guernsey, and their fellows are simply that part of the Norman duchy which clave to its dukes when the rest fell away. Their people are those Normans who remained Normans while the rest stooped to become Frenchmen. The Queen of Great Britain has a perfect right, if she will, to call herself Duchess of the Normans, a title which, in my ears at least, sounds better than that of Empress of India."

E. A. Freeman, Practical Bearings of General European History (Lectures to American Audiences), lecture 4.

ALSO IN: D. T. Ansted and R. G. Latham, The Channel Islands.

JERSEY PRISON SHIP, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1777. PRISONERS AND EXCHANGES.

JERSEYS, The. East and West New Jersey.

See NEW JERSEY.

----------JERUSALEM: Start----------

JERUSALEM: Early history.

"The first site of Jerusalem was the hill now erroneously called Sion, and which we shall designate … as Pseudo-Sion, the plateau of rock at the southwest, surrounded on all sides by ravines, viz., by the Valley of Hinnom on the west and south, and by the Tyropœon, or Cheesemakers' Valley, on the north and east. Parallel to this lay the real Sion, the less elevated eastern hill, shut in on the west by the Tyropœon Valley, which divided it from Pseudo-Sion, and on the east by the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and ending southward in a wedge-like point opposite to the south-east corner of Pseudo-Sion. The town on the western-most of these two ridges was known first as Jebus, and afterwards as the High Town, or Upper Market; and the accretion to it on the eastern hill was anciently called Salem, and subsequently the Low Town and Acra. In the days of lawless violence, the first object was safety; and, as the eastern hill was by nature exposed on the north, it was there protected artificially by a citadel and fosse. The High Town and Low Town were originally two distinct cities, occupied by the Amorites and Hittites, whence the taunt of the prophet to Jerusalem: 'Thy birth and thy nativity is of the land of Canaan; thy father was an Amorite and thy mother a Hittite.' Hence, also, the dualistic form of the name Jerusalem in Hebrew, signifying 'Twin-Jerusalem.' Indeed the opinion has been broached that Jerusalem is the compound of the two names, Jebus and Salem, softened 'euphoniæ gratiâ' into Jerusalem. It is remarkable that to the very last the quarter lying between the High Town and Low Town, though in the very heart of the city when the different parts were united into one compact body, was called the Suburb. The first notice of Jerusalem is in the time of Abraham. The king of Shinar and his confederates captured Sodom and Gomorrah, and carried away Lot, Abraham's brother's son; when Abraham, collecting his trainbands, followed after the enemy and rescued Lot; and on his return 'at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's vale, Melchizedek, king of Salem—the priest of the Most High God—blessed Abram.' The king's vale was the Valley of Jehoshaphat: and Salem was identical with the eastern hill, the real Zion as we learn from the Psalms, 'In Salem is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Zion;' where Salem and Zion are evidently used as synonymous. Whether Moriah, on which Abram offered his sacrifice, was the very mount on which the Temple was afterwards built, must be left to conjecture. But when the Second Book of Chronicles was written, the Jews had at least a tradition to that effect, for we read that 'Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah.' On the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, we find distinct mention made of Jerusalem by that very name; for after Joshua's death, 'the children of Judah fought against Jerusalem, and took it … and set the city on fire.' But Josephus is probably right in understanding this to apply to the Low Town only, i. e., the eastern hill, or Sion, as opposed to the western hill, the High Town, or Pseudo-Sion. The men of Judah had only a temporary occupation even of the Low Town, for it was not until the time of David that Jerusalem was brought permanently under the dominion of the Israelites."

T. Lewin, Jerusalem, chapter 1.

{1881}

JERUSALEM: Conquest and occupation by David.

"David had reigned seven years and a half in Hebron over the tribe of Judah alone.

See JEWS: THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH.

He was now solemnly installed as king by the elders of all Israel, and 'made a league with them before Jehovah in Hebron.' This was equivalent to what we now call a 'coronation oath,' and denoted that he was a constitutional, not an arbitrary monarch. The Israelites had no intention to resign their liberties, but in the sequel it will appear, that, with paid foreign troops at his side, even a most religious king could be nothing but a despot. Concerning David's military proceedings during his reign at Hebron, we know nothing in detail, though we read of Joab bringing in a large spoil, probably from his old enemies the Amalekites. David had an army to feed, to exercise, and to keep out of mischief; but it is probable that the war against Abner generally occupied it sufficiently. Now however he determined to signalize his new power by a great exploit. The strength of Jerusalem had been sufficiently proved by the long secure dwelling of Jebusites in it, surrounded by a Hebraized population. Hebron was no longer a suitable place for the centre of David's administration; but Jerusalem, on the frontier of Benjamin and Judah, without separating him from his own tribe, gave him a ready access to the plains of Jericho below, and thereby to the eastern districts; and although by no means a central position, it was less remote from Ephraim than Hebron. Of this Jebusite town he therefore determined to possess himself. … The Jebusites were so confident of their safety, as to send to David an enigmatical message of defiance; which may be explained,—that a lame and blind garrison was sufficient to defend the place. David saw in this an opportunity of displacing Joab from his office of chief captain,—if indeed Joab formally held that office as yet, and had not merely assumed authority as David's eldest nephew and old comrade in arms. The king however now declared, that whoever should first scale the wall and drive off its defenders, should be made chief captain; but his hopes were signally disappointed. His impetuous nephew resolved not to be outdone, and triumphantly mounting the wall, was the immediate means of the capture of the town. … Jerusalem is henceforth its name in … history; in poetry only, and not before the times of king Hezekiah, is it entitled Salem, or peace; identifying it with the city of the legendary Melchisedek. David's first care was to provide for the security of his intended capital, by suitable fortifications. Immediately to the north of Mount Zion, and separated from it by a slighter depression which we have named, was another hill, called Millo in the Hebrew. … In ancient times this seems to have been much loftier than now; for it has been artificially lowered. David made no attempt to include Millo (or Acra) in his city, but fortified Mount Zion separately; whence it was afterwards called, The city of David."

F. W. Newman, A History of the Hebrew Monarchy, chapter 3.

"The Jebusite city was composed of the fortress of Sion, which must have been situated where the mosque of El Akasa now stands, and of a lower town (Ophel) which runs down from there to the well which they called Gihon. David took the fortress of Sion, and gave the greater portion of the neighbouring lands to Joab, and probably left the lower town to the Jebusites. That population, reduced to an inferior situation, lost all energy, thanks to the new Israelitish influx, and played no important part in the history of Jerusalem. David rebuilt the upper town of Sion, the citadel or millo, and all the neighbouring quarters. This is what they called the city of David. … David in reality created Jerusalem."

E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 2, chapter 18 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 2, section 1, B.

JERUSALEM: Early sieges.

Jerusalem, the ancient stronghold of the Jebusites, which remained in the hands of that Canaanite people until David reduced it and made it the capital of his kingdom, was the object of many sieges in its subsequent history and suffered at the hands of many ruthless conquerors. It was taken, with no apparent resistance, by Shishak, of Egypt, in the reign of Rehoboam, and Solomon's temple plundered. Again, in the reign of Amaziah, it was entered by the armies of the rival kingdom of Israel and a great part of its walls thrown down. It was besieged without success by the tartan or general of Sennacherib, and captured a little later by Pharaoh Necho. In B. C. 586 the great calamity of its conquest and destruction by Nebuchadnezzar befell, when the survivors of its chief inhabitants were taken captive to Babylon. Rebuilt at the return from captivity, it enjoyed peace under the Persians; but in the troubled times which followed the dissolution of Alexander's Empire, Jerusalem was repeatedly pillaged and abused by the Greeks of Egypt and the Greeks of Syria. Its walls were demolished by Ptolemy I. (B. C. 320) and again by Autiochus Epiphanes (B. C. 168), when a great part of the city was likewise burned.

Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews.

ALSO IN: H. H. Milman, History of the Jews.

See, also, JEWS.

JERUSALEM: B. C. 171-169. Sack and massacre by Antiochus Epiphanes.

See JEWS: B. C. 332-167.

JERUSALEM: B. C. 63. Siege and capture by Pompeius.

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.

JERUSALEM: B. C. 40. Surrendered to the Parthians.

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.

JERUSALEM: B. C. 37. Siege by Herod and the Romans.

See Jews: B. C. 40—A. D. 44.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 33-100. Rise of the Christian Church.

See CHRISTIANITY: A. D. 33-100.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 70.-Siege and destruction by Titus.

See JEWS: A. D. 66-70. THE GREAT REVOLT.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 130-134. Rebuilt by Hadrian. Change of name. The revolt of Bar-Kokheba.

See JEWS: A. D. 130-134.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 615. Siege, sack and massacre by the Persians.

In the last of the wars of the Persians with the Romans, while Heraclius occupied the throne of the Empire, at Constantinople, and Chosroës II. filled that of the Sassanides, the latter (A. D. 614) "sent his general, Shahr-Barz, into the region east of the Antilibanus and took the ancient and famous city of Damascus. From Damascus, in the ensuing year, Shahr-Barz advanced against Palestine, and, summoning the Jews to his aid, proclaimed a Holy War against the Christian misbelievers, whom he threatened to enslave or exterminate. Twenty-six thousand of these fanatics flocked to his standard; and having occupied the Jordan region and Galilee, Shahr-Barz in A. D. 615 invested Jerusalem, and after a siege of eighteen days forced his way into the town and gave it over to plunder and rapine. {1882} The cruel hostility of the Jews had free vent. The churches of Helena, of Constantine, of the Holy Sepulchre, of the Resurrection, and many others, were burnt or ruined; the greater part of the city was destroyed; the sacred treasuries were plundered; the relics scattered or carried off; and a massacre of the inhabitants, in which the Jews took the chief part, raged throughout the whole city for some days. As many as 17,000, or, according to another account, 90,000, were slain. Thirty-five thousand were made prisoners. Among them was the aged patriarch, Zacharias, who was carried captive into Persia, where he remained till his death. The Cross found by Helena, and believed to be 'the True Cross,' was at the same time transported to Ctesiphon; where it was preserved with care and duly venerated by the Christian wife of Chosroës."

G. Rawlinson, The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 24.

See, also, ROME: A. D. 565-628.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 637. Surrender to the Moslems.

In the winter of 637, the Arabs, then masters of the greater part of Syria, laid siege to Jerusalem. After four months of vigorous attack and defense, the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem held a parley from the walls with the Arab general, Abu Obeidah. "'Do you not know,' said he, 'that this city is holy, and that whoever offers violence to it draws upon his head the vengeance of heaven?' 'We know it,' replied Abu Obeidah, 'to be the house of the prophets, where their bodies lie interred; we know it to be the place whence our prophet Mahomet made his nocturnal ascent to heaven; and we know that we are more worthy of possessing it than you are, nor will we raise the siege until Allah has delivered it into our hands, as he has done many other places.' Seeing there was no further hope, the patriarch consented to give up the city, on condition that the Caliph would come in person to take possession and sign the articles of surrender." This proposal being communicated to Omar, the Caliph, he consented to make the long journey from Medina to Jerusalem, and, in due time, he entered the Holy City, not like a conqueror, but on foot, with his staff in his hand and wearing his simple, much-patched Arab garb. "The articles of surrender were drawn up in writing by Omar, and served afterwards as a model for the Moslem leaders in other conquests. The Christians were to build no new churches in the surrendered territory. The church doors were to be set open to travellers, and free ingress permitted to Mahometans by day and night. The bells should only toll, and not ring, and no crosses should be erected on the churches, nor shown publicly in the streets. The Christians should not teach the Koran to their children; nor speak openly of their religion; nor attempt to make proselytes; nor hinder their kinsfolk from embracing Islam. They should not assume the Moslem dress, either caps, slippers, or turbans, nor part their hair like Moslems, but should always be distinguished by girdles. They should not use the Arabian language in inscriptions on their signets, nor salute after the Moslem manner, nor be called by Moslem surnames. They should rise on the entrance of a Moslem, and remain standing until he should be seated. They should entertain every Moslem traveller three days gratis. They should sell no wine, bear no arms, and use no saddle in riding; neither should they have any domestic who had been in Moslem service. … The Christians having agreed to surrender on these terms, the Caliph gave them, under his own hand, an assurance of protection in their lives and fortunes, the use of their churches, and the exercise of their religion."

W. Irving, Mahomet and His Successors, volume 2, chapter 18.

See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-639.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 908-1171. In the Moslem civil wars.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST and EMPIRE: A. D. 908-1171.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1064-1076. Great revival of pilgrimages from western Europe.

See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &c.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1076. Taken by the Seljuk Turks.

See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &c.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1094. Visit of Peter the Hermit.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1094-1095.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099. The Blood "Deliverance" of the Holy City by the Crusaders.

The armies of the First Crusade (see CRUSADES: A. D. 1096-1099)—the surviving remnant of them—reached Jerusalem in June, A. D. 1099. They numbered, it is believed, but 20,000 fighting men, and an equal number of camp followers,—women, children, non-militant priests, and the like. "Immediately before the arrival of the Crusaders, the Mohammedans deliberated whether they should slaughter all the Christians in cold blood, or only fine them and expel them from the city. It was decided to adopt the latter plan; and the Crusaders were greeted on their arrival not only by the flying squadrons of the enemy's cavalry, but also by exiled Christians telling their piteous tales. Their houses had been pillaged, their wives kept as hostages; immense sums were required for their ransom; the churches were desecrated; and, even worse still, the Infidels were contemplating the entire destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This last charge, at least, was not true. But it added fuel to a fire which was already beyond any control, and the chiefs gave a ready permission to their men to carry the town, if they could, by assault." They were repulsed with heavy loss, and driven to the operations of a regular siege, for which their resources were limited in the extreme. But overcoming all difficulties, and enduring much suffering from lack of water, at the end of little more than a month they drove the Moslems from the walls and entered the city—on Friday, the 15th of July, A. D. 1099. "The city was taken, and the massacre of its defenders began. The Christians ran through the streets slaughtering as they went. At first they spared none, neither man, woman, nor child, putting all alike to the sword; but when resistance had ceased, and rage was partly appeased, they began to bethink them of pillage, and tortured those who remained alive to make them discover their gold. As for the Jews within the city, they had fled to their synagogue, which the Christians set on fire, and so burned them all. The chroniclers relate, with savage joy, how the streets were encumbered with heads and mangled bodies, and how in the Haram Area, the sacred enclosure of the Temple, the knights rode in blood up to the knees of their horses. Here upwards of ten thousand were slaughtered, while the whole number of killed amounted, according to various estimates, to forty, seventy, and even a hundred thousand. … {1883} Evening fell, and the clamour ceased, for there were no more enemies to kill, save a few whose lives had been promised by Tancred. Then from their hiding-places in the city came out the Christians who still remained in it. They had but one thought, to seek out and welcome Peter the Hermit, whom they proclaimed as their liberator. At the sight of these Christians, a sudden revulsion of feeling seized the soldiers. They remembered that the city they had taken was the city of the Lord, and this impulsive soldiery, sheathing swords reeking with blood, followed Godfrey to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where they passed the night in tears and prayers and services. In the morning the carnage began again. Those who had escaped the first fury were the women and children. It was now resolved to spare none. Even the three hundred to whom Tancred had promised life were slaughtered in spite of him. Raymond alone managed to save the lives of those who capitulated to him from the tower of David. It took a week to kill the Saracens, and to take away their dead bodies. Every Crusader had a right to the first house he took possession of, and the city found itself absolutely cleared of its old inhabitants, and in the hands of a new population. The true Cross, which had been hidden by the Christians during the siege, was brought forth again, and carried in joyful procession round the city, and for ten days the soldiers gave themselves up to murder, plunder—and prayers! And the first Crusade was finished."

W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: C. Mills, History of the Crusades, volume 1, chapter 6.

J. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, book 4.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099-1144. The Founding of the Latin kingdom.

Eight days after their bloody conquest of the Holy City had been achieved, "the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of a king, to guard and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh the Great [count of Vermandois] and Stephen of Chartres had retired with some loss of reputation, which they strove to regain by a second crusade and an honourable death. Baldwin was established at Edessa, and Bohemond at Antioch; and two Roberts—the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Flanders— preferred their fair inheritance in the West to a doubtful competition or a barren sceptre. The jealousy and ambition of Raymond [of Toulouse] were condemned by his own followers; and the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the army proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of the champions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of danger as of glory; but in the city where his Saviour had been crowned with thorns the devout pilgrim rejected the name and ensigns of royalty, and the founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem contented himself with the modest title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government of a single year, too short for the public happiness, was interrupted in the first fortnight by a summons to the field by the approach of the vizir or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but who was impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the battle of Ascalon sealed the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and signalized the valour of the French princes, who in this action bade a long farewell to the holy wars. … After suspending before the Holy sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new king (he deserves the title) embraced his departing companions, and could retain only, with the gallant Tancred, 300 knights and 2,000 foot soldiers, for the defence of Palestine."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 58.

Godfrey lived not quite a year after his election, and was succeeded on the throne of Jerusalem by his brother Baldwin, the prince of Edessa, who resigned that Mesopotamian lordship to his cousin, Baldwin du Bourg, and made haste to secure the more tempting sovereignty. Godfrey, during his short reign, had permitted himself to be made almost a vassal and subordinate of the patriarch of Jerusalem—one Daimbert, a domineering prelate from Italy. But Baldwin matched the priest in his own grasping qualities and soon established the kingship on a more substantial footing. He reigned eighteen years, and when he died, in 1118, the fortunate cousin, Baldwin du Bourg, received his crown, surrendering the principality of Edessa to another. This Baldwin II. died in 1131, and was succeeded by Fulk or Foulque, count of Anjou, who had lately arrived in Palestine and married Baldwin's daughter. "The Latin dominions in the East attained their greatest extent in the reign of King Baldwin II. … The entire sea-coast from Tarsus in Cilicia to El-Arish on the confines of Egypt was, with the exception of Ascalon and Gaza, in the possession of the Franks. In the north their dominions extended inland to Edessa beyond the Euphrates; the mountains of Lebanon and their kindred ranges bounded them on the east as they ran southwards; and then the Jordan and the desert formed their eastern limits. They were divided into four states, namely, the kingdom of Jerusalem, the county of Tripolis, the principality of Antioch, and the county of Edessa; the rulers of the three last held as vassals under the king." King Fulk died in 1143 or 1144, and was succeeded by his son, Baldwin III. Edessa was lost in the following year.

T. Keightley, The Crusaders chapter 2.

See, also, CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099-1291. The constitution of the kingdom.

"Godfrey was an elected king; and we have seen that his two immediate successors owed their crowns rather to personal merit and intrigue than to principles of hereditary succession. But after the death of Baldwin du Bourg, the foundation of the constitution appears to have been settled; and the Latin state of Jerusalem may be regarded as a feudal hereditary monarchy. There were two chief lords of the kingdom, namely, the patriarch and the king, whose cognizance extended over spiritual and temporal affairs. … The great officers of the crown were the seneschal, the constable, the marshal, and the chamberlain. … There were four chief baronies of the kingdom, and many other lordships which had the privileges of administering justice, coining money, and, in short, most of those powers and prerogatives which the great and independent nobility of Europe possessed. The first great barony comprised the counties of Jaffa and Ascalon, and the lordships of Ramula, Mirabel, and Ibelin. The second was the principality of Galilee. The third included the lordships of Sajetta, Cesarea, and Nazareth; and the fourth was the county of Tripoli. … {1884} But the dignity of these four great barons is shewn by the number of knights which they were obliged to furnish, compared with the contributions of other nobles. Each of the three first barons was compelled to aid the king with five hundred knights. The service of Tripoli was performed by two hundred knights; that of the other baronies by one hundred and eighty-three Knights. Six hundred and sixty-six knights was the total number furnished by the cities of Jerusalem, Naplousa, Acre, and Tyre. The churches and the commercial communities of every part of the kingdom provided five thousand and seventy-five serjeants or serving men."

C. Mills, History of the Crusades, volume 1, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 58.

See, also, ASSIZE OF JERUSALEM.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1147-1149. The note of alarm and the Second Crusade.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1147-1149.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1149-1187. Decline and fall of the kingdom. The Rise of Saladin and his conquest of the Holy City.

King Fulk was succeeded in 1144 by his son, a boy of thirteen, who took the title of Baldwin III. and with whom his mother associated herself on the throne. It was early in this reign of the boy-king that Edessa was taken by Zenghi, sultan of Aleppo, and an appeal made to Europe which called out the miserably abortive Second Crusade. The crusade "did nothing towards the maintenance of the waning ascendency of the Latins. Even victories brought with them no solid result, and in not a few instances victory was misused with a folly closely allied to madness. … The interminable series of wars, or rather of forays and reprisals, went on; and amidst such contests the life of Baldwin closed [A. D. 1162] in early manhood. … He died childless, and although some opposition was made to his choice, his brother Almeric [or Amaury] was elected to fill his place. Almost at the beginning of his reign the affairs of the Latin kingdom became complicated with those of Egypt; and the Christians are seen fighting by the side of one Mahomedan race, tribe, or faction against another." The Fatimite caliphs of Egypt had become mere puppets in the hands of their viziers, and when one grand vizier, Shawer, deposed by a rival, Dargham, appealed to the sultan of Aleppo (Noureddin, son of Zenghi), the latter embraced eagerly the opportunity to stretch his strong hand towards the Fatimite throne. Among his generals was Shiracouh, a valiant Koord, and he sent Shiracouh to Egypt to restore Shawer to power. With Shiracouh went a young nephew of the Koordish soldier, named Salah-ud-deen—better known in history as Saladin. Shawer, restored to authority, quickly quarrelled with his protectors, and endeavored to get rid of them—which proved not easy. He sought and obtained help from the Latin king of Jerusalem, in whose mind, too, there was the ambition to pluck this rotten-ripe plum on the Nile. After a war of five years duration, in which king Almeric was encouraged and but slightly helped by the Byzantine emperor, while Noureddin was approved and supported by the caliph of Bagdad, Noureddin's Koord general, Shiracouh, secured the prize. Grand vizier Shawer was put to death, and the wretched Fatimite caliph made young Saladin his vizier, fancying he had chosen a young man too fond of pleasure to be dangerously ambitious. He was speedily undeceived. Saladin needed only three years to make himself master of Egypt, and the caliph, then dying, was stripped of his title and his sovereignty. The bold Koord took the throne in the name of the Abbasside Caliph, at Bagdad, summarily ending the Fatimite schism. He was still nominally the servant of the sultan of Aleppo; but when Noureddin died, A. D. 1178, leaving his dominions to a young son, Saladin was able, with little resistance, to displace the latter and to become undisputed sovereign of Mahometan Syria, Egypt, and a large part of Mesopotamia. He now resolved to expel the Latins from Palestine and to restore the authority of the prophet once more in the holy places of Jerusalem. King Almeric had died in 1173, leaving his crown to a son, Baldwin IV., who was an unfortunate leper. The leper prince died in 1185, and the only makeshift for a king that Jerusalem found in this time of serious peril was one Guy of Lusignan, a vile and despised creature, who had married the last Baldwin's sister. The Holy Land, the Holy City and the Holy Sepulchre had this pitiful kinglet for their defender when the potent Saladin led his Moslems against them. The decisive battle was fought in July, A. D. 1187, near the city of Tiberias, and is known generally in Christian history as the Battle of Tiberias, but was called by Mahometan annalists the Battle of Hittin. The Christians were defeated with great slaughter; the miserable King Guy was taken prisoner—but soon released, to make trouble; the "true cross," most precious of all Christian relics, fell into Saladin's irreverent hands. Tiberias, Acre, Cæsarea, Jaffa, Berytos, Ascalon, submitted to the victor. Jerusalem was at his mercy; but he offered its defenders and inhabitants permission to depart peacefully from the place, having no wish, he said, to defile its hallowed soil with blood. When his offer was rejected, he made a vow to enter the city with his sword and to do as the Christians had done when they waded to their knees in blood through its streets. But when, after a short siege of fourteen days, Jerusalem was surrendered to him, he forgot his angry oath, and forgot the vengeance which might not have seemed strange in that age and that place. The sword of the victor was sheathed. The inhabitants were ransomed at a stipulated rate, and those for whom no ransom was paid were held as slaves. The sick and the helpless were permitted to remain in the city for a year, with the Knights of the Hospital—conspicuous among the enemies of Saladin and his faith—to attend upon them. The Crescent shone Christian-like as it rose over Jerusalem again. The Cross—the Crusaders' Cross—was shamed. The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was now nearly extinct; Tyre alone held out against Saladin and constituted the most of the kingdom of King Guy of Lusignan.

G. W. Cox, The Crusades, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, chapters 12-16.

J. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, book 7.

Mrs. W. Busk, Mediæval Popes, Emperors, Kings and Crusaders, book 2, chapters 10-11 (volume 2).

See, also, SALADIN, THE EMPIRE OF.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1188-1192. Attempted recovery. The Third Crusade.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192.

{1885}

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1192-1229. The succession of nominal kings.

Guy de Lusignan, the poor creature whom Sybille, daughter of King Amaury, married and made king of Jerusalem, lost his kingdom fairly enough on the battle-field of Tiberias. To win his freedom from Saladin, moreover, he renounced his claims by a solemn oath and pledged himself to quit the soil of Palestine forever. But oaths were of small account with the Christian Crusaders, and with the priests who kept their consciences. Guy got easy absolution for the trifling perjury, and was a king once more,—waiting for the Crusaders to recover his kingdom. But when, in 1190, his queen Sybille and her two children died, King Guy's royal title wore a faded look to most people and was wholly denied by many. Presently, Conrad of Montferrat, who held possession of Tyre—the best part of what remained in the actual kingdom of Jerusalem—married Sybille's sister, Isabella, and claimed the kingship in her name. King Richard of England supported Guy, and King Philip Augustus of France, in sheer contrariness, took his side with Conrad. After long quarreling it was decided that Guy should wear the crown while he lived, and that it should pass when he died to Conrad and Conrad's children. It was Richard's wilfulness that forced this settlement; but, after all, on quitting Palestine, in 1192, the English king did not dare to leave affairs behind him in such worthless hands. He bought, therefore, the abdication of Guy de Lusignan, by making him king of Cyprus, and he gave the crown of Jerusalem to the strong and capable Conrad. But Conrad was murdered in a little time by emissaries of the Old Man of the Mountain (see ASSASSINS), who accused Richard of the instigation of the deed, and Count Henry of Champagne, Richard's nephew, accepted his widow and his crown. Henry enjoyed his titular royalty and his little hand-breadth of dominion on the Syrian coast for four years, only. Then he was killed, while defending Jaffa, and his oft-widowed widow, Isabella, brought the Lusignans back into Palestinian history again by marrying, for her fourth husband, Amaury de Lusignan, who had succeeded his brother Guy, now deceased, as king of Cyprus. Amaury possessed the two crowns, of Cyprus and Jerusalem, until his death, when the latter devolved on the daughter of Isabella, by her second husband, Conrad. The young queen accepted a husband recommended by the king of France, and approved by her barons, thus bringing a worthy king to the worthless throne. This was John de Brienne, a good French knight, who came to Palestine (A. D. 1210) with a little following of three hundred knights and strove valiantly to reconquer a kingdom for his royally entitled bride. But he strove in vain, and fragment after fragment of his crumbling remnant of dominion fell away until he held almost nothing except Acre. In 1217 the king of Hungary, the duke of Austria and a large army of crusaders came, professedly, to his help, but gave him none. The king of Hungary got possession of the head of St. Peter, the right hand of St. Thomas and one of the wine vessels of the marriage feast at Cana, and hastened home with his precious relics. The other crusaders went away to attack Egypt and brought their enterprise to a miserable end. Then King John de Brienne married his daughter Yolante, or Iolanta, to the German emperor, or King of the Romans, Frederick II., and surrendered to that prince his rights and claims to the kingship of Jerusalem. Frederick, at war with the Pope, and under the ban of the Church, went to Palestine, with 600 knights, and contrived by clever diplomacy and skilful pressure to secure a treaty with the sultan of Egypt (A. D. 1229), which placed Jerusalem, under some conditions, in his hands, and added other territory to the kingdom which he claimed by right of his wife. He entered Jerusalem and there set the crown on his own head; for the patriarch, the priests, and the monk-knights, of the Hospital and the Temple, shunned him and refused recognition to his work. But Frederick was the only "King of Jerusalem" after Guy de Lusignan, who wore a crown in the Holy City, and exercised in reality the sovereignty to which he pretended. Frederick returned to Italy in 1229 and his kingdom in the East was soon as shadowy and unreal as that of his predecessors had been.

W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, chapters 15 and 18.

ALSO IN: J. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, books 8-12.

See, also, CRUSADES: 1188-1192, and 1216-1229; and CYPRUS: A. D. 1192-1489.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1242. Sack and massacre by the Carismians.

After the overthrow of the Khuarezmian (Korasmian or Carismian) empire by the Mongols, its last prince, Gelaleddin, or Jalalu-d-Din, implacably pursued by those savage conquerors, fought them valiantly until he perished, at last, in Kurdistan. His army, made up of many mercenary bands, Turkish and other, then scattered, and two, at least, among its wandering divisions played important parts in subsequent history. Out of one of those Khuarezmian squadrons rose the powerful nation of the Ottoman Turks. The other invaded Syria. "The Mussulman powers of Syria several times united in a league against the Carismians, and drove them back to the other side of the Euphrates. But the spirit of rivalry which at all times divided the princes of the family of Saladin, soon recalled an enemy always redoubtable notwithstanding defeats. At the period of which we are speaking, the princes of Damascus, Carac, and Emessa had just formed an alliance with the Christians of Palestine; they not only restored Jerusalem, Tiberias, and the principality of Galilee to them, but they promised to join them in the conquest of Egypt, a conquest for which the whole of Syria was making preparations. The sultan of Cairo, to avenge himself upon the Christians who had broken the treaties concluded with him, to punish their new allies, and protect himself from their invasion, determined to apply for succour to the hordes of Carismia; and sent deputies to the leaders of these barbarians, promising to abandon Palestine to them, if they subdued it. This proposition was accepted with joy, and 20,000 horsemen, animated by a thirst for booty and slaughter, hastened from the further parts of Mesopotamia, disposed to be subservient to the vengeance or anger of the Egyptian monarch. On their march they ravaged the territory of Tripoli and the principality of Galilee, and the flames which everywhere accompanied their steps announced their arrival to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Fortifications scarcely commenced, and the small number of warriors in the holy city, left not the least hope of being able to repel the unexpected attacks of such a formidable enemy. {1886} The whole population of Jerusalem resolved to fly, under the guidance of the knights of the Hospital and the Temple. There only remained in the city the sick and a few inhabitants who could not make their minds up to abandon their homes and their infirm kindred. The Carismians soon arrived, and having destroyed a few intrenchments that had been made in their route, they entered Jerusalem sword in hand, massacred all they met, and … had recourse to a most odious stratagem to lure back the inhabitants who had taken flight. They raised the standards of the cross upon every tower, and set all the bells ringing." The retreating Christians were deceived. They persuaded themselves that a miracle had been wrought; "that God had taken pity on his people, and would not permit the city of Christ to be defiled by the presence of a sacrilegious horde. Seven thousand fugitives, deceived by this hope, returned to Jerusalem and gave themselves up to the fury of the Carismians, who put them all to the sword. Torrents of blood flowed through the streets and along the roads. A troop of nuns, children, and aged people, who had sought refuge in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, were massacred at the foot of the altars. The Carismians finding nothing among the living to satisfy their fury, burst open the sepulchres, and gave the coffins and remains of the dead up to the flames; the tomb of Christ, that of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sacred relics of the martyrs and heroes of the faith,—nothing was respected, and Jerusalem then witnessed within its walls such cruelties and profanations as had never taken place in the most barbarous wars, or in days marked by the anger of God." Subsequently the Christians of Palestine rallied, united their forces with those of the Moslem princes of Damascus and Emessa, and gave battle to the Carismians on the plains of Gaza; but they suffered a terrible defeat, leaving 30,000 dead on the field. Nearly all Palestine was then at the mercy of the savages, and Damascus was speedily subjugated. But the sultan of Cairo, beginning to fear the allies he had employed, turned his arms sharply against them, defeated them in two successive battles, and history tells nothing more of the career of these last adventurers of the Carismian or Khuarezmian name.

J. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, book 13.

ALSO IN: C. G. Addison, The Knights Templars, chapter 6.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1291. The end of the Christian kingdom. The surviving title of "King of Jerusalem."

"Since the death of the Emperor Frederic II. [A. D. 1250], the baseless throne of Jerusalem had found a claimant in Hugh de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, who, as lineally descended from Alice, daughter of Queen Isabella, was, in fact, the next heir, after failure of issue by the marriage of Frederic and Iolanta de Brienne. His claims were opposed by the partisans of Charles of Anjou, King of the Sicilies,—that wholesale speculator in diadems. … He rested his claim upon the double pretensions of a papal title to all the forfeited dignities of the imperial house of Hohenstauffen, and of a bargain with Mary of Antioch; whose rights, although she was descended only from a younger sister of Alice, he had eagerly purchased. But the prior title of the house of Cyprus was more generally recognised in Palestine; the coronation of Hugh had been celebrated at Tyre; and the last idle pageant of regal state in Palestine was exhibited by the race of Lusignan. At length the final storm of Mussulman war broke upon the phantom king and his subjects. It was twice provoked by the aggressions of the Latins themselves, in plundering the peaceable Moslem traders, who resorted, on the faith of treaties, to the Christian marts on the Syrian coast. After a vain attempt to obtain redress for the first of these violations of international law, Keladun, the reigning sultan of Egypt and Syria, revenged the infraction of the existing ten years' truce by a renewal of hostilities with overwhelming force; yearly repeated his ravages of the Christian territory; and at length, tearing the city and county of Tripoli—the last surviving great fief of the Latin kingdom—from its dilapidated crown, dictated the terms of peace to its powerless sovereign (A. D. 1289)." Two years later, a repetition of lawless outrages on Moslem merchants at Acre provoked a last wrathful and implacable invasion. "At the head of an immense army of 200,000 men, the Mameluke prince entered Palestine, swept the weaker Christian garrisons before him, and encamped under the towers of Acre (A. D. 1291). That city, which, since the fall of Jerusalem, had been for a century the capital of the Latin kingdom, was now become the last refuge of the Christian population of Palestine. Its defences were strong, its inhabitants numerous; but any state of society more vicious, disorderly, and helpless than its condition, can scarcely be imagined. Within its walls were crowded a promiscuous multitude, of every European nation, all equally disclaiming obedience to a general government, and enjoying impunity for every crime under the nominal jurisdiction of independent tribunals. Of these there were no less than seventeen; in which the papal legate, the king of Jerusalem, the despoiled great feudatories of his realm, the three military orders, the colonies of the maritime Italian republics, and the representatives of the princes of the West, all arrogated sovereign rights, and all abused them by the venal protection of offenders. … All the wretched inhabitants who could find such opportunities of escape, thronged on board the numerous vessels in the harbour, which set sail for Europe; and the last defence of Acre was abandoned to about 12,000 men, for the most part the soldiery of the three military orders. From that gallant chivalry, the Moslems encountered a resistance worthy of its ancient renown and of the extremity of the cause for which its triple fraternity had sworn to die. But the whole force of the Mameluke empire, in its yet youthful vigour, had been collected for their destruction." After a fierce siege of thirty-three days, one of the principal defensive works, described in contemporary accounts as "the Cursed Tower," was shattered, and the besiegers entered the city. The cowardly Lusignan had escaped by a stolen flight the night before. The Teutonic Knights, the Templars and the Hospitallers stood their ground with hopeless valor. Of the latter only seven escaped. "Bursting through the city, the savage victors pursued to the strand the unarmed and fleeing population, who had wildly sought a means of escape, which was denied not less by the fury of the elements than by the want of sufficient shipping. {1887} By the relentless cruelty of their pursuers, the sands and the waves were dyed with the blood of the fugitives; all who survived the first horrid massacre were doomed to a hopeless slavery; and the last catastrophe of the Crusades cost life or liberty to 60,000 Christians. … The Christian population of the few maritime towns which had yet been retained fled to Cyprus, or submitted their necks, without a struggle, to the Moslem yoke; and, after a bloody contest of two hundred years, the possession of the Holy Land was finally abandoned to the enemies of the Cross. The fall of Acre closes the annals of the Crusades."

Colonel G. Procter, History of the Crusades, chapter 5, section 5.

J. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, book 15 (volume 3).

Actual royalty in the legitimate line of the Lusignan family ends with a queen Charlotte, who was driven from Cyprus in 1464 by her bastard brother James. She made over to the house of Savoy (one of the members of which she had married) her rights and the three crowns she wore,—the crown of Armenia having been added to those of Jerusalem and Cyprus in the family. "The Dukes of Savoy called themselves Kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem from the date of Queen Charlotte's settlement; the Kings of Naples had called themselves Kings of Jerusalem since the transfer of the rights of Mary of Antioch [see above], in 1277, to Charles of Anjou; and the title has run on to the present day in the houses of Spain and Austria, the Dukes of Lorraine, and the successive dynasties of Naples. … The Kings of Sardinia continued to strike money as Kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem, until they became Kings of Italy. There is no recognized King of Cyprus now; but there are two or three Kings of Jerusalem; and the Cypriot title is claimed, I believe, by some obscure branch of the house of Lusignan, under the will of King James II."

W. Stubbs, Seventeen Lectures on the Study of Medieval and Modern History, lecture 8.

ALSO IN: C. G. Addison, The Knights Templars, chapter 6.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1299. The Templars once more in the city.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1299.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1516. Embraced in the Ottoman conquests of Sultan Selim.

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

JERUSALEM: A. D. 1831. Taken by Mehemed Ali, Pasha of Egypt.

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

----------JERUSALEM: End----------

JERUSALEM TALMUD, The.

See TALMUD.

JESUATES, The.

"The Jesuates, so called from their custom of incessantly crying through the streets, 'Praised be Jesus Christ,' were founded by John Colombino, … a native of Siena. … The congregation was suppressed … by Clement IX., because some of the houses of the wealthy 'Padri dell' acqua vite,' as they were called, engaged in the business of distilling liquors and practising pharmacy (1668)."

J. Alzog, Manual of Universal Church History, volume 3, page 149.

----------JESUITS: Start--------

JESUITS: A. D. 1540-1556. Founding of the Society of Jesus. System of its organization. Its principles and aims.

"Experience had shown that the old monastic orders were no longer sufficient. … About 1540, therefore, an idea began to be entertained at Rome that a new order was needed; the plan was not to abolish the old ones, but to found new ones which should better answer the required ends. The most important of them was the Society of Jesus. But in this case the moving cause did not proceed from Rome. Among the wars of Charles V. we must recur to the first contest at Navarra, in 1521. It was on this occasion, in defending Pamplona against the French, that Loyola received the wound which was to cause the monkish tendency to prevail over the chivalrous element in his nature. A kind of Catholicism still prevailed in Spain which no longer existed anywhere else. Its vigour may be traced to the fact that during the whole of the Middle Ages it was always in hostile contact with Islam, with the Mohammedan infidels. The crusades here had never come to an end. … As yet untainted by heresy, and suffering from no decline, in Spain, Catholicism was as eager for conquest as it had been in all the West in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. It was from the nation possessing this temperament that the founder of the order of the Jesuits sprang. Ignatius Loyola (born 1491) was a Spanish knight, possessing the two-fold tendencies which distinguish the knighthood of the Middle Ages. He was a gallant swordsman, delighting in martial feats and romantic love adventures; but he was at the same time animated by a glowing enthusiasm for the Church and her supremacy, even during the early period of his life. These two tendencies were striving together in his character, until the event took place which threw him upon a bed of suffering. No sooner was he compelled to renounce his worldly knighthood, than he was sure that he was called upon to found a new order of spiritual knighthood, like that of which he had read in the chivalrous romance, 'Amadis.' Entirely unaffected by the Reformation, what he understood by this was a spiritual brotherhood in the true mediæval sense, which should convert the heathen in the newly-discovered countries of the world. With all the zeal of a Spaniard he decided to live to the Catholic Church alone; he chastised his body with penances and all kinds of privations, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and, in order to complete his defective education, he visited the university of Paris; it was among his comrades there that he formed the first associations out of which the order was afterwards formed. Among these was Jacob Lainez; he was Loyola's fellow-countryman, the organizing head who was to stamp his impress upon the order. … Then came the spread of the new doctrines, the mighty progress of Protestantism. No one who was heartily attached to the old Church could doubt that there was work for such an association, for the object now in hand was not to make Christians of the aboriginal inhabitants of Central America, but to reconquer the apostate members of the Romish Church. About 1539 Loyola came with his fraternity to Rome. He did not find favour in all circles; the old orders regarded the new one with jealousy and mistrust; but Pope Paul III. (1534-49) did not allow himself to be misled, and in 1540 gave the fraternity his confirmation, thus constituting Loyola's followers an order, which, on its part, engaged 'to obey in all things the reigning Pope—to go into any country, to Turks, heathen, or heretics, or to whomsoever he might send them, at once, unconditionally, without question or reward.' It is from this time that the special history of the order begins. {1888} During the next year Loyola was chosen the first general of the order, an office which he held until his death (1541-56). He was succeeded by Lainez. He was less enthusiastic than his predecessor, had a cooler head, and was more reasonable; he was the man for diplomatic projects and complete and systematic organization. The new order differed in several respects from any previously existing one, but it entirely corresponded to the new era which had begun for the Romish Church. … The construction of the new order was based and carried out on a monarchical-military system. The territories of the Church were divided into provinces; at the head of each of these was a provincial; over the provincials, and chosen by them, the general, who commanded the soldiers of Christ, and was entrusted with dictatorial power, limited only by the opinions of three judges, assistants or admonitors. The general has no superior but the Pope, with whom he communicates directly; he appoints and dismisses all officials, issues orders as to the administration of the order, and rules with undisputed sway. The absolute monarchy which was assigned to the Pope by the Council of Trent, was conferred by him on the general of the Jesuits. Among the four vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and subjection to the Pope, obedience was the soul of all. To learn and practise this physically and mentally, up to the point where, according to the Jesuit expression, a man becomes 'tanquam lignum et cadaver,' was the ruling principle of the institution. … Entire renunciation of the will and judgment in relation to everything commanded by the superior, blind obedience, unconditional subjection, constitute their ideal. There was but one exception, but even in this there was a reservation. It was expressly stated that there can be no obligation 'ad peccatum mortale vel veniale,' to sinful acts of greater or less importance, 'except when enjoined by the superior, in the name of Jesus Christ,' 'vel in virtute obedientiæ,'—an elastic doctrine which may well be summed up in the dictum that 'the end justifies the means.' Of course, all the members of this order had to renounce all ties of family, home, and country, and it was expressly enjoined. … Of the vow of poverty it is said, in the 'Summarium' of the constitution of the order, that it must be maintained as a 'murus religionis. No one shall have any property; everyone must be content with the meanest furniture and fare, and, if necessity or command require it, he must be ready to beg his bread from door to door ('ostiatim mendicare'). The external aspect of members of the order, their speech and silence, gestures, gait, garb, and bearing shall indicate the prescribed purity of soul. … On all these and many other points, the new order only laid greater stress on the precepts which were to be found among the rules of other orders, though in the universal demoralisation of the monastic life they had fallen into disuse. But it decidedly differed from all the others in the manner in which it aimed at obtaining sway in every sphere and every aspect of life. Himself without home or country, and not holding the doctrines of any political party, the disciple of Jesus renounced everything which might alienate him among varying nationalities, pursuing various political aims. Then he did not confine his labours to the pulpit and the confessional; he gained an influence over the rising generation by a systematic attention to education, which had been shamefully neglected by the other orders. He devoted himself to education from the national schools up to the academic chair, and by no means confined himself to the sphere of theology. This was a principle of immense importance. … It is a true saying, that 'he who gains the youth possesses the future'; and by devoting themselves to the education of youth, the Jesuits secured a future to the Church more surely than by any other scheme that could have been devised. What the schoolmasters were for the youth, the confessors were for those of riper years; what the clerical teachers were for the common people, the spiritual directors and confidants were for great lords and rulers—for the Jesuits aspired to a place at the side of the great, and at gaining the confidence of kings. It was not long before they could boast of astonishing success."

L. Häusser, The Period of the Reformation, chapter 20.

"The Society, in 1556, only 16 years after its commencement, counted as many as twelve provinces, 100 houses, and upwards of 1,000 members, dispersed over the whole known world. Their two most conspicuous and important establishments were the Collegio Romano and the German College. They already were in possession of many chairs, and soon monopolised the right of teaching, which gave them a most overwhelming influence."

G. B. Nicolini, History of the Jesuits, page 90.

ALSO IN: I. Taylor, Loyola and Jesuitism in its Rudiments.

S. Rose, Ignatius Loyola and the Early Jesuits.

T. Hughes, Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits.

See, also, EDUCATION, RENAISSANCE.

JESUITS: A. D. 1542-1649. The early Jesuit Missionaries and their labors.

"In 1542, Xavier landed at Goa, the capital of the Portuguese colony, on the western coast of Hindostan. He took lodgings at the hospital, and mingled with the poor. He associated also with the rich, and even played with them at cards, acting piously upon the motto of the order, 'Ad majorem Dei gloriam.' Having thus won good-will to himself, he went into the streets, with his hand-bell and crucifix, and, having rung the one, he held up the other, exhorting the multitudes to accept that religion of which it was the emblem. His great facility in acquiring foreign languages helped him much. He visited several times the pearl-fisheries on the Malabar coast, remaining at one time thirteen months, and planting forty-five churches. Cape Comorin, Travancore, Meliapore, the Moluccas, Malacca, and other ports of India, and finally the distant island of Japan—where Christianity was [accepted—see JAPAN: A. D. 1540-1686] … —received his successive visits. Leaving two Jesuits on the island, he returned to settle some matters at Goa, which done, he sailed for China, but died at the island of Sancian, a few leagues from the city of Canton, in 1552—ten years only after his arrival in India. He had in this time established an inquisition and a college at Goa. Numbers of the society, whom he had wisely distributed, had been sent to his aid; and the Christians in India were numbered by hundreds of thousands before the death of this 'Apostle of the Indies.' It has even been said, that he was the means of converting more persons in Asia than the church had lost by the Reformation in Europe. {1889} The empire of China, which Xavier was not allowed to enter, was visited, half a century later, by the Jesuit Matthew Ricci, who introduced his religion by means of his great skill in science and art, especially mathematics and drawing [see CHINA: A. D. 1294-1882]. He assumed the garb of a mandarin —associated with the higher classes—dined with the Emperor—allowed those who received Christianity to retain any rites of their own religion to which they were attached—and died in 1610, bequeathing and recommending his policy to others. This plan of accommodation was far more elaborately carried out by Robert Nobili, who went to Madura, in southern Hindostan, as a missionary of the order in 1606. He had observed the obstacle which caste threw in the way of missionary labor, and resolved to remove it. He presented himself as a foreign Brahmin, and attached himself to that class. They had a tradition, that there once had been four roads to truth in India, one of which they had lost. This he professed to restore. He did no violence to their existing ideas or institutions, but simply gave them other interpretations, and in three years he had seventy converted Brahmins about him. From this time he went on gathering crowds of converts, soon numbering 150,000. This facile policy, however, attracted the notice of the other religious orders, was loudly complained of at Rome, and, after almost an entire century of agitation, was condemned in 1704 by a special legation, appointed by Clement XI. to inquire into the matter of complaint. … The attention of the society was early directed to our own continent, and its missions everywhere anticipated the settlements. The most remarkable missions were in South America. Missionaries had been scattered over the whole continent, everywhere making converts, but doing nothing for the progress of the order. Aquaviva was general. This shrewd man saw the disadvantage of the policy, and at once applied the remedy. He directed, that, leaving only so many missionaries scattered over the continent as should be absolutely necessary, the main force should be concentrated upon a point. Paraguay was chosen. The missionaries formed what were called reductions—that is, villages into which the Indians were collected from their roving life, taught the ruder arts of civilization, and some of the rites and duties of the Christian religion. These villages were regularly laid out with streets, running each way from a public square, having a Church, work-shops and dwellings. Each family had a small piece of land assigned for cultivation, and all were reduced to the most systematic habits of industry and good order. … The men were trained to arms, and all the elements of an independent empire were fast coming into being. In 1632, thirty years after the starting of this system, Paraguay had twenty reductions, averaging 1,000 families each, which at a moderate estimate, would give a population of 100,000, and they still went on prospering until three times this number are, by some, said to have been reached. The Jesuits started, in California, in 1642, the same system, which they fully entered upon in 1679. This, next to Paraguay, became their most successful mission."

A Historical Sketch of the Jesuits (Putnam's Magazine, September, 1856).

In 1632 the Jesuits entered on their mission work in Canada, or New France, where they supplanted the Récollet friars. "In 1640 Montreal, the site of which had been already indicated by Champlain in 1611, was founded, that there might be a nearer rendezvous than Quebec for the converted Indians. At its occupation a solemn mass was celebrated under a tent, and in France itself the following February a general supplication was offered up that the Queen of Angels would take the Island of Montreal under her protection. In the August of this year a general meeting of French settlers and Indians took place at Montreal, and the festival of the Assumption was solemnised at the island. The new crusading spirit took full possession of the enthusiastic French people, and the niece of Cardinal Richelieu founded a hospital for the natives between the Kennebec and Lake Superior, to which young and nobly-born hospital nuns from Dieppe offered their services. Plans were made for establishing mission posts, not only on the north amongst the Algonkins, but to the south of Luke Huron, in Michigan and at Green Bay, and so on as far as the regions to the west. The maps of the Jesuits prove that before 1660 they had traced the waters of Lake Erie and Lake Superior and had seen Lake Michigan. The Huron mission embraced principally the country lying between Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, building its stations on the rivers and shores. But the French missionaries, however much they might desire it, could not keep outside the intertribal strifes of the natives around them. Succeeding to Champlain's policy, they continued to aid the Algonkins and Hurons against their inveterate enemies the Iroquois. The Iroquois retaliated by the most horrible cruelty and revenge. There was no peace along the borders of this wild country, and missionaries and colonists carried their lives in their hands. In 1648 St. Joseph, a Huron mission town on the shores of Lake Simcoe, was burned down and destroyed by the Iroquois, and Père Daniel, the Jesuit leader, killed under circumstances of great atrocity. In 1649 St. Ignace, a station at the corner of Georgian Bay, was sacked, and there the pious Brebeuf met his end, after having suffered the most horrible tortures the Indians could invent. Brebeuf, after being hacked in the face and burnt all over the body with torches and red-hot iron, was scalped alive, and died after three hours' suffering. His companion, the gentle Gabriel Lallemand, endured terrible tortures for seventeen hours."

W. P. Greswell, History of the Dominion of Canada, chapter 6.

The Hurons were dispersed and their nation destroyed by these attacks of the Iroquois. "With the fall of the Hurons fell the best hope of the Canadian mission. They, and the stable and populous communities around them, had been the rude material from which the Jesuit would have formed his Christian empire in the wilderness; but, one by one, these kindred peoples were uprooted and swept away, while the neighboring Algonquins, to whom they had been a bulwark, were involved with them in a common ruin. The land of promise was turned to a solitude and a desolation. There was still work in hand, it is true,—vast regions to explore, and countless heathens to snatch from perdition; but these, for the most part, were remote and scattered hordes, from whose conversion it was vain to look for the same solid and decisive results. In a measure, the occupation of the Jesuits was gone. {1890} Some of them went home, 'well resolved,' writes the Father Superior, 'to return to the combat at the first sound of the trumpet'; while of those who remained, about twenty in number, several soon fell victims to famine, hardship, and the Iroquois. A few years more, and Canada ceased to be a mission; political and commercial interests gradually became ascendant, and the story of Jesuit propagandism was interwoven with her civil and military annals."

F. Parkman, The Jesuits in North America, chapter 34.

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1634-1652.

JESUITS: A. D. 1558. Mission founded in Abyssinia.

See ABYSSINIA: A. D. 15TH-19TH CENTURIES.

JESUITS: A. D. 1572-1603. Persecution in England under Elizabeth.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1572-1603.

JESUITS: A. D. 1573-1592. Change in the statutes of the Order on demands from Spain.

"At the first establishment of the Order, the elder and already educated men, who had just entered it, were for the most part Spaniards; the members joining it from other nations were chiefly young men, whose characters had yet to be formed. It followed naturally that the government of the society was, for the first ten years, almost entirely in Spanish hands. The first general congregation was composed of twenty-five members, eighteen of whom were Spaniards. The first three generals belonged to the same nation. After the death of the third, Borgia, in the year 1573, it was once more a Spaniard, Polanco, who had the best prospect of election. It was however manifest that his elevation would not have been regarded favourably, even in Spain itself. There were many new converts in the society who were Christianized Jews. Polanco also belonged to this class, and it was not thought desirable that the supreme authority in a body so powerful, and so monarchically constituted, should be confided to such hands. Pope Gregory XIV., who had received certain intimations on this subject, considered a change to be expedient on other grounds also. When a deputation presented itself before him from the congregation assembled to elect their general, Gregory inquired how many votes were possessed by each nation; the reply showed that Spain held more than all the others put together. He then asked from which nation the generals of the order had hitherto been taken. He was told that there had been three, all Spaniards. 'It will be just, then,' replied Gregory, 'that for once you should choose one from among the other nations.' He even proposed a candidate for their election. The Jesuits opposed themselves for a moment to this suggestion, as a violation of their privileges; but concluded by electing the very man proposed by the pontiff. This was Eberhard Mercurianus. A material change was at once perceived, as the consequence of this choice. Mercurianus, a weak and irresolute man, resigned the government of affairs, first indeed to a Spaniard again, but afterwards to a Frenchman, his official admonitor; factions were formed, one expelling the other from the offices of importance, and the ruling powers of the Order now began to meet occasional resistance from its subordinate members. But a circumstance of much higher moment was, that on the next vacancy—in the year 1581—this office was conferred on Claudius Acquaviva, a Neapolitan, belonging to a house previously attached to the French party, a man of great energy, and only thirty-eight years old. The Spaniards then thought they perceived that their nation, by which the society had been founded and guided on its early path, was now to be forever excluded from the generalship. Thereupon they became discontented and refractory, and conceived the design of making themselves less dependent on Rome. … They first had recourse to the national spiritual authority of their own country—the Inquisition. … One of the discontented Jesuits, impelled, as he affirmed, by a scruple of conscience, accused his order of concealing, and even remitting, transgressions of the kind so reserved, when the criminal was one of their society. The Inquisition immediately caused the Provincial implicated, together with his most active associates, to be arrested. Other accusations being made in consequence of these arrests, the Inquisition commanded that the statutes of the order should be placed before it, and proceeded to make further seizures of parties accused. … The Inquisition was, however, competent to inflict a punishment on the criminal only: it could not prescribe changes in the regulations of the society. When the affair, therefore, had proceeded thus far, the discontented members applied to the king also, assailing him with long memorials, wherein they complained of the defects in their constitution. The character of this constitution had never been agreeable to Philip II.; he used to say that he could see through all the other orders, but that the order of Jesuits he could not understand. … He at once commanded Manrique, bishop of Carthagena, to subject the Order to a visitation, with particular reference to these points. … The character of Sixtus V. made it particularly easy for Acquaviva to excite the antipathies of that pontiff against the proceedings of the Spaniards. Pope Sixtus had formed the hope, as we know, of rendering Rome, more decidedly than it ever yet was, the metropolis of Christendom. Acquaviva assured him, that the object really laboured for in Spain was no other than increased independence of Rome. Pope Sixtus hated nothing so much as illegitimate birth; and Acquaviva caused him to be informed that Manrique, the bishop selected as 'Visitator' of the Jesuits, was illegitimate. These were reasons sufficient to make Sixtus recall the assent he had already given to the visitation. He even summoned the case of the provincial before the tribunals of Rome. From his successor, Gregory XIV., the general succeeded in obtaining a formal confirmation of the rule of the order. But his antagonists also were unyielding and crafty. They perceived that the general must be attacked in the court of Rome itself. They availed themselves of his momentary absence. … In the summer of 1592, at the request of the Spanish Jesuits and Philip II., but without the knowledge of Acquaviva, the pontiff commanded that a general congregation should be held. Astonished and alarmed, Acquaviva hastened back. To the generals of the Jesuits these 'Congregations' were no less inconvenient than were the Convocations of the Church to the popes; and if his predecessors were anxious to avoid them, how much more cause had Acquaviva, against whom there prevailed so active an enmity! But he was soon convinced that the arrangement was irrevocable; he therefore resumed his composure and said, 'We are obedient sons; let the will of the holy father be done.' … {1891} Philip of Spain had demanded some changes, and had recommended others for consideration. On two things he' insisted: the resignation of certain papal privileges; those of reading forbidden books, for example, and of granting absolution for the crime of heresy; and a law, by virtue of which every novice who entered the order should surrender whatever patrimonial rights he might possess, and should even resign all his benefices. These were matters in regard to which the order came into collision with the Inquisition and the civil government. After some hesitation, the demands of the king were complied with, and principally through the influence of Acquaviva himself. But the points recommended by Philip for consideration were of much higher moment. First of all came the questions, whether the authority of the superiors should not be limited to a certain period; and whether a general congregation should not be held at certain fixed intervals? The very essence and being of the institute, the rights of absolute sovereignty, were here brought into question. Acquaviva was not on this occasion disposed to comply. After an animated discussion, the congregation rejected these propositions of Philip; but the pope, also, was convinced of their necessity. What had been refused to the king was now commanded by the pope. By the plenitude of his apostolic power, he determined and ordained that the superiors and rectors should be changed every third year; and that, at the expiration of every sixth year, a general congregation should be assembled. It is, indeed, true that the execution of these ordinances did not effect so much as had been hoped from them. … It was, nevertheless, a very serious blow to the society, that it had been compelled, by internal revolt and interference from without, to a change in its statutes."

L. Ranke, History of the Popes, book 6, section 9 (volume 2).

JESUITS: A. D. 1581-1641. Hostility of the Paulistas of Brazil. Opposition to enslavement of the Indians.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1531-1641.

JESUITS: A. D. 1595. Expulsion from Paris.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.

JESUITS: A. D. 1606. Exclusion from Venice for half a century.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1605-1700.

JESUITS: A. D. 1653-1660. First controversy and conflict with the Jansenists.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1602-1660.

JESUITS: A. D. 1702-1715. The renewed conflict with Jansenism in France. The Bull Unigenitus.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.

JESUITS: A. D. 1757-1773. Suppression of the Society in Portugal and the Portuguese dominions.

In 1757, a series of measures intended to break the power, if not to end the existence, of the Society of Jesus, in Portugal and the Portuguese dominions, was undertaken by the great Portuguese minister, Carvalho, better known by his later title as the Marquis of Pombal. "It is not necessary to speculate on the various motives which induced Carvalho to attack the Jesuits, but the principal cause lay in the fact that they were wealthy and powerful, and therefore a dangerous force in an absolutist monarchy. It must be remembered that the Jesuits of the 18th century formed a very different class of men to their predecessors. They were no longer intrepid missionary pioneers, but a corporation of wealthy traders, who made use of their spiritual position to further the cause of their commerce. They had done a great work in America by opening up the interior of Brazil and converting the natives, and their administration of Paraguay, one of the most interesting achievements in the whole history of Christianity, was without doubt a blessing to the people. But by the middle of the 18th century they had gone too far. It was one thing to convert the natives of Brazil, and another to absorb much of the wealth of that country, in doing which they prejudiced not only the Crown but the Portuguese people, whom they kept from settling in the territory under their rule. Whether it was a sufficient reason for Carvalho to attack the order, because it was wealthy and powerful, and had departed from its primitive simplicity, is a question for everyone to decide for themselves, but that this was the reason, and that the various excuses alleged by the admirers of the great minister are without foundation, is an undoubted fact. On September 19, 1757, the first important blow was struck, when the king's Jesuit confessor was dismissed, and all Jesuits were forbidden to come to Court. Carvalho, in the name of the King of Portugal, also formally denounced the order at Rome, and Benedict XIV., the then Pope, appointed the Cardinal de Saldanha, a friend of the minister, Visitor and Reformer of the Society of Jesus. The cardinal did not take long in making up his mind, and May 15, 1758, he forbade the Jesuits to engage in trade. An attempt upon the king's life, which shortly followed this measure, gave the minister the opportunity he wanted for urging the suppression of the famous society. The history of the Tavora plot, which culminated in this attempt, is one of the most mysterious affairs in the whole history of Portugal. … The three leaders of the plot were the Duke of Aveiro, a descendant of John II., and one of the greatest noblemen in Portugal, the Marquis of Tavora, who had filled with credit the post of Governor-general of India, and the Count of Atouguia, a descendant of the gallant Dom Luis de Athaide, the defender of Goa; but the heart and soul of the conspiracy was the Marchioness of Tavora, a beautiful and ambitious woman, who was bitterly offended because her husband had not been made a duke. The confessor of this lady was a Jesuit named Gabriel Malagrida. … The evidence on all sides is most contradictory, and all that is certain is that the king was fired at and wounded on the night of September 3, 1758; and that in the following January, the three noblemen who have been mentioned, the Marchioness of Tavora, Malagrida with seven other Jesuits, and many other individuals of all ranks of life, were arrested as implicated in the attempt to murder. The laymen had but a short trial and, together with the marchioness, were publicly executed ten days after their arrest. King Joseph certainly believed that the real culprits had been seized, and in his gratitude he created Carvalho Count of Oeyras, and encouraged him to pursue his campaign against the Jesuits. On January 19, 1759, the estates belonging to the society were sequestrated; and on September 3rd, all its members were expelled from Portugal, and directions were sent to the viceroys of India and Brazil to expel them likewise. The news of this bold stroke was received with admiration everywhere, except at Rome, and it became noised abroad that a great minister was ruling in Portugal. … {1892} In 1764 the Jesuit priest Malagrida was burnt alive, not as a traitor but as a heretic and imposter, on account of some crazy tractates he had written. The man was regarded as a martyr, and all communication between Portugal and the Holy See was broken off for two years, while the Portuguese minister exerted all his influence with the Courts of France and Spain to procure the entire suppression of the society which he hated. The king supported him consistently, and after another attempt upon his life in 1769, which the minister as usual attributed to the Jesuits, King Joseph created his faithful servant Marquis of Pombal, by which title he is best known to fame. The prime ministers of France and Spain cordially acquiesced in the hatred of the Jesuits, for both the Duc de Choiseul and the Count d'Aranda had something of Pombal's spirit in them, and imitated his policy; in both countries the society, which on its foundation had done so much for Catholicism and Christianity, was proscribed, and the worthy members treated with as much rigour as the unworthy; and finally in 1773 Pope Clement XIV. solemnly abolished the Society of Jesus. King Joseph did not long survive this triumph of his minister, for he died on February 24, 1777, and the Marquis of Pombal, then an old man of 77, was at once dismissed from office."

H. M. Stephens, The Story of Portugal, chapter 16.

ALSO IN: G. B. Nicolini, History of the Jesuits, chapter 15.

T. Griesinger, The Jesuits, book 6, chapter 4 (volume 2).

JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769. Proceedings against the Order in the Parliament of Paris. Suppression in France, Spain, Bavaria, Parma, Modena, Venice. Demands on the Pope for the abolition of the Society.

"Father Antoine Lavalette, 'procureur' of the Jesuit Missions in the Antilles, resided in that capacity at St. Pierre in the island of Martinique. He was a man of talent, energy, and enterprise; and, following an example by no means uncommon in the Society, he had been for many years engaged in mercantile transactions on an extensive scale, and with eminent success. It was an occupation expressly prohibited to missionaries; but the Jesuits were in the habit of evading the difficulty by means of an ingenious fiction. Lavalette was in correspondence with the principal commercial firms in France, and particularly with that of Lioncy Brothers and Gouffre, of Marseilles. He made frequent consignments of merchandise to their house, which were covered by bills of exchange, drawn in Martinique and accepted by them. For a time the traffic proceeded prosperously; but it so happened that upon the breaking out of the Seven Years' War, several ships belonging to Lavalette, richly freighted with West Indian produce, were captured by the English cruisers, and their cargoes confiscated. The immediate loss fell upon Lioncy and Gouffre, to whom these vessels were consigned," and they were driven to bankruptcy, the General of the Society of Jesus refusing to be responsible for the obligations of his subordinate, Father Lavalette. "Under these circumstances the creditors determined to attack the Jesuit community as a corporate body," and the latter were so singularly unwary, for once, as not only to contest the claim before the Parliament of Paris, but to appeal to the constitutions of their Society in support of their contention, that each college was independent in the matter of temporal property, and that no corporate responsibility could exist. "The Parliament at once demanded that the constitutions thus referred to should he examined. The Jesuits were ordered to furnish a copy of them; they obeyed. … The compulsory production of these mysterious records, which had never before been inspected by any but Jesuit eyes, was an event of crucial significance. It was the turning-point of the whole affair; and its consequences were disastrous." As a first consequence, "the court condemned the General of the Jesuits, and in his person the whole Society which he governed, to acquit the bills of exchange still outstanding, together with interest and damages, within the space of a year from the date of the 'arrêt.' In default of payment the debt was made recoverable upon the common property of the Order, excepting only the endowments specially restricted to particular colleges. The delight of the public, who were present on the occasion in great numbers, 'was excessive,' says Barbier, 'and even indecent.'" As a second consequence, the Parliament, on the 6th of August, 1761, "condemned a quantity of publications by the Jesuits, dating from the year 1590 downwards, to be torn and burnt by the executioner and the next day this was duly carried out in the court of the Palais de Justice. Further, the 'arrêt' prohibited the king's subjects from entering the said Society; forbade the fathers to give instruction, private or public, in theology, philosophy, or humanity; and ordered their schools and colleges to be closed. The accusation brought against their books was … that of teaching 'abominable and murderous doctrine,' of justifying sedition, rebellion, and regicide. … The Government replied to these bold measures by ordering the Parliament to suspend the execution of its 'arrêts' for the space of a year. The Parliament affected to obey, but stipulated, in registering the letters-patent, that the delay should not extend beyond the 1st of April, 1762, and made other provisions which left them virtually at liberty to proceed as they might think proper. The Jesuits … relied too confidently on the protection of the Crown. … But the prestige of the monarchy was now seriously impaired, and it was no longer wise or safe for a King of France to undertake openly the defence of any institution which had incurred a deliberate sentence of condemnation from the mass of his people." In November, 1761, a meeting of French prelates was summoned by the Royal Council to consider and report upon several questions relative to the utility of the Society of Jesus, the character of its teaching and conduct, and the modifications, if any, which should be proposed as to the extent of authority exercised by the General of the Society. The bishops, by a large majority, made a report favorable to the Jesuits, but recommended, "as reasonable concessions to public opinion, certain alterations in its statutes and practical administration. … This project of compromise was forwarded to Rome for the consideration of the Pope and the General; and Louis gave them to understand, through his ambassador, that upon no other conditions would it be possible to stem the tide of opposition, and to maintain the Jesuits as a body corporate in France. {1893} It was now that the memorable reply was made, either by the General Ricci, or, according to other accounts, by Pope Clement XIII. himself—Sint ut sunt, aut non sint'; 'Let them remain as they are, or let them exist no longer.'" Even had the proposed reform been accepted, "its success was problematical; but its rejection sealed the fate of the Order. Louis, notwithstanding the ungracious response from Rome, proposed his scheme of conciliation to the Parliament in March, 1762, and annulled at the same time all measures adverse to the Jesuits taken since the 1st of August preceding. The Parliament, secretly encouraged by the Duc de Choiseul, refused to register this edict; the king, after some hesitation, withdrew it; and no available resource remained to shield the Order against its impending destiny. The Parliaments, both of Paris and the Provinces, laid the axe to the root without further delay. By an 'arrêt' of the 1st of April, 1762, the Jesuits were expelled from their 84 colleges in the ressort of the Parliament of Paris, and the example was followed by the provincial tribunals of Rouen, Rennes, Metz, Bordeaux, and Aix. The Society was now assailed by a general chorus of invective and execration. … The final blow was struck by the Parliament of Paris on the 6th of August, 1762. … The sentence then passed condemned the Society as 'inadmissible, by its nature, in any civilized State, inasmuch as it was contrary to the law of nature, subversive of authority spiritual and temporal, and introduced, under the veil of religion, not an Order sincerely aspiring to evangelical perfection, but rather a political body, of which the essence consists in perpetual attempts to attain, first, absolute independence, and in the end, supreme authority.' … The decree concludes by declaring the vows of the Jesuits illegal and void, forbidding them to observe the rules of the Order, to wear its dress, or to correspond with its members. They were to quit their houses within one week, and were to renounce, upon oath, all connection with the Society, upon pain of being disqualified for any ecclesiastical charge or public employment. The provincial Parliaments followed the lead of the capital, though in some few instances the decree of suppression was opposed, and carried only by a small majority; while at Besançon and Douai the decision was in favour of the Society. In Lorraine, too, under the peaceful government of Stanislas Leczinski, and in Alsace, where they were powerfully protected by Cardinal de Rohan, Bishop of Strasburg, the Jesuits were left unmolested. … The suppression of the Jesuits—the most important act of the administration of the Duc de Choiseul—was consummated by a royal ordonnance of November, 1764, to which Louis did not give his consent without mistrust and regret. It decreed that the Society should cease to exist throughout his Majesty's dominions; but it permitted the ex-Jesuits to reside in France as private citizens, and to exercise their ecclesiastical functions under the jurisdiction of the diocesans. … Almost immediately afterwards, on the 7th of January, 1765. appeared the bull 'Apostolicum,' by which Clement XIII. condemned, with all the weight of supreme and infallible authority, the measure which had deprived the Holy See of its most valiant defenders. … The only effect of the intervention of the Roman Curia was to excite further ebullitions of hostility against the prostrate Order. Charles III. of Spain, yielding, as it is alleged, to the exhortations of the Duc de Choiseul, abolished it throughout his dominions by a sudden mandate of April 2, 1767. … The Pope precipitated the final catastrophe by a further act of imprudence. The young Duke of Parma, a prince of the house of Bourbon, had excluded the Jesuits from his duchy, and had published certain ecclesiastical regulations detrimental to the ancient pretensions of the Roman See. Clement XIII., reviving an antiquated title in virtue of which Parma was claimed as a dependent fief of the Papacy, was rash enough to launch a bull of excommunication against the Duke, and deprived him of his dominions as a rebellious vassal. All the Bourbon sovereigns promptly combined to resent this insult to their family. The Papal Bull was suppressed at Paris, at Madrid, at Lisbon, at Parma, at Naples. The Jesuits were expelled from Venice, from Modena, from Bavaria. The Pontiff was summoned to revoke his 'monitorium'; and on his refusal French troops took possession of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin, while the King of Naples seized Benevento and Pontecorvo. On the 16th of January, 1769, the ambassadors of Spain, France, and Naples presented a joint note to the Holy Father, demanding that the Order of Jesus should be secularised and abolished for ever. Clement, who had suffered severely from the manifold humiliations and reverses of his Pontificate, was overwhelmed by this last blow, from the effects of which he never rallied. He expired almost suddenly on the 2nd of February, 1769."

W. H. Jervis, History of the Church of France, volume 2, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: T. Griesinger, The Jesuits, book 6, chapter 6, and book 7, chapter 1.

JESUITS: A. D. 1769-1871 Papal suppression and restoration of the Order.

"The attitude of the Roman Catholic Courts was so threatening, and their influence with the Conclave so powerful, that Lorenzo Ganganelli was selected [1769] for the triple crown, as the man best suited for their purposes. Belonging to the Franciscans, who had ever been antagonistic to the Jesuits, he had been a follower of the Augustinian theology, and was not altogether free from Jansenism. The Jesuits even went so far as to pray publicly in their churches for the conversion of the Pope. The pontificate of Clement XIV. has been rendered memorable in history by the Papal decree of July 21, 1773, which in its policy adopted the maxim of Lorenzo Ricci, the inflexible General of the Jesuits, 'Sint ut sunt, aut non sunt'—Let us be as we are, or let us not be! That decree declared that, from the very origin of the Order, sorrow, jealousies, and dissensions arose, not only among its own members but between them and the other religious orders and their colleges. After further declaring that, urged as its head by a sense of duty to restore the harmony of the Church, and feeling convinced that the Society could no longer subserve the uses for which it was created, and on other grounds of prudence and governmental wisdom, he by his decree abolished the Order of Jesuits, its offices, houses, and institutes. … The other religious orders at Rome were jealous that Jesuits should have been the confessors of Sovereigns at Westminster, Madrid, Vienna, Versailles, Lisbon, and Naples. The influences of the Dominicans, the Benedictines, and the Oratorians were accordingly exercised for their suppression. … The Papal Bull 'Dominus Redemptor noster' was at first resisted by the Jesuits, and their General, Lorenzo Ricci, was sent to the Castle of St. Angelo. {1894} Bernardine Renzi, a female Pythoness, having predicted the death of the Pope, two Jesuits, Coltrano and Venissa, who were suspected of having instigated her prophecies, were consigned to the same prison. All that follows relating to the fate of Ganganelli is of mere historic interest; his end is shrouded in mystery, which has been as yet, and is likely to continue, impenetrable. According to the revelations of Cardinal de Bernis, Ganganelli was himself apprehensive of dying by poison, and a sinister rumour respecting a cup of chocolate with an infusion of 'Aqua de Tofana,' administered by a pious attendant, was generally prevalent throughout Europe; but the time has long since passed for an inquest over the deathbed of Clement XIV."

The Jesuits and their Expulsion from Germany (Fraser's' Magazine, May, 1873).

"All that follows the publication of the brief—the death of Ganganelli, the fierce and yet unexhausted disputes about the last year of his life, and the manner of his death—are to us indescribably melancholy and repulsive. … We have conflicting statements, both of which cannot be true—churchman against churchman—cardinal against cardinal—even, it should seem, pope against pope. On the one side there is a triumph, hardly disguised, in the terrors, in the sufferings, in the madness, which afflicted the later days of Clement; on the other, the profoundest honour, the deepest commiseration, for a wise and holy Pontiff, who, but for the crime of his enemies, might have enjoyed a long reign of peace and respect and inward satisfaction. There a protracted agony of remorse in life and anticipated damnation—that damnation, if not distinctly declared, made dubious or averted only by a special miracle:—here an apotheosis—a claim, at least, to canonization. There the judgment of God pronounced in language which hardly affects regret; here more than insinuations, dark charges of poison against persons not named, but therefore involving in the ignominy of possible guilt a large and powerful party. Throughout the history of the Jesuits it is this which strikes, perplexes, and appals the dispassionate student. The intensity with which they were hated surpasses even the intensity with which they hated. Nor is this depth of mutual animosity among those or towards those to whom the Jesuits were most widely opposed, the Protestants, and the adversaries of all religion; but among Roman Catholics—and those not always Jansenists or even Gallicans—among the most ardent assertors of the papal supremacy, monastics of other orders, parliaments, statesmen, kings, bishops, cardinals. Admiration and detestation of the Jesuits divide, as far as feeling is concerned, the Roman Catholic world, with a schism deeper and more implacable than any which arrays Protestant against Protestant, Episcopacy and Independency, Calvinism and Arminianism, Puseyism and Evangelicism. The two parties counterwork each other, write against each other in terms of equal acrimony, misunderstand each other, misrepresent each other, accuse and recriminate upon each other, with the same reckless zeal, in the same unmeasured language—each inflexibly, exclusively identifying his own cause with that of true religion, and involving its adversaries in one sweeping and remorseless condemnation. To us the question of the death of Clement XIV. is purely of historical interest. It is singular enough that Protestant writers are cited as alone doing impartial justice to the Jesuits and their enemies: the Compurgators of the 'Company of Jesus' are Frederick II. and the Encyclopedists. Outcast from Roman Catholic Europe, they found refuge in Prussia, and in the domains of Catherine II., from whence they disputed the validity and disobeyed the decrees of the Pope."

Clement XIV. and the Jesuits (Quarterly Review, September, 1848.)

"The Jesuit Order remained in abeyance for a period of forty-two years, until Pius VII. on his return to Rome, after his liberation from the captivity he endured under Napoleon I. at Fontainebleau, issued his brief of August 7, 1814, 'solicitudo omnium,' by which he authorised the surviving members of the Order again to live according to the rules of their founder, to admit novices, and to found colleges. With singular fatuity the Papal Edict for the restoration of the Jesuits, contradicting its own title, assigns on the face of the document as the principal reason for its being issued the recommendation contained in the gracious despatch of August 11, 1800, received from Paul, the then reigning Emperor of the Russias. We have the histories of all nations concurring that Paul was notoriously mad, and within six months from the date of that gracious despatch he was strangled in his palace by the members of his own Court, as the only possible means, as they conceived, of rescuing the Empire from his insane and vicious despotism. In return probably for the successful intercession of Paul, Thadeus Brzozowski, a Pole by birth but a Russian subject, was elected the first General of the restored order. We find a striking comment on his recommendation in the Imperial Ukase of his successor, the Emperor Alexander, by which, in June 1817, he banished the Jesuits from all his dominions. Spain, the scene of their former ignominious treatment, was, under the degraded rule of the Ferdinandian dynasty, the first country to which they were recalled; but they were soon again expelled by the National Cortes. Our limits here confine us to a simple category of their subsequent expulsions from Roman Catholic States: from France in 1831, from Saxony in the same year, from Portugal again in 1834, from Spain again in 1835, from France again in 1845, from the whole of Switzerland, including the Roman Catholic Cantons, in 1847, and in 1848 from Bavaria and other German States. In the Revolution of 1848, they were expelled from every Italian State, even from the territories of the Pope; but on the counter Revolution they returned, to be again expelled in 1859 from Lombardy, Parma, Modena and the Legations. They have had to endure even a more recent vicissitude, for, in December 1871, a measure relating to the vexed question, the Union of Church and State, received the sanction of the National Council (Bundesrath) of Switzerland, by which the Jesuits were prohibited from settling in the country, from interfering even in education, or from founding or re-establishing colleges throughout the Federal territories. They have thus within a recent period received sentence of banishment from almost every Roman Catholic Government, but they still remain in Rome."

The Jesuits and their Expulsion from Germany (Fraser's Magazine, May, 1873).

{1895}

JESUITS: A. D. 1847. The question of Expulsion in Switzerland. The Sonderbund and the war of religions.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.

JESUITS: A. D. 1880. The law against Jesuit schools in the French Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889.

----------JESUITS: End--------

JESUS, Uncertainty of, the date of the birth of.

See JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1.

JEU-DE-PAUME, The Oath at the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JUNE).

JEUNESSE DOREE, of the Anti-Jacobin reaction in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

----------JEWS: Start--------

JEWS. The National Names.

There have been two principal conjectures as to the origin of the name Hebrews, by which the descendants of Abraham were originally known. One derives the name from a progenitor, Eber; the other finds its origin in a Semitic word signifying "over," or "crossed over." In the latter view, the name was applied by the Canaanites to people who came into their country from beyond the Euphrates. Ewald, who rejects this latter hypothesis, says: "While there is nothing to show that the name emanated from strangers, nothing is more manifest than that the nation called themselves by it and had done so as long as memory could reach; indeed this is the only one of their names that appears to have been current in the earliest times. The history of this name shows that it must have been most frequently used in the ancient times, before that branch of the Hebrews which took the name of Israel became dominant, but that after the time of the Kings it entirely disappeared from ordinary speech, and was only revived in the period immediately before Christ, like many other names of the primeval times, through the prevalence of a learned mode of regarding antiquity, when it came afresh into esteem through the reverence then felt for Abraham."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, volume 1, page 284.

After the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian captivity—the returned exiles being mostly of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin—"the name of Judah took the predominant place in the national titles. As the primitive name of 'Hebrew' had given way to the historical name of Israel, so that of Israel now gave way to the name of 'Judæan' or 'Jew,' so full of praise and pride, of reproach and scorn. 'It was born,' as their later historian [Josephus] truly observes, 'on the day when they came out from Babylon.'"

A. P. Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, volume 3, page 101.

JEWS: The early Hebrew history.

"Of course, in the abstract, it is possible that such persons as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should have existed. One can imagine that such and such incidents in the accounts regarding them really took place, and were handed down by tradition. … But our present investigation does not concern the question whether there existed men of those names, but whether the progenitors of Israel and of the neighbouring nations who are represented in Genesis are historical personages. It is this question which we answer in the negative. Must we then deny all historical value to the narratives of the patriarchs? By no means. What we have to do is to make proper use of them. They teach us what the Israelites thought as to their affinities with the tribes around them, and as to the manner of their own settlement in the land of their abode. If we strip them of their genealogical form, and at the same time take into consideration the influence which Israel's self-love must have exercised over the representation of relationships and facts, we have an historical kernel left. … The narratives in Genesis, viewed and used in this way, lead us to the following conception of Israel's early history. Canaan was originally inhabited by a number of tribes—of Semitic origin, as we shall perceive presently—who applied themselves to the rearing of cattle, to agriculture, or to commerce, according to the nature of the districts in which they were established. The countries which were subsequently named after Edom, Ammon, and Moab, also had their aboriginal inhabitants, the Horites, the Zamzummites, and the Emites. Whilst all these tribes retained possession of their dwelling-places, and the inhabitants of Canaan especially had reached a tolerably high stage of civilization and development, there occurred a Semitic migration, which issued from Arrapachitis (Arphacsad, Ur Casdim), and moved on in a south-westerly direction. The countries to the east and the south of Canaan were gradually occupied by these intruders, the former inhabitants being either expelled or subjugated; Ammon, Moab, Ishmael, and Edom became the ruling nations in those districts. In Canaan the situation was different. The tribes which—at first closely connected with the Edomites, but afterwards separated from them—had turned their steps towards Canaan, did not find themselves strong enough either to drive out, or to exact tribute from, the original inhabitants; they continued their wandering life among them, and lived upon the whole at peace with them. But a real settlement was still their aim. When, therefore, they had become more numerous and powerful, through the arrival of a number of kindred settlers from Mesopotamia—represented in tradition by the army with which Jacob returns to Canaan—they resumed their march in the same south-westerly direction, until at length they took possession of fixed habitations in the land of Goshen, on the borders of Egypt."

A. Kuenen, The Religion of Israel, chapter 2 (volume 1).

"In the oldest extant record respecting Abraham, Genesis xiv., … we see him acting as a powerful domestic prince, among many similar princes, who like him held Canaan in possession; not calling himself King, like Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem, because he was the father and protector of his house, living with his family and bondmen in the open country, yet equal in power to the petty Canaanite kings. … {1896} Detached as this account may be, it is at least evident from it that the Canaanites were at that time highly civilised, since they had a priest-king like Melchizedek, whom Abraham held in honour, but that they were even then so weakened by endless divisions and by the emasculating influence of that culture itself, as either to pay tribute to the warlike nations of the northeast (as the five kings of the cities of the Dead Sea had done for twelve years before they rebelled, ver. 4), or to seek for some valiant descendants of the northern lands living in their midst, who in return for certain concessions and services promised them protection and defence. … This idea furnishes the only tenable historical view of the migration of Abraham and his kindred. They did not conquer the land, nor at first hold it by mere force of arms, like the four north-eastern kings from whose hand Abraham delivered Lot, Genesis xiv. They advanced as leaders of small bands, with their fencible servants and the herds, at first rather sought or even invited by the old inhabitants of the land, as good warriors and serviceable allies, than forcing themselves upon them. Thus they took up their abode and obtained possessions among them, but were always wishing to migrate farther, even into Egypt. … Little as we are able to prove all the details of that migration from the north towards Egypt, which probably continued for centuries, it may with great certainty be conceived as on the whole similar to the gradual advance of many other northern nations; as of the Germans towards Rome, and of the Turks in these same regions in the Middle Ages. … We now understand that Abraham's name can designate only one of the most important and oldest of the Hebrew immigrations. But since Abraham had so early attained a name glorious among the Hebrews advancing towards the south, and since he was everything especially to the nation of Israel which arose out of this immigration, and to their nearest kindred, his name came to be the grand centre and rallying-point of all the memory of those times."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 1, section 1, C, part 3.

JEWS: The Children of Israel in Egypt.

"It has been very generally supposed that Abraham's visit to Egypt took place under the reign of one of the kings of the twelfth dynasty [placed by Brugsch B. C. 2466-2266], but which king has not yet been satisfactorily made out. … Some Biblical critics have considered that Amenemha III. was king of Egypt when Abraham came there, and others that Usertsen I. was king, and that Amenemha was the Pharaoh of the time of Joseph. … It is generally accepted now that Joseph was sold into Egypt at the time when the Hyksos were in power [and about 1750 B. C.]; and it is also generally accepted that the Exodus took place after the death of Rameses II. and under the reign of Merenptah, or Meneptah. Now the children of Israel were in captivity in Egypt for 400 or 430 years; and as they went out of Egypt after the death of Rameses II., it was probably some time about the year 1350 B. C. There is little doubt that the Pharaoh who persecuted the Israelites so shamefully was Rameses II."

E. A. W. Budge, The Dwellers on the Nile, chapter 4.

"It is stated by George the Syncellus, a writer whose extensive learning and entire honesty are unquestionable, that the synchronism of Joseph with Apepi, the last king of the only known Hyksos dynasty, was 'acknowledged by all.' The best modern authorities accept this view, if not as clearly established, at any rate as in the highest degree probable, and believe that it was Apepi who made the gifted Hebrew his prime minister, who invited his father and his brethren to settle in Egypt with their households, and assigned to them the land of Goshen for their residence."

G. Rawlinson, History of Ancient Egypt, chapter 19 (volume 2).

"The new Pharaoh, 'who knew not Joseph,' who adorned the city of Ramses, the capital of the Tanitic nome, and the city of Pithom, the capital of what was afterwards the Sethroitic nome, with temple-cities, is no other, can be no other, than Ramessu II. or Rameses—the Sesostris of the Greeks, B. C. 1350, of whose buildings at Zoan the monuments and the papyrus-rolls speak in complete agreement. … Ramessu is the Pharaoh of the oppression, and the father of that unnamed princess, who found the child Moses exposed in the bulrushes on the bank of the river. … If Ramses-Sesostris … must be regarded beyond all doubt as the Pharaoh under whom the Jewish legislator Moses first saw the light, so the chronological relations—having regard to the great age of the two contemporaries, Ramses II. and Moses—demand that Mineptah [his son] should in all probability be acknowledged as the Pharaoh of the Exodus."

H. Brugsch-Bey, History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, chapter 14.

The quotations given above represent the orthodox view of early Jewish history, in the light of modern monumental studies,—the view, that is, which accepts the Biblical account of Abraham and his seed as a literal family record, authentically widening into the annals of a nation. The more rationalizing views are indicated by the following: "There can be no doubt … as to the Semitic character of these Hyksos, or 'Pastors,' who, more than 2,000 years B. C., interrupted in a measure the current of Egyptian civilisation, and founded at Zoan (Tanis), near the Isthmus, the centre of a powerful Semitic state. These Hyksos were to all appearances Canaanites, near relations of the Hittites of Hebron. Hebron was in close community with Zoan, and there is a tradition, probably based upon historical data, that the two cities were built nearly at the same time. As invariably happens when barbarians enter into an ancient and powerful civilisation, the Hyksos soon became Egyptianised. … The Hyksos of Zoan could not fail to exercise a great influence upon the Hebrews who were encamped around Hebron, the Dead Sea, and in the southern districts of Palestine. The antipathy which afterwards existed between the Hebrews and the Canaanites was not as yet very perceptible. … There are the best of reasons for believing that the immigration of the Beni-Israel took place at two separate times. A first batch of Israelites seems to have been attracted by the Hittites of Egypt, while the bulk of the tribe was living upon the best of terms with the Hittites of Hebron. These first immigrants found favour with the Egyptianised Hittites of Memphis and Zoan; they secured very good positions, had children, and constituted a distinct family in Israel. This was what was afterwards called the 'clan of the Josephel,' or the Beni-Joseph. Finding themselves well off in Lower Egypt, they sent for their brethren, who, impelled perhaps by famine, joined them there, and were received also favourably by the Hittite dynasties. These new-comers never went to Memphis. They remained in the vicinity of Zoan, where there is a land of Goshen, which was allotted to them. … {1897} The whole of these ancient days, concerning which Israel possesses only legends and contradictory traditions, is enveloped in doubt; one thing, however, is certain, viz., that Israel entered Egypt under a dynasty favourable to the Semites, and left it under one which was hostile. The presence of a nomad tribe upon the extreme confines of Egypt must have been a matter of very small importance for this latter country. There is no certain trace of it in the Egyptian texts. The kingdom of Zoan, upon the contrary, left a deep impression upon the Israelites. Zoan became for them synonymous with Egypt. The relations between Zoan and Hebron were kept up, and … Hebron was proud of the synchronism, which made it out seven years older than Zoan. The first-comers, the Josephites, always assumed an air of superiority over their brethren, whose position they had been instrumental in establishing. … Their children, born in Egypt, possibly of Egyptian mothers, were scarcely Israelites. An agreement was come to, however; it was agreed that the Josephites should rank as Israelites with the rest. They formed two distinct tribes, those of Ephraim and Manasseh. … It is not impossible that the origin of the name of Joseph (addition, adjunction, annexation) may have arisen from the circumstance that the first emigrants and their families, having become strangers to their brethren, needed some sort of adjunction to become again part and parcel of the family of Israel."

E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 1, chapter 10 (volume 1).

See, also, EGYPT: THE HYKSOS, and ABOUT B. C. 1400-1200.

JEWS: The Route of the Exodus.

It is said of the oppressed Israelites in Egypt that "they built for Pharaoh treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses." (Exodus i. 11.) One of those "treasure cities," or "store-cities," has been discovered, in a heap of ruins, at a place which the Arabs call "Tell el Maskhutah," and it was supposed at first to be the Raamses of the Biblical record. But explorations made in 1883 by M. Naville seem to have proved that it is the store-city of Pithom which lies buried in the mounds at Tell el Maskhutah and that Raamses is still to be found. As Raamses or Ramses was the starting point of the Exodus, something of a controversy concerning the route of the latter turns upon the question. It is the opinion of M. Naville that Succoth, where the Children of Israel made their first halt, was the district in which Pithom is situated, and that the Land of Goshen, their dwelling-place in Egypt, was a region embracing that district. The site of Pithom, as identified by Naville, is "on the south side of the sweet water canal which runs from Cairo to Suez through the Wadi Tumilât, about 12 miles from Ismailiah." The excavations made have brought to light a great number of chambers, with massive walls of brick, which are conjectured to have been granaries and storehouses, for the provisioning of caravans and armies to cross the desert to Syria, as well as for the collecting of tribute and for the warehousing of trade. Hence the name of store-city, or treasure-city. Under the Greeks Pithom changed its name to Heroopolis, and a new city called Arsinoë was built near it.

E. Naville, The Store-City of Pithom.

"I submit that Goshen, properly speaking, was the land which afterwards became the Arabian nome, viz., the country round Saft el Henneh east of the canal Abu-I-Munagge, a district comprising Belbeis and Abbaseh, and probably extending further north than the Wadi Tumilat. The capital of the nome was Pa Sopt, called by the Greeks Phacusa, now Saft el Henneh. At the time when the Israelites occupied the land, the term 'Goshen' belonged to a region which as yet had no definite boundaries, and which extended with the increase of the people over the territory they inhabited. The term 'land of Ramses' applies to a larger area, and covers that part of the Delta which lies to the eastward of the Tanitic branch. … As for the city of Ramses, it was situate in the Arabian nome. Probably it was Phacusa."

E. Naville, Shrine of Saft el Henneh and the Land of Goshen.

The Israelites leaving Succoth, a region which we now know well, the neighbourhood of Tell-el-Maskhutah, push forward towards the desert, skirting the northern shore of the gulf, and thus reach the wilderness of Etham; but there, because of the pursuit of Pharaoh, they have to change their course, they are told to retrace their steps, so as to put the sea between them and the desert. … 'And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying: Speak unto the children of Israel that they turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baalzephon; before it shall ye encamp by the sea.' … The question is now, Where are we to look for Migdol and Pi-Hahiroth? As for Migdol, the ancient authors, and particularly the Itinerary, mention a Migdol, or Magdolon, which was twelve Roman miles distant from Pelusium. It is not possible to admit that this is the same Migdol which is spoken of in Exodus, for then it would not be the Red Sea, but the Mediterranean, which the Israelites would have before them, and we should thus have to fall in with MM. Schleiden and Brugsch's theory, that they followed the narrow track which lies between the Mediterranean and the Serbonian Bog. However ingenious are the arguments on which this system is based, I believe it must now be dismissed altogether, because we know the site of the station of Succoth. Is it possible to admit that, from the shore of the Arabian Gulf, the Israelites turned to the north, and marched forty miles through the desert in order to reach the Mediterranean? The journey would have lasted several days; they would have been obliged to pass in front of the fortresses of the north; they would have fallen into the way of the land of the Philistines, which they were told not to take; and, lastly, the Egyptians, issuing from Tanis and the northern cities, would have easily intercepted them. … All these reasons induce me to give up definitively the idea of the passage by the north, and to return to the old theory of a passage of the Red Sea, but of the Red Sea as it was at that time, extending a great deal farther northward, and not the Red Sea of to-day, which occupies a very different position. The word Migdol, in Egyptian, … is a common name. It means a fort, a tower. It is very likely that in a fortified region there have been several places so called, distinguished from each other, either by the name of the king who built them, or by some local circumstance; just as there are in Italy a considerable number of Torre. I should therefore, with M. Ebers, place Migdol at the present station of the Serapeum. There the sea was not wide, and the water probably very shallow; there also the phenomenon which took place on such a large scale when the Israelites went through must have been well known, as it is often seen now in other parts of Egypt. {1898} As at this point the sea was liable to be driven back under the influence of the east wind, and to leave a dry way, the Pharaohs were obliged to have there a fort, a Migdol, so as to guard that part of the sea, and to prevent the Asiatics of the desert from using this temporary gate to enter Egypt, to steal cattle, and to plunder the fertile land which was round Pithom."

E. Naville, The Store-City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus (Egypt Expl. Fund, 1885).

"Modern critics prefer an intelligent interpretation, according to known natural laws, of the words of Exodus xiv. 21, 22, which lay stress upon the 'east wind' as the direct natural agent by which the sea bottom was for the time made dry land. … The theory, which dates from an early period, that the passage was in some sense tidal, miraculously aided by the agency of wind, has thus come to be very generally adopted."

H. S. Palmer, Sinai (Ancient History from the Monuments), chapter 6.

JEWS: The conquest of Canaan.

"The first essay [west of Jordan] was made by Judah in conjunction with Simeon and Levi, but was far from prosperous. Simeon and Levi were annihilated; Judah also, though successful in mastering the mountain land to the west of the Dead Sea, was so only at the cost of severe losses which were not again made up until the accession of the Kenite families of the south (Caleb). As a consequence of the secession of these tribes, a new division of the nation into Israel and Judah took the place of that which had previously subsisted between the families of Leah and Rachel; under Israel were included all the tribes except Simeon, Levi, and Judah, which three are no longer mentioned in Judges v., where all the others are carefully and exhaustively enumerated. This half-abortive first invasion of the west was followed by a second, which was stronger and attended with much better results. It was led by the tribe of Joseph, to which the others attached themselves, Reuben and Gad only remaining behind in the old settlements. The district to the north of Judah, inhabited afterwards by Benjamin, was the first to be attacked. It was not until after several towns of this district had one by one fallen into the hands of the conquerors that the Canaanites set about a united resistance. They were, however, decisively repulsed by Joshua in the neighbourhood of Gibeon [or Beth-horon]; and by this victory the Israelites became masters of the whole central plateau of Palestine. The first camp, at Gilgal, near the ford of Jordan, which had been maintained until then, was now removed, and the ark of Jehovah brought further inland (perhaps by way of Bethel) to Shiloh, where henceforwards the headquarters were fixed, in a position which seemed as if it had been expressly made to favour attacks upon the fertile tract lying beneath it on the north. The Bne Rachel now occupied the new territory which up to that time had been acquired—Benjamin, in immediate contiguity with the frontier of Judah, then Ephraim, stretching to beyond Shiloh, and lastly Manasseh, furthest to the north, as far as to the plain of Jezreel. The centre of gravity, so to speak, already lay in Ephraim, to which belonged Joshua and the ark, It is mentioned as the last achievement of Joshua that at the waters of Merom he defeated Jabin, king of Hazor, and the allied princes of Galilee, thereby opening up the north for Israelitish settlers. … Even after the united resistance of the Canaanites had been broken, each individual community had still enough to do before it could take firm hold of the spot which it had searched out for itself or to which it had been assigned. The business of effecting permanent settlement was just a continuation of the former struggle, only on a diminished scale; every tribe and every family now fought for its own hand after the preliminary work had been accomplished by a united effort. Naturally, therefore, the conquest was at first but an incomplete one. The plain which fringed the coast was hardly touched; so also the valley of Jezreel with its girdle of fortified cities stretching from Acco to Bethshean. All that was subdued in the strict sense of that word was the mountainous land, particularly the southern hill-country of 'Mount Ephraim'; yet even here the Canaanites retained possession of not a few cities, such as Jebus, Shechem, Thebez. It was only after the lapse of centuries that all the lacunæ were filled up, and the Canaanite enclaves made tributary. The Israelites had the extraordinarily disintegrated state of the enemy to thank for the ease with which they had achieved success."

J. Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, chapter 2.

"Remnants of the Canaanites remained everywhere among and between the Israelites. Beside the Benjamites the Jebusites (a tribe of the Amorites) maintained themselves, and at Gibeon, Kirjath-jearim, Chephirah, and Beeroth were the Hivites, who had made peace with the Israelites. In the land of Ephraim, the Canaanites held their ground at Geser and Bethel, until the latter—it was an important city—was stormed by the Ephraimites. Among the tribe of Manasseh the Canaanites were settled at Beth Shean, Dan, Taanach, Jibleam, Megiddo and their districts, and in the northern tribes the Canaanites were still more numerous. It was not till long after the immigration of the Hebrews that they were made in part tributary. The land of the Israelites beyond the Jordan, where the tribe of Manasseh possessed the north, Gad the centre, and Reuben the south as far as the Arnon, was exposed to the attacks of the Ammonites and Moabites, and the migratory tribes of the Syrian desert, and must have had the greater attraction for them, as better pastures were to be found in the heights of Gilead, and the valleys there were more fruitful. To the west only the tribe of Ephraim reached the sea, and became master of a harbourless strip of coast. The remaining part of the coast and all the harbours remained in the hands of the powerful cities of the Philistines and the Phenicians. No attempt was made to conquer these, although border-conflicts took place between the tribes of Judah, Dan, and Asher, and Philistines and Sidonians. Such an attempt could only have been made if the Israelites had remained united, and even then the powers of the Israelites would hardly have sufficed to overthrow the walls of Gaza, Ascalon, and Ashdod, of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblus. Yet the invasion of the Israelites was not without results for the cities of the coast: it forced a large part of the population to assemble in them, and we shall see … how rapid and powerful is the growth of the strength and importance of Tyre in the time immediately following the incursion of the Israelites, i. e., immediately after the middle of the thirteenth century. {1899} As the population and in consequence the power of the cities on the coast increased, owing to the collection of the ancient population on the shore of the sea, those cities became all the more dangerous neighbours for the Israelites. It was a misfortune for the new territory which the Israelites had won by the sword that it was without the protection of natural boundaries on the north and east, that the cities of the Philistines and Phenicians barred it towards the sea, and in the interior remnants of the Canaanites still maintained their place. Yet it was a far more serious danger for the immigrants that they were without unity, connection, or guidance, for they had already given up these before the conflict was ended. Undoubtedly a vigorous leadership in the war of conquest against the Canaanites might have established a military monarchy which would have provided better for the maintenance of the borders and the security of the land than was done in its absence. But the isolated defence made by the Canaanites permitted the attacking party also to isolate themselves. The new masters of the land lived, like the Canaanites before and among them, in separate cantons; the mountain land which they possessed was much broken up, and without any natural centre, and though there were dangerous neighbours, there was no single concentrated aggressive power in the neighbourhood, now that Egypt remained in her borders. The cities of the Philistines formed a federation merely, though a federation far more strongly organised than the tribes of the Israelites. Under these circumstances political unity was not an immediately pressing question among the Israelites."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 2, chapter 11 (volume 1).

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 2, section 2, C.

JEWS: Israel under the Judges. The wars of the Period. Conquest of Gilead and Bashan. Founding of the kingdom.

"The office which gives its name to the period [between the death of Joshua and the rise of Samuel] well describes it. It was occasional, irregular, uncertain, yet gradually tending to fixedness and perpetuity. Its title is itself expressive. The Ruler was not regal, but he was more than the mere head of a tribe, or the mere judge of special cases. We have to seek for the origin of the name, not amongst the Sheykhs of the Arabian desert, but amongst the civilised settlements of Phœnicia. 'Shophet,' 'Shophetim,' the Hebrew word which we translate 'Judge,' is the same as we find in the 'Suffes,' 'Suffetes,' of the Carthaginian rulers at the time of the Punic wars. As afterwards the office of 'king' was taken from the nations round about, so now, if not the office, at least the name of 'judge' or 'shophet' seems to have been drawn from the Canaanitish cities, with which for the first time Israel came into contact. … Finally the two offices which, in the earlier years of this period, had remained distinct—the High Priest and the Judge—were united in the person of Eli."

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 13.

"The first war mentioned in the days of the Judges is with the Syrians, at a time when the Israelites, or a northern portion of them, were held in servitude for eight years by a king whose name, Cushan-rish-athaim, which may be translated the 'Most Wicked Negress,' seems to place him in the region of imaginary tradition rather than of history. … The next war mentioned was an invasion by the Moabites, who, being joined with a body of Ammonites, and Amalakites, harassed the Israelites of the neighbourhood of Gilgal and Jericho. … After a servitude of 18 years under the Moabites, Ehud, a Benjamite, found an opportunity of stabbing Eglon, the king of Moab; and shortly afterwards the Benjamites were relieved by a body of their neighbours from the hill country of Ephraim. The Israelites then defeated the Moabites, and seized the fords of the Jordan to stop their retreat, and slew them all to a man. While this war was going on on one side of the land, the Philistines from the south were harassing those of the Israelites who were nearest to their country. … The history then carries us back to the northern Israelites, and we hear of their struggle with the Canaanites of that part of the country which was afterwards called Galilee. These people were under a king named Jabin, who had 900 chariots of iron, and they cruelly oppressed the men of Naphtali and Zebulun, who were at that time the most northerly of the Israelites. After a suffering of 20 years, the two tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, under the leadership of Barak, rallied against their oppressors, and called to their help their stronger neighbours, the men of Ephraim. The tribe of Ephraim was the most settled portion of the Israelites, and they had adopted some form of government, while the other tribes were stragglers scattered over the land, every man doing what was right in his own eyes. The Ephraimites were at that time governed, or, in their own language, judged, by a brave woman of the name of Deborah, who led her followers, together with some of the Benjamites, to the assistance of Barak, the leader of Zebulun and Naphtali; and, at the foot of Mount Tabor, near the brook Kishon, their united forces defeated Sisern, the general of the Canaanites. Sisera fled, and was murdered by Jael, a woman in whose tent he had sought for refuge. … The next war that we are told of is an invasion by the Midianites and Amalakites and Children of the East. They crossed the Jordan to attack the men of Manasseh, who were at the same time struggling with the Amorites, the natives who dwelt amongst them. Gideon, the leader of Manasseh, called together the fighting men of his own tribe, together with those of Asher, Zebulun, and Naphtali. The men of Gilead, who had come over to help him, seem to have deserted him. Gideon, however, routed his enemies, and then he summoned the Ephraimites to guard the fords of the Jordan, and to cut off the fugitives. … This victory of Gideon, or Jerubbaal, as he was also named, marked him out as a man fit to be the ruler of Israel, and to save them from the troubles that arose from the want of a single head to lead them against the enemies that surrounded them and dwelt among them. Accordingly, he obtained the rank of chief of all the northern Israelites. Gideon had dwelt at Ophrah, in the land of Manasseh; but his son Abimelech, who succeeded him in his high post, was born in Shechem, in the land of Ephraim, and had thus gained the friendship of some of that tribe. Abimelech put to death all but one of his brethren, the other sons of Gideon, and got himself made king at Shechem; and he was the first who bore that title among the Israelites. {1900} But his thus violently seizing upon the power was the cause of a long civil war between Ephraim and Manasseh, which ended in the death of the usurper Abimelech, and the transfer of the chieftainship to another tribe. Tola, a man of Issachar, was then made Judge, or ruler of the northern tribes. … After Tola, says the historian, Jair of Gilead judged Israel. … Jair and his successors may have ruled in the east at the same time that Deborah and Gideon and their successors were ruling or struggling against their oppressors in the west. Jephtha of Gilead is the next great captain mentioned. … The Ammonites, who dwelt in the more desert country to the east of Gilead, had made a serious incursion on the Israelites on both sides of the Jordan; and the men of Gilead, in their distress, sent for Jephtha, who was then living at Tob, in Syria, whither he had fled from a quarrel with his brethren. … It seems that the Ammonites invaded Gilead on the plea that they had possessed that land before the Israelites arrived there, to which Jephtha answered that the Israelites had dispossessed the Amorites under Sihon, king of Heshbon, and that the Ammonites had not dwelt in that part of the country. In stating the argument, the historian gives a history of their arrival on the banks of the Jordan. On coming out of Lower Egypt, they crossed the desert to the Red Sea, and then came to Kadesh. From thence they asked leave of the Edomites and Moabites to pass through their territory; but, being refused, they went round Moab till they came to the northern bank of the river Arnon, an eastern tributary of the Jordan. There they were attacked by Sihon, king of the Amorites; and on defeating him they seized his territory, which lay between the Arnon and the Jabbok. There the Israelites had dwelt quietly for 300 years, without fighting against either the Moabites or the Ammonites, who were both too strong to be attacked. This is a most interesting narrative, both for what it tells and for what it omits, as compared with the longer narrative in the Pentateuch. … It omits all mention of the delivery of the Law, or of the Ark, or of any supernatural events as having happened on the march, and of the fighting with Og, king of Bashan. Og, or Gog, as it is spelled by other writers, was the name of the monarch whose imaginary castles, seen upon the mountains in the distance, the traveller thought it not wise to approach. They were at the limits of all geographical knowledge. At this early time this fabulous king held Mount Bashan; in Ezekiel's time he had retreated to the shores of the Caspian Sea; and ten centuries later the Arabic travellers were stopped by him at the foot of the Altai Mountains, in Central Asia. His withdrawing before the advance of geographical explorers proves his unreal character. He is not mentioned in this earlier account of the Israelites settling in the land of the Amorites; it is only in the more modern narrative in the Book of Numbers that he is attacked and defeated in battle, and only in the yet more modern Book of Deuteronomy that we learn about his iron bedstead of nine cubits in length."

S. Sharpe, History of the Hebrew Nation, pages 4-9.

"At the close of the period of the Judges the greater part of the Israelites had quite lost their pastoral habits. They were an agricultural people living in cities and villages, and their oldest civil laws I are framed for this kind of life. All the new arts which this complete change of habit implies they must have derived from the Canaanites, and as they learned the ways of agricultural life they could hardly fail to acquire many of the characteristics of their teachers. To make the transformation complete only one thing was lacking —that Israel should also accept the religion of the aborigines. The history and the prophets alike testify that to a great extent they actually did this. Canaanite sanctuaries became Hebrew holy places, and the vileness of Canaanite nature-worship polluted the Hebrew festivals. For a time it seemed that Jehovah, the ancestral God of Israel, who brought their fathers up out of the house of bondage and gave them their goodly land, would be forgotten or transformed into a Canaanite Baal. If this change had been completed Israel would have left no name in the world's history; but Providence had other things in store for the people of Jehovah. Henceforth the real significance of Israel's fortunes lies in the preservation and development of the national faith, and the history of the tribes of Jacob is rightly set forth in the Bible as the history of that divine discipline by which Jehovah maintained a people for Himself amidst the seductions of Canaanite worship and the ever-new backslidings of Israel. … In the end Jehovah was still the God of Israel, and had become the God of Israel's land. Canaan was His heritage, not the heritage of the Baalim, and the Canaanite worship appears henceforth, not as a direct rival to the worship of Jehovah, but as a disturbing element corrupting the national faith, while unable to supplant it altogether. This, of course, in virtue of the close connection between religion and national feeling, means that Israel had now risen above the danger of absorption in the Canaanites, and felt itself to be a nation in the true sense of the word. We learn from the books of Samuel how this great advance was ultimately and permanently secured. The earlier wars recorded in the book of Judges had brought about no complete or lasting unity among the Hebrew tribes. But at length a new enemy arose, more formidable than any whom they had previously encountered. The Philistines from Caphtor, who, like the Israelites, had entered Canaan as emigrants, but coming most probably by sea had displaced the aboriginal Avvim in the rich coastlands beneath the mountains of Judah (Deuteronomy ii. 23; Amos ix. 7), pressed into the heart of the country, and broke the old strength of Ephraim in the battle of Ebenezer. This victory cut the Hebrew settlements in two, and threatened the independence of all the tribes. The common danger drew Israel together."

W. Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, lecture 1.

JEWS: The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

"No one appeared again in the character at once of judge and warrior, to protect the people by force of arms. It was the Levite Samuel, a prophet dedicated to God even before his birth, who recalled them to the consciousness of religious feeling. He succeeded in removing the emblems of Baal and Astarte from the heights, and in paving the way for renewed faith in Jehovah. … It was the feeling of the people that they could only carry on the war upon the system employed by all their neighbors. {1901} They demanded a king—a request very intelligible under existing circumstances, but one which nevertheless involved a wide and significant departure from the impulses which had hitherto moved the Jewish community and the forms in which it had shaped itself. … The Israelites demanded a king, not only to go before them and fight their battles, but also to judge them. They no longer looked for their preservation to the occasional efforts of the prophetic order and the ephemeral existence of heroic leaders. … The argument by which Samuel, as the narrative records, seeks to deter the people from their purpose, is that the king will encroach upon the freedom of private life which they have hitherto enjoyed, employing their sons and daughters in his service, whether in the palace or in war, exacting tithes, taking the best part of the land for himself, and regarding all as his bondsmen. In this freedom of tribal and family life lay the essence of the Mosaic constitution. But the danger that all may be lost is so pressing that the people insist upon their own will in opposition to the prophet. Nevertheless, without the prophet nothing can be done, and it is he who selects from the youth of the country the man who is to enjoy the new dignity in Israel. … At first the proceeding had but a doubtful result. Many despised a young man sprung from the smallest family of the smallest tribe of Israel, as one who could give them no real assistance. In order to make effective the conception of the kingly office thus assigned to him, it was necessary in the first place that he should gain for himself a personal reputation. A king of the Ammonites, a tribe in affinity to Israel, laid siege to Jabesh in Gilead, and burdened the proffered surrender of the place with the condition that he should put out the right eyes of the inhabitants. … Saul, the son of Kish, a Benjamite, designated by the prophet as king, but not as yet recognized as such, was engaged, as Gideon before him, in his rustic labors, when he learned the situation through the lamentations of the people. … Seized with the idea of his mission, Saul cuts in pieces a yoke of oxen, and sends the portions to the twelve tribes with the threat, 'Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen.' … Thus urged, … Israel combines like one man; Jabesh is rescued and Saul acknowledged as king. … With the recognition of the king, however, and the progress of his good-fortune, a new and disturbing element appears. A contest breaks out between him and the prophet, in which we recognize not so much opposition as jealousy between the two powers. … On the one side was the independent power of monarchy, which looks to the requirements of the moment, on the other the prophet's tenacious and unreserved adherence to tradition. … The relations between the tribes have also some bearing on the question. Hitherto Ephraim had led the van, and jealously insisted on its prerogative. Saul was of Benjamin, a tribe nearly related to Ephraim by descent. He had made the men of his own tribe captains, and had given them vineyards. On the other hand, the prophet chose Saul's successor from the tribe of Judah. This successor was David, the son of Jesse. … In the opposition which now begins we have on the one side the prophet and his anointed, who aim at maintaining the religious authority in all its aspects, on the other the champion and deliverer of the nation, who, abandoned by the faithful, turns for aid to the powers of darkness and seeks knowledge of the future through witchcraft. Saul is the first tragic personage in the history of the world. David took refuge with the Philistines. Among them he lived as an independent military chieftain, and was joined not only by opponents of the king, but by others, ready for any service, or, in the language of the original, 'men armed with bows, who could use both the right hand and the left in hurling stones and shooting arrows out of a bow.' … In any serious war against the Israelites, such as actually broke out, the Sarim of the Philistines would not have tolerated him amongst them. David preferred to engage in a second attack upon the Amalekites, the common enemy of Philistines and Jews. At this juncture Israel was defeated by the Philistines. The king's sons were slain; Saul, in danger of falling into the enemy's hands, slew himself. Meanwhile David with his freebooters had defeated the Amalekites, and torn from their grasp the spoil they had accumulated, which was now distributed in Judah. Soon after, the death of Saul is announced. … David, conscious of being the rightful successor of Saul—for on him too, long ere this, the unction had been bestowed—betook himself to Hebron, the seat of the ancient Canaanitish kings, which had subsequently been given up to the priests and made one of the cities of refuge. It was in the province of Judah; and there, the tribe of Judah assisting at the ceremony, David was once more anointed. This tribe alone, however, acknowledged him; the others, especially Ephraim and Benjamin, attached themselves to Ishbosheth, the surviving son of Saul. … The first passage of arms between the two hosts took place between twelve of the tribe of Benjamin and twelve of David's men-at-arms. It led, however, to no result; it was a mutual slaughter, so complete as to leave no survivor. But in the more serious struggle which succeeded this the troops of David, trained as they were in warlike undertakings of great daring as well as variety, won the victory over Ishbosheth; and as the unanointed king could not rely upon the complete obedience of his commander-in-chief, who considered himself as important as his master, David, step by step, won the upper hand. … The Benjamites had been the heart and soul of the opposition which David experienced. Nevertheless, the first action which he undertook as acknowledged king of all the tribes redounded specially to their advantage, whilst it was at the same time a task of the utmost importance for the whole Israelitish commonwealth. Although Joshua had conquered the Amorites, one of their strongholds, Jebus, still remained unsubdued, and the Benjamites had exerted all their strength against it in vain. It was to this point that David next directed his victorious arms. Having conquered the place, he transferred the seat of his kingdom thither without delay [see JERUSALEM]. This seat is Jerusalem; the word Zion has the same meaning as Jebus."

L. von Ranke, Universal History: The Oldest Historical Groups of Nations, chapter 2.

{1902}

"After Saul's death it was at first only in Judah, where David maintained his government, that a new Kingdom of Israel could be established at all, so disastrous were the consequences of the great Philistine victory. The Philistines, who must have already conquered the central territory, now occupied that to the north, also, while the inhabitants of the cities of the great plain of Jezreel and of the western bank of the Jordan, fled, we are very distinctly informed, across the river."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 3.

But Abner, the strong warrior and the faithful kinsman of Saul's family, took Ishbosheth, the oldest surviving son of his dead king, and throned him in the city of Mahanaim, beyond the Jordan, proceeding gradually to gather a kingdom for him by reconquest from the Philistines. Thus the Israelite nation was first divided into the two kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and there was bitter war between them. But that first division was not to endure long. Abner and Ishbosheth fell victims to treachery, and the tribes which had held by them offered allegiance to David, who then became king over "all Israel and Judah." By the conquest of the city of Jebus from its Canaanite founders and possessors, he acquired a new, impregnable capital, which, under the name of Jerusalem, grew to be the most reverently looked upon of all the cities of the world. "History has been completely distorted in representing David as the head of a powerful kingdom, which embraced nearly the whole of Syria. David was king of Judah and of Israel, and that was all; the neighboring peoples, Hebrews, Canaanites, Arameans and Philistines, as far as Mahul Hermon and the desert, were sternly subjected, and were more or less its tributaries. In reality, with the exception, perhaps, of the small town of Ziklag, David did not annex any non-Israelite country to the domain of Israel. The Philistines, the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites, and the Arameans of Zoba, of Damascus, of Rehob and of Maacah were, after his day, very much what they were before, only a little weaker. Conquest was not a characteristic of Israel; the taking possession of the Canaanite lands was an act of a different order, and it came to be more and more regarded as the execution of a decree of Iahveh. As this decree did not extend to the lands of Edom, of Moab, of Ammon and of Aram, the Israelites deemed themselves justified in treating the Edomites, the Moabites, the Ammonites and the Arameans with the utmost severity, in carrying off their precious stones and objects of price, but not in taking their land, or in changing their dynasty. None of the methods employed by great empires such as Assyria was known to these small peoples, which had scarcely got beyond the status of tribes. They were as cruel as Assur, but much less politic and less capable of a general plan. The impression produced by the appearance of this new royalty was none the less extraordinary. The halo of glory which enveloped David remained like a star upon the forehead of Israel."

E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 3, chapter 4 (volume 2).

David died about 1000 B. C. and was succeeded by his son Solomon, whose mother, Bathsheba, secured the throne for him by intrigue. "Solomon was a younger son, to whom the throne had been allotted contrary to ordinary laws of succession, whilst Adonijah, whom a portion of the people had recognised as king, was considered the rightful heir. So long as the latter lived. Solomon's government could not be on a firm basis, and he could never feel himself secure. Adonijah had therefore to be removed; the leader of the body guard, Benaiah, forcibly entered his house and killed him. As an excuse for this act of violence, it was asserted that Adonijah had attempted to win the hand of Abishag, the young widow of David, and thus had revealed his traitorous intention of contesting the throne with his brother. No sooner had he fallen than Joab, the former adherent of Adonijah, feared that a similar fate would overtake him. This exemplary general, who had contributed so considerably to the aggrandisement of the people of Israel and to the power of the house of David, fled to the altar on Mount Zion, and clung to it, hoping to escape death. Benaiah, however, refused to respect his place of refuge, and shed his blood at the altar. In order to excuse this crime, it was circulated that David himself, on his death-bed, had impressed on his successor the duty of preventing Joab's grey head from sinking in peace to its last rest. … Adonijah's priestly partisan, Abiathar, whom Solomon did not dare to touch, was deprived of his office as high priest, and Zadok was made the sole head of the priesthood. His descendants were invested with the dignity of high priest for over a thousand years, whilst the offspring of Abiathar were neglected. The Benjamite Shimei, who had attacked David with execrations on his flight from Jerusalem, was also executed, and it was only through this three-fold deed of blood that Solomon's throne appeared to gain stability. Solomon then directed his attention to the formation of a court of the greatest magnificence."

H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 1, chapter 9.

"The main characteristic of Solomon's reign was peace. The Philistines, allies of the new dynasty, and given profitable employment by it as mercenaries, were no longer tempted to cross the frontier. … The decay of military strength was only felt in the zone of countries which were tributary to the kingdom. Hadad, or Hadar, the Edomite, who had been defeated by Joab and had taken refuge in Egypt, having heard of David's death, and that of Joab as well, left Pharaoh, whose sister-in-law he had married. We have no details of this war. … We only know that Hadad braved Israel throughout the whole of Solomon's reign, that he did it all the injury he could, and that he was an independent ruler over a great part at all events of Edom. A still more formidable adversary was Rezon, son of Eliadah, an Aramean warrior who, after the defeat of his lord, Hadadezer, king of Zobah, had assembled about him those who had fled before the sword of David. … A lucky 'coup-de-main' placed the city of Damascus at their mercy, and they succeeded in maintaining themselves there. During the whole of Solomon's reign Rezon continued to make war against Israel. The kingdom of Zobah does not appear, however, to have been re-established. Damascus became henceforth the centre and capital of that part of Aramea which adjoined Mount Hermon. David's horizon never extended beyond Syria. With Solomon, fresh perspectives opened up for the Israelites, especially for Jerusalem. Israel is no longer a group of tribes, continuing to lead in its mountains the patriarchal life of the past. It is a well-organised kingdom, small according to our ideas, but rather large judged by the standard of the day. The worldly life of the people of Iahveh is about to begin. If Israel had no other life but that it would not have found a place in history. … An alliance with Egypt was the first step in that career of profane politics which the prophets afterwards interlarded with so much that was impossible. … {1903} The king of Egypt gave Gezer as a dowry to his daughter, and married her to Solomon. … It is not too much to suppose that the tastes of this princess for refined luxury had a great influence upon the mind of her husband. … The relations of Solomon with Tyre exercised a still more civilising influence. Tyre, recently separated from Sidon, was then at the zenith of its activity, and, so to speak, in the full fire of its first foundation. A dynasty of kings named Hiram, or rather Ahiram, was at the head of this movement. The island was covered with constructions imitated from Egypt. … Hiram is the close ally of the king of Israel; it is he who provides Solomon with the artists who were lacking at Jerusalem; the precious materials for the buildings in Zion; seamen for the fleet of Eziongeber. The region of the upper Jordan, conquered by David, appears to have remained tributary to Solomon. What has been related as to a much larger extension of the kingdom of Solomon is greatly exaggerated. … The fables as to the pretended foundation of Palmyra by Solomon come from a letter intentionally added to the text of the ancient historiographer by the compiler of the Chronicles. The construction of Baalbec by Solomon rests upon a still more inadmissible piece of identification. … In reality, the dominion of Solomon was confined to Palestine. … What was better than peoples kept under by force, the Arab brigands were held in check from pillage. The Amalekites, the Midianites, the Beni-Quedem and other nomads were confronted with an impassable barrier all around Israel. The Philistines preserved their independence. … When it is surmised that Solomon reigned over all Syria, the size of his kingdom is exaggerated at least fourfold. Solomon's kingdom was barely a fourth of what is now called Syria. … Solomon … built 'cities of store,' or warehouses, the commercial or military object of which cannot well be defined. There was, more especially, a place named Tamar, in the direction of Petra, of which Solomon made a city, and which became a calling-place for the caravans. … With very good reason, too, Solomon had his attention constantly fixed upon the Red Sea, a broad canal which placed the dawning civilisation of the Mediterranean in communication with India, and thus opened up a new world, that of Ophir. The Bay of Suez belonged to Egypt, but the Gulf of Akaba was, one may say, at the mercy of anyone who cared to take it. Elath and Asiongaber, according to all appearances, had been of very little importance in earlier times. Without regularly occupying the country, Solomon secured the route by the Valley of Araba. He built a fleet at Asiongaber, though the Israelites had never much liking for the sea. Hiram provided Solomon with sailors, or, what is more probable, the two fleets acted together. On leaving the Straits of Aden, they went to Ophir, that is to say, to Western India, to Guzarate, or to the coast of Malabar."

E. Renan, History of the People of Israel, book 3, chapter 10 (volume 2).

The government of Solomon was extravagant and despotic; it imposed burdens upon the people which were borne impatiently until his death; and when his son Rehoboam refused to lessen them, the nation was instantly broken again on the lines of the earlier rupture. The two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, only, remained faithful to the house of David and constituted the kingdom of Judah. The other ten tribes made Jeroboam their king and retained the name of Israel for their kingdom. The period of this division is fixed at 978 B. C. Jerusalem continued to be the capital of the kingdom of Judah. In the kingdom of Israel several changes of royal residence occurred during the first half century, until Samaria was founded by King Omri and thenceforth became the capital city. "Six miles from Shechem, in the same well-watered valley, here opening into a wide basin, rises an oblong hill, with steep yet accessible sides, and a long level top. This was the mountain of Samaria, or, as it is called in the original, Shômeron, so named after its owner Shemer, who there lived in state, and who sold it to the King for the great sum of two talents of silver."

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lectures 29-30 (volume 2).

For two centuries, until the overthrow of the kingdom, Samaria continued to be the queen of the land, and the seat of government, often giving its name to the whole state, so that the kings were called "Kings of Samaria." "Under the dynasties of Omri and Jehu [10th-8th centuries, B. C.] the Northern Kingdom took the leading part in Israel; even to the Judæan Amos it was Israel 'par excellence.' Judah was not only inferior in political power, but in the share it took in the active movements of national life and thought. In tracing the history of religion and the work of the prophets, we have been almost exclusively occupied with the North; Amos himself, when charged with a message to the whole family that Jehovah brought up out of Egypt, leaves his home to preach in a Northern sanctuary. During this whole period we have a much fuller knowledge of the life of Ephraim than of Judah; the Judæan history consists of meagre extracts from official records, except where it comes into contact with the North, through the alliance of Jehoshaphat with Ahab; through the reaction of Jehu's revolution in the fall of Athaliah, the last scion of the house of Ahab, and the accompanying abolition of Baal worship at Jerusalem, or, finally, through the presumptuous attempt of Amaziah to measure his strength with the powerful monarch of Samaria. While the house of Ephraim was engaged in the great war with Syria, Judah had seldom to deal with enemies more formidable than the Philistines or the Edomites; and the contest with these foes, renewed with varying success generation after generation, resolved itself into a succession of forays and blood-feuds such as have always been common in the lands of the Semites (Amos i.), and never assumed the character of a struggle for national existence. It was the Northern Kingdom that had the task of upholding the standard of Israel; its whole history presents greater interest and more heroic elements; its struggles, its calamities, and its glories were cast in a larger mould. It is a trite proverb that the nation which has no history is happy, and perhaps the course of Judah's existence ran more smoothly than that of its greater neighbor, in spite of the raids of the slave-dealers of the coast, and the lawless hordes of the desert. But no side of national existence is likely to find full development where there is little political activity; if the life of the North was more troubled, it was also larger and more intense. {1904} Ephraim took the lead in literature and religion as well as in politics; it was in Ephraim far more than in Judah that the traditions of past history were cherished, and new problems of religion became practical and called for solution by the word of the prophets. So long as the Northern Kingdom endured Judah was content to learn from it for evil or for good. It would be easy to show in detail that every wave of life and thought in Ephraim was transmitted with diminished intensity to the Southern Kingdom. In many respects the influence of Ephraim upon Judah was similar to that of England upon Scotland before the union of the crowns, but with the important difference that after the accession of Omri the two Hebrew kingdoms were seldom involved in hostilities. … The internal condition of the [Judæan] state was stable, though little progressive; the kings were fairly successful in war, though not sufficiently strong to maintain unbroken authority over Edom, the only vassal state of the old Davidic realm over which they still claimed suzerainty, and their civil administration must have been generally satisfactory according to the not very high standard of the East; for they retained the affections of their people, the justice and mercy of the throne of David are favourably spoken of in the old prophecy against Moab quoted in Isaiah XV., xvi., and Isaiah contrasts the disorders of his own time with the ancient reputation of Jerusalem for fidelity and justice (i. 21). … The religious conduct of the house of David followed the same general lines. Old abuses remained untouched, but the cultus remained much as David and Solomon had left it. Local high places were numerous, and no attempt was made to interfere with them; but the great temple on Mount Zion, which formed part of the complex of royal buildings erected by Solomon, maintained its prestige, and appears to have been a special object of solicitude to the kings, who treated its service as part of their royal state. It is common to imagine that the religious condition of Judah was very much superior to that of the North, but there is absolutely no evidence to support this opinion."

W. Robertson Smith, The Prophets of Israel, lecture 5.

In the year B. C. 745 the throne of Assyria was seized by a soldier of great ability, called Pul, or Pulu, who took the name of Tiglath-pileser III. and who promptly entered on an ambitious career of conquest, with imperial aims and plans. "In B. C. 738 we find him receiving tribute from Menahem of Samaria, Rezon of Damascus, and Hiram of Tyre. … The throne of Israel was occupied at the time by Pekah, a successful general who had murdered his predecessor, but who was evidently a man of vigour and ability. He and Rezon endeavoured to form a confederacy of the Syrian and Palestinian states against their common Assyrian foe. In order to effect their object they considered it necessary to displace the reigning king of Judah, Ahaz, and substitute for him a creature of their own. … They were aided by a party of malcontents in Judah itself (Isaiah viii. 6), and the position of Ahaz seemed desperate. … In this moment of peril Isaiah was instructed to meet and comfort Ahaz. He bade him 'fear not, neither be fainthearted,' for the confederacy against the dynasty of David should be broken and overthrown. … But Ahaz … had no faith either in the prophet or in the message he was commissioned to deliver. He saw safety in one course only—that of invoking the assistance of the Assyrian king, and bribing him by the offer of homage and tribute to march against his enemies. In vain Isaiah denounced so suicidal and unpatriotic a policy. In vain he foretold that when Damascus and Samaria had been crushed, the next victim of the Assyrian king would be Judah itself. The infatuated Ahaz would not listen. He 'sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying, I am thy servant and thy son: come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, which rise up against me.'" The king of Assyria responded to the call (B. C. 734). He defeated Rezon in battle, laid siege to Damascus, swept the tribes east of the Jordan into captivity, overran the territory of Israel, captured Samaria and put to death Pekah the king. In place of Pekah he set up a vassal-king Hoshea. Six years later, Tiglath-pileser having died, and the Assyrian throne having been seized by another strong soldier, Shalmaneser IV., Hoshea attempted a revolt, looking to Egypt for help. But before Sabako king of Egypt could move to his assistance, "Hoshea was defeated by the Assyrian king or his satraps, and thrown into chains. The ruling classes of Samaria, however, still held out. An Assyrian army, accordingly, once more devastated the land of Israel, and laid siege to the capital. For three years Samaria remained untaken. Another revolution had meanwhile broken out in Assyria; Shalmaneser had died or been put to death, and a fresh military adventurer had seized the crown, taking the name of Sargon, after a famous monarch of ancient Babylonia. Sargon had hardly established himself upon the throne when Samaria fell (B. C. 722). … He contented himself with transporting only 27,280 of its inhabitants into captivity, only the upper classes, in fact, who were implicated in the revolt of Hoshea. An Assyrian satrap, or governor, was appointed over Samaria, while the bulk of the population was allowed to remain peaceably in their old homes."

A. H. Sayce, Life and Times of Isaiah, chapter 3.

"Much light is thrown upon the conditions of the national religion then and upon its subsequent development by the single fact that the exiled Israelites were absorbed by the surrounding heathenism without leaving a trace behind them, while the population of Judah, who had the benefit of a hundred years of respite, held their faith fast throughout the period of the Babylonian exile, and by means of it were able to maintain their own individuality afterwards in all the circumstances that arose. The fact that the fall of Samaria did not hinder but helped the religion of Jehovah is entirely due to the prophets."

J. Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, chapter 6.

"The first generation of the exiles lived to see the fall of their conquerors. … After this it is difficult to discover any distinct trace of the northern tribes. Some returned with their countrymen of the southern kingdom. … The immense Jewish population which made Babylonia a second Palestine was in part derived from them; and the Jewish customs that have been discovered in the Nestorian Christians, with the traditions of the sect itself, may indicate at any rate a mixture of Jewish descent. That they [the 'lost Ten Tribes'] are concealed in some unknown region of the earth, is a fable with no foundation either in history or prophecy."

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 34 (volume 2).

See, also, JERUSALEM.

{1905}

JEWS: B. C. 724-604. The kingdom of Judah to the end of the Egyptian domination.

Three years before Sargon's destruction of Samaria, "Hezekiah had succeeded his father Ahaz upon the throne of Jerusalem. … Judah was tributary to Assyria, and owed to Assyria its deliverance from a great danger. But the deliverer and his designs were extremely dangerous, and made Judah apprehensive of being swallowed up presently, when its turn came. The neighbouring countries,—Phœnicia on the north, Moab, Ammon, and the Arabian nations on the east, Philistia on the west, Egypt and Ethiopia on the south,—shared Judah's apprehensions. There were risings, and they were sternly quelled; Judah, however, remained tranquil. But the scheme of an anti-Assyrian alliance was gradually becoming popular. Egypt was the great pillar of hope. By its size, wealth, resources, pretensions, and fame, Egypt seemed a possible rival to Assyria. Time went on. Sargon was murdered in 705; Sennacherib succeeded him. Then on all sides there was an explosion of revolts against the Assyrian rule. The first years of Sennacherib's reign were spent by him in quelling a formidable rising of Merodach Baladan, king of Babylon. The court and ministers of Hezekiah seized this opportunity for detaching their master from Assyria, for joining in the movement of the insurgent states of Palestine and its borders, and for allying themselves with Egypt. … In the year 701, Sennacherib, victorious in Babylonia, marched upon Palestine."

M. Arnold, Isaiah of Jerusalem, introduction.

Sennacherib advanced along the Phœnician coast. "Having captured Ascalon, he next laid siege to Ekron, which, after the Egyptian army sent to its relief had been defeated at Eltekeh, fell into the enemy's hand, and was severely dealt with. Simultaneously various fortresses of Judah were occupied, and the level country was devastated (Isaiah i.). The consequence was that Hezekiah, in a state of panic, offered to the Assyrians his submission, which was accepted on payment of a heavy penalty, he being permitted, however, to retain possession of Jerusalem. He seemed to have got cheaply off from the unequal contest. The way being thus cleared, Sennacherib pressed on southwards, for the Egyptians were collecting their forces against him. The nearer he came to the enemy the more undesirable did he find it that he should leave in his rear so important a fortress as Jerusalem in the hands of a doubtful vassal. Notwithstanding the recently ratified treaty, therefore, he demanded the surrender of the city, believing that a policy of intimidation would be enough to secure it from Hezekiah. But there was another personality in Jerusalem of whom his plans had taken no account. Isaiah had indeed regarded the revolt from Assyria as a rebellion against Jehovah Himself, and therefore as a perfectly hopeless undertaking, which could only result in the utmost humiliation and sternest chastisement for Judah. But much more distinctly than Amos and Hosea before him did he hold firm as an article of faith the conviction that the kingdom would not be utterly annihilated; all his speeches of solemn warning closed with the announcement that a remnant should return and form the kernel of a new commonwealth to be fashioned after Jehovah's own heart. … Over against the vain confidence of the multitude Isaiah had hitherto brought into prominence the darker obverse of his religious belief, but now he confronted their present depression with its bright reverse; faintheartedness was still more alien to his nature than temerity. In the name of Jehovah he bade King Hezekiah be of good courage, and urged that he should by no means surrender. The Assyrians would not be able to take the city, not even to shoot an arrow into it, nor to bring up their siege train against it. 'I know thy sitting, thy going, and thy standing,' is Jehovah's language to the Assyrian, 'and also thy rage against Me. And I will put my ring in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest.' And thus it proved in the issue. By a still unexplained catastrophe, the main army of Sennacherib was annihilated on the frontier between Egypt and Palestine, and Jerusalem thereby freed from all danger. The Assyrian king had to save himself by a hurried retreat to Nineveh; Isaiah was triumphant. A more magnificent close of a period of influential public life can hardly be imagined."

J. Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and Judah, chapter 7.

"We possess in duplicate, on the Taylor Cylinder, found at Nineveh in 1830, and now in the British Museum, and on the Bull-inscription of Kouyunjik, Sennacherib's own account of the stages of his campaign. Sidon and the cities of Phœnicia were the first to be attacked; and, after reducing these, and receiving homage from several of the kings of the countries bordering on Palestine, who apparently were not this time implicated in the plan of revolt, Sennacherib started southwards, aiming to recover similarly Ashkelon, Ekron, and Jerusalem. In Ashkelon he deprived Zedek of his crown, which he bestowed upon Sarludari, the son of a former king, doubtless on the ground that he was friendly to Assyrian interests: at the same time four subject-cities belonging to Zedek, Beth-dagon, Joppa, Bene-Barak, and Azuru were captured and plundered. Sennacherib next proceeds to deal with Ekron. The people of Ekron, in order to carry through their plan for the recovery of independence without hindrance, had deposed their king Padi, who remained loyal to Assyria, and sent him bound in chains to Hezekiah. Upon news of the approach of the Assyrians, they had summoned the Egyptians to their aid; they arrive now 'with forces innumerable;' the encounter takes place at Altaku (probably not far from Ekron); victory declares for the Assyrian; and the Egyptians retire without effecting the desired relief. After this Sennacherib soon reduces Ekron; he obtains, moreover, the surrender of Padi from Jerusalem, and restores him to his throne. Now follows the account of the aggressive measures adopted by him against Judah and Jerusalem. 'And Hezekiah of Judah, who had not submitted to my yoke, forty-six of his strong cities, fortresses and smaller towns round about their border without number, with laying low of the walls, and with open (?) attack, with battle … of feet, … hewing about and trampling down (?), I besieged, I took 200,150 people, small and great, male and female, horses, mules,' asses, camels, oxen, and sheep without number, from the midst of them I brought out, and I counted them as spoil. {1906} Himself, as a bird in a cage, in the midst of Jerusalem, his royal city, I shut up. Siege-works against him I erected, and the exit of the great gate of his city I blocked up. His cities which I had plundered, from his domain I cut off; and to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, to Padi, king of Ekron, and to Zilbel, king of Gaza, I gave them; I diminished his territory. To the former payment of their yearly tribute, the tribute of subjection to my sovereignty I added; I laid it upon them. Himself, Hezekiah, the terror of the splendour of my sovereignty overwhelmed: the Arabians and his dependents, whom he had introduced, for the defence of Jerusalem, his royal city, and to whom he had granted pay, together with 30 talents of gold, 800 talents of silver, bullion (?) … precious (?) stones of large size, couches of ivory, lofty thrones of ivory, elephant-skins, ivory, … wood, … woods of every kind, an abundant treasure, and in addition, his daughters, the women of his palace, his male and female harem(?)-attendants unto Nineveh, my royal city, he caused to be brought after me. For the payment of tribute, and the rendering of homage: he sent his envoy.' Here the account on the Inscription closes, the lines which follow relating to the campaign of the subsequent year."

S. R. Driver, Isaiah: His Life and Times, chapter 7.

"Between the retreat of Sennacherib's army and the capture of the capital by Nebuchadrezzar there was an interval of little more than a century, yet, meanwhile, upon the basis of the prophetical teaching, the foundations of Judaism were laid. … But though Sennacherib had retreated from Palestine, Judah still remained the vassal of Assyria. The empire of Assyria was scarcely affected by the event which was to change the face of the world, and for more than half-a-century its power was undiminished and supreme. Yet, as regards the internal condition of Judah, the great deliverance was the occasion of a reform which at first may well have made Isaiah's heart beat high. … Influential as he was at the court and with the king, and with reputation enormously enhanced by the fulfilment of his promise of deliverance, he probably urged and prompted Hezekiah to the execution of a religious reform. The meagre verse in the Book of Kings which describes this reform is both inaccurate and misplaced. There is no hint in the authentic writings of Isaiah or Micah that any religious innovations had been attempted before the Assyrian war. It was the startling issue of Sennacherib's invasion which afforded the opportunity and suggested the idea. Moreover, wider changes are attributed to Hezekiah than he can actually have effected. … The residuum of fact contained in the 18th chapter of the Second Book of Kings must be probably limited to the destruction of the Nehushtan, or brazen serpent, that mysterious image in which the contemporaries of Hezekiah, whatever may have been its original signification, doubtless recognized a symbol of Yahveh. Yet indirect evidence would incline us to believe that Hezekiah's reform involved more than the annihilation of a single idol; it is more probably to be regarded as an attempt at a general abolition of images, as well as a suppression of the new Assyrian star-worship and of the 'Moloch' sacrifices which had been introduced into Judah in the reign of Ahaz. Whether this material iconoclasm betokened or generated any wide moral reformation is more than doubtful. … Hezekiah's reign extended for about fourteen years after the deliverance of Jerusalem in 701. To the early part of this, its second division, the religious reformation must be assigned. A successful campaign against the Philistines, alluded to in the Book of Kings, probably fell within the same period. Beyond this, we know nothing, though we would gladly know much, of these fourteen concluding years of an eventful reign. In 686 Hezekiah died, and was succeeded by his son Manasseh, who occupied the throne for forty-five years (686-641). The Book of Kings does not record a single external incident throughout his long reign. It must have been a time of profound peace and of comparative prosperity. Manasseh remained the vassal of Assyria, and the Assyrian inscriptions speak of him as paying tribute to the two kings, Esarhaddon (681-669), Sennacherib's successor, and Asurbanipal (669-626), till whose death the supremacy of Assyria in Palestine was wholly undisputed. Uneventful as Manasseh's reign was in foreign politics, it was all the more important in its internal and religious history. In it, and in the short reign of Amon, who maintained the policy of his father, there set in a period of strong religious reaction, extending over nearly half-a-century (686-638). Manasseh is singled out by the historian for special and repeated reprobation. In the eyes of the exilic redactor, his iniquities were the immediate cause of the destruction of the national life. Not even Josiah's reformation could turn Yahveh 'from the fierceness of his great wrath, wherewith his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations that Manasseh had provoked him withal.' Jeremiah had said the same. Exile and dispersion are to come 'because of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.' … What were the sins of Manasseh? It has already been indicated that the Assyrians made their influence felt, not only in politics, but also in religion. It was the old Babylonian worship of the luminaries of heaven which was introduced into Judah in the eighth century, and which, after receiving a short check during the reign of Hezekiah, became very widely prevalent under his son. … There are many tokens in the literature of the seventh century that the idolatrous reaction of Manasseh penetrated deep, making many converts. … Manasseh would apparently brook no opposition to the idolatrous proclivities of his court; he met the indignation of Isaiah's disciples and of the prophetical party by open and relentless persecution. … The older historian of the Book of Kings speaks of 'Manasseh shedding innocent blood very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another.' This innocent blood must have mainly flowed from those who opposed his idolatrous tendencies. … From the accession of Manasseh to the death of Amon (686-638), a period of forty-eight years, this internal conflict continued; and in it, as always, the blood of martyrs was the seed of the Church. In 638, Amon was succeeded by his son Josiah; then only eight years old. {1907} It is possible that his accession brought about some amelioration in the condition of the prophetical party, and that active persecution ceased. But the syncretistic and idolatrous worship was still maintained for another eighteen years, though those years are passed over without any notice in the Book of Kings. They were, however, years of great importance in the history of Asia, for they witnessed the break-up of the Assyrian empire, and the inroads of the Scythians. The collapse of Assyria followed hard upon the death of Asurbanipal in 626: Babylon revolted, the northern and north-western provinces of the empire fell into the hands of the Medes, and the authority of Assyria over the vassal kingdoms of the west was gradually weakened."

C. G. Montefiore, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, as illustrated by the Religion of the ancient Hebrews, (Hibbert Lectures, 1892), lecture 4.

"The Assyrian empire was much weakened and the king could not think of maintaining his power in the more distant provinces. … In the year 610 B. C., Nineveh was again besieged, this time by the Medes and Babylonians in league together. In the same year Psammetichus, king of Egypt, died and was succeeded by his son Necho. If Psammetichus had already tried to enlarge his kingdom at the expense of Assyria, Necho was not the man to miss the golden opportunity that now presented itself: he proposed to seize Syria and Palestine, the Assyrian provinces that bordered on his own kingdom, and thus to obtain his share of the spoil, even if he did not help to bring down the giant. By the second year after his accession to the throne he was on the march to Syria with a large army. Probably it was transported by sea and landed at Acco, on the Mediterranean, whence it was to proceed overland. But in carrying out this plan he encountered an unexpected obstacle: Josiah went to meet him with an army and attempted to prevent his march to Syria. … Josiah must have firmly believed that Jahveh would fight for his people and defeat the Egyptian ruler. From what Jeremiah tells us of the attitude of the prophets in the reigns of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, we must infer that many of them strengthened the king in his intention not to endure an encroachment such as that of the Pharaoh. The Chronicler relates that Necho himself endeavored to dissuade Josiah from the unequal contest. But [uselessly]. … The decisive battle was fought in the valley of Megiddo: Judah was defeated; Josiah perished. … After the victory in the valley of Megiddo and the death of Josiah, Necho was master of the kingdom of Judah. Before he arrived there, 'the people of the land' made Jehoahaz, a younger son of Josiah, king, presumably because he was more attached than his elder brother to his father's policy. At all events, Necho hastened to depose him and send him to Egypt. He was superseded by Eliakim, henceforward called Jehoiakim. At first Jehoiakim was a vassal of Egypt, and it does not appear that he made any attempt to escape from this servitude. But it was not long before events occurred elsewhere in Asia that entirely changed his position. Nineveh had fallen; the Medes and the Chaldeans or Babylonians now ruled over the former territory of the Assyrians; Syria and Palestine fell to the share of the Babylonians. Of course, the Egyptians were not inclined to let them have undisputed possession. A battle was fought at Carchemish (Circesium), on the Euphrates, between the armies of Necho and Nebuchadnezzar, who then commanded in the name of his father, Nabopolassar, but very shortly afterwards succeeded him. The Egyptians sustained a crushing defeat (604 B. C). This decided the fate of Western Asia, including Judæa."

A. Kuenen, The Religion of Israel, chapter 6 (volume 2).

JEWS: B. C. 604-536. Fall of the kingdom of Judah. The Babylonian captivity.

"In the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B. C. 604) the mightiest monarch who had wielded the Assyrian power, Nebuchadnezzar, was associated in the empire with his father, and assumed the command of the armies of Assyria. Babylon now takes the place of Nineveh as the capital of the Assyrian empire. … Vassalage to the dominion of Egypt or of Babylon is now the ignominious doom of the king of Judah. … Nebuchadnezzar, having retaken Carchemish (B. C. 601), passed the Euphrates, and rapidly overran the whole of Syria and Palestine. Jerusalem made little resistance. The king was put in chains to be carried as a prisoner to Babylon. On his submission, he was reinstated on the throne; but the Temple was plundered of many of its treasures, and a number of well-born youths, among whom were Daniel, and three others, best known by their Persian names, Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego. From this date commence the seventy years of the Captivity. Jehoiakim had learned neither wisdom nor moderation from his misfortunes. Three years after, he attempted to throw off the yoke of Chaldea. … At length this weak and cruel king was slain (B. C. 598). … Jehoiachin (Jeconias or Coniah), his son, had scarcely mounted the throne, when Nebuchadnezzar himself appeared at the gates of Jerusalem. The city surrendered at discretion. The king and all the royal family, the remaining treasures of the Temple, the strength of the army and the nobility, and all the more useful artisans, were carried away to Babylon. Over this wreck of a kingdom, Zedekiah (Mattaniah), the younger son of Josiah, was permitted to enjoy an inglorious and precarious sovereignty of eleven years, during which he abused his powers, even worse than his imbecile predecessors. In his ninth year, notwithstanding the remonstrances of the wise Jeremiah, he endeavoured to assert his independence; and Jerusalem, though besieged by Nebuchadnezzar in person, now made some resistance. … At length, in the city, famine reduced the fatal obstinacy of despair. Jerusalem opened its gates to the irresistible conqueror. The king, in an attempt to break through the besieging forces, or meditating flight towards his ally, the king of Ammon, was seized on the plain of Jericho. His children were slain before his face, his eyes put out, and thus the last king of the royal house of David, blind and childless, was led away into a foreign prison. The capture of Jerusalem took place on the ninth day of the fourth month: on the seventh day of the fifth month (two days on which Hebrew devotion still commemorates the desolation of the city by solemn fast and humiliation) the relentless Nebuzaradan executed the orders of his master by levelling the city, the palaces, and the Temple, in one common ruin. The few remaining treasures, particularly the two brazen pillars which stood before the Temple, were sent to Babylon; the chief priests were put to death, the rest carried into captivity. … {1908} The miserable remnant of the people were placed under the command of Gedaliah, as a pasha of the great Assyrian monarch; the seat of government was fixed at Mizpeh. … Nebuzaradan (the general of Nebuchadnezzar) only left, according to the strong language of the Second Book of Kings, xxv. 12, 'of the poor of the land, to be vine-dressers and husbandmen.' … In general it seems that the Jewish exiles [in Babylonia] were allowed to dwell together in considerable bodies, not sold as household or personal or prædial slaves, at least not those of the better order of whom the Captivity chiefly consisted. They were colonists rather than captives, and became by degrees possessed of considerable property. … They had free enjoyment of their religion, such at least as adhered faithfully to their belief in Jehovah. We hear of no special and general religious persecution. The first deportation of chosen beautiful youths, after the earlier defeat of Jehoiakim, for hostages, or as a kind of court-pages, was not numerous. The second transportation swept away the king, his wife, all the officers and attendants of his court, 7,000 of the best of the army, 1,000 picked artisans, armourers, and others, amounting to 10,023 men. The last was more general: it comprehended the mass of the people, according to some calculations towards 300,000 or 400,000 souls."

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, books 8-9, with foot-note (volume 1).

The inhabitants left behind in Judæa "formed but a pitiful remnant of the former kingdom of Judah. Part of them had grown wild and led the lives of freebooters. Others busied themselves with agriculture, but they had much to suffer from the bands of Chaldean soldiers that roved about the land, and from the neighbouring tribes, who took advantage of Israel's abasement to extend their territories. … We do not know with certainty the number of the exiles carried off by Nebuchadnezzar: the returns given in the Old Testament are evidently incomplete. But that their number was very considerable, can be gathered from the number of those who afterwards went back. For their intrinsic worth, even more than for their numerical strength, these exiles had a right to be regarded as the real representatives of the kingdom of Judah and thus of all Israel. … It was … the kernel of the nation that was brought to Babylonia. Our information as to the social condition of the exiles is very defective. Even to the question, where they had to settle, we can only return an imperfect answer. We meet with a colony of exiles, companions of Jeconiah, at Tel-abib, in the neighbourhood of the river Chebar, usually supposed to be the Chaboras, which runs into the Euphrates not far from Circesium, but considered by others to be a smaller river, nearer to Babylon. It lay in the nature of the case, that the second and third company of captives received another destination. Even had it been possible, prudence would have opposed their settling in the immediate vicinity of their predecessors. We are not surprised therefore that Ezekiel, who lived at Tel-abib, does not mention their arrival there. Where they did go we are not told. The historian says 'to Babylon,' to which place, according to him, the first exiles (597 B. C.) were also brought; probably he does not, in either passage, mean only the capital of the Chaldean kingdom, but rather the province of that name to which the city of course belonged. … Nebuchadnezzar's purpose, the prevention of fresh disturbances, having been attained by their removal from Judæa, he could now leave them to develop their resources. It was even for the interest of the districts in which they settled, that their development should not be obstructed. Many unnecessary and troublesome conflicts were avoided and the best provision was made for the maintenance of order, by leaving them free, within certain limits, to regulate their own affairs. So the elders of the families and tribes remained in possession of the authority which they had formerly exercised."

A. Kuenen, The Religion of Israel, chapter 7 (volume 2).

"About the middle of the sixth century before Christ, Cyrus, King of Elam, began the career of conquest which left him master of Western Asia. Greek writers of history have done full justice to the character of this extraordinary man, but what they tell of his origin, his early adventures and rise to power, is for the most part mere fable. … Within recent years a new light has been thrown on one of the dimmest figures of the old world by the discovery of contemporary documents, in which the Conqueror of Babylon himself records his victories and the policy of his reign. … It appears from the Inscriptions that the founder of the Persian Empire was by no means the parvenu prince described by Herodotus. Cyrus was a king's son, and in early youth, by legitimate succession, himself became a king. From Susa (Shushan) on the Choaspes, his capital city, he ruled over the fertile and populous region lying eastward of the Lower Tigris which bore the name of Elam or Susiana. This realm was one of the most ancient in Western Asia. … Nabonidus became king of Babylon in the year 555 B. C. He had raised himself to the throne by conspiracy and murder, and his position at first was insecure. The eastern provinces, Syria and Phœnicia, rose in revolt against the usurper, while the Medes on the north began a harassing warfare and threatened an invasion of Babylonia. This latter danger was averted for the time by an unlooked-for deliverance. In the sixth year of Nabonidus (550 B. C.) Cyrus led his army against Astyages, the Median king. The discontented soldiery of Astyages mutinied on the eve of battle, seized the person of their sovereign, and delivered him up to the enemy. … This bloodless victory added Media to the dominions of Cyrus, gave him Ecbatana as a second capital and place of arms, and more than doubled his military strength. … The real aim of Cyrus was the overthrow of Babylon, and the construction of a new and still wider empire on the ruins of the old. … Within the two years following his conquest of the Medes he had extended his sway over the kindred race of the Persians, from which he himself had sprung. The wild tribes of Iran had long looked greedily on the rich Chaldæan plains and cities, and only waited a leader before swooping down like ravenous birds on their prey. This leader appeared in Cyrus. … Forty years had passed since the destruction of Jerusalem and the deportation of the great mass of the Jewish people to Babylonia (588 B. C.). During this period, under Nebuchadnezzar and his immediate successors on the throne, the exiles had lived in peace, following without interference their own customs, religious and social. … Nothing hindered them from leading a quiet and comfortable life among the Chaldæans, if only they were content to break with their past and give up hope for the future. {1909} But this was impossible for all true Israelites. They could not forget what they had been, or reconcile themselves to be what they now were. They had the means of livelihood in abundance, but to them their drink was as vinegar, their meat as gall. … The home-sickness of the people finds manifold expression in the literature of the Exile. … Now, as at every crisis in the national history, the Prophets stood forth, the true leaders of Israel. They kept the people constantly in mind of their high destinies, and comforted and encouraged them in their darkest hours. … Among the Jewish exiles, enlightened by the prophetic word, the name Koresh passed from lip to lip, and the movements of this new Conqueror were followed with straining eyes. … In the month Nisan (March) of the year 547 B. C., the ninth year of Nabonidus, Cyrus crossed the Tigris at the fords of Arbela, eastward of the modern Mosul, and began his first invasion of Babylonia. … Meanwhile the fainéant king Nabonidus lingered in his palace near Babylon, leaving the defence of the empire to his eldest son, the Prince Royal Belshazzar. Whether worsted in battle or, as is more likely, baffled by the difficulties in the way of an invader—the country seamed with water-courses, the numerous fortified towns, the Median Wall—Cyrus was forced to retreat. … In the seventeenth year of Nabonidus (539 B. C.) the King of Elam once more took the field against Babylon. This time the attack was made from the southeast. An opportune revolt of the southern provinces, probably fomented by Cyrus himself, opened the way for him into the heart of the land. … On all sides the disaffected subjects of Nabonidus went over to the invader, who passed on at the head of his 'vast army, innumerable, like the waters of a river,' without meeting any serious resistance. The last hope of Nabonidus rested on his Army of the North. In the month Tammuz (June) a pitched battle was fought near Routou, a town in Accad, and ended in the defeat of the Babylonians. A revolution followed at once. … Some days later the victorious army, under a lieutenant of the King, appeared before the walls of Babylon. The collapse of all authority made useless defences which were the wonder of the world; friendly hands threw open the brazen gates, and without a struggle the great city fell. … Four months later Cyrus entered Babylon in triumph. … The hitherto accepted opinion that Cyrus was an Aryan monotheist, a worshipper of Ormazd, and therefore so far in religious sympathy with the Jews, is seriously shaken if not overthrown by the Inscriptions which record his Babylonian conquest. Even if allowance be made for the fact that these are state documents, and reveal only what the monarch professed, not necessarily what he believed, there still remains the strong probability that Cyrus was not Zoroastrian in creed, but polytheist like his people of Elam. The Cyrus of the Inscriptions is either a fanatical idolater or simply an opportunist in matters of religion. The latter alternative is the more probable."

P. H. Hunter, After the Exile, part 1, chapters 1-2.

JEWS: B. C. 537. The return from Babylon.

"The fall of the metropolis had decided the fortune of the Babylonian kingdom, and the provinces. The most important of these was Syria, with the great trading places of the Phenicians on the Mediterranean. … The hopes of the Jews were at last fulfilled. The fall of Babylon had avenged the fall of Jerusalem, and the subjugation of Syria to the armies of Babylon opened the way for their return. Cyrus did not belie the confidence which the Jews had so eagerly offered him; without hesitation he gave the exiles permission to return and erect again their shrine at Jerusalem. The return of the captives and the foundation of a new state of the Jews was very much to his interest; it might contribute to support his empire in Syria. He did not merely count on the gratitude of the returning exiles, but as any revival of the Babylonian kingdom, or rebellion of the Syrians against the Persian empire, imperilled the existence of this community, which had not only to be established anew, but would never be very strong, it must necessarily oppose any such attempts. Forty-nine years—seven Sabbatical years, instead of the ten announced by Jeremiah—had passed since the destruction of Jerusalem, and more than sixty since Jeremiah had first announced the seventy years of servitude to Babylon. Cyrus commissioned Zerubbabel, the son of Salathiel, a grandson of Jechoniah, the king who had been carried away captive, and therefore a scion of the ancient royal race, and a descendant of David, to be the leader of the returning exiles, to establish them in their abode, and be the head of the community; he bade his treasurer Mithridates give out to him the sacred vessels, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away as trophies to Babylon, and placed in the temple of Bel; there are said to have been more than 5,000 utensils of gold and silver, baskets, goblets, cups, knives, etc. But all the Jews in Babylon did not avail themselves of the permission. Like the Israelites deported by Sargon into Media and Assyria some 180 years previously, many of the Jews brought to Mesopotamia and Babylonia at the time of Jechoniah and Zedekiah, had found there a new home, which they preferred to the land of their fathers. But the priests (to the number of more than 3,000), many of the families of the heads of the tribes, all who cared for the sanctuary and the old country, all in whom Jehovah 'awoke the spirit,' as the Book of Ezra says, began the march over the Euphrates. With Zerubbabel was Joshua, the high priest, the most distinguished among all the Jews, a grandson of the high priest, Zeraiah, whom Nebuchadnezzar had executed after the capture of Jerusalem. … It was a considerable multitude which left the land 'beyond the stream,' the waters of Babylon, to sit once more under the fig-tree in their ancient home, and build up the city of David and the temple of Jehovah from their ruins; 42,360 freemen, with 7,337 Hebrew men-servants and maid-servants; their goods were carried by 435 camels, 736 horses, 250 mules, and 6,720 asses (537 B. C.). The exodus of the Jews from Babylon is accompanied by a prophet with cries of joy, and announcements filled with the wildest hopes. … 'Go forth from Babylon,' he cries; 'fly from the land of the Chaldæans! Proclaim it with shouts of joy, tell it to the end of the earth and say: "Jehovah hath redeemed his servant Jacob."' {1910} 'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth glad tidings, that publisheth peace, that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth. Up, up, go forth, touch no unclean person; go forth from among them. Cleanse yourselves, ye that bear Jehovah's vessels. Ye shall go forth in joy, and be led in peace; the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees shall clap their hands. Jehovah goes before you, and the God of Israel brings up the rear. … Jehovah calls thee as an outcast sorrowful woman, and thy God speaks to thee as to a bride who has been put away; thy ruins, and deserts, and wasted land, which was destroyed from generation to generation—thy people build up the ruins, and renew the ancient cities. Behold, I will make thy desert like Eden, and thy wilderness like the garden of the Lord; I will lay thy stones with bright lead, and thy foundations with sapphires, and make thy towers of rubies and thy gates of carbuncles. Joy and delight is in them, thanksgiving and the sound of strings. The wealth of the sea shall come to thee, and the treasures of the nations shall be thine; like a stream will I bring salvation upon Israel, and the treasures of the nations like an overflowing river. Thy sons hasten onward; those that laid thee waste go forth from thee. Lift up thine eyes and see; thy sons come from far, and I will gather them to those that are gathered together. The islands and the ships of Tarshish wait to bring thy children from afar, their gold and their silver with them. The land will be too narrow for the inhabitants; widen the place for thy tent, let the carpets of thy habitation be spread—delay not. Draw out the rope; to the right and to the left must thou be widened. I will set up my banner for the nations, that they bring thy sons in their arm, and thy daughters shall be carried on the shoulders. Kings shall be thy guardians, and queens thy nursing-mothers; I will bow them to the earth before thee, and they shall lick the dust of thy feet, and thou shalt know that I am Jehovah, and they who wait patiently for me shall not be put to shame.' Such expectations and hopes were far from being realised. The Edomites had, in the mean-time, extended their borders and obtained possession of the South of Judah, but the land immediately round Jerusalem was free and no doubt almost depopulated. As the returning exiles contented themselves with the settlement at Jerusalem, the towns to the North, Anathoth, Gebah, Michmash, Kirjath-Jearim, and some others—only Bethlehem is mentioned to the South—they found nothing to impede them. Their first care was the restoration of the worship, according to the law and the custom of their fathers. … Then voluntary gifts were collected from all for the rebuilding of the temple; contributions even came in from those who had remained in Babylonia, so that 70,000 pieces of gold and 5,000 mimæ of silver are said to have been amassed. Tyrian masons were hired, and agreements made with Tyrian carpenters, to fell cedars in Lebanon, and bring them to Joppa, for which Cyrus had given his permission. The foundation of the temple was laid in the second year of the return (536 B. C.). … The fortunate beginning of the restoration of the city and temple soon met with difficulties. The people of Samaria, who were a mixture of the remnant of the Israelites and the strangers whom Sargon had brought there after the capture of Samaria, … and Esarhaddon at a later date, … came to meet the exiles in a friendly spirit, and offered them assistance, from which we must conclude that in spite of the foreign admixture the Israelitish blood and the worship of Jehovah were preponderant in Samaria. The new temple would thus have been the common sanctuary of the united people of Israel. But the 'sons of captivity' were too proud of the sorrows which they had undergone, and the fidelity which they had preserved to Jehovah, and their pure descent, to accept this offer. Hence the old quarrel between Israel and Judah broke out anew, and the exiles soon felt the result. After their repulse the Samaritans set themselves to hinder the building by force; 'they terrified the exiles that they built no more, and hired counsellors to make the attempt vain during the whole of the remainder of the reign of Cyrus.'"

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 8, chapter 8 (volume 6).

The duration of the Captivity, strictly speaking, "was only forty-seven years, if we reckon by the Canon of Ptolemy, from the 19th year of Nabuchodrozzor to the first of Cyrus; or, better, forty-nine years, if we add on, as we probably ought to do, the two years' reign of the Median king whom Cyrus set on the throne of Babylon."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 5, introduction.

"The decree of Cyrus, at the close of the captivity, extended only to the rebuilding of the Temple. 'Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven … hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem.' And under this decree Jeshua and Zerubbabel 'builded the altar of the God of Israel. … But the foundation of the Temple of the Lord was not yet laid.' Afterwards they 'laid the foundation of the Temple of the Lord,' including, apparently, the outer wall, for their enemies made a representation to the king of Persia that the Jews were rebuilding the walls of their city: 'The Jews which came up from thee to us are … building the rebellious and the bad city, and have set up the walls thereof, and joined the foundations.' And as the wall of the Temple, which was about twelve feet thick, gave a colour to the charge, a decree was issued by Artaxerxes to prohibit the further prosecution of the work. 'Then ceased the work of the house of God, which is at Jerusalem.' On the accession of Darius to the throne of Persia, Jeshua and Zerubbabel recommenced the restoration of the Temple, including the wall of the Outer Temple, for they 'began to build the house of God,' when their enemies again stepped forward, saying, 'Who hath commanded you to build this house, and to make up this wall?' And on a renewed complaint to the king of Persia, search was made for the decree of Cyrus, and when it was found, Darius permitted the Jews to proceed with the Temple; 'Let the governor of the Jews and the 'elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place;' and thereupon the structure and the outer walls thereof (the square of 600 feet) were completed: 'They builded and finished it … on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.' Thus far the rebuilding extended to the Temple only, and not to the walls of the city. Ezra afterwards obtained a decree to restore the nationality of the Jews, viz., to 'set magistrates and judges, which might judge all the people;' and afterwards Nehemiah, the cupbearer to the king, was enabled in a favourable moment to win from him express permission to rebuild the Baris, or Vestry, afterwards Antonia, and also the city: 'Send me unto Judah, unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that I may build it;' and a direction was given to the governors beyond the Euphrates to forward Nehemiah and his company to Jerusalem; and the king's forester was required to supply the necessary timber."

T. Lewin, Jerusalem, chapter 2.

{1911}

"The Jews returned home sobered and improved by their sufferings in exile, and entirely cured of their early hankering after idolatry. Having no political independence, and living under a governor, they devoted themselves all the more to religion, the only source and support of their nationality, and became zealots for the law, and for a devout carrying out of all its precepts, as far as practicable. All, indeed, could not be again restored, The most holy of the new temple was empty, for it was without the lost and irreplaceable ark of the covenant; the oracular ornaments of the high-priest had disappeared. As Jerusalem was now, far more than formerly, the head and heart of the nation, the high-priesthood … was the authority to which the nation willingly submitted; it served as the representative and pillar of unity, and the sons of David were forgotten. Another of the abiding consequences of their exile was, the altered mode of life which the nation led. At first they had been exclusively devoted to agriculture; but after mixing with strangers they learnt to engage in trade, and this inclination went on always increasing; it contributed essentially to their being spread far beyond the borders of Palestine, and to their multiplying their settlements in foreign lands."

J. J. I. Dollinger, The Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ, book 10, section 1 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 9.

JEWS: B. C. 536-A. D. 50. The Babylonian Jews.

"There is something very remarkable in the history of this race, for the most part descendants of those families which had refused to listen to the summons of Zorobabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah, and to return to the possession of their native country. … The singular part of their history is this, that, though willing aliens from their native Palestine, they remained Jews in character and religion; they continued to be a separate people, and refused to mingle themselves with the population of the country in which they were domiciliated. While those who returned to the Holy Land were in danger of forming a mixed race, by intermarriages with the neighbouring tribes, which it required all the sternest exercise of authority in their rulers to prevent, the Babylonian Jews were still as distinct a people as the whole race of Israel has been since the final dispersion. … Nor did they, like the Jews of Alexandria, become in any degree independent of the great place of national worship; they were as rigid Jews as if they had grown up within sight of the Temple. … The Temple became what the Caaba of Mecca is to the Mohammedans, the object of the profoundest reverence, and sometimes of a pious pilgrimage; but the land of their fathers had lost its hold on their affections; they had no desire to exchange the level plains of Babylonia for the rich pastures, the golden cornfields, or the rocky vineyards of Galilee and Judæa. This Babylonian settlement was so numerous and flourishing, that Philo more than once intimates the possibility of their marching in such force to the assistance of their brethren in Palestine, in case the Roman oppression was carried to excess, as to make the fate of the war very doubtful. Their chief city Nearda, was strongly situated in a bend of the river Euphrates, which almost surrounded the town." About the middle of the first century (of the Christian era) a band of freebooters, formed by two brothers of this Jewish community, gave great provocation to the Babylonians, and to the Parthian king whose subjects they then were. They were finally, but with much difficulty, destroyed, and the Babylonians then "began to commit dreadful reprisals on the whole Jewish population. The Jews, unable to resist, fled in great numbers to Seleucia; six years after many more took refuge from a pestilence in the same city. Seleucia happened to be divided into two factions: one of the Greeks, the other of the Syrians. The Jews threw themselves into the scale of the Syrians, who thus obtained a superiority, till the Greeks came to terms with the Syrians; and both parties agreed to fall upon the unhappy Jews. As many as 50,000 men were slain. The few who escaped fled to Ctesiphon. Even there the enmity of the Seleucians pursued them; and at length the survivors took refuge in their old quarters, Nearda and Nisibis."

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 12 (volume 2).

JEWS: B. C. 433-332. The century of Silence.

"The interval between the Testaments has been called 'The Centuries of Silence.' The phrase is most untrue; for, as a whole, this time was vocal with the cry of a battle in which empire contended with empire, and philosophy with philosophy: it was an age of earnest and angry contention. But the hundred years succeeding the death of Nehemiah are for us, so far as any record remains of that Judæan history, a century of silence. For some reason which does not appear, the period from the death of this sturdy old captain at Jerusalem to the time of the Greek conquest of Persia has no Jewish history. That it was a period of growth and development with the Judæans—especially in their theological and ecclesiastical life—is evident from the changes which the close of the century shows. The stress of external events made it a time of heavy taxation and distress,—a time of struggle with Samaria, and of internal conflict for the control of the high priest's office."

T. R Slicer, Between the Testaments (The New World, March, 1892).

JEWS: B. C. 413-332. The rule of the High Priests.

"After the death of Nehemiah and the high priest, Eliashib (413 B. C.), the Persian Court did not appoint governors of Judea. Samaria was the seat of the Persian Satrap for Syria, Phœnicia and Palestine. The sons of David had lost prestige under Nehemiah (Psalm lxxxix.). The ruler acknowledged by the Law, the prophet (Deuteronomy xviii. 15), was no more; the last prophets under Nehemiah, with the exception of Malachi, had proved unworthy of their illustrious predecessors. Therefore, the high priest was now the first man in the theocracy, and, contrary to the Laws of Moses (Leviticus x. 3), he was acknowledged the chief ruler of the nation, although he was no longer the bearer of the Urim and Thumim (Ezra ii. 63). He presided over the Great Synod, was the representative of the people before the king and his satrap, and gradually he established himself in the highest dignity of the nation."

I. M. Wise, History of the Hebrews' Second Commonwealth, 1st period, chapter 4.

{1912}

JEWS: B. C. 332-167. The Greek domination. Jewish dispersion. Hellenism.

On the fall of the Persian monarchy, Judea, with all the rest of western Asia, was gathered into the empire of Alexander the Great (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 334-330, and after), Jerusalem submitting to him without a siege, and so avoiding the fate of Tyre. In the wars between Alexander's generals and successors, which followed his death, Palestine changed masters several times, but does not seem to have been much disturbed. The High Priests continued to be the chiefs of the nation, and neither the religion nor the internal government of the Hebrew state suffered much interference. The final partition made among the new Macedonian kings (B. C. 302), gave Palestine to Ptolemy of Egypt, and it remained subject to Egypt for a century. This period was a happy one, on the whole, for the Jews. The Ptolemies were friendly to them, with one exception, respecting their religion and laws. Large numbers of them settled in Egypt, and especially in the rising new capital and emporium of trade—Alexandria. But in 201 B. C. Antiochus the Great, king of the Syrian or Seleucid monarchy, wrested Cœlosyria and Palestine from the Ptolemies and added it to his own dominions.

See SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187.

Antiochus dealt favorably with the Jews, but his successors proved harder masters than the Egyptian Greeks.

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 5, section 2 (volume 5).

"These kings promoted the settlement of Greeks and Syrians in Palestine, so that it was by degrees all covered with cities and towns of Grecian nomenclature. The narrow territory of Judea alone kept free of them, but was surrounded with settlers whose speech, customs, and creed were Greek. On the other hand, the Jews went on spreading in lands where Greek was spoken. A good many of these were planted in Egypt, in the newly founded capital Antioch, in Lydia and Phrygia. Led on by their love of trade, they soon became numerous in the commercial cities of western Asia, Ephesus, Pergamus, Miletus, Sardis, &c. From Egypt and Alexandria, in which city, at a later period, they formed two-fifths of the inhabitants, they drew along the coast of Africa to Cyrene and the towns of the Pentapolis, and from Asia Anterior to the Macedonian and Greek marts; for the national love of commerce became more and more developed, till it absorbed all other occupations, and to this certainly the general inclination for commercial intercourse, prevalent at that period, greatly contributed. Thus it happened that two movements, identical in their operation, crossed each other, viz., an influx of Greek, or of Asiatic but hellenised, settlers into Palestine, and an outpouring of Jews and Samaritans into the, cities speaking the Greek tongue. In olden times, while the Israelites still possessed a national kingdom, they felt their isolation from other people as a burden. It was as an oppressive yoke to them, which they bore impatiently, and were always trying to shake off. They wanted to live like other nations, to eat, drink, and intermarry with them, and, together with their own God, to honour the gods of the stranger also; for many raw and carnally-minded Jews only looked upon the one special God and protector of their nation as one god amongst many. But now there was a complete change in this respect. The Jews everywhere lived and acted upon the fundamental principle, that between them and all other nations there was an insurmountable barrier; they shut themselves off, and formed in every town separate corporations, with officers of their own; while at the same time they kept up a constant connexion with the sanctuary at Jerusalem. They paid a tribute to the temple there, which was carefully collected everywhere, and from time to time conveyed in solemn procession to Jerusalem. There alone, too, could the sacrifices and gifts which were demanded by the law be offered. In this wise they preserved a centre and a metropolis. And yet there followed from all this an event, which in its consequences was one of the most important in history, namely, the hellenising of the Jews who were living out of Judea, and even, in a degree, of those who remained in their own land. They were a people too gifted intellectually to resist the magnetic power by which the Hellenistic tongue and modes of thought and action worked even upon such as were disposed to resist them on principle. The Jews in the commercial towns readily acquired the Greek, and soon forgot their mother tongue; and as the younger generation already in their domestic circle were not taught Greek by natives, as might be supposed, this Jewish Greek grew into a peculiar idiom, the Hellenistic. During the reign of the second Ptolemy, 284-247 B. C., the law of Moses was translated at Alexandria into Greek, probably more to meet the religious wants of the Jews of the dispersion than to gratify the desire of the king. The necessity of a knowledge of Hebrew for the use of the holy Scriptures was thereby done away with, and Greek language and customs became more and more prevalent. Individuals began to join this or that school of philosophy, according to predilection and intellectual bias. The Platonic philosophy had necessarily most attractions for the disciples of Moses. The intrusion of Hellenism into Judea itself met with a much more considerable resistance from the old believing and conservative Jews. Those of the heathen dispersion were obliged to be satisfied with mere prayer, Bible readings and expositions, in their proseuchæ and synagogues, and to do without the solemn worship and sacrifices of the temple; but in Jerusalem the temple-worship was carried out with all its ancient usages and symbols. There presided the Sopherim, the Scribes or skilled expounders of the law, a title first appropriated to Esdras (about 450 B. C.). He was one of the founders of the new arrangements in the restored state, and was a priest, and at the same time a judge appointed by the king of Persia. … From that time forth dependence on the law, pride in its possession as the pledge of divine election, and the careful custody of this wall of partition, sank deep into the character of the nation, and became the source of many advantages as well as of serious faults. … The later Jewish tradition makes much mention of the great synagogue believed to have existed already in the time of Esdras, or to have been founded by him. It is supposed to have mustered 120 members, and, under the presidency of the high-priest, was to be the guardian of the law and doctrine. {1913} One of its last rulers was Simon the Just, who was high-priest, and the most distinguished doctor of his time (that of the first Ptolemys). Afterwards this threefold dignity or function of high-priest, scribe or rabbi, and of Nasi or prince of the synagogue, were never united in one person. … The high-priesthood fell into contempt, the more it served foreign rulers as the venal instrument of their caprice; but the Scribes flourished as being the preservers of all theological and juridical knowledge, and were supported by the respect and confidence of the people. … By the year 170 B. C., Hellenism had undoubtedly made such progress among the Jews, in Palestine even, that the Assyrian king, Antiochus Epiphanes, was able to plan the extirpation of the Jewish religion, and the conversion of the temple at Jerusalem into a temple of Jupiter Olympius."

J. J. I. Döllinger, The Gentile and the Jew in the Courts of the Temple of Christ, book 10, section 1 (volume 2).

Twice, Antiochus Epiphanes crushed rebellion in Jerusalem with awful ferocity. On the last occasion, the slain were believed to number 80,000, while 10,000 captives were led away and sold as slaves. The city was sacked and partly burned; the Temple was plundered and polluted. "Not content with these enormities, Antiochus determined to abolish altogether the Jewish religion, and, if possible, entirely to exterminate the race. With this intention, he issued an edict throughout his dominions, calling upon all the nations who were subject to his authority to renounce their religion and worship his gods, and this order he enforced with the most severe pains and penalties. The Jews were the only people who ventured to disobey the edict, whereupon, Antiochus ordered them to be treated with the utmost rigour, and sent to Jerusalem an old man named Atheneas, who was well versed in the rites of the Greek worship, as commissioner, to enforce obedience to his commands. This old pagan dedicated the Temple to Jupiter Olympus, and placed a statue of that false deity upon the altar of burnt offering. This desecration was not confined to Jerusalem, for everywhere throughout the Syrian empire groves and temples were dedicated, and statues and altars erected, to the heathen deities, and the worship of the true God was everywhere prohibited, and punished as the worst of crimes. That the chief fury of Antiochus's impious rage was directed against the Jews is evident from the fact that, whilst a general edict was published, condemning to death or torture all those who refused to worship the idols, a special decree was promulgated, by which it was made death to offer sacrifices to the God of Israel, observe the Sabbath, practise circumcision, or indeed to conform in the smallest degree to the precepts of the Mosaic law. Every effort was also made to destroy the copies of the Holy Scriptures; and persons refusing to deliver them up were punished by death. In this terrible distress, many of the Jews abandoned their homes and took shelter in the wilderness, where 'they lived in the mountains after the manner of beasts, and fed on herbs continuously lest they should be partakers of the pollution' (Maccabees v.). Of those who remained behind, some few yielded to the temptation, and saved themselves by apostacy, but the majority remained faithful to the God of their forefathers, Who, in His own good time, hearkened to the prayers of His people, and sent them a deliverer."

E. H. Palmer, History of the Jewish Nation, chapter 7.

JEWS: B. C. 166-40. Revolt of the Maccabees. Reign of the Asmoneans. Rise of Herod.

The heroic family called The Maccabees, which began and led the revolt of the Jewish people against the oppression and persecution of the Seleucidæan kings, bore, also, the name of the Asmonean or Hasmonean family, derived from the name of "its chief of four generations back, Chasmon, or Asmon, 'the magnate.'" The head of the family at the time of the outbreak of the revolt, and who precipitated it, was Mattathias. He had five sons, the third of whom, Judas, became the military leader and great hero of the nation in its struggle. To Judas was given the surname or appellation of Makkabi, from whence came his historical name of Judas Maccabæus, and the general name of The Maccabees by which his family at large is commonly designated. The surname "Makkabi" is conjectured to have had the same meaning as that of Charles the "Martel"—viz., the "Hammerer"; but this is questioned. "Under Judas the revolt assumed larger proportions, and in a short time he was able to meet and defeat the Syrians in the open field. The situation which the Romans had created in Syria was favourable to the Jewish cause. In order to find money to pay the tribute imposed by Rome upon his house; Antiochus had to undertake an expedition into the Far East, which depleted Syria of a large number of troops. During the king's absence the government of the country was entrusted to a high functionary named Lysias. Lysias took a serious view of the rebellion in Judæa, and despatched a force under the command of three generals to suppress it. But this army met with alarming reverses at the hands of Judas, and Lysias was obliged to go to Palestine in person to conduct the campaign. Meanwhile Antiochus had been apprised of the disasters which had befallen his captains, and was hastening homewards to assume the supreme direction of affairs, when death put a termination to his career (B. C. 164). The pressure of Roman policy upon Antiochus was the indirect cause of the Jewish revolt, and the immediate cause of the king's inability to suppress it. After the death of Antiochus, the distracted state of Syria and the struggles of rival pretenders for the crown strengthened the position of the Jewish patriots. Antiochus V., son of the late king, was only nine years old when he began to reign (B. C. 164). His father had appointed a courtier named Philip regent during his son's minority. But this arrangement did not satisfy Lysias, who had the young king in his custody, and who was carrying on the campaign in Palestine when the news of his supersession by Philip arrived. Lysias immediately left off the contest with Judas, and devoted his energies to the task of resisting Philip's claims. At this juncture, if any historic value can be attached to a statement in the Second Book of the Maccabees, two Roman envoys, Quintus Memmius and Titus Manlius, who were probably on their way from Alexandria to Antioch, offered to take charge of Jewish interests at the Syrian capital. Peace is said to have been the outcome of their efforts (B. C. 162). But it was a peace which did not endure. {1914} In the following year the Syrian king once more invaded Palestine at the head of a great army, and, in spite of the strenuous opposition of Judas, laid siege to the Holy City. Famine soon reduced the garrison to the last extremities, and their fate would have been a hard one had not the disordered condition of Syria compelled the besiegers to accept honourable terms. Whilst the siege was in progress news came to the Syrian camp that Philip had put himself at the head of a large army, with the intention of enforcing his claims to the regency. No time was to be lost, and the king, acting on the advice of Lysias, accorded the Jews religious liberty. Jerusalem capitulated; and the same order of things was established as had existed previous to the insurrection. Soon after these events Antiochus V. was dethroned and executed by his relative, Demetrius I. In Judæa the new monarch allowed the people to retain the religious liberties granted them by his predecessor, and had he exercised more judgment in the selection of a High Priest it would have been impossible for Judas to renew the struggle against Syria with any prospect of success. The Assidæans, or Pious Ones, who afterwards developed into the party known as the Pharisees, and who, while their religion was at stake, were devoted followers of Judas, were satisfied with the attainment of religious freedom. But Judas and his friends, who formed the party which afterwards became the Sadducees, … were unwilling to relax their efforts till the country was completely independent. The Assidæans, consisting of the scribes and the bulk of the population, accepted Alcimus, the High Priest whom Demetrius had appointed, and were disposed for peace. But the senseless barbarities of Alcimus threw the Assidæans once more into the arms of the war party, and the struggle began afresh. The High Priest was obliged to flee from Jerusalem; Demetrius sent an army to reinstate him, but Judas defeated the Syrian forces, and the Jews enjoyed a short period of repose. … Two Jewish delegates, Eupolemos and Jason, were sent to Italy to form an alliance with Rome. The Senate, which never neglected an opportunity of crippling the Syrian monarchy, accorded a favourable reception to the Jewish envoys, and acknowledged the independence of their country. … While these negotiations were taking place the Syrian army again invaded Palestine. Judas went forth to meet them, and, after a desperate conflict, was defeated and slain [at Beer-Zath] (B. C. 161). The death of their leader shattered the party of freedom, and the Romans, probably because they saw no distinct centre of authority left standing in the country, ignored the treaty they had just made with the Jewish envoys, and left Judæa to its fate. It was not by direct intervention that the Romans helped the Jews forward on the path of independence; it was by the disintegrating action of Roman policy on the kingdom of Syria. The Jewish leaders did not fail to take advantage of the opportunities which were thus afforded them. About nine years after the death of Judas Maccabæus, the Romans started a new pretender to the Syrian crown in the person of Alexander Balas, a young man of unknown origin (B. C. 152). Supported by the allies of Rome, Balas was able to take the field against Demetrius, who became alarmed at the threatening aspect of affairs: Jonathan, a brother of Judas, was then at the head of the Jewish patriots (B. C. 161-142), and Demetrius attempted by concessions to win him over to his side. When the pretender Balas heard of this, he immediately outbade Demetrius, and offered Jonathan the High Priesthood as the price of his support. Jonathan sold himself to the highest bidder, and, notwithstanding further profuse promises from Demetrius, the Jewish leader remained true to his allegiance. The war between the two rivals did not last long; Demetrius was overthrown and slain (B. C. 151), and at the marriage of the new king, Jonathan was appointed civil and military governor of Judæa." The spiritual and the temporal government of the Jews was now united in the office of High Priest. Jonathan, captured and murdered by one of the Syrian pretenders, was succeeded in the office (B. C. 142), by another brother, Simon, who was assassinated, B. C. 135, by an ambitious son-in-law. Simon's son, John Hyrcanus, took his place.

W. D. Morrison, The Jews under Roman Rule, chapter 1.

The Asmonean family had now become so established in its princely character that the next of the line, Judas (who took the Greek name Aristobulus), assumed the crown and title of King (B. C. 105). Aristobulus reigned less than two years, and was succeeded by his brother Jonathan (Jannæus) Alexander. "These Jewish princes were as wide apart in character as in name from the house whose honours they inherited. Aristobulus, the bloody, … starved in prison his mother, whom John had left as regent. … Alexander, named Jannæus, in a reign of five and twenty years, was mostly occupied in petty wars,—generally unsuccessful, but indefatigable to begin afresh. He signalized himself in successive revolts of his people, first by the barbarous slaughter of 6,000, then by a civil war of some six years, which cost 10,000 lives, and finally by crucifying 800. … A restless, dissolute, ambitious man, called 'the Thracian' for his barbarities, his rule abhorred except for the comparative mercy he showed in the cities he had conquered, he died [B. C. 79] before the age of fifty, having done the one service of confirming the Jewish power upon the soil of Palestine."

J. H. Allen, Hebrew Men and Times, chapter 10.

"When … Jannæus Alexander died, the Jewish kingdom stretched towards the south over the whole Philistian territory as far as the Egyptian frontier; towards the south-east as far as the Nabatæan kingdom of Petra, from which Jannæus had wrested considerable tracts on the right bank of the Jordan and the Dead Sea; towards the north over Samaria and the Decapolis up to the lake of Gennesareth; here he was already making arrangements to occupy Ptolemais (Acco) and victoriously to repel the aggressions of the Ityræans. The coast obeyed the Jews from Mount Carmel as far as Rhinocorura, including the important Gaza—Ascalon alone was still free; so that the territory of the Jews, once almost cut off from the sea, could now be enumerated among the asylums of piracy. Now that the Armenian invasion, just as it approached the borders of Judæa, was averted by the intervention of Lucullus, … the gifted rulers of the Hasmonæan house would probably have carried their arms still further, had not the development of the power of that remarkable conquering sacerdotal state been arrested by internal divisions. {1915} The spirit of religious independence and the national patriotism—the energetic union of which had called the Maccabee state into life—very soon became dissociated and even antagonistic. The Jewish orthodoxy [or Pharisaism] gaining fresh strength in the times of the Maccabees, … proposed as its practical aim a community of Jews composed of the orthodox in all lands essentially irrespective of the secular government—a community which found its visible points of union in the tribute to the temple at Jerusalem obligatory on every conscientious Jew and in the schools of religion and spiritual courts, and its canonical superintendence in the great temple consistory at Jerusalem, which was reconstituted in the first period of the Maccabees and may be compared as respects its sphere of jurisdiction to the Roman pontifical college. Against this orthodoxy, which was becoming more and more ossified into theological formalism and a painful ceremonial service, was arrayed the opposition of the so-called Sadducees—partly dogmatic, in so far as these innovators acknowledged only the sacred books themselves and conceded authority merely, not canonicity, to the 'bequests of the scribes,' that is canonical tradition; partly political, in so far as instead of a fatalistic waiting for the strong arm of the Lord of Zebaoth they taught that the salvation of the nation was to be expected from the weapons of this world, and above all from the internal and external strengthening of the kingdom of David as re-established in the glorious times of the Maccabees. The partisans of orthodoxy found their support in the priesthood and the multitude. … Jannæus had kept down the priesthood with a strong hand; under his two sons there arose … a civil and fraternal war, since the Pharisees opposed the vigorous Aristobulus and attempted to obtain their objects under the nominal rule of his brother, the good-natured and indolent Hyrcanus. This dissension not merely put a stop to the Jewish conquests, but gave also foreign nations opportunity to interfere and to obtain a commanding position in southern Syria. This was the case first of all with the Nabatæans. This remarkable nation has often been confounded with its eastern neighbours, the wandering Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramæan branch than to the proper children of Ishmael. This Aramæan, or, according to the designation of the Occidentals, Syrian, stock must have in very early times sent forth from its most ancient settlements about Babylon a colony, probably for the sake of trade, to the northern end of the Arabian gulf; these were the Nabatæans on the Sinaitic peninsula, between the gulf of Suez and Aila, and in the region of Petra (Wadi Mousa). In their ports the wares of the Mediterranean were exchanged for those of India; the great southern caravan-route, which ran from Gaza to the mouth of the Euphrates and the Persian gulf, passed through the capital of the Nabatæans—Petra—whose still magnificent rock-palaces and rock-tombs furnish clearer evidence of the Nabatæan civilization than does an almost extinct tradition. The party of the Pharisees, to whom after the manner of priests the victory of their faction seemed not too dearly bought at the price of the independence and integrity of their country, solicited Aretas the king of the Nabatæans for aid against Aristobulus, in return for which they promised to give back to him all the conquests wrested from him by Jannæus. Thereupon Aretas had advanced with, it was said, 50,000 men into Judæa and, reinforced by the adherents of the Pharisees, he kept king Aristobulus besieged in his capital."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 4 (volume 4).

"While this was going on, Pompey had meanwhile begun his victorious campaign in Asia [see ROME: B. C. 69-63]. He had conquered Mithridates in B. C. 66, and had in the same year received the voluntary submission of Tigranes. While he himself now pressed on farther into Asia, he sent Scaurus to Syria in B. C. 65. When that general arrived at Damascus he heard of the war between the brothers in Judea, and pushed forward without delay to see how he might turn to account this strife between the rival princes. He had scarcely reached Judea when ambassadors presented themselves before him, both from Aristobulus and from Hyrcanus. They both sought his favour and support. Aristobulus offered him in return four hundred talents; and Hyrcanus could not be behind, and so promised the same sum. But Scaurus trusted Aristobulus rather because he was in a better position to fulfil his engagement, and so decided to take his side. He ordered Aretas to withdraw if he did not wish to be declared an enemy of the Romans. Aretas did not venture to show opposition. He therefore raised the siege, and thereupon Scaurus returned to Damascus. But Aristobulus pursued Aretas on his way homeward, and inflicted upon him a crushing defeat. But the Roman favour which Aristobulus had so exerted himself to secure, under the protection of which he believed himself to be safe, soon proved fatal to his well-being and that of his country. He himself left no stone unturned in order to win the goodwill of Pompey as well as of Scaurus. He sent Pompey a costly present, a skilfully wrought golden vine worth five hundred talents, which Strabo found still on view at Rome in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. But all this could not save Aristobulus, whenever Pompey found it to be for his advantage to withdraw his favour and take the side of Hyrcanus. In the spring of B. C. 63, Pompey proceeded from his winter quarters into Syria, subdued the greater and smaller princes in the Lebanon, and advanced by way of Heliopolis and Chalcis upon Damascus. There he was met at one and the same time by representatives of three Jewish parties. Not only did Aristobulus and Hyrcanus appear, but the Jewish people also sent an embassy. Hyrcanus complained that Aristobulus, in defiance of all law, had violently assumed the government; Aristobulus justified his conduct by pointing out the incapacity of Hyrcanus. But the people wished to have nothing to do with either, asked for the abolition of the monarchy and the restoration of the old theocratic constitution of the priests. Pompey heard them, but cautiously deferred any decision, and declared that he would put all things in order when he had accomplished his contemplated expedition against the Nabatheans. Till then all parties were to maintain the peace. Aristobulus, however, was by no means satisfied with this arrangement, and betrayed his discontent by suddenly quitting Dium, whither he had accompanied Pompey on his expedition against the Nabatheans. Pompey grew suspicious, postponed his campaign against the Nabatheans, and marched immediately against Aristobulus. {1916} He … pursued him through Jericho, and soon appeared in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem. But now Aristobulus lost heart. He betook himself to the camp of Pompey, gave him further presents, and promised to surrender to him the city if Pompey would suspend hostilities. Pompey was satisfied with this, and sent his general Gabinius to take possession of the city, while he retained Aristobulus in the camp. But Gabinius returned without having obtained his object, for the people in the city had shut the gates against him. Pompey was so enraged at this that he put Aristobulus in prison, and immediately advanced against the city. … The city was surrendered to Pompey, who sent in his legate Piso, and without drawing sword took possession of it. But the war faction gathered together on the temple mount and there prepared themselves for resistance. The temple mount was then, as afterwards, the strongest point in Jerusalem. It presented to the east and the south a sheer precipice. Also on the west it was separated from the city by a deep ravine. Only on the north was there a gradual slope; but even there approach was made almost impossible by the construction of strong fortifications. In this fortress, well nigh impregnable, the adherents of Aristobulus had now taken refuge, and Pompey, whether he would or not, had to engage upon a regular siege. … After a three months' siege, a breach was made in the wall. A son of the dictator Sulla was the first to make way through it with his troops. Others quickly followed. Then began a frightful massacre. The priests, who were then engaged offering sacrifice, would not desist from the execution of their office, and were hewn down at the altar. No less than 12,000 Jews are said to have lost their lives in this general butchery. It was towards the close of autumn of the year B. C. 63, under Cicero's consulship, according to Josephus on the very day of atonement, according to Dio Cassius on a Sabbath, that this holy city bowed its head before the Roman commander. Pompey himself forced his way into the Most Holy Place, into which only the feet of the high priest had ever before entered. But he left the treasures and precious things of the temple untouched, and also took care that the service of God should be continued without interruption. On the besieged he passed a severe sentence. Those who had promoted the war were beheaded; the city and the country were made tributary. … The boundaries of the Jewish territories were greatly curtailed. All the coast towns from Raphia to Dora were taken from the Jews; and also all non-Jewish towns on the east of the Jordan, such as Hippos, Gadara, Pella, Dium, and others; also Scythopolis and Samaria, with the regions around them. All these towns were immediately put under the rule of the governor of the newly-formed Roman province of Syria. The contracted Jewish territory was given over to Hyrcanus II., who was recognised as high priest, without the title of king. … With the institutions of Pompey the freedom of the Jewish people, after having existed for scarcely eighty years, if we reckon it as beginning in B. C. 142, was completely overthrown. Pompey, indeed, was acute enough to insist upon no essential change in the internal government of the country. He suffered the hierarchical constitution to remain intact, and gave the people as their high priest Hyrcanus II., who was favoured by the Pharisees. But the independence of the nation was at an end, and the Jewish high priest was a vassal of the Romans."

E. Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, division 1, volume 1, pages 317-324.

Hyrcanus II. was not merely the vassal of the Romans; he was the puppet of one of his own partisans—the able Idumean, Antipater, who gathered the reins of government into his own hands. "Antipater ruled without interfering with Hyrcanus; he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, and appointed Phasael, the eldest of his four heroic sons (whose mother was Kypros, an Arabian), to be ruler of the district of the holy city, and Herod the younger to be ruler of Galilee. This young man, who was at that time scarcely twenty-five years old, was soon able to surpass even his father. … He purified Galilee from the robber-bands, of which Hezekiah was the most dreaded leader, and by so doing, although he was already a mark for the hatred borne by the national and priestly party against the Edomites, as friends of their new tyrants the Romans, he distinguished himself by dealing summarily with the robbers, without appealing to the legal authorities. He therefore appeared before the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem, to which he was summoned by Hyrcanus, with a military escort, wearing purple, with his head anointed, and bearing a letter of safe-conduct from his patron Sextus Cæsar, the ruler of Syria. … Hyrcanus allowed him to withdraw in defiance: he hastened to Syria, bought the governments of Cœle-Syria and Samaria (B. C. 46), marched thence with an army towards Jerusalem, and when he had with difficulty been persuaded by his father and brother to return, he rejoiced that he had at least menaced the country. Neither the death of Julius Cæsar (B. C. March 44), the civil war at Rome, nor the poisoning of his father Antipater at the table of Hyrcanus in the year 43, interfered with Herod's success: He bought the favour of Cæsar's murderers by the unexampled haste with which he brought in large contributions, amounting to a hundred talents (more than £20,000) from Galilee alone, so that Cassius appointed him Procurator of Syria, and promised him the dignity of king, in the event of a victory over Anthony and Octavianus, a prospect which indeed cost his father his life. Nor was Herod's power destroyed by the unfortunate battle of Philippi in the autumn of B. C. 42. He succeeded in gaining Anthony by the influence of his person and of his wealth; and in spite of all the embassies of the Jews, Phasael and Herod were appointed tetrarchs of the whole of Judea in the year B. C. 41. His betrothal to Mariamne, grand-child of Hyrcanus, which took place at the same time, added the illusion of national and hereditary right to Herod's previous good fortune. But there was first an interval of hardship. Immediately afterwards, the Parthian armies overran Upper Asia, while Anthony remained in Egypt, ensnared by Cleopatra: they took Jerusalem [B. C. 40], and to please that place as well as the Jews of Babylon, they installed Antigonus, the son of Aristobulus, as king, taking Phasael and Hyrcanus prisoners, while Herod escaped with difficulty. All was ended with a blow, Herod was put to flight, Phasael killed himself, and Antigonus cut off the cars of Hyrcanus the high priest. Herod landed in Italy as an adventurer. {1917} He met Anthony, and by his means also gained over Octavianus. Fear and hatred of the Parthians effected even more than old acquaintance and new engagements: and beyond his most daring hopes a decree of the senate [B. C. 40] bestowed the kingdom of Judea upon him."

T. Keim, History of Jesus of Nazara, volume I, page 231.

JEWS: B. C. 40-A. D. 44. Herod and the Herodians. Roman rule.

Returning to Judæa with his new rank and the confirmed support of Rome, "Herod slowly obtained possession of the country, not without the help of Roman legions, and in a third campaign, in June (Sivan), B. C. 37, occupied Jerusalem [after a siege of half a year] and the Temple, in the halls of which fire raged, contrary to his wish, and blood streamed through its courts. This was the second Roman occupation of Jerusalem, after an interval of twenty-six years, even to a day. Antigonus fell, by the king's wish, beneath the axe of Anthony, and the Maccabean house had ceased to reign. The new kingdom underwent its final crisis in the war between Octavianus and Anthony, in which Herod was constrained to take part with Anthony. … The frankness with which, after the battle of Actium (September, B. C. 31), he proclaimed his friendship for Anthony to Octavianus at the island of Rhodes, in order to set before him the prospect of a like faithfulness, procured the crown for him afresh, which Octavianus set upon his head." Octavianus "restored to him all the possessions which his intriguing enemy Cleopatra had obtained at his expense in the south of the country and on its western coast, giving to him Gadra, Hippo, Samaria, and on the coast Gaza, Anthedon, Joppa, the tower of Strato, and in short the whole country, and even more than he had lost by Pompey's conquests. A few years later the same benefactor enlarged the kingdom on the north-east, by making over to Herod, between the years B. C. 24-21, the wide extent of territory reaching to Anti-Lebanon, and Damascus, in order to protect that city from attacks on the side of the desert. He was appointed Procurator-General of Syria, and afterwards nearly obtained the government of Arabia. It was in fact almost the kingdom of David which was again united under Herod. Herod enjoyed the favour of Octavianus, with few intervals, to the last. … Herod did not merely owe his success to that officious attention which displayed the greatness of Rome in costly hospitalities, gifts, and edifices of every kind, but to his genuine fidelity and manly heroism, his pre-eminent wisdom and readiness to accept the culture of the West, qualities which were recognized as adapting him to be a most useful ally in the territory which bounded the eastern empire of Rome, where the inhabitants were so ready to take offence. Herod, in a certain sense, emulated his friend in Rome, in introducing an Augustan era into his land. He, as well as Octavianus, put an end to war, and the dominion which had been cemented together by the blood of its citizens enjoyed a long peace, lasting for almost forty years. … The prosperity of the country increased so much in these quiet times that Herod, when he began to build the Temple, boasted of the wealth and income which had accumulated in an unprecedented manner, so as to confirm the most fabulous accounts of the luxurious expenditure of his reign. … Herod was not devoid of nobler qualities, even although they have been forgotten by the Jews and Christians. He was not merely a brave leader in war, a bold hunter and rider, and a sagacious ruler; there was in him a large-heartedness and an innate nobility of mind which enabled him to be a benefactor of his people. This fundamental characteristic of his nature, inherited from his father, is admitted by the Jewish historian, times out of number, and has been shown by his affection for his father, mother, and brothers, and also for his friends, by his beneficence in good fortune, and even in adversity. … When in the thirteenth year of his reign (B. C. 25), some years before the building of the Temple, famine and sickness devastated the land, he sold the gold and silver treasures in his house, and himself became poor, while he bespoke great quantities of grain from Egypt, which he dispensed, and caused to be made into bread: he clothed the poor, and fed 50,000 men at his own expense: he himself sent help to the towns of Syria, and obtained the immediate, and indeed the enduring gratitude of the people as a second Joseph. Yet it was only the large-heartedness of a barbarian, without true culture, or deeper morality. Hence came the unscrupulousness, the want of consideration for the national peculiarities which he opposed, the base cunning and vanity which coloured all his actions, and hence again, especially in later life, he became subject to caprices, to anger and repentance, to mistrust and cruelty, to the wiles of women and of eunuchs. He was, in short, only the petty tyrant, the successful upstart who was self-seeking, and at once rash and timid; a beggar before Augustus; a foolish time-server before the Greek and Roman world; a tyrant in his own house, and incapable either of resisting influence or of enduring contradiction. … The dangerous position of the upstart, with respect to the earlier royal family and to the national aversion, the divisions of his numerous family, the intrigues of a court of women, eunuchs, barbers, and frivolous flatterers of every description, drew him on, as if with demoniacal power, from one stage of cruelty to another. … Daily executions began on his entry into Jerusalem in the year B. C. 37 with the execution of Antigonus, of the nephew of Hyrcanus, and of his own dependants. … He pardoned no one whom he suspected: he enforced obedience by an oath, and whoever would not swear forfeited his life. Innumerable people disappeared mysteriously in the fortress of Hyrcania. Life was forfeited even for the offence of meeting or standing together, when it was noticed by the countless spies in the city and on the highways, and indeed by himself in his rounds by night. The bloody decimation of his own family was most revolting. About the year B. C. 35 he caused his wife's brother Aristobulus, who had been high priest for eighteen years, to be stifled by his Gallic guards in a pond at Jericho, because he was popular, and belonged to the old family: in the year B. C. 31, after the battle of Actium, he murdered his grandfather-in-law Hyrcanus, aged eighty years, and in the year B. C. 30 or 29 his wife Mariamne, and a little later her intriguing mother Alexandra, since they had become objects of suspicion to him: in the year B. C. 25 his brother-in-law, Kostobar, find a long line of friends were slain: about the year B. C. 6, the sons of Mariamne, Alexander and Aristobulus, were judicially condemned and strangled in Samaria: and finally the diabolical Antipater, the son of the first marriage, who, together with Salome, Herod's sister, and with Alexandra, his mother-in-law, had taken the greatest part in the crimes of the family."

T. Keim, History of Jesus of Nazara, volume 1, pages 233-246.

{1918}

Herod died within the year (B. C. 4) which has been most generally agreed upon as that of the birth of Jesus. By ten wives he had had many children, and had slain not a few; but a large family survived, to quarrel over the heritage, disputing a will which Herod left. There was a hearing of the disputants at Rome, and also a hearing given to deputies of the Jewish people, who prayed to be delivered from the Herodian family, all and singly. The latter prayer, however, received small consideration. The imperial judgment established Archelaus, eldest son of Herod's sixth wife, Malthace, in the sovereignty of Judæa, Idumæa, and Samaria, with the title of Ethnarch. To Herod Antipas, second son of the same mother, it gave Galilee and Peræa. Philip, another son, by a seventh wife, was made tetrarch of a small principality. Archelaus governed so oppressively that, after some years (A. D. 6), he was deposed by the Romans and banished to Gaul. Judæa was then joined to the præfecture of Syria, under a succession of Roman governors, the fifth of whom was Pontius Pilate. "Judaea thus became in the year 6 A. D. a Roman province of the second rank, and, apart from the ephemeral restoration of the kingdom of Jerusalem under Claudius in the years 41-44, thenceforth remained a Roman province. Instead of the previous native princes holding office for life and, under reservation of their being confirmed by the Roman government, hereditary, came an official of the equestrian order, nominated and liable to recall by the emperor. The port of Caesarea rebuilt by Herod after a Hellenic model became, probably at once, the seat of Roman administration. The exemption of the land from Roman garrison, as a matter of course, ceased, but, as throughout in provinces of second rank, the Roman military force consisted only of a moderate number of cavalry and infantry divisions of the inferior class; subsequently one ala and five cohorts—about 3,000 men—were stationed there. These troops were perhaps taken over from the earlier government, at least in great part formed in the country itself, mostly, however, from Samaritans and Syrian Greeks. The province did not obtain a legionary garrison, and even in the territories adjoining Judaea there was stationed at the most one of the four Syrian legions. To Jerusalem there came a standing Roman commandant, who took up his abode in the royal castle, with a weak standing garrison; only during the time of the Passover, when the whole land and countless strangers flocked to the temple, a stronger division of Roman soldiers was stationed in a colonnade belonging to the temple. … For the native authorities in Judaea as everywhere the urban communities were, as far as possible, taken as a basis. Samaria, or as the town was now called, Sebaste, the newly laid out Caesarea, and the other urban communities contained in the former kingdom of Archelaus, were self-administering, under superintendence of the Roman authority. The government also of the capital with the large territory belonging to it was organised in a similar way. Already in the pre-Roman period under the Seleucids there was formed … in Jerusalem a council of the elders, the Synhedrion, or as Judaised, the Sanhedrin. The presidency in it was held by the high priest, whom each ruler of the land, if he was not possibly himself high priest, appointed for the time. To the college belonged the former high priests and esteemed experts in the law. This assembly, in which the aristocratic element preponderated, acted as the supreme spiritual representative of the whole body of Jews, and, so far as this was not to be separated from it, also as the secular representative in particular of the community of Jerusalem. It is only the later Rabbinism that has by a pious fiction transformed the Sanhedrion of Jerusalem into a spiritual institute of Mosaic appointment. It corresponded essentially to the council of the Greek urban constitution, but certainly bore, as respected its composition as well as its sphere of working, a more spiritual character than belonged to the Greek representations of the community. To this Synhedrion and its high priest, who was now nominated by the procurator as representative of the imperial suzerain, the Roman government left or committed that jurisdiction which in the Hellenic subject communities belonged to the urban authorities and the common councils. With indifferent short-sightedness it allowed to the transcendental Messianism of the Pharisees free course, and to the by no means transcendental land-consistory—acting until the Messiah should arrive—tolerably free sway in affairs of faith, of manners, and of law, where Roman interests were not directly affected thereby. This applied in particular to the administration of justice. It is true that, as far as Roman burgesses were concerned in the matter, justice in civil as in criminal affairs must have been reserved for the Roman tribunals even already before the annexation of the land. But civil justice over the Jews remained even after that annexation chiefly with the local authority. Criminal justice over them was exercised by the latter probably in general concurrently with the Roman procurator; only sentences of death could not be executed by it otherwise than after confirmation by the imperial magistrate. In the main those arrangements were the inevitable consequences of the abolition of the principality, and when the Jews had obtained this request of theirs, they in fact obtained those arrangements along with it. … The local coining of petty moneys, as formerly practised by the kings, now took place in the name of the Roman ruler; but on account of the Jewish abhorrence of images the head of the emperor was not even placed on the coins. Setting foot within the interior of the temple continued to be forbidden in the case of every non-Jew under penalty of death. … In the very beginning of the reign of Tiberius the Jews, like the Syrians, complained of the pressure of the taxes; especially the prolonged administration of Pontius Pilatus is charged with all the usual official crimes by a not unfair observer. But Tiberius, as the same Jew says, had during the twenty-three years of his reign maintained the time-hallowed holy customs, and in no part set them aside or violated them. This is the more to be recognised, seeing that the same emperor in the West interfered against the Jews more emphatically than any other, and thus the long-suffering and caution shown by him in Judaea cannot be traced back to personal favour for Judaism. In spite of all this both the opposition on principle to the Roman government and the violent efforts at self-help on the part of the faithful developed themselves even in this time of peace."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome: The Provinces, from Caesar to Diocletian, book 8, chapter 11.

{1919}

In the year 41 A. D. the house of Herod rose to power again, in the person of his grandson, Herod Agrippa, descendant of the unfortunate Mariamne. Agrippa had lived long at Rome and won the favor of two successive emperors, Caligula and Claudius. Caligula deposed Herod Antipas from the tetrarchy of Galilee and conferred it on Agrippa. Claudius, in 41, added Judæa and Samaria to his dominions, establishing him in a kingdom even greater than that of his grandfather. He died suddenly in 44 A. D. and Judæa again relapsed to the state of a Roman province. His young son, also named Herod Agrippa, was provided, after a few years, with a small kingdom, that of Chalcis, exchanged later for one made up of other districts in Palestine. After the destruction of Jerusalem he retired to Rome, and the line of Herod ended with him.

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 12.

ALSO IN: Josephus, Antiquity of the Jews, books 15-20.

H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 5, section 2.

JEWS: B. C. 8-A. D. 1. Uncertainty of the date of the birth of Jesus.

"The reigning Christian computation of time, that sovereign authority in accordance with which we reckon our life, and which is surely above the assault of any critical doubts, goes, be it remembered, but a very little way towards the settlement of this question [as to the year of the birth of Jesus] in as much as its inventor, a Scythian by birth, Dionysius the Less, Abbot of a Roman monastery (died 556 A. D.) [see ERA, CHRISTIAN], … had certainly no entire immunity from human frailty. … The comparatively best assured and best supported account places the birth of Jesus in the reign of King Herod the Great. Matthew knows no other chronology: Luke gives the same, along with another, or, if we will, along with two others. Matthew more particularly, in his own account, puts the birth in the last years of that king. Jesus is a little child at the time of the coming of the Magi, and he is still a child at the return of Joseph from the flight into Egypt, after the death of Herod has taken place. We shall hit the sense of the writer most exactly if we assume that Jesus, at the time of the coming of the Magi, who gave King Herod ground for conjecturing a Messiah of about the age of two,—was about two years old; at the time of Herod's death, about four. … Now since Herod died … shortly before Easter of the year 750 A. U. C., i. e., 4 years before the Christian era, Jesus must have been born four years before. 746 A. U. C., or 8 years before the reputed Christian era, a view which is expressly espoused in the fifth Christian century; according to Apocrypha, 3 years before Herod's death, 747 A. U. C., 7 years B. C. If we are able in addition to build upon Kepler's Conjunction of Planets, which Bishop Münter, in his book, 'The Star of the Wise Men,' 1827, called to remembrance, we get with complete certainty 747 or 748, the latter, that is, if we attach any value to the fact that in that year Mars was added to Jupiter and Saturn. Desirable however as such certainty might be, it is nevertheless hard to abandon oneself to it with enthusiastic joy. … An actual reminiscence on the part of the Christian community of the approximate point of time at which the Lord was born, would be hard to call in question, even though it might have overlooked or forgotten every detail of the youth of Jesus besides. Finally, there is after all a trace of such reminiscence independent of all legendary formation. The introductory history of Luke without any appreciable historical connexion, rather in conflict with the world of legend represented in his Gospel, places the birth of John the Baptist and of Jesus in Herod's time. At the same time there is just as little, or even less, sign than elsewhere in Luke's preliminary story, of any dependence on the account in Matthew, or any world of legend like his. We should thus still be inclined to infer that Jesus, according to ancient Christian tradition, was born under King Herod, and more particularly, according to the legend of Matthew, which after all is the better guaranteed of the two, towards the close of his reign. … Luke appears … so far to give the most precise boundary line to the birth of Jesus, inasmuch as he brings it into immediate connexion with the first taxing of Judæa by the Romans, which admits of exact historical computation. The Roman taxing was indeed the occasion of Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethlehem, and of the birth of Jesus in the inn there. This taxing took place, as Luke quite rightly observes, for the first time in Judæa, under the Emperor Augustus, and more precisely, under Quirinius' Governorship of Syria, and moreover, … not only after the death of Herod, but also after his son Archelaos had been reigning about ten years, in consequence of the dethronement of Archelaos and the annexation of Judæa and Samaria by the Romans in the year 760 A. U. C. 7 A. D. But here too at once begins the difficulty. According to this statement Jesus would have been born from ten to fourteen years later than the Gospels otherwise assert, Luke himself included. This late birth would not only clash with the first statement of the Gospels themselves, but equally with all probability, inasmuch as Jesus would then not have been as much as thirty years old at his death, which in any case took place before the recall of the Procurator Pilate (781 A. U. C. 35 A. D.). We are here therefore compelled to acknowledge a simple error of the writer. … Once more … does Luke incidentally compute the time of the birth of Jesus. By describing the time of John the Baptist's appearance and speaking of Jesus at that period as about thirty years old, he favours the assumption, that Jesus was born about thirty years before the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. … We shall … see grounds for considering the commencement of the Baptist's ministry, as fixed far too early anywhere near the date 28 A. D. But if after all we assume the figure, as it stands, the fifteenth year of Tiberius, reckoning his reign from the 19th of August, 767, or 14 A. D., was the year 781-782, or 28-29 A. D. In that case Jesus must have been born, reckoning about 30 years backwards, towards the year 751-752, i. e., 2-3 years before our reputed era. … Of the later attempts to restore the year of Jesus' birth, those of antiquity and of modern times claim our attention in different ways. … {1920} Irenæus, followed by Tertullian, Hippolytus, Jerome, gives the forty-first year of the Emperor Augustus, Clement of Alexandria the twenty-eighth year of the same, as the year of birth: much the same in both cases, viz. (751-752), inasmuch as the former reckons from the first consulate of Augustus after the death of Cæsar (731 A. U. C.); Clement from his conquest of Egypt (724). Later authorities since Eusebius, the first Church historian, marked the forty-second year of Augustus, following a notice of their predecessors, that is 752-753, which date however Eusebius would make out to agree with the year of Clement, with the twenty-eighth year from the occupation of Egypt. But how many other years besides were possible! Here Sulpicius Severus (400 A. D.) pushed back beyond the limit set by Irenæus, naming at one time 746-747 as the time of Jesus' birth, at another the consuls of 750, and the later date has also been found … by the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. Here again the date was shifted lower down than the figure of Eusebius to the forty-third year of Augustus, i. e., 753-754. This date is found already in Tertullian in one reading, though in conflict with the year 41; the Chronograph of the year 354 puts it down with the express mention of the Consuls Cæsar and Paulus at 754 A. U. C., the Egyptian monk Panodorus (400 A. D.) has so reckoned it; and the founder of the Christian reckoning, the Abbot Dionysius (Easter Table 525 A. D.) introduced it for all time. … What is certain is that this year 754 A. U. C. 1 A. D., this official Christian calendar, does not hit the tradition of the Gospels. In modern times, thanks to the efforts of great astronomers and chronologists, Kepler, Ideler, and Münter, the year 747 or 748 has found the greatest favour as the year of the Wise Men's star. But since people have come back from their enthusiasm for the discovery of this conjunction to a more faithful regard for the Gospels, it has always commended itself afresh, to place the birth of Jesus at latest in the first beginning of the year 750 (4 B. C.), i. e., before the death of King Herod, but if possible from two to four years earlier still 746-748, or 8-6 B. C. Thus Ewald inclines half to the year 748, and half to 749: Petavius, Usher, Lichtenstein to 749, Bengal, Anger, Winer, Wieseler to 750, Wurm indeed following Scaliger to 751, finally in latest times Rösch, attaching great weight to the statements of the Fathers, as well as to the Chinese star, actually gets by a multifariously laborious method, at 751-752, in which year, as he decides, even Herod must have been alive in spite of Josephus, and on the strength of an innocuous observation by a Jewish Rabbi. If it was hard enough to arrive at any certainty, or, at all events, probability with respect to the year of Jesus' birth, we must entirely waive all pretensions to tell the month or the day, however justifiable may be our curiosity on this head. Our traditional observance of the Day of Jesus on the 25th of December is not prescribed in any ancient calendar."

Dr. T. Keim, History of Jesus of Nazara, volume 2, pages 109-126.

ALSO IN: W. H. Anderdon, Fasti Apostolici, introd.

JEWS: A. D. 26. Political situation of Judæa at the time of the appearance of Jesus.

"Let us recall, in a few outlines, the political situation of Judæa at the exact moment when Jesus appeared before His countrymen. The shadow of independence, which had been left to it under the vassal kingdom of Herod the Great, had long vanished. Augustus had annexed Judæa to the Roman empire, not by making it one of those senatorial provinces governed by proconsuls, but as a direct dependant on his authority. He associated it with the government of Syria, the capital of which was Antioch, the residence of the imperial legate. In consequence, however, of its importance, and the difficulties presented by the complete subjection of such a people, the procurator of Judæa enjoyed a certain latitude in his administration; he at the same time managed the affairs of Samaria, but as a second department, distinct from the first. Faithful to the wise policy which it had pursued with so much success for centuries, Rome interfered as little as possible with the usages and institutions of the conquered province. The Sanhedrim was, therefore, allowed to continue side by side with the procurator, but its power was necessarily very limited. Its jurisdiction was confined to matters of religion and small civil causes: the procurator alone had the right of decreeing capital punishment. The high-priestly office had lost much of its importance. The Asmoneans and Herods had reduced it to a subordinate magistracy, of which they made a tool for their own purposes. Herod the Great had constituted himself guardian of the sacerdotal vestments, under pretext that he had had them restored to their first magnificence, on the Levitical model; he bestowed them only on the men of his choice. The Romans hastened to follow his example, and thus to keep in their hands an office which might become perilous to them. The procurator of Judæa resided at Cæsarea. He only came to Jerusalem for the solemn feasts, or in exceptional cases, to administer justice. His prætorium stood near the citadel of Antonia. The Roman garrison in the whole of Palestine did not exceed one legion. The levying of imposts on movable property, and on individuals, led to perpetual difficulties; no such objection was raised to the tribute of two drachms for the temple, which was levied by the Sanhedrim. The tax-gatherers in the service of the Romans were regarded as the representatives of a detested rule; thus the publicans—for the most part Jews by birth—were the objects of universal contempt. The first rebellion of any importance took place on the occasion of the census under Cyrenius. At the period at which we have arrived, Judæa was governed by Pilate, the third procurator since the annexation to the empire; he had found in the high-priestly office John, surnamed Caiaphas, son-in-law of Annas, the son of Seth, who had for a long time filled the same office under Valerius Gratus. Pilate had an ally rather than a rival in the Sadducee Caiaphas, who acted on no higher principle than the interest of his order, and the maintenance of his power. Pontius Pilate was wanting in the political tact which knows how to soften in form the severities of a foreign rule; he was a man of vulgar ambition, or rather, one of those men without patriotism, who think only of using their authority for their own advantage. He took no heed of the peculiar dispositions and aversions of the people whom he was to govern. Thus he sent to Jerusalem a Roman garrison with standards; the Jews regarded this as a horrible profanation, for the eagles were worshipped as gods. {1921} Assailed in his prætorium at Cæsarea by a suppliant crowd, which no violence could disperse, the procurator was compelled to yield to prayers, which might soon be changed into desperate resistance. From that moment his influence was gone in Judæa; he compromised it still further when he caused shields of gold, bearing his name engraved beside that of the emperor Tiberias, to be suspended from the outer walls of the citadel of Antonia. This flattery to the sovereign, which might have been unaccompanied with peril elsewhere, was received at Jerusalem as a gratuitous provocation, and he was obliged to recall a measure, persistence in which would have led to a terrible tumult. Having thus made himself an object of general aversion, he could not even do good without danger: his plan to build an aqueduct, a thing peculiarly needed on the burning soil of Judæa, created opposition so violent, that it could only be put down by force. Under such a governor, the national passions were in a perpetual state of agitation. This increase of patriotic fanaticism created great obstacles to a purely spiritual work like that of Jesus. Gaulonitis, Peræa, and Galilee still belonged, at this time, to the family of Herod. The tetrarch Philip governed the north-west of the country for thirty-seven years, and was distinguished for his moderation. … Galilee and Peræa were the portion of Herod Antipas, the murderer of John the Baptist. His divorce from the daughter of Aretas, after his marriage with Herodias, his brother's wife, had brought war upon the wide provinces which he governed. He was about soon to undergo a humiliating defeat. Like his brother, he was childless. Under the influence of such a prince, surrounded by a licentious court, evil propensities had free play, and the corruption of manners was a bad preparation for a religion of purity and self-denial. In the lowness of the times, the Herods, though of the family of the vile despots who had sold the independence of the Jews, were regarded as in some measure a national dynasty. They had a party which bore their name, and which, in religious matters, combined, after the example of Herod the Great, Pharisaism and Sadduceeism. Such were the political circumstances in the midst of which Jesus was placed."

E. de Pressensé, Jesus Christ: His Times, Life, and Work, book 3, chapter 1.

JEWS: A. D. 33-100. The rise and diffusion of Christianity.

See CHRISTIANITY.

JEWS: A. D.66-70. The Great Revolt.

The oppression of the Jewish nation under the Roman governors who ruled Judæa directly, after the death of the first Herod Agrippa (A. D. 44), may not have been heavier in reality than it had been while the dependent and Romanized tyranny of the Herodian kings prevailed, but it proved to be more irritating and exasperating. "The burden, harshly shifted, was felt to be more galling. The priests and nobles murmured, intrigued, conspired; the rabble, bolder or more impatient, broke out into sedition, and followed every chief who offered to lead them to victory and independence. … It was only indeed under extraordinary provocation that the populace of the Jewish capital, who were generally controlled by the superior prudence of their chiefs, broke into violence in the streets. … But the ruder independence of the Galileans was not so easily kept in check. Their tract of heath and mountain was always then, as it has since always been, in a state of partial insurrection. … For their coercion [at Jerusalem] the Romans had invented a peculiar machinery. To Agrippa, the tetrarch [the second Herod Agrippa], … they had given the title of King of the Sacrifices, in virtue of which he was suffered to reside in the palace at Jerusalem, and retain certain functions, fitted to impose on the imagination of the more ardent votaries of Jewish nationality. The palace of the Herods overlooked the Temple, and from its upper rooms the king could observe all that passed in that mart of business and intrigue. Placed, however, as a spy in this watch-tower, he was regarded by the Zealots, the faction of independence, as a foe to be baffled rather than a chief to be respected and honoured. They raised the walls of their sanctuary to shut out his view, and this, among other causes of discontent between the factions in the city, ripened to an enmity. … And now was introduced into the divisions of this unhappy people a new feature of atrocity. The Zealots sought to terrify the more prudent or time-serving by an organized system of private assassination. Their 'Sicarii,' or men of the dagger, are recognised in the records of the times as a secret agency, by which the most impatient of the patriots calculated on exterminating the chief supporters of the foreign government. … Hitherto the Romans, from policy rather than respect, had omitted to occupy Jerusalem with a military force. They were now invited and implored by the chiefs of the priesthood and nobility, and Florus [the Roman governor] sent a detachment to seize the city and protect the lives of his adherents. This was the point to which the Zealots themselves had wished to lead him."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 59.

A furious battle in the streets of Jerusalem occurred on the entrance of the Roman troops. The latter gained possession of the citadel, with the upper city, but, after seven days of fighting, were forced to capitulate, and were ruthlessly put to the sword, in violation of sworn pledges. "On that very day and hour, while the Jews were plunging their daggers in the hearts of the Romans, a great and terrible slaughter of their own people was going on in Cæsarea, where the Syrians and Greeks had risen upon the Jews, and massacred 20,000 of them in a single day. And in every Syrian city the same madness and hatred seized the people, and the Jews were ruthlessly slaughtered in all. No more provocation was needed; no more was possible. … The heads of the people began the war with gloomy forebodings; the common masses with the wildest enthusiasm, which became the mere intoxication of success when they drove back Cestius from the walls of the city, on the very eve of his anticipated victory—for Cestius [præfect of Syria] hastened southwards with an army of 20,000 men, and besieged the city. The people, divided amongst themselves, were on the point of opening the gates to the Romans, when, to the surprise of everybody, Cestius suddenly broke up his camp and began to retreat. Why he did so, no one ever knew. … The retreat became a flight, and Cestius brought back his army with a quarter of its numbers killed. … Vespasian was sent hastily with a force of three legions, besides the cohorts of auxiliaries. … Of the first campaign, that in Galilee, our limits will not allow us to write. … {1922} The months passed on, and yet the Romans did not appear before the walls of the city. This meantime was a prey to internal evils, which when read appear almost incredible. … The events at Rome which elevated Vespasian to the throne were the principal reasons that the siege of Jerusalem was not actually commenced till the early summer of the year 70, when, in April, Titus began his march from Cæsarea. … The city, meanwhile, had been continuing those civil dissensions which hastened its ruin. John [of Gischala], Simon Bar Gioras, and Eleazar, each at the head of his own faction, made the streets run with blood. John, whose followers numbered 6,000, held the Lower, New, and Middle City; Simon, at the head of 10,000 Jews and 5,000 Idumeans, had the strong post of the Upper City, with a portion of the third wall; Eleazar, with 2,000 zealots, more fanatic than the rest, had barricaded himself within the Temple itself. … In the sallies which John and Simon made upon each other all the buildings in this part of the town were destroyed or set on fire, and all their corn burned; so that famine had actually begun before the commencement of the siege."

W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin, chapters 1-2.

The awful but fascinating story of the siege, as told by Josephus and repeated by many writers since, is familiar to most readers and will not be given here. It was prolonged from April until the 7th of September, A. D. 70, when the Romans forced their way into the upper city. "They spread through the streets, slaying and burning as they went. In many houses where they expected rich plunder, they found nothing but heaps of putrid bodies, whole families who had died of hunger; they retreated from the loathsome sight and insufferable stench. But they were not moved to mercy towards the living; in some places the flames were actually retarded or quenched with streams of blood; night alone put an end to the carnage. … The city was ordered to be razed, excepting the three towers, which were left as standing monuments of the victory. … During the whole siege the number killed [according to Josephus] was 1,100,000, that of prisoners 97,000. In fact, the population not of Jerusalem alone, but that of the adjacent districts—many who had taken refuge in the city, more who had assembled for the feast of unleavened bread—had been shut up by the sudden formation of the siege." Of those who survived to the end and were spared, when the Roman soldiers had tired of slaughter, "all above seventeen years old were sent to Egypt to work in the mines, or distributed among the provinces to be exhibited as gladiators in the public theatres, and in combats against wild beasts. Twelve thousand died of hunger. … Thus fell, and forever, the metropolis of the Jewish state. … Of all the stately city—the populous streets, the palaces of the Jewish kings, the fortresses of her warriors, the Temple of her God—not a ruin remained, except the tall towers of Phasaelis, Mariamne, and Hippicus, and part of the western wall, which was left as a defence for the Roman camp."

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 16.

ALSO IN: H. Ewald, History of Israel, book 7.

Josephus, The Jewish War.

A. J. Church, Story of the Last Days of Jerusalem.

I. M. Wise, History of the Hebrew Second Commonwealth, 7th period.

JEWS: A. D. 70-133. After the war with Rome. The state of the surviving people.

"It might have been expected that, from the character of the great war with Rome, the people, as well as the state of the Jews, would have fallen into utter dissolution, or, at least, verged rapidly towards total extermination. Besides the loss of nearly a million and a half of lives during the war, the markets of the Roman empire were glutted with Jewish slaves. … Yet still this inexhaustible race revived before long to offer new candidates for its inalienable inheritance of detestation and misery. Of the state of Palestine, indeed, immediately after the war, we have little accurate information. It is uncertain how far the enormous loss of life, and the numbers carried into captivity drained the country of the Jewish population; or how far the rescript of Vespasian, which offered the whole landed property of the province for sale, introduced a foreign race into the possession of the soil. The immense numbers engaged in the rebellion during the reign of Hadrian imply, either that the country was not nearly exhausted, or that the reproduction in this still fertile region was extremely rapid. In fact, it must be remembered that … the ravage of war was, after all, by no means universal in the province. Galilee, Judæa, and great part of Idumæa were wasted, and probably much depopulated; but, excepting a few towns which made resistance, the populous regions and wealthy cities beyond the Jordan escaped the devastation. The dominions of King Agrippa were, for the most part, respected. Samaria submitted without resistance, as did most of the cities on the sea-coast. … The Jews, though looked upon with contempt as well as detestation, were yet regarded, during the reign of Vespasian and his immediate successors, with jealous watchfulness. A garrison of 800 men occupied the ruins of Jerusalem, to prevent the reconstruction of the city by the fond and religious zeal of its former inhabitants. … Still, … it is impossible, unless communities were suffered to be formed, and the whole race enjoyed comparative security, that the nation could have appeared in the formidable attitude of resistance which it assumed in the time of Hadrian."

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 18 (volume 2).

JEWS: A. D. 116. The rising in Trajan's reign.

"Not quite fifty years after the destruction of Jerusalem, in the year 116, the Jews of the eastern Mediterranean rose against the imperial government. The rising, although undertaken by the Diaspora, was of a purely national character in its chief seats, Cyrene, Cyprus, Egypt, directed to the expulsion of the Romans as of the Hellenes, and, apparently, to the establishment of a separate Jewish state. It ramified even into Asiatic territory, and seized Mesopotamia and Palestine itself. When the insurgents were victorious they conducted the war with the same exasperation as the Sicarii in Jerusalem; they killed those whom they seized. … In Cyrene 220,000, in Cyprus even 240,000 men are said to have been thus put to death by them. On the other hand, in Alexandria, which does not appear itself to have fallen into the hands of the Jews, the besieged Hellenes slew whatever Jews were then in the city. The immediate cause of the rising is not clear. … To all appearance it was an outbreak of religious exasperation of the Jews, which had been growing in secret like a volcano since the destruction of the temple. … {1923} The insurgents were nowhere able to offer resistance to the compact troops, … and similar punishments were inflicted on this Diaspora as previously on the Jews of Palestine. That Trajan annihilated the Jews in Alexandria, as Appian says, is hardly all incorrect, although perhaps a too blunt expression for what took place."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 11 (The Provinces, volume 2).

See, also, CYPRUS, A. D. 117.

JEWS: A. D. 130-134. The rising in Hadrian's reign.

The Emperor Hadrian, when his tour through the Empire brought him to Palestine, A. D. 130, resolved to erect the destroyed holy city of the Jews as a Roman colony with a Roman name, and to divest it altogether of the character which made it sacred in the eyes of the Jews. He forbade their sojourn in the new city, and exasperated them still more by showing favor, it is said, to the Christian sect. By this and by other measures a fresh revolt was provoked, A. D. 132, incited by the priest Eleazar and led by the bandit-chief Barcochebas, or Bar-Kok-heba ('Son of the Star'). The cruel struggle, redeemed by no humanity on either side, continued for three years, and was ended only when hundreds of thousands of Jews had been slain. "The dispersion of the unhappy race, particularly in the West, was now complete and final. The sacred soil of Jerusalem was occupied by a Roman colony, which received the name of Ælia Capitolina, with reference to the emperor who founded it [Publius Ælius Hadrianus] and to the supreme God of the pagan mythology, installed on the desecrated summits of Zion and Moriah."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 65.

"The whole body of the Jews at home and abroad was agitated by the movement and supported more or less openly the insurgents on the Jordan; even Jerusalem fell into their hands, and the governor of Syria and indeed the emperor Hadrian appeared on the scene of conflict. … As in the war under Vespasian no pitched battle took place, but one place after another cost time and blood, till at length after a three years' warfare the last castle of the insurgents, the strong Bether, not far from Jerusalem, was stormed by the Romans. The numbers handed down to us in good accounts of 50 fortresses taken, 985 villages occupied, 580,000 that fell, are not incredible, since the war was waged with inexorable cruelty, and the male population was probably everywhere put to death. In consequence of this rising the very name of the vanquished people was set aside; the province was thenceforth termed, not as formerly Judaea, but by the old name of Herodotus, Syria of the Philistines, or Syria Palaestina. The land remained desolate; the new city of Hadrian continued to exist, but did not prosper. The Jews were prohibited under penalty of death from ever setting foot in Jerusalem."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 11 (The Provinces, volume 2).

JEWS: A. D. 200-400. The Nation without a country. Its two governments.

"In less than sixty years after the war under Hadrian, before the close of the second century after Christ, the Jews present the extraordinary spectacle of two regular and organized communities: one under a sort of spiritual head, the Patriarch of Tiberias, comprehending all of Israelitish descent who inhabited the Roman empire; the other under the Prince of the Captivity, to whom all the eastern [Babylonian] Jews paid their allegiance. … Unfortunately it is among the most difficult parts of Jewish history to trace the growth of the patriarchal authority established in Tiberias, and its recognition by the whole scattered body of the nation, who, with disinterested zeal, and I do not scruple to add, a noble attachment to the race of Israel, became voluntary subjects and tributaries to their spiritual sovereign, and united with one mind and one heart to establish their community on a settled basis. It is a singular spectacle to behold a nation dispersed in every region of the world, without a murmur or repugnance, submitting to the regulations, and taxing themselves to support the greatness, of a supremacy which rested solely on public opinion, and had no temporal power whatever to enforce its decrees. It was not long before the Rabbins, who had been hunted down with unrelenting cruelty, began to creep forth from their places of concealment. The death of Hadrian, in a few years after the termination of the war, and the accession of the mild Antoninus, gave them courage, not merely to make their public appearance, but openly to reëstablish their schools and synagogues. … The Rabbinical dominion gradually rose to greater power; the schools flourished; perhaps in this interval the great Synagogue or Sanhedrin had its other migrations, … and finally to Tiberias, where it fixed its pontifical throne and maintained its supremacy for several centuries. Tiberias, it may be remembered, was a town built by Herod Antipas, over an ancient cemetery, and therefore abominated by the more scrupulous Jews, as a dwelling of uncleanness. But the Rabbins soon obviated this objection. Simon Ben Jochai, by his cabalistic art, discovered the exact spot where the burial-place had been; this was marked off, and the rest of the city declared, on the same unerring authority, to be clean. Here, then, in this noble city, on the shore of the sea of Galilee, the Jewish pontiff fixed his throne; the Sanhedrin, if it had not, as the Jews pretend, existed during all the reverses of the nation, was formally reëstablished. Simon, the son and heir of Gamaliel, was acknowledged as the Patriarch of the Jews, and Nasi or President of the Sanhedrin. … In every region of the West, in every province of the Roman empire, the Jews of all ranks and classes submitted, with the utmost readiness, to the sway of their Spiritual Potentate. His mandates were obeyed, his legates received with honour, his supplies levied without difficulty, in Rome, in Spain, in Africa. … In the mean time the rival throne in Babylonia, that of the Prince of the Captivity, was rapidly rising to the state and dignity which perhaps did not attain its perfect height till under the Persian monarchs. There seems to have been some acknowledged hereditary claim in R. Hona, who now appears as the Prince of the Captivity, as if his descent from the House of David had been recognized by the willing credulity of his brethren. … The Court of the Resch-Glutha [Prince of the Captivity] is described as … splendid; in imitation of his Persian master, he had his officers, counsellors, and cupbearers. Rabbins were appointed as satraps over the different communities. This state, it is probable, was maintained by a tribute raised from the body of the people, and substituted for that which, in ancient times, was paid for the Temple in Jerusalem. … Whether the authority of the Prince of the Captivity extended beyond Babylonia and the adjacent districts is uncertain."

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 19 (volume 2).

{1924}

JEWS: A. D. 415. Driven from Alexandria by Cyril.

See ALEXANDRIA: A. D. 413-415.

JEWS: 5-6th Centuries. Early Jewish settlements in Europe. Arian toleration and Catholic persecution.

"The survey of the settlement of the Jews in Europe begins, as we leave Asia, with the Byzantine Empire. They already lived in its cities before Christianity acquired the empire of the world. In Constantinople the Jewish community inhabited a separate quarter, called the brass-market, where there was also a large synagogue. They were, however, expelled thence by an emperor, either Theodosius II., or Justinus II., and the synagogue was converted into the 'Church of the Mother of God.' … In Greece, Macedonia, and Illyria the Jews had already been settled a long time. … In Italy the Jews are known to have been domiciled as early as the time of the Republic, and to have been in enjoyment of full political rights until these were curtailed by the Christian emperors. They probably looked with excusable pleasure on the fall of Rome. … When Italy became Ostrogothic under Theodoric, the position of the Jews in that country was peculiar. Outbreaks of a spirit of hostility to them were not infrequent during this reign, but at the bottom they were not directed against the Jews, but were meant to be a demonstration against this hated Arian monarch. … Those nations … which were baptised in the Arian creed betrayed less intolerance of the Jews. Thus the more Arianism was driven out of Europe and gave way before the Catholic religion, the more were the Jews harassed by proselytising zeal. … In spite of the antipathy entertained against them by the leaders of opinion, the Jews of Italy were happy in comparison with their brethren of the Byzantine empire. … Even when the Lombards embraced the Catholic faith the position of the Jews in Italy remained supportable. The heads of the Catholic Church, the Popes, were free from savage intolerance. Gregory I. (590-604), surnamed the great and holy, who laid the foundation of the power of Catholicism, gave utterance to the principle, that the Jews should only be converted by means of persuasion and gentleness, not by violence. … In the territory which was subject to the Papal sway, in Rome, Lower Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia, he steadfastly persisted in this course in the face of the fanatical bishops, who regarded the oppression of the Jews as a pious work. … In the west of Europe, in France and Spain, where the Church was first obliged to make its way laboriously, the situation of the Jews assumed a different and much more favourable aspect. … It was a long while before Catholicism gained a firm footing in the west of Europe, and the Jews who had settled there enjoyed undisturbed peace until the victorious Church gained the upper hand. The immigration of the Jews into these important and wealthy provinces took place most probably as early as the time of the Republic or of Cæsar. … The presence of the Jews in the west of Europe is, however, not certain until the 2d century. The Gaulish Jews, whose first settlement was in the district of Arles, enjoyed the full rights of Roman citizenship, whether they arrived in Gaul as merchants or fugitives, with the pedlar's pack or in the garb of slaves; they were likewise treated as Romans by the Frankish and Burgundian conquerors." The Burgundian King Sigismund, who embraced the Catholic faith in 516, "first raised the barrier between Jews and Christians. … A spirit of hostility to the Jews gradually spread from Burgundy over the Frankish countries. … The later of the Merovingian kings became more and more bigoted, and their hatred of the Jews consequently increased. … The Jews of Germany are certainly only to be regarded as colonies of the Frankish Jews, and such of them as lived in Austrasia, a province subject to the Merovingian kings, shared the same fate as their brethren in France. … While the history of the Jews in Byzance, Italy, and France, possesses but special interest, that of their brethren in the Pyrenean peninsula rises to the height of universal importance. … Jewish Spain contributed almost as greatly to the development of Judaism as Judæa and Babylonia. … Cordova, Grenada, and Toledo, are as familiar to the Jews as Jerusalem and Tiberias, and almost more so than Naherdea and Sora. When Judaism had come to a standstill in the East, and had grown weak with age, it acquired new vigour in Spain. … The first settlement of the Jews in beautiful Hesperia is buried in dim obscurity. It is certain that they came there as free men as early as the time of the Roman Republic, in order to take advantage of the productive resources of this country. The tortured victims of the unhappy insurrections under Vespasian, Titus, and Hadrian were also dispersed to the extreme west, and an exaggerated account relates that 80,000 of them were dragged off to Spain as prisoners. … The Jews … were unmolested under the Arian kings; … but as soon as the Catholic Church obtained the supremacy in Spain, and Arianism began to be persecuted, an unfavourable crisis set in."

H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 3, chapter 2.

JEWS: A. D. 615. Siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Persians. Sack and massacre.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 615.

JEWS: A. D. 637. Surrender of Jerusalem to the Moslems.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 637.

JEWS: 7th Century. General persecution. First expulsion from Spain.

In the seventh century, during the reign of the Eastern Roman Emperor Heraclius (A. D. 610-641) the Jews were subjected to a more general and bitter persecution than they had experienced before at the hands of the Christians. "It is said that about this time a prophecy was current, which declared that the Roman empire would be overthrown by a circumcised people. This report may have been spread by the Jews, in order to excite their own ardour, and assist their projects of rebellion; but the prophecy was saved from oblivion by the subsequent conquests of the Saracens. … The conduct of the Jews excited the bigotry, as it may have awakened the fears, of the imperial government, and both Phocas and Heraclius attempted to exterminate the Jewish religion, and if possible to put an end to the national existence. Heraclius not only practised every species of cruelty himself to effect this object within the bounds of his own dominions, but he even made the forced conversion or banishment of the Jews a prominent feature in his diplomacy." Thus Heraclius induced Sisebut, the Gothic king in Spain, and Dagobert, the Frank king, to join him in forcing baptism on the Jews, with the alternative of flight.

G. Finlay, Greece under the Romans, chapter 4, section 5.

{1925}

"Urged by the request and incited by the example of Heraclius, Sisebuto [or Sisebut] issued an edict in the year 616, that, within a year, the Jews in Spain should either embrace Christianity, or should be shorn, scourged, and expelled from the kingdom, and their property confiscated. … It was a premium on hypocrisy; for hypocrisy was an instrument of self-preservation. Ninety thousand Jews made a nominal submission."

H. Coppée, Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1).

See, also, GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-711.

JEWS: 7th Century. The Epoch of the Geonim. The Exilarchate and the Gaonate.

After the death of the Caliph Othman (A. D. 655), when the followers of Mohammed were divided into two camps—the partisans of Ali and the partisans of Moawiyah, "the Babylonian Jews and Nestorian Christians sided with Ali, and rendered him their assistance." Prominent among the Jewish supporters of Ali was Mar-Isaac, the head of a school. "The unhappy Ali valued this homage, and, doubtless, accorded privileges to the Jewish head of the school. It is quite probable that from this time the head of the school of Sora occupied a certain dignity, and took the title of Gaon. There were certain privileges connected with the Gaonate, upon which even the Exilarch—also politically appointed—did not venture to encroach. Through this there arose a peculiar relationship between the two entirely opposing offices—the Exilarchate and the Gaonate. This led to subsequent quarrels. With Bostanaï [then Exilarch] and Mar-Isaac, the Jewish officials recognised by the Caliph, there begins a new period in Jewish history—the Epoch of the Geonim. … For the space of 40 years (680 to 720), only the names of the Geonim and Exilarchs are known to us, historical details, however, are entirely wanting. During this time, through quarrels and concessions, there arose peculiar relations between the officials of the Jewish-Persian kingdom, which developed into a kind of constitution. The Jewish community in Babylonia (Persia), which had the appearance of a state, had a peculiar constitution. The Exilarch was at their head, and next to him stood the Gaon. Both together they formed the unity of the community. The Exilarch filled political functions. He represented the Babylonian-Persian Judaism under the Caliphs. He collected the taxes from the various communities, and paid them into the treasury. The Exilarchs, both in their outer appearance and mode of life, were like princes. They drove about in a state carriage; they had outriders and a kind of body guard, and received princely homage. The religious unity of Judaism, on the other hand, was represented in the two chief schools of Sora and Pumbaditha. They expounded the Talmud, giving it a practical application; they made new laws and institutions, and saw that they were carried out, by allotting punishments for those who transgressed them. The Exilarch shared the judicial power in common with the Gaon of Sora and the head of the school of Pumbaditha. … The head of the school of Sora, however, was alone privileged to be styled 'Gaon'; the head of the school of Pumbaditha did not bear the title officially. The Gaon of Sora enjoyed general preference over his colleague of Pumbaditha."

H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 3, chapter 4.

JEWS: 8th Century. Conversion of the Khazars to Judaism.

See KHAZARS.

JEWS: 8th Century. Origin of the Karaites.

See KARAISM.

JEWS: 8-15th Centuries. Toleration by Moors and Christians in Spain, followed by merciless persecution and expulsion. Treatment in Portugal.

"Under the Moorish government in Spain the lot of this persecuted, tormented people was more tolerable than in any Christian country. … Under the Christian kings of the 12th and 13th centuries, they rose to still greater influence as financial advisers and treasurers, astronomers and physicians; in Toledo alone they numbered 12,000. … Their condition in Spain from the time of the Moorish supremacy to the end of the 13th century was upon the whole more favourable than in any other country of Europe. … The 14th century brought disaster to the Jews of the Peninsula and elsewhere. … They were detested by the people; first in one town and then in another they were attacked and murdered, and their synagogues were burned down; and at length, in 1391, the storm broke upon them in all its fury, and raged through the length and breadth of Spain. … Many thousands were slain; whilst 200,000 saved themselves by receiving baptism, but it was discovered in a few years that 17,000 had lapsed into Judaism. A century later, in 1492, a royal edict commanded all Jews to quit the country, leaving their goods behind them. As the Inquisition at the same time forbade the sale of victuals to the Jews, the majority … were compelled to submit to baptism. Of those who withdrew into exile—the numbers are variously reckoned from 170,000 to 400,000—the greater part perished from pestilence, starvation, or shipwreck. The descendants of those who survived, the Sephardim, found refuge in Italy, and under Turkish rule in the East, and, for a short space, even in Portugal. … In Portugal the Jews fared even worse than their brethren in Spain. … The Inquisition was … introduced as the approved means for handing over to the exchequer the wealth of the new Christians."

J. I. von Döllinger, The Jews in Europe (Studies in European History, chapter 9).

ALSO IN: H. C. Lea, Chapters from the Religious History of Spain, pages 437-468.

W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, part 1, chapter 17 (volume 2).

See, also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: 11th Century. First appearance of Jews in England. Their treatment as usurers.

"Their first appearance in England is said to have been due to the Conqueror, who brought over a Jewish colony from Rouen to London. They were special favourites of William Rufus; under Henry they play a less conspicuous part; but in the next reign we find them at Lincoln, Oxford, and elsewhere, and there can be no doubt that they were already established in most of the chief English towns. They formed, however, no part of the townsfolk. The Jew was not a member of the state; he was the king's chattel, not to be meddled with, for good or for evil, save at the king's own bidding. {1926} Exempt from toll and tax and from the fines of justice, he had the means of accumulating a hoard of wealth which might indeed be seized at any moment by an arbitrary act of the king, but which the king's protection guarded with jealous care against all other interference. The capacity in which the Jew usually appears is that of a money-lender—an occupation in which the scruples of the Church forbade Christians to engage, lest they should be contaminated with the sin of usury. Fettered by no such scruples, the Hebrew money-lenders drove a thriving trade."

K. Norgate, England Under the Angevin Kings, volume 1, chapter 1.

"The Church declared against capitalism of any kind, branding it as usury. It became impossible in Angevin England to obtain the capital for any large scheme of building or organisation unless the projectors had the capital themselves. Here was the function which the Jew could perform in England of the twelfth century, which was just passing economically out of the stage of barter. Capital was wanted in particular for the change of architecture from wood to stone with the better classes, and especially for the erection of castles and monasteries. The Jews were, indeed, the first in England to possess dwelling-houses built with stone, probably for purposes of protection as well as of comfort. And as a specimen of their influence on monastic architecture, we have it on record that no less than nine Cistercian monasteries of the North Country were built by moneys lent by the great Aaron of Lincoln, who also boasted that he had built the shrine of St. Alban. … The result of the Church's attitude towards Jews and towards usury was to put the king into a peculiar relation towards his Jewish subjects. The Church kept them out of all other pursuits but that of usury, which it branded as infamous; the State followed suit, and confiscated the estates of all usurers dying as such. Hence, as a Jew could only be a usurer, his estate was always potentially the king's, and could be dealt with by the king as if it were his own. Yet, strange to say, it was not to the king's interest to keep the Jews' wealth in his own hands, for he, the king, as a good Christian, could not get usury for it, while the Jew could very soon double and treble it, since the absence of competition enabled him to fix the rate of interest very high, rarely less than forty per cent., often as much as eighty. … The only useful function the Jew could perform towards both king and people was to be as rich as possible, just as the larger the capital of a bank, the more valuable the part it plays in the world of commerce. … The king reaped the benefit of these riches in several ways. One of his main functions and main source of income was selling justice, and Jews were among his best customers. Then he claimed from them, as from his other subjects, fines and amerciaments for all the events of life. The Pipe Rolls contain entries of fines paid by Jews to marry, not to marry, to become divorced, to go a journey across the sea, to become partners with another Jew, in short, for all the decisive events of life. And above all, the king got frequent windfalls from the heirs of deceased Jews who paid heavy reliefs to have their fathers' charters and debts, of which, as we have seen, they could make more profitable use than the king, to whom the Jew's property escheated not qua Jew, but qua usurer. In the case of Aaron of Lincoln the king did not disgorge at all at his death, but kept in his own hands the large treasures, lands, houses and debts of the great financier. He appears to have first organised the Jewry, and made the whole of the English Jews his agents throughout the country. … In addition to these quasi-regular and normal sources of income from his Jews, the king claimed from them—again as from his other subjects—various contributions from time to time under the names of gifts and tallages. And here he certainly seems, on occasion at least, to have exercised an unfavourable discrimination in his demands from the Jews. In 1187, the year of Aaron of Lincoln's death, he took a tenth from the rest of England, which yielded £70,000, and a quarter from the Jews, which gave as much as £60,000. In other words, the Jews were reckoned to have, at that date, one quarter of the movable wealth of the kingdom (£240,000 against £700,000 held by the rest). … They acted the part of a sponge for the Royal Treasury, they gathered up all the floating money of the country, to be squeezed from time to time into the king's treasure-chest. … The king was thus … the sleeping-partner in all the Jewish usury, and may be regarded as the Arch-usurer of the kingdom. By this means he was enabled to bring pressure on any of his barons who were indebted to the Jews. He could offer to release them of their debt of the usury accruing to it, and in the case of debts falling into his hand by the death of a Jew, he could commute the debt for a much smaller sum. Thus the Cistercian abbeys referred to above paid Richard I. 1,000 marks instead of the 6,400 which they had owed to Aaron of Lincoln."

Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England, introduction.

JEWS: A. D. 1076. Capture of Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks.

See CRUSADES: CAUSES, &C.

JEWS: A. D. 1096-1146. Massacre of Jews in Europe by Crusaders.

The lawless and savage mobs of Crusaders which followed in the wake of the disorderly hosts of Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless, A. D. 1096, expended their zeal, at the outset of their march, in hunting and killing Jews. "Acting on the notion that the infidels dwelling in Europe should be exterminated before those in Asia should be attacked, [they] murdered 12,000 Jews. In Treves, many of these unfortunate men, driven to despair, laid violent hands on their children and on themselves, and multitudes embraced Christianity, from which they lapsed the moment the peril had passed. Two hundred Jews fled from Cologne and took refuge in boats; they were overtaken and slain. In Mayence, the archbishop, Rudhart, took them under his protection, and gave them the great hall of his castle for an asylum; the pilgrims, nevertheless, forced their way in, and murdered 700 of them in the archbishop's presence. At Spires the Jews valiantly defended themselves. At Worms they all committed suicide. At Magdeburg the archbishop, Ruprecht, amused himself by attacking them during the celebration of the feast of tabernacles, and by seizing their property."

W. Menzel, History of Germany, chapter 145 (volume 1).

The fervors of the Second Crusade [A. D. 1146] inclined, in Germany, to the same direction, of Jew-hunting; but St. Bernard, the apostle of the Crusade, was enlightened and humane enough to suppress the outrage by his great influence. {1927} A monk named Radulf, self-appointed preacher of the Crusade in Germany, stirred up the people of the cities of the Rhine against the Jews, and numbers were massacred, notwithstanding attempts of the emperor, Conrad, to protect them. But Bernard went in person to the scene, and, by his personal authority, drove the brutal monk into his convent.

T. Keightley, The Crusaders chapter 3.

ALSO IN: H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 3, chapters 9 and 11.

H. C. Adams, History of the Jews, chapter 15.

JEWS: A. D. 1099. Conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 1099.

JEWS: 11-17th Centuries. Alternating toleration and oppression in Poland.

"It cannot be denied that this frugal, careful race formed the only class of traders in the land [16th-17th centuries]. That branch of industry which the nobleman despised, owing to pride or carelessness, and from which the peasant was excluded by stupidity and ignorance, fell to the share of the Jews. Though their presence may have been a misfortune for the nation in after years, they were certainly at the same time a national necessity. … Perpetually oppressed by capricious laws, the race raised itself by perseverance and cunning. Ill-treated, persecuted by fire and sword, still they returned, or others took their place; robbed and plundered repeatedly, the wealth of the land was yet theirs. … The first Jewish immigrants were exiles from Germany and Bohemia. In 1096 they fled to Poland, where at that time there was more religious tolerance than in the rest of Europe. The cruelty and greed of the first crusaders caused this exodus of the Jews. … Casimir the Great [1333-1370], instigated by his love for Esther, the beautiful Jewess of Opocno, gave the Jews such civil rights and privileges as a Polish king could grant, which conduced to the advantage of the land; but already in the time of Lewis of Hungary, 1371, they were sentenced to exile. Notwithstanding this, we find them scattered over the whole of Poland in 1386. Christians were forbidden on pain of excommunication to have any intercourse with Jews or to purchase from them. When they settled in towns they were forced to live in particular suburbs. … The incredible increase of the Jewish population, supposed to be three times as rapid as that of the Polish inhabitants, was very alarming, as the Jews managed to avoid all public burdens and taxes. Sigismund Augustus [1548-1572] resolved, in spite of their objections, to impose a poll tax of one florin per head, and at the same time to discover by this means their actual number. It was estimated at 200,000, but only 16,000 florins were paid as tax. Their power was increased by John Sobiesky, to whom they had prophesied that he would ascend the throne. He favoured the Jews so much, that the senate in 1682 implored him to regard the welfare of the state, and not let the favours of the crown pass through their hands. The laws forbidding the Jews on pain of death to trade with the peasants, to keep inns, to sell brandy—laws which were passed anew in every reign—show that they never ceased to carry on these trades, so profitable for them, so ruinous for the peasant."

Count Von Moltke, Poland: chapter 6.

ALSO IN: H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 4, chapter 18.

JEWS: A. D. 1189. Massacres in England.

At the time of the accession of Richard Cœur de Lion, king of England, the crusading spirit had inflamed a specially bitter hatred of the Jews. Some of the obnoxious people were imprudent enough to press in among the spectators of King Richard's coronation. They were driven back with blows; "a riot ensued, and the Jews' quarter was plundered. A day elapsed before the king's troops could restore order, and then only three rioters were punished, for damage done to Christians. Thus encouraged, or allowed, the frenzy of persecution spread over the land. Generally it was the country people who were setting out as pilgrims for Palestine, who began the crusade at home, while the cities interposed to preserve the king's peace. But the rumour that the unbelievers were accustomed to crucify a Christian boy at Easter had hardened men's hearts against them. The cause of murder and rapine prevailed in Dunstable, Stamford, and Lincoln. At York, the viscount allowed 500 Jews to take refuge in the castle. Fearing, in spite of this, to be given up, they closed the gates against the king's officers. They were now besieged by the townsmen, under orders of the viscount, and the defence of men untrained to arms and without artillery lay only in the strength of the walls. They offered to ransom their lives, but the crowd thirsted for blood. Then a rabbi rose up and addressed his countrymen. 'Men of Israel, hear my words: it is better for us to die for our law than to fall into the hands of those who hate it; and our law prescribes this.' Then every man slew his wife and children, and hurled the corpses over the battlements. The survivors shut themselves up with their treasures in the royal chamber, and set fire to it. The crowd indemnified themselves by sacking the Jews' quarter, and burning the schedules of their debts, which were kept for safety in the cathedral."

C. H. Pearson, History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, volume 1, chapter 32.

ALSO IN: H. C. Adams, History of the Jews, chapter 16.

JEWS: 12-15th Centuries. Treatment in France.

In France, during the Middle Ages, the extorting of money from the Jews was one of the devices depended upon for replenishing the royal treasury. "It is almost incredible to what a length this was carried. Usury, forbidden by law and superstition to Christians, was confined to this industrious and covetous people. … The children of Israel grew rich in despite of insult and oppression, and retaliated upon their Christian debtors. If an historian of Philip Augustus may be believed, they possessed almost one-half of Paris. Unquestionably they must have had support both at court and in the halls of justice. The policy of the kings of France was to employ them as a sponge to suck their subjects' money, which they might afterwards express with less odium than direct taxation would incur. Philip Augustus released all Christians in his dominions from their debts to the Jews, reserving a fifth part to himself. He afterwards expelled the whole nation from France. But they appear to have returned again—whether by stealth, or, as is more probable, by purchasing permission. St. Louis twice banished and twice recalled the Jews. A series of alternate persecution and tolerance was borne by this extraordinary people with an invincible perseverance, and a talent of accumulating riches which kept pace with their plunderers; till new schemes of finance supplying the turn, they were finally expelled under Charles VI. and never afterwards obtained any legal establishment in France."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 2, part 2 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: J. I. von Döllinger, The Jews in Europe (Studies in European History, chapter 9).

{1928}

JEWS: 13-14th Centuries. Hostility of the Papacy and the Church. Doctrine of the Divine condemnation of the Jews to Slavery. Claim of the Emperors to ownership of them.

"The declaration by Innocent III. [Pope, 1198-1216] that the entire nation was destined by God on account of its sins to perpetual slavery, was the Magna Charta continually appealed to by those who coveted the possessions of the Jews and the earnings of their industry; both princes and people acted upon it. … The succeeding popes took their stand upon the maxims and behests of Innocent III. If the Jews built themselves a synagogue, it was to be pulled down; they might only repair the old ones. No Jew might appear as a witness against a Christian. The bishops were charged to enforce the wearing of the distinctive badge, the hat or the yellow garment, by all the means in their power. The wearing of the badge was particularly cruel and oppressive, for in the frequent tumults and risings in the towns the Jews, being thus recognisable at a glance, fell all the more easily into the hands of the excited mob; and if a Jew undertook a journey he inevitably became a prey to the numerous bandits and adventurers, who naturally considered him as an outlaw. … Where popes failed to interfere, the councils of the various countries made amends for the omission; they forbade, for instance, a Christian letting or selling a house to a Jew, or buying wine from him. Besides all this, the order was often renewed that all copies of the Talmud and commentaries upon it—consequently the greater part of the Jewish literature—should be burnt. … The new theory as to the Jews being in a state of slavery was now adopted and enlarged upon by theologians and canonists. Thomas Aquinas, whose teaching was received by the whole Roman Church as unassailable, pronounced that since the race was condemned to perpetual bondage princes could dispose of the possessions of the Jews just as they would of their own. A long list of canonical writers maintained, upon the same ground, the right of princes and governors to seize upon the sons and daughters of Jews and have them baptized by force. It was commonly taught, and the ecclesiastical claim still exists, that a Jewish child once baptized was not to be left to the father. Meanwhile princes had eagerly seized upon the papal doctrine that the perpetual slavery of the Jews was ordained by God, and on it the Emperor Frederick II. founded the claim that all Jews belonged to him as Emperor, following the contention prevalent at the time that the right of lordship over them devolved upon him as the successor of the old Roman Emperors. … King Albert went so far as to claim from King Philip of France that the French Jews should be handed over to him. … From the 14th century this 'servitude to the state' was understood to mean complete slavery. 'You yourselves, your bodies and your possessions, belong,' says the Emperor Charles IV. in a document addressed to the Jews, 'to us and to the empire; we may act, make and do with you what we will and please.' The Jews were, in fact, constantly handed about like merchandise from one to another; the emperor, now in this place, now in that, declared their claims for debts to be cancelled; and for this a heavy sum was paid into his treasury, usually 30 per cent."

J. I. Von Döllinger, The Jews in Europe (Studies in European History, chapter 9).

JEWS: A. D. 1290. Banished from England.

"At the same time [A. D. 1290], the King [Edward I.] banished all the Jews from the kingdom. Upward of 16,000 are said to have left England, nor did they reappear till Cromwell connived at their return in 1654. It is not quite clear why the King determined on this act of severity, especially as the Jews were royal property and a very convenient source of income. It is probable, however, that their way of doing business was very repugnant to his ideas of justice, while they were certainly great falsifiers of the coinage, which he was very anxious to keep pure and true. Earlier in the reign he had hanged between 200 and 300 of them for that crime, and they are said to have demanded 60 per cent. for their loans, taking advantage of the monopoly as money-lenders which the ecclesiastical prohibition of usury had given them."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 1, page 179.

The expulsion was in compliance with a demand made by Parliament. "We have no record of any special action or crime on the part of the Jews which suggested the particular parliamentary demand in 1290." It had been made four years before, when, "in one night, all the Jews in England were flung into prison, and would most likely have been expelled there and then, had they not outbribed the King with £12,000."

G. H. Leonard, Expulsion of the Jews by Edward I. (Royal History Society Transactions, new series, volume 5, 1891).

JEWS: A. D. 1321. Persecution of Lepers and Jews.

"In the year 1321, a general rumour prevailed through Europe that the unhappy beings afflicted with leprosy (a disease with which the Crusaders had become infected in the East …) had conspired to inoculate all their healthy fellow-creatures with their own loathsome malady. … The King of Grenada and the Jews were denounced as the prime movers of this nefarious plot directed to the extermination of Christianity; and it was said that the latter, unable to overcome the many impediments which opposed their own agency, had bribed the lepers to become their instruments. This 'enormous Creed,' in spite of its manifold absurdities, found easy admission; and, if other evidence were wanting for its support, torture was always at hand to provide confessions. Philip V. [of France] was among the firmest believers, and therefore among the most active avengers of the imaginary crime; and he encouraged persecution by numerous penal edicts. At Toulouse, 160 Jews were burned alive at once on a single pile, without distinction of sex, and, as it seems, without any forms of previous examination. In Paris, greater gentleness was manifested; those only were led to the stake from whom an avowal of guilt could be extorted."

E. Smedley, History of France, part 1, chapter 8.

{1929}

"The lord of Parthenay writes word to the king that 'a great leper,' arrested on his territory, has confessed that a rich Jew had given him money, and supplied him with drugs. These drugs were compounded of human blood, of urine, and of the blood of Christ (the consecrated wafer), and the whole, after having been dried and pounded, was put into a bag with a weight and thrown into the springs or wells. Several lepers had already been provisionally burnt in Gascony, and the king, alarmed at the new movement which was originating, hastily returned from Poitou to France, and issued an ordinance for the general arrest of the lepers. Not a doubt was entertained by anyone of this horrible compact between the lepers and the Jews. 'We ourselves,' says a chronicler of the day, 'have seen with our own eyes one of these bags, in Poitou, in a burgh of our own vassalage.' … The king ordered all found guilty to be burnt, with the exception of those female lepers who happened to be pregnant. The other lepers were to be confined to their lazarettos. As to the Jews, they were burnt indiscriminately, especially in the South."

J. Michelet, History of France, book 5, chapter 5 (volume 1).

JEWS: A. D. 1348-1349. Accused of causing the Black Plague.

On the appearance in Europe, A. D. 1348, of the pestilence known as the Black Death, "there was a suspicion that the disease was due to human agencies, and, as usual, the Jews were asserted to have contrived the machinations by which the calamity was created. They were charged with poisoning the wells, and through France, Switzerland, and Germany, thousands of these unhappy people were destroyed on evidence derived from confessions obtained under torture. As far as he could, the Emperor Charles IV. protected them. They escaped persecution too in the dominions of Albrecht of Austria. It is said that the great number of the Jewish population in Poland is due to the fact that Casimir the Great was induced by the entreaties of one Esther, a favourite Jewish mistress of that monarch, to harbour and shelter them in his kingdom. It should be mentioned that Clement VI. forbad the persecution of the Jews at Avignon."

J. E. T. Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, volume 1, chapter 15.

ALSO IN: H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 4, chapter 4.

JEWS: A. D. 1391. Massacre and expulsion from Spain.

See above: 8TH-15TH CENTURIES; also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: A. D. 1492. Expulsion of Jews from Spain.

See INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

JEWS: 17th Century. Toleration in Holland. Attractiveness of that country to wealthy Israelites.

See NETHERLANDS A. D. 1621-1633.

JEWS: A. D. 1655. Toleration in England by Cromwell.

"Wednesday, Dec. 12, 1655. This day, 'in a withdrawing room at Whitehall,' presided over by his Highness [the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell], who is much interested in the matter, was held 'a Conference concerning the Jews';—of which the modern reader too may have heard something. Conference, one of Four Conferences, publicly held, which filled all England with rumour in those old December days; but must now contract themselves into a point for us. Highest official Persons, with Lord Chief Barons, Lord Chief Justices, and chosen Clergy have met here to advise, by reason, Law-learning, Scripture-prophecy, and every source of light for the human mind, concerning the proposal of admitting Jews, with certain privileges as of alien-citizens, to reside in England. They were banished near Four-hundred years ago: shall they now be allowed to reside and trade again? The Proposer is Manasseh Ben Israel,' a learned Portuguese Jew of Amsterdam; who, being stirred up of late years by the great things doing in England, has petitioned one and the other, Long Parliament and Little Parliament, for this object; but could never, till his Highness came into power, get the matter brought to a hearing. And so they debate and solemnly consider; and his Highness spake;—and says one witness, 'I never heard a man speak so well.' His Highness was eager for the scheme, if so might be. But the Scripture-prophecies, Law-learnings, and lights of the human mind seemed to point another way: zealous Manasseh went home again; the Jews could not settle here except by private sufferance of his Highness."

T. Carlyle, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, part 9, letter 207.

"Cromwell … was able to overcome neither the arguments of the theologians, nor the jealousies of the merchants, nor the prejudices of the indifferent; and seeing that the conference was not likely to end as he desired, he put an end to its deliberations. Then, without granting the Jews the public establishment which they had solicited, he authorized a certain number of them to take up their residence in London, where they built a synagogue, purchased the land for a burial-ground, and quietly commenced the formation of a sort of corporation, devoted to the Protector, on whose tolerance their safety entirely depended."

F. P. Guizot, History of Oliver Cromwell, book 6 (volume 2).

JEWS: A. D. 1662-1753. Condition in England. Defeated attempt to legalize their naturalization.

"The Jews … were not formally authorised to establish themselves in England till after the Restoration. The first synagogue in London was erected in 1662. … There does not appear … to have been any legal obstacle to the sovereign and Parliament naturalising a Jew till a law, enacted under James I., and directed against the Catholics, made the sacramental test an essential preliminary to naturalisation. Two subsequent enactments exempted from this necessity all foreigners who were engaged in the hemp and flax manufacture, and all Jews and Protestant foreigners who had lived for seven continuous years in the American plantations. In the reign of James II. the Jews were relieved from the payment of the alien duty, but it is a significant fact that it was reimposed after the Revolution at the petition of the London merchants. In the reign of Anne some of them are said to have privately negotiated with Godolphin for permission to purchase the town of Brentford, and to settle there with full privileges of trade; but the minister, fearing to arouse the spirit of religious intolerance and of commercial jealousy, refused the application. The great development of industrial enterprise which followed the long and prosperous administration of Walpole naturally attracted Jews, who were then as now preeminent in commercial matters, and many of them appear at this time to have settled in England,"—among others, the family of Disraeli. In 1753, the Pelhams attempted to legalise the naturalisation of Jews; "not to naturalise all resident Jews, but simply to enable Parliament to pass special Bills to naturalise those who applied to it, although they had not lived in the colonies or been engaged in the hemp or flax manufacture. … {1930} The opponents of the ministry raised the cry that the Bill was an unchristian one, and England was thrown into paroxysms of excitement scarcely less intense than those which followed the impeachment of Sacheverell. There is no page in the history of the 18th century that shows more decisively how low was the intellectual and political condition of English public opinion. According to its opponents, the Jewish Naturalisation Bill sold the birthright of Englishmen for nothing, it was a distinct abandonment of Christianity, it would draw upon England all the curses which Providence had attached to the Jews. The commercial classes complained that it would fill England with usurers. … The clergy all over England denounced it." After fierce opposition, the bill was finally passed; "but as the tide of popular indignation rose higher and higher, the ministers in the next year brought forward and carried its repeal."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England, 18th Century, chapter 2 (volume 1).

JEWS: A. D. 1727-1880. Persecutions and restrictions in Russia. The Pale.

"The refugees from the Ukraine who had settled in Little Russia were expelled in 1727. No Jews from without were allowed to enter Russia upon any pretext. The few physicians and other professional men of the excluded race who did manage to remain in Russia were in continual jeopardy of insult and expulsion. Over and over again Russian statesmen who were anxious to develop the resources and trade possibilities of their backward and barbarous land, hinted at the advisability of bringing in some Jews. The Imperial will was resolutely opposed. … When the broad-minded Catherine II ascended the throne these efforts were renewed, but she too resisted them, and says in her Memoirs, 'their admission into Russia might have occasioned much injury to our small tradesmen.' She was too deeply bitten with the Voltairean philosophy of her time to have, or even assume, any religious fervour in the matter, but though in 1786 she issued a high-sounding edict 'respecting the protection of the rights of Jews of Russia,' the persecution on economic and social grounds continued unabated. By this time it will be seen the laws did, however, recognise the existence of Jews in Russia. The explanation is that the first partition of Poland and the annexation of the great Turkish territory lying between the Dnieper and the Dniester had brought into the empire such a vast Hebraic population that any thought of expulsion was hopeless. … The rape of Poland and the looting of Turkey had brought two millions of Jews under the sceptre of the Czar. The fact could not be blinked. They were there—inside the Holy Empire, whose boast for centuries had been that no circumcised dog could find rest for his foot on its sanctified territory. To an autocracy based so wholly on an orthodox religion as is that of the Czars, this seemed a most trying and perplexing problem. The solution they hit upon was to set aside one part of the empire as a sort of lazar house, which should serve to keep the rest of it from pollution. Hence we get the Pale. Almost every decade since 1786, the date of Catherine's ukase, has witnessed some alteration made in the dimensions and boundaries of this Pale. Now it has been expanded, now sharply contracted. … To trace these changes would be to unnecessarily burden ourselves with details. It is enough to keep in mind that the creation of the Pale was Russia's solution of the Jewish problem in 1786, and is still the only one it can think of. Side by side with this naïve notion that Holy Russia could be kept an inviolate Christian land in the eyes of Heaven by juggling the map, there grew up the more worldly conception of turning the Jew to account as a kind of milch cow. … In 1819 Jewish brandy distillers were allowed to go into the interior and settle 'until,' as the ukase said, 'Russian master distillers shall have perfected themselves in the art of distilling.' They availed themselves of this permission in great numbers, and at the end of seven years were all summarily driven out again, a new ukase explaining that 'the number of Christian distillers was now sufficient.' … The past century's history of the Jews in Russia is made up of conflicts between these two impulses in the childlike Slavonic brain—the one to drive the heretic Jew into the Pale as into a kennel with kicks and stripes, the other guardedly to entice him out and manage to extract some service or profit from him. … In 1825 Nicholas ascended the throne. Within a year he had earned from the Jews that sinister title of 'The Second Haman,' by which Israel still recalls him. … With the death of Nicholas [1855] and the advent of Alexander II a new era dawned. Dr. Mackenzie Wallace has drawn a spirited and comprehensive picture of the literal stampede all Russia made to reform everything. … Almost the first thing the young Czar did was to revive a commission to inquire into the condition of the Jews, which Nicholas had decreed in 1840 and then allowed to lapse. This commission sent out a list of inquiries to all the Provincial Governors. These gentlemen returned voluminous reports, all, without exception, favourable to the Jews. … Upon the strength of these reports were issued the ukases of 1859, 1861, and 1865, … by which Jews of the first mercantile guild and Jewish artisans were allowed to reside all over the Empire. It is just as well to remember that even these beneficent concessions, which seem by contrast with what had gone before to mark such a vast forward step in Russo-Jewish history, were confessedly dictated by utilitarian considerations. The shackles were stricken only from the two categories of Jews whose freedom would bring profit to Russia. … Still, the quarter century following Alexander II's accession in 1855 fairly deserves its appellation of the 'golden age' when what preceded it is recalled."

H. Frederic, The New Exodus, chapters 4-5.

See, also, JEWS: 19TH CENTURY.

JEWS: A. D. 1740. Rise of the modern Chasidim.

See CHASIDIM.

JEWS: A. D. 1791. The French Revolutionary emancipation.

"It is to the French Revolution that the Jews owe their improved position in the modern world. That prolific parent of good and evil has at least deserved well of them. It was the first to do justice, full and unequivocal, to those whom every other great political movement passed over as too insignificant or too contemptible to be taken into account. Mirabeau and the Abbé Grégoire, the one in his desire to secularise the State, the other in his policy of Christianising the Revolution, as our historian Graetz puts it, both urged on a movement which, in an incredibly short space of time, succeeded in effecting the complete emancipation of all the Jews under the rule of the Republic. On the 17th September, 1791, the National Assembly decreed the abolition of every exceptional enactment previously in force against them, and thus made them by law what they had previously been in heart, citizens of their country. {1931} He who started as the child, afterwards to become the master, of the Revolution, proclaimed the same great principles of religious equality wherever his victorious eagles penetrated. Since that dawn of a better time, the light has spread more and more, though even now [1890] it is only here and there that it has shone forth unto the perfect day."

S. Singer, Jews in their Relation to Other Races (National Life and Thought, chapter 20).

JEWS: A. D. 1846-1858. Removal of disabilities in England.

"In 1846 the Act of Parliament was formally repealed which compelled Jews living in England to wear a distinctive dress. The law had, however, been in abeyance for nearly two centuries. About this time also the Jews were admitted to the privileges of the naturalization laws; and in 1858 the House of Commons by resolution altered the form of oath tendered to all its members. As it had stood up to this time, Jews were prevented from voting in the divisions, although a Jew could take his seat in the House when sent there by a constituency."

E. Porritt, The Englishman at Home, chapter 9.

JEWS: 19th Century. The Anti-Semite movement. Later persecution of the Jews in Russia.

"Among the strange and unforeseen developments that have characterized the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century, few are likely to be regarded by the future historian with a deeper or more melancholy interest than the anti-Semite movement, which has swept with such a portentous rapidity over a great part of Europe. It has produced in Russia by far the most serious religious persecution of the century. It has raged fiercely in Roumania, the other great centre of the Oriental Jews. In enlightened Germany it has become a considerable parliamentary force. In Austria it counts among its adherents men of the highest social station. Even France, which from the days of the Revolution has been specially distinguished for its liberality to the Jews, has not escaped the contagion. … It is this movement which has been the occasion of the very valuable work of M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu on 'Israel among the Nations.' The author, who is universally recognized as one of the greatest of living political writers, has special qualifications for his task. With an exceedingly wide knowledge of the literature relating to his subject he combines much personal knowledge of the Jews in Palestine and in many other countries, and especially in those countries where the persecution has most furiously raged. That persecution, he justly says, unites in different degrees three of the most powerful elements that can move mankind—the spirit of religious intolerance; the spirit of exclusive nationality; and the jealousy which springs from trade or mercantile competition. Of these elements M. Leroy-Beaulieu considers the first to be on the whole the weakest. In that hideous Russian persecution which 'the New Exodus' of Frederic has made familiar to the English reader, the religious element certainly occupies a very leading place. Pobedonosteff, who shares with his master the chief guilt and infamy of this atrocious crime, belongs to the same type as the Torquemadas of the past, and the spirit that animates him has entered largely into the anti-Semite movement in other lands. … Another element to which M. Leroy-Beaulieu attaches considerable importance is the Kultur Kampf in Germany. When the German Government was engaged in its fierce struggle with the Catholics, these endeavored to effect a diversion and to avenge themselves on papers, which were largely in the hands of Jews, by raising a new cry. They declared that a Kultur Kampf was indeed needed, but that it should be directed against the alien people who were undermining the moral foundations of Christian societies; who were the implacable enemies of the Christian creed and of Christian ideals. The cry was soon taken up by a large body of Evangelical Protestants. … Still more powerful, in the opinion of our author, has been the spirit of intense and exclusive nationality which has in the present generation arisen in so many countries and which seeks to expel all alien or heterogeneous elements, and to mould the whole national being into a single definite type. The movement has been still further strengthened by the greater keenness of trade competition. In the midst of many idle, drunken and ignorant populations the shrewd, thrifty and sober Jew stands conspicuous as the most successful trader. His rare power of judging, influencing and managing men, his fertility of resource, his indomitable perseverance and industry continually force him into the foremost rank and he is prominent in occupations which excite much animosity. The tax-gatherer, the agent, the middleman, and the money-lender are very commonly of Jewish race and great Jewish capitalists largely control the money markets of Europe at a time when capital is the special object of socialistic attacks."

W. E. H. Lecky, Israel among the Nations (The Forum, December, 1893).

"Until 1881 the lives and property of Jews had been respected. Their liberties were restricted, not obsolete. In that year all was changed. The Pale of Settlement, especially in the South, became a centre of riot. Crimes were charged against, and violence was offered to, those who had no means of retaliation; and whose only defence was passive endurance. The restlessness of the country, the low moral tone of the most ignorant and unreasonable peasantry in the world, commercial jealousy, and official intrigues were responsible for the outbreak. The Jews had thriven; that was a crime. As the Government had refused them the privileges of citizenship, they had no right to rise above their neighbours. A rescript, for which General Ignatieff was responsible, took cognisance, not of the sufferings of the Jews, but of the condition of the Christians. Commissioners … were appointed, in all towns inhabited by Jews, to inquire (1) into the manner of mal-practices by which the presence of Jews became injurious to the Christian population; (2) into the best methods of preventing Jews from evading old restrictions; (3) what new laws were required to stop the pernicious conduct of Jews in business. The inquiry resulted in the May Laws of 1882. These laws, which were so severe that hesitation was felt in applying them throughout the Pale, were supposed to be of only temporary application. They were known as laws for the time, and only came into full operation in 1890. … The May Laws define the Jews' duties to the State. These consist of military service, and pecuniary contributions. {1932} In common with all Russians, Jews are subject to the Law of Conscription. Unlike Christians, they may not provide a substitute. They may not follow any trade, or profession, until they have produced evidence of registration in the recruiting district. While subject to military service, Jews cannot rise higher than the rank of non-commissioned officer. … The journal of statistics gives the proportion of Jews to the population as 3.95 per cent., whereas the percentage on the conscription rolls is 5.80. Thus the Hebrew is ground between the upper and nether millstone. … In December 1890 Russians were forbidden to sell, lease, or mortgage real estate to Jews throughout the Empire, a measure hitherto applied only to Poland. Where Jews have acquired such property they will be compelled to dispose thereof. The Jewish artisans, apothecaries' assistants, dentists, and midwives, with all apprentices, are to be expelled from all places outside the Pale. Exceptions to this are obtainable only by special permission from the Minister of the Interior. Even then the children of such must be removed to the Pale as soon as they come of age, or marry an unprivileged Jew. This Pale of Settlement, which stretches along the frontier, from the Baltic to the Black Sea, is a hell of seething wretchedness. Here five millions of Jews are compelled to live, and die, in a Ghetto of filth and misery, mocked with a feast of Tantalus. Beyond are lands where corn rots for lack of ingatherers; yet they are cabined and confined. Inability to bribe a corrupt mass of administrators has led to the expulsion of poor Jews from villages within the Pale, into crowded towns, such as Tchernizo, where the population has consequently risen from 5,000 to 20,000. … In September [1890] the Jews were expelled from Trans-caspian territory; in October, Jews, not having the right to live in St. Petersburg, were ordered to be transferred, with their families, to their proper places of abode; in January the Jews were ordered to be expelled from the Terke region of the Caucasus; in February the Jews in Novgorod were expelled. It has been declared expedient to expel them from the Cossack Stanitzas of the Caucasus. Three years ago the Jews were forbidden to live on Crown lands. Eighty-seven families were recently ordered to leave Saraka districts; because they had settled there after the passing of the Ignatieff laws. Artisans are henceforth to be confined to limits of residence within the Pale. It is the same with millers; therefore mills are idle, and the price of corn has declined. In Courland and Livonia, descendants of Jewish families, which were established when those provinces were incorporated into Russia, may remain; but no others may settle. … Jews who have lived eight years in a village may be interned therein, and may not move, even walking distance, without leave. Jews leaving one village for another lose their rights, and must go to the Ghetto of the nearest town. This is practically a sentence of death. Executions are going on, not upon scaffolds, but in dusky Ghettos, where the victims of oppression pine without hope in the world."

C. N. Barham, Persecution of the Jews in Russia (Westminster Review, volume 136, 1891), pages 139-144.

ALSO IN: Persecution of the Jews in Russia: issued by the Russo-Jewish Committee;

D. F. Schloss, Persecution of the Jews in Roumania.

----------JEWS: End----------

JEYPORE, OR JEYPOOR.

See RAJPOOTS.

JEZIREH, Al.

See MESOPOTAMIA.

JEZREEL, Battle of.

See MEGIDDO.

JINGIZ-KHAN, The conquests of.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227; and INDIA: A. D. 977-1290.

JINGOES.

See TURKS: A. D. 1878 EXCITEMENT IN ENGLAND.

JIVARA, OR JIVARO, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

JOACHIM I., Elector of Brandenburg, A. D. 1499-1535.

Joachim II., Elector of Brandenburg, 1535-1571.

Joachim Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, 1598-1608.

JOAN OF ARC, The mission of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431.

JOANNA, Queen of Castile, A. D. 1504-1555.

Joanna I., Queen of Naples, 1343-1381.

Joanna II., Queen of Naples, 1414-1435.

JOGLARS.

See TROUBADOURS.

JOHN (of Brienne), Latin Emperor at Constantinople (Romania), A. D. 1228-1237.

John (of Luxemburg), King of Bohemia, A. D. 1310-1346.

John, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, 1481-1513.

John, King of England, 1199-1216.

John (Don) of Austria: His victories over the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571, and 1572-1573.

In the Netherlands. See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577, and 1577-1581.

John, Elector of Brandenburg, 1486-1499.

John (called The Fearless), Duke of Burgundy, 1404-1418.

John I., King of Aragon, 1387-1395.

John I., King of Castile and Leon, 1379-1390.

John I., nominal King of France (an infant who lived seven days), 1316.

John I., King of Navarre, 1441-1479;

John II., of Aragon, 1458-1479;

John I., of Sicily, 1458-1479.

John I., King of Portugal, 1383-1433.

John I., King of Sicily, 1458-1479.

John II. (Comnenus), Emperor in the East (Byzantine or Greek), 1118-1143.

John II., King of Castile and Leon, 1407-1454.

John II. (called The Good), King of France, 1350-1364.

John II., King of Portugal, 1481-1495.

John III. (Vataces), Greek Emperor of Nicæa, 1222-1255.

John III., King of Portugal, 1521-1557.

John III., King of Sweden, 1568-1592.

John IV., Pope, 640-642.

John IV. (Lascaris), Greek Emperor of Nicæa, 1259-1260.

John IV., King of Portugal, 1640-1656.

John V., Pope, 685-686.

John V. (Cantacuzene), Greek Emperor of Constantinople, 1342-1355.

John V., King of Portugal, 1706-1750.

John VI., Pope, 701-705.

John VI. (Palæologus), Greek Emperor of Constantinople, 1355-1391.

John VI., King of Portugal, 1816-1826.

John VII., Pope, 705-707.

John VII. (Palæologus), Greek Emperor of Constantinople, 1425-1448.

John VIII., Pope, 872-882.

John IX., Pope, 898-900.

John X., Pope, 914-928.

John XI., Pope, 931-936.

John XII., Pope, 956-964.

John XIII., Pope, 965-972.

John XIV., Pope, 983-984.

John XV., Pope, 985-996.

John XVI., Antipope, 997-998.

John XVII., Pope, 1003, June to December.

John XVIII., Pope, 1003-1009.

John XIX., Pope, 1024-1033.

John XXI. (so styled, though 20th of the name), Pope, 1276-1277.

John XXII., Pope, 1316-1334.

John XXIII., Pope, 1410-1410.

John Albert, King of Poland, 1493-1501.

John d'Albret and Catherine, King and Queen of Navarre, 1503-1512.

John Balliol, King of Scotland, 1292-1296.

John Casimir, King of Poland, 1648-1668.

John Chrysostom and the Empress Eudoxia.

See ROME: A. D. 400-518.

John George, Elector of Brandenburg, 1571-1598.

John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, 1608-1619.

John Sobieski, King of Poland, 1674-1697.

John Swerkerson, King of Sweden, 1216-1222.

John Zimisces, Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), 969-976.

{1933}

JOHN COMPANY, The.

A name applied to the English East India Company.

See INDIA: A. D. 1858.

JOHNNIES.

See BOYS IN BLUE.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1867.

JOHNSON, Andrew: Military Governor of Tennessee.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH-JUNE).

Election to the Vice Presidency.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-NOVEMBER).

Succession to the Presidency.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL 15TH).

Reconstruction Policy.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), to 1866-1867 (OCTOBER-MARCH).

Impeachment of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868 (MARCH-MAY).

JOHNSON, Sir William, and the Six Nations.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

JOHNSON-CLARENDON CONVENTION.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1862-1869.

JOHNSTON, General Albert Sidney. Command of Confederate forces in the west. Battle of Shiloh. Death.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE), and (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE).

JOHNSTON, General Joseph E. At the first Battle of Bull Run.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY: VIRGINIA).

Command in northern Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (DECEMBER-APRIL: VIRGINIA).

Command on the Peninsula.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH-MAY: VIRGINIA), to (MAY: VIRGINIA).

Command in the west.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

Command in Georgia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-APRIL: TENNESSEE-MISSISSIPPI).

The Atlanta campaign. Relieved of command.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: GEORGIA), and (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA).

Command in the Carolinas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (FEBRUARY-MARCH: THE CAROLINAS).

Surrender.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL 26TH).

JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1889-1890.

JOINT HIGH COMMISSION.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1869-1871.

JOLIET'S EXPLORATIONS.

See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673.

JOMSBORG.

Jomsborg, a stronghold at the mouth of the Oder, became, in the later part of the 10th and early part of the 11th centuries, a noted fastness of the piratical heathen Danes, who found there "a secure refuge from the new religion and the civilization it brought with it," which their country was then submitting to. They founded at Jomsborg "a state to which no man might belong save on proof of courage, where no woman might enter within the walls, and where all booty was in common."

J. R. Green, The Conquest of England, pages 366-367.

"The impregnable castle of a certain body corporate, or 'Sea-Robbery Association (limited),' which, for some generations, held the Baltic in terror, and plundered far beyond the Belt—in the ocean itself, in Flanders and the opulent trading havens there,—above all, in opulent anarchic England, which, for forty years from about this time, was the pirates' Goshen; and yielded, regularly every summer, slaves, danegelt, and miscellaneous plunder, like no other country Jomsburg or the viking-world had ever known."

T. Carlyle, Early Kings of Norway, chapter 5.

The pirate-nest at Jomsborg was broken up, about the middle of the tenth century, by Magnus the Good, of Norway.

JONES, John Paul, Naval exploits of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775-1776; and 1779 (SEPTEMBER).

JONESBORO', Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA).

JONGLEURS.

See TROUBADOURS.

JOPPA.

See JAFFA.

JOSEPH, King of Portugal, A. D. 1750-1777.

Joseph I., King of Hungary, 1687-1711; King of Bohemia and Germanic Emperor, 1705-1711.

Joseph II., King of Hungary and Bohemia, and Germanic Emperor, 1765-1790.

Joseph Bonaparte, King of Naples, 1806-1808; King of Spain, 1808-1812.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER); and SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER), to 1812-1814.

JOSEPHINE, Empress, Napoleon's divorce from.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.

JOTAPATA, Siege of.

The Jewish city of Jotapata, defended by the historian Josephus, was besieged by Vespasian for forty-seven days, A. D. 67, and taken.

Josephus, Jewish War, book 3, chapter 7-8.

JOUBERT, Campaigns of.

See FRANCE: A. D.1796-1797(OCTOBER-APRIL); 1798-1799; 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).

JOURDAN, Campaigns of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793(JULY-DECEMBER); 1794 (MARCH-JULY); 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER); 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER); 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

JOUST.

See TOURNEY.

JOVIAN, Roman Emperor, A. D. 363-364.

JOVIANS AND HERCULIANS.

See PRÆTORIAN GUARDS: A. D. 312.

JOYOUS ENTRY OF BRABANT, The.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D.1559-1562.

JUAN.

See JOHN.

JUAREZ, The Mexican government of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1848-1861, to 1867-1888.

JUBILEE, Papal institution of the.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1294-1348.

JUDAH, Kingdom of.

See JEWS: THE KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL, AND JUDAH, and after.

JUDAS MACCABÆUS.

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.

JUDGES OF ISRAEL.

See JEWS: ISRAEL UNDER THE JUDGES.

JUDGMENT OF GOD.

See ORDEAL; also, WAGER OF BATTLE.

{1934}

JUDICIAL COMBAT.

See WAGER OF BATTLE.

JUGANTES, The.

See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES.

JUGERUM.

"A Roman jugerum [of land] was somewhat less than two-thirds of a statute acre."

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 2, chapter 7, footnote (volume 1).

JUGURTHINE WAR, The.

See NUMIDIA: B. C. 118-104.

JULIAN (called The Apostate), Roman Emperor, A. D. 361-363. Restorer of Paganism.

See ROME: A. D. 361-363.

JULIAN CALENDAR. JULIAN ERA.

See CALENDAR, JULIAN.

JULIAN FAMILY, The.

"The Julian Family is that of the dictator Cæsar; his name was transmitted, by adoption, out of the direct line, but always within the circle of his kindred, to the five first heads of the Roman empire; Augustus reigned from the year 30 B. C. to the year 14 of our era; Tiberius, from 14 to 37 A. D.; Caligula, from 37 to 41; Claudius, from 41 to 54; Nero, from 54 to 68."

J. C. L. Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 2.

JULIAN LAW, The.

See ROME: B. C. 90-88.

JULIAN LAWS, The.

"Cæsar [during his year of consulship, B. C. 59, before he went to Gaul] carried, with the help of the people, the body of admirable laws which are known to jurists as the 'Leges Juliæ,' and mark an epoch in Roman history. … There was a law declaring the inviolability of the persons of magistrates during their term of authority, reflecting back on the murder of Saturninus, and touching by implication the killing of Lentulus and his companions. There was a law for the punishment of adultery, most disinterestedly singular if the popular accounts of Cæsar's habits had any grain of truth in them. There were laws for the protection of the subject from violence, public or private; and laws disabling persons who had laid hands illegally on Roman citizens from holding office in the Commonwealth. There was a law, intended at last to be effective, to deal with judges who allowed themselves to be bribed. There were laws against defrauders of the revenue; laws against debasing the coin; laws against sacrilege; laws against corrupt State contracts; laws against bribery at elections. Finally, there was a law, carefully framed, 'De repetundis.' to exact retribution from pro-consuls or pro-prætors of the type of Verres, who had plundered the provinces."

J. A. Froude, Cæsar, chapter 13.

JULIAN LINE, The.

See ROME: A. D. 68-96.

JULIANUS.

See JULIAN.

Julianus, Didius, Roman Emperor, A. D. 193.

JÜLICH-CLEVE CONTEST, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1608-1618; and FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

JULIOMAGUS. Modern Angers.

See VENETI OF WESTERN GAUL.

JULIUS II., Pope, A. D. 1503-1513.

Julius III., Pope, 1550-1555.

Julius Nepos, Roman Emperor (Western), 474-475.

JULY FIRST. Dominion Day.

See CANADA: A. D. 1867.

JULY FOURTH, Independence Day.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).

JULY MONARCHY, The.

The reign of Louis Philippe, which was brought about by the revolution of July, 1830 (see FRANCE: A.D. 1815-1830, and 1830-1840), is commonly known in France as the July Monarchy.

JUNIN, Battle of (1824).

See PERU: A. D. 1820-1826.

JUNIUS LETTERS, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1769-1772.

JUNONIA.

See CARTHAGE: B. C. 44.

JUNTA.

A Spanish word signifying council, assembly, association.

JUNTA, The Apostolic.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.

JURISFIRMA, The process of.

See CORTES, THE EARLY SPANISH.

JUROIPACH, Fortress of.

A fortress in the pass of Derbend, between the last spurs of the Caucasus and the Caspian, which the Persians and the Romans undertook at one time to maintain jointly. "This fortress, known as Juroipach or Biraparach, commanded the usual passage by which the hordes of the north were accustomed to issue from their vast arid steppes upon the rich and populous regions of the south for the purpose of plundering raids, if not of actual conquests. Their incursions threatened almost equally Roman and Persian territory, and it was felt that the two nations were alike interested in preventing them."

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 19.

JURY, Trial by.

"The fabric of our judicial legislation commences with the Assize of Clarendon.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1162-1170.

… In the provisions of this assize for the repression of crime we find the origin of trial by jury, so often attributed to earlier times. Twelve lawful men of each hundred, with four from each township, were sworn to present those who were known or reputed as criminals within their district for trial by ordeal. The jurors were thus not merely witnesses, but sworn to act as judges also in determining the value of the charge; and it is this double character of Henry's [Henry II.] jurors that has descended to our 'grand jury.' … Two later steps brought the jury to its modern condition. Under Edward I. witnesses acquainted with the particular fact in question were added in each case to the general jury, and by the separation of these two classes of jurors at a later time the last became simply 'witnesses,' without any judicial power, while the first ceased to be witnesses at all, and became our modern jurors, who are only judges of the testimony given."

J. R. Green, Short History of English People, chapter 2, section 8.

See LAW.

ALSO IN: W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 13, section 164.

W. Forsyth, History of Trial by Jury.

JUSTICIAR.

The chief minister of the Norman kings of England. At first the Justiciar was the lieutenant or viceroy of the king during the absence of the latter from the kingdom; afterward a permanent minister of justice and finance.

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, volume 1, page 346.

JUSTIN I., Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 518-527.

Justin II., Roman Emperor (Eastern), 565-578.

JUSTINIAN I., Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 527-565.

Justinian II. (called Rhinotmetus), Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 685-695, and 704-711.

JUSTINIAN, The Institutes, Pandects and Novels of.

See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.

{1935}

JUSTIZA, OR JUSTICIARY, of Aragon.

See CORTES, THE EARLY SPANISH.

JÜTERBOGK, OR DENNEWITZ, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

JUTES, The.

See ANGLES AND JUTES; also, ENGLAND: A. D. 449-473.

JUTHUNGI, The.

See ALEMANNI, FIRST APPEARANCE OF THE.

JUVAVIUM.

See SALZBURG.

JUVENAL IA, The.

This was a festival instituted by Nero, to commemorate his attainment of the age of manhood. "His beard was clipped, and the first tender down of his cheek and chin enclosed in a golden casket and dedicated to Jupiter in the Capitol. This ceremony was followed by music and acting," in which the emperor, himself, performed.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 53.

JUVERNA.

See IRELAND: THE NAME.

KAABA, OR CAABA, at Mecca, The.

See CAABA.

KABALA, OR CABALA, The.

See CABALA.

KABALA, Battle of.

See SICILY: B. C. 383.

KABELJAUWS.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1345-1354; also, 1482-1493.

KABYLES, The.

See LIBYANS; also, AMORITES.

KADESH.

A strong fortress of the ancient Hittites on the Orontes. The name signifies "the holy city."

KADESH-BARNEA.

An important locality in Biblical history. "It looms up as the objective point of the Israelites in their movement from Sinai to the Promised Land. It is the place of their testing, of their failure, of their judging, and of their dispersion. It is their rallying centre for the forty-years of their wandering, and the place of their re-assembling for their final move into the land of their longings."

H. C. Trumbull, Kadesh-Barnea, part 1.

Mr. Trumbull identifies the site with the oasis of Ayn Qadees, in the Wilderness of Zin.

KADIASKERS.

See SUBLIME PORTE.

KADISIYEH, Battle of.

See CADESIA.

KADMEIA, The.

See GREECE: B. C. 383.

KADMEIANS, OR CADMEIANS.

See BŒOTIA.

KADMONITES, The.

See SARACENS.

KAFIRS. KAFIR WARS.

See SOUTH AFRICA: ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS, and A. D. 1811-1868; also, AFRICA: THE INHABITING RACES.

KAGHUL, Battle of (1770).

See TURKS: A. D. 1768-1774.

KAH-KWAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS, &c.

KAINARDJI, OR KUTSCHUK KAINARDJI, Treaty of (1774).

See TURKS: A. D. 1768-1774.

KAIRWAN, The founding of.

Acbah, the first of the Moslem conquerors of Northern Africa who penetrated as far westward as the domain of ancient Carthage, but who did not take that city, secured his footing in the region [A. D. 670-675] by founding a new city, thirty-three leagues southeast of Carthage and twelve leagues from the sea. The site chosen was a wild, thickly wooded valley, in the midst of which the Arab leader is said to have cleared a space, erected walls around it, and then, planting his lance in the center, cried to his followers: "This is your Caravan." Hence the name, Kairwan or Caerwan, or Cairoan. Fixing his seat of government at Kairwan, building mosques and opening markets, Acbah and his successors soon made the new city a populous and important capital.

W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, volume 2, chapter 44.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 51.

A. A. Boddy, Kairwan the Holy.

KAISAR-I-HIND.

See INDIA: A. D. 1877.

KAISER, Origin of the title.

See CÆSAR, THE TITLE.

KAISERSLAUTERN, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).

KALAPOOIAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KALAPOOIAN FAMILY.

KALB, Baron De, and the War of the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST).

KALEVALA, KALEWALA, The.

"To a certain class of modern philologists, no poem in the world is more familiar than the Kalewala, the long epic, which is to the mythology and traditional lore of the Finns what the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer are to the heroic story of ancient Greece. It is the source from which nearly all the information connected with the religious creed, the moral notions, the customs, and the domestic details of a most remarkable race is to be obtained. If we would know how the Greeks of the heroic age prayed, fought, eat, drank, sported, and clothed themselves, we turn to the pages of Homer. If we would obtain similar knowledge on the subject of the Finns, we consult the Kalewala. Though the traditions of the Finnish heroes are possibly as old as those of Achilles and Ajax, the arrangement of them into a continuous poem is a work of very recent date. No Wolfian controversy will arise respecting the construction of the Kalewala, for it is not more than twenty-five years since the Peisistratid who first put together the isolated songs, or Runes, published the result of his labours. Fragments of Finnish poetry, collected from the oral traditions of the people, had already made their appearance, though even the first important collection of these, which was made by Dr. Zacharias Topelius, dates no further back than 1822. … But it is with Dr. Lönnrot that the existence of the epic as an epic, with the title 'Kalewala,' begins. He published it in thirty-two Runes,—that is to say, books or cantos, for the word, which previously denoted an independent poem, now sinks into little more than a sign of division, though here and there, it must be confessed, an abrupt transition occurs, to which a parallel would not be found in the Iliad or the Odyssey. In 1849 a second edition of the Kalewala was published, likewise under the superintendence of Dr. Lönnrot, containing fifty cantos and nearly 23,000 lines."

J. Oxenford, Kalewala (Temple Bar, December, 1860).

{1936}

"Besides its fresh and simple beauty of style, its worth as a storehouse of every kind of primitive folk-lore, being as it is the production of an Urvolk, a nation that has undergone no violent revolution in language or institutions—the Kalevala has the peculiar interest of occupying a position between the two kinds of primitive poetry, the ballad and the epic. … Sixty years ago, it may be said, no one was aware that Finland possessed a national poem at all. Her people—who claim affinity with the Magyars of Hungary, but are possibly a back-wave of an earlier tide of population—had remained untouched by foreign influences since their conquest by Sweden, and their somewhat lax and wholesale conversion to Christianity: events which took place gradually between the middle of the twelfth and the end of the thirteenth centuries. … The annexation of Finland by Russia, in 1809, awakened national feeling, and stimulated research into the songs and customs which were the heirlooms of the people. … From the north of Norway to the slopes of the Altai, ardent explorers sought out the fragments of unwritten early poetry. These runes, or runots, were sung chiefly by old men called Runoias, to beguile the weariness of the long dark winters. The custom was for two champions to engage in a contest of memory, clasping each other's hands, and reciting in turn till he whose memory first gave in slackened his hold. The Kalevala contains an instance of this practice, where it is said that no one was so hardy as to clasp hands with Wäinämöinen, who is at once the Orpheus and the Prometheus of Finnish mythology. These Runoias, or rhapsodists, complain, of course, of the degeneracy of human memory; they notice how any foreign influence, in religion or politics, is destructive to the native songs of a race. 'As for the lays of old time, a thousand have been scattered to the wind, a thousand buried in the snow. … As for those which the Munks (the Teutonic knights) swept away, and the prayer of the priest over-whelmed, a thousand tongues were not able to recount them.' In spite of the losses thus caused, and in spite of the suspicious character of the Finns, which often made the task of collection a dangerous one, enough materials remained to furnish Dr. Lönnrot, the most noted explorer, with thirty-five Runots, or cantos. These were published in 1835, but later research produced the fifteen cantos which make up the symmetrical fifty of the Kalevala. In the task of arranging and uniting these, Dr. Lönnrot played the part generally ascribed to Pisistratus in relation to the Iliad and Odyssey. He is said to have handled with singular fidelity the materials which now come before us as one poem, not without a certain unity and continuous thread of narrative. It is this unity which gives the Kalevala a claim to the title of epic, although the element of permanence which is most obvious in the Greek epics, and in the earliest Hebrew records, is here conspicuously absent. … Among the Finns we find no trace of an aristocracy; there is scarcely a mention of kings, or priests; the heroes of the poem are really popular heroes, fishers, smiths, husbandmen, 'medicine-men' or wizards; exaggerated shadows of the people, pursuing on a heroic scale, not war, but the common daily business of primitive and peaceful men. In recording their adventures, the Kalevala, like the shield of Achilles, reflects all the life of a race, the feasts, the funerals, the rites of seed-time and harvest, of marriage and death, the hymn, and the magical incantation. Were this all, the epic would only have the value of an exhaustive collection of the popular ballads which, as we have seen, are a poetical record of all the intenser moments in the existence of unsophisticated tribes. But it is distinguished from such a collection, by presenting the ballads as they are produced by the events of a continuous narrative, and thus it takes a distinct place between the aristocratic epics of Greece, or of the Franks, and the scattered songs which have been collected in Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, and Italy. Besides the interest of its unique position as a popular epic, the Kalevala is very precious, both for its literary beauties and for the confused mass of folk-lore which it contains. … What is to be understood by the word 'Kalevala'? The affix 'la' signifies 'abode.' Thus, 'Tuonela' is 'the abode of Tuoni,' the god of the lower world; and as 'kaleva' means 'heroic,' 'magnificent,' 'Kalevala' is 'The Home of Heroes,' like the Indian 'Beerbhoom,' or 'Virbhûmi.' The poem is the record of the adventures of the people of Kalevala—of their strife with the men of Pohjola, the place of the world's end."

A. Lang, Kalevala (Fraser's May, June, 1872).

A complete translation of the Kalevala into English verse, by John Martin Crawford, was published in New York, in 1888.

Project Gutenberg Kalevala: the Epic Poem of Finland— Complete by Lönnrot and Crawford https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5186

KALISCH, Battle of (1706).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1701-1707.

KALISCH, OR CALISCH, Treaty of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813.

KALMUKS, The.

See TARTARS.

KAMBALU, OR CAMBALU,

See CHINA: A. D. 1259-1294.

KAMBULA, Battle of (1879),

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1877-1879.

KAMI, OR KHEMI, OR KEM.

See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.

KANAKAS.

See HAWAIIAN ISLANDS.

KANAWHA, Battle of the Great.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

KANAWHA, The proposed State of.

See WEST VIRGINIA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL-DECEMBER).

KANAWHAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

KANDHS, The.

See INDIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

----------KANSAS: Start--------

KANSAS: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY, and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

KANSAS: A. D. 1803. Mostly embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

KANSAS: A. D. 1854. Territorial organization. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854.

KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859. The battle-ground of the struggle against Slavery-extension. Border-ruffians and Free State settlers.

"The attention of the whole country had now been turned to the struggle provoked by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The fertile soil of Kansas had been offered as a prize to be contended for by Free and Slave States, and both had accepted the contest. The Slave State settlers were first in the field. The slave-holders of Western Missouri, which shut off Kansas from the Free States, had crossed the border, preempted lands, and warned Free State immigrants not to pass through Missouri. {1937} The first election of a delegate to Congress took place November 29th, 1854, and was carried by organized bands of Missourians, who moved over the border on election day, voted, and returned at once to Missouri. The spring election of 1855, for a Territorial Legislature, was carried in the same fashion. In July, 1855, the Legislature, all Pro-Slavery, met at Pawnee, and adopted a State Constitution. To save trouble it adopted the laws of the State of Missouri entire, with a series of original statutes denouncing the penalty of death for nearly fifty offenses against Slavery. All through the spring and summer of 1855 Kansas was the scene of almost continuous conflict, the Border Ruffians of Missouri endeavoring to drive out the Free State settlers by murder and arson, and the Free State settlers retaliating. The cry of 'bleeding Kansas' went through the North. Emigration societies were formed in the Free States to aid, arm, equip, and protect intending settlers. These, prevented from passing through Missouri, took a more Northern route through Iowa and Nebraska, and moved into Kansas like an invading army. The Southern states also sent parties of intending settlers. But these were not generally slave-holders, but young men anxious for excitement. They did not go to Kansas, as their opponents did, to plow, sow, gather crops, and build up homes. Therefore, though their first rapid and violent movements were successful, their subsequent increase of resources and numbers was not equal to that of the Free State settlers. The Territory soon became practically divided into a Pro-Slavery district, and a Free State district. Leavenworth in the former, and Topeka and Lawrence in the latter, were the chief towns. September 5th, 1855, a Free State Convention at Topeka repudiated the Territorial Legislature and all its works, as the acts and deeds of Missourians alone. It also resolved to order a separate election for delegate to Congress, so as to force that body to decide the question, and to form a State government. January 15th, 1856, the Free State settlers [having applied to Congress for admission as a State] elected State officers under the Topeka Free State Constitution. The Federal Executive now entered the field. January 24th, 1856, the President [Franklin Pierce], in a Special Message to Congress, endorsed the Pro-Slavery Legislature, and pronounced the attempt to form a Free State government, without the approval of the Federal authorities in the Territory, to be an act of rebellion. He then issued a proclamation, warning all persons engaged in disturbing the peace of Kansas to retire to their homes, and placed United States troops at the orders of Governor Shannon to enforce the (Pro-Slavery) laws of the Territory. The population of Kansas was now so large that very considerable armies were mustered on both sides, and a desultory civil war was kept up until nearly the end of the year. During its progress two Free State towns, Lawrence and Ossawattomie, were sacked. July 4th, 1856, the Free State Legislature attempted to assemble at Topeka, but was at once dispersed by a body of United States troops, under orders from Washington. September 9th, a new Governor, Geary, of Pennsylvania, arrived and succeeded in keeping the peace to some extent by a mixture of temporizing and decided measures. By the end, of the year he even claimed to have established order in the Territory. … January 6th, 1857, the Free State Legislature again attempted to meet at Topeka, and was again dispersed by Federal interference. Its presiding officer and many of its members were arrested by a United States deputy marshal. The Territorial, or Pro-Slavery, Legislature quarreled with Governor Geary, who resigned, and Robert J. Walker, of Mississippi, was appointed in his stead. A resolution was passed by the House [in Congress] declaring the Acts of the Territorial Legislature cruel, oppressive, illegal, and void. It was tabled by the Senate." A new Congress met December 7th, 1857, "with a Democratic majority in both branches. In the House, James L. Orr, of South Carolina, a Democrat, was chosen Speaker. The debates of this Session were mainly upon the last scene in the Kansas struggle. Governor Walker had succeeded in persuading the Free State settlers to recognize the Territorial Legislature so far as to take part in the election which it had ordered. The result gave them control of the Legislature. But a previously elected Pro-Slavery Convention, sitting at Lecompton, went on to form a State Constitution. This was to be submitted to the people, but only votes 'For the Constitution with Slavery,' or 'For the Constitution without Slavery,' were to be received. Not being allowed in either event to vote against the Constitution, the Free State settlers refused to vote at all, and the Lecompton Constitution with Slavery received 6,000 majority. The new Territorial Legislature, however, ordered an election at which the people could vote for or against the Lecompton Constitution, and a majority of 10,000 was cast against it. … The President's Message argued in favor of receiving Kansas as a State under the Lecompton Constitution with Slavery, on the ground that the delegates had been chosen to form a State Constitution, and were not obligated to submit it to the people at all. This view was supported by the Southern members of Congress, and opposed by the Republicans and by a part of the Democrats, headed by Senator Douglas, of Illinois. The Senate passed a bill admitting Kansas as a State, under the Lecompton Constitution. The House passed the bill, with the proviso that the Constitution should again be submitted to a popular vote. The Senate rejected the proviso. A conference committee recommended that the bill of the House should be adopted, with an additional proviso making large grants of public lands to the new State, if the people of Kansas should vote to adopt the Lecompton Constitution. In this form the bill was passed by both Houses, and became a law. … The proffered inducement of public lands was a failure, and in August the Lecompton Constitution was rejected by 10,000 majority. Kansas, therefore, still remained a Territory. In 1859, at an election called by the Territorial Legislature, the people decided in favor of another Convention to form a State Constitution. This body met at Wyandot, in July, 1859, and adopted a State Constitution prohibiting Slavery. The Wyandot Constitution was submitted to the people and received a majority of 4,000 in its favor;" but Congress refused the admission to Kansas under this Constitution, the Senate rejecting, though the House approved.

A. Johnston, History of American Politics, chapters 18-19.

ALSO IN: D. W. Wilder, Annals of Kansas (containing the text of the several Constitutions, etc.).

E. E. Hale, Kansas and Nebraska, chapters 8-9.

S. T. L. Robinson, Kansas

J. H. Gihon, Governor Geary's Administration in Kansas.

F. B. Sanborn, Life and Letters of John Brown, chapters 7-11.

Reports of Select Committee, (34th Congress, 1st Session, H. R. Report 200).

J. F. Rhodes, History of the United States from 1850, chapters 7-9 (volume 2).

C. Robinson, The Kansas Conflict.

See, also, JAYHAWKERS.

{1938}

KANSAS: A. D. 1861. Admission to the Union under the Wyandot Constitution.

"As soon as a sufficient number of Southern members of Congress [from the seceding States] had withdrawn to give the Republicans a majority in both Houses, Kansas was admitted as a State [January 29, 1861] under the Wyandot Free State Constitution."

A. Johnston, History of American Politics, 2d edition, page 185.

KANSAS: A. D. 1863. Quantrell's guerrilla raid. The sacking of Lawrence.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST: MISSOURI-KANSAS).

----------KANSAS: End----------

KANSAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

KAPOHN, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CARIBS AND THEIR KINDRED.

KAPOLNA, Battle of (1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

KAPPEL, Battle of (1531). The Kappeler Milchsuppe.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1528-1531.

KARA GEORG, The career of.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-19TH CENTURIES (SERVIA).

KARAISM. KARAITES.

The Jewish sect of the Karaites originated in the teaching of one Anan ben David, in the 8th century, whose radical doctrine was the rejection of the Talmud and a return to the Bible "for the ordering of religious life." Hence "the system of religion which Anan founded received the name of the Religion of the Text, or Karaism,"

H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 3, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 23.

KARAKORUM.

The early capital of the Mongol empire of Jingis Khan and his successors was at Karakorum, believed to have been situated near the river Orkhon, or Orgon. Ogotai built a great palace there, in 1235, called Ordu Balik, or the city of the Ordu.

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, volume 1. pages 155 and 182.

See, also, MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.

KARANKAWAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KARANKAWAN FAMILY.

KARIGAUM, Defense of (1817).

See INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819.

KARKAR, Battle of.

Fought B. C. 854, by Shalmaneser of Assyria, with the confederate, kings of Damascus, Israel and their Syrian neighbors; the latter defeated.

KARL.

See ETHEL.—ETHELING.

KARLINGS, OR CARLINGS.

See FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

KARLOWITZ, OR CARLOWITZ, Peace of.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.

KARLSBAD, OR CARLSBAD, Congress of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1814-1820.

KARMATHIANS, The.

See CARMATHIANS.

KARNATTAH.

The Moorish name of Granada, signifying "the cream of the West."

See SPAIN: A. D. 1238-1273.

KAROKS, OR CAHROCS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS, &c.

KAROLINGIA AND KAROLINGIANS.

See CAROLINGIA; and FRANKS: A. D. 768-814.

----------KARS: Start--------

KARS: A. D. 1854-1856. Siege and capture by the Russians. Restoration to Turkey.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1855 and 1854-1856.

KARS: A. D. 1877. Siege and capture by the Russians.

See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.

KARS: A. D. 1878. Cession to Russia.

See TURKS: A. D. 1878 THE TREATIES.

----------KARS: End--------

KASDIM, OR CASDIM.

See BABYLONIA, PRIMITIVE.

----------KASHMERE: Start--------

KASHMERE: A. D. 1819-1820. Conquest by Runjet Singh.

See SIKHS.

KASHMERE: A. D. 1846.

Taken from the Sikhs by the English and given as a kingdom to Gholab Singh.

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

----------KASHMERE: Start--------

----------KASKASKIA: Start--------

KASKASKIA, French settlement of.

See ILLINOIS: A. D. 1751.

KASKASKIA: A. D. 1778. Taken by the Virginian General Clark.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779 CLARK'S CONQUEST.

----------KASKASKIA: End----------

KASKASKIAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

KASSOPIANS.

See EPIRUS.

KATABA, OR CATAWBAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: TIMUQUANAN FAMILY, and, SIOUAN FAMILY.

KATANA, Naval Battle of.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 397-396.

KATZBACH, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (AUGUST).

KAUS, OR KWOKWOOS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KUSAN FAMILY.

KAWS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

KAZAN, The Khanate of.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391.

KEARNEYITES.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1877-1880.

KEARNEY'S EXPEDITION AND CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO.

See NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1846.

KEDAR, Tribe of.

"The Arabs of the tribe of Kedar are often mentioned in the Bible, especially with reference to the trade with Phœnicia. They furnished the caravans across the desert of Dahna, to convey the merchandise of Hadramaut, Marah, and Oman to Syria. They inhabited the southern portion of Yemama, on the borders of the desert."

F. Lenormant, Manual of the Ancient History of the East, book 7, chapter 1, section 7 (volume 2).

KEECHIES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

KEEHEETSAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

KEEWATIN, District of.

"In 1876 an act was passed by the Dominion Parliament [Canada] erecting into a separate government under the name of the District of Keewatin the portion of the North-West Territory lying to the north of Manitoba. The district contains about 395,000 acres, and is principally occupied by Icelandic colonists. The Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba is ex-officio Lieutenant-Governor of Keewatin."

J. E. C. Munro, The Constitution of Canada, page 35.

{1939}

KEFT.

The ancient Egyptian name of Phœnicia.

----------KEHL: Start--------

KEHL: A. D. 1703. Taken by the French.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.

KEHL: A. D. 1733. Taken by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

----------KEHL: End--------

KEITH, George, The schism and the controversies of.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1692-1696.

KELLY'S FORD, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY-NOVEMBER: VIRGINIA).

KELTS, The.

See CELTS, THE.

KEM, OR KAMI, OR KHEMI.

See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.

KENAI, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: BLACKFEET, and ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.

KENDALL, Amos, in the "Kitchen Cabinet" of President Jackson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829.

KENESAW MOUNTAIN, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA).

KENITES, The.

See AMALEKITES, THE.

KENT, Kingdom of.

Formed by the Jutes in the southeast corner of Britain. The only other settlement of the Jutes in England was in the Isle of Wight and on the neighboring coast of Hampshire.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 449-473.

KENT, Weald of.

See ANDERIDA.

KENT'S HOLE.

One of the most noted of the caves which have been carefully explored for relics of early man, coeval with extinct animals. It is in Devonshire, England, near Torquay.

W. B. Dawkins, Cave Hunting.

----------KENTUCKY: Start----------

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1748. First English exploration from Virginia.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1765-1778. Absence of Indian inhabitants. Early exploration and settlement by the whites. The colony of Transylvania.

In the wars that were waged between the Indian tribes of the South, before the advent of white settlers, Kentucky became "a sort of border-land such as separated the Scots and English in their days of combat. … The Chickasaws alone held their ground, being the most northern of the sedentary Southern Indians. Their strongholds on the bluffs of the Mississippi and the inaccessibility of this country on account of its deep, sluggish, mud-bordered streams, seem to have given them a sufficient measure of protection against their enemies, but elsewhere in the State the Indians were rooted out by their wars. The last tenants of the State, east of the Tennessee River, were the Shawnees,—that combative folk who ravaged this country with their ceaseless wars from the head-waters of the Tennessee to the Mississippi, and from the Lakes to Alabama. It was no small advantage to the early settlers of Kentucky that they found this region without a resident Indian population, for, bitter as was the struggle with the claimants of the soil, it never had the danger that would have come from a contest with the natives in closer proximity to their homes. … As Kentucky was unoccupied by the Indians, it was neglected by the French. … Thus the first settlers found themselves, in the main, free from these dangers due to the savages and their Gallic allies. The land lay more open to their occupancy than any other part of this country ever did to its first European comers. … In 1765 Colonel George Croghan, who had previously visited the Ohio with Gist, made a surveying journey down that stream from Pittsburg to the Mississippi. … In 1766 a party of five persons, including a mulatto slave, under the command of Captain James Smith, explored a large part of what is now Tennessee, and probably extended their journey through Southern Kentucky. Journeys to Kentucky now became frequent. Every year sent one or more parties of pioneers to one part or another of the country. In 1769 Daniel Boone and five companions, all from the Yadkin settlements in North Carolina, came to Eastern Kentucky. One of the party was killed, but Boone remained, while his companions returned to their homes. Thus it will be seen that Boone's first visit was relatively late in the history of Kentucky explorations. Almost every part of its surface had been traversed by other explorers before this man, who passes in history as the typical pioneer, set foot upon its ground. In the time between 1770 and 1772 George Washington, then a land-surveyor, made two surveys in the region which is now the northeast corner of Kentucky. … The first distinct effort to found a colony was made by James Harrod and about forty companions, who found their way down the Ohio near to where Louisville now stands, and thence by land to what is now Mercer County, in Central Kentucky, where they established, on June 16, 1774, a village which they called, in honor of their leader, Harrodsburg. Earlier attempts at settlement were made at Louisville, but the fear of Indians caused the speedy abandonment of this post. … In 1775 other and stronger footholds were gained. Boone built a fort in what is now Madison County, and Logan another at St. Asaphs, in Lincoln County. The settlement of Kentucky was greatly favored by the decisive victory gained by Lord Dunmore's troops over the Indians from the north of the Ohio, at the mouth of the Kanawha.

See OHIO VALLEY: A. D. 1774.

… That the process of possessing the land was going on with speed may be seen from the fact that Henderson and Company, land-agents at Boonesborough, issued from their office in the new-built fort entry certificates of surveys for 560,000 acres of land. The process of survey was of the rudest kind, but it served the purpose of momentary definition of the areas, made it possible to deal with the land as a commodity, and left the tribulations concerning boundaries to the next generation. These land deeds were given as of the 'colony of Transylvania,' which was in fact the first appellation of Kentucky, a name by which it was known for several years before it received its present appellation. At this time, the last year that the work of settling Kentucky was done under the authority of his majesty King George III., there were probably about 150 men who had placed themselves in settlements that were intended to be permanent within the bounds of what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky. There may have been as many more doing the endless exploring work which preceded the choice of a site for their future homes. The men at Boone's Station claimed, and seem to have been awarded, a sort of hegemony among the settlements. {1940} On the 23d of May, at the call of Colonel Henderson, the land-agent of the proprietors, delegates from these settlements met at Boonesborough, and drew up a brief code of nine laws for the government of the young Commonwealth. … The Boonesborough parliament adjourned to meet in September, but it never reassembled. The venture which led to its institution fell altogether to ruin, and the name of Transylvania has been almost entirely forgotten. … The colony of Transylvania rested on a purchase of about 17,000,000 acres, or about one half the present area of Kentucky, which was made by some people of North Carolina from the Overhill Cherokee Indians, a part of the great tribe that dwelt on the Holston River. For this land the unfortunate adventurers paid the sum of £10,000 of English money. … Immediately after the Boonesborough parliament the position of the Transylvania company became very insecure; its own people began to doubt the validity of the titles they had obtained from the company, because, after a time, they learned from various sources that the lands of this region of Kentucky had been previously ceded to the English government by the Six Nations, and were included in the Virginia charter. In the latter part of 1775, eighty men of the Transylvania settlement signed a memorial asking to be taken under the protection of Virginia; or, if that colony thought it best, that their petition might be referred to the General Congress. … The proprietors of the colony made their answer to this rebellion by sending a delegate to the Federal Congress at Philadelphia, who was to request that the colony of Transylvania be added to the number of the American colonies. … Nothing came of this protest. Congress refused to seat their delegate, Patrick Henry and Jefferson, then representing Virginia, opposing the efforts of the proprietors. The Governor of North Carolina issued a proclamation declaring their purchase illegal. The colony gradually fell to pieces, though the State of Virginia took no decided action with reference to it until, in 1778, that Commonwealth declared the acts of the company void, but, in a generous spirit, offered compensation to Colonel Henderson and the other adventurers. The Transylvania company received 200,000 acres of valuable lands, and their sales to actual settlers were confirmed by an act of the Virginia Assembly. Thus the strongest, though not the first, colony of Kentucky, was a misadventure and quickly fell to pieces."

N. S. Shaler, Kentucky, chapters 5-7.

ALSO IN; T. Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, volume 1, chapters 6 and 8-12.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1768. The Treaty with the Six Nations at Fort Stanwix. Pretended cession of the country south of the Ohio.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1774. The western Territorial claims of Virginia. Lord Dunmore's war with the Indians.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1775-1784. A county of Virginia. Indian warfare of the Revolution. Aspirations towards State independence.

"In the winter of 1775 Kentucky was formed into a county of Virginia. … About this time Harrodsburg, Boonesborough and Logan's Fort were successively assailed by the Indians. They withstood the furious attacks made upon them; not, however, without great loss. During the succeeding summer they were considerably reinforced by a number of men from North Carolina, and about 100 under Colonel Bowman from Virginia. In 1778 Kentucky was invaded by an army of Indians and Canadians under the command of Captain Duquesne; and the expedition of Colonel George Rodgers Clark against the English post of Vincennes and Kaskaskia took place this year. In February of this year Boone, with about 30 men, was engaged in making salt at the Lower Blue Licks, when he was surprised by about 200 Indians. The whole party surrendered upon terms of capitulation. The Indians carried them to Detroit, and delivered them all up to the commandant, except Boone, whom they carried to Chilicothe. Boone soon effected his escape. … After … some weeks … Captain Duquesne, with about 500 Indians and Canadians, made his appearance before Boonesborough, and besieged the fort for the space of nine days, but finally decamped with the loss of 30 men killed, and a much greater number wounded. … About the first of April, 1779, Robert Patterson erected a block house, with some adjacent defenses, where the city of Lexington now stands. This year, the celebrated land law of Kentucky was passed by the Legislature of Virginia, usually called the Occupying Claimant Law. The great defect of this law was, that Virginia, by this act, did not provide for the survey of the country at the expense of the State. … Each one holding a warrant could locate it where he pleased, and survey it at his own cost. … The consequence of this law was … a flood of emigration during the years 1780 and 1781. During this period the emigrants were greatly annoyed by the frequent incursions of the Indians, and their entire destruction sometimes seemed almost inevitable. This law was a great feast for the lawyers of that day. … In November, 1780, Kentucky was divided into three counties, bearing the names of Fayette, Lincoln, and Jefferson. … In 1782, Indian hostility was earlier, more active and shocking than it had ever been in the country before; a great battle was fought upon Hinkston's Fork of the Licking, near where Mount Sterling now stands, in which the Indians were victorious. In this battle, Estill, who commanded the whites, and nearly all of his officers, were killed. Near the Blue Licks another battle was soon afterwards fought with Captain Holder, in which the whites were again defeated; in both these last mentioned battles the contending foe were Wyandottes. … Peace was made with Great Britain in 1783, and hostilities ceased; hostilities with the Indians also for a time seemed suspended, but were soon renewed with greater violence than ever. During the cessation of hostilities with the Indians, settlements in Kentucky advanced rapidly. … As early as 1784 the people of Kentucky became strongly impressed with the necessity of the organization of a regular government, and gaining admission into the Union as a separate and independent State; but their efforts were continually perplexed and baffled for the space of eight years before their desire was fully accomplished. And though they were often tempted by Spain with the richest gifts of fortune if she would declare herself an independent State, and although the Congress of the Confederated States continually turned a deaf ear to her reiterated complaints and grievances, and repulsed her in every effort to obtain constitutional independence, she maintained to the last the highest respect for law and order, and the most unswerving affection for the Government. … With the view to admission into the Union as an independent State, there were elected and held nine Conventions in Kentucky within the space of eight years."

W. B. Allen, History of Kentucky, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: J. M. Brown, Political Beginnings of Kentucky.

{1941}

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1778-1779. Conquest of the Northwest by the Virginian General Clark, and its annexation to the Kentucky District.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779 CLARK'S CONQUEST.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1781-1784. Conflicting territorial claims of Virginia and New York and their cession to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1785-1800. The question of the free navigation of the Mississippi. Discontent of the settlers. Intrigues of Wilkinson.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1789-1792. Separation from Virginia and admission to the Union as a State.

"In the last days of the Continental Congress, Virginia, after some struggles, having reluctantly consented to her organization on that condition as an independent state, Kentucky had applied to that body for admission into the confederacy. That application had been referred to the new federal government about to be organized, a delay which had made it necessary to recommence proceedings anew; for the Virginia Assembly had fixed a limitation of time, which, being over-past, drove back the separatists to the original starting-point. On a new application to the Virginia Legislature, a new act had authorized a new Convention, being the third held on that subject: to take the question of separating into consideration. But this act had imposed some new terms not at all agreeable to the Kentuckians, of which the principal was the assumption by the new state of a portion of the Virginia debt, on the ground of expenses incurred by recent expeditions against the Indians. The Convention which met under this act proceeded no further than to vote a memorial to the Virginia Legislature requesting the same terms formerly offered. That request was granted, and a fourth Convention was authorized again to consider the question of separation, and, should that measure be still persisted in, to fix the day when it should take place. Having met during the last summer [1790], this Convention had voted unanimously in favor of separation; had fixed the first day of June, 1792, as the time; and had authorized the meeting of a fifth Convention to frame a state Constitution. In anticipation of these results, an act of Congress was, now passed [February 4, 1791] admitting Kentucky into the Union from and after the day above mentioned, not only without any inspection of the state Constitution, but before any such Constitution had been actually formed." In the Constitution subsequently framed for the new state of Kentucky, by the Convention appointed as above, an article on the subject of slavery "provided that the Legislature should have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of their owners, nor without paying therefor, previous to such emancipation, a full equivalent in money; nor laws to prevent immigrants from bringing with them persons deemed slaves by the laws of anyone of the United States, so long as any persons of like age and description should be continued in slavery by the laws of Kentucky. But laws might be passed prohibiting the introduction of slaves for the purpose of sale, and also laws to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, volume 4, chapters 3-4.

ALSO IN: J. M. Brown, The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1790-1795. War with the Indian tribes of the Northwest. Disastrous expeditions of Harmar and St. Clair, and Wayne's decisive victory.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1790-1795.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1798. The Nullifying resolutions.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1798.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1861 (January-September). The struggle with Secession and its defeat. "Neutrality" ended.

"In the days when personal leadership was more than it can ever be again, while South Carolina was listening to the teachings of John C. Calhoun, which led her to try the experiment of secession, Kentucky was following Henry Clay, who, though a slave-holder, was a strong Unionist. The practical effect was seen when the crisis came, after he had been in his grave nine years. Governor Beriah Magoffin convened the Legislature in January, 1861, and asked it to organize the militia, buy muskets, and put the State in a condition of armed neutrality; all of which it refused to do. After the fall of Fort Sumter he called the Legislature together again, evidently hoping that the popular excitement would bring them over to his scheme. But the utmost that could be accomplished was the passage of a resolution by the lower house (May 16) declaring that Kentucky should occupy 'a position of strict neutrality,' and approving his refusal to furnish troops for the National army. Thereupon he issued a proclamation (May 20) in which he 'notified and warned all other States, separate or united, especially the United and Confederate States, that I solemnly forbid any movement upon Kentucky soil.' But two days later the Legislature repudiated this interpretation of neutrality, and passed a series of acts intended to prevent any scheme of secession that might be formed. It appropriated $1,000,000 for arms and ammunition, but placed the disbursement of the money and control of the arms in the hands of Commissioners that were all Union men. It amended the militia law so as to require the State Guards to take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and finally the Senate passed a resolution declaring that 'Kentucky will not sever connection with the National Government, nor take up arms with either belligerent party.' Lovell H. Rousseau (afterward a gallant General in the National service), speaking in his place in the Senate, said: 'The politicians are having their day; the people will yet have theirs. I have an abiding confidence in the right, and I know that this secession movement is all wrong. There is not a single substantial reason for it; our Government had never oppressed us with a feather's weight.' The Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge and other prominent citizens took a similar stand, and a new Legislature, chosen in August, presented a Union majority of three to one. {1942} As a last resort, Governor Magoffin addressed a letter to President Lincoln, requesting that Kentucky's neutrality be respected and the National forces removed from the State. Mr. Lincoln, in refusing his request, courteously reminded him that the force consisted exclusively of Kentuckians, and told him that he had not met any Kentuckian except himself and the messengers that brought his letter who wanted it removed. To strengthen the first argument, Robert Anderson, of Fort Sumter fame, who was a citizen of Kentucky, was made a General and given the command in the State in September. Two months later, a secession convention met at Russellville, in the southern part of the State, organized a provisional government, and sent a full delegation to the Confederate Congress at Richmond, who found no difficulty in being admitted to seats in that body. Being now firmly supported by the new Legislature, the National Government began to arrest prominent Kentuckians who still advocated secession, whereupon others, including ex-Vice-President John C. Breckinridge, fled southward and entered the service of the Confederacy. Kentucky as a State was saved to the Union, but the line of separation was drawn between her citizens, and she contributed to the ranks of both the great contending armies."

R. Johnson, Short History of the War of Secession, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: N. S. Shaler, Kentucky, chapter 15.

E. P. Thompson, History of First Kentucky Brigade, chapter 2.

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1861 (April). Governor Magoffin's reply to President Lincoln's call for troops.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL).

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1862 (January-February). Expulsion of Confederate armies along the whole line.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY—TENNESSEE).

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1862 (August-October). Bragg's invasion. Buell's pursuit. Battle of Perryville.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).

KENTUCKY: A. D. 1863 (July). John Morgan's Raid.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: KENTUCKY).

----------KENTUCKY: End----------

KENTUCKY RESOLUTIONS, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1798.

KENYER-MESÖ, Battle of (1479).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1471-1487.

KERAÏT, The.

See PRESTER JOHN, THE KINGDOM OF.

KERAMEIKOS, The.

See CERAMICUS OF ATHENS.

KERBELA, The Moslem tragedy at.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 680.

KERESAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KERESAN FAMILY.

KERESTES, OR CERESTES, Battle of (1596).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1595-1606.

KERMENT, Battle of (1664).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1660-1664.

KERNE.

See RAPPAREES.

KERNSTOWN, Battles of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (DECEMBER-APRIL: VIRGINIA); and 1864 (JULY: VIRGINIA-MARYLAND).

KERTCH, Attack on (1855).

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856.

KERYKES, The.

See PHYLÆ.

KESSELSDORF, Battle of (1745).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1744-1745.

KEYNTON, OR EDGEHILL, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1642 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

KEYSERWERTH, Siege and storming of (1702).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.

KHAJAR DYNASTY, The.

See PERSIA: A. D. 1499-1887.

KHALIF.

See CALIPH.

KHALSA, The.

See SIKHS; also, INDIA: A. D. 1836-1845, and 1845-1849.

KHAN. KHAGAN.

"'Khan' is the modern contracted form of the word which is found in the middle ages as 'Khagan,' or 'Chagan,' and in the Persian and Arabic writers as 'Khakan' or 'Khacan.' Its original root is probably the 'Khak,' which meant King' in ancient Susianian, in Ethiopic ('Tirhakah'), and in Egyptian ('Hyk-sos')."

G. Rawlinson, The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 14, foot-note.

KHAR, OR KHARU, The.

"The term Khar in Egyptian texts appears to apply to the inhabitants of that part of Syria generally known as Phœnicia, and seems to be derived from the Semitic Akharu, 'the back' or 'west.'"

C. R. Conder, Syrian Stone Lore, chapter 1.

KHAREJITES, The.

A democratical party among the Mahometans, which first took form during the Caliphate of Ali, A. D. 657. The name given to the party, Kharejites, signified those who "go forth"—that is in secession and rebellion. It was their political creed that, "believers being absolutely equal, there should be no Caliph, nor oath of allegiance sworn to any man; but that the government should be in the hands of a Council of State elected by the people." Ali attacked and dispersed the Kharejites, in a battle at Nehrwan, A. D. 658; but they continued for a long period to give trouble to succeeding Caliphs.

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapters 40 and 42, with foot-note.

KHARTANI, Tragedy of the Cave of.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1830-1846.

KHARTOUM, The Mahdi's siege of.

See EGYPT: A. D. 1884-1885.

KHAZARS, OR CHAZARS, OR KHOZARS, The.

"This important people, now heard of for the first time in Persian history [late in the fifth century of the Christian era], appears to have occupied, in the reign of Kobad, the steppe country between the Wolga and the Don, whence they made raids through the passes of the Caucasus into the fertile provinces of Iberia, Albania, and Armenia. Whether they were Turks, as is generally believed, or Circassians, as has been ingeniously argued by a living writer [H. H. Howorth], is doubtful; but we cannot be mistaken in regarding them as at this time a race of fierce and terrible barbarians."

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 18.

"After the fall of the Persian empire [see MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651], they [the Khazars, or Chazars] crossed the Caucasus, invaded Armenia, and conquered the Crimean peninsula, which bore the name of Chazaria for some time. The Byzantine emperors trembled at the name of the Chazars, and flattered them, and paid them a tribute, in order to restrain their lust after the booty of Constantinople. The Bulgarians, and other tribes, were the vassals of the Chazars, and the people of Kiev (Russians) on the Dnieper were obliged to furnish them every year with a sword, and fine skins from every fur hunt. {1943} With the Arabs, whose near neighbours they gradually became, they carried on terrible wars. Like their neighbours, the Bulgarians and the Russians, the Chazars professed a coarse religion, which was combined with sensuality and lewdness. The Chazars became acquainted with Islamism and Christianity through the Arabs and Greeks. … There were also Jews in the land of the Chazars; they were some of the fugitives who had escaped (723) the mania for conversion which possessed the Byzantine Emperor Leo. … As interpreters or merchants, physicians or counsellors, the Jews were known and beloved by the Chazarian court, and they inspired the warlike Bulan with a love of Judaism. … It is possible that the circumstances under which the Chazars embraced Judaism have been embellished by legend, but the fact itself is too definitely proved on all sides to allow of there being any doubt as to its reality. Besides Bulan, the nobles of his kingdom, numbering nearly 4,000, adopted the Jewish religion. Little by little it made its way among the people, so that most of the inhabitants of the towns of the Chazarian kingdom were Jews. … A successor of Bulan, who bore the Hebrew name of Obadiah, was the first to occupy himself earnestly with the Jewish religion. He … founded synagogues and schools. … After Obadiah came a long series of Jewish Chagans, for according to a fundamental law of the state only Jewish rulers were permitted to ascend the throne."

H. Graetz, History of the Jews, volume 3, chapter 5.

KHEDIVE.

See EGYPT: A. D. 1840-1869.

KHEMI, OR KEM.

See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.

KHITA, The.

See HITTITES, THE.

KHITAI. KHITANS, The.

See CHINA: THE NAMES OF THE COUNTRY.

KHIVA.

See KHUAREZM.

KHODYA.

See SUBLIME PORTE.

KHOKAND, Russian conquest of the Khanate of (1876).

See. RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

KHONDS, The.

See TURANIAN RACES.

----------KHORASSAN: Start--------

KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221. Conquest and destruction by the Mongols.

In the autumn of A. D. 1220, one division of the armies of Jingis Khan, commanded by his son Tului, poured into Khorassan. "Khorassan was then one of the richest and most prosperous regions on the earth's surface; its towns were very thickly inhabited, and it was the first and most powerful province of Persia. The Mongol invasion altered all this, and the fearful ravage and destruction then committed is almost incredible." On the capture of the city of Nessa the inhabitants were tied together with cords and then massacred in a body—70,000 men, women and children together—by shooting them with arrows. At Meru (modern Merv) the wholesale massacre was repeated on a vastly larger scale, the corpses numbering 700,000, according to one account, 1,300,000 according to another. Even this was exceeded at Nishapoor ("city of Sapor"), the ancient capital of Khorassan. "To prevent the living hiding beneath the dead, Tului ordered every head to be cut off, and separate heaps to be made of men's, women's, and children's heads. The destruction of the city occupied fifteen days; it was razed to the ground, and its site was sown with barley; only 400 artisans escaped, and they were transported into the north. According to Mirkhond 1,747,000 men lost their lives in this massacre." The destroying army of demons and savages moved on to Herat, then a beautiful city surrounded by villages and gardens. It surrendered, and only 12,000 of its soldiers were slain at that time; but a few months later, upon news of a defeat suffered by the Mongols, Herat rebelled, and brought down upon itself a most terrible doom. Captured once more, after a siege of six months, the city experienced no mercy. "For a whole week the Mongols ceased not to kill, burn, and destroy, and it is said that 1,600,000 people were killed; the place was entirely depopulated and made desert." At Bamian, in the Hindu Kush, "every living creature, including animals and plants as well as human beings, was destroyed; a heap of slain was piled up like a mountain."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, part 1, pages 86-91.

KHORASSAN: A. D. 1380. Conquest by Timour.

See TIMOUR.

----------KHORASSAN: End--------

KHOTZIM.

See CHOCZIM.

KHOULIKOF, Battle of (1383).

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.

----------KHUAREZM: Start--------

KHUAREZM, OR CHORASMIA (modern Khiva).

"The extensive and fertile oasis in the midst of the sandy deserts of Central Asia, known in these days as the Khanat of Khiva, was called by the Greeks Chorasmia and by the Arabs Khwarezm [or Khuarezm]. The Chorasmians were of the Aryan race, and their contingent to the army of Xerxes was equipped precisely in the Bactrian fashion. It is probable that Chorasmia formed a portion of the short-lived Greco-Bactrian monarchy, and it certainly passed under the domination of the White Huns, from whom it was subsequently wrested by the Toorks."

J. Hutton, Central Asia, chapter 10.

KHUAREZM: 12th Century. The Khuarezmian, or Khahrezmian, or Korasmian, or Carizmian Empire.

"The sovereigns of Persia were in the habit of purchasing young Turks, who were captured by the various frontier tribes in their mutual struggles, and employing them in their service. They generally had a body guard formed of them, and many of them were enfranchised and rose to posts of high influence, and in many cases supplanted their masters. The founder of the Khuarezmian power was such a slave, named Nushtekin, in the service of the Seljuk Sultan Malik Shah. He rose to the position of a Teshtedar or chamberlain, which carried with it the government of the province of Khuarezm, that is of the fertile valley of the Oxus and the wide steppes on either side of it, bounded on the west by the Caspian and on the east by Bukharia." The grandson of Nushtekin became virtually independent of the Seljuk sultan, and the two next succeeding princes began and completed the overthrow of the Seljuk throne. The last Seljuk sultan, Togrul III., was slain in battle, A. D. 1193, by Takish or Tokush, the Khuarezmian ruler, who sent his head to the Caliph at Bagdad and was formally invested by the Caliph with the sovereignty of Khorassan, Irak Adjem and other parts of the Persian domain not occupied by the Atabegs and the Assassins. Takish's son extended his conquests in Transoxiana and Turkestan (A. D. 1209), and acquired Samarkand, which he made his capital. "He controlled an army of 400,000 men, and his dominions, at the invasion of the Mongols, stretched from the Jaxartes to the Persian Gulf, and from the Indus to the Irak Arab and Azerbaidjan."

H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, part 1, pages 7-8.

{1944}

KHUAREZM: A. D. 1220. Destruction by the Mongols.

In May, 1220, the Mongol army of Jingis Khan marched upon Urgendj, or Khuarezm—the original capital of the empire of Khuarezm, to which it gave its name. That city, which is represented by the modern Khiva, was "the capital of the rich cluster of cities that then bordered the Oxus, a river very like the Nile in forming a strip of green across two sandy deserts which bound it on either hand." The Mongols were commanded, at first, by the three elder sons of Jingis Khan: but two of them quarreled, and the siege was protracted through six months without much progress being made. Jingis then placed the youngest son, Ogotai, in charge of operations, and they were carried forward more vigorously. "The Mongols at length assaulted the town, fired its buildings with naptha, and after seven days of desperate street-fighting captured it. This was probably in December, 1220. They sent the artisans and skilled workmen into Tartary, set aside the young women and children as slaves, and then made a general massacre of the rest of the inhabitants. They destroyed the city, and then submerged it by opening the dykes of the Oxus. The ruins are probably those now known as Old Urgendj. Rasehid says that over 100,000 artisans and craftsmen were sent into Mongolia."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, part 1, page 85.

ALSO IN: J. Hutton, Central Asia, chapter 4.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227.

KHUAREZM: A. D. 1873. Conquest by the Russians.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

----------KHUAREZM: End--------

KHUAREZMIANS IN JERUSALEM, The.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 1242.

KICHES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES, QUICHES, and MAYAS.

KICKAPOO INDIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

KIEFT, Governor William, Administration of.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1638-1647.

KIEL, Peace of.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES: A. D. 1813-1814.

----------KIEV: Start--------

KIEV, OR KIEF: A. D. 882. Capital of the Russian state.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 862.

KIEV, OR KIEF: A. D. 1240. Destroyed by the Mongols.

In December, 1240, the Mongols, pursuing their devastating march through Russia, reached Kiev. It was then a famous city, known among the Russians as "the mother of cities, magnificently placed on the high banks of the Dnieper, with its white walls, its beautiful gardens, and its thirty churches, with their gilded cupolas, which gave it its pretty Tartar name, Altundash Khan (i. e., the court of the Golden Heads): it was the metropolitan city of the old Russian princes, the seat of the chief patriarch of all Russia. It had latterly, namely, in 1204, suffered from the internal broils of the Russian princes, and had been much plundered and burnt. It was now to be for a while erased altogether." Kiev was taken by storm and the inhabitants "slaughtered without mercy: the very bones were torn from the tombs and trampled under the horses' hoofs. … The magnificent city, with the ancient Byzantine treasures which it contained, was destroyed." During the 14th and 15th centuries Kiev seems to have remained in ruins, and the modern city is said to be "but a shadow of its former self."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, volume 1, pages 141-142. (1876)

----------KIEV: End--------

KILIDSCH.

See TIMAR.

KILIKIA.

See CILICIA.

KILKENNY, The Statute of.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1327-1367.

KILKENNY ARTICLES, The.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1652.

KILLIECRANKIE, Battle of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1689 (JULY).

KILPATRICK'S RAID TO RICHMOND.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (FEBRUARY-MARCH: VIRGINIA).

KILSYTH, Battle of (1645).

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1644-1645.

KIMON, Peace of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 460-449.

KINBURN, Battle of (1787).

See TURKS: A. D. 1776-1792.

KINDERGARTEN, The.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1816-1892.

KING, Origin of the word.

"Cyning, by contraction King, is closely connected with the word 'Cyn' or 'Kin.' … I do not feel myself called upon to decide whether Cyning is strictly the patronymic of 'cyn,' or whether it comes immediately from a cognate adjective (see Allen, Royal Prerogative, 176: Kemble, i. 153). It is enough if the two words are of the same origin, as is shown by a whole crowd of cognates, 'cynebarn,' 'cynecyn,' 'cynedom,' 'cynehelm,' 'cynehlaford.' … (I copy from Mr. Earle's Glossarial Index.) In all these words 'cyn' has the meaning of 'royal.' The modern High-Dutch König is an odd corruption: but the elder form is 'Chuninc.' The word has never had an English feminine: Queen is simply 'Cwen,' woman, wife. … The notion of the King being the 'canning' or 'cunning' man [is] an idea which could have occurred only to a mind on which all Teutonic philology was thrown away."

E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest of England, chapter 3, section 1, and note L (volume 1).

KING GEORGE'S WAR.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744: 1745: and 1745-1748.

KING MOVEMENT, The.

See NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1853-1883.

KING OF THE ROMANS.

See ROMANS, KING OF THE.

KING OF THE WOOD.

See ARICIAN GROVE.

KING PHILIP'S WAR.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675: 1675: and 1676-1678.

KING WILLIAM'S WAR.

The war in Europe, of "the Grand Alliance" against Louis XIV. of France, frequently called "the War of the League of Augsburg," extended to the American colonies of England and France, and received in the former the name of King William's War.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690; CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690, and 1692-1697; also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690; and NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694-1697.

KING'S BENCH.

See CURIA REGIS.

{1945}

KING'S COLLEGE.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1746-1787.

KING'S HEAD CLUB.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1678-1679.

KING'S MOUNTAIN, Battle of (1780).

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.

KING'S PEACE, The.

"The peace, as it was called, the primitive alliance for mutual good behaviour, for the performance and enforcement of rights and duties, the voluntary restraint of free society in its earliest form, was from the beginning of monarchy [in early England] under the protection of the king. … But this position is far from that of the fountain of justice and source of jurisdiction. The king's guarantee was not the sole safeguard of the peace; the hundred had its peace as well as the king; the king too had a distinct peace which like that of the church was not that of the country at large, a special guarantee for those who were under special protection. … When the king becomes the lord, patron and 'mundborh' of his whole people, they pass from the ancient national peace of which he is the guardian into the closer personal or territorial relation of which he is the source. The peace is now the king's peace. … The process by which the national peace became the king's peace is almost imperceptible; and it is very gradually that we arrive at the time at which all peace and law are supposed to die with the old king, and rise again at the proclamation of the new."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 7, section 72 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: G. E. Howard, On the Development of the King's Peace (Nebraska University Studies, volume 1, number 3).

Sir F. Pollock, Oxford Lectures, 3.

See, also, ROMAN ROADS IN BRITAIN.

----------KINGSTON, Canada: Start--------

KINGSTON, Canada: A. D. 1673. The building of Fort Frontenac. La Salle's seigniory.

In 1673, Count Frontenac, governor of Canada, personally superintended the construction of a fort on the north shore of Lake Ontario, at the mouth of the Cataraqui, where the city of Kingston now stands, the site having been recommended by the explorer La Salle. The following year this fort, with surrounding lands to the extent of four leagues in front and half a league in depth, was granted in seigniory to La Salle, he agreeing to pay the cost of its construction and to maintain it at his own charge. He named the post Frontenac.

F. Parkman, La Salle, chapter. 6.

KINGSTON, Canada: A. D. 1758. Fort Frontenac taken by the English.

See CANADA: A. D. 1758.

----------KINGSTON, Canada: End--------

KINSALE, Battle of (1601).

See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.

KINSTON, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (FEBRUARY-MARCH: NORTH CAROLINA).

KIOWAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KIOWAN FAMILY.

KIPCHAKS, The.

"The Kipchaks were called Comans by European writers. … The name Coman is derived no doubt from the river Kuma, the country about which was known to the Persians as Kumestan. … A part of their old country on the Kuma is still called Desht Kipchak, and the Kumuks, who have been pushed somewhat south by the Nogays, are, I believe, their lineal descendants. Others of their descendants no doubt remain also among the Krim Tartars. To the early Arab writers the Kipchaks were known as Gusses, a name by which we also meet with them in the Byzantine annals. This shows that they belonged to the great section of the Turks' known as the Gusses or Oghuz Turks. … They first invaded the country west of the Volga at the end of the ninth century, from which time till their final dispersal by the Mongols in the thirteenth century they were very persistent enemies of Russia. After the Mongol conquest it is very probable that they became an important element in the various tribes that made up the Golden Horde or Khanate of Kipchak."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, part 1, page 17.

See, also, MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294; and RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

KIRCH-DENKERN, OR WELLINGHAUSEN, Battle of (1761).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.

KIRGHIZ, Russian subjugation of the.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

KIRIRI, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.

KIRK OF SCOTLAND.

See CHURCH OF SCOTLAND.

KIRKE'S LAMBS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (MAY-JULY).

KIRKI, Battle of (1817).

See INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819.

KIRKSVILLE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

KIRRHA.

See DELPHI.

KISSIA.

See ELAM.

KIT KAT CLUB, The.

See CLUBS.

KITCHEN CABINET, President Jackson's.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1829.

KITCHEN-MIDDENS.

"Amongst the accumulations of Neolithic age which are thought by many archæologists to be oldest are the well-known 'Kjökkenmödingr' or kitchen-middens of Denmark. These are heaps and mounds composed principally of shells of edible molluscs, of which the most abundant are oyster, cockle, mussel, and periwinkle. Commingled with the shells occur bones of mammals, birds, and fish in less or greater abundance, and likewise many implements of stone, bone, and horn, together with potsherds. The middens are met with generally near the coast, and principally on the shores of the Lymfjord and the Kattegat; they would appear, indeed, never to be found on the borders of the North Sea. They form mounds or banks that vary in height from 3 or 5 feet up to 10 feet, with a width of 150 to 200 feet, and a length of sometimes nearly 350 yards. … The Danish savants (Forchhammer, Steenstrupp, and Worsaae), who first examined these curious shell-mounds, came to the conclusion that they were the refuse-heaps which had accumulated round the dwellings of some ancient coast-tribe. … Shell-mounds of similar character occur in other countries."

J. Geikie, Prehistoric Europe, chapter 15.

KIT'S COTY HOUSE.

The popular name of a conspicuous Cromlech or stone burial monument in Kent, England, near Addington.

KITTIM.

The Hebrew name of the island of Cyprus.

See, also, JAVAN.

KITUNAHAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KITUNAHAN FAMILY.

KJÖKKENMÖDINGR.

See KITCHEN-MIDDENS.

{1946}

KLAMATHS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS, &c.

KLEINE RATH, The.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.

KLEISTHENES, Constitution of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 510-507.

KLEOMENIC WAR, The.

See GREECE: B. C. 280-146.

KLERUCHS.

"Another consequence of some moment arose out of this victory [of the Athenians over the citizens of Chalkis, or Chalcis, in the island of Eubœa, B. C. 506—see ATHENS: B. C. 509-506]. The Athenians planted a body of 4,000 of their citizens as Kleruchs (lot-holders) or settlers upon the lands of the wealthy Chalkidian oligarchy called the Hippobotæ—proprietors probably in the fertile plain of Lelantum between Chalkis and Eretria. This is a system which we shall find hereafter extensively followed out by the Athenians in the days of their power; partly with the view of providing for their poorer citizens—partly to serve as garrison among a population either hostile or of doubtful fidelity. These Attic Kleruchs (I can find no other name by which to speak of them) did not lose their birthright as Athenian citizens. They were not colonists in the Grecian sense, and they are known by a totally different name—but they corresponded very nearly to the colonies formerly planted out on the conquered lands by Rome."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 31 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: A. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, book 3, chapter 18.

See, also, ATHENS: B. C. 440-437.

KLOSTER-SEVEN, Convention of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER); and 1758.

KNECHTE, The.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

KNIGHT-SERVICE.

See FEUDAL TENURES.

KNIGHTHOOD: Orders of, and their modern imitations. Alcantara.

See ALCANTARA.

KNIGHTHOOD: American Knights.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (OCTOBER).

KNIGHTHOOD: Avis.

See AVIS.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Bath.

See BATH.

KNIGHTHOOD: Black Eagle: A Prussian Order instituted by Frederick III., Elector of Brandenburg, in 1701.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Blue Ribbon.

See SERAPHIM.

KNIGHTHOOD: Brethren of Dobrin.

See PRUSSIA: 13TH CENTURY.

KNIGHTHOOD: Calatrava.

See CALATRAVA.

KNIGHTHOOD: Christ: a Papal Order, instituted by Pope John XXII., in 1319; also a Portuguese Order.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1415-1460.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Crescent: instituted by René of Anjou, titular King of Naples, in 1448, but suppressed by Pope Paul II., in 1464; also a Turkish Order

See CRESCENT.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Ecu.

See BOURBON: THE HOUSE OF.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Elephant: a Danish Order, instituted in 1693, by King Christian V.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Garter.

See GARTER.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Golden Circle.

See GOLDEN CIRCLE.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Golden Fleece.

See GOLDEN FLEECE.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Golden Horseshoe.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1710-1716.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Golden Spur: instituted by Pope Paul III., in 1550.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Guelphs of Hanover.

See GUELPHS OF HANOVER.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Holy Ghost.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1578-1580.

KNIGHTHOOD: Hospitallers.

See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Indian Empire: instituted by Queen Victoria, in 1878.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Iron Cross: a Prussian Order, instituted in 1815 by Frederick William III.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Iron Crown.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Legion of Honor.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Lion and the Sun: a Persian Order, instituted in 1808.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Lone Star.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

KNIGHTHOOD: Malta.

See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN.

KNIGHTHOOD: Maria Theresa.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (APRIL-JUNE).

KNIGHTHOOD: La Merced.

See MERCED.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Mighty Host.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (OCTOBER).

KNIGHTHOOD: Our Lady of Montesa.

See OUR LADY, &c.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Polar Star: a Swedish Order, of uncertain origin.

KNIGHTHOOD: Rhodes.

See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Round Table.

See ARTHUR, KING.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Andrew: a Scotch Order

See ST. ANDREW; also a Russian Order, instituted in 1698 by Peter the Great.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. George: a Russian Order, founded by Catharine II.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Gregory: an Order instituted in 1831 by Pope Gregory XVI.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Jago or Santiago.

See CALATRAVA.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. James of Compostella.

See CALATRAVA.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Januarius: instituted by Charles, King of the Two Sicilies, in 1738.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. John.

See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. John of the Lateran: instituted in 1560, by Pope Pius IV.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Lazarus.

See ST. LAZARUS.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Louis.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (JULY).

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Michael.

See ST. MICHAEL.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Michael and St. George.

See ST. MICHAEL, &c.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Patrick: instituted by George III. of England, in 1783.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Stephen.

See ST. STEPHEN.

KNIGHTHOOD: St. Thomas of Acre.

See ST. THOMAS.

KNIGHTHOOD: Santiago.

See CALATRAVA.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Seraphim.

See SERAPHIM.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Sons of Liberty.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (OCTOBER).

KNIGHTHOOD: The Southern Cross.

See SOUTHERN CROSS.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Star.

See STAR.

KNIGHTHOOD: Star of India.

See STAR OF INDIA.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Starry Cross.

See STARRY CROSS.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Swan.

See SWAN.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Sword: a Swedish Order.

See SWORD;

KNIGHTHOOD: The Sword: a German Order.

See LIVONIA: 12TH-13TH CENTURIES.

KNIGHTHOOD: Templars.

See TEMPLARS.

KNIGHTHOOD: Teutonic.

See TEUTONIC KNIGHTS.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Thistle: instituted by James V. of Scotland, in 1530.

KNIGHTHOOD: The Tower and Sword.

See TOWER AND SWORD.

KNIGHTHOOD: Victoria Cross.

See VICTORIA CROSS.

KNIGHTHOOD: The White Camellia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1871.

KNIGHTHOOD: The White Cross: an Order founded by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in 1814.

KNIGHTHOOD: White Eagle: a Polish Order, instituted in 1325 by Ladislaus IV., and revived by Augustus in 1705.

KNIGHTS.

See CHIVALRY; also, COMITATUS.

KNIGHTS BACHELORS.

"The word 'bachelor,' from whence has come 'bachelier,' does not signify 'bas chevalier,' but a knight who has not the number of 'bachelles' of land requisite to display a banner: that is to say, four 'bachelles.' The 'bachelle' was composed of ten 'maz,' or 'meix' (farms or domains), each of which contained a sufficiency of land for the work of two oxen during a whole year."

J. Froissart, Chronicles (translated by Johnes), book 1, chapter 61, foot-note (volume 1).

ALSO IN: Sir W. Scott, Essay on Chivalry

R. T. Hampson, Origines Patriciœ, page 338.

{1947}

KNIGHTS BANNERETS.

"The name [banneret] imports the bearer of a small banner, and, in this respect, he differed from the baron, who bore a gonfanon or banner of war, and the simple knight, who bore a penon. The banner, properly so called, was a square flag; the penon, according to the illuminations of ancient manuscripts, was a small square, having two long triangles attached to the side opposite that which was fixed to the lance or spear. These pendant portions resembling tails were so denominated. Rastal defines a banneret to be a knight made upon the field of battle, with the ceremony of cutting off the point of his standard, and so making this like a banner. And such, he says, are allowed to display their arms on a banner in the king's army, like the barons. That was, no doubt, the mode of creation; but it appears … that a knight, or an esquire of four bacelles, or cow lands, and therefore, a bachelor, to whom the king had presented a banner on his first battle, became a banneret on the second; so that, in such cases, there would be no such ceremony necessary."

R. T. Hampson. Origines Patriciœ, chapter 11.

KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE.

During the thirteenth century there grew up in England the practice of sending to the Great Council of the king a certain number of knights from each shire to represent the "lesser baronage." which had formerly possessed the privilege of attending the council in person, but which had become more neglectful of attendance as their numbers increased. In theory, these knights of the shire, as they came to be called, were representatives of that "lesser baronage" only. "But the necessity of holding their election in the County Court rendered any restriction of the electoral body physically impossible. The court was composed of the whole body of freeholders, and no sheriff could distinguish the 'aye, aye' of the yeoman from the 'aye, aye' of the lesser baron. From the first moment therefore of their attendance we find the knights regarded not as mere representatives of the baronage, but as knights of the shire, and by this silent revolution the whole body of the rural freeholders were admitted to a share in the government of the realm."

J. R. Green, Short History of the English People, chapter 4.

The history of the knights of the shire is the history of the origin of county representation in the English Parliament. The representation of boroughs, or towns, has a history quite distinct. Of the leading part played by the knights of the shire in the development and establishment of the English Constitution Mr. Stubbs remarks ("Constitutional History of England," chapter 17, section 272): "Both historical evidence and the nature of the case lead to the conviction that the victory of the constitution was won by the knights of the shires; they were the leaders of parliamentary debate; they were the link between the good peers and the good towns; they were the indestructible element of the house of commons; they were the representatives of those local divisions of the realm which were coeval with the historical existence of the people of England, and the interests of which were most directly attacked by the abuses of royal prerogative."

See, also, PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH: EARLY STAGES IN ITS EVOLUTION.

KNOW NOTHING PARTY, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1852.

KNOX, General Henry, in the Cabinet of President Washington.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792.

KNOX, John, and the Reformation in Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1547-1557, to 1558-1560.

----------KNOXVILLE: Start--------

KNOXVILLE: A. D. 1863 (September). Evacuated by the Confederates and occupied by the Union forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: TENNESSEE).

KNOXVILLE: A. D. 1863 (November-December). Longstreet's siege.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER; TENNESSEE).

----------KNOXVILLE: End--------

KNUT, OR CANUTE, ERICSSON, King of Sweden, A. D. 1167-1199.

KNYDUS, OR CNYDUS, Battle of (B. C. 394).

See GREECE: B. C. 399-387.

KOASSATI, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

KOLARIANS, The.

See INDIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

KOLDING, Battle of (1849).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.

KOLIN, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (APRIL-JUNE).

KOLOMAN, King of Hungary, A. D. 1095-1114.

KOLUSCHAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KOLUSCHAN FAMILY.

KOMANS COMANS CUMANS, The.

See PATCHINAKS; KIPCHAKS; COSSACKS; also, HUNGARY: A. D. 1114-1301.

KOMORN, Battle of (1849).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

KONDUR, OR CONDORE, Battle of (1758).

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

KONIEH, Battle of (1832).

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

KÖNIGGRÄTZ, OR SADOWA, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

KONSAARBRUCK, Battle of (1675).

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

KOORDS KURDS, The.

See CARDUCHI.

KORAN, The.

"The Koran, as Mr. Kingsley quaintly, but truly, says, 'after all is not a book, but an irregular collection of Mohammed's meditations and notes for sermons.' It is not a code, it is not a journal, it is a mere gathering together of irregular scraps, written on palm-leaves and bones of mutton, which Abu-Bekr [the bosom friend of Mahomet and the first of the Caliphs or successors of the Prophet] put together without the slightest regard to chronological order, only putting the long fragments at the beginning, and the short fragments at the end. But so far from having the Koran of Mahomet, we have not even the Koran of Abu-Bekr. Caliph Othman [the third Caliph], we know, gave enormous scandal by burning all the existing copies, which were extremely discordant, and putting forth his own version as the 'textus ab omnibus receptus.' How much then of the existing Koran is really Mahomet's; how much has been lost, added, transposed, or perverted; when, where, and why each fragment was delivered, it is often impossible even to conjecture. And yet these baskets of fragments are positively worshipped."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 2.

ALSO IN: S. Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, chapter 4.

Sir W. Muir, The Coran.

T. Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, chapter 2.

The Koran; translated by G. Sale.

See, also, MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

KORASMIANS, The.

See KHUAREZM.

{1948}

KOREISH, The.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

----------KORKYRA: Start--------

KORKYRA, OR CORCYRA.

The Greek island now known as Corfu, separated from the coast of Epirus by a strait only two to seven miles in breadth, bore in ancient times the name of Korkyra, or, rather, took that name from its ruling city. "Korkyra [the city] was founded by the Corinthians, at the same time (we are told) as Syracuse. … The island was generally conceived in antiquity as the residence of the Homeric Phæakians, and it is to this fact that Thucydides ascribes in part the eminence of the Korkyræan marine. According to another story, some Eretrians from Eubœa had settled there, and were compelled to retire. A third statement represents the Liburnians as the prior inhabitants,—and this perhaps is the most probable, since the Liburnians were an enterprising, maritime, piratical race, who long continued to occupy the more northerly islands in the Adriatic along the Illyrian and Dalmatian coast. … At the time when the Corinthians were about to colonize Sicily, it was natural that they should also wish to plant a settlement at Korkyra, which was a post of great importance for facilitating the voyage from Peloponnesus to Italy, and was further convenient for traffic with Epirus, at that period altogether non-Hellenic. Their choice of a site was fully justified by the prosperity and power of the colony, which, however, though sometimes in combination with the mother-city, was more frequently alienated from her and hostile, and continued so from an early period throughout most part of the three centuries from 700-400 B. C. … Notwithstanding the long-continued dissensions between Korkyra and Corinth, it appears that four considerable settlements on this same line of coast were formed by the joint enterprise of both,—Leukas and Anaktorium to the south of the mouth of the Ambrakiotic Gulf—and Apollonia and Epidamnus [afterwards called Dyrrhachium], both in the territory of the Illyrians at some distance to the north of the Akrokeraunian promontory [modern Cape Glossa, on the Albanian coast]. … Leukas, Anaktorium and Ambrakia are all referred to the agency of Kypselus the Corinthian. … The six colonies just named—Korkyra, Ambrakia, Anaktorium, Leukas [near the modern St. Maura], Apollonia, and Epidamnus—form an aggregate lying apart from the rest of the Hellenic name, and connected with each other, though not always maintained in harmony, by analogy of race and position, as well as by their common origin from Corinth."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 23.

See, also, IONIAN ISLANDS.

KORKYRA: B. C. 435-432. Quarrel with Corinth. Help from Athens. Events leading to the Peloponnesian War.

See GREECE: B. C. 435-432.

KORKYRA: B. C. 432. Great sea-fight with the Corinthians. Athenian aid.

See GREECE: B. C. 432.

KORKYRA: Modern history.

See IONIAN ISLANDS; and CORFU.

----------KORKYRA: End----------

KORONEA, OR CORONEA, Battle of (B. C. 394).

See GREECE: B. C. 399-387.

KOS.

See Cos.

KOSCIUSKO, and the Polish revolt.

See POLAND: A. D. 1793-1796.

KOSSÆANS, OR COSSÆANS, The.

A brave but predatory people in ancient times, occupying the mountains between Media and Persia, who were hunted down by Alexander the Great and the males among them exterminated.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 94.

KOSSOVA, Battle of (1389).

See TURKS (THE OTTOMANS): A. D. 1360-1389.

KOSSUTH, Louis, and the Hungarian struggle for independence.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1815-1844, 1847-1849; and AUSTRIA: A. D. 1848-1849.

KOSSUTH: In America.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1850-'1851.

KOTZEBUE, Assassination of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1817-1820.

KOTZIM.

See CHOZIM.

KOULEVSCHA, Battle of (1829).

See TURKS: A. D. 1826-1829.

KOYUNJIK.

See NINEVEH.

KRALE.

See CRAL.

KRANNON, OR CRANNON, Battle of (B. C. 322).

See GREECE: B. C. 323-322.

KRASNOE, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER); and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

KRETE.

See CRETE.

KRIM, The Khanate of.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391.

KRIM TARTARY.

See CRIMEA.

KRIMESUS, The Battle of the.

See SYRACUSE, THE FALL OF THE DIONYSIAN TYRANNY AT.

KRISSA. KRISSÆAN WAR.

See DELPHI.

KRONIUM, Battle of.

See SICILY: B. C. 383.

KROTON.

See SYBARIS.

KRYPTEIA, The.

A secret police and system of espionage maintained at Sparta by the ephors.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 6.

KSHATRIYAS.

See CASTE SYSTEM OF INDIA.

KU KLUX KLAN, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1866-1871.

KUBLAI KHAN, The Empire of.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294; and CHINA: A. D. 1259-1294.

KUFA, The founding of.

See BUSSORAH AND KUFA.

KULANAPAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KULANAPAN FAMILY.

KULM, OR CULM, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (AUGUST).

KULTURKAMPF, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1873-1887.

KUNAXA, Battle of (B. C. 401).

See PERSIA: B. C. 401-400.

KUNBIS.

See CASTE SYSTEM OF INDIA.

KUNERSDORF, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

KURDISTAN: A. D. 1514. Annexed to the Ottoman Empire.

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

KURDS, OR KOORDS.

See CARDUCHI, THE.

KUREEM KHAN, Shah of Persia, A. D. 1759-1779.

KURFÜRST.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152.

KURUCS, Insurrection of the.

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1487-1526.

KUSAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: KUSAN FAMILY.

{1949}

KUSH. KUSHITES.

See CUSH.—CUSHITES.

KUTAYAH, Peace of (1833).

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840.

KUTCHINS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.

KUTSCHUK KAINARDJI, Battle and Treaty of (1774).

See TURKS: A. D. 1768-1774.

KYLON, Conspiracy of.

See ATHENS: B. C. 612-595.

KYMRY, OR CYMRY, The.

The name which the Britons of Wales and Cumberland gave to themselves during their struggle with the Angles and Saxons, meaning "Cym-bro (Combrox) or the compatriot, the native of the country, the rightful owner of the soil. … From the occupation by the English of the plain of the Dee and the Mersey, the Kymry dwelt in two lands, known in quasi-Latin as Cambria, in Welsh Cymru, which denotes the Principality of Wales, and Cumbria, or the kingdom of Cumberland. … Kambria was regularly used for Wales by such writers as Giraldus in the twelfth century, … but the fashion was not yet established of distinguishing between Cambria and Cumbria as we do."

J. Rhys, Celtic Britain, chapter 4.

The term Cymry or Kymry is sometimes used in a larger sense to denote the whole Brythonic branch of the Celtic race, as distinguished from the Goidelic, or Gaelic; but that use of it does not seem to be justified. On the question whether the name Kymry, or Cymry, bears any relation to that of the ancient Cimbri.

See CIMBRI AND TEUTONES.

KYNOSSEMA, Battle of.

See CYNOSSEMA.

KYNURIANS, OR CYNURIANS, The.

One of the three races of people who inhabited the Peloponnesian peninsula of Greece before the Dorian conquest,—the other two races being the Arcadians and the Achæans. "They were never (so far as history knows them) an independent population. They occupied the larger portion of the territory of Argolis, from Orneæ, near the northern or Phliasian border, to Thyrea and the Thyreatis, on the Laconian border: and though belonging originally (as Herodotus imagines rather than asserts) to the Ionic race—they had been so long subjects of Argos in his time that almost all evidence of their ante-Dorian condition had vanished."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 4.

KYRENE.

See CYRENAICA.

KYZICUS.

See CYZICUS.

LABARUM, The.

"The chief banner of the Christian emperors [Roman] was the so-called 'labarum.' Eusebius describes it as a long lance with a cross-piece; to the latter a square silk flag was attached, into which the images of the reigning emperor and his children were woven. To the point of the lance was fastened a golden crown enclosing the monogram of Christ and the sign of the cross."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 107.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 20.

See CHRISTIANITY: A.D. 312-337.

LA BICOQUE, Battle of (1522).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.

LABOR ORGANIZATION.

See SOCIAL MOVEMENTS.

LABRADOR, The Name.

"Labrador—Laboratoris Terra—is so called from the circumstance that Cortereal in the year 1500 stole thence a cargo of Indians for slaves."

F. Parkman, Pioneers of France in the New World: Champlain, chapter 1, foot-note.

LABYRINTHS. MAZES.

"The Labyrinths of the classical age and the quaint devices of later times, the Mazes, of which they were the prototypes, present to the archaeologist a subject of investigation which hitherto has not received that degree of attention of which it appears so well deserving. … Labyrinths may be divided into several distinct classes, comprising complicated ranges of caverns, architectural labyrinths or sepulchral buildings, tortuous devices indicated by coloured marbles or cut in turf, and topiary labyrinths or mazes formed by clipped hedges. … Of the first class we may instance the labyrinth near Nauplia in Argolis, termed that of the Cyclops, and described by Strabo; also the celebrated Cretan example, which from the observations of modern travellers is supposed to have consisted of a series of caves, resembling in some degree the catacombs of Rome or Paris. It has been questioned, however, whether such a labyrinth actually existed. … Of architectural labyrinths, the most extraordinary specimen was without doubt that at the southern end of the lake Mœris in Egypt, and about thirty miles from Arsinoe. Herodotus, who describes it very distinctly, says that … it consisted of twelve covered courts, 1,500 subterranean chambers, in which the bodies of the Egyptian princes and the sacred crocodiles were interred, and of as many chambers above ground, which last only he was permitted to enter."

E. Trollope, Notices of Ancient and Mediaeval Labyrinths (Archaeological Journal, volume 15).

ALSO IN: Herodotus, History, book 2, chapter 148.

LA CADIE, ACADIA.

See NOVA SCOTIA.

LACEDÆMON.

See SPARTA: THE CITY.

LACEDÆMONIAN EMPIRE, The.

See SPARTA: B. C. 404-403.

LACONIA.

See SPARTA: THE CITY.

LACONIA, the American Province.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.

LACUSTRINE HABITATIONS.

See LAKE DWELLINGS.

LADE, Naval Battle of (B. C. 495).

See PERSIA: B. C. 521-493.

LADIES' PEACE, The.

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

LADISLAS, King of Naples, A. D. 1386-1414.

LADISLAUS I. (called Saint), King of Hungary, A. D. 1077-1095.

Ladislaus II., King of Hungary, 1162.

Ladislaus III., King of Hungary, 1204-1205.

Ladislaus IV. (called The Cuman), King of Hungary, 1272-1290.

Ladislaus V. (called The Posthumous), King, of Hungary and Bohemia, 1439-1457.

Ladislaus VI. (Jagellon), King of Hungary, 1440-1444; King of Poland, 1434-1444.

{1950}

LADOCEA, OR LADOKEIA, Battle of.

Fought in what was called the Cleomenic War, between Cleomenes, king of Sparta, and the Achæan League, B. C. 226. The battle was fought near the city of Megalopolis, in Arcadia, which belonged to the League and which was threatened by Cleomenes. The latter won a complete victory, and Lydiades, of Megalopolis, one of the noblest of the later Greeks, was slain.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 62.

LADY, Original use of the title.

"Hlæfdige," the Saxon word from which our modern English word "lady" comes, was the highest female title among the West-Saxons, being reserved for the king's wife.

E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest of England, volume 1, note F.

LADY OF THE ENGLISH.

By the custom of the West Saxons, the king's wife was called Lady, not Queen, and when the Wessex kingdom widened to cover England, its queen was known as the Lady of the English.

LÆNLAND.

"Either book land or folkland could be leased out by its holders [in early England]; and, under the name of 'lænland,' held by free cultivators."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 5, section 36 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England, book 1, chapter 11.

LÆTI. LÆT. LAZZI.

"Families of the conquered tribes of Germany, who were forcibly settled within the 'limes' of the Roman provinces, in order that they might repeople desolated districts, or replace the otherwise dwindling provincial population—in order that they might bear the public burdens and minister to the public needs, i. e., till the public land, pay the public tribute, and also provide for the defence of the empire. They formed a semi-servile class, partly agricultural and partly military; they furnished corn for the granaries and soldiers for the cohorts of the empire, and were generally known in later times by the name of Læti or Liti."

F. Seebohm, English Village Community, chapter 8.

"There seems to be no reason for questioning that the eorl, ceorl and læt of the earliest English laws, those of Ethelbert, answer exactly to the edhiling, the friling and the lazzus of the old Saxons. Whether the Kentish læts were of German origin has been questioned. Lappenberg thinks they were 'unfree of kindred race.' K. Maurer thinks them a relic of ancient British population who came between the free wealh and the slave. … The name (lazzus= slow or lazy) signifies condition, not nationality. … The wer-gild of the Kentish læt was 40, 60, or 80 shillings, according to rank, that of the ceorl being 200."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 4, section 31, foot-note (volume 1).

LA FAVORITA, Battle of (1797).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

LAFAYETTE IN THE WAR OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JUNE), (JULY-NOVEMBER); 1780 (JULY); 1781 (JANUARY-MAY), and (MAY-OCTOBER).

LAFAYETTE: And the French Revolution.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JULY), to 1792 (AUGUST).

LA FÈRE, Siege and capture by Henry IV. of France (1596).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.

LA FÈRE-CHAMPENOISE, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

LAGIDE PRINCES.

The Egyptian dynasty founded by Ptolemy Soter, the Macedonian general, is sometimes called the Lagide dynasty and its princes the Lagide princes, with reference to the reputed father of Ptolemy, who bore the name of Lagus.

LAGOS, Naval Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1759 (AUGUST-NOVEMBER).

LAGTHING.

See CONSTITUTION OF NORWAY.

LA HOGUE, Naval Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1692.

LAKE DWELLINGS.

"Among the most interesting relics of antiquity which have yet been discovered are the famous lake-dwellings of Switzerland, described by Dr. Keller and others. … Dr. Keller … has arranged them in three groups, according to the character of their substructure.

[1] Those of the first group, the Pile Dwellings, are, he tells us, by far the most numerous in the lakes of Switzerland and Upper Italy. In these the substructure consists of piles of various kinds of wood, sharpened sometimes by fire, sometimes by stone hatchets or celts, and in later times by tools of bronze, and probably of iron, the piles being driven into the bottom of the lake at various distances from the shore. …

[2] The Frame Pile-Dwellings are very rare. 'The distinction between this form and the regular pile-settlement consists in the fact that the piles, instead of having been driven into the mud of the lake, had been fixed by a mortise-and-tenon arrangement into split trunks, lying horizontally on the bed of the lake.' …

[3] In the Fascine Dwellings, as Dr. Keller terms his third group of lake-habitations, the substructure consisted of successive layers of sticks or small stems of trees built up from the bottom of the lake till they reached above the lake-level. …

Lake-dwellings have been met with in many other regions of Europe besides Switzerland and Italy, as in Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, Mecklenburg, Pomerania, France, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland. The 'Crannoges' of Ireland and Scotland were rather artificial islands than dwellings like those described above."

J. Geikie, Prehistoric Europe, pages 369-372.

ALSO IN: F. Keller, Lake Dwellings.

R. Munro, Ancient Scottish Lake Dwellings.

E. P. S., Crannoges (in Archaeological Journal, volume 3).

LAKE GEORGE, Battle of.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (SEPTEMBER).

LAMARTINE, and the French Government of 1848.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1848 (FEBRUARY-MAY), and (APRIL-DECEMBER).

LAMAS. LAMAISM.

"The development of the Buddhist doctrine which has taken place in the Panjab, Nepal, and Tibet … has resulted at last in the complete establishment of Lamaism, a religion not only in many points different from, but actually antagonistic to, the primitive system of Buddhism; and this not only in its doctrine, but also in its church organization." Tibet is "the only country where the Order has become a hierarchy, and acquired temporal power. Here, as in so many other countries, civilization entered and history began with Buddhism. When the first missionaries went there is not, however, accurately known; but Nepal was becoming Buddhist in the 6th century, and the first Buddhist king of Tibet sent to India for the holy scriptures in 632 A. D. A century afterwards an adherent of the native devil-worship drove the monks away, destroyed the monasteries, and burnt the holy books; but the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church—it returned triumphant after his death, and rapidly gained in wealth and influence. … {1951} As the Order became wealthy, rival abbots had contended for supremacy, and the chiefs had first tried to use the church as a means of binding the people to themselves, and then, startled at its progress, had to fight against it for their own privilege and power. When, in the long run, the crozier proved stronger than the sword, the Dalai Lama became in 1419 sole temporal sovereign of Tibet."

T. W. Rhys Davids, Buddhism, chapters 8-9.

"Up to the moment of its conversion to Buddhism, a profound darkness had rested on [Tibet]. The inhabitants were ignorant and uncultivated, and their indigenous religion, sometimes called Bon, consisted chiefly of magic based on a kind of Shamanism. … The word is said to be of Tungusic origin, and to be used as a name for the earliest religion of Mongolia, Siberia and other Northern countries. … It is easy to understand that the chief function of the Shamans, or wizard-priests, was to exorcise evil demons, or to propitiate them by sacrifices and various magical practices. … The various gradations of the Tibetan hierarchy are not easily described, and only a general idea of them can be given. … First and lowest in rank comes the novice or junior monk, called Gethsul (Getzul). … Secondly and higher in rank we have the rull monk, called Gelong (or Gelon). … Thirdly we have the superior Gelong or Khanpo (strictly mKhan po), who has a real right to the further title Lama. … As the chief monk in a monastery he may be compared to the European Abbot. … Some of the higher Khanpo Lamas are supposed to be living re-incarnations or re-embodiments of certain canonized saints and Bodhi-sattvas who differ in rank. These are called Avatara Lamas, and of such there are three degrees. … There is also a whole class of mendicant Lamas. … Examples of the highest Avataras are the two quasi-Popes, or spiritual Kings, who are supreme Lamas of the Yellow sect—the one residing at Lhassa, and the other at Tashi Lunpo (Krashi Lunpo), about 100 miles distant. … The Grand Lama at Lhassa is the Dalai Lama, that is, 'the Ocean-Lama, or one whose power and learning are as great as the ocean. … The other Grand Lama, who resides in the monastery of Tashi Lunpo, is known in Europe under the names of the Tashi Lama."

Sir M. Monier-Williams, Buddhism, lecture 11.

"Kublai-Khan, after subduing China [see CHINA: A. D. 1259-1294], adopted the Buddhist doctrines, which had made considerable progress among the Tartars. In the year 1261 he raised a Buddhist priest named Mati to the dignity of head of the Faith in the empire. This priest is better known under the name of Pakbo Lama, or supreme Lama: he was a native of Thibet, and had gained the good graces and confidence of Kublai, who, at the same time that he conferred on him the supreme sacerdotal office, invested him with the temporal power in Thibet, with the titles of 'King of the Great and Precious Law,' and 'Institutor of the Empire.' Such was the origin of the Grand Lamas of Thibet, and it is not impossible that the Tartar Emperor, who had had frequent communications with the Christian missionaries, may have wished to create a religious organisation after the model of the Romish hierarchy."

Abbé Huc, Christianity in China, Tartary and Thibet, volume 2, page 10.

ALSO IN: Abbé Huc, Journey through Tartary, Thibet and China, volume 2.

W. W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas.

LAMBALLE, Madame de, The death of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

LAMBETH, Treaty of.

A treaty of September 11, A. D. 1217, which was, in a certain sense, the sequel of Magna Carta. The barons who extorted the Great Charter from King John in 1215 were driven subsequently to a renewal of war with him. They renounced their allegiance and offered the crown to a French prince, Louis, husband of Blanche of Castile, who was John's niece. The pretensions of Louis were maintained after John's death, against his young son, Henry III. The cause of the latter triumphed in a decisive battle fought at Lincoln, May 20, 1217, and the contest was ended by the treaty named above. "The treaty of Lambeth is, in practical importance, scarcely inferior to the Charter itself.

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 14, section 170 (volume 2).

LAMEGO, The Cortes of.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.

LAMIAN WAR, The.

See GREECE: B. C. 323-322.

LAMONE, Battle of (1425).

See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.

LAMPADARCHY, The.

See LITURGIES.

LANCASTER, Chancellorship of the Duchy of.

"The Chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster is an office more remarkable for its antiquity than for its present usefulness. It dates from the time of Henry the Fourth, when the County of Lancashire was under a government distinct from the rest of the Kingdom. About the only duty now associated with the office is the appointment of magistrates for the county of Lancashire. In the other English and Welsh counties, these appointments are made by the Lord High Chancellor, who is the head of the Judicial system. The duties of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster are thus exceedingly light. The holder of the office is often spoken of as 'the maid of all work to the Cabinet,' from the fact that he is accorded a place in the Cabinet without being assigned any special duties likely to occupy the whole of his time. Usually the office is bestowed upon some statesman whom it is desirable for special reasons to have in the Cabinet, but for whom no other office of equal rank or importance is available."

E. Porritt, The Englishman at Home, chapter 8.

LANCASTER, House of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1399-1471.

LANCASTRIANS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

LANCES, Free.

With Sir John Hawkwood and his "free company" of English mercenaries, "came first into Italy [about 1360] the use of the term 'lances,' as applied to hired troops; each 'lance' being understood to consist of three men; of whom one carried a lance, and the others were bowmen. … They mostly fought on foot, having between each two archers a lance, which was held as men hold their hunting-spears in a boar-hunt."

T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, volume 2, page 144.

LAND GRANTS FOR SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1785-1800; 1862; and 1862-1886.

{1952}

LAND LEAGUE, The.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879; and 1881-1882.

LAND QUESTION AND LAND LAWS, The Irish.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1870-1894.

LANDAMMANN.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.

----------LANDAU: Start--------

LANDAU: A. D. 1648. Cession to France.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

LANDAU: A. D. 1702-1703. Taken by the Imperialists and retaken by the French.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1702; and 1703.

LANDAU: A. D. 1704. Taken by the Allies.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1704.

LANDAU: A. D. 1713. Taken and retained by France.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

----------LANDAU: End--------

LANDEN, OR NEERWINDEN, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (JULY).

LANDFRIEDE. FEHDERECHT. THE SWABIAN LEAGUE. "Landfriede—Peace of the Land.

The expression, Public Peace, which, in deference to numerous and high authorities I have generally used in the text, is liable to important objections. 'A breach of the public peace' means, in England, any open disorder or outrage. But [in mediæval Germany] the Landfriede (Pax publica) was a special act or provision directed against the abuse of an ancient and established institution,—the Fehderecht (jus diffidationis, or right of private warfare). The attempts to restrain this abuse were, for a long time, local and temporary. … The first energetic measure of the general government to put down private wars was that of the diet of Nürnberg (1466). … The Fehde is a middle term between duel and war. Every affront or injury led, after certain formalities, to the declaration, addressed to the offending party, that the aggrieved party would be his foe, and that of his helpers and helpers'-helpers. … I shall not go into an elaborate description of the evils attendant on the right of diffidation or private warfare (Fehderecht); they were probably not so great as is commonly imagined."

L. Ranke, History of the Reformation in Germany, volume 1, pages 77 (foot-note), 71, and 81.

"The right of diffidation, or of private warfare, had been the immemorial privilege of the Germanic nobles—a privilege as clear as it was ancient, which no diet attempted to abolish, but which, from the mischiefs attending its exercise, almost everyone had endeavoured to restrain. … Not only state, could declare war against state, prince against prince, noble against noble, but any noble could legally defy the emperor himself." In the reign of Frederick III. (1440-1493) efforts were made to institute a tribunal—an imperial chamber—which should have powers that would operate to restrain these private wars; but the emperor and the college of princes could not agree as to the constitution of the court proposed. To attain somewhat the same end, the emperor then "established a league both of the princes and of the imperial cities, which was destined to be better observed than most preceding confederations. Its object was to punish all who, during ten years, should, by the right of diffidation, violate the public tranquillity. He commenced with Swabia, which had ever been regarded as the imperial domain; and which, having no elector, no governing duke, no actual head other than the emperor himself, and, consequently, no other acknowledged protector, was sufficiently disposed to his views. In its origin the Swabian league consisted only of six cities, four prelates, three counts, sixteen knights; but by promises, or reasoning, or threats, Frederic soon augmented it. The number of towns was raised to 22, of prelates to 13, of counts to 12, of knights or inferior nobles to 350. It derived additional strength from the adhesion of princes and cities beyond the confines of Swabia; and additional splendour from the names of two electors, three margraves, and other reigning princes. It maintained constantly on foot 10,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry,—a force generally sufficient for the preservation of tranquillity. Of its salutary effects some notion may be formed from the fact that, in a very short period, one-and-forty bandit dens were stormed, and that two powerful offenders, George duke of Bavaria, and duke Albert of Munich, were compelled by an armed force to make satisfaction for their infraction of the public peace."

S. A. Dunham, History of the Germanic Empire, volume 2, pages 281-283.

The final suppression of the Fehderecht was brought about in the succeeding reign, of Maximilian, by the institution of the Imperial Chamber and the organization of the Circles to enforce its decrees.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.

LANDO, Pope, A. D. 913-914.

----------LANDRECIES: Start--------

LANDRECIES: A. D. 1647. Spanish siege and capture.

See NETHERLANDS (SPANISH PROVINCES): A. D. 1647-1648.

LANDRECIES: A. D. 1655. Siege and capture by Turenne.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1653-1656.

LANDRECIES: A. D. 1659. Ceded to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

LANDRECIES: A. D. 1794. Siege and capture by the Allies. Recovery by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).

----------LANDRECIES: End--------

LANDRIANO, Battle of (1529).

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

LANDSHUT, Battle of (1760).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1760.

LANDSHUT, Battle of (1809.)

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809, (JANUARY-JUNE).

LANDSQUENETS.

"After the accession of Maximilian I. [Emperor, A. D. 1493-1519], the troops so celebrated in history under the name of 'Landsquenets' began to be known in Europe. They were native Germans, and soon rose to a high degree of military estimation. That Emperor, who had studied the art of war, and who conducted it on principles of Tactics, armed them with long lances; divided them into regiments, composed of ensigns and squads; compelled them to submit to a rigorous discipline, and retained them under their standards after the conclusion of the wars in which he was engaged. … Pikes were substituted in the place of their long lances, under Charles V."

Sir N. W. Wraxall, History of France, 1574-1610, volume 2, page 183.

LANDSTING.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK-ICELAND): A. D. 1849-1874; and CONSTITUTION OF SWEDEN.

LANDWEHR, The.

See FYRD.

LANGENSALZA, Battle at (1075).

See SAXONY: A. D. 1073-1075.

LANGENSALZA, Battle at (1866.)

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

LANGOBARDI, The.

See LOMBARDS.

LANGPORT, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

{1953}

LANG'S NEK, Battle of (1881).

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.

LANGSIDE, Battle of (1568).

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568.

LANGUE D'OC.

"It is well known that French is in the main a descendant from the Latin, not the Latin of Rome, but the corrupter Latin which was spoken in Gaul. Now these Latin-speaking Gauls did not, for some reason, say 'est,' 'it is,' for 'yes,' as the Romans did; but they used a pronoun, either 'ille,' 'he,' or 'hoc,' 'this.' When, therefore, a Gaul desired to say 'yes,' he nodded, and said 'he' or else 'this,' meaning 'He is so,' or 'This is so.' As it happens the Gauls of the north said 'ille,' and those of the south said 'hoc,' and these words gradually got corrupted into two meaningless words, 'oui' and 'oc.' It is well known that the people in the south of France were especially distinguished by using the word 'oc' instead of 'oui' for 'yes,' so that their 'dialect' got to be called the 'langue d'oc,' and this word Langue-doc gave the name to a province of France."

C. F. Keary, Dawn of History, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: F. Hueffer, The Troubadours, chapter 1.

Sir G. C. Lewis, The Romance Languages, page 52, and after.

LANGUEDOC.

When, as a consequence of the Albigensian wars, the dominions of the Counts of Toulouse were broken up and absorbed for the most part in the domain of the French crown, the country which had been chiefly ravaged in those wars, including Septimania and much of the old county of Toulouse, acquired the name by which its language was known—Languedoc. The 'langue d'oc' was spoken likewise in Provence and in Aquitaine; but it gave a definite geographical name only to the region between the Rhone and the Garonne.

See ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1217-1229; also, PROVENCE: A. D. 1179-1207.

LANNES, Marshal, Campaigns of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY); GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER); SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER), 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH), 1809 (FEBRUARY-JULY); and GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).

LANSDOWNE, Lord, The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1880-1893.

----------LAON: Start--------

LAON: The last capital of the Carolingian kings.

The rock-lifted castle and stronghold of Laon, situated in the modern department of Aisne, about 74 miles northeast from Paris, was the last refuge and capital—sometimes the sole dominion—of the Carolingian kings, in their final struggle with the new dynasty sprung from the Dukes of France. The "King of Laon" and the "King of St. Denis," as the contestants are sometimes called, disputed with one another for a monarchy which was small when the sovereignty of the two had been united in one. In 991 the "King of Laon" was betrayed to his rival, Hugh Capet, and died in prison. "Laon ceased to be a capital, and became a quiet country town; the castle, relic of those days, stood till 1832, when it was rased to the ground."

G. W. Kitchin, History of France, volume 1, book 3, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, book 1, part 2, chapter 4, parts 1-2 (volume 2).

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 877-987.

LAON: A. D. 1594. Siege and capture by Henry IV.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.

LAON, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

----------LAON: End--------

LAPITHÆ, The.

A race which occupied in early times the valley of the Peneus, in Thessaly; "a race which derived its origin from Almopia in Macedonia, and was at least very nearly connected with the Minyans and Æolians of Ephyra."

C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, book 1, chapter 1.

LA PLATA, Provinces of.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC.

LA PUERTA, Battle of (1814).

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1810-1821.

LARGS, Battle of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1263.

LARISSA.

There were several ancient cities in Greece and Asia Minor called Larissa.

See ARGOS, and PERRHÆBIANS.

LAROCHEJACQUELIN, Henri de, and the insurrection in La Vendée.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-APRIL); (JUNE); and (JULY-DECEMBER).

LA ROCHELLE.

See ROCHELLE.

LA ROTHIERÈ, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

LA SALLE'S EXPLORATIONS.

See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

LAS CASAS, The humane labors of.

See SLAVERY: MODERN: OF THE INDIANS.

LAS CRUCES, Battle of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1810-1819.

LASSI, LAZZI, The.

See LÆTI.

LASWARI, Battle of (1803).

See INDIA: A. D. 1798-1805.

LATERAN, The.

"The Lateran derives its name from a rich patrician family, whose estates were confiscated by Nero. … It afterwards became an imperial residence, and a portion of it … was given by Constantine to Pope Melchiades in 312,—a donation which was confirmed to St. Sylvester, in whose reign the first basilica was built here. … The ancient Palace of the Lateran was the residence of the popes for nearly 1,000 years. … The modern Palace of the Lateran was built from designs of Fontana by Sixtus V. In 1693 Innocent XII. turned it into a hospital,—in 1438 Gregory XVI. appropriated it as a museum."

A. J. C. Hare, Walks in Rome, chapter 13.

LATHES OF KENT.

"The county of Kent [England] is divided into six 'lathes,' of nearly equal size, having the jurisdiction of the hundreds in other shires. The lathe may be derived from the Jutish 'lething' (in modern Danish 'leding')—a military levy."

T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History, chapter 1, foot-note.

LATHOM HOUSE, Siege of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (JANUARY).

LATIFUNDIA.

The great slave-tilled estates of the Romans, which swallowed up the properties of the small land-holders of earlier times, were called Latifundia.

LATIN CHURCH, The.

The Roman Catholic Church (see PAPACY) is often referred to as the Latin Church, in distinction from the Greek or Orthodox Church of the East.

LATIN EMPIRE AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

See ROMANIA, THE EMPIRE OF.

LATIN LANGUAGE IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL.

{1954}

"LATIN NAME," The.

"We must … explain what was meant in the sixth century of Rome [third century B. C.] by the 'Latin name.' … The Latin name was now extended far beyond its old geographical limits, and was represented by a multitude of flourishing cities scattered over the whole of Italy, from the frontier of Cisalpine Gaul to the southern extremity of Apulia. … Not that they were Latins in their origin, or connected with the cities of the old Latium: on the contrary they were by extraction Romans; they were colonies founded by the Roman people, and consisting of Roman Citizens: but the Roman government had resolved that, in their political relations, they should be considered, not as Romans, but as Latins; and the Roman settlers, in consideration of the advantages which they enjoyed as colonists, were content to descend politically to a lower condition than that which they had received as their birthright. The states of the Latin name, whether cities of old Latium or Roman colonies, all enjoyed their own laws and municipal government, like the other allies; and all were, like the other allies, subject to the sovereign dominion of the Romans. They were also so much regarded as foreigners that they could not buy or inherit land from Roman citizens; nor had they generally the right of intermarriage with Romans. But they had two peculiar privileges: one, that any Latin who left behind him a son in his own city, to perpetuate his family there, might remove to Rome, and acquire the Roman franchise; the other, that every person who had held any magistracy or distinguished office in a Latin state, might become at once a Roman citizen."

T. Arnold, History of Rome, chapter 41.

LATINS, Subjugation of, by the Romans.

See ROME: B. C. 339-338.

LATIUM. THE OLD LATINS.

"The plain of Latium must have been in primeval times the scene of the grandest conflicts of nature, while the slowly formative agency of water deposited, and the eruptions of mighty volcanoes upheaved, the successive strata of that soil on which was to be decided the question to what people the sovereignty of the world should belong. Latium is bounded on the east by the mountains of the Sabines and Aequi, which form part of the Apennines; and on the south by the Volscian range rising to the height of 4,000 feet, which is separated from the main chain of the Apennines by the ancient territory of the Hernici, the table-land of the Sacco (Trerus, a tributary of the Liris), and stretching in a westerly direction terminates in the promontory of Terracina. On the west its boundary is the sea, which on this part of the coast forms but few and indifferent harbours. On the north it imperceptibly merges into the broad highlands of Etruria. The region thus enclosed forms a magnificent plain traversed by the Tiber, the 'mountain-stream' which issues from the Umbrian, and by the Anio, which rises in the Sabine mountains. Hills here and there emerge, like islands, from the plain; some of them steep limestone cliffs, such as that of Soracte in the north-east, and that of the Circeian promontory on the south-west, as well as the similar though lower height of the Janiculum near Rome; others volcanic elevations, whose extinct craters had become converted into lakes which in some cases still exist; the most important of these is the Alban range, which, free on every side, stands forth from the plain between the Volscian chain and the river Tiber. Here settled the stock which is known to history under the name of the Latins, or, as they were subsequently called by way of distinction from the Latin communities beyond the bounds of Latium, the 'Old Latins' ('prisci Latini'). But the territory occupied by them, the district of Latium, was only a small portion of the central plain of Italy. All the country north of the Tiber was to the Latins a foreign and even hostile domain, with whose inhabitants no lasting alliance, no public peace, was possible, and such armistices as were concluded appear always to have been for a limited period. The Tiber formed the northern boundary from early times. … We find, at the time when our history begins, the flat and marshy tracts to the south of the Alban range in the hands of Umbro-Sabellian stocks, the Rutuli and Volsci; Ardea and Velitrae are no longer in the number of originally Latin towns. Only the central portion of that region between the Tiber, the spurs of the Apennines, the Alban Mount, and the sea—a district of about 700 square miles, not much larger than the present canton of Zurich—was Latium proper, the 'plain,' as it appears to the eye of the observer from the heights of Monte Cavo. Though the country is a plain, it is not monotonously flat. With the exception of the sea-beach which is sandy and formed in part by the accumulations of the Tiber, the level is everywhere broken by hills of tufa moderate in height, though often somewhat steep, and by deep fissures of the ground. These alternating elevations and depressions of the surface lead to the formation of lakes in winter; and the exhalations proceeding in the heat of summer from the putrescent organic substances which they contain engender that noxious fever-laden atmosphere, which in ancient times tainted the district as it taints it at the present day."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 3.

See, also, ITALY, ANCIENT.

LATT, OR LIDUS, The.

See SLAVERY: MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

LATTER DAY SAINTS, Church of.

See MORMONISM: A. D. 1805-1830.

LAUD, Archbishop, Church tyranny of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1633-1640.

LAUDER BRIDGE.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1482-1488.

LAUDERDALE, Duke of. His oppression in Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1669-1679.

LAUFFENBURG, Captured by Duke Bernhard (1637).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

LAURAS.

"The institution of Lauras was the connecting link between the hermitage and the monastery, in the later and more ordinary use of that word. … A Laura was an aggregation of separate cells, under the not very strongly defined control of a superior, the inmates meeting together only on the first and last days, the old and new Sabbaths, of each week, for their common meal in the refectory and for common worship. … The origin of the word 'Laura' is uncertain. … Probably it is another form of 'labra,' the popular term in Alexandria for an alley or narrow court."

I. G. Smith, Christian Monasticism, pages 38-39.

{1955}

LAUREATE, English Poets.

"From the appointment of Chaucer about five hundred years have elapsed, and during that period a long line of poets have held the title of Laureate. For the first two hundred years they were somewhat irregularly appointed, but from the creation of Richard Edwards in 1561, they come down to the present time without interruption. The selection of the Laureate has not always been a wise one, but the list contains the names of a few of our greatest authors, and the honour was certainly worthily bestowed upon Edmund Spenser, Ben Jonson, John Dryden, Robert Southey, William Wordsworth, and Alfred Tennyson. As the custom of crowning successful poets appears to have been in use since the origin of poetry itself, the office of Poet Laureate can certainly boast of considerable antiquity, and the laurel wreath of the Greeks and Romans was an envied trophy long before our Druidical forefathers held aloft the mistletoe bough in their mystic rites. From what foreign nation we first borrowed the idea of a King of the Poets is doubtful."

W. Hamilton, Origin of the Office of Poet Laureate (Royal Historical Society, Transactions, volume 8).

The following is a list of the Poets Laureate of England, with the dates of their appointment:

Geoffrey Chaucer, 1368; Sir John Gower, 1400; Henry Scogan; John Kay; Andrew Bernard, 1486; John Skelton, 1489; Robert Whittington, 1512; Richard Edwards, 1561; Edmund Spenser, 1590; Samuel Daniel, 1598; Ben Jonson, 1616; Sir William Davenant, 1638; John Dryden, 1670; Thomas Shadwell, 1688; Nahum Tate, 1692; Nicholas Rowe, 1715; Rev. Laurence Eusden, 1718; Colley Cibber, 1730; William Whitehead, 1757; Thomas Warton, 1785; Henry James Pye, 1790; Robert Southey, 1813; William Wordsworth, 1843; Alfred Tennyson, 1850.

W. Hamilton, The Poets Laureate of England.

LAURIUM, Silver Mines of.

These mines, in Attica, were owned and worked at an early time by the Athenian state, and seem to have yielded a large revenue, more or less of which was divided among the citizens. It was by persuading the Athenians to forego that division that Themistocles secured money to build the fleet which made Athens a great naval power. The mines were situated in the southern part of Attica, in a district of low hills, not far from the promontory of Sunium.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 39.

LAUSITZ.

See BRANDENBURG.

LAUTULÆ, Battle of.

See ROME: B. C. 343-290.

LAW, John, and his Mississippi Scheme.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1720; and LOUISIANA: A. D. 1717-1718.

----------LAW: Start----------

LAW. [Prepared for this work by Austin Abbott, Dean of the New York University Law School.]

The subject is here treated with reference to the history of the rights of persons and property, and that of procedure, rather than in its political and economic aspects, which are discussed under other heads. And those parts of the history of law thus considered which enter into our present systems are given the preference in space,—purely historical matters, such as the Roman Law, being treated elsewhere, as indicated in the references placed at the end of this article:

----------ADMIRALTY LAW: Start----------

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1183. Law as to Shipwrecks.

"The Emperor Constantine, or Antonine (for there is some doubt as to which it was), had the honour of being the first to renounce the claim to shipwrecked property in favor of the rightful owner. But the inhuman customs on this subject were too deeply rooted to be eradicated by the wisdom and vigilance of the Roman law givers. The legislation in favor of the unfortunate was disregarded by succeeding emperors, and when the empire itself was overturned by the northern barbarians, the laws of humanity were swept away in the tempest, and the continual depredations of the Saxons and Normans induced the inhabitants of the western coasts of Europe to treat all navigators who were thrown by the perils of the sea upon their shores as pirates, and to punish them as such, without inquiry or discrimination. The Emperor Andronicus Comnenus, who reigned at Constantinople in 1183, made great efforts to repress this inhuman practice. His edict was worthy of the highest praise, but it ceased to be put in execution after his death. … Valin says, it was reserved to the ordinances of Lewis XIV. to put the finishing stroke towards the extinction of this species of piracy, by declaring that shipwrecked persons and property were placed under the special protection and safe guard of the crown, and the punishment of death without hope of pardon, was pronounced against the guilty."

James Kent, International Law, edited by J. T. Abdy, page 31.

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1537. Jurisdiction.

The Act of 28 Henry VIII., c. 15, granted jurisdiction to the Lord High Admiral of England.

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1575. Jurisdiction.

"The Request of the Judge of the Admiralty, to the Lord Chief Justice of her Majesty's Bench, and his Colleagues, and the Judges' Agreement 7th May 1575,"—by which the long controversy between these Courts as to their relative jurisdiction was terminated, will be found in full in

Benedict's American Admiralty, 3d edition, page 41.

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1664. Tide-mark.

The space between high and low water mark is to be taken as part of the sea, when the tide is in.

Erastus C. Benedict, American Admiralty, 3d edition, by Robert D. Benedict, page 35, citing Sir John Constable's Case, Anderson's Rep. 89.

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1789. United States Judiciary Act.

The Act of 1789 declared admiralty jurisdiction to extend to all cases "where the seizures are made on waters which are navigable from the sea by vessels of ten or more tons burthen."

Judiciary Act, United States Stat. at Large, volume 1, page 76.

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1798. Lord Stowell and Admiralty Law.

"Lord Mansfield, at a very early period of his judicial life, introduced to the notice of the English bar the Rhodian laws, the Consolato del mare, the laws of Oleron, the treatises of Roccus, the laws of Wisbuy, and, above all, the marine ordinances of Louis XIV., and the commentary of Valin. These authorities were cited by him in Luke v. Lyde [2 Burr. 882], and from that time a new direction was given to English studies, and new vigor, and more liberal and enlarged views, communicated to forensic investigations. {1956} Since the year 1798, the decisions of Sir William Scott (now Lord Stowell) on the admiralty side of Westminster Hall, have been read and admired in every region of the republic of letters, as models of the most cultivated and the most enlightened human reason. … The doctrines are there reasoned out at large, and practically applied. The arguments at the bar, and the opinions from the bench, are intermingled with the greatest reflections, … the soundest policy, and a thorough acquaintance with all the various topics which concern the great social interests of mankind."

James Kent, Commentaries, part 5, lecture 42.

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1841-1842. Jurisdiction.

The act 3 and 4 Vic., c. 65, restored to the English Admiralty some jurisdiction of which it had been deprived by the Common Law Courts.

Benedict's Am. Admiralty, page 56.

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1845. Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction.

"It took the Supreme Court of the United States more than fifty years to reject the antiquated doctrine of the English courts, that admiralty jurisdiction was confined to salt water, or water where the tide ebbed and flowed. Congress in 1845 passed an act extending the admiralty jurisdiction of the Federal courts to certain cases upon the great lakes, and the navigable waters connecting the same. The constitutionality of this act was seriously questioned, and it was not till 1851 that the Supreme Court, by a divided court, in the case of the Genesee Chief, which collided with another vessel on Lake Ontario, sustained the constitutionality of the act, and repudiated the absurd doctrine that tides had anything to do with the admiralty jurisdiction conferred by the constitution upon Federal courts."

Lyman Trumbull, Precedent versus Justice, American Law Review, volume 27, page 324.

See, also Act of 1845, 5 U. S. Stat. at L. 726.

ADMIRALTY LAW: A. D. 1873. Division of Loss in case of Collision settled by Judicature Act.

"The rule that where both ships are at fault for a collision each shall recover half his loss from the other, contradicts the old rule of the common law that a plaintiff who is guilty of contributory negligence can recover nothing. This conflict between the common law and the law of the Admiralty was put an end to in 1873 by the Judicature Act of that year, which (s. 25, subs. 9) provides that 'if both ships shall be found to have been in fault' the Admiralty rule shall prevail. … There can be no doubt that in some instances it works positive injustice; as where it prevents the innocent cargo-owner from recovering more than half his loss from one of the two wrong-doing shipowners. And recent cases show that it works in an arbitrary and uncertain manner when combined with the enactments limiting the shipowner's liability for damage done by his ship. The fact, however, remains, that it has been in operation with the approval of the shipping community for at least two centuries, and probably for a much longer period; and an attempt to abolish it at the time of the passing of the Judicature Acts met with no success. The true reason of its very general acceptance is probably this—that it gives effect to the principle of distributing losses at sea, which is widely prevalent in maritime affairs. Insurance, limitation of shipowner's liability, and general average contribution are all connected, more or less directly, with this principle."

R. G. Marsden, Two Points of Admiralty Law, Law Quarterly Review, volume 2, pages 357-362.

For an enumeration of the various Maritime codes with their dates,

See Benedict's Am. Admiralty, pages 91-97, and Davis' Outlines of International Law, pages 5, 6, &c.

----------ADMIRALTY LAW: End----------

----------COMMON LAW: Start----------

Common Law. [Including legislation in modification of It.]

COMMON LAW: A. D. 449-1066. Trial by Jury unknown to Anglo-Saxons.

"It may be confidently asserted that trial by jury was unknown to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors; and the idea of its existence in their legal system has arisen from a want of attention to the radical distinction between the members or judges composing a court, and a body of men apart from that court, but summoned to attend it in order to determine conclusively the facts of the case in dispute. This is the principle on which is founded the intervention of a jury; and no trace whatever can be found of such an institution in Anglo-Saxon times."

W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, page 45.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 630. The first Written Body of English Law.

"The first written body of English Law is said to have been promulgated in the Heptarchy by Ethelbert, about the year 630, and enacted with the consent of the states of his kingdom."

Joseph Parke, History of Chancery, page 14.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 871-1066. The King's Peace.

1. The technical use of "the king's peace" is, I suspect, connected with the very ancient rule that a breach of the peace in a house must be atoned for in proportion to the householder's rank. If it was in the king's dwelling, the offender's life was in the king's hand. This peculiar sanctity of the king's house was gradually extended to all persons who were about his business, or specially under his protection; but when the Crown undertook to keep the peace everywhere, the king's peace became coincident with the general peace of the kingdom, and his especial protection was deemed to be extended to all peaceable subjects. In substance, the term marks the establishment of the conception of public justice, exercised on behalf of the whole commonwealth, as something apart from and above the right of private vengeance,—a right which the party offended might pursue or not, or accept composition for, as he thought fit. The private blood feud, it is true, formally and finally disappeared from English jurisprudence only in the present century; but in its legalized historical shape of the wager of battle it was not a native English institution.

Sir Frederick Pollock, Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, page 205.

See, also, KING'S PEACE.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1066. Inquisition, parent of Modern Jury.

"When the Normans came into England they brought with them, not only a far more vigorous and searching kingly power than had been known there, but also a certain product of the exercise of this power by the Frankish kings and the Norman dukes; namely, the use of the inquisition in public administration, i. e., the practice of ascertaining facts by summoning together by public authority a number of people most likely, as being neighbors, to know and tell the truth, and calling for their answer under oath. This was the parent of the modern jury. … {1957} With the Normans came also another novelty, the judicial duel—one of the chief methods for determining controversies in the royal courts; and it was largely the cost, danger, and unpopularity of the last of these institutions which fed the wonderful growth of the other."

J. B. Thayer, The Older Modes of Trial (Harvard Law Review, volume 5, page 45).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1066-1154. Trial by Jury unknown to Anglo-Normans.

"The same remark which has already been made, with reference to the absence of all mention of the form of jury trial in the Anglo-Saxon Laws, applies equally to the first hundred years after the Conquest. It is incredible that so important a feature of our jurisprudence, if it had been known, would not have been alluded to in the various compilations of law which were made in the reigns of the early Norman kings. … Although the form of the jury did not then exist, the rudiments of that mode of trial may be distinctly traced, in the selection from the neighborhood where the dispute arose, of a certain number of persons, who after being duly sworn testified to the truth of the facts within their own knowledge. This is what distinguishes the proceeding from what took place among the Anglo-Saxons—namely, the choosing a limited number of probi homines to represent the community, and give testimony for them."

W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, pages 82-90.

See, also, JURY: TRIAL BY.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1066-1154. The Curia Regis.

"As a legal tribunal the jurisdiction of the Curia was both civil and criminal, original and appellate. As a primary court it heard all causes in which the king's interests were concerned, as well as all causes between the tenants-in-chief of the crown, who were too great to submit to the local tribunals of the shire and the hundred. As an appellate court it was resorted to in those cases in which the powers of the local courts had been exhausted or had failed to do justice. By virtue of special writs, and as a special favor, the king could at his pleasure call up causes from the local courts to be heard in his own court according to such new methods as his advisers might invent. Through the issuance of these special writs the king became practically the fountain of justice, and through their agency the new system of royal law, which finds its source in the person of the king, was brought in to remedy the defects of the old, unelastic system of customary law which prevailed in the provincial courts of the people. The curia followed the person of the king, or the justiciar in the king's absence."

Hannis Taylor, Origin and Growth of the English Constitution, part 1, pages 245-246.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1066-1215. Purchasing Writs.

"The course of application to the curia regis was of this nature. The party suing paid, or undertook to pay, to the king a fine to have justitiam et rectam in his court: and thereupon he obtained a writ or precept, by means of which he commenced his suit; and the justices were authorized to hear and determine his claim."

Reeves' (Finlason's) History English Law, volume 1, page 267.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1077. Trial by Battle.

"The earliest reference to the battle, I believe, in any account of a trial in England, is at the end of the case of Bishop Wulfstan v. Abbot Walter, in 1077. The controversy was settled, and we read: 'Thereof there are lawful witnesses … who said and heard this, ready to prove it by oath and battle.' This is an allusion to a common practice in the Middle Ages, that of challenging an adversary's witness, or perhaps to one method of disposing of cases where witnesses were allowed on opposite sides and contradicted each other. … Thus, as among nations still, so then in the popular courts and between contending private parties, the battle was often the ultima ratio, in cases where their rude and unrational methods of trial yielded no results. It was mainly in order to displace this dangerous … mode of proof that the recognitions—that is to say, the first organized form of the jury—were introduced. These were regarded as a special boon to the poor man, who was oppressed in many ways by the duel. It was by enactment of Henry II. that this reform was brought about, first in his Norman dominions (in 1150-52), before reaching the English throne, and afterwards in England, sometime after he became king, in 1154."

J. B. Thayer, The Older Modes of Trial (Harvard Law Review, volume 5, pages 66-67).

See, also: WAGER OF BATTLE.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1100 (circa). Origin of Statutes of Limitation.

"Our ancestors, instead of fixing a given number of years as the period within which legal proceedings to recover real property must be resorted to, had recourse to the singular expedient of making the period of limitation run from particular events or dates. From the time of Henry I. to that of Henry III., on a writ of right, the time within which a descent must be shown was the time of King Henry I. (Co. Litt. 114b). In the twentieth year of Henry III., by the Statute of Merton (c. 8) the date was altered to the time of Henry II. Writs of 'mort d'ancestor' were limited to the time of the last return of King John into England; writs of novel disseisin to the time of the king's first crossing the sea into Gascony. In the previous reign, according to Glanville (lib. 13, c. 33), the disseisin must have been since the last voyage of King Henry II. into Normandy. So that the time necessary to bar a claim varied materially at different epochs. Thus matters remained until the 3 Edw. I. (Stat. West. 1, c. 39), when, as all lawyers are aware, the time within which a writ of right might be brought was limited to cases in which the seisin of the ancestor was since the time of King Richard I., which was construed to mean the beginning of that king's reign (2 Inst. 238), a period of not less than eighty-six years. The legislature having thus adopted the reign of Richard I. as the date from which the limitation in a real action was to run, the courts of law adopted it as the period to which, in all matters of prescription or custom, legal memory, which till then had been confined to the time to which living memory could go back, should thenceforth be required to extend. Thus the law remained for two centuries and a half, by which time the limitation imposed in respect of actions to recover real property having long become inoperative to bar claims which had their origin posterior to the time of Richard I., and having therefore ceased practically to afford any protection against antiquated claims, the legislature, in 32d of Henry VIII. (c. 2), again interfered, and on this occasion, instead of dating the period of limitation from some particular event or date, took the wiser course of prescribing a fixed number of years as the limit within which a suit should be entertained. … {1958} It was of course impossible that as time went on the adoption of a fixed epoch, as the time from which legal memory was to run, should not be attended by grievous inconvenience and hardship. Possession, however long, enjoyment, however interrupted, afforded no protection against stale and obsolete claims, or the assertion of long abandoned rights. And as parliament failed to intervene to amend the law, the judges set their ingenuity to work, by fictions and presumptions, to atone for the supineness of the legislature. … They first laid down the somewhat startling rule that from the usage of a lifetime the presumption arose that a similar usage had existed from a remote antiquity. Next, as it could not but happen that, in the case of many private rights, especially in that of easements, which had a more recent origin, such a presumption was impossible, judicial astuteness to support possession and enjoyment, which the law ought to have invested with the character of rights, had recourse to the questionable theory of lost grants. Juries were first told that from user, during living memory, or even during twenty years, they might presume a lost grant or deed; next they were recommended to make such presumption; and lastly, as the final consummation of judicial legislation, it was held that a jury should be told, not only that they might, but also that they were bound to presume the existence of such a lost grant, although neither judge nor jury, nor anyone else, had the shadow of a belief that any such instrument had ever really existed. … When the doctrine of presumptions had proceeded far towards its development, the legislature at length interfered, and in respect of real property and of certain specified easements, fixed certain periods of possession or enjoyment as establishing presumptive rights."

C. J. Cockburn, in Bryant v. Foot, L. R. 2 Q. B., 161; s. c. (Thayer's Cases on Evidence, 94).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1110 (circa). The King's Peace superior to the Peace of the Subject.

"We find in the so-called laws of Henry I, that wherever men meet for drinking, selling, or like occasions, the peace of God and of the lord of the house is to be declared between them. The amount payable to the host is only one shilling, the king taking twelve, and the injured party, in case of insult, six. Thus the king is already concerned, and more concerned than anyone else; but the private right of the householder is distinctly though not largely acknowledged. We have the same feeling well marked in our modern law by the adage that every man's house is his castle, and the rule that forcible entry may not be made for the execution of ordinary civil process against the occupier: though for contempt of Court arising in a civil cause, it may, as not long ago the Sheriff of Kent had to learn in a sufficiently curious form. The theoretical stringency of our law of trespass goes back, probably, to the same origin. And in a quite recent American textbook we read, on the authority of several modern cases in various States of the Union, that 'a man assaulted in his dwelling is not obliged to retreat, but may defend his possession to the last extremity.'"

F. Pollock, The King's Peace (Law Quarterly Review, volume 1, pages 40-41).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1135. Abeyance of the King's Peace.

"The King's Peace is proclaimed in general terms at his accession. But, though generalized in its application, it still was subject to a strange and inconvenient limit in time. The fiction that the king is everywhere present, though not formulated, was tacitly adopted; the protection once confined to his household was extended to the whole kingdom. The fiction that the king never dies was yet to come. It was not the peace of the Crown, an authority having continuous and perpetual succession, that was proclaimed, but the peace of William or Henry. When William or Henry died, all authorities derived from him were determined or suspended; and among other consequences, his peace died with him. What this abeyance of the King's Peace practically meant is best told in the words of the Chronicle, which says upon the death of Henry I. (anno 1135): 'Then there was tribulation soon in the land, for every man that could forthwith robbed another.' Order was taken in this matter (as our English fashion is) only when the inconvenience became flagrant in a particular case. At the time of Henry III.'s death his son Edward was in Palestine. It was intolerable that there should be no way of enforcing the King's Peace till the king had come back to be crowned; and the great men of the realm, by a wise audacity, took upon them to issue a proclamation of the peace in the new king's name forthwith. This good precedent being once made, the doctrine of the King's Peace being in suspense was never afterwards heard of."

F. Pollock, The King's Peace (Law Quarterly Review, volume 1, pages 48-49).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1154-1189. Origin of Unanimity of Jury.

"The origin of the rule as to unanimity may, I think, be explained as follows: In the assise as instituted in the reign of Henry II. it was necessary that twelve jurors should agree in order to determine the question of disseisin; but this unanimity was not then secured by any process which tended to make the agreement compulsory. The mode adopted was called, indeed, an afforcement of the jury; but this term did not imply that any violence was done to the conscientious opinions of the minority. It merely meant that a sufficient number were to be added to the panel until twelve were at last found to agree in the same conclusion; and this became the verdict of the assise. … The civil law required two witnesses at least, and in some cases a greater number, to establish a fact in dispute; as, for instance, where a debt was secured by a written instrument, five witnesses were necessary to prove payment. These would have been called by our ancestors a jurata of five. At the present day, with us no will is valid which is not attested by at least two witnesses. In all countries the policy of the law determines what it will accept as the minimum of proof. Bearing then in mind that the jury system was in its inception nothing but the testimony of witnesses informing the court of facts supposed to lie within their own knowledge, we see at once that to require that twelve men should be unanimous was simply to fix the amount of evidence which the law deemed to be conclusive of a matter in dispute."

W. Forsyth, History of Trial by Jury, chapter 11, section 1.

{1959}

A. D. 1154-1189. Reign of Law initiated.

"The reign of Henry II. initiates the rule of law. The administrative machinery, which had been regulated by routine under Henry I., is now made a part of the constitution, enunciated in laws, and perfected by a steady series of reforms: The mind of Henry II. was that of a lawyer and man of business. He set to work from the very beginning of the reign to place order on a permanent basis, and, recurring to the men and measures of his grandfather, to complete an organization which should make a return to feudalism impossible."

W. Stubbs, Select Charters of English Constitutional History, page 21.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1164-1176. Trial by Assize.

"The first mention of the trial by assise in our existing statutes occurs in the Constitutions of Clarendon, A. D. 1164 [see ENGLAND: A. D. 1162-1170], where it was provided that if any dispute arose between a layman and a clerk as to whether a particular tenement was the property of the Church or belonged to a lay fief, this was to be determined before the chief justiciary of the kingdom, by the verdict of twelve lawful men. … This was followed by the Statute of Northampton, A. D. 1176, which directs the justices, in case a lord should refuse to give to the heir the seisin of his deceased ancestor, 'to cause a recognition to be made by means of twelve lawful men as to what seisin the deceased had on the day of his death;' and also orders them to inquire in the same manner in cases of novel disseisin."

W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, chapter 6, section 3.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1165 (circa). Justice bought and sold.

"The king's justice was one great source of his revenue, and he sold it very dear. Observe that this buying and selling was not in itself corruption, though it is hard to believe that corruption did not get mixed up with it. Suitors paid heavily not to have causes decided in their favour in the king's court, but to have them heard there at all. The king's justice was not a matter of right, but of exceptional favour; and this was especially the case when he undertook, as he sometimes did, to review and overrule the actual decisions of local courts, or even reverse, on better information, his own previous commands. And not only was the king's writ sold, but it was sold at arbitrary and varying prices, the only explanation of which appears to be that in every case the king's officers took as much as they could get. Now we are in a position to understand that famous clause of the Great Charter: 'To no man will we sell, nor to none deny or delay, right or justice.' The Great Charter comes about half a century after the time of which we have been speaking; so in that time, you see, the great advance had been made of regarding the king's justice as a matter not of favour but of right. And besides this clause there is another which provides for the regular sending of the king's judges into the counties. Thus we may date from Magna Carta the regular administration of a uniform system of law throughout England. What is more, we may almost say that Magna Carta gave England a capital. For the king's court had till then no fixed seat; it would be now at Oxford, now at Westminster, now at Winchester, sometimes at places which by this time are quite obscure. But the Charter provided that causes between subject and subject which had to be tried by the king's judges should be tried not where the king's court happened to be, but in some certain place; and so the principal seat of the courts of justice, and ultimately the political capital of the realm, became established at Westminster."

Sir F. Pollock, Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, page 209.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1166. Assize of Clarendon.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1162-1170.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1176. Justices in Eyre.

"It has been generally supposed that justices in Eyre (justitiarii itinerantes) were first established in 1176, by Henry II., for we find it recorded that in that year, in a great counsel held at Northampton, the king divided the realm into six parts, and appointed three traveling justices to go each circuit, so that the number was eighteen in all. … But although the formal division of the kingdom into separate circuits may have been first made by Henry II., yet there is no doubt that single justiciars were appointed by William I., a few years after the Conquest, who visited the different shires to administer justice in the king's name, and thus represented the curia regis as distinct from the hundred and county courts."

W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, pages 81-82.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1189. Legal Memory. Its effect.

"No doubt usage for the last fifty or sixty years would be some evidence of usage 700 years ago, but if the question is to be considered as an ordinary question of fact, I certainly for one would very seldom find a verdict in support of the right as in fact so ancient. I can hardly believe, for instance, that the same fees in courts of justice which were till recently received by the officers as ancient fees attached to their ancient offices were in fact received 700 years ago; or that the city of London took before the time of Richard I. the same payments for measuring corn and coals and oysters that they do now. I have no doubt the city of Bristol did levy dues in the Avon before the time of legal memory, and that the mayor, as head of that corporation, got some fees at that time; but I can hardly bring myself to believe that the mayor of Bristol at that time received 5s. a year from every ship above sixty tons burthen which entered the Avon; yet the claim of the city of Bristol to their ancient mayor's dues, of which this is one, was established before Lord Tenterden, in 1828. I think the only way in which verdicts in support of such claims, and there are many such, could have properly been found, is by supposing that the jury were advised that, in favor of the long continued user, a presumption arose that it was legal, on which they ought to find that the user was immemorial, if that was necessary to legalize it, unless the contrary was proved; that presumption not being one purely of fact, and to be acted on only when the jury really entertained the opinion that in fact the legal origin existed. This was stated by Parke B., on the first trial of Jenkins v. Harvey, 1 C. M. & R. 894, as being his practice, and what he considered the correct mode of leaving the question to the jury; and that was the view of the majority of the judges in the Court of Exchequer Chamber in Shephard v. Payne, 16 C. B. (N. S.) 132; 33 L. J. (C. P.) 158. This is by no means a modern doctrine; it is as ancient as the time of Littleton, who, in his Tenures, § 170, says that all are agreed that usage since the time of Richard I. is a title; some, he says, have thought it the only title of prescription, but that others have said 'that there is also another title of prescription that was at the common law before any statute of limitation of writs, &c., and that it was where a custom or usage or other thing hath been used for time whereof mind of man runneth not to the contrary. {1960} And they have said that this is proved by the pleading where a man will plead a title of prescription of custom. He shall say that such a custom hath been used from time whereof the memory of men runneth not to the contrary, that is as much as to say, when such a matter is pleaded, that no man then alive hath heard any proof of the contrary, nor hath no knowledge to the contrary; and insomuch that such title of prescription was at the common law, and not put out by any statute, ergo, it abideth as it was at the common law; and the rather that the said limitation of a writ of right is of so long time past. 'Ideo quaere de hoc.' It is practically the same thing whether we say that usage as far back as proof extends is a title, though it does not go so far back as the year 1189; or that such usage is to be taken in the absence of proof to the contrary to establish that the usage began before that year; and certainly the lapse of 400 years since Littleton wrote has added force to the remark, 'the rather that the limitation of a writ of right is of so long time past.' But either way, proof that the origin of the usage was since that date, puts an end to the title by prescription; and the question comes round to be whether the amount of the fee, viz. 13s., is by itself sufficient proof that it must have originated since."

J. Blackburn, in Bryant v. Foot, L. R. 2 Q. B., 161,. s. c. (Thayer's Cases on Evidence, page 88).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1194. English Law Repositories.

"The extant English judicial records do not begin until 1194 (Mich. 6 Rich. I.). We have a series of such records from 1384 (6 Rich. II.). The first law treatise by Glanvill was not written before 1187. The law reports begin in 1292. The knowledge of the laws of England prior to the twelfth century is in many points obscure and uncertain. From that time, however, the growth and development of these laws can be traced in the parliamentary and official records, treatises, and law reports."

John F. Dillon, The Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America, pages 28-29.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1199. Earliest instance of Action for Trespass.

"A case of the year 1199 (2 Rot. Cur. Reg. 34) seems to be the earliest reported instance of an action of trespass in the royal courts. Only a few cases are recorded during the next fifty years. But about 1250 the action came suddenly into great popularity. In the 'Abbreviatio Placitorum,' twenty-five cases are given of the single year 1252-1253. We may infer that the writ, which had before been granted as a special favor, became at that time a writ of course. In Britton (f. 49), pleaders are advised to sue in trespass rather than by appeal, in order to avoid 'la perilouse aventure de batayles.' Trespass in the popular courts of the hundred and county was doubtless of far greater antiquity than the same action in the Curia Regis. Several cases of the reign of Henry I, are collected in Bigelow, Placita Anglo-Normannica, 89, 98, 102, 127."

J. B. Ames, The Disseisin of Chattels (Harvard Law Review, volume 3, page 29, note).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1208. Evidence: Attesting Witnesses.

"From the beginning of our records, we find cases, in a dispute over the genuineness of a deed, where the jury are combined with the witnesses to the deed. This goes back to the Franks; and their custom of requiring the witness to a document to defend it by battle also crossed the channel, and is found in Glanville (lib. X., c. 12). … In these cases the jury and the witnesses named in the deed were summoned together, and all went out and conferred privately as if composing one body; the witnesses did not regularly testify in open court. Cases of this kind are found very early, e. g. in 1208-1209 (Pl. Ab. 63, col. 1, Berk.). … In the earlier cases these witnesses appear, sometimes, to have been conceived of as a constituent part of the jury; it was a combination of business-witnesses and community-witnesses who tried the case,—the former supplying to the others their more exact information, just as the hundreders, or those from another county, did in the cases before noticed. But in time the jury and the witnesses came to be sharply discriminated. Two or three cases in the reign of Edward III. show this. In 1337, 1338 and 1349, we are told that they are charged differently; the charge to the jury is to tell the truth (a lour ascient) to the best of their knowledge, while that to the witnesses is to tell the truth and loyally inform the inquest, without saying anything about their knowledge (sans lour scient); 'for the witnesses,' says Thorpe, C. J., in 1349, 'should say nothing but what they know as certain, i. e., what they see and hear.' … By the Statute of York (12 Edw. II. c. 2), in 1318, it was provided that while process should still issue to the witnesses as before, yet the taking of the inquest should not be delayed by their absence. In this shape the matter ran on for a century or two. By 1472 (Y. B. 12 Edw. IV. 4, 9), we find a change. It is said, with the assent of all the judges, that process for the witnesses will not issue unless asked for. As late, certainly, as 1489 (Y. B. 5 H. VII. 8), we find witnesses to deeds still summoned with the jury. I know of no later case. In 1549-1550 Brooke, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Bench, argues as if this practice was still known: 'When the witnesses … are joined to the inquest,' etc.; and I do not observe anything in his Abridgment, published in 1568, ten years after his death, to indicate that it was not a recognized part of the law during all his time. It may, however, well have been long obsolescent. Coke (Inst. 6 b.) says of it, early in the seventeenth century, 'and such process against witnesses is vanished;' but when or how he does not say. We may reasonably surmise, if it did not become infrequent as the practice grew, in the fifteenth century, of calling witnesses to testify to the jury in open court, that, at any rate, it must have soon disappeared when that practice came to be attended with the right, recognized, if not first granted, in the statute of 1562-1563 (5 Eliz. c. 9, s. 6), to have legal process against all sorts of witnesses."

James B. Thayer, in Harvard Law Review, volume 5, pages 302-5, also in Sel. Cas. Ev. pages 771-773.

"After the period reached in the passage above quoted, the old strictness as to the summoning of attesting witnesses still continued under the new system. As the history of the matter was forgotten, new reasons were invented, and the rule was extended to all sorts of writings."

J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, page 773.

{1961}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1215 (ante). Courts following the King.

"Another point which ought not to be forgotten in relation to the King's Court is its migratory character. The early kings of England were the greatest landowners in the country, and besides their landed estates they had rights over nearly every important town in England, which could be exercised only on the spot. They were continually travelling about from place to place, either to consume in kind part of their revenues, or to hunt or to fight. Wherever they went the great officers of their court, and in particular the chancellor with his clerks, and the various justices had to follow them. The pleas, so the phrase went, 'followed the person of the king,' and the machinery of justice went with them."

Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, volume 1, page 87.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1215. Magna Charta.

"With regard to the administration of justice, besides prohibiting all denials or delays of it, it fixed the court of Common Pleas at Westminster, that the suitors might no longer be harassed with following the King's person in all his progresses; and at the same time brought the trial of issues borne to the very doors of the freeholders by directing assizes to be taken in the proper counties, and establishing annual circuits. It also corrected some abuses then incident to the trials by wager of law and of battle; directing the regular awarding of inquest for life or member; prohibited the King's inferior ministers from holding pleas of the crown, or trying any criminal charge, whereby many forfeitures might otherwise have unjustly accrued to the exchequer: and regulated the time and place of holding the inferior tribunals of justice, the county court, sheriff's tourn, and court leet. … And, lastly (which alone would have merited the title that it bears, of the great charter,) it protected every individual of the nation in the free enjoyment of his life, his liberty and his property, unless declared to be forfeited by the judgment of his peers, or the law of the land."

Owen Flintoff, Laws of England, page 184.

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1215.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1216. Distinction between Common and Statute Law now begins.

"The Chancellors, during this reign [John 1199-1216], did nothing to be entitled to the gratitude of posterity, and were not unworthy of the master whom they served. The guardians of law were the feudal barons, assisted by some enlightened churchmen, and by their efforts the doctrine of resistance to lawless tyranny was fully established in England, and the rights of all classes of the people were defined and consolidated. We here reach a remarkable era in our constitutional history: National councils had met from the most remote times; but to the end of this reign their acts not being preserved are supposed to form a part of the lex non scripta, or common law. Now begins the distinction between common and statute law, and henceforth we can distinctly trace the changes which our juridical system has undergone. These changes were generally introduced by the Chancellor for the time being."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, page 115.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1216-1272. Henry de Bracton.

"It is curious that, in the most disturbed period of this turbulent reign, when ignorance seemed to be thickening and the human intellect to decline, there was written and given to the world the best treatise upon law of which England could boast, till the publication of Blackstone's Commentaries, in the middle of the eighteenth century. It would have been very gratifying to me if this work could have been ascribed with certainty to any of the Chancellors whose lives have been noticed. The author, usually styled Henry de Bracton, has gone by the name of Brycton, Britton, Briton, Breton, and Brets; and some have doubted whether all these names are not imaginary. From the elegance of his style, and the familiar knowledge he displays of the Roman law, I cannot doubt that he was an ecclesiastic who had addicted himself to the study of jurisprudence; and as he was likely to gain advancement from his extraordinary proficiency, he may have been one of those whom I have commemorated, although I must confess that he rather speaks the language likely to come from a disappointed practitioner rather than of a Chancellor who had been himself in the habit of making Judges. For comprehensiveness, for lucid arrangement, for logical precision, this author was unrivalled during many ages. Littleton's work on Tenures, which illustrated the reign of Edward IV., approaches Bracton; but how barbarous are, in comparison, the commentaries of Lord Coke, and the law treatises of Hale and of Hawkins!"

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, page 139.

For opposite view

See 9 American Bar Association Report, p. 193.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1217. Dower.

"The additional provision made in the edition of 1217 to the provisions of the earlier issues of the Charter in respect of widow's rights fixed the law of dower on the basis on which it still rests. The general rule of law still is that the widow is entitled for her life to a third part of the lands of which her husband was seized for an estate of inheritance at any time during the marriage. At the present day there are means provided which are almost universally adopted, of barring or defeating the widow's claim. The general rule of law, however, remains the same. The history of the law of dower deserves a short notice, which may conveniently find a place here. It seems to be in outline as follows. Tacitus noticed the contrast of Teutonic custom and Roman law, in that it was not the wife who conferred a dowry on the husband, but the husband on the wife. By early Teutonic custom, besides the bride-price, or price paid by the intending husband to the family of the bride, it seems to have been usual for the husband to make gifts of lands or chattels to the bride herself. These appear to have taken two forms. In some cases the husband or his father executed before marriage an instrument called 'libellum dotis,' specifying the nature and extent of the property to be given to the wife. … Another and apparently among the Anglo-Saxons a commoner form of dower is the 'morning gift.' This was the gift which on the morning following the wedding the husband gave to the wife, and might consist either of land or chattels. … By the law as stated by Glanvil the man was bound to endow the woman 'tempore desponsationis ad ostium ecclesiae.' The dower might be specified or not. If not specified it was the third part of the freehold which the husband possessed at the time of betrothal. If more than a third part was named, the dower was after the husband's death cut down to a third. A gift of less would however be a satisfaction of dower. It was sometimes permitted to increase the dower when the freehold available at the time of betrothal was small, by giving the wife a third part or less of subsequent acquisitions. This however must have been expressly granted at the time of betrothal. {1962} A woman could never claim more than had been granted 'ad ostium ecclesiae.' Dower too might be granted to a woman out of chattels personal, and in this case she would be entitled to a third part. In process of time however, this species of dower ceased to be regarded as legal, and was expressly denied to be law in the time of Henry IV. A trace of it still remains in the expression in the marriage service, 'with all my worldly goods I thee endow.'"

Kenelm E. Digby, History of the Law of Real Property, pages 126-128 (4th edition).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1258. Provisions of Oxford; no Writs except de Cursu.

"The writ had originally no connection whatever with the relief sought, it had been a general direction to do right to the plaintiff, or as the case might be, but, long before the time now referred to, this had been changed. … It appears that even after the writ obtained by the plaintiff had come to be connected with the remedy sought for, … a writ to suit each case was framed and issued, but the Provisions of Oxford (1258) expressly forbade the Chancellor to frame new writs without the consent of the King and his Council. It followed that there were certain writs, each applicable to a particular state of circumstances and leading to a particular judgment, which could be purchased by an intending plaintiff. These writs were described as writs 'de cursu,' and additions to their number were made from time to time by direction of the King, of his Council or of Parliament."

D. M. Kerly, History of Equity, page 9.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1258. Sale of Judicial Offices.

"The Norman Kings, who were ingenious adepts in realizing profit in every opportunity, commenced the sale of Judicial Offices. The Plantagenets followed their example. In Madox, chap. II., and in the 'Cottoni Posthuma, may be found innumerable instances of the purchase of the Chancellorship, and accurate details of the amount of the consideration monies. … What was bought must, of course, be sold, and justice became henceforth a marketable commodity. … The Courts of Law became a huckster's shop; every sort of produce, in the absence of money, was bartered for 'justice.'"

J. Parke, History of English Chancery, page 23.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1265. Disappearance of the Office of Chief Justiciary.

"Towards the end of this reign [Henry III.] the office of Chief Justiciary, which had often been found so dangerous to the Crown, fell into disuse. Hugh le Despenser, in the 49th of Henry III., was the last who bore the title. The hearing of common actions being fixed at Westminster by Magna Charta, the Aula Regia was gradually subdivided and certain Judges were assigned to hear criminal cases before the King himself, wheresoever he might be, in England. These formed the Court of King's Bench. They were called 'Justitiarii ad placita coram Rege,' and the one who was to preside 'Capitalis Justiciarius.' He was inferior in rank to the Chancellor, and had a salary of only one hundred marks a year, while the Chancellor had generally 500. Henceforth the Chancellor, in rank, power, and emolument, was the first magistrate under the Crown, and looked up to as the great head of the profession of the law."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, pages 139-140.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1275. Statute of Westminster the First; Improvement of the Law.

"He [Robert Burnel] presided at the Parliament which met in May, 1275, and passed the 'Statute of Westminster the First,' deserving the name of a Code rather than an Act of Parliament. From this chiefly, Edward I. has obtained the name of 'the English Justinian'—absurdly enough, as the Roman Emperor merely caused a compilation to be made of existing laws,—whereas the object now was to correct abuses, to supply defects, and to remodel the administration of justice. Edward deserves infinite praise for the sanction he gave to the undertaking; and from the observations he had made in France, Sicily, and the East, he may, like Napoleon, have been personally useful in the consultations for the formation of the new Code,—but the execution of the plan must have been left to others professionally skilled in jurisprudence, and the chief merit of it may safely be ascribed to Lord Chancellor Burnel, who brought it forward in Parliament. The statute is methodically divided into fifty-one chapters. … It provides for freedom of popular elections, then a mutter of much moment, as sheriffs, coroners, and conservators of the peace were still chosen by the free holders in the county court, and attempts had been made unduly to influence the elections of knights of the shire, almost from the time when the order was instituted. … It amends the criminal law, putting the crime of rape on the footing to which it has been lately restored, as a most grievous but not a capital offence. It embraces the subject of 'Procedure' both in civil and criminal matters, introducing many regulations with a view to render it cheaper, more simple, and more expeditious. … As long as Burnel continued in office the improvement of the law rapidly advanced,—there having been passed in the sixth year of the King's reign the 'Statute of Gloucester;' in the seventh year of the King's reign the 'Statute of Mortmain;' in the thirteenth year of the King's reign the 'Statute of Westminster the Second,' the 'Statute of Winchester,' and the 'Statute of Circumspecte agatis;' and in the eighteenth year of the King's reign the 'Statute of Quo Warranto,' and the 'Statute of Quia Emptores.' With the exception of the establishment of estates tail, which proved such an obstacle to the alienation of land till defeated by the fiction of Fines and Common Recoveries,—these laws were in a spirit of enlightened legislation, and admirably accommodated the law to the changed circumstances of the social system,—which ought to be the object of every wise legislation."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, pages 143-146.

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1275-1295, and 1279.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1278. Foundation of Costs at Common Law.

"The Statute of Gloucester, 6 Edw. I c. i, is the foundation of the common law jurisdiction as to costs, and by that statute it was enacted that in any action where the plaintiff recovered damages, he should also recover costs. … By the Judicature Act, 1875, O. L. V., the Legislature gave a direct authority to all the judges of the Courts constituted under the Judicature Act, and vested in them a discretion which was to guide and determine them, according to the circumstances of each case, in the disposition of costs."

Sydney Hastings, Treatise on Torts, page 379.

{1963}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1285. Statute of Westminster II.; Writs in Consimili Casu.

"The inadequacy of the common form writs to meet every case was, to some extent, remedied by the 24th Chapter of the Statute of Westminster II., which, after providing for one or two particular cases to meet which no writ existed, provides further that 'whensoever from henceforth it shall fortune in Chancery that in one case a writ is found, and, in like case falling under like law is found none, the clerks of the Chancery shall agree in making a writ or shall adjourn the Plaintiffs until the next Parliament, and the cases shall be written in which they cannot agree, and be referred until the next Parliament; and, by consent of the men learned in the Law a writ shall be made, that it may not happen, that the King's Court should fail in ministering justice unto Complainants.' … The words of the statute give no power to make a completely new departure; writs are to be framed to fit cases similar to, but not identical with, cases falling within existing writs, and the examples given in the statute itself are cases of extension of remedies against a successor in title of the raiser of a nuisance, and for the successor in title of a person who had been disseised of his common. Moreover the form of the writ was debated upon before, and its sufficiency determined by the judges, not by its framers, and they were, as English judges have always been, devoted adherents to precedent. In the course of centuries, by taking certain writs as starting points, and accumulating successive variations upon them, the judges added great areas to our common law, and many of its most famous branches, assumpsit, and trover and conversion for instance, were developed in this way, but the expansion of the Common Law was the work of the 15th and subsequent centuries, when, under the stress of eager rivalry with the growing equitable jurisdiction of the Chancery, the judges strove, not only by admitting and developing actions upon the case, but also by the use of fictitious actions, following the example of the Roman Praetor, to supply the deficiencies of their system."

D. M. Kerly, History of Equity, pages 10-11.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1285. Writ of Elegit.

The Writ of Elegit "is a judicial writ given by the statute Westm. 2, 13 Edw. I., c. 18, either upon a judgment for a debt, or damages; or upon the forfeiture of a recognizance taken in the king's court. By the common law a man could only have satisfaction of goods, chattels, and the present profits of lands, by the … writs of 'fieri facias,' or 'levari facias;' but not the possession of the lands themselves; which was a natural consequence of the feudal principles, which prohibited the alienation, and of course the encumbering of the fief with the debts of the owner. … The statute therefore granted this writ (called an 'elegit,' because it is in the choice or the election of the plaintiff whether he will sue out this writ or one of the former), by which the defendant's goods and chattels are not sold, but only appraised; and all of them (except oxen and beasts of the plough) are delivered to the plaintiff, at such reasonable appraisement and price, in part of satisfaction of his debt. If the goods are not sufficient, then the moiety or one-half of his freehold lands, which he had at the time of the judgment given, whether held in his own name, or by any other in trust for him, are also to be delivered to the plaintiff; to hold, till out of the rents and profits thereof the debt be levied, or till the defendant's interest be expired; as till the death of the defendant, if he be tenant for life or in tail."

Wm. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, chapter 27.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1290. Progress of the Common Law Right of Alienation.

"The statute of Quia Emptores, 18 Edw. I., finally and permanently established the free right of alienation by the sub-vassal, without the lord's consent; … and it declared, that the grantee should not hold the land of his immediate feoffor, but of the chief lord of the fee, of whom the grantor himself held it. … The power of involuntary alienation, by rendering the land answerable by attachment for debt, was created by the statute of Westm. 2, 13 Edw. I, c. 18, which granted the elegit; and by the statutes merchant or staple, of 13 Edw. I., and 27 Edw. III., which gave the extent. These provisions were called for by the growing commercial spirit of the nation. To these we may add the statute of 1 Edw. III., taking away the forfeiture or alienation by the king's tenants in capite, and substituting a reasonable fine in its place; … and this gives us a condensed view of the progress of the common law right of alienation from a state of servitude to freedom."

J. Kent, Commentaries, part 6, lecture 67.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1292. Fleta.

"Fleta, so called from its composition in the Fleet prison by one of the justices imprisoned by Edward I., is believed to have been written about the year 1292, and is nothing but an abbreviation of Bracton, and the work called 'Britton,' which was composed between the years 1290 and 1300, is of the same character, except that it is written in the vernacular language, French, while Granvil, Bracton and Fleta are written in Latin."

Thomas J. Semmes, 9 American Bar Association Report, page 193.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1300 (circa). The King's Peace a Common Right.

"By the end of the thirteenth century, a time when so much else of our institutions was newly and strongly fashioned for larger uses, the King's Peace had fully grown from an occasional privilege into a common right. Much, however, remained to be done before the king's subjects had the full benefit of this. … A beginning of this was made as early as 1195 by the assignment of knights to take an oath of all men in the kingdom that they would keep the King's Peace to the best of their power. Like functions were assigned first to the old conservators of the peace, then to the justices who superseded them, and to whose office a huge array of powers and duties of the most miscellaneous kind have been added by later statutes. … Then the writ 'de securitate pacis' made it clear beyond cavil that the king's peace was now, by the common law, the right of every lawful man."

F. Pollock, The King's Peace, (Law Quarterly Review, volume 1, page 49).

A. D. 1307-1509. The Year Books.

"The oldest reports extant on the English law, are the Year Books … , written in law French, and extend from the beginning of the reign of Edward II, to the latter end of the reign of Henry VIII, a period of about two hundred years. … The Year Books were very much occupied with discussions touching the forms of writs, and the pleadings and practice in real actions, which have gone entirely out of use."

J. Kent, Commentaries, part 3, lecture 21.

{1964}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1316. Election of Sheriffs abolished.

"Until the time of Edward II. the sheriff was elected by the inhabitants of the several counties; but a statute of the 9th year of that reign abolished election, and ever since, with few exceptions, the sheriff has been appointed, upon nomination by the king's councillors and the judges of certain ranks, by the approval of the crown. … The office of sheriff is still in England one of eminent honor, and is conferred on the wealthiest and most notable commoners in the counties."

New American Cyclopædia, volume 14, page 585.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1326-1377. Jurors cease to be Witnesses.

"The verdict of … the assize was founded on the personal knowledge of the jurors themselves respecting the matter in dispute, without hearing the evidence of witnesses in court. But there was an exception in the case of deeds which came into controversy, and in which persons had been named as witnessing the grant or other matter testified by the deed. … This seems to have paved the way for the important change whereby the jury ceasing to be witnesses themselves, gave their verdict upon the evidence brought before them at the trials. … Since the jurors themselves were originally mere witnesses, there was no distinction in principle between them and the attesting witnesses; so that it is by no means improbable that the latter were at first associated with them in the discharge of the same function, namely, the delivery of a verdict, and that gradually, in the course of years, a separation took place. This separation, at all events, existed in the reign of Edward III.; for although we find in the Year Books of that period the expression, 'the witnesses were joined to the assize,' a clear distinction is, notwithstanding, drawn between them."

W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, pages 124 and 128.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1362. Pleading in the English tongue. Enrollment in Latin.

"The Statute 36 Edward III., c. 15, A. D. 1362, enacted that in future all pleas should be 'pleaded, shewed, defended, answered, debated, and judged in the English tongue:' the lawyers, on the alert, appended a proviso that they should be 'entered and enrolled' in Latin, and the old customary terms and forms retained."

J. Parke, History of Chancery, page 43.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1368. Jury System in Civil Trials.

"As it was an essential principle of the jury trial from the earliest times, that the jurors should be summoned from the hundred where the cause of action arose, the court, in order to procure their attendance, issued in the first instance a writ called a venire facias, commanding the sheriff or other officer to whom it was directed, to have twelve good and lawful men for the neighborhood in court upon a day therein specified, to try the issue joined between the parties. And this was accordingly done, and the sheriff had his jury ready at the place which the court had appointed for its sitting. But when the Court of Common Pleas was severed from the Curia Regis, and became stationary at Westminster (a change which took place in the reign of King John, and was the subject of one of the provisions of Magna Charta), it was found to be very inconvenient to be obliged to take juries there from all parts of the country. And as justices were already in the habit of making periodical circuits for the purpose of holding the assize in pleas of land, it was thought advisable to substitute them for the full court in banc at Westminster, in other cases also. The statute 13 Edw. I. c. 30, was therefore passed, which enacted that these justices should try other issues: 'wherein small examination was required,' or where both parties desired it, and return the inquests into the court above. This led to an alteration in the form of the venire: and instead of the sheriff being simply ordered to bring the jurors to the courts at Westminster on a day named, he was now required to bring them there on a certain day, 'nisi prius,' that is, unless before that day the justices of assize came into his county, in which case the statute directed him to return the jury, not to the court, but before the justices of assize."

W. Forsyth, History of Trial by Jury, pages 139-140.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1382. Peaceable Entry.

"This remedy by entry must be pursued according to statute 5 Rich. II., st. I., c. 8, in a peaceable and easy manner; and not with force or strong hand. For, if one turns or keeps another out of possession forcibly, this is an injury of both a civil and a criminal nature. The civil is remedied by an immediate restitution; which puts the ancient possessor in statu quo: the criminal injury, or public wrong, by breach of the king's peace, is punished by fine to the King."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, page 179.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1383-1403. Venue to be laid in proper Counties.

"The statutes 6 Rich. II., c. 2, and 4 Hen. IV., c. 18, having ordered all writs to be laid in their proper counties, this, as the judges conceived, empowered them to change the venue, if required, and not to insist rigidly on abating the writ: which practice began in the reign of James the First. And this power is discretionally exercised, so as to prevent, and not to cause, a defect of justice. … And it will sometimes remove the venue from the proper jurisdiction, … upon a suggestion, duly supported, that a fair and impartial trial cannot be had therein."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, page 294.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1388. Prohibition against Citation of Roman Law in Common-law Tribunals.

"In the reign of Edward III. the exactions of the court of Rome had become odious to the king and the people. Edward, supported by his Parliament, resisted the payment of the tribute which his predecessors from the Conquest downwards, but more particularly from the time of John, had been accustomed to pay to the court of Rome; … the name of the Roman Law, which in the reigns of Henry II. and III., and of Edward I., had been in considerable favor at court, and even … with the judges, became the object of aversion. In the reign of Richard II. the barons protested that they would never suffer the kingdom to be governed by the Roman law, and the judges prohibited it from being any longer cited in the common law tribunals."

G. Spence, Equity Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, volume 1, page 346.

{1965}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1436. Act to prevent interference with Common Law Process.

"In 1436, an act was passed with the concurrence of the Chancellor, to check the wanton filing of bills in Chancery in disturbance of common law process. The Commons, after reciting the prevailing grievance, prayed 'that every person from this time forward vexed in Chancery for matter determinable by the common law, have action against him that so vexed him, and recover his damages.' The King answered, 'that no writ of subpoena be granted hereafter till security be found to satisfy the party so vexed and grieved for his damages and expenses, if it so be that the matter may not be made good which is contained in the bill.'"

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume I, page 272.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1450 (circa). Evidence. Number of Witnesses.

"It is then abundantly plain that by this time [the middle of the 15th century] witnesses could testify in open court to the jury. That this was by no means freely done seems also plain. Furthermore, it is pretty certain that this feature of a jury trial, in our day so conspicuous and indispensable, was then but little considered and of small importance."

J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, page 1071.

ALSO IN: J. B. Thayer, The Jury and its Development (Harvard Law Review, volume 5, page 360).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1456. Demurrers to Evidence.

"Very soon, as it seems, after the general practice began of allowing witnesses to testify to the jury, an interesting contrivance for eliminating the jury came into existence, the demurrer upon evidence. Such demurrers, like others, were demurrers in law; but they had the effect to withdraw from the jury all consideration of the facts, and, in their pure form, to submit to the court two questions, of which only the second was, in strictness, a question of law: (1) Whether a verdict for the party who gave the evidence could be given, as a matter of legitimate inference and interpretation from the evidence; (2) As a matter of law. Of this expedient, I do not observe any mention earlier than the year 1456, and it is interesting to notice that we do not trace the full use of witnesses to the jury much earlier than this."

J. B. Thayer, Law and Fact in Jury Trials (Harvard Law Review, volume 4, page 162).

ALSO IN: J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, page 149.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1470. Evidence. Competency of Witnesses.

"Fortescue (De Laud. c. 26), who has the earliest account (about 1470) of witnesses testifying regularly to the jury, gives no information as to any ground for challenging them. But Coke, a century and a third later, makes certain qualifications of the assertion of the older judges, that 'they had not seen witnesses challenged.' He mentions as grounds of exclusion, legal infamy, being an 'infidel,' of non-sane memory, 'not of discretion,' a party interested, 'or the like.' And he says that 'it hath been resolved by the justices [in 1612] that a wife cannot be produced either against or for her husband, quia sunt duae animae in carne una.' He also points out that 'he that challengeth a right in the thing in demand cannot be a witness.' Here are the outlines of the subsequent tests for the competency of witnesses. They were much refined upon, particularly the excluding ground of interest; and great inconveniences resulted. At last in the fourth and fifth decades of the present century, in England, nearly all objections to competency were abolished, or turned into matters of privilege."

J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, p. 1070.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1473. Barring Entails. Taltarum's Case.

"The common-law judges at this time were very bold men, having of their own authority repealed the statute De Donis, passed in the reign of Edward I., which authorized the perpetual entail of land,—by deciding in Taltarum's Case, that the entail might be barred through a fictitious proceeding in the Court of Common Pleas, called a 'Common Recovery;'—the estate being adjudged to a sham claimant,—a sham equivalent being given to those who ought to succeed to it,—and the tenant in tail being enabled to dispose of it as he pleases, in spite of the will of the donor."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, pages 309-310.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1481-1505. Development of Actions of Assumpsit.

"It is probable that the willingness of equity to give pecuniary relief upon parol promises hastened the development of the action of assumpsit. Fairfax, J., in 1481, advised pleaders to pay more attention to actions on the case, and thereby diminish the resort to chancery; and Fineux, C. J., remarked, in 1505, after that advice had been followed and sanctioned by the courts, that it was no longer necessary to sue a subpoena in such cases. Brooke, in his 'Abridgment,' adds to this remark of Fineux, C. J.: 'But note that he shall have only damages by this [action on the case], but by subpoena the chancellor may compel him to execute the estate or imprison him ut dicitur.'"

J. B. Ames, Specific Performance of Contracts (The Green Bag, volume 1, page 26).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1484. Statutes to be in English.

"In opening the volumes of our laws, as printed by authority 'from original records and authentic manuscripts,' we are struck with a change upon the face of these Statutes of Richard III., which indicates as true a regard for the liberty of the subjects as the laws themselves. For the first time the laws to be obeyed by the English people are enacted in the English tongue."

Charles Knight, History of England, volume 2, page 200.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1499 (circa). Copyright.

"From about the period of the introduction of printing into this country, that is to say, towards the end of the fifteenth century, English authors had, in accordance with the opinion of the best legal authorities, a right to the Copyright in their works, according to the Common Law of the Realm, or a right to their 'copy' as it was anciently called, but there is no direct evidence of the right until 1558. The Charter of the Stationers' Company, which to this day is charged with the Registration of Copyright, was granted by Philip and Mary in 1556. The avowed object of this corporation was to prevent the spread of the Reformation. Then there followed the despotic jurisdiction of the Star Chamber over the publication of books, and the Ordinances and the Licensing Act of Charles II. At the commencement of the 18th century there was no statutory protection of Copyright. Unrestricted piracy was rife. The existing remedies of a bill in equity and an action at law were too cumbrous and expensive to protect the authors' Common Law rights, and authors petitioned Parliament for speedier and more effectual remedies. In consequence, the 8 Anne, c. 19, the first English Statute providing for the protection of Copyright, was passed in 1710. This Act gave to the author the sole liberty of publication for 14 years, with a further term of fourteen years, provided the author was living at the expiration of the first term, and enacted provisions for the forfeiture of piratical copies and for the imposition of penalties in cases of piracy. {1966} But in obtaining this Act, the authors placed themselves very much in the position of the dog in the fable, who dropped the substance in snatching at the shadow, for, while on the one hand they obtained the remedial measures they desired, on the other, the Perpetual Copyright to which they were entitled at the Common Law was reduced to the fixed maximum term already mentioned, through the combined operation of the statute and the judicial decisions to be presently referred to. But notwithstanding the statute, the Courts continued for some time to recognise the rights of authors at Common Law, and numerous injunctions were granted to protect the Copyright in books, in which the term of protection granted by the statute of Anne had expired, and which injunctions therefore could only have been granted on the basis of the Common Law right. In 1769 judgment was pronounced in the great Copyright case of Millar v. Taylor. The book in controversy was Thomson's 'Seasons,' in which work the period of Copyright granted by the statute of Anne had expired, and the question was directly raised, whether a Perpetual Copyright according to Common Law, and independent of that statute, remained in the author after publication. Lord Mansfield, one of the greatest lawyers of all times, maintained in his judgment that Copyright was founded on the Common Law, and that it had not been taken away by the statute of Anne, which was intended merely to give for a term of years a more complete protection. But, in 1774 this decision was overruled by the House of Lords in the equally celebrated pendent case of Donaldson v. Beckett, in which the Judges consulted were equally divided on the same point, Lord Mansfield and Sir William Blackstone being amongst those who were of opinion that the Common Law right had not been taken away by the statute of Anne. But owing to a point of etiquette, namely that of being peer as well as one of the Judges, Lord Mansfield did not express his opinion, and in consequence, the House of Lords, influenced by a specious oration from Lord Camden, held (contrary to the opinion of the above-mentioned illustrious Jurists), that the statute had taken away all Common Law rights after publication, and hence that in a published book there was no Copyright except that given by the statute. This judgment caused great alarm amongst those who supposed that their Copyright was perpetual. Acts of Parliament were applied for, and in 1775 the Universities obtained one protecting their literary property."

T. A. Romer, Copyright Law Reform (Law Magazine & Review, 4th ser., volume 12, page 231).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1499. Action of Ejectment.

"The writ of 'ejectione firmæ' … , out of which the modern action of ejectment has gradually grown into its present form, is not of any great antiquity. … The Court of Common Pleas had exclusive jurisdiction of real actions while ejectment could be brought in all three of the great common law courts. … The practitioners in the King's Bench also encouraged ejectment, for it enabled them to share in the lucrative practice of the Common Pleas. … In the action of 'ejectione firmæ,' the plaintiff first only recovered damages, as in any other action of trespass. … The courts, consequently following, it is said, in the footsteps of the courts of equity, … introduced into this action a species of relief not warranted by the original writ, … viz., a judgment to recover the term, and a writ of possession thereupon. Possibly the change was inspired by jealousy of the chancery courts. It cannot be stated precisely when this change took place. In 1383 it was conceded by the full court that in 'ejectione firmæ' the plaintiff could no more recover his term than in trespass he could recover damages for a trespass to be done. … But in 1468 it was agreed by opposing counsel that the term could be recovered, as well as damages. The earliest reported decision to this effect was in 1499, and is referred to by Mr. Reeves as the most important adjudication rendered during the reign of Henry VII., for it changed the whole system of remedies for the trial of controverted titles to land, and the recovery of real property."

Sedgwick and Wait, Trial of Title to Land (2nd edition), sections 12-25.

"Ejectment is the form of action now retained in use in England under the Statute of 3 and 4 Wm. IV., c. 7, § 36, which abolished all other forms of real actions except dower. It is in general use in some form in this country, and by it the plaintiff recovers, if at all, upon the strength of his own title, and not upon the weakness of that of the tenant, since possession is deemed conclusive evidence of title as to all persons except such as can show a better one."

Washburn, Real Property (5th edition), volume 1, page 465.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1504-1542. Consideration in Contracts.

"To the present writer it seems impossible to refer consideration to a single source. At the present day it is doubtless just and expedient to resolve every consideration into a detriment to the promisee incurred at the request of the promisor. But this definition of consideration would not have covered the cases of the 16th century. There were then two distinct forms of consideration: (1) detriment; (2) a precedent debt. Of these detriment was the more ancient, having become established in substance, as early as 1504. On the other hand no case has been found recognizing the validity of a promise to pay a precedent debt before 1542. These two species of consideration, so different in their nature, are, as would be surmised, of distinct origin. The history of detriment is bound up with the history of special assumpsit, whereas the consideration based upon a precedent debt must be studied in the development of 'indebitatus assumpsit.'"

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, pages 1-2).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1520. The Law of Parol Guaranty.

"It was decided in 1520, that one who sold goods to a third person on the faith of the defendant's promise that the price should be paid, might have an action on the case upon the promise. This decision introduced the whole law of parol guaranty. Cases in which the plaintiff gave his time or labor were as much within the principle of the new action as those in which he parted with property. And this fact was speedily recognized. In Saint-Germain's book, published in 1531, the student of law thus defines the liability of a promisor: 'If he to whom the promise is made have a charge by reason of the promise, … he shall have an action for that thing that was promised, though he that made the promise have no worldly profit by it.' From that day to this a detriment has always been deemed a valid consideration for a promise if incurred at the promisor's request."

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 14).

{1967}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1535. Statute of Uses.

"Before the passing of the Statute of Uses in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII, attempts had been made to protect by legislation the interests of creditors, of the king, and of the lords, which were affected injuriously by feoffments to uses. … The object of that Statute was by joining the possession or seisen to the use and interest (or, in other words, by providing that all the estate which would by the common law have passed to the grantee to uses should instantly be taken out of him and vested in 'cestui que use'), to annihilate altogether the distinction between the legal and beneficial ownership, to make the ostensible tenant, in every case also the legal tenant, liable to his lord for feudal dues and services,—wardship, marriage, and the rest. … By converting the use into the legal interest the Statute did away with the power of disposing of interests in lands by will, which had been one of the most important results of the introduction of uses. Probably these were the chief results aimed at by the Statute of Uses. A strange combination of circumstances—the force of usage by which practices had arisen too strong even for legislation to do away with, coupled with an almost superstitious adherence on the part of the courts to the letter of the statute—produced the curious result, that the effect of the Statute of Uses was directly the reverse of its purpose, that by means of it secret conveyances of the legal estate were introduced, while by a strained interpretation of its terms the old distinction between beneficial or equitable and legal ownership was revived. What may be called the modern law of Real Property and the highly technical and intricate system of conveyancing which still prevails, dates from the legislation of Henry VIII."

Kenelm E. Digby, History of the Law of Real Property (4th edition), pages 343-345.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1540-1542. Testamentary Power.

"The power of disposing by will of land and goods has been of slow growth in England. The peculiar theories of the English land system prevented the existence of a testamentary power over land until it was created by the Statute of Wills (32 & 34 Hen. VIII.) extended by later statutes, and although a testamentary power over personal property is very ancient in this country, it was limited at common law by the claims of the testator's widow and children to their 'reasonable parts' of his goods. The widow was entitled to one third, or if there were no children to one half of her husband's personal estate; and the children to one third, or if there was no widow to one half of their father's personal estate, and the testator could only dispose by his will of what remained. Whether the superior claims of the widow and children existed all over England or only in some counties by custom is doubted; but … by Statutes of William and Mary, Will. III. and Geo. I., followed by the Wills Act (1 Vict. c. 26), the customs have been abolished, and a testator's testamentary power now extends to all his real and personal property."

Stuart C. Macaskie, The Law of Executors and Administrators, page 1.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1542. Liability in Indebitatus Assumpsit on an Express Promise.

"The origin of indebitatus assumpsit may be explained in a few words: Slade's case [4 Rep., 92a], decided in 1603, is commonly thought to be the source of this action. But this is a misapprehension. 'Indebitatus assumpsit' upon an express promise is at least sixty years older than Slade's case. The evidence of its existence throughout the last half of the sixteenth century is conclusive. There is a note by Brooke, who died in 1558, as follows: 'where one is indebted to me, and he promises to pay before Michaelmas, I may have an action of debt on the contract, or an action on the case on the promise.'"

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 16).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1557. Statute of Uses Rendered Nugatory.

"Twenty-two years after the passing of this statute (Mich. Term 4 & 5 Ph. & M.) the judges by a decision practically rendered the Statute nugatory by holding that the Statute will not execute more than one use, and that if there be a second use declared the Statute will not operate upon it. The effect of this was to bring again into full operation the equitable doctrine as to uses in lands."

A. H. Marsh, History of the Court of Chancery, pages 122-123.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1580. Equal Distribution of Property.

"In Holland, all property, both real and personal, of persons dying intestate, except land held by feudal tenure, was equally divided among the children, under the provisions of an act passed by the States in 1580. This act also contained a further enlightened provision, copied from Rome, and since adopted in other Continental Countries, which prohibited parents from disinheriting their children except for certain specified offences. Under this legal system, it became customary for parents to divide their property by will equally among their children, just as the custom of leaving all the property to the eldest son grew up under the laws of England. The Puritans who settled New England adopted the idea of the equal distribution of property, in case there was no will—giving to the eldest son, however, in some of the colonies a double portion, according to the Old Testament injunction,—and thence it has spread over the whole United States."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 2, page 452.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1589. Earliest notice of Contract of Insurance.

"The first notice of the contract of insurance that appears in the English reports, is a case cited in Coke's Reports [6 Coke's Rep., 47b], and decided in the 31st of Elizabeth; and the commercial spirit of that age gave birth to the statute of 43rd Elizabeth, passed to give facility to the contract, and which created the court of policies of assurance, and shows by its preamble that the business of marine insurance had been in immemorial use, and actively followed. But the law of insurance received very little study and cultivation for ages afterwards; and Mr. Park informs us that there were not forty cases upon matters of insurance prior to the year 1756, and even those cases were generally loose nisi prius notes, containing very little information or claim to authority."

J. Kent, Commentaries, part 5, lecture 48.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1592. A Highwayman as a Chief-Justice.

"In 1592, Elizabeth appointed to the office of Chief-Justice of England a lawyer, John Popham, who is said to have occasionally been a highwayman until the age of thirty. At first blush this seems incredible, but only because such false notions generally prevail regarding the character of the time. The fact is that neither piracy nor robbery was considered particularly discreditable at the court of Elizabeth. {1968} The queen knighted Francis Drake for his exploits as a pirate, and a law on the statute-books, passed in the middle of the century, gave benefit of clergy to peers of the realm when convicted of highway robbery. Men may doubt, if they choose, the stories about Popham, but the testimony of this statute cannot be disputed."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 1. page 366.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1650-1700. Evidence. "Best Evidence Rule."

"This phrase is an old one. During the latter part of the seventeenth century and the whole of the eighteenth, while rules of evidence were forming, the judges and text writers were in the habit of laying down two principles; namely, (1) that one must bring the best evidence that he can, and (2) that if he does this, it is enough. These principles were the beginning, in the endeavor to give consistency to the system of evidence before juries. They were never literally enforced,—they were principles and not exact rules; but for a long time they afforded a valuable test. As rules of evidence and exceptions to the rules became more definite, the field for the application of the general principle of the 'Best Evidence' was narrower. But it was often resorted to as a definite rule and test in a manner which was very misleading. This is still occasionally done, as when we are told in McKinnon v. Bliss, 21 N. Y, p. 218, that 'it is a universal rule founded on necessity, that the best evidence of which the nature of the case admits is always receivable.' Greenleaf's treatment of this topic (followed by Taylor) is perplexing and antiquated. A juster conception of it is found in Best, Evid. s. 88. Always the chief example of the 'Best Evidence' principle was the rule about proving the contents of a writing. But the origin of this rule about writings was older than the 'Best Evidence' principle; and that principle may well have been a generalization from this rule, which appears to be traceable to the doctrine of profert. That doctrine required the actual production of the instrument which was set up in pleading. In like manner, it was said, in dealing with the jury, that a jury could not specifically find the contents of a deed unless it had been exhibited to them in evidence. And afterwards when the jury came to hear testimony from witnesses, it was said that witnesses could not undertake to speak to the contents of a deed without the production of the deed itself. … Our earliest records show the practice of exhibiting charters and other writings to the jury."

J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, page 726.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1600. Mortgagee's Right to Possession.

"When this country was colonized, about A. D. 1600, the law of mortgage was perfectly well settled in England. It was established there that a mortgage, whether by deed upon condition, by trust deed, or by deed and defeasance, vested the fee, at law, in the mortgagee, and that the mortgagee, unless the deed reserved possession to the mortgagor, was entitled to immediate possession. Theoretically our ancestors brought this law to America with them. Things ran on until the Revolution. Mortgages were given in the English form, by deed on condition, by deed and defeasance, or by trust deed. It was not customary in Plymouth or Massachusetts Bay, and it is probable that it was not customary elsewhere, to insert a provision that the mortgagor, until default in payment, should retain possession. Theoretically, during the one hundred and fifty years from the first settlement to the Revolution, the English rules of law governed all these transactions, and, as matter of book law, every mortgagee of a house or a farm was the owner of it, and had the absolute right to take possession upon the delivery of the deed. But the curious thing about this is, that the people generally never dreamed that such was the law."

H. W. Chaplin, The Story of Mortgage Law (Harvard Law Review, volume 4, page 12).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1601-1602. Malicious Prosecution.

"The modern action for malicious prosecution, represented formerly by the action for conspiracy, has brought down to our own time a doctrine which is probably traceable to the practice of spreading the case fully upon the record, namely, that what is a reasonable and probable cause for a prosecution is a question for the court. That it is a question of fact is confessed, and also that other like questions in similar cases are given to the jury. Reasons of policy led the old judges to permit the defendant to state his case fully upon the record, so as to secure to the court a greater control over the jury in handling the facts, and to keep what were accounted questions of law, i. e., questions which it was thought should be decided by the judges out of the jury's hands. Gawdy, J., in such a case, in 1601-2, 'doubted whether it were a plea, because it amounts to a non culpabilis. … But the other justices held that it was a good plea, per doubt del lay gents.' Now that the mode of pleading has changed, the old rule still holds; being maintained, perhaps, chiefly by the old reasons of policy."

J. B. Thayer, Law and Fact in Jury Trials (Harvard Law Review, volume 4, page 147).

ALSO IN: J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, page 150.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1603. Earliest reported case of Bills of Exchange.

"The origin and history of Bills of Exchange and other negotiable instruments are traced by Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in his judgment in Goodwin v. Robarts [L. R. 10 Ex., pages 346-358]. It seems that bills were first brought into use by the Florentines in the twelfth century. From Italy the use of them spread to France, and eventually they were introduced into England. The first English reported case in which they are mentioned is Martin v. Boure (Cro. Jac. 3), decided in 1603. At first the use of Bills of Exchange seems to have been confined to foreign bills between English and foreign merchants. It was afterwards extended to domestic bills between traders, and finally to bills of all persons whether traders or not. The law throughout has been based on the custom of merchants respecting them; the old form of declaration on bill used always to state that it was drawn 'secundum usum et consuetudinem mercatorum.'"

M. D. Chalmers, Bills of Exchange, page xliv., introduction.

See, also, MONEY AND BANKING, MEDIÆVAL.

{1969}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1604. Death Inferred from Long Absence.

"It is not at all modern to infer death from a long absence; the recent thing is the fixing of a time of seven years, and putting this into a rule. The faint beginning of it, as a common-law rule, and one of general application in all questions of life and death, is found, so far as our recorded cases show, in Doe d. George v. Jesson (January, 1805). Long before this time, in 1604, the 'Bigamy Act' of James I. had exempted from the scope of its provisions, and so from the situation and punishment of a felon (1) those persons who had married a second time when the first spouse had been beyond the seas for seven years, and (2) those whose spouse had been absent for seven years, although not beyond the seas,—'the one of them not knowing the other to be living within that time.' This statute did not treat matters altogether as if the absent party were dead; it did not validate the second marriage in either case. It simply exempted a party from the statutory penalty."

J. B. Thayer, Presumptions and the Law of Evidence (Harvard Law Review, volume 3, page 151).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1609. First Recognition of Right to Sue for Quantum Meruit.

"There seems to have been no recognition of the right to sue upon an implied 'quantum meruit' before 1609. The innkeeper was the first to profit by the innovation. Reciprocity demanded that, if the law imposed a duty upon the innkeeper to receive and keep safely, it should also imply a promise on the part of the guest to pay what was reasonable. The tailor was in the same case with the innkeeper, and his right to recover upon a quantum meruit was recognized in 1610.". [Six Carpenters' Case, 8 Rep., 147a.]

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 58).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1623. Liability of Gratuitous Bailee to be Charged in Assumpsit, established.

"The earliest attempt to charge bailees in assumpsit were made when the bailment was gratuitous. These attempts, just before and after 1600, were unsuccessful, because the plaintiffs could not make out any consideration. The gratuitous bailment was, of course, not a benefit, but a burden to the defendant; and, on the other hand, it was not regarded as a detriment, but an advantage to the plaintiff. But in 1623 it was finally decided, not without a great straining, it must be conceded, of the doctrine of consideration, that a bailee might be charged in assumpsit on a gratuitous bailment."

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 6, citing Wheatley v. Low, Palm., 281; Cro. Jac. 668).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1625 (circa). Experiment in Legislation. Limitation in time.

"The distinction between temporary and permanent Legislation is a very old one." It was a distinction expressed at Athens; but "we have no such variety of name. All are alike Acts of Parliament. Acts in the nature of new departures in the Law of an important kind are frequently limited in time, very often with a view of gaining experience as to the practical working of a new system before the Legislature commits itself to final legislation on the subject, sometimes, no doubt, by way of compromise with the Opposition, objecting to the passing of such a measure at all. Limitation in time often occurs in old Acts. Instances are the first Act of the first Parliament of Charles I. (1 Car. 1., c. 1), forbidding certain sports and pastimes on Sunday, and permitting others. The Book of Sports of James I. had prepared the mind of the people for that more liberal observance of Sunday which had been so offensive to the Puritans of Elizabeth's reign, but it had not been down to that time acknowledged by the Legislature. This was now done in 1625, the Act was passed for the then Parliament, continued from time to time, and finally (the experiment having apparently succeeded) made perpetual in 1641. Another instance is the Music Hall Act of 1752 passed it is said on the advice of Henry Fielding, in consequence of the disorderly state of the music halls of the period, and perhaps still more on account of the Jacobite songs sometimes sung at such places. It was passed for three years, and, having apparently put an end to local disaffection, was made perpetual in 1755. Modern instances are the Ballot Act, 1872, passed originally for eight years, and now annually continued, the Regulation of Railways Act, 1873, creating a new tribunal, the Railway Commission, passed originally for five years, and annually continued until made perpetual by the Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888; the Employers' Liability Act, 1880, a new departure in Social Legislation, expiring on the 31st December, 1887, and since annually continued; and the Shop Hours Regulation Act, 1886, a similar departure, expiring in 1888, and continued for the present Session. … (2) Place. —It is in this respect that the Experimental method of Parliament is most conspicuous. A law is enacted binding only locally, and is sometimes extended to the whole or a part of the realm, sometimes not. The old Statute of Circumspecte Agatis (13 Edw. I., stat. 4) passed in 1285 is one of the earliest examples. The point of importance in it is that it was addressed only to the Bishop of Norwich, but afterwards seems to have been tacitly admitted as law in the case of all dioceses, having probably been found to have worked well at Norwich. It was not unlike the Rescripts of the Roman emperors, which, primarily addressed to an individual, afterwards became precedents of general law."

James William (Law Magazine & Review, London 1888-9), 4th ser., volume 14, page 306.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1630-1641. Public Registry.

"When now we look to the United States, we find no difficulty in tracing the history of the institution on this side of the Atlantic. The first settlers of New York coming from Holland, brought it with them. In 1636, the Pilgrims of Plymouth, coming also from Holland, passed a law requiring that for the prevention of frauds, all conveyances, including mortgages and leases, should be recorded. Connecticut followed in 1639, the Puritans of Massachusetts in 1641; Penn, of course, introduced it into Pennsylvania. Subsequently every State of the Union established substantially the same system."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 2, page 463.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1650 (circa). Law regarded as a Luxury.

"Of all the reforms needed in England, that of the law was perhaps the most urgent. In the general features of its administration the system had been little changed since the days of the first Edward. As to its details, a mass of abuses had grown up which made the name of justice nothing but a mockery. Twenty thousand cases, it was said, stood for judgment in the Court of Chancery, some of them ten, twenty, thirty years old. In all the courts the judges held their positions at the pleasure of the crown. They and their clerks, the marshals, and the sheriffs exacted exorbitant fees for every service, and on their cause-list gave the preference to the suitor with the longest purse. Legal documents were written in a barbarous jargon which none but the initiated could understand. {1970} The lawyers, for centuries, had exercised their ingenuity in perfecting a system of pleading, the main object of which seems to have been to augment their charges, while burying the merits of a cause under a tangle of technicalities which would secure them from disentombment. The result was that law had become a luxury for the rich alone."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 2, pages 383-384.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1657. Perhaps the first Indebitatus Assumpsit for Money paid to Defendant by Mistake.

"One who received money from another to be applied in a particular way was bound to give an account of his stewardship. If he fulfilled his commission, a plea to that effect would be a valid discharge. If he failed for any reason to apply the money in the mode directed, the auditors would find that the amount received was due to the plaintiff, who would have a judgment for its recovery. If, for example, the money was to be applied in payment of a debt erroneously supposed to be due from the plaintiff to the defendant, … the intended application of the money being impossible, the plaintiff would recover the money in Account. Debt would also lie in such cases. … By means of a fiction of a promise implied in law 'Indebitatus Assumpsit' because concurrent with Debt, and thus was established the familiar action of Assumpsit for money had and received to recover money paid to the defendant by mistake. Bonnel v. Fowke (1657) is, perhaps, the first action of the kind."

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 66).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1670. Personal Knowledge of Jurors.

"The jury were still required to come from the neighborhood where the fact they had to try was supposed to have happened; and this explains the origin of the venue (vicintum), which appears in all indictments and declarations at the present day. It points out the place from which the jury must be summoned. … And it was said by the Court of Common Pleas in Bushell's case (A. D. 1670), that the jury being returned from the vicinage whence the cause of action arises, the law supposes them to have sufficient knowledge to try the matters in issue, 'and so they must, though no evidence were given on either side in court';—and the case is put of an action upon a bond to which the defendant pleads solvit ad diem, but offers no proof:—where, the court said 'the jury is directed to find for the plaintiff, unless they know payment was made of their own knowledge, according to the plea.' This is the meaning of the old legal doctrine, which is at first sight somewhat startling, that the evidence in court is not binding evidence to a jury. Therefore acting upon their own knowledge, they were at liberty to give a verdict in direct opposition to the evidence, if they so thought fit."

W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, pages 134-136.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1678. The Statute of Frauds.

"During Lord Nottingham's period of office, and partly in consequence of his advice, the Statute of Frauds was passed. Its main provisions are directed against the enforcement of verbal contracts, the validity of verbal conveyances of interests in land, the creation of trusts of lands without writing, and the allowance of nuncupative wills. It also made equitable interests in lands subject to the owner's debts to the same extent as legal interests were. The statute carried into legislative effect principles which had, so far back as the time of Bacon's orders, been approved by the Court of Chancery, and by its operation in the common law courts it must often have obviated the necessity for equitable interference. In modern times it has not infrequently been decried, especially so far as it restricts the verbal proof of contracts, but in estimating its value and operation at the time it became a law it must be remembered that the evidence of the parties to an action at law could not then be received, and the Defendant might have been charged upon the uncorroborated statement of a single witness which he was not allowed to contradict, as Lord Eldon argued many years afterwards, when the action upon the case for fraud was introduced at law. It was therefore a most reasonable precaution, while this unreasonable rule continued, to lay down that the Defendant should be charged only upon writing signed by him."

D. M. Kerly, History of Equity, page 170.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1680. Habeas Corpus and Personal Liberty.

"The language of the great charter is, that no freeman shall be taken or imprisoned but by the lawful judgment of his equals, or by the law of the land. And many subsequent old statutes expressly direct, that no man shall be taken or imprisoned by suggestion or petition to the king or his council, unless it be by legal indictment, or the process of the common-law. By the petition of right, 3 Car. I., it is enacted, that no freeman shall be imprisoned or detained without cause shown. … By 16 Car. I., c. 10, if any person be restrained of his liberty … , he shall, upon demand of his counsel, have a writ of habeas corpus, to bring his body before the court of king's bench or common pleas, who shall determine whether the cause of his commitment be just. … And by 31 Car. II., c. 2, commonly called the habeas corpus act, the methods of obtaining this writ are so plainly pointed out and enforced, that, … no subject of England can be long detained in prison, except in those cases in which the law requires and justifies such detainer. And, … it is declared by 1 W. and M. St. 2, c. 2, that excessive bail ought not be required."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, I., 135.

J. Kent, Commentaries, part 4, lecture 24.

For the text of the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1679 (MAY).

A. D. 1683-1771. Subsequent Birth of a Child revokes a Will.

"The first case that recognized the rule that the subsequent birth of a child was a revocation of a will of personal property, was decided by the court of delegates, upon appeal, in the reign of Charles II.; and it was grounded upon the law of the civilians [Overbury v. Overbury, 2 Show Rep., 253]. … The rule was applied in chancery to a devise of real estate, in Brown v. Thompson [I Ld. Raym. 441]; but it was received with doubt by Lord Hardwicke and Lord Northington. The distinction between a will of real and personal estate could not well be supported; and Lord Mansfield declared, that he saw no ground for a distinction. The great point was finally and solemnly settled, in 1771, by the court of exchequer, in Christopher v. Christopher [Dicken's Rep. 445], that marriage and a child, were a revocation of a will of land."

J. Kent, Commentaries, part 6, lecture 68.

{1971}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1688. Dividing Line between Old and New Law.

The dividing line between the ancient and the modern English reports may, for the sake of convenient arrangement, be placed at the revolution in the year 1688. "The distinction between the old and new law seems then to be more distinctly marked. The cumbersome and oppressive appendages of the feudal tenures were abolished in the reign of Charles II., and the spirit of modern improvement, … began then to be more sensibly felt, and more actively diffused. The appointment of that great and honest lawyer, Lord Holt, to the station of chief justice of the King's Bench, gave a new tone and impulse to the vigour of the common law."

J. Kent, Commentaries, part 3, lecture 21.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1689. First instance of an Action sustained for Damages for a Breach of Promise to Account.

"It is worthy of observation that while the obligation to account is created by law, yet the privity without which such an obligation cannot exist is, as a rule, created by the parties to the obligation. … Such then being the facts from which the law will raise an obligation to account, the next question is, How can such an obligation be enforced, or, what is the remedy upon such an obligation? It is obvious that the only adequate remedy is specific performance, or at least specific reparation. An action on the case to recover damages for a breach of the obligation, even if such an action would lie, would be clearly inadequate, as it would involve the necessity of investigating all the items of the account for the purpose of ascertaining the amount of the damages, and that a jury is not competent to do. In truth, however, such an action will not lie. If, indeed, there be an actual promise to account, either an express or implied in fact, an action will lie for the breach of that promise; but as such a promise is entirely collateral to the obligation to account, and as therefore a recovery on the promise would be no bar to an action on the obligation, it would seem that nominal damages only could be recovered in an action on the promise, or at the most only such special damages as the plaintiff had suffered by the breach of the promise. Besides the first instance in which an action on such a promise was sustained was as late as the time of Lord Holt [Wilkyns v. Wilkyns, Carth. 89], while the obligation to account has existed and been recognized from early times."

C. C. Langdell, A Brief Survey of Equity Jurisdiction (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, pages 250-251).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1689-1710. Lord Holt and the Law of Bailments.

"The most celebrated case which he decided in this department was that of Coggs v. Bernard, in which the question arose, 'whether, if a person promises without reward to take care of goods, he is answerable if they are lost or damaged by his negligence?' In a short compass he expounded with admirable clearness and accuracy the whole law of bailment, or the liability of the person to whom goods are delivered for different purposes on behalf of the owner; availing himself of his knowledge of the Roman civil Jaw, of which most English lawyers were as ignorant as of the Institutes of Menu. … He then elaborately goes over the six sorts of bailment, showing the exact degree of care required on the part of the bailee in each, with the corresponding degree of negligence, which will give a right of action to the bailor. In the last he shows that, in consideration of the trust, there is an implied promise to take ordinary care; so that, although there be no reward, for a loss arising from gross negligence the bailee is liable to the bailor for the value of the goods. Sir William Jones is contented that his own masterly 'Essay on the Law of Bailment' shall be considered merely as a commentary upon this judgment; and Professor Story, in his 'Commentaries on the Law of Bailments,' represents it as 'a prodigious effort to arrange the principles by which the subject is regulated in a scientific order.'"

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices, volume 2, pages 113-114.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1703. Implied Promises recognized.

"The value of the discovery of the implied promise in fact was exemplified … in the case of a parol submission to an award. If the arbitrators awarded the payment of a sum of money, the money was recoverable in debt, since an award, after the analogy of a judgment, created a debt. But if the award was for the performance of a collateral act, … there was, originally, no mode of compelling compliance with the award, unless the parties expressly promised to abide by the decision of the arbitrators. Tilford v. French (1663) is a case in point. So, also, seven years later, 'it was said by Twisden, J., [Anon., 1 Vent. 69], that if two submit to an award, this contains not a reciprocal promise to perform; but there must be an express promise to ground an action upon it.' This doctrine was abandoned by the time of Lord Holt, who, … said: 'But the contrary has been held since; for if two men submit to the award of a third person, they do also thereby promise expressly to abide by his determination, for agreeing to refer is a promise in itself.'"

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 62).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1706. Dilatory Pleas.

"Pleas to the jurisdiction, to the disability, or in abatement, were formerly very often used as mere dilatory pleas, without any foundation of truth, and calculated only for delay; but now by statute 4 and 5 Ann., c. 16, no dilatory plea is to be admitted, without affidavit made of the truth thereof, or some probable matter shown to the court to induce them to believe it true."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, page 302.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1710. Joint Stock Companies: Bubble Act.

"The most complicated, as well as the most modern, branch of the law of artificial persons relates to those which are formed for purposes of trade. They are a natural accompaniment of the extension of commerce. An ordinary partnership lacks the coherence which is required for great undertakings. Its partners may withdraw from it, taking their capital with them, and the 'firm' having as such no legal recognition, a contract made with it could be sued upon, according to the common law of England, only in an action in which the whole list of partners were made plaintiffs or defendants. In order to remedy the first of these inconveniences, partnerships were formed upon the principle of a joint-stock, the capital invested in which must remain at a fixed amount, although the shares into which it is divided may pass from hand to hand. This device did not however obviate the difficulty in suing, nor did it relieve the partners, past and present, from liability for debts in excess of their, past or present, shares in the concern. {1972} In the interest not only of the share-partners, but also of the public with which they had dealings, it was desirable to discourage the formation of such associations; and the formation of joint-stock partnerships, except such as were incorporated by royal charter, was accordingly, for a time, prohibited in England by the 'Bubble Act,' 6 Geo. I, c. 18. An incorporated trading company, in accordance with the ordinary principles regulating artificial persons, consists of a definite amount of capital to which alone creditors of the company can look for the satisfaction of their demands, divided into shares held by a number of individuals who, though they participate in the profits of the concern, in proportion to the number of shares held by each, incur no personal liability in respect of its losses. An artificial person of this sort is now recognized under most systems of law. It can be formed, as a rule, only with the consent of the sovereign power, and is described as a 'societe,' or 'compagnie,' 'anonyme,' an 'Actiengesellschaft,' or 'joint-stock company limited.' A less pure form of such a corporation is a company the shareholders in which incur an unlimited personal liability. There is also a form resembling a partnership 'en commandite,' in which the liability of some of the shareholders is limited by their shares, while that of others is unlimited. Subject to some exceptions, any seven partners in a trading concern may, and partners whose number exceeds twenty must, according to English law, become incorporated by registration under the Companies Acts, with either limited or unlimited liability as they may determine at the time of incorporation."

Thomas Erskine Holland, Elements of Jurisprudence, 5th edition, page 298.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1711. Voluntary Restraint of Trade.

"The judicial construction of Magna Charta is illustrated in the great case of Mitchell v. Reynolds (1 P. W., 181), still the leading authority upon the doctrine of voluntary restraint of trade, though decided in 1711, when modern mercantile law was in its infancy. The Court (Chief Justice Parker), distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary restraints of trade, says as to involuntary restraints: 'The first reason why such of these, as are created by grant and charter from the crown and by-laws generally are void, is drawn from the encouragement which the law gives to trade and honest industry, and that they are contrary to the liberty of the subject. Second, another reason is drawn from Magna Charta, which is infringed by these acts of power. That statute says: Nullus liber homo, etc., disseizetur de libero tenemento, vel libertatibus vel liberis consuetudinibus suis, etc.; and these words have been always taken to extend to freedom of trade.'"

Frederick N. Judson, 14 American Bar Association Report, page 236.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1730. Special Juries.

"The first statutory recognition of their existence occurs so late as in the Act 3 Geo. II., ch. 25. But the principle seems to have been admitted in early times. We find in the year 1450 (29 Hen. VI.) a petition for a special jury. … The statute of George II. speaks of special juries as already well known, and it declares and enacts that the courts at Westminster shall, upon motion made by any plaintiff, prosecutor, or defendant, order and appoint a jury to be struck before the proper officer of the court where the cause is depending, 'in such manner as special juries have been and are usually struck in such courts respectively upon trials at bar had in the said courts.'"

W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, pages 143-144.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1730. Written Pleadings to be in English.

"There was one great improvement in law proceedings which, while he [Lord King] held the Great Seal, he at last accomplished. From very ancient times the written pleadings, both in criminal and civil suits, were, or rather professed to be, in the Latin tongue, and while the jargon employed would have been very perplexing to a Roman of the Augustan Age, it was wholly unintelligible to the persons whose life, property, and fame were at stake. This absurdity had been corrected in the time of the Commonwealth, but along with many others so corrected, had been reintroduced at the Restoration, and had prevailed during five succeeding reigns. The attention of the public was now attracted to it by a petition from the magistracy of the North Riding of the county of York, representing the evils of the old law language being retained in legal process and proceedings, and praying for the substitution of the native tongue. The bill, by the Chancellor's direction, was introduced in the House of Commons, and it passed there without much difficulty. In the Lords it was fully explained and ably supported by the Lord Chancellor, but it experienced considerable opposition. … Amidst heavy forebodings of future mischief the bill passed, and mankind are now astonished that so obvious a reform should have been so long deferred."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 4, page 504.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1739-1744. Oath according to one's Religion.

"Lord Hardwick established the rule that persons, though not Christians, if they believe in a divinity, may be sworn according to the ceremonies of their religion, and that the evidence given by them so sworn is admissible in courts of justice, as if, being Christians, they had been sworn upon the Evangelists. This subject first came before him in Ramkissenseat v. Barker, where, in a suit for an account against the representatives of an East India Governor, the plea being overruled that the plaintiff was an alien infidel, a cross bill was filed, and an objection being made that he could only be sworn in the usual form, a motion was made that the words in the commission, 'on the holy Evangelists,' should be omitted, and that the commissioners should be directed to administer an oath to him in the manner most binding on his conscience. … The point was afterwards finally settled in the great case of Omychund v. Barker, where a similar commission to examine witnesses having issued, the Commissioners certified 'That they had sworn the witnesses examined under it in the presence of Brahmin or priest of the Gentoo religion, and that each witness touched the hand of the Brahmin,—this being the most solemn form in which oaths are administered to witnesses professing the Gentoo religion.' Objection was made that the deposition so taken could not be read in evidence; and on account of the magnitude of the question, the Lord Chancellor called in the assistance of the three chiefs of the common law Courts.—After a very long, learned, and ingenious argument, which may be perused with pleasure, they concurred in the opinion that the depositions were admissible."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 5, pages 69-70.

{1973}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1750. Dale v. Hall, I Wits., 281, understood to be the first reported case of an action of special assumpsit sustained against a common carrier, on his implied contract.

"Assumpsit, … was allowed, in the time of Charles I., in competition with Detinue and Case against a bailee for custody. At a later period Lord Holt suggested that one might 'turn an action against a common carrier into a special assumpsit (which the law implies) in respect of his hire.' Dale v. Hall (1750) is understood to have been the first reported case in which that suggestion was followed."

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 63).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1750-1800. Demurrer to Evidence.

"Near the end of the last century demurrers upon evidence were rendered useless in England, by the decision in the case of Gibson v. Hunter (carrying down with it another great case, that of Lickbarrow v. Mason, which, like the former, had come up to the Lords upon this sort of demurrer), that the party demurring must specify upon the record the facts which he admits. That the rule was a new one is fairly plain from the case of Cocksedge v. Fanshawe, ten years earlier. It was not always followed in this country, but the fact that it was really a novelty was sometimes not understood."

J. B. Thayer, Law and Fact in Jury Trials (Harvard Law Review, volume 4, page 147).

ALSO IN: J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, page 149.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1756-1788. Lord Mansfield and Commercial Law.

"In the reign of Geo. II., England had grown into the greatest manufacturing and commercial country in the world, while her jurisprudence had by no means been expanded or developed in the same proportion. … Hence, when questions necessarily arose respecting the buying and selling of goods,—respecting the affreightment of ships,—respecting marine insurances,—and respecting bills of exchange and promissory notes, no one knew how they were to be determined. … Mercantile questions were so ignorantly treated when they came into Westminster Hall, that they were usually settled by private arbitration among the merchants themselves. If an action turning upon a mercantile question was brought in a court of law, the judge submitted it to the jury, who determined it according to their own notions of what was fair, and no general rule was laid down which could afterwards be referred to for the purpose of settling similar disputes. … When he [Lord Mansfield] had ceased to preside in the Court of King's Bench, and had retired to enjoy the retrospect of his labors, he read the following just eulogy bestowed upon them by Mr. Justice Buller, in giving judgment in the important case of Lickbarrow v. Mason, respecting the effect of the indorsement of a bill of lading:—'Within these thirty years the commercial law of this country has taken a very different turn from what it did before. Lord Hardwicke himself was proceeding with great caution; not establishing any general principle, but decreeing on all the circumstances put together. Before that period we find that, in courts of law, all the evidence in mercantile cases was thrown together; they were left generally to a jury; and they produced no general principle. From that time, we all know, the great study has been to find some certain general principle, which shall be known to all mankind, not only to rule the particular case then under consideration, but to serve as a guide for the future. Most of us have heard these principles stated, reasoned upon, enlarged, and explained, till we have been lost in admiration at the strength and stretch of the understanding. And I should be very sorry to find myself under a necessity of differing from any case upon this subject which has been decided by Lord Mansfield, who may be truly said to be the founder of the commercial law of this country.' … With regard to bills of exchange and promissory notes, Lord Mansfield first promulgated many rules that now appear to us to be as certain as those which guide the planets in their orbits. For example, it was till then uncertain whether the second indorser of a bill of exchange could sue his immediate indorser without having previously demanded payment from the drawer. … He goes on to explain [in Heylyn v. Adamson, 2 Burr., 669], … that the maker of a promissory note is in the same situation as the acceptor of a bill of exchange, and that in suing the indorser of the note it is necessary to allege and to prove a demand on the maker. … Lord Mansfield had likewise to determine that the indorser of a bill of exchange is discharged if he receives no notice of there having been a refusal to accept by the drawee (Blesard v. Herst, 6 Burr., 2670); and that reasonable time for giving notice of the dishonor of a bill or note is to be determined by the Court as matter of law, and is not to be left to the jury as matter of fact, they being governed by the circumstances of each particular case. (Tindal v. Brown, 1 Term. Rep., 167.) It seems strange to us how the world could go on when such questions of hourly occurrence, were unsettled. … There is another contract of infinite importance to a maritime people. … I mean that between ship-owners and merchants for the hiring of ships and carriage of goods. … Till his time, the rights and liabilities of these parties had remained undecided upon the contingency, not unlikely to arise, of the ship being wrecked during the voyage, and the goods being saved and delivered to the consignee at an intermediate port. Lord Mansfield settled that freight is due pro rata itineris—in proportion to the part of the voyage performed. … Lord Mansfield's familiarity with the general principles of ethics, … availed him on all occasions when he had to determine on the proper construction and just fulfilment of contracts. The question having arisen, for the first time, whether the seller of goods by auction, with the declared condition that they shall be sold to 'the highest bidder,' may employ a 'puffer,'—an agent to raise the price by bidding,—he thus expressed himself: [Bexwell v. Christie, Cowp., 395] '… The basis of all dealings ought to be good faith; so more especially in these transactions, where the public are brought together upon a confidence that the articles set up to sale will be disposed of to the highest real bidder. That can never be the case if the owner may secretly enhance the price by a person employed for that purpose. … I cannot listen to the argument that it is a common practice, … the owner violates his contract with the public if, by himself or his agent, he bids upon his goods, and no subsequent bidder is bound to take the goods at the price at which they are knocked down to him.'"

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices, volume 2, pages 308-314.

{1974}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1760. Judicial Independence.

"A glance into the pages of the Judges of England, by Foss, will show with what ruthless vigour the Stuarts exercised their prerogative of dismissing Judges whose decisions were displeasing to the court. Even after the Revolution, the prerogative of dismissal, which was supposed to keep the Judges dependent on the Crown, was jealously defended. When in 1692 a Bill passed both Houses of Parliament, establishing the independence of Judges by law, and confirming their salaries, William III. withheld his Royal assent. Bishop Burnet says, with reference to this exercise of the Veto, that it was represented to the King by some of the Judges themselves, that it was not fit that they should be out of all dependence on the Court. When the Act of Settlement secured that no Judge should be dismissed from office, except in consequence of a conviction for some offence, or the address of both Houses of Parliament, the Royal jealousy of the measure is seen by the promise under which that arrangement was not to take effect till the deaths of William III. and of Anne, and the failure of their issue respectively, in other words, till the accession of the House of Hanover. It was not till the reign of George III. that the Commissions of the Judges ceased to be void on the demise of the Crown."

J. G. S. MacNeill, Law Magazine and Review, 4th series, volume 16 (1890-91), page 202.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1760. Stolen Bank Notes the Property of a Bona Fide Purchaser.

"The law of bills of exchange owes much of its scientific and liberal character to the wisdom of the great jurist, Lord Mansfield. Sixteen years before the American Revolution, he held that bank notes, though stolen, become the property of the person to whom they are bona fide delivered for value without knowledge of the larceny. This principle is later affirmed again and again as necessary to the preservation of the circulation of all the paper in the country, and with it all its commerce. Later there was a departure from this principle in the noted English case of Gill v. Cubitt, in which it was held that if the holder for value took it under circumstances which ought to have excited the suspicion of a prudent and careful man, he could not recover. This case annoyed courts and innocent holders for years, until it was sat upon, kicked, cuffed, and overruled, and the old doctrine of 1760 re-established, which is now the undisputed and settled law of England and this country."

Wm. A. McClean, Negotiable Paper (The Green Bag, volume 5, page 86).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1768. Only one Business Corporation Chartered in this Country before the Declaration of Independence.

"Pennsylvania is entitled to the honor of having chartered the first business corporation in this country, 'The Philadelphia Contributionship for Insuring Houses from Loss by Fire.' It was a mutual insurance company, first organized in 1752, but not chartered until 1768. It was the only business corporation whose charter antedated the Declaration of Independence. The next in order of time were: 'The Bank of North America,' chartered by Congress in 1781 and, the original charter having been repealed in 1785, by Pennsylvania in 1787; 'The Massachusetts Bank,' chartered in 1784; 'The Proprietors of Charles River Bridge,' in 1785; 'The Mutual Assurance Company' (Philadelphia), in 1786; 'The Associated Manufacturing Iron Co.' (N. Y.), in 1786. These were the only joint-stock business corporations chartered in America before 1787. After that time the number rapidly increased, especially in Massachusetts. Before the close of the century there were created in that State about fifty such bodies, at least half of them turn-pike and bridge companies. In the remaining States combined, there were perhaps as many more. There was no great variety in the purposes for which these early companies were formed. Insurance, banking, turn-pike roads, toll-bridges, canals, and, to a limited extent, manufacturing were the enterprises which they carried on."

S. Williston, History of the Law of Business Corporations before 1800 (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, pp. 165-166).

A. D. 1776. Ultimate property in land.

"When, by the Revolution, the Colony of New York became separated from the Crown of Great Britain, and a republican government was formed, The People succeeded the King in the ownership of all lands within the State which had not already been granted away, and they became from thenceforth the source of all private titles."

Judge Comstock, People v. Rector, etc., of Trinity Church, 22 N. Y., 44-46.

"It is held that only such parts of the common law as, with the acts of the colony in force on April 19, 1775, formed part of the law of the Colony on that day, were adopted by the State; and only such parts of the common and statute law of England were brought by the colonists with them as suited their condition, or were applicable to their situation. Such general laws thereupon became the laws of the Colony until altered by common consent, or by legislative enactment. The principles and rules of the common law as applicable to this country are held subject to modification and change, according to the circumstances and condition of the people and government here. … By the English common law, the King was the paramount proprietor and source of all title to all land within his dominion, and it was considered to be held mediately or immediately of him. After the independence of the United States, the title to land formerly possessed by the English Crown in this country passed to the People of the different States where the land lay, by virtue of the change of nationality and of the treaties made. The allegiance formerly due, also, from the people of this country to Great Britain was transferred, by the Revolution, to the governments of the States."

James Gerard, Titles to Real Estate (3rd edition), pages 26 and 5.

"Hence the rule naturally follows, that no person can, by any possible arrangement, become invested with the absolute ownership of land. But as that ownership must be vested somewhere, or great confusion, if not disturbance, might result, it has, therefore, become an accepted rule of public law that the absolute and ultimate right of property shall be regarded as vested in the sovereign or corporate power of the State where the land lies. This corporate power has been naturally and appropriately selected for that purpose, because it is the only one which is certain to survive the generations of men as they pass away. Wherever that sovereign power is represented by an individual, as in England, there the absolute right of property to all land in the kingdom is vested in that individual whoever succeeds to the sovereignty, succeeds to that right of property and holds it in trust for the nation. {1975} In this country, where the only sovereignty recognized in regard to real property, is represented by the State in its corporate capacity, that absolute right of property is vested in the State."

Anson Bingham, Law of Real Property, page 3.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1778. First Instance of Assumpsit upon a Vendor's Warranty.

"A vendor who gives a false warranty may be charged to-day, of course, in contract; but the conception of such a warranty, as a contract is quite modern. Stuart v. Wilkens [3 Doug., 18], decided in 1778, is said to have been the first instance of an action of assumpsit upon a vendor's warranty."

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 8).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1783. Lord Mansfield laid foundation of Law of Trade-Marks.

"The symbolism of commerce, conventionally called 'trade-marks,' is, according to Mr. Browne, in his excellent work on trade-marks, as old as commerce itself. The Egyptians, the Chinese, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, all used various marks or signs to distinguish their goods and handiwork. The right to protection in such marks has come to be recognized throughout the civilized world. It is, however, during the last seventy or eighty years that the present system of jurisprudence has been built up. In 1742 Lord Hardwick refused an injunction to restrain the use of the Great Mogul stamp on cards. In 1783 Lord Mansfield laid the foundation of the law of trade-marks as at present developed, and in 1816, in the case of Day v. Day, the defendant was enjoined from infringing the plaintiff's blacking label. From that time to the present day there have arisen a multitude of cases, and the theory of the law of trade-marks proper may be considered as pretty clearly expounded. In 1875 the Trade-marks Registration Act provided for the registration of trade-marks, and defined what could in future properly be a trade-mark. In this country the Act of 1870, corrected by the Act of 1881, provided for the registration of trade-marks. The underlying principle of the law of trade-marks is that of preventing one man from acquiring the reputation of another by fraudulent means, and of preventing fraud upon the public; in other words, the application of the broad principles of equity."

Grafton D. Cushing, Cases Analogous to Trade-marks (Harvard Law Review, volume 4, page 321).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1790. Stoppage in Transitu, and Rights of Third Person under a Bill of Lading.

"Lord Loughborough's most elaborate common law judgment was in the case of Lichbarrow v. Mason, when he presided in the court of Exchequer Chamber, on a writ of error from the Court of King's Bench. The question was one of infinite importance to commerce—'Whether the right of the unpaid seller of goods to stop them while they are on their way to a purchaser who has become insolvent, is divested by an intermediate sale to a third person, through the indorsement of the bill of lading, for a valuable consideration?' He concluded by saying:—'From a review of all the cases it does not appear that there has ever been a decision against the legal right of the consignor to stop the goods in transitu before the case which we have here to consider. The rule which we are now to lay down will not disturb but settle the notions of the commercial port of this country on a point of very great importance, as it regards the security and good faith of their transactions. For these reasons we think the judgment of the Court of King's Bench ought to be reversed.' But a writ of error being brought in the House of Lords, this reversal was reversed, and the right of the intermediate purchaser as against the original seller, has ever since been established."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 6, pages 138-139.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1792. Best-Evidence rule.

"In Grant v. Gould, 2 H. Bl. p. 104 (1792), Lord Loughborough said: 'That all common law courts ought to proceed upon the general rule, namely, the best evidence that the nature of the case will admit, I perfectly agree.' But by this time it was becoming obvious that this 'general rule' was misapplied and over-emphasized. Blackstone, indeed, repeating Gilbert, had said in 1770, in the first editions of his Commentaries (III. 368) as it was said in all the later ones: 'The one general rule that runs through all the doctrine of trials is this, that the best evidence the nature of the case will admit of shall always be required, if possible to be had; but, if not possible, then the best evidence that can be had shall be allowed. For if it be found that there is any better evidence existing than is produced, the very not producing it is a presumption that it would have detected some falsehood that at present is concealed.' But in 1794, the acute and learned Christian, in editing the twelfth edition, pointed out the difficulties of the situation: 'No rule of law,' he said, 'is more frequently cited, and more generally misconceived, than this. It is certainly true when rightly understood; but it is very limited in its extent and application. It signifies nothing more than that, if the best legal evidence cannot possibly be produced, the next best legal evidence shall be admitted.'"

J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, page 732.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1794. First Trial by Jury in United States Supreme Court.

"In the first trial by jury at the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1794, Chief-Justice Jay, after remarking to the jury that fact was, for the jury and law for the court, went on to say: 'You have, nevertheless, a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy.' But I am disposed to think that the common-law power of the jury in criminal cases does not indicate any right on their part; it is rather one of those manifold illogical and yet rational results, which the good sense of the English people brought about, in all parts of their public affairs, by way of easing up the rigor of a strict application of rules."

J. B. Thayer, Law and Fact in Jury Trials (Harvard Law Review, volume 4, page 171).

ALSO IN: J. B. Thayer, Select Cases on Evidence, page 153.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1813-1843. Insolvents placed under Jurisdiction of a Court, and able to claim Protection by a Surrender of Goods.

"It was not until 1813 that insolvents were placed under the jurisdiction of a court, and entitled to seek their discharge on rendering a true account of all their debts and property. A distinction was at length recognized between poverty and crime. This great remedial law restored liberty to crowds of wretched debtors. In the next thirteen years upwards of 50,000 were set free. Thirty years later, its beneficent principles were further extended, when debtors were not only released from confinement, but able to claim protection to their liberty, on giving up all their goods."

T. E. May, Constitutional History of England (Widdleton's edition) volume 2, page 271.

See, also, DEBT, LAWS CONCERNING.

{1976}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1819. The Dartmouth College Case.

"The framers of the Constitution of the United States, moved chiefly by the mischiefs created by the preceding legislation of the States, which had made serious encroachments on the rights of property, inserted a clause in that instrument which declared that 'no State shall pass any ex post-facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts.' The first branch of this clause had always been understood to relate to criminal legislation, the second to legislation affecting civil rights. But, before the case of Dartmouth College v. Woodward occurred, there had been no judicial decisions respecting the meaning and scope of the restraint in regard to contracts. … The State court of New Hampshire, in deciding this case, had assumed that the college was a public corporation, and on that basis had rested their judgment; which was, that between the State and its public corporations there is no contract which the State cannot regulate, alter, or annul at pleasure. Mr. Webster had to overthrow this fundamental position. If he could show that this college was a private eleemosynary corporation, and that the grant of the right to be a corporation of this nature is a contract between the sovereign power and those who devote their funds to the charity, and take the incorporation for its better management, he could bring the legislative interference within the prohibition of the Federal Constitution. … Its important positions, … were these: 1. That Dr. Wheelock was the founder of this college, and as such entitled by law to be visitor, and that he had assigned all the visitatorial powers to the trustees. 2. That the charter created a private and not a pubic corporation, to administer a charity, in the administration of which the trustees had a property, which the law recognizes as such. 3. That the grant of such a charter is a contract between the sovereign power and its successors and those to whom it is granted and their successors. 4. That the legislation which took away from the trustees the right to exercise the powers of superintendence, visitation, and government, and transferred them to another set of trustees, impaired the obligation of that contract. … On the conclusion of the argument, the Chief Justice intimated that a decision was not to be expected until the next term. It was made in February, 1819, fully confirming the grounds on which Mr. Webster had placed the cause. From this decision, the principle in our constitutional jurisprudence, which regards a charter of a private corporation as a contract, and places it under the protection of the Constitution of the United States, takes its date. To Mr. Webster belongs the honor of having produced its judicial establishment."

G. T. Curtis, Life of Daniel Webster, volume 1, pages 165-169 (5th edition).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1823. Indian Right of Occupancy.

"The first case of importance that came before the court of last resort with regard to the Indian question had to do with their title to land. This was the case of Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheaton, 543. In this case, Chief Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the court and held that discovery gave title to the country by whose subjects or by whose authority it was made, as against all persons but the Indians as occupants; that this title gave a power to grant the soil and to convey a title to the grantees, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy; and that the Indians could grant no title to the lands occupied by them, their right being simply that of occupancy and not of ownership. The Chief Justice says: 'It has never been doubted that either the United States or the several States had a clear title to all the lands within the boundary lines described in the treaty (of peace between England and United States) subject only to the Indians' right of occupancy, and that the exclusive power to extinguish that right was vested in that government which might constitutionally exercise it. … The United States, then, have unequivocally acceded to that great and broad rule by which its civilized inhabitants now hold this country. They hold and assert in themselves the title by which it was acquired. They maintain, as all others have maintained, that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest; and gave also a right to such a degree of sovereignty as the circumstances of the people would allow them to exercise. The power now possessed by the government of the United States to grant lands resided, while we were colonies, in the crown or its grantees. The validity of the title given by either has never been questioned in our courts. It has been exercised uniformly over territory in possession of the Indians. The existence of this power must negative the existence of any right which may conflict with and control it. An absolute title to lands cannot exist, at the same time, in different persons, or in different governments. An absolute must be an exclusive title, or at least a title which excludes all others not compatible with it. All our institutions recognize the absolute title of the crown, subject only to the Indian right of occupancy, and recognize the absolute title of the crown to extinguish that right. This is incompatible with an absolute and complete title in the Indians.'"

William B. Hornblower, 14 American Bar Association Report 264-265.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1826 Jurors from the Body of the County.

"In the time of Fortescue, who was lord chancellor in the reign of Henry VI. [1422-61], with the exception of the requirement of personal knowledge in the jurors derived from near neighborhood of residence, the jury system had become in all its essential functions similar to what now exists. … The jury were still required to come from the neighborhood where the fact they had to try was supposed to have happened; and this explains the origin of the venire (vicinetum), which appears in all indictments and declarations at the present day. It points out the place from which the jury must be summoned. … Now, by 6 George IV., ch. 50, the jurors need only be good and lawful men of the body of the county."

W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, chapter 7, section 3.

{1977}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1828. Lord Tenterden's Act.

"Be it therefore enacted … , That in Actions of Debt or upon the Case grounded upon any Simple Contract or Acknowledgement or Promise by Words only shall be deemed sufficient Evidence of a new or continuing Contract, … unless such Acknowledgement or Promise shall be made or contained by or in some Writing to be signed by the Party chargeable thereby."

Statutes at Large, volume 68, 9 George IV., c. 14.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1833. Wager of Law abolished, and Effect upon Detinue.

"This form of action (detinue) was also formerly subject (as were some other of our legal remedies), to the incident of 'wager of law' ('vadiatio legis'),—a proceeding which consisted in the defendant's discharging himself from the claim on his own oath, bringing with him at the same time into court eleven of his neighbors, to swear that they believed his denial to be true. This relic of a very ancient and general institution, which we find established not only among the Saxons and Normans, but among almost all the northern nations that broke in upon the Roman empire, continued to subsist among us even till the last reign, when it was at length abolished by 3 and 4 Will, IV. c. 42, s. 13: and as the wager of law used to expose plaintiffs in detinue to great disadvantage, it had the effect of throwing that action almost entirely out of use, and introducing in its stead the action of trover and conversion."

Stephens, Commentaries, volume 3, pages 442-443 (8th edition).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1834. Real Actions abolished.

"The statutes of 32 H. VIII., c. 2, and 21 Jac. I., c. 16 (so far as the latter applied to actions for the recovery of land) were superseded by 3 & 4 Wm. IV, c. 27. The latter statute abolished the ancient real actions, made ejectment (with few exceptions) the sole remedy for the recovery of land, and, for the first time, limited directly the period within which an ejectment might be brought. It also changed the meaning of 'right of entry,' making it signify simply the right of an owner to the possession of land of which another person has the actual possession, whether the owner's estate is devested or not. In a word, it made a right of entry and a right to maintain ejectment synonymous terms, and provided that whenever the one ceased the other should cease also; i. e., it provided that whenever the statute began to run against the one right, it should begin to run against the other also, and that, when it had run twenty years without interruption, both rights should cease; and it also provided that the statute should begin to run against each right the moment that the right began to exist, i. e., the moment that the actual possession and the right of possession became separated. The statute, therefore, not only ignored the fact that ejectment (notwithstanding its origin) is in substance purely in rem (the damages recovered being only nominal), and assumed that it was, on the contrary, in substance purely in personam, i. e., founded upon tort, but it also assumed that every actual possession of land, without a right of possession, is a tort."

C. C. Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, pages 144-145.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1836. Exemption Laws.

"Our State legislatures commenced years ago to pass laws exempting from execution necessary household goods and personal apparel, the horses and implements of the farmer, the tools and instruments of the artisan, etc. Gradually the beneficent policy of such laws has been extended. In 1828, Mr. Benton warmly advocated in the Senate of the United States the policy of a national homestead law. The Republic of Texas passed the first Homestead Act, in 1836. It was the great gift of the infant Republic of Texas to the world. In 1849, Vermont followed; and this policy has since been adopted in all but eight States of the Union. By these laws a homestead (under various restrictions as to value) for the shelter and protection of the family is now exempt from execution or judicial sale for debt, unless both the husband and the wife shall expressly join in mortgaging it or otherwise expressly subjecting it to the claims of creditors."

J. F. Dillon, Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America, page 360.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1837. Employer's liability.

"No legal principle, with a growth of less than half a century, has become more firmly fixed in the common law of to-day, than the rule that an employer, if himself without fault, is not liable to an employee injured through the negligence of a fellow-employee engaged in the same general employment. This exception to the well known doctrine of 'respondeat superior,' although sometimes considered an old one, was before the courts for the first time in 1837, in the celebrated case of Priestly v. Fowler, 3 M. & W. 1, which it is said, has changed the current of decisions more radically than any other reported case. … The American law, though in harmony with the English, seems to have had an origin of its own. In 1841 Murray v. The South Carolina Railroad Company, 1 Mc. & M. 385, decided that a railroad company was not liable to one servant injured through the negligence of another servant in the same employ. Although this decision came a few years after Priestly v. Fowler, the latter case was cited by neither counsel nor court. It is probable, therefore, that the American Court arrived at its conclusion entirely independent of the earlier English case,—a fact often lost sight of by those who in criticising the rule, assert that it all sprang from an ill-considered opinion by Lord Abinger in Priestly v. Fowler. The leading American case, however, is Farwell v. Boston and Worcester Railroad Company, 4 Met. 49, which, following the South Carolina case, settled the rule in the United States. It has been followed in nearly every jurisdiction, both State and Federal."

Marland C. Hobbs, Statutory Changes in Employers Liability (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, pages 212-213).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1838. Arrests on Mesne Process for Debt abolished, and Debtor's Lands, for first time, taken in Satisfaction of Debt.

"The law of debtor and creditor, until a comparatively recent period, was a scandal to a civilized country. For the smallest claim, any man was liable to be arrested on mesne process, before legal proof of the debt. … Many of these arrests were wanton and vexatious; and writs were issued with a facility and looseness which paced the liberty of every man—suddenly and without notice—at the mercy of any one who claimed payment of a debt. A debtor, however honest and solvent, was liable to arrest. The demand might even be false and fraudulent: but the pretended creditor, on making oath of the debt, was armed with this terrible process of the law. The wretched defendant might lie in prison for several months before his cause was heard; when, even if the action was discontinued or the debt disproved, he could not obtain his discharge without further proceedings, often too costly for a poor debtor, already deprived of his livelihood by imprisonment. {1978} No longer even a debtor,—he could not shake off his bonds. … The total abolition of arrests on mesne process was frequently advocated, but it was not until 1888 that it was at length accomplished. Provision was made for securing absconding debtors; but the old process for the recovery of a debt in ordinary cases, which had wrought so many acts of oppression, was abolished. While this vindictive remedy was denied, the debtor's lands were, for the first time, allowed to be taken in satisfaction of a debt; and extended facilities were afterwards afforded for the recovery of small claims, by the establishment of county courts."

T. E. May, Constitutional History of England (Widdleton's edition), volume 2, pages 267-268.

See, also, DEBT: LAWS CONCERNING.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1839-1848. Emancipation of Women.

"According to the old English theory, a woman was a chattel, all of whose property belonged to her husband. He could beat her as he might a beast of burden, and, provided he was not guilty of what would be cruelty to animals, the law gave no redress. In the emancipation of women Mississippi led off, in 1839, New York following with its Married Women's Act of 1848, which has been since so enlarged and extended, and so generally adopted by the other states, that, for all purposes of business, ownership of property, and claim to her individual earnings, a married woman is to-day, in America, as independent as a man."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 1, page 71.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1842. One who takes Commercial Paper as Collateral is a Holder for Value.

"Take the subject of the transfer of such paper as collateral security for, or even in the payment of, a pre-existing indebtedness. We find some of the courts holding that one who takes such paper as collateral security for such a debt is a holder for value; others, that he is not, unless he extends the time for the payment of the secured debt or surrenders something of value, gives some new consideration; while still others hold that one so receiving such paper cannot be a holder for value; and some few hold that even receiving the note in payment and extinguishment of a pre-existing debt does not constitute one a holder for value. The question, as is known to all lawyers, was first presented to the Supreme Court of the United States in Swift vs. Tyson (16 Peters, 1). There, however, the note had been taken in payment of the debt. It was argued in that case that the highest court in New York had decided that one so taking a note was not a holder for value, and it was insisted in argument that the contract, being made in New York, was to be governed by its law; but the court, through Justice Story—Justice Catron alone dissenting—distinctly and emphatically repudiated the doctrine that the Federal court was to be governed on such questions 'by the decisions of the courts of the State where the contract was made, and held the holder a holder for value."

Henry C. Tompkins, 13 American Bar Association Report, page 255.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1845. Interest of Disseisee transferable.

"It was not until 1845 that by statute the interest of the disseisee of land became transferable. Similar statutes have been enacted in many of our States. In a few jurisdictions the same results have been obtained by judicial legislation. But in Alabama, Connecticut, Dakota, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Tennessee, and presumably in Maryland and New Jersey, it is still the law that the grantee of a disseisee cannot maintain an action in his own name for the recovery of the land."

J. B. Ames, The Disseisin of Chattels (Harvard Law Review, volume 3, page 25).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1846. Ultra vires.

"When railway companies were first created with Parliamentary powers of a kind never before entrusted to similar bodies, it soon became necessary to determine whether, when once called into existence, they were to be held capable of exercising, as nearly as possible, all the powers of a natural person, unless expressly prohibited from doing so, or whether their acts must be strictly limited to the furtherance of the purpose for which they had been incorporated. The question was first raised in 1846, with reference to the right of a railway company to subsidise a harbour company, and Lord Langdale, in deciding against such a right, laid down the law in the following terms:—'Companies of this kind, possessing most extensive powers, have so recently been introduced into this country that neither the legislature nor the courts of law have yet been able to understand all the different lights in which their transactions ought properly to be viewed. … To look upon a railway company in the light of a common partnership, and as subject to no greater vigilance than common partnerships are, would, I think, be greatly to mistake the functions which they perform and the powers which they exercise of interference not only with the public but with the private rights of all individuals in this realm. … I am clearly of opinion that the powers which are given by an Act of Parliament, like that now in question, extend no further than is expressly stated in the Act, or is necessarily and properly required for carrying into effect the undertaking and works which the Act has expressly sanctioned.' [Citing Coleman v. Eastern Counties Rw. Co., 10 Beav., 18.] This view, though it has sometimes been criticised, seems now to be settled law. In a recent case in the House of Lords, the permission which the Legislature gives to the promoters of a company was paraphrased as follows:—'You may meet together and form yourselves into a company, but in doing that you must tell all who may be disposed to deal with you the objects for which you have been associated. Those who are dealing with you will trust to that memorandum of association, and they will see that you have the power of carrying on business in such a manner as it specifies. You must state the objects for which you are associated, so that the persons dealing with you will know that they are dealing with persons who can only devote their means to a given class of objects.' [Citing Riche v. Ashbury Carriage Co., L R., 7 E. & I., App. 684.] An act of a corporation in excess of its powers with reference to third persons is technically said to be ultra vires [perhaps first in South Yorkshire Rw. Co. v. Great Northern R. Co., 9 exch. 84 (1853)]; and is void even if unanimously agreed to by all the corporators. The same term is also, but less properly, applied to a resolution of a majority of the members of a corporation which being beyond the powers of the corporation will not bind a dissentient minority of its members."

Thomas Erskine Holland, Elements of Jurisprudence, 5th edition, page 301. (Compare Article by Seymour D. Thompson in American Law Review, May-June, 1894).

{1979}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1848-1883. The New York Codes and their Adoption in other Communities.

"The 'New York Mail' gives the following information as to the extent to which our New York Codes have been adopted in other communities. In most instances the codes have been adopted substantially in detail, and in others in principle: 'The first New York Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, went into effect on the 1st of July, 1848. It was adopted in Missouri in 1849; in California in 1851; in Kentucky in 1851; in Ohio in 1853; in the four provinces of India between 1853 and 1856; in Iowa in 1855; in Wisconsin in 1856; in Kansas in 1859; in Nevada in 1861; in Dakota in 1862; in Oregon in 1862; in Idaho in 1864; in Montana in 1864; in Minnesota in 1866; in Nebraska in 1866; in Arizona in 1866; in Arkansas in 1868; in North Carolina in 1868; in Wyoming in 1869; in Washington Territory in 1869; in South Carolina in 1870; in Utah in 1870; in Connecticut in 1879; in Indiana in 1881. In England and Ireland by the Judicature Act of 1873; this Judicature Act has been followed in many of the British Colonies; in the Consular Courts of Japan, in Shanghai, in Hong Kong and Singapore, between 1870 and 1874. The Code of Criminal Procedure, though not enacted in New York till 1881, was adopted in California in 1850; in India at the same time with the Code of Civil Procedure; in Kentucky in 1854; in Iowa in 1858; in Kansas in 1859; in Nevada in 1861; in Dakota in 1862; in Oregon in 1864; in Idaho in 1864; in Montana in 1864; in Washington Territory in 1869; in Wyoming in 1869; in Arkansas in 1874; in Utah in 1876; in Arizona in 1877; in Wisconsin in 1878; in Nebraska in 1881; in Indiana in 1881; in Minnesota in 1883. The Penal Code, though not enacted in New York until 1882, was adopted in Dakota in 1865 and in California in 1872. The Civil Code, not yet enacted in New York, though twice passed by the Legislature, was adopted in Dakota in 1866 and in California in 1872, and has been much used in the framing of substantive laws for India. The Political Code, reported for New York but not yet considered, was adopted in California in 1872. Thus it will be seen that the State of New York has given laws to the world to an extent and degree unknown since the Roman Codes followed Roman conquests.'"

The Albany Law Journal, volume 39, page 261.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1848. Simplification of Procedure.

"In civil matters, the greatest reform of modern times has been the simplification of procedure in the courts, and the virtual amalgamation of law and equity. Here again America took the lead, through the adoption by New York, in 1848, of a Code of Practice, which has been followed by most of the other states of the Union, and in its main features has lately been taken up by England."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 1, page 70.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1848. Reform in the Law of Evidence.

"The earliest act of this kind in this country was passed by the Legislature of Connecticut in 1848. It is very broad and sweeping in its provisions. It is in these words: 'No person shall be disqualified as a witness in any suit or proceeding at law, or in equity, by reason of his interest in the event of the same, as a party or otherwise, or by reason of his conviction of a crime; but such interest or conviction may be shown for the purpose of affecting his credit.'

(Revised Statutes of Connecticut, 1849, page 86, section 141. In the margin of the page the time of the passage of the law is given as 1848.)

This act was drafted and its enactment secured by the Honorable Charles J. McCurdy, a distinguished lawyer and the Lieutenant-Governor of that State. A member of Judge McCurdy's family, having been present at the delivery of this lecture at New Haven in 1892, called my attention to the above fact, claiming, and justly, for this act the credit of leading in this country the way to such legislation. But he was mistaken in his claim that it preceded similar legislation in England, although its provisions are an improvement on the contemporary enactments of the like kind in that country."

John F. Dillon, Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America, page 374, notes.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1851. Bentham's Reforms in the Law of Evidence.

"In some respects his [Bentham's] 'Judicial Evidence,' … is the most important of all his censorial writings on English Law. In this work he exposed the absurdity and perniciousness of many of the established technical rules of evidence. … Among the rules combatted were those relating to the competency of witnesses and the exclusion of evidence on various grounds, including that of pecuniary interest. He insisted that these rules frequently caused the miscarriage of justice, and that in the interest of justice they ought to be swept away. His reasoning fairly embraces the doctrine that parties ought to be allowed and even required to testify. … But Bentham had set a few men thinking. He had scattered the seeds of truth. Though they fell on stony ground they did not all perish. But verily reform is a plant of slow growth in the sterile gardens of the practising and practical lawyer. Bentham lived till 1832, and these exclusionary rules still held sway. But in 1843, by Lord Denman's Act, interest in actions at common law ceased, as a rule, to disqualify; and in 1846 and 1851, by Lord Brougham's Acts, parties in civil actions were as a rule made competent and compellable to testify. I believe I speak the universal judgment of the profession when I say changes more beneficial in the administration of justice have rarely taken place in our law, and that it is a matter of profound amazement, as we look back upon it, that these exclusionary rules ever had a place therein, and especially that they were able to retain it until within the last fifty years."

J. F. Dillon, Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America, pages 339-341.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1852-1854. Reform in Procedure.

"A great procedure reform was effected by the Common Law Procedure Acts of 1852 and 1854 as the result of their labours." The main object of the Acts was to secure that the actual merits of every case should be brought before the judges unobscured by accidental and artificial questions arising upon the pleadings, but they also did something to secure that complete adaptability of the common law courts for finally determining every action brought within them, which the Chancery Commissioners of 1850 had indicated as one of the aims of the reformers. Power was given to the common law courts to allow parties to be interrogated by their opponents, to order discovery of documents, to direct specific delivery of goods, to grant injunctions, and to hear interpleader actions, and equitable pleas were allowed to be urged in defence to common law actions."

D. M. Kerly, History of Equity, page 288.

{1980}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1854. "Another mode" (besides common law lien).

"Another mode of creating a security is possible, by which not merely the ownership of the thing but its possession also remains with the debtor. This is called by the Roman lawyers and their modern followers 'hypotheca.' Hypothecs may arise by the direct application of a rule of law, by judicial decision, or by agreement. Those implied by law, generally described as 'tacit hypothecs,' are probably the earliest. They are first heard of in Roman law in connection with that right of a landlord over the goods of his tenant, which is still well known on the Continent and in Scotland under its old name, and which in England takes the form of a right of Distress. Similar rights were subsequently granted to wives, pupils, minors, and legatees, over the property of husbands, tutors, curators, and heirs, respectively. The action by which the praetor Servius first enabled a landlord to claim the goods of his defaulting tenant in order to realize his rent, even if they had passed into the hands of third parties, was soon extended so as to give similar rights to any creditor over property which its owner had agreed should be held liable for a debt. A real right was thus created by the mere consent of the parties, without any transfer of possession, which although opposed to the theory of Roman law, became firmly established as applicable both to immoveable and moveable property. Of the modern States which have adopted the law of hypothec, Spain perhaps stands alone in adopting it to the fullest extent. The rest have, as a rule, recognized it only in relation to immoveables. Thus the Dutch law holds to the maxim 'mobilia non habent sequelam,' and the French Code, following the 'coutumes' of Paris and Normandy, lays down that 'les meubles n'ont pas de suite par hypotheque.' But by the 'Code de Commerce,' ships, though moveables, are capable of hypothecation; and in England what is called a mortgage, but is essentially a hypothec, of ships is recognized and regulated by the 'Merchant Shipping Acts,' under which the mortgage must be recorded by the registrar of the port at which the ship itself is registered [17 and 18 Vic. c. 104]. So also in the old contract of 'bottomry,' the ship is made security for money lent to enable it to proceed upon its voyage."

T. E. Holland, Elements of Jurisprudence, 5th edition, p. 203.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1854-1882. Simplification of Titles and Transfers of Land in England.

"For the past fifty years the project of simplifying the titles and transfer of land has received great attention in England. In the year 1854 a royal commission was created to consider the subject. The report of this commission, made in 1857, was able and full so far as it discussed the principles of land transfer which had been developed to that date. It recommended a limited plan of registration of title. This report, and the report of the special commission of the House of Commons of 1879, have been the foundation of most of the subsequent British legislation upon the subject. Among the more prominent acts passed may be named Lord Westbury's Act of 1862, which attempted to establish indefeasible titles; Lord Cairns' Land Transfer Act of 1875, which provided for guaranteed titles upon preliminary examinations; the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act of 1881, which established the use of short forms of conveyances; and Lord Cairns' Settled Land Act of 1882."

Dwight H. Olmstead, 13 American Bar Association Report, page 267.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1855. Suits against a State or Nation.

"In England the old common law methods of getting redress from the Crown were by 'petition de droit' and 'monstrans le droit,' in the Court of Chancery or the Court of Exchequer, and in some cases by proceedings in Chancery against the Attorney-General. It has recently been provided by statute [23 & 24 Vic., c. 24] that a petition of right may be entitled in anyone of the superior Courts in which the subject-matter of the petition would have been cognisable, if the same had been a matter in dispute between subject and subject, and that it shall be left with the Secretary of State for the Home Department, for her Majesty's consideration, who, if she shall think fit, may grant her fiat that right be done, whereupon an answer, plea, or demurrer shall be made on behalf of the Crown, and the subsequent proceedings be assimulated as far as practicable to the course of an ordinary action. It is also provided that costs shall be payable both to and by the Crown, subject to the same rules, so far as practicable, as obtain in proceedings between subject and subject."

T. E. Holland, Elements of Jurisprudence, 5th edition, page 337.

The United States Court of Claims was established in 1855. For State courts of claims see Note in 16 Abbott's New Cases 436 and authorities there referred to.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1858. The Contractual Theory of Marriage as affecting Divorce.

"The doctrine may be resolved into two propositions-(a) that a marriage celebrated abroad cannot be dissolved but by a Court of the foreign country; (b) that a marriage in England is indissoluble by a foreign Court. The first proposition has never been recognized in any decision in England. Even before the Act of 1858 it is extremely doubtful if the English Courts would have scrupled to decree a divorce â mensâ where the marriage was had in a foreign country, and certainly after the Statutes they did not hesitate to grant a divorce, though the marriage took place abroad (Ratcliff v. Ratcliff, 1859, 1 Sw. & Tr. 217). It is true that in cases where the foreign Courts have dissolved a marriage celebrated in their own country between persons domiciled in that country, these sentences were regarded as valid here, and some credit was given to the fact of the marriage having been celebrated there (Ryan v. Ryan, 1816, 2 Phill. 332; Argent v. Argent, 1865, 4 Sw. & Tr. 52); but bow far it influenced the learned Judges does not appear; the main consideration being the circumstance of domicile. The second proposition has been generally supposed by writers both in England and America (Story, Wharton) to have been introduced by Lolley's Case, 1812, Ruse. & Ry. 237, and followed in Tovey v. Lindsay, 1813, 1 Dow. 117, and McCarthy v. De Caix, 1831, 2 Cl. & F. 568, and only to have been abandoned in 1858 (Dicey), or in 1868 in Shaw v. Gould. But the case of Harvey v. Farnie, 1880-1882, 5 P. D. 153; 6 P. D. 35, 8 App. C. 48, has now shown that the Contractual theory had no permanent hold whatever in this country, that it did not originate with Lolley's Case and was not adopted by Lord Eldon but that it arose from a mistaken conception of Lord Brougham as to the point decided in the famous Resolution, and was never seriously entertained by any other Judge in England, and we submit this is correct."

E. H. Monnier, Law Magazine & Review, 12 ser., volume 17 (London, 1891-2), page 82.

{1981}

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1873. The Judicature Acts.

"The first Judicature Act was passed in 1873 under the auspices of Lord Selborne and Lord Cairns. It provided for the consolidation of all the existing superior Courts into one Supreme Court, consisting of two primary divisions, a High Court of Justice and a Court of Appeal. … Law and Equity, it was provided, were to be administered concurrently by every division of the Court, in all civil matters, the same relief being granted upon equitable claims or defences, … as would have previously been granted in the Court of Chancery; no proceeding in the Court was to be stayed by injunction analogous to the old common injunction but the power for any branch of the Court to stay proceedings before itself was of course to be retained; and the Court was to determine the entire controversy in every matter that came before it. By the 25th section of the Act rules upon certain of the points where differences between Law and Equity had existed, deciding in favour of the latter, were laid down, and it was enacted generally that in the case of conflict, the rules of Equity should prevail."

D. M. Kerly, History of Equity, page 293.

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1882. Experiments in Codification in England.

"The Bills of Exchange Act 1882 is, I believe, the first code or codifying enactment which has found its way into the English Statute Book. By a code, I mean a statement under the authority of the legislature, and on a systematic plan, of the whole of the general principles applicable to any given branch of the law. A code differs from a digest inasmuch as its language is the language of the legislature, and therefore authoritative; while the propositions of a digest merely express what is, in the opinion of an individual author, the law on any given subject. In other words the words propositions of a code are law, while the propositions of a digest may or may not be law."

M. D. Chalmers, An Experiment in Codification (Law Quarterly Review, volume 2, page 125).

COMMON LAW: A. D. 1889. Passage of Block-Indexing Act.

"The history of Land Transfer Reform in the United States is confined, almost exclusively, to matters which have occurred in the State of New York during the past ten years, and which culminated in the passage of the Block-Indexing Act for the city, of New York of 1889. In January, 1882, a report was made by a special committee of the Association of the Bar of the city of New York, which had been appointed to consider and report what changes, if any, should be made in the manner of transferring title to land in the city and State. The committee reported that by reason of the accumulated records in the offices of the county clerk and register of deeds of the city, 'searches practically could not be made in those offices,' and recommended the appointment of a State commission, which should consider and report a mode of transferring land free from the difficulties of the present system. The report was adopted by the association, and during the same year like recommendations were made by the Chamber of Commerce and by real estate and other associations of the city."

D. H. Olmstead, 13 American Bar Association Report, pages 269-270.

----------COMMON LAW: End----------

----------CRIMINAL LAW: Start----------

Criminal Law.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1066-1272. The Ordinary Criminal Courts.

"In a very few words the history of the ordinary courts is as follows: Before the Conquest the ordinary criminal court was the County or Hundred Court, but it was subject to the general supervision and concurrent jurisdiction of the King's Court. The Conqueror and his sons did not alter this state of things, but the supervision of the King's Court and the exercise of his concurrent jurisdiction were much increased both in stringency and in frequency, and as time went on narrowed the jurisdiction and diminished the importance of the local court. In process of time the King's Court developed itself into the Court of King's Bench and the Courts of the Justices of Assize, Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery, or to use the common expression, the Assize Courts; and the County Court, so far as its criminal jurisdiction was concerned, lost the greater part of its importance. These changes took place by degrees during the reigns which followed the Conquest, and were complete at the accession of Edward I. In the reign of Edward III. the Justices of the Peace were instituted, and they, in course of time, were authorized to hold Courts for the trial of offenders, which are the Courts of Quarter Sessions. The County Court, however, still retained a separate existence, till the beginning of the reign of Edward IV., when it was virtually, though not absolutely, abolished. A vestige of its existence is still to be traced in Courts Leet."

Sir James F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law, volume 1, pages 75-76.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1166. Disappearance of Compurgation in Criminal Cases.

"In criminal cases in the king's courts, compurgation is thought to have disappeared in consequence of what has been called 'the implied prohibition' of the Assize of Clarendon, in 1166. But it remained long in the local and ecclesiastical courts. Palgrave preserves as the latest instances of compurgation in criminal cases that can be traced, some cases as late as 1440-1, in the Hundred Court of Winchelsea in Sussex. They are cases of felony, and the compurgation is with thirty-six neighbors. They show a mingling of the old and the new procedure."

J. B. Thayer, The Older Modes of Trial (Harvard Law Review., volume 5, page 59).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1166-1215. Jury in Criminal Cases.

"It seems to have been possible, even before the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council, in … 1215, to apply the jury to criminal cases when ever the accused asked for it. … The Assize of Clarendon, in 1166, with its apparatus of an accusing jury and a trial by ordeal is thought to have done away in the king's courts with compurgation as a mode of trial for crime; and now the Lateran Council, in forbidding ecclesiastics to take part in trial by ordeal, was deemed to have forbidden that mode of trial."

Jas. B. Thayer, The Jury and its Development (Harvard Law Review, volume 5, page 265).

{1982}

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1176 (circa). "Eyres," and Criminal Jurisdiction.

"It is enough for me to point out that, on the circuits instituted by Henry II, and commonly distinguished as 'eyres', by way of pre-eminence, the administration of criminal justice, was treated, not as a thing by itself, but as one part, perhaps the most prominent and important part, of the general administration of the country, which was put to a considerable extent under the superintendence of the justices in eyre. Nor is this surprising when we consider that fines, amercements, and forfeitures of all sorts were items of great importance in the royal revenue. The rigorous enforcement of all the proprietary and other profitable rights of the Crown which the articles of eyre confided to the justices was naturally associated with their duties as administrators of the criminal law, in which the king was deeply interested, not only because it protected the life and property of his subjects, but also because it contributed to his revenue."

Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, volume 1, page 102.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1198-1199. Trial by Ordeal.

"The earliest instance of the ordeal [see ORDEAL] in our printed judicial records occurs in 1198-9, on an appeal of death, by a maimed person, where two of the defendants are adjudged to purge themselves by the hot iron. But within twenty years or so this mode of trial came to a sudden end in England, through the powerful agency of the Church,—an event which was the more remarkable because Henry II., in the Assize of Clarendon (1166) and again in that of Northampton (1176), providing a public mode of accusation in the case of the larger crimes, had fixed the ordeal as the mode of trial. The old form of trial by oath was no longer recognized in such cases in the king's courts. It was the stranger, therefore, that such quick operation should have been allowed in England to the decree, in November, 1215, of the Fourth Lateran Council at Rome. That this was recognized and accepted within about three years (1218-19) by the English crown is shown by the well-known writs of Henry III., to the judges, dealing with the puzzling question of what to do for a mode of trial, 'cum prohibitum sit per Ecclesiam Romanam judicium ignis et aquae.' I find no case of trial by ordeal in our printed records later than Trinity Term of the 15 John (1213)."

J. B. Thayer, The Older Modes of Trial (Harvard Law Review, volume 5, pages 64-65).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1215. Two Juries in Criminal Cases.

"The ordeal was strictly a mode of trial. What may clearly bring this home to one of the present day is the well-known fact that it gave place, not long after the Assize of Clarendon, to the petit jury, when Henry III. bowed to the decree of the fourth Lateran Council (1215) abolishing the ordeal. It was at this point that our cumbrous, inherited system of two juries in criminal cases had its origin."

J. B. Thayer, Presumptions and the Law of Evidence (Harvard Law Review, volume 3, page 159, note).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1215. Had Coroners Common Law Power as to Fires?

"Although Magna Charta took away the power of the Coroner of holding Pleas of the Crown, that is of trying the more important crimes, there was nothing to forbid him from continuing to receive accusations against all offenders. This he did, and continues to do to the present day, without challenge, in cases of sudden or unexplained deaths. Nor is it denied that he has done so and may do so in other matters, such as in treasure trove, wreck of the sea and deodands. The difficulty, of course, is to know whether the Coroner was or was not in the habit of holding inquests on fires. There is no evidence that he had not the power to do so. On the contrary, we think the extracts from the ancient writers which we have before quoted, are on the whole in favour of his having that power. Before Magna Charta he had the power to try all serious crimes; arson would unquestionably be one of them. Magna Charta only took a way his power of trying them, not of making a preliminary investigation, otherwise an inquest."

Sherston Baker, Law Magazine & Review (London, 1886-7), 4th ser., volume 12, page 268.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1272-1875. King's Bench. The Supreme Criminal Court.

"From the reign of Edward I, to the year 1875 it [the Court of King's Bench] continued to be the Supreme Criminal Court of the Realm, with no alterations in its powers or constitution of sufficient importance to be mentioned except that during the Commonwealth it was called the Upper Bench."

Sir J. F. Stephen, History of Criminal Law of England, volume 1, page 94.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1276. Coroner's Jury.

"The earliest instance that occurs of any sort of preliminary inquiry into crimes with a view to subsequent proceedings is the case of the coroner's inquest. Coroners, according to Mr. Stubbs, originated in the year 1194, but the first authority of importance about their duties is to be found in Bracton. He gives an account of their duties so full as to imply that in his day their office was comparatively modern. The Statute de Officio Coronatoris (4 Edward I., st. 2, A. D. 1276) is almost a transcript of the passage in Bracton. It gives the coroner's duty very fully, and is, to this day, the foundation of the law on the subject."

Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, volume 1, page 217.

ALSO IN: W. Forsyth, Trial by Jury, page 187.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1285. Courts of Oyer and Terminer.

"The first express mention of them with which I am acquainted is in the statute 13 Edw. I., c. 29 (A. D. 1285), which taken in connection with some subsequent authorities throws considerable light on their nature. They were either general or special. General when they were issued to commissioners whose duty it was to hear and determine all matters of a criminal nature within certain local limits, special when the commission was confined to particular cases. Such special commissions were frequently granted at the prayer of particular individuals. They differed from commissions of gaol delivery principally in the circumstance that the commission of Oyer and Terminer was 'ad inquirendum, audiendum, et terminandum,' whereas that of gaol delivery is 'ad gaolam nostram castri nostri de C. de prisonibus in ea existentibus hac vice deliberandum,' the interpretation put upon which was that justices of Oyer and Terminer could proceed only upon indictments taken before themselves, whereas justices of gaol delivery had to try everyone found in the prison which they were to deliver. On the other hand, a prisoner on bail could not be tried before a justice of gaol delivery, because he would not be in the gaol, whereas if he appeared before justices of Oyer and Terminer he might be both indicted and tried."

Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, volume 1, page 106.

{1983}

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1305. Challenging Jury for Cause.

"The prisoner was allowed to challenge peremptorily, i. e. without showing cause, any number of jurors less than thirty-five, or three whole juries. When or why he acquired this right it is difficult to say. Neither Bracton nor Britton mention it, and it is hard to reconcile it with the fact that the jurors were witnesses. A man who might challenge peremptorily thirty-five witnesses could always secure impunity. It probably arose at a period when the separation between the duties of the jury and the witnesses was coming to be recognized. The earliest statute on the subject, 33 Edw. I, st. 4 (A. D. 1305), enacts 'that from henceforth, notwithstanding it be alleged by them that sue for the king that the jurors of those inquests, or some of them, be not indifferent for the king, yet such inquests shall not remain untaken for that cause, but if they that sue for the king will challenge any of those jurors, they shall assign of the challenge a cause certain.'"

Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, volume 1, pages 301-302.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1344. Justices of the Peace.

"In 1344 (18 Edw. Ill, st. 2, c. 2) it was enacted that 'two or three of the best of reputation in the counties shall be assigned keepers of the peace by the King's Commission, … to hear and determine felonies and trespasses done against the peace in the same counties, and to inflict punishment reasonably.' This was the first act by which the Conservators of the Peace obtained judicial power."

Sir J. F. Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, volume 1, page 113.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1506. Insanity as a Defence.

The earliest adjudication upon the legal responsibility of an insane person occurred in the Year Book of the 21 Henry VII.

American Law Review, volume 15, page 717.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1547. Two Lawful Witnesses required to Convict.

"In all cases of treason and misprision of treason,—by statutes l Edw. VI. c. 12; 5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 11, and 7 & 8 Will. III. c. 3,—two lawful witnesses are required to convict a prisoner; unless he shall willingly and without violence confess the same. And, by the last-mentioned statute, it is declared, that both of such witnesses must be to the same overt act of treason; or one to one overt act, and the other to another overt act of the same species of treason, and not of distinct heads or kinds: and that no evidence shall be admitted to prove any overt act, not expressly laid in the indictment."

Sir J. F. Stephen, Commentaries, volume 4, page 425 (8th edition).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1592. Criminal Trials under Elizabeth.

"In prosecutions by the State, every barrier which the law has ever attempted to erect for the protection of innocence was ruthlessly cast down. Men were arrested without the order of a magistrate, on the mere warrant of a secretary of state or privy councillor, and thrown into prison at the pleasure of the minister. In confinement they were subjected to torture, for the rack rarely stood idle while Elizabeth was on the throne. If brought to trial, they were denied the aid of a counsel and the evidence of witnesses in their behalf. Nor were they confronted with the witnesses against them, but written depositions, taken out of court and in the absence of the prisoner, were read to the jury, or rather such portions of them as the prosecution considered advantageous to its side. On the bench sat a judge holding office at the pleasure of the crown, and in the jury-box twelve men, picked out by the sheriff, who themselves were punished if they gave a verdict of acquittal."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 1, page 367.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1600 (circa). Capital Punishment.

"Sir James Fitz James Stephen, in his History of Criminal Law, estimates that at the end of the sixteenth century there were about 800 executions per year in England (volume 1, 468). Another sentence in vogue in England before that time was to be hanged, to have the bowels burned, and to be quartered. Beccaria describes the scene where 'amid clouds of writhing smoke the groans of human victims, the crackling of their bones, and the flying of their still panting bowels were a pleasing spectacle and agreeable harmony to the frantic multitude.' (chapter 39.) As late as the reign of Elizabeth, … the sentence of death in England was to be hung, drawn and quartered. Campian, the Jesuit, was tortured before trial until his limbs were dislocated on the rack, and was carried helpless into Westminster Hall for trial before the Chief Justice of England, unable to raise an arm in order to plead not guilty. He was sentenced to be hung, drawn and quartered, which meant legally, that upon being hung he was to be cut down while yet living, and dragged at the tail of a horse, and then before death should release him, to be hewn in pieces, which were to be sent dispersed to the places where the offense was committed or known, to be exhibited in attestation of the punishment, the head being displayed in the most important place, as the chief object of interest. In the process of hanging, drawing and quartering, Froude says that due precautions were taken to prolong the agony. Campian's case is specially interesting, as showing the intervention of a more humane spirit to mitigate the barbarity of the law. As they were about to cut him down alive from the gibbet, the voice of some one in authority cried out: Hold, till the man is dead.' This innovation was the precursor of the change in the law so as to require the sentence to be that he be hanged by the neck until he is dead. It is not generally known that the words 'until he is dead' are words of mercy inserted to protect the victim from the torture and mutilation which the public had gathered to enjoy."

Austin Abbott, Address before New York Society of Medicine Journal (The Advocate, Minn., 1889, volume 1, page 71).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1641-1662. No Man shall be compelled to Criminate himself.

"What … is the history of this rule? … Briefly, these things appear: 1st. That it is not a common law rule at all, but is wholly statutory in its authority. 2d. That the object of the rule, until a comparatively late period of its existence, was not to protect from answers in the king's court of justice, but to prevent a usurpation of jurisdiction on the part of the Court Christian (or ecclesiastical tribunals). 3d. That even as thus enforced the rule was but partial and limited in its application. 4th. That by gradual perversion of function the rule assumed its present form, but not earlier than the latter half of the seventeenth century. … But nothing can be clearer than that it was a statutory rule. … {1984} The first of these were 16 Car. I., c. 2 (1641) and provided that no one should impose any penalty in ecclesiastical matters, nor should 'tender … to any … person whatsoever any corporal oath whereby he shall be obliged to confess or accuse himself of any crime or any … thing whereby he shall be exposed to any censure or penalty whatever.' This probably applied to ecclesiastical courts alone. The second (13 Car. II., c. 12, 1662) is more general, providing that 'no one shall administer to any person whatsoever the oath usually called ex officio, or any other oath, whereby such persons may be charged or compelled to confess any criminal matter.' … The Statute of 13 Car. II. is cited in Scurr's Case, but otherwise neither of them seems to have been mentioned; nor do the text-books, as a rule, take any notice of them. Henceforward, however, no question arises in the courts as to the validity of the privilege against self-crimination, and the statutory exemption is recognized as applying in common-law courts us well as in others. … This maxim, or rather the abuse of it in the ecclesiastical courts, helps in part to explain the shape which the general privilege now has taken. … We notice that most of the church's religious investigations, … were conducted by means of commissions or inquisitions, not by ordinary trials upon proper presentment; and thus the very rule of the canon law itself was continually broken, and persons unsuspected and unbetrayed 'per famam' were compelled, 'seipsum prodere,' to become their own accusers. This, for a time, was the burden of the complaint. … Furthermore, in rebelling against this abuse of the canon-law rule, men were obliged to formulate their reasons for objecting to answer the articles of inquisitions. … They professed to be willing to answer ordinary questions, but not to betray themselves to disgrace and ruin, especially as where the crimes charged were, as a rule, religious offences and not those which men generally regard as offences against social order. In this way the rule began to be formulated and limited, as applying to the disclosure of forfeitures and penal offences. In the course of the struggle the aid of the civil courts was invoked, … and towards the end of the seventeenth century, … it found a lodgement in the practice of the Exchequer, of Chancery, and of the other courts. There had never been in the civil courts any complaint based on the same lines, or any demand for such a privilege. … But the momentum of this right, wrested from the ecclesiastical courts after a century of continual struggle, fairly carried it over and fixed it firmly in the common-law practice also."

John H. Wigmore, Nemo Tenetur seipsum Prodere (Harvard Law Review, volume 5, pages 71-88).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1660-1820. 187 Capital Offenses added to Criminal Code in England.

"From the Restoration to the death of George III.,—a period of 160 years,—no less than 187 capital offenses were added to the criminal code. The legislature was able, every year, to discover more than one heinous crime deserving of death. In the reign of George II. thirty-three Acts were passed creating capital offenses; in the first fifty years of George III., no less than sixty-three. In such a multiplication of offenses all principle was ignored; offenses wholly different in character and degree were confounded in the indiscriminating penalty of death. Whenever an offense was found to be increasing, some busy senator called for new rigor, until murder became in the eye of the law no greater crime than picking a pocket, purloining a ribbon from a shop, or pilfering a pewter-pot. Such law-makers were as ignorant as they were cruel. … Dr. Johnson,—no squeamish moralist,—exposed them; Sir W. Blackstone, in whom admiration of our jurisprudence was almost a foible, denounced them. Beccaria, Montesquieu, and Bentham demonstrated that certainty of punishment was more effectual in the repression of crime, than severity; but law-givers were still inexorable."

T. E. May, Constitutional History of England (Widdleton's edition), volume 2, pages 553-554.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1695. Counsel allowed to Persons indicted for High Treason.

"Holland, following the early example of Spain, always permitted a prisoner the services of a counsel; and if he was too poor to defray the cost, one was furnished at the public charge. In England, until after the fall of the Stuarts, this right, except for the purposes of arguing mere questions of law, was denied to every one placed on trial for his life. In 1695, it was finally accorded to persons indicted for high treason. Even then it is doubtful, says Lord Campbell, whether a bill for this purpose would have passed if Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury and author of the 'Characteristics,' had not broken down while delivering in the House of Commons a set speech upon it, and, being called upon to go on, had not electrified the House by observing: 'If I, sir, who rise only to give my opinion upon a bill now pending, in the fate of which I have no personal interest, am so confounded that I am unable to express the least of what I propose to say, what must the condition of that man be, who, without any assistance, is called to plead for his life, his honor, and for his posterity?'"

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 2, page 446.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1708. Torture.

The fact that judicial torture, though not a common law power of the courts, was used in England by command of Mary, Elizabeth, James I and Charles I, is familiar to all. It was sanctioned by Lord Coke and Lord Bacon, and Coke himself conducted examinations by it. It was first made illegal in Scotland in 1708; in Bavaria and Wurtemburg in 1806; in Baden in 1831.

Austin Abbott, Address before New York Society of Medicine Journal, (The Advocate, Minn., 1889, volume 1, page 71).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1725. Knowledge of Right and Wrong the test of Responsibility.

The case of Edward Arnold, in 1725, who was indicted for shooting at Lord Onslow, seems to be the earliest case in which the knowledge of right and wrong becomes the test of responsibility.

American Law Review, volume 15, pages 720-722.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1770. Criminal Law of Libel.

"In this case [Case of the North Briton Junius' Letter to the King, tried before Lord Mansfield and a special jury on the 2nd June 1770] two doctrines were maintained which excepted libels from the general principles of the Criminal Law—firstly, that a publisher was criminally responsible for the acts of his servants, unless he was proved to be neither privy nor to have assented to the publication of a libel; secondly, that it was the province of the Court alone to judge of the criminality of the publication complained of. The first rule was rigidly observed in the Courts until the passing of Lord Campbell's Libel Act in 1843 (6 and 7 Vict., c. 96). The second prevailed only until 1792, when Fox's Libel Act (32 Geo. III, c. 60) declared it to be contrary to the Law of England. … {1985} A century's experience has proved that the law, as declared by the Legislature in 1792, has worked well, falsifying the forebodings of the Judges of the period, who predicted 'the confusion and destruction of the Law of England' as the result of a change which they regarded as the subversion of a fundamental and important principle of English Jurisprudence. Fox's Libel Act did not complete the emancipation of the Press. Liberty of discussion continued to be restrained by merciless persecution. The case of Sir Francis Burdett, in 1820, deserves notice. Sir Francis had written, on the subject of the 'Peterloo Massacre' in Manchester, a letter which was published in a London newspaper. He was fined £2,000 and sentenced to imprisonment for three months. The proceedings on a motion for a new trial are of importance because of the Judicial interpretation of the Libel Act of 1792. The view was then stated by Best, J. (afterwards Lord Wynford), and was adopted unanimously by the Court, that the statute of George III. had not made the question of libel one of fact. If it had, instead of removing an anomaly, it would have created one. Libel, said Best, J., is a question of law, and the judge is the judge of the law in libel as in all other cases, the jury having the power of acting agreeably to his statement of the law or not. All that the statute does is to prevent the question from being left to the jury in the narrow way in which it was left before that time. The jury were then only to find the fact of the publication and the truth of the innuendoes, for the judges used to tell them that the intent was an inference of law to be drawn from the paper, with which the jury had nothing to do. The legislature have said that this is not so, but that the whole case is for the jury (4 B. and A. 95). The law relating to Political Libel has not been developed or altered in any way since the case of R. v. Burdett. If it should ever be revived, which does not at present appear probable, it will be found, says Sir James Stephen, to have been insensibly modified by the law as to defamatory libels on private persons, which has been the subject of a great number of highly important judicial decisions. The effect of these is, amongst other things, to give a right to everyone to criticise fairly—that is, honestly, even if mistakenly—the public conduct of public men, and to comment honestly, even if mistakenly, upon the proceedings of Parliament and the Courts of Justice. (History of the Criminal Law, II., 376.) The unsuccessful prosecution of Cobbett for an article in the 'Political Register,' in 1831, nearly brought to a close the long series of contests between the Executive and the Press. From the period of the Reform Act of 1832, the utmost latitude has been permitted to public writings, and Press prosecutions for political libels, like the Censorship, have lapsed."

J. W. Ross Brown, Law Magazine & Review, 4th ser., volume 17, page 197.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1791. Criminals allowed Counsel.

"When the American States adopted their first constitutions, five of them contained a provision that every person accused of crime was to be allowed counsel for his defence. The same right was, in 1791, granted for all America in the first amendments to the Constitution of the United States. This would seem to be an elementary principle of justice, but it was not adopted in England until nearly half a century later, and then only after a bitter struggle."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 1, page 70.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1818. Last Trial by Battle.

"The last appeal of murder brought in England was the case of Ashford v. Thornton in 1818. In that case, after Thornton had been tried and acquitted of the murder of Mary Ashford at the Warwick Assizes her brother charged him in the court of king's bench with her murder, according to the forms of the ancient procedure. The court admitted the legality of the proceedings, and recognized the appellee's right to wage his body; but as the appellant was not prepared to fight, the case ended upon a plea of autrefois acquit interposed by Thornton when arraigned on the appeal. This proceeding led to the statute of 59 Geo. III., c. 46, by which all appeals in criminal cases were finally abolished."

Hannis Taylor, Origin and Growth of the English Constitution, part 1, page 311.

See, also, WAGER OF BATTLE.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D: 1819. Severity of the former Criminal Law of England.

"Sir James Mackintosh in 1819, in moving in Parliament for a committee to inquire into the conditions of the criminal law, stated that there were then 'two hundred capital felonies on the statute book.' Undoubtedly this apparent severity, for the reasons stated by Sir James Stephen, is greater than the real severity, since many of the offenses made capital were of infrequent occurrence; and juries, moreover, often refused to convict, and persons capitally convicted for offenses of minor degrees of guilt were usually pardoned on condition of transportation to the American and afterwards to the Australian colonies. But this learned author admits that, 'after making all deductions on these grounds there can be no doubt that the legislation of the eighteenth century in criminal matters was severe to the highest degree, and destitute of any sort of principle or system.'"

J. F. Dillon, Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America, page 366.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1825. "Ticket-of-leave" system established.

"The 'ticket-of-leave' system [was] established under the English laws of penal servitude. It originated under the authority of the governors of the penal colonies, and was the first sanctioned by Parliament, so far as the committee are aware, by an Act 5 Geo. IV., chapter 34. Subsequently, when transportation for crime was abolished by the Acts 16, 17 Vict., chapter 99 (A. D. 1853) and 20, 21 Vict., chapter 3, and system of home prisons established, the 'license' or ticket-of-leave system was adopted by Parliament, in those acts, as a method of rewarding convicts for good conduct during imprisonment. By further acts passed in 1864, 1871 and 1879, the system has been brought gradually into its present efficacy."

Report of Committee on Judicial Administration, and Remedial Procedure (9 American Bar Association Report, 317).

{1986}

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1832-1860. Revision of Criminal Code in England.

"With the reform period commenced a new era in criminal legislation. Ministers and law officers now vied with philanthropists, in undoing the unhallowed work of many generations. In 1832, Lord Auckland, Master of the Mint, secured the abolition of capital punishment for offences connected with coinage; Mr. Attorney-general Denman exempted forgery from the same penalty in all but two cases, to which the Lords would not assent; and Mr. Ewart obtained the like remission for sheep-stealing, and other similar offences. In 1833, the Criminal Law Commission was appointed, to revise the entire code. … The commissioners recommended numerous other remissions, which were promptly carried into effect by Lord John Russell in 1837. Even these remissions, however, fell short of public opinion, which found expression in an amendment of Mr. Ewart, for limiting the punishment of death to the single crime of murder. This proposal was then lost by a majority of one; but has since, by successive measures, been accepted by the legislature;—murder alone, and the exceptional crime of treason, having been reserved for the last penalty of the law. Great indeed, and rapid, was this reformation of the criminal code. It was computed that, from 1810 to 1845, upwards of 1,400 persons had suffered death for crimes, which had since ceased to be capital."

T. E. May, Constitutional History of England (Widdleton's edition), volume 2, pages 557-558.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1843. Lord Campbell's Libel Act, and Publisher's Liability.

"In the 'Morning Advertiser' of the 19th of December, 1769, appeared Junius's celebrated letter to the king. Inflammatory and seditious, it could not be overlooked; and as the author was unknown, informations were immediately filed against the printers and publishers of the letter. But before they were brought to trial, Almon, the bookseller, was tried for selling the 'London Museum,' in which the libel was reprinted. His connection with the publication proved to be so slight that he escaped with a nominal punishment. Two doctrines, however, were maintained in this case, which excepted libels from the general principles of the criminal law. By the first, a publisher was held criminally answerable for the acts of his servants, unless proved to be neither privy nor assenting to the publication of a libel. So long as exculpatory evidence was admitted, this doctrine was defensible; but judges afterwards refused to admit such evidence, holding that the publication of a libel by a publisher's servant was proof of his criminality. And this monstrous rule of law prevailed until 1843, when it was condemned by Lord Campbell's Libel Act."

T. E. May, Constitutional History of England (Widdleton's edition), volume 2, pages 113-114.

"And be it enacted, that whensoever, upon the trial of any indictment or information for the publication of a libel, under the plea of not guilty, evidence shall have been given which shall establish a presumptive case of publication against the defendant by the act of any other person by his authority, it shall be competent to such defendant to prove that such publication was made without his authority, consent, or knowledge, and that the said publication did not arise from want of due care or caution on his part."

Statute 6 & 7 Vic., c. 96, s. 7.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1848. The English Court of Criminal Appeal.

"England has not yet got her court of Criminal Appeal, although the Council of Judges, in their belated scheme of legal reform, recommend the legislature to create one. Questions whether an action should be dismissed as 'frivolous or vexatious,' disputes about' security for costs,' and the 'sufficiency of interrogatories' or 'particulars,' and all manner of trivial causes affecting property or status, are deemed by the law of England sufficiently important to entitle the parties to them, if dissatisfied with the finding of a court of first instance, to submit it to the touchstone of an appeal. But the lives and liberties of British subjects charged with the commission of criminal offences are in general disposed of irrevocably by the verdict of a jury, guided by the directions of a trial judge. To this rule, however, there are two leading exceptions. In the first place, any convicted prisoner may petition the sovereign for a pardon, or for the commutation of his sentence; and the royal prerogative of mercy is exercised through, and on the advice of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. In the second place, the English machine juridical notwithstanding its lack of a properly constituted Court of Criminal Appeal, is furnished with a kind of 'mechanical equivalent' therefor, in the 'Court for Crown Cases Reserved,' which was established by act of Parliament in 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c. 78)."

The English Court of Criminal Appeal (The Green Bag, volume 5, page 345).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1854. Conflict between United States Constitution and a Treaty.

"About 1854, M. Dillon, French consul at San Francisco, refused to appear and testify in a criminal case. The Constitution of the United States (Amendment VI.), in criminal cases grants accused persons compulsory process for obtaining witnesses, while our treaties of 1853, with France (Art. II.) says that consuls 'shall never be compelled to appear as witnesses before the courts.' Thus there was a conflict between the Constitution and the treaty, and it was held that the treaty was void. After a long correspondence the French Consuls were directed to obey a subpoena in future."

Theodore D. Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of International Law [6th edition], page 157, note.

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1877. "Indeterminate Sentences."

"This practice, so far as the committee can ascertain, has been adopted in the states of New York and Ohio only. … The Ohio statute has been taken mainly from that which was adopted in New York, April 12, 1877."

Report of Committee on Judicial Administrations, and Remedial Procedure (9 American Bar Association Report, page 313).

CRIMINAL LAW: A. D. 1893. Criminal Jurisdiction of Federal Courts.

"The Supreme Court of the United States, in United States v. Rodgers, … 150 U. S., … in declaring that the term 'high seas' in the criminal law of the United States is applicable as well to the open waters of the great lakes as to the open waters of the ocean, may be said, in a just sense, not to have changed the law, but to have asserted the law to be in force upon a vast domain over which its jurisdiction was heretofore in doubt. The opinion of Justice Field will take its place in our jurisprudence in company with the great cases of the Genesee Chief, 12 How. (U. S.), 443, and its successors, and with them marks the self adapting capacity of the judicial power to meet the great exigencies of justice and good government."

University Law Review, volume 1, page 2.

----------CRIMINAL LAW: End----------

----------ECCLESIASTICAL LAW: Start--------

{1987}

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW: A. D. 449-1066. No distinction between Lay and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction.

"In the time of our Saxon ancestors, there was no sort of distinction between the lay and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction: the county court was as much a spiritual as a temporal tribunal; the rights of the church were ascertained and asserted at the same time, and by the same judges, as the rights of the laity. For this purpose the bishop of the diocese, and the alderman, or, in his absence, the sheriff of the county, used to sit together in the county court, and had there the cognizance of all causes, as well ecclesiastical as civil: a superior deference being paid to the bishop's opinion in spiritual matters, and to that of the lay judges in temporal.

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, page 61.

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW: A. D. 1066-1087. Separation of Ecclesiastical from Civil Courts.

"William I. (whose title was warmly espoused by the monasteries, which he liberally endowed, and by the foreign clergy whom he brought over in shoals from France and Italy, and planted in the best preferments of the English church), was at length prevailed upon to … separate the ecclesiastical court from the civil: whether actuated by principles of bigotry, or by those of a more refined policy, in order to discountenance the laws of King Edward, abounding with the spirit of Saxon liberty, is not altogether certain. But the latter, if not the cause, was undoubtedly the consequence, of this separation: for the Saxon laws were soon overborne by the Norman justiciaries, when the county court fell into disregard by the bishop's withdrawing his presence, in obedience to the charter of the conqueror; which prohibited any spiritual cause from being tried in the secular courts, and commanded the suitors to appear before the bishop only, whose decisions were directed to conform to the canon law."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, pages 62-63.

"The most important ecclesiastical measure of the reign, the separation of the church jurisdiction from the secular business of the courts of law, is unfortunately, like all other charters of the time, undated. Its contents however show the influence of the ideas which under the genius of Hildebrand were forming the character of the continental churches. From henceforth the bishops and archdeacons are no longer to hold ecclesiastical pleas in the hundred-court, but to have courts of their own; to try causes by canonical, not by customary law, and allow no spiritual questions to come before laymen as judges. In case of contumacy the offender may be excommunicated and the king and sheriff will enforce the punishment. In the same way laymen are forbidden to interfere in spiritual causes. The reform is one which might very naturally recommend itself to a man like Lanfranc."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, volume 1, section 101.

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW: A. D. 1100. Reunion of Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts.

"King Henry the First, at his accession, among other restorations of the laws of King Edward the Confessor, revived this of the union of the civil and ecclesiastical courts. … This, however, was ill-relished by the popish clergy,… and, therefore, in their synod at Westminster, 3 Hen. I., they ordained that no bishop should attend the discussion of temporal causes; which soon dissolved this newly effected union."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, page 63.

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW: A. D. 1135. Final Separation of Civil and Ecclesiastical Courts.

"And when, upon the death of King Henry the First, the usurper Stephen was brought in and supported by the clergy, we find one article of the oath which they imposed upon him was, that ecclesiastical persons and ecclesiastical causes should be subject only to the bishop's jurisdiction. And as it was about that time that the contest and emulation began between the laws of England and those of Rome, the temporal courts adhering to the former, and the spiritual adopting the latter as their rule of proceeding, this widened the breach between them, and made a coalition afterwards impracticable; which probably would else have been effected at the general reformation of the church."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, page 64.

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW: A. D. 1285. Temporal Courts assume Jurisdiction of Defamation.

"To the Spiritual Court appears also to have belonged the punishment of defamation until the rise of actions on the case, when the temporal courts assumed jurisdiction, though not, it seems, to the exclusion of punishment by the church. The punishment of usurers, cleric and lay, also belonged to the ecclesiastical judges, though their movables were confiscated to the king, unless the usurer 'vita comite digne poenituerit, et testamento condito quae legare decreverit a se prorsus alienaverit.' That is, it seems, the personal punishment was inflicted by the Ecclesiastical Court, but the confiscation of goods (when proper) was decreed by the King's Court."

Melville M. Bigelow, History of Procedure, page 51.

ECCLESIASTICAL LAW: A. D. 1857-1859. Ecclesiastical Courts deprived of Matrimonial and Testamentary Causes.

"Matrimonial causes, or injuries respecting the rights of marriage, are another … branch of the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Though, if we consider marriages in the light of mere civil contracts, they do not seem to be properly of spiritual cognizance. But the Romanists having very early converted this contract into a holy sacramental ordinance, the church of course took it under her protection,' upon the division of the two jurisdictions. … One might … wonder, that the same authority, which enjoined the strictest celibacy to the priesthood, should think them the proper judges in causes between man and wife. These causes, indeed, partly from the nature of the injuries complained of, and partly from the clerical method of treating them, soon became too gross for the modesty of a lay tribunal. … Spiritual jurisdiction of testamentary causes is a peculiar constitution of this island; for in almost all other (even in popish) countries all matters testamentary are under the jurisdiction of the civil magistrate. And that this privilege is enjoyed by the clergy in England, not as a matter of ecclesiastical right, but by the special favor and indulgence of the municipal law, and as it should seem by some public act of the great council, is freely acknowledged by Lindewode, the ablest canonist of the fifteenth century. Testamentary causes, he observes, belong to the ecclesiastical courts 'de consuetudine Angliae, et super consensu regio et suorum procerum in talibus ab antiquo concesso.'"

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, pages 91-95.

{1988}

Jurisdiction in testamentary causes was taken away from the ecclesiastical courts by Statutes 20 and 21 Vic., c. 77 and 21 and 22 Vic., chapters 56 and 95, and was transferred to the court of Probate. Jurisdiction in matrimonial causes was transferred to the Divorce Court by Statute 20 and 21 Vic., 85.

----------ECCLESIASTICAL LAW: End--------

----------EQUITY: Start--------

Equity.

EQUITY: A. D. 449-1066. Early Masters in Chancery.

"As we approach the era of the Conquest, we find distinct traces of the Masters in Chancery, who, though in sacred orders, were well trained in jurisprudence, and assisted the chancellor in preparing writs and grants, as well as in the service of the royal chapel. They formed a sort of college of justice, of which he was the head. They all sate in the Wittenagemote, and, as 'Law Lords', are supposed to have had great weight in the deliberations of that assembly."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, page 53.

EQUITY: A. D. 596. Chancellor, Keeper of the Great Seal.

"From the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity by the preaching of St. Augustine, the King always had near his person a priest, to whom was entrusted the care of his chapel, and who was his confessor. This person, selected from the most learned and able of his order, and greatly superior in accomplishments to the unlettered laymen attending the Court, soon acted as private secretary to the King, and gained his confidence in affairs of state. The present demarcation between civil and ecclesiastical employments was then little regarded, and to this same person was assigned the business of superintending writs and grants, with the custody of the great seal."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, page 27.

EQUITY: A. D. 1066. Master of the Rolls.

"The office of master, formerly called the Clerk or Keeper of the Rolls, is recognized at this early period, though at this time he appears to have been the Chancellor's deputy, not an independent officer."

Geo. Spence, Equity Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, volume 1, page 100.

EQUITY: A. D. 1066-1154. Chancellor as Secretary of State.

Under the Norman Kings, the Chancellor was a kind of secretary of state. His functions were political rather than judicial. He attended to the royal correspondence, kept the royal accounts, and drew up writs for the administration of justice. He was also the keeper of the seal.

Montague's Elements of Constitutional History of England, page 27.

See, also, CHANCELLOR.

A. D. 1067. First Lord Chancellor.

"The first keeper of the seals who was endowed with the title of Lord Chancellor was Maurice, who received the great seal in 1067. The incumbents of the office were for a long period ecclesiastics; and they usually enjoyed episcopal or archiepiscopal rank, and lived in the London palaces attached to their sees or provinces. The first Keeper of the seals of England was Fitzgilbert, appointed by Queen Matilda soon after her coronation, and there was no other layman appointed until the reign of Edward III."

L. J. Bigelow, Bench and Bar, page 23.

EQUITY: A. D. 1169. Uses and Trusts.

"According to the law of England, trusts may be created 'inter vivos' as well as by testament, and their history is a curious one, beginning, like that of the Roman 'fidei commissa,' with an attempt to evade the law. The Statutes of Mortmain, passed to prevent the alienation of lands to religious houses, led to the introduction of 'uses,' by which the grantor alienated his land to a friend to hold 'to the use' of a monastery, the clerical chancellors giving legal validity to the wish thus expressed. Although this particular device was put a stop to by 15 Ric. II. c. 5, 'uses' continued to be employed for other purposes, having been found more malleable than what was called, by way of contrast, 'the legal estate.' They offered indeed so many modes of escaping the rigour of the law, that, after several other statutes had been passed with a view of curtailing their advantages, the 27 Hen. VIII. c. 10 enacted that, where anyone was seised to a use, the legal estate should be deemed to be in him to whose use he was seised. The statute did not apply to trusts of personal property, nor to trusts of land where any active duty was cast upon the trustee, nor where a use was limited 'upon a use,' i. e. where the person in whose favour a use was created was himself to hold the estate to the use of some one else. There continued therefore to be a number of cases in which, in spite of the 'Statute of Uses,' the Court of Chancery was able to carry out its policy of enforcing what had otherwise been merely moral duties. The system thus arising has grown to enormous dimensions, and trusts, which, according to the definition of Lord Hardwicke, are 'such a confidence between parties that no action at law will lie, but there is merely a case for the consideration of courts of equity,' are inserted not only in wills, but also in marriage settlements, arrangements with creditors, and numberless other instruments necessary for the comfort of families and the development of commerce."

T. E. Holland, Elements of Jurisprudence, 5th edition, page 217.

EQUITY: A. D. 1253. A Lady Keeper of the Seals.

"Having occasion to cross the sea and visit Gascony, A. D. 1253, Henry III. made her [Queen Eleanor] keeper of the seal during his absence, and in that character she in her own person presided in the 'Aula Regia,' hearing causes, and, it is to be feared, forming her decisions less in accordance with justice than her own private interests. Never did judge set law and equity more fearfully at naught."

L. J. Bigelow, Bench and Bar, page 28.

EQUITY: A. D. 1258. No Writs except De Cursu.

"In the year 1258 the Provisions of Oxford were promulgated; two separate clauses of which bound the chancellor to issue no more writs except writs 'of course' without command of the King and his Council present with him. This, with the growing independence of the judiciary on the one hand, and the settlement of legal process on the other, terminated the right to issue special writs, and at last fixed the common writs in unchangeable form; most of which had by this time become developed into the final form in which for six centuries they were treated as precedents of declaration."

M. M. Bigelow, History of Procedure, page 197.

EQUITY: A. D. 1272-1307. The Chancellor's functions.

"In the reign of Edward I. the Chancellor begins to appear in the three characters in which we now know him; as a great political officer, as the head of a department for the issue of writs and the custody of documents in which the King's interest is concerned, as the administrator of the King's grace."

Sir William H. Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, part 2, page 146.

{1989}

EQUITY: A. D. 1330. Chancery stationary at Westminster.

"There was likewise introduced about this time a great improvement in the administration of justice, by rendering the Court of Chancery stationary at Westminster. The ancient kings of England were constantly migrating,—one principal reason for which was, that the same part of the country, even with the aid of purveyance and pre-emption, could not long support the court and all the royal retainers, and render in kind due to the King could be best consumed on the spot. Therefore, if he kept Christmas at Westminster, he would keep Easter at Winchester, and Pentecost at Gloucester, visiting his many palaces and manors in rotation. The Aula Regis, and afterwards the courts into which it was partitioned, were ambulatory along with him—to the great vexation of the suitors. This grievance was partly corrected by Magna Charta, which enacted that the Court of Common Pleas should be held 'in a certain place,'—a corner of Westminster Hall being fixed upon for that purpose. In point of law, the Court of King's Bench and the Court of Chancery may still be held in any county of England,—'wheresoever in England the King or the Chancellor may be.' Down to the commencement of the reign of Edward III., the King's Bench and the Chancery actually had continued to follow the King's person, the Chancellor and his officers being entitled to part of the purveyance made for the royal household. By 28 Edw. 1., c. 5, the Lord Chancellor and the Justices of the King's Bench were ordered to follow the King, so that he might have at all times near him sages of the law able to order all matters which should come to the Court. But the two Courts were now by the King's command fixed in the places where, unless on a few extraordinary occasions, they continued to be held down to our own times, at the upper end of Westminster Hall, the King's Bench on the left hand, and the Chancery on the right, both remaining open to the Hall, and a bar erected to keep off the multitude from pressing on the judges."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, page 181.

EQUITY: A. D. 1348. "Matters of Grace" committed to the Chancellor.

"In the 22nd year of Edward III, matters which were of grace were definitely committed to the Chancellor for decision, and from this point there begins to develop that body of rules—supplementing the deficiencies or correcting the harshness of the Common Law—which we call Equity."

Sir W. R. Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, part 2, page 147.

ALSO IN: Kerly's History of the Court of Chancery, page 31.

EQUITY: A. D. 1383. Early Instance of Subpoena.

"It is said that John Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury, who was Keeper of the Rolls about the 5th of Richard II., considerably enlarged this new jurisdiction; that, to give efficacy to it, he invented, or more properly, was the first who adopted in that court, the writ of subpoena, a process which had before been used by the council, and is very plainly alluded to in the statutes of the last reign, though not under that name. This writ summoned the party to appear under a penalty, and answer such things as should be objected against him; upon this a petition was lodged, containing the articles of complaint to which he was then compelled to answer. These articles used to contain suggestions of injuries suffered, for which no remedy was to be had in the courts of common law, and therefore the complainant prayed advice and relief of the chancellor."

J. Reeves, History English Law (Finlason's edition), volume 3, page 384.

EQUITY: A. D. 1394. Chancery with its own Mode of Procedure.

"From the time of passing the stat. 17 Richard II. we may consider that the Court of Chancery was established as a distinct and permanent court, having separate jurisdiction, with its own peculiar mode of procedure similar to that which had prevailed in the Council, though perhaps it was not wholly yet separated from the Council."

George Spence, Equity Jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, volume 1, page 345.

EQUITY: A. D. 1422. Chancery Cases appear in Year Books.

"It is beyond a doubt that this [chancery] court had begun to exercise its judicial authority in the reigns of Richard II., Henry IV. and V. … But we do not find in our books any report of cases there determined till 37 Henry VI., except only on the subject of uses; which, as has been before remarked, might give rise to the opinion, that the first equitable judicature was concerned in the support of uses."

J. Reeves, History English Law (Finlason's edition), volume 3, page 553.

EQUITY: A. D. 1443. No distinction between Examination and Answer.

The earliest record of written answers is in 21 Henry VI. Before that time little, if any, distinction was made between the examination and the answer.

Kerly, History of Courts of Chancery, page 51.

EQUITY: A. D. 1461-1483. Distinction between Proceeding by Bill and by Petition.

"A written statement of the grievance being required to be filed before the issuing of the subpoena, with security to pay damages and costs,—bills now acquired form, and the distinction arose between the proceeding by bill and by petition. The same regularity was observed in the subsequent stages of the suit. Whereas formerly the defendant was generally examined viva voce when he appeared in obedience to the subpoena, the practice now was to put in a written answer, commencing with a protestation against the truth or sufficiency of the matters contained in the bill, stating the facts relied upon by the defendant, and concluding with a prayer that he may be dismissed, with his costs. There were likewise, for the purpose of introducing new facts, special replications and rejoinders, which continued till the reign of Elizabeth, but which have been rendered unnecessary by the modern practice of amending the bill and answer. Pleas and demurrers now appear. Although the pleadings were in English, the decrees on the bill continued to be in Latin down to the reign of Henry VIII. Bills to perpetuate testimony, to set out metes and bounds, and for injunctions against proceedings at law, and to stay waste, became frequent."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, page 309.

{1990}

EQUITY: A. D. 1461-1483. Jurisdiction of Chancery over Trusts.

"The equitable jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery may be considered as making its greatest advances in this reign [Edw. IV.]. The point was now settled, that there being a feoffment to uses, the 'cestui que' use, or person beneficially entitled, could maintain no action at law, the Judges saying that he had neither 'jus in re' nor 'jus ad rem,' and that their forms could not be moulded so as to afford him any effectual relief, either as to the land or the profits. The Chancellors, therefore, with general applause, declared that they would proceed by subpoena against the feoffee to compel him to perform a duty which in conscience was binding upon him, and gradually extended the remedy against his heir and against his alienee with notice of the trust, although they held, as their successors have done, that the purchaser of the legal estate for valuable consideration without notice might retain the land for his own benefit. They therefore now freely made decrees requiring the trustee to convey according to the directions of the 'cestui que trust,' or person beneficially interested; and the most important branch of the equitable jurisdiction of the Court over trusts was firmly and irrevocably established."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, page 309.

EQUITY: A. D. 1538. Lord Keeper of the Great Seal.

"Between the death, resignation, or removal of one chancellor, and the appointment of another, the Great Seal, instead of remaining in the personal custody of the Sovereign, was sometimes entrusted to a temporal keeper, either with limited authority (as only to seal writs), or with all the powers, though not with the rank of Chancellor. At last the practice grew up of occasionally appointing a person to hold the Great Seal with the title of 'Keeper,' where it was meant that he should permanently hold it in his own right and discharge all the duties belonging to it. Queen Elizabeth, ever sparing in the conferring of dignities, having given the Great Seal with the title of 'Keeper' to Sir Nicholas Bacon, objections were made to the legality of some of his acts,—and to obviate these, a statute was passed declaring that 'the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for the time being shall have the same place, pre-eminence, and jurisdiction as the Lord Chancellor of England.' Since then there never have been a Chancellor and Keeper of the Great Seal concurrently, and the only difference between the two titles is, that the one is more sounding than the other, and is regarded as a higher mark of royal favor."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 1, page 40.

ALSO IN: Sir W. R. Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, volume 2, page 150.

EQUITY: A. D. 1558. Increase of Business in the Court of Chancery.

"The business of the Court of Chancery had now so much increased that to dispose of it satisfactorily required a Judge regularly trained to the profession of the law, and willing to devote to it all his energy and industry. The Statute of Wills, the Statute of Uses, the new modes of conveyancing introduced for avoiding transmutation of possession, the questions which arose respecting the property of the dissolved monasteries, and the great increase of commerce and wealth in the nation, brought such a number of important suits into the Court of Chancery, that the holder of the Great Seal could no longer satisfy the public by occasionally stealing a few hours from his political occupations, to dispose of bills and petitions, and not only was his daily attendance demanded in Westminster Hall during term time, but it was necessary that he should sit, for a portion of each vacation, either at his own house, or in some convenient place appointed by him for clearing off his arrears."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 2, page 95.

EQUITY: A. D. 1567-1632. Actions of Assumpsit in Equity.

"The late development of the implied contract to pay 'quantum meruit,' and to indemnify a surety, would be the more surprising, but for the fact that Equity gave relief to tailors and the like, and to sureties long before the common law held them. Spence, although at a loss to account for the jurisdiction, mentions a suit brought in Chancery, in 1567, by a tailor, to recover the amount due for clothes furnished. The suit was referred to the Queen's tailor, to ascertain the amount due, and upon his report a decree was made. The learned writer adds that 'there were suits for wages and many others of like nature.' A surety who had no counter-bond filed a bill against his principal in 1632, in a case which would seem to have been one of the earliest of the kind, for the reporter, after stating that there was a decree for the plaintiff, adds 'quod nota.'"

J. B. Ames, History of Assumpsit (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, pages 59-60).

EQUITY: A. D. 1592. All Chancellors, save one, Lawyers.

"No regular judicial system at that time prevailed in the court; but the suitor when he thought himself aggrieved, found a desultory and uncertain remedy, according to the private opinion of the chancellor, who was generally an ecclesiastic, or sometimes (though rarely) a statesman: no lawyer having sat in the court of chancery from the times of the chief justices Thorpe and Knyvet, successively chancellors to King Edward III. in 1372 and 1373, to the promotion of Sir Thomas More by King Henry VIII., in 1530. After which the great seal was indiscriminately committed to the custody of lawyers or courtiers, or churchmen, according as the convenience of the times and the disposition of the prince required, till Sargeant Puckering was made lord keeper in 1592; from which time to the present the court of chancery has always been filled by a lawyer, excepting the interval from 1621 to 1625, when the seal was entrusted to Dr. Williams, then dean of Westminster, but afterwards bishop of Lincoln; who had been chaplain to Lord Ellesmere when chancellor."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, chapter 4.

EQUITY: A. D. 1595. Injunctions against Suits at Law. Opposition of common law courts.

"The strongest inclination was shown to maintain this opposition to the court of equity, not only by the courts, but by the legislature. The stat. 27 Elizabeth, c, l., which, in very general words, restrains all application to other jurisdictions to impeach or impede the execution of judgments given in the king's courts, under penalty of a praemunire, has been interpreted, as well as stat. Richard II., c. 5, not only as imposing a restraint upon popish claims of judicature, but also of the equitable jurisdiction in Chancery; and in the thirty-first and thirty-second years of this reign, a counsellor-at-law was indicted in the King's Bench on the statute of praemunire, for exhibiting a bill in Chancery after judgment had gone against his client in the King's Bench. Under this and the like control, the Court of Chancery still continued to extend its authority, supported, in some degree, by the momentum it acquired in the time of Cardinal Wolsey."

J. Reeves, History English Law (Finlason's edition.), volume 5, pages 386-387.

{1991}

EQUITY: A. D. 1596. Lord Ellesmere and his Decisions.

Kerly says the earliest chancellors' decisions that have come down to us are those of Lord Ellesmere. He was the first chancellor to establish equity upon the basis of precedents. But compare Reeves (Finlason's), History English Law, volume 3, page 553, who mentions decisions in the Year Books.

Kerly, History of the Court of Chancery, page 98.

EQUITY: A. D. 1601. Cy Pres Doctrine.

"There is no trace of the doctrine being put into practice in England before the Reformation, although in the earliest reported cases where it has been applied it is treated as a well recognized rule, and as one owing its origin to the traditional favour with which charities had always been regarded. Much of the obscurity which covers the introduction of the doctrine into our Law may perhaps be explained by the fact that, in the earliest times, purely charitable gifts, as they would now be understood, were almost unknown. The piety of donors was most generally displayed in gifts to religious houses, and the application of the subject matter of such gifts was exclusively in the Superiors of the different Orders, and entirely exempt from secular control. From the religious houses the administration of charitable gifts passed to the Chancellor, as keeper of the King's conscience, the latter having as 'parens patriae' the general superintendence of all infants, idiots, lunatics and charities. And it was not until some time later that this jurisdiction became gradually merged, and then only in cases where trusts were interposed, in the general jurisdiction of the Chancery Courts. It is not necessary to go into the long vexed question as to when that actually took place. It is enough to say that it is now pretty conclusively established that the jurisdiction of the Chancery Courts over charitable trusts existed anterior to, and independently of, the Statute of Charitable Uses, 43 Eliz., c. 4. As charitable gifts generally involved the existence of a trust reposed in some one, it was natural that the Chancery Court, which assumed jurisdiction over trusts, should have gradually extended that jurisdiction over charities generally; but the origin of the power, that it was one delegated by the Crown to the Chancellor, must not be lost sight of, as in this way, probably, can be best explained the curious distinct jurisdictions vested in the Crown and the Chancery Courts respectively to apply gifts Cy pres, the limits of which, though long uncertain, were finally determined by Lord Eldon in the celebrated case of Moggridge v. Thackwell, 7 ves. 69. If we remember that the original jurisdiction in all charitable matters was in the Crown, and that even after the Chancery Courts acquired a jurisdiction over trusts, there was still a class of cases untouched by such jurisdiction, we shall better understand how the prerogative of the Crown still remained in a certain class of cases, as we shall see hereafter. However this may be, there is no doubt that when the Chancery Courts obtained the jurisdiction over the charities, which they have never lost, the liberal principles of the Civil or Canon Law as to the carrying out of such gifts were the sources and inspirations of their decisions. And hence the Cy pres doctrine became gradually well recognised, though the mode of its application has varied from time to time. Perhaps the most striking instances of this liberal construction are to be found in the series of cases which, by a very strained interpretation of the Statute of Elizabeth with regard to charitable uses, decided that gifts to such uses in favour of corporations, which could not take by devise under the old Wills Act, 32 Hen. VIII., c. 1, were good as operating in the nature of an appointment of the trust in equity, and that the intendment of the statute being in favour of charitable gifts, all deficiencies of assurance were to be supplied by the Courts. Although, historically, there may be no connection between the power of the King over the administration of charities, and the dispensing power reserved to him by the earlier Mortmain Acts, the one being, as we have seen, a right of Prerogative, the other a Feudal right in his capacity as ultimate Lord of the fee, it is perhaps not wholly out of place to allude shortly to the latter, particularly as the two appear not to have been kept distinct in later times. By the earlier Mortmain Acts, the dispensing power of the King, as Lord Paramount, to waive forfeitures under these Acts was recognised, and gifts of land to religious or charitable corporations were made not 'ipso facto' void, but only voidable at the instance of the immediate Lord, or, on his default, of the King and after the statute 'quia emptores,' which practically abolished mesne seignories, the Royal license became in most cases sufficient to secure the validity of the gift. The power of suspending statutes being declared illegal at the Revolution, it was deemed prudent, seeing that the grant of licenses in Mortmain imported an exercise of such suspending power, to give these licenses a Parliamentary sanction; and accordingly, by 7 and 8 William III., c. 37, it was declared that the King might grant licenses to aliens in Mortmain, and also to purchase, acquire, and hold lands in Mortmain in perpetuity without pain of forfeiture. The right of the mesne lord was thus passed over, and the dispensing power of the Crown, from being originally a Feudal right, became converted practically into one of Prerogative. The celebrated Statute of 1 Edward VI., c. 14, against superstitious uses, which is perhaps the earliest statutory recognition of the Cy pres doctrine, points also strongly to the original jurisdiction in these matters being in the King." The author proceeds to trace at some length the subsequent developments of the doctrine both judicial and statutory. The doctrine is not generally recognised in the United States.

H. L. Manby in Law Magazine & Review, 4th ser., volume 15 (London, 1889-90), page 203.

EQUITY: A. D. 1603-1625. Equity and the Construction of Wills.

"After a violent struggle between Lord Coke and Lord Ellesmere, the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery to stay by injunction execution on judgments at law was finally established. In this reign [James I.] the Court made another attempt,—which was speedily abandoned,—to determine upon the validity of wills,—and it has been long settled that the validity of wills of real property shall be referred to courts of law, and the validity of wills of personal property to the Ecclesiastical Courts,—equity only putting a construction upon them when their validity has been established."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 2, page 386.

EQUITY: A. D. 1612. Right of Redemption.

The right to redeem after the day dates from the reign of James I. From the time of Edward IV. (1461-83) a mortgagor could redeem after the day if accident, or a collateral agreement, or fraud by mortgagee, prevented payment.

Kerly, History of the Court of Chancery, page 143.

{1992}

EQUITY: A. D. 1616. Contest between Equity and Common-Law Courts.

"In the time of Lord Ellesmere (A. D. 1616) arose that notable dispute between the courts of law and equity, set on foot by Sir Edward Coke, then chief justice of the court of king's bench; whether a court of equity could give relief after or against a judgment at the common law? This contest was so warmly carried on, that indictments were preferred against the suitors, the solicitors, the counsel, and even a master in chancery, for having incurred a 'praemunire,' by questioning in a court of equity a judgment in the court of king's bench, obtained by a gross fraud and imposition. This matter being brought before the king, was by him referred to his learned counsel for their advice and opinion; who reported so strongly in favor of the courts of equity, that his majesty gave judgment in their behalf."

W. Blackstone, Commentaries, book 3, page 54.

EQUITY: A. D. 1616. Relief against judgments at law.

"This was in 1616, the year of the memorable contest between Lord Coke and Lord Ellesmere as to the power of equity to restrain the execution of common-law judgment obtained by fraud. … The right of equity to enforce specific performance, where damages at law would be an inadequate remedy, has never since been questioned."

J. B. Ames, Specific Performance of Contracts (The Green Bag, volume 1, page 27).

EQUITY: A. D. 1671. The Doctrine of Tacking established.

"It is the established doctrine in the English law, that if there be three mortgages in succession, and all duly registered, or a mortgage, and then a judgment, and then a second mortgage upon the estate, the junior mortgagee may purchase in the first mortgage, and tack it to his mortgage, and by that contrivance 'squeeze out' the middle mortgage, and gain preference over it. The same rule would apply if the first, as well as the second incumbrance, was a judgment; but the incumbrancer who tacks must always be a mortgagee, for he stands in the light of a bona fide purchaser, parting with his money upon the security of the mortgage. … In the English law, the rule is under some reasonable qualification. The last mortgagee cannot tack, if, when he took his mortgage, he had notice in fact … of the intervening incumbrance. … The English doctrine of tacking was first solemnly established in Marsh v. Lee [2 Vent. 337], under the assistance of Sir Matthew Hale, who compared the operation to a plank in shipwreck gained by the last mortgagee; and the subject was afterwards very fully and accurately expounded by the Master of the Rolls, in Brace v. Duchess of Marlborough [2 P. Wms. 491]."

J. Kent, Commentaries, part 6, lecture 58.

EQUITY: A. D. 1702-1714. Equitable conversion.

"He [Lord Harcourt] first established the important doctrine, that if money is directed either by deed or will to be laid out in land, the money shall be taken to be land, even as to collateral heirs."

Lord Campbell, Lives of the Chancellors, volume 4, page 374.

EQUITY: A. D. 1736-1756. Lord Hardwicke developed System of Precedents.

It was under Lord Hardwicke that the jurisdiction of Equity was fully developed. During the twenty years of his chancellorship the great branches of equitable jurisdiction were laid out, and his decisions were regularly cited as authority until after Lord Eldon's time.

Kerly, History of the Court of Chancery, pages 175-177.

EQUITY: A. D. 1742. Control of Corporations.

"That the directors of a corporation shall manage its affairs honestly and carefully is primarily a right of the corporation itself rather than of the individual stockholders. … The only authority before the present century is the case of the Charitable Corporation v. Sutton, decided by Lord Hardwicke [2 Atk. 400]. But this case is the basis … of all subsequent decisions on the point, and it is still quoted as containing an accurate exposition of the law. The corporation was charitable only in name, being a joint-stock corporation for lending money on pledges. By the fraud of some of the directors … , and by the negligence of the rest, loans were made without proper security. The bill was against the directors and other officers, 'to have a satisfaction for a breach of trust, fraud, and mismanagement.' Lord Hardwicke granted the relief prayed, and a part of his decision is well worth quoting. He says: 'Committee-men are most properly agents to those who employ them in this trust, and who empower them to direct and superintend the affairs of the corporation. In this respect they may be guilty of acts of commission or omission, of malfeasance or nonfeasance. … Nor will I ever determine that a court of equity cannot lay hold of every breach of trust, let the person be guilty of it either in a private or public capacity.'"

S. Williston, History of the Law of Business (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, page 158-159).

EQUITY: A. D. 1782. Demurrer to Bill of Discovery.

"Originally, it appears not to have been contemplated that a demurrer or plea would lie to a bill for discovery, unless it were a demurrer or plea to the nature of the discovery sought or to the jurisdiction of the court, e. g., a plea of purchase for value; and, though it was a result of this doctrine that plaintiffs might compel discovery to which they were not entitled, it seems to have been supposed that they were not likely to do so to any injurious effect, since they must do it at their own expense. But this view was afterwards abandoned, and in 1782 it was decided that, if a bill of discovery in aid of an action at law stated no good cause of action against the defendant, it might be demurred to on that ground, i. e., that it showed on its face no right to relief at law, and, therefore, no right to discovery in equity. Three years later in Hindman v. Taylor, the question was raised whether a defendant could protect himself for answering a bill for discovery by setting up an affirmative defence by plea; and, though Lord Thurlow decided the question in the negative, his decision has since been overruled; and it is now fully settled that any defence may be set up to a bill for discovery by demurrer or plea, the same as to a bill for relief; and, if successful, it will protect the defendant from answering."

C. C. Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, pages 204-205.

{1993}

EQUITY: A. D. 1786. Injunction after Decree to pay Proceeds of Estate into Court.

"As soon as a decree is made … , under which the executor will be required to pay the proceeds of the whole estate into court, an injunction ought to be granted against the enforcement of any claim against the estate by an action at law; and accordingly such has been the established rule for more than a hundred years. … The first injunction that was granted expressly upon the ground above explained was that granted by Lord Thurlow, in 1782, in the case of Brooks v. Reynolds. … In the subsequent case of Kenyon v. Worthington, … an application to Lord Thurlow for an injunction was resisted by counsel of the greatest eminence. The resistance, however, was unsuccessful, and the injunction was granted. This was in 1786; and from that time the question was regarded as settled."

C. C. Langdell, Equity Jurisdiction (Harvard Law Review, volume 5, pages 122-123).

EQUITY: A. D. 1792. Negative Pleas.

"In Gun v. Prior, Forrest, 88, note, 1 Cox, 197, 2 Dickens, 657, Cas. in Eq. Pl. 47, a negative plea was overruled by Lord Thurlow after a full argument. This was in 1785. Two years later, the question came before the same judge again, and, after another full argument, was decided the same way. Newman v. Wallis, 2 Bro. C. C. 143, Cas. in Eq. Pl. 52. But in 1792, in the case of Hall v. Noyes, 3 Bro. C. C. 483, 489, Cas. in Eq. Pl. 223, 227, Lord Thurlow took occasion to say that he had changed his opinion upon the subject of negative pleas, and that his former decisions were wrong; and since then the right to plead a negative plea has not been questioned."

C. C. Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, p. 114, note.

EQUITY: A. D. 1801-1827. Lord Eldon settled Rules of Equity.

"'The doctrine of this Court,' he [Lord Eldon] said himself, 'ought to be as well settled and as uniform, almost, as those of the common law, laying down fixed principles, but taking care that they are to be applied according to the circumstances of each case. I cannot agree that the doctrines of this Court are to be changed by every succeeding judge. Nothing would inflict on me greater pain than the recollection that I had done any thing to justify the reproach that the Equity of this Court varies like the Chancellor's foot.' Certainly the reproach he dreaded cannot justly be inflicted upon his memory. … From his time onward the development of equity was effected ostensibly, and, in the great majority of cases, actually, by strict deduction from the principles to be discovered in decided cases, and the work of subsequent Chancery judges has been, for the most part, confined, as Lord Eldon's was, to tracing out these principles into detail, and to rationalising them by repeated review and definition."

D. M. Kerly, History Court Chancery, page 182.

EQUITY: A. D. 1812. Judge Story.

"We are next to regard Story during his thirty-five years of judicial service. He performed an amount of judicial labor almost without parallel, either in quality or quantity, in the history of jurisprudence. His judgments in the Circuit Court comprehended thirteen volumes. His opinions in the Supreme Court are found in thirty-five volumes. Most of these decisions are on matters of grave difficulty, and many of them of first impression. Story absolutely created a vast amount of law for our country. Indeed, he was essentially a builder. When he came to the bench, the law of admiralty was quite vague and unformed; his genius formed it as exclusively as Stowell's did in England. He also did much toward building up the equity system which has become part of our jurisprudence. In questions of international and constitutional law, the breadth and variety of his legal learning enabled him to shine with peculiar brilliancy. It is sufficient to say that there is scarcely any branch of the law which he has not greatly illustrated and enlarged,—prize, constitutional, admiralty, patent, copyright, insurance, real estate, commercial law so called, and equity,—all were gracefully familiar to him. The most celebrated of his judgments are De Lovio v. Boit, in which be investigates the jurisdiction of the Admiralty; Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, which examines the appellate jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court; Dartmouth College v. Woodward, in which the question was, whether the charter of a college was a contract within the meaning of the constitutional provision prohibiting the enactment, by any State, of laws impairing the obligations of contracts; his dissenting opinion in Charles River Bridge Company v. The Warren Bridge; involving substantially the same question as the last case; and the opinion in the Girard will case. These are the most celebrated, but are scarcely superior to scores of his opinions in cases never heard of beyond the legal profession. His biographer is perhaps warranted in saying of his father's judicial opinions: 'For closeness of texture and compact logic, they are equal to the best judgments of Marshall; for luminousness and method, they stand beside those of Mansfield; in elegance of style, they yield the palm only to the prize cases of Lord Stowell, but in fullness of illustration and wealth and variety of learning, they stand alone."

Irving Browne, Short Studies of Great Lawyers, pages 293-295.

EQUITY: A. D. 1814-1823. Chancellor Kent.

"In February, 1814, he was appointed chancellor. The powers and jurisdiction of the court of chancery were not clearly defined. There were scarcely any precedents of its decisions, to which reference could be made in case of doubt. Without any other guide, he felt at liberty to exercise such powers of the English chancery as he deemed applicable under the Constitution and laws of the State, subject to the correction of the Court of Errors, on appeal. … On the 31st of July, 1823, having attained the age of sixty years, the period limited by the Constitution for the tenure of his office, he retired from the court, after hearing and deciding every case that had been brought before him. On this occasion the members of the bar residing in the City of New York, presented him an address. After speaking of the inestimable benefits conferred on the community by his judicial labors for five and twenty years they say: 'During this long course of services, so useful and honorable, and which will form the most brilliant period in our judicial history, you have, by a series of decisions in law and equity, distinguished alike for practical wisdom, profound learning, deep research and accurate discrimination, contributed to establish the fabric of our jurisprudence on those sound principles that have been sanctioned by the experience of mankind, and expounded by the enlightened and venerable sages of the law. Though others may hereafter enlarge and adorn the edifice whose deep and solid foundations were laid by the wise and patriotic framers of our government, in that common law which they claimed for the people as their noblest inheritance, your labors on this magnificent structure will forever remain eminently conspicuous, command the applause of the present generation, and exciting the admiration and gratitude of future ages.'"

Charles B. Waite, James Kent (Chicago Law Times, volume 3, pages 339-341).

{1994}

EQUITY: A. D. 1821. Negative Pleas to be supported by an Answer.

"The principle of negative pleas was first established by the introduction of anomalous pleas; but it was not perceived at first that anomalous pleas involved the admission of pure negative pleas. It would often happen, however, that a defendant would have no affirmative defence to a bill, and yet the bill could not be supported because of the falsity of some material allegation contained in it; and, if the defendant could deny this false allegation by a negative plea, he would thereby avoid giving discovery as to all other parts of the bill. At length, therefore, the experiment of setting up such a plea was tried; and, though unsuccessful at first, it prevailed in the end, and negative pleas became fully established. If they had been well understood, they might have proved a moderate success, although they were wholly foreign to the system into which they were incorporated; but, as it was, their introduction was attended with infinite mischief and trouble, and they did much to bring the system into disrepute. For example, it was not clearly understood for a long time that a pure negative plea required the support of an answer; and there was no direct decision to that effect until the case of Sanders v. King, 6 Madd. 61, Cas. in Eq. Pl. 74, decided in 1821."

C. C. Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, pages 113-114.

EQUITY: A. D. 1834. First Statute of Limitations in Equity.

"None of the English statutes of limitation, prior to 3 & 4 Wm. IV., c. 27, had any application to suits in equity. Indeed, they contained no general terms embracing all actions at law, but named specifically all actions to which they applied; and they made no mention whatever of suits in equity. If a plaintiff sued in equity, when he might have brought an action at law, and the time for bringing the action was limited by statute, the statute might in a certain sense be pleaded to the suit in equity; for the defendant might say that, if the plaintiff had sued at law, his action would have been barred; that the declared policy of the law therefore, was against the plaintiff's recovering; and hence the cause was not one of which a court of equity ought to take cognizance. In strictness, however, the plea in such a case would be to the jurisdiction of the court."

C. C. Langdell, Summary of Equity Pleading, pages 149-150.

EQUITY: A. D. 1836. Personal Character of Shares of Stock first established in England.

"The most accurate definition of the nature of the property acquired by the purchase of a share of stock in a corporation is that it is a fraction of all the rights and duties of the stockholders composing the corporation. Such does not seem to have been the clearly recognized view till after the beginning of the present century. The old idea was rather that the corporation held all its property strictly as a trustee, and that the shareholders were, strictly speaking, 'cestuis que trust,' being in equity co-owners of the corporate property. … It was not until the decision of Bligh v. Brent [Y. & C. 268], in 1836, that the modern view was established in England."

S. Williston, History of the Law of Business Corporations before 1800 (Harvard Law Review, volume 2, pages 149-151).

EQUITY: A. D. 1875. Patents, Copyrights and Trade-Marks.

"In modern times the inventor of a new process obtains from the State, by way of recompense for the benefit he has conferred upon society, and in order to encourage others to follow his example, not only an exclusive privilege of using the new process for a fixed term of years, but also the right of letting or selling his privilege to another. Such an indulgence is called a patent-right, and a very similar favour, known as copy-right, is granted to the authors of books, and to painters, engravers, and sculptors, in the productions of their genius. It has been a somewhat vexed question whether a 'trade-mark' is to be added to the list of intangible objects of ownership. It was at any rate so treated in a series of judgments by Lord Westbury, which, it seems, are still good law. He says, for instance, 'Imposition on the public is indeed necessary for the plaintiff's title, but in this way only, that it is the test of the invasion by the defendant of the plaintiff's right of property.' [Citing 33 L. J. Ch. 204; cf. 35 Ch. D. Oakley v. Dalton.] It was also so described in the 'Trade Marks Registration Act,' 1875 [sections 3, 4, 5], as it was in the French law of 1857 relating to 'Marques de fabrique et de commerce.' The extension of the idea of ownership to these three rights is of comparatively recent date. Patent-right in England is older than the Statute of Monopolies, 21 Jac. I. C. 3, and copy-right is obscurely traceable previously to the Act of 8 Anne, C. 19, but trade-marks were first protected in the present century."

T. E. Holland, Elements of Jurisprudence, 5th edition, page 183.

ALSO IN: E. S. Drone, Treatise on the Law of Property in Intellectual Productions.

----------EQUITY: End--------

Topics of law treated under other heads are indicated by the following references:

Agrarian Laws.

See AGRARIAN.

Assize of Jerusalem.

See ASSIZE.

Brehon Laws.

See BREHON.

Canuleian Laws.

See ROME: B. C. 445.

Code Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1804.

Common Law.

See COMMON LAW.

Constitutional Laws.

See CONSTITUTION.

Debt and Debtors.

See DEBT.

Dioklesian Laws.

See DIOKLES.

Dooms of Ihne.

See DOOMS.

Draconian Laws.

See ATHENS: B. C. 624.

Factory Laws.

See FACTORY.

Hortensian Laws.

See ROME: B. C. 286.

Institutes and Pandects of Justinian.

See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.

Licinian Laws.

See ROME: B. C. 376.

Lycurgan Laws.

See SPARTA.

Laws of Manu.

See MANU.

Navigation Laws.

See NAVIGATION LAWS.

Ogulnian Law.

See ROME: B. C. 300.

Laws of Oleron.

See OLERON.

Poor Laws.

See POOR LAWS.

Publilian Laws.

See ROME: B. C. 472-471, and 340.

Salic Laws.

See SALIC.

Slave Codes.

See SLAVERY.

Solonian Laws.

See ATHENS: B. C. 594.

Tariff Legislation.

See TARIFF.

Terentilian Law.

See ROME: B. C. 451-449.

The Twelve Tables.

See ROME: B. C. 451-449.

Valerian Law.

See ROME: B. C. 509.

Valero-Horatian Law.

See ROME: B. C. 449.

{1995}

LAWFELD, Battle of (1747).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1747.

LAWRENCE, Captain James: In the War of 1812.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

LAWRENCE, Lord, the Indian Administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849; 1857 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER); and 1862-1876.

LAWRENCE, Kansas: A. D. 1863. Sacking of the town by Quantrell's guerrillas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST: MISSOURI-KANSAS).

LAYBACH, Congress of.

See VERONA, CONGRESS OF.

LAZARISTS, The.

"The Priests of the Missions, or the Lazarists ['sometimes called the Vincentian Congregation'], … have not unfrequently done very essential service to Christianity." Their Society was founded in 1624 by St. Vincent de Paul, "at the so-called Priory of St. Lazarus in Paris, whence the name Lazarists. … Besides their mission-labours, they took complete charge, in many instances, of ecclesiastical seminaries, which, in obedience to the instruction of the Council of Trent, had been established in the various dioceses, and even at this day many of these institutions are under their direction. In the year 1642 these devoted priests were to be seen in Italy, and not long after were sent to Algiers, to Tunis, to Madagascar, and to Poland."

J. Alzog Manual of Universal Church History, volume 3, pages 463-465.

ALSO IN: H. L. S. Lear, Priestly Life in France, chapter 5.

LAZICA. LAZIC WAR.

"Lazica, the ancient Colchis and the modern Mingrelia and Imeritia, bordered upon the Black Sea." From A. D. 522 to 541 the little kingdom was a dependency of Rome, its king, having accepted Christianity, acknowledging himself a vassal of the Roman or Byzantine emperor. But the Romans provoked a revolt by their encroachments. "They seized and fortified a strong post, called Petra, upon the coast, appointed a commandant who claimed an authority as great as that of the Lazic king, and established a commercial monopoly which pressed with great severity upon the poorer classes of the Lazi." The Persians were accordingly invited in to drive the Romans out, and did so, reducing Lazica, for the time being, to the state of a Persian province. But, in their turn, the Persians became obnoxious, and the Lazi, making their peace with Rome, were taken by the Emperor Justinian under his protection. "The Lazic war, which commenced in consequence of this act of Justinian's, continued almost without intermission for nine years—from A. D. 549 to 557. Its details are related at great length by Procopius and Agathias, who view the struggle as one which vitally concerned the interests of their country. According to them, Chosroës [the Persian king] was bent upon holding Lazica in order to construct at the mouth of the Phasis a great naval station and arsenal, from which his fleets might issue to command the commerce or ravage the shores of the Black Sea." The Persians in the end withdrew from Lazica, but the Romans, by treaty, paid them an annual tribute for their possession of the country.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Monarchy, chapter 20.

ALSO IN: J. Bury, Later Roman Empire, book 4, chapter 9 (volume 1).

See, also, PERSIA: A. D. 226-627.

LAZZI, The.

See LÆTI.

LEAGUE, The Achaian.

See GREECE: B.C. 280-146.

LEAGUE, The Anti-Corn-Law.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1836-1839; and 1845-1846.

LEAGUE, The Borromean or Golden.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1579-1630.

LEAGUE, The Catholic, in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1576-1585, and after.

LEAGUE, The first Catholic, in Germany.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1530-1531.

LEAGUE, The second Catholic, in Germany.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1608-1618.

LEAGUE, The Cobblers'.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1524-1525.

LEAGUE, The Delian.

See GREECE: B. C. 478-477.

LEAGUE, The Hanseatic.

See HANSA TOWNS.

LEAGUE, The Holy, of the Catholic party in the Religious Wars of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1576-1585, to 1593-1598.

LEAGUE, The Holy, of German Catholic princes.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1533-1546.

LEAGUE, The Holy, of Pope Clement VII. against Charles V.

See ITALY: A. D. 1523-1527.

LEAGUE, The Holy, of Pope Innocent XI., the Emperor, Venice, Poland and Russia against the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

LEAGUE, The Holy, of Pope Julius II. against Louis XII. of France.

See ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513.

LEAGUE, The Holy, of Spain, Venice and the Pope against the Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571.

LEAGUE, The Irish Land.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1873-1879; and 1881-1882.

LEAGUE, The Swabian.

See LANDFRIEDE, &c.

LEAGUE, The Union.

See UNION LEAGUE.

LEAGUE AND COVENANT, The solemn.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

LEAGUE OF AUGSBURG.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1686.

LEAGUE OF CAMBRAI.

See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.

LEAGUE OF LOMBARDY.

See ITALY: A. D. 1166-1167.

LEAGUE OF POOR CONRAD, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1524-1525.

LEAGUE OF RATISBON.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1522-1525.

LEAGUE OF SMALKALDE, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532.

LEAGUE OF THE GUEUX.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1562-1566.

LEAGUE OF THE PRINCES.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1485-1487.

LEAGUE OF THE PUBLIC WEAL.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1461-1468; also, 1453-1461.

LEAGUE OF THE RHINE.

See RHINE LEAGUE.

LEAGUE OF TORGAU.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1525-1529.

LEAGUES, The Grey.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1396-1499.

LE BOURGET, Sortie of (1870).

See FRANCE: A. D.1870-1871.

LECHFELD, OR BATTLE ON THE LECH (A. D. 955).

See HUNGARIANS: A. D. 935-955.

{1996}

LECHFELD, OR BATTLE ON THE LECH (1632.)

See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.

LECOMPTON CONSTITUTION, The.

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

LEE, General Charles, and the War of the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (MAY-AUGUST); 1776 (JUNE), (AUGUST); and 1778 (JUNE).

LEE, General Henry ("Light Horse Harry"), and the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: 1780-1781.

LEE, Richard Henry, And the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JANUARY-JUNE), (JULY).

LEE, Richard Henry, Opposition to the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.

LEE, General Robert E. Campaign in West Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (AUGUST-DECEMBER: WEST VIRGINIA).

LEE, General Robert E., Command on the Peninsula.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE: VIRGINIA), and (JULY-AUGUST: VIRGINIA).

LEE, General Robert E. Campaign against Pope.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-AUGUST: VIRGINIA); (AUGUST: VIRGINIA); and (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: VIRGINIA).

LEE, General Robert E. First invasion of Maryland.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER: MARYLAND).

LEE, General Robert E. Defeat of Hooker.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-MAY: VIRGINIA).

LEE, General Robert E. The second movement of invasion. Gettysburg and after.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE: VIRGINIA), and (JUNE-JULY: PENNSYLVANIA); also (JULY-NOVEMBER: VIRGINIA).

LEE, General Robert E. Last Campaigns.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: VIRGINIA), to 1865 (APRIL: VIRGINIA).

LEEDS, Battle at (1643).

Leeds, occupied by the Royalists, under Sir William Savile, was taken by Sir Thomas Fairfax, after hard fighting, on the 23d of January, 1643.

C. R. Markham, Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, chapter 9.

LEESBURG, OR BALL'S BLUFF, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (OCTOBER: VIRGINIA).

LEEWARD ISLANDS, The.

See WEST INDIES.

LEFÈVRE, Jacques, and the Reformation in France.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535.

LEFT, The. Left Center, The.

See RIGHT, &c.

LEGATE.

This was the title given to the lieutenant-general or associate chosen by a Roman commander or provincial governor to be his second-in-authority.

W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 12.

LEGES JULIÆ, LEGES SEMPRONIÆ, &c.

See JULIAN LAWS; SEMPRONIAN LAWS, &c.

LEGION, The Roman.

"The original order of a Roman army was, as it seems, similar to the phalanx: but the long unbroken line had been divided into smaller detachments since, and perhaps by Camillus. The long wars in the Samnite mountains naturally caused the Romans to retain and to perfect this organisation, which made their army more movable and pliable, without preventing the separate bodies quickly combining and forming in one line. The legion now [at the time of the war with Pyrrhus, B. C. 280] consisted of thirty companies (called 'manipuli') of the average strength of a hundred men, which were arranged in three lines of ten manipuli each, like the black squares on a chessboard. The manipuli of the first line consisted of the youngest troops, called 'hastati'; those of the second line, called 'principes,' were men in the full vigour of life; those of the third, the 'triarii,' formed a reserve of older soldiers, and were numerically only half as strong as the other two lines. The tactic order of the manipuli enabled the general to move the 'principes' forward into the intervals of the 'hastati,' or to withdraw the 'hastati' back into the intervals of the 'principes,' the 'triarii' being kept as a reserve. … The light troops were armed with javelins, and retired behind the solid mass of the manipuli as soon as they had discharged their weapons in front of the line, at the beginning of the combat."

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 3, chapter 16 (volume 1).

"The legions, as they are described by Polybius, in the time of the Punic wars, differed very materially from those which achieved the victories of Cæsar, or defended the monarchy of Hadrian and the Antonines. The constitution of the Imperial legion may be described in a few words. The heavy-armed infantry, which composed its principal strength, was divided into ten cohorts, and fifty-five companies, under the orders of a correspondent number of tribunes and centurions. The first cohort, which always claimed the post of honour and the custody of the eagle, was formed of 1,105 soldiers, the most approved for valour and fidelity. The remaining nine cohorts consisted each of 555; and the whole body of legionary infantry amounted to 6,100 men. … The legion was usually drawn up eight deep, and the regular distance of three feet was left between the files as well as ranks. … The cavalry, without which the force of the legion would have remained imperfect, was divided into ten troops or squadrons; the first, as the companion of the first cohort, consisted of 132 men; whilst each of the other nine amounted only to 66."

E. Gibbon Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 12.

LEGION OF HONOR, Institution of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803.

LEGITIMISTS AND ORLEANISTS.

The partisans of Bourbon monarchy in France became divided into two factions by the revolution of 1830, which deposed Charles X. and raised Louis Philippe to the throne. Charles X., brother of Louis XVI. and Louis XVIII., was in the direct line of royal descent, from Louis XIV. Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, who displaced him, belonged to a younger branch of the Bourbon family, descending from the brother of Louis XIV., Philippe, Duke of Orleans, father of the Regent Orleans. Louis Philippe, in his turn, was expelled from the throne in 1848, and the crown, after that event, became an object of claim in both families. The claim supported by the Legitimists was extinguished in 1883 by the death of the childless Comte de Chambord, grandson of Charles X. The Orleanist claim is still maintained (1894) by the Comte de Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe.

LEGNANO, Battle of (1176).

See ITALY: A. D. 1174-1183.

LEICESTER, The Earl of, in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586; and 1587-1588.

LEINSTER TRIBUTE, The.

See BOARIAN TRIBUTE.

{1997}

----------LEIPSIC: Start----------

LEIPSIC: A. D. 1631. Battle of Breitenfeld, before the city.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1631.

LEIPSIC: A. D. 1642. Second Battle of Breitenfeld. Surrender of the city to the Swedes.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.

LEIPSIC: A. D. 1813. Occupied by the Prussians and Russians. Regained by the French. The great "Battle of the Nations."

See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813; 1813 (APRIL-MAY), (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER), and (OCTOBER).

----------LEIPSIC: End----------

LEIPSIC, University of.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

LEISLER'S REVOLUTION.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1689-1691.

LEITH, The Concordat of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1572.

LEKHS, The.

See LYGIANS.

LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1884-1891.

LELANTIAN FIELDS. LELANTIAN FEUD.

See CHALCIS AND ERETRIA; and EUBŒA.

LELEGES, The.

"The Greeks beyond the sea [Ionian Greeks of Asia Minor] were however not merely designated in groups, according to the countries out of which they came, but certain collective names existed for them—such as that of Javan in the East. … Among all these names the most widely spread was that of the Leleges, which the ancients themselves designated as that of a mixed people. In Lycia, in Miletus, and in the Troad these Leleges had their home; in other words, on the whole extent of coast in which we have recognized the primitive seats of the people of Ionic Greeks."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 2.

See, also, DORIANS AND IONIANS.

LELIAERDS.

In the mediæval annals of the Flemish people, the partisans of the French are called "Leliaerds," from "lelie," the Flemish for lily.

J. Hutton, James and Philip van Arteveld, page 32, foot-note.

LE MANS: Defeat of the Vendéans.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER).

LE MANS, Battle of (1871).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.

LEMNOS.

One of the larger islands in the northern part of the Ægean Sea, lying opposite the Trojan coast. It was anciently associated with Samothrace and Imbros in the mysterious worship of the Cabeiri.

LEMOVICES, The.

The Lemovices were a tribe of Gauls who occupied, in Cæsar's time, the territory afterwards known as the Limousin —department of Upper Vienne and parts adjoining.

Napoleon III., History of Cæsar, book 3, chapter 2, foot-note.

The city of Limoges derived its existence and its name from the Lemovices.

LEMOVII, The.

A tribe in ancient Germany whose territory, on the Baltic coast, probably in the neighborhood of Danzig, bordered on that of the Gothones.

Church and Brodribb, Geographical Notes to the Germany of Tacitus.

LENAPE, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: DELAWARES.

LENS, Siege and battle (1647-1648).

See NETHERLANDS (SPANISH PROVINCES): A. D. 1647-1648.

LENTIENSES, The.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 213.

LEO I., Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 457-474.

Leo II., Pope, 682-683.

Leo II., Roman Emperor (Eastern), 474.

Leo III., Pope, 795-816.

Leo III. (called The Isaurian), Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek),717-741.

Leo IV., Pope, 847-855.

Leo IV., Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), 775-780.

Leo V., Pope, 903, October to December.

Leo V., Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), 813-820.

Leo VI., Pope, 928-929.

Leo VI., Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), 886-911.

Leo VII., Pope, 936-939.

Leo VIII., Anti-pope, 963-965.

Leo IX., Pope, 1049-1054.

Leo X., Pope, 1513-1521.

Leo XI., Pope, 1605, April 2-27.

Leo XII., Pope, 1823-1829.

Leo XIII., Pope, 1878.

LEOBEN, Preliminary treaty of (1797).

See FRANCE: A.D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

LEODIS (WEREGILD).

See GRAF.

LEON, Ponce de, and his quest.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1512.

----------LEON: Start--------

LEON, Origin of the name of the city and kingdom.

"This name Legio or Leon, so long borne by a province and by its chief city in Spain, is derived from the old Roman 'Regnum Legionis' (Kingdom of the Legion)."

H. Coppée, Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, book 5, chapter 1 (volume 1).

LEON: Origin of the kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 713-910.

LEON: Union of the kingdom with Castile.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1026-1230; and 1212-1238.

----------LEON: End--------

LEONIDAS AT THERMOPYLÆ.

See GREECE: B. C. 480; and ATHENS: B. C. 480-479.

LEONINE CITY, The

See VATICAN.

LEONTINI. The Leontine War.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 415-413.

LEONTIUS, Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 695-698.

LEOPOLD I., Germanic Emperor, A. D. 1658-1705; King of Hungary, 1655-1705: King of Bohemia, 1657-1705.

Leopold I., King of Belgium, 1831-1865.

Leopold II., Germanic Emperor, and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1790-1792.

Leopold II., King of Belgium, 1865.

LEPANTO, Naval Battle of (1571).

See TURKS: A. D. 1566-1571.

LEPERS AND JEWS, Persecution of.

See JEWS: A. D. 1321.

LIPIDUS, Revolutionary attempt of.

See ROME: B. C. 78-68.

LEPTA.

See TALENT.

LEPTIS MAGNA.

"The city of Leptis Magna, originally a Phœnician colony, was the capital of this part of the province [the tract of north-African coast between the Lesser and the Greater Syrtes], and held much the same prominent position as that of Tripoli at the present day. The only other towns in the region of the Syrtes, as it was sometimes called, were Œa, on the site of the modern Tripoli, and Sabrata, the ruins of which are still visible at a place called Tripoli Vecchio. The three together gave the name of the Tripolis of Africa to this region, as distinguished from the Pentapolis of Cyrenaïca. Hence the modern appellation."

E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 20, section 1, footnote (volume 2).

See, also, CARTHAGE, THE DOMINION OF.

{1998}

LERIDA: B. C. 49. Cæsar's success against the Pompeians.

See ROME: B. C. 49.

LERIDA: A. D. 1644-1646, Sieges and battle.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646.

LERIDA: A. D. 1707. Stormed and sacked by the French and Spaniards.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1707.

----------LESBOS: Start--------

LESBOS.

The largest of the islands of the Ægean, lying south of the Troad, great part of which it once controlled, was particularly distinguished in the early literary history of ancient Greece, having produced what is called "the Æolian school" of lyric poetry. Alcæus, Sappho, Terpander and Arion were poets who sprang from Lesbos. The island was one of the important colonies of what was known as the Æolic migration, but became subject to Athens after the Persian War. In the fourth year of the Peloponnesian War its chief city, Mitylene (which afterwards gave its name to the entire island), seized the opportunity to revolt. The siege and reduction of Mytilene by the Athenians was one of the exciting incidents of that struggle.

Thucydides, History, book 3.

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 14 and 50.

See, also, ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES; and GREECE: B. C. 429-427.

LESBOS: B. C. 412. Revolt from Athens.

See GREECE: B. C. 413-412.

----------LESBOS: End--------

LESCHE, The.

The clubs of Sparta and Athens formed an important feature of the life of Greece. In every Grecian community there was a place of resort called the Lesche. In Sparta it was peculiarly the resort of old men, who assembled round a blazing fire in winter, and were listened to with profound respect by their juniors. These retreats were numerous in Athens.

C. O. Müller, History and Antiquities of the Doric race, volume 2, page 396.

"The proper home of the Spartan art of speech, the original source of so many Spartan jokes current over all Greece, was the Lesche, the place of meeting for men at leisure, near the public drilling-grounds, where they met in small bands, and exchanged merry talk."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, volume 1, page 220 (American edition).

LESCO V., Duke of Poland, A. D. 1194-1227.

Lesco VI., Duke of Poland, 1279-1289.

LESE-MAJESTY.

A term in English law signifying treason, borrowed from the Romans. The contriving, or counselling or consenting to the king's death, or sedition against the king, are included in the crime of "lese-majesty."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 21, section 786.

LE TELLIER, and the suppression of Port Royal.

See PORT ROYAL AND THE JANSENISTS: A. D. 1702-1715.

LETTER OF MAJESTY, The.

See BOHEMIA. A. D. 1611-1618.

LETTERS OF MARQUE.

See PRIVATEERS.

LETTRE DE CACHET.

"In French history, a letter or order under seal; a private letter of state: a name given especially to a written order proceeding from and signed by the king, and countersigned by a secretary of state, and used at first as an occasional means of delaying the course of justice, but later, in the 17th and 18th centuries, as a warrant for the imprisonment without trial of a person obnoxious for any reason to the government, often for life or for a long period, and on frivolous pretexts. Lettres de cachet were abolished at the Revolution."

Century Dictionary.

"The minister used to give generously blank lettres-de-cachet to the intendants, the bishops, and people in the administration. Saint-Florentin, alone, gave away as many as 50,000. Never had man's dearest treasure, liberty, been more lavishly squandered. These letters were the object of a profitable traffic; they were sold to fathers who wanted to get rid of their sons, and given to pretty women who were inconvenienced by their husbands. This last cause of imprisonment was one of the most prominent. And all through good-nature. The king [Louis XV.] was too good to refuse a lettre-de-cachet to a great lord. The intendant was too good-natured not to grant one at a lady's request. The government clerks, the mistresses of the clerks, and the friends of these mistresses, through good-nature, civility, or mere politeness, obtained, gave, or lent, those terrible orders by which a man was buried alive. Buried;—for such was the carelessness and levity of those amiable clerks,—almost all nobles, fashionable men, all occupied with their pleasures,—that they never had the time, when once the poor fellow was shut up, to think of his position."

J. Michelet, Historical View of the French Revolution, introduction, part 2, section 9.

LETTS.

See LITHUANIANS.

LEUCADIA, LEUCAS.

Originally a peninsula of Acarnania, on the western coast of Greece, but converted into an island by the Corinthians, who cut a canal across its narrow neck. Its chief town, of the same name, was at one time the meeting place of the Acarnanian League. The high promontory at the south-western extremity of the island was celebrated for the temple of Apollo which crowned it, and as being the scene of the story of Sappho's suicidal leap from the Leucadian rock.

LEUCÆ, Battle of.

The kingdom of Pergamum having been bequeathed to the Romans by its last king, Attalus, a certain Aristonicus attempted to resist their possession of it, and Crassus, one of the consuls of B. C. 131 was sent against him. But Crassus had no success and was finally defeated and slain, near Leucæ. Aristonicus surrendered soon afterwards to M. Perperna and the war in Pergamum was ended.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 1, chapter 14.

LEUCATE, Siege and Battle (1637).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1637-1640.

LEUCI, The.

A tribe in Belgic Gaul which occupied the southern part of the modern department of the Meuse, the greater part of the Meurthe, and the department of the Vosges.

Napoleon III., History of Cæsar, book 3, chapter 2, footnote (volume 2).

LEUCTRA, Battle of (B. C. 371).

See GREECE: B. C. 379-371.

LEUD, OR LIDUS, The.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

LEUDES.

"The Frankish warriors, but particularly the leaders, were called 'leudes,' from the Teutonic word 'leude,' 'liude,' 'leute,' people, as some think (Thierry, Lettres sur l'Hist. de Franc, p. 130). In the Scandinavian dialects, 'lide' means a warrior … ; and in the Kymric also 'lwydd' means an army or war-band. … It was not a title of dignity, as every free fighter among the Franks was a leud, but in process of time the term seems to have been restricted to the most prominent and powerful warriors alone."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapter 12, foot-note.

{1999}

LEUGA, The.

"The roads in the whole Roman empire were measured and marked according to the unit of the Roman mile (1.48 kilometer), and up to the end of the second century this applied also to those [the Gallic] provinces. But from Severus onward its place was taken in the three Gauls and the two Germanies by a mile correlated no doubt to the Roman, but yet different and with a Gallic name, the 'leuga' (2.222 kilomètres), equal to one and a half Roman miles. … The double 'leuga,' the German 'rasta,' … corresponds to the French 'lieue.'"

T. Mommsen, History of the Romans, book 8, chapter 3.

LEUKAS.

See KORKYRA.

LEUKOPETRA, Battle of (B. C. 146).

See GREECE: B. C. 280-146.

LEUTHEN, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (JULY-DECEMBER).

LEVELLERS, The.

"Especially popular among the soldiers [of the Parliamentary Army, England, A. D. 1647-48], and keeping up their excitement more particularly against the House of Lords, were the pamphlets that came from John Lilburne, and an associate of his named Richard Overton. … These were the pamphlets … which … were popular with the common soldiers of the Parliamentary Army, and nursed that especial form of the democratic passion among them which longed to sweep away the House of Lords and see England governed by a single Representative House. Baxter, who reports this growth of democratic opinion in the Army from his own observation, distinctly recognises in it the beginnings of that rough ultra-Republican party which afterwards became formidable under the name of The Levellers."

D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 3, book 4, chapter 1.

"They [the Levellers] had a vision of a pure and patriotic Parliament, accurately representing the people, yet carrying out a political programme incomprehensible to nine-tenths of the nation. This Parliament was to represent all legitimate varieties of thought, and was yet to act together as one man. The necessity for a Council of State they therefore entirely denied; and they denounced it as a new tyranny. The excise they condemned as an obstruction to trade. They would have no man compelled to fight, unless he felt free in his own conscience to do so. They appealed to the law of nature, and found their interpretation of it carrying them further and further away from English traditions and habits, whether of Church or State." A mutiny of the Levellers in the army, which broke out in April and May, 1640, was put down with stern vigor by Cromwell and Fairfax, several of the leaders being executed.

J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 17.

LEWES, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.

LEWIS AND CLARK'S EXPEDITION.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1801.

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts: A. D. 1775. The beginning of the War of the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (APRIL).

----------LEXINGTON: Start--------

LEXINGTON, MISSOURI, Siege of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI).

LEXINGTON, MISSOURI: Battle at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

----------LEXINGTON: End--------

LEXOVII, The.

The Lexovii were one of the tribes of northwestern Gaul, in the time of Cæsar. Their position is indicated and their name, in a modified form, preserved by the town of Lisieux between Caen and Evreux.

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 4, chapter 6.

----------LEYDEN: Start--------

LEYDEN: A. D. 1574. Siege by the Spaniards. Relief by the flooding of the land. The founding of the University.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574; and EDUCATION, RENAISSANCE: NETHERLANDS.

LEYDEN: A. D. 1609-1620. The Sojourn of the Pilgrim Fathers.

See INDEPENDENTS: A. D. 1604-1617.

----------LEYDEN: End--------

LHASSA, the seat of the Grand Lama.

See LAMAS.

LIA-FAIL, The.

"The Tuatha-de-Danaan [the people who preceded the Milesians in colonizing Ireland, according to the fabulous Irish histories] brought with them from Scandinavia, among other extraordinary things, three marvellous treasures, the Lia-Fail, or Stone of Destiny, the Sorcerer's Spear, and the Magic Caldron, all celebrated in the old Irish romances. The Lia-Fail possessed the remarkable property of making a strange noise and becoming wonderfully disturbed, whenever a monarch of Ireland of pure blood was crowned, and a prophecy was attached to it, that whatever country possessed it should be ruled over by a king of Irish descent, and enjoy uninterrupted success and prosperity. It was preserved at Cashel, where the kings of Munster were crowned upon it. According to some writers it was afterwards kept at the Hill of Tara, where it remained until it was carried to Scotland by an Irish prince, who succeeded to the crown of that country. There it was preserved at Scone, until Edward I. carried it away into England, and placed it under the seat of the coronation chair of our kings, where it still remains. … It seems to be the opinion of some modern antiquarians that a pillar stone still remaining at the Hill of Tara is the true Lia-Fail, which in that case was not carried to Scotland."

T. Wright, History of Ireland, book 1, chapter 2, and foot-note.

See, also, SCOTLAND: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES.

LIBBY PRISON.

See PRISONS AND PRISON-PENS, CONFEDERATE.

LIBERAL ARTS, The Seven.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL: SCHOLASTICISM,

LIBERAL REPUBLICAN PARTY.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1872.

LIBERAL UNIONISTS.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1886.

LIBERI HOMINES.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: ENGLAND.

LIBERIA, The founding of the Republic of.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1816-1847.

LIBERTINES OF GENEVA, The.

The party which opposed Calvin's austere and arbitrary rule in Geneva were called Libertines.

F. P. Guizot, John Calvin, chapter 9-16.

LIBERTINI.

See INGENUI.

LIBERTY BELL, The.

See INDEPENDENCE HALL.

{2000}

LIBERTY BOYS.

The name by which the Sons of Liberty of the American Revolution were familiarly known.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765; NEW YORK: A. D. 1773-1774; and LIBERTY TREE.

LIBERTY CAP.

"This emblem, like many similar ones received by the revolutions from the hand of chance, was a mystery even to those who wore it. It had been adopted [at Paris] for the first time on the day of the triumph of the soldiers of Châteauvieux [April 15, 1792, when 41 Swiss soldiers of the regiment of Châteauvieux, condemned to the galleys for participation in a dangerous mutiny of the garrison at Nancy in 1790, but liberated in compliance with the demands of the mob, were fêted as heroes by the Jacobins of Paris]. Some said it was the coiffure of the galley-slaves, once infamous, but glorious since it had covered the brows of these martyrs of the insurrection; and they added that the people wished to purify this head-dress from every stain by wearing it themselves. Others only saw in it the Phrygian bonnet, a symbol of freedom for slaves. The 'bonnet rouge' had from its first appearance been the subject of dispute and dissension amongst the Jacobins; the 'exaltés' wore it, whilst the 'modérés' yet abstained from adopting it." Robespierre and his immediate followers opposed the "frivolity" of the "bonnet rouge," and momentarily suppressed it in the Assembly. "But even the voice of Robespierre, and the resolutions of the Jacobins, could not arrest the outbreak of enthusiasm that had placed the sign of 'avenging equality' ('l'égalité vengeresse') on every head; and the evening of the day on which it was repudiated at the Jacobins' saw it inaugurated at all the theatres. The bust of Voltaire, the destroyer of prejudice, was adorned with the Phrygian cap of liberty, amidst the shouts of the spectators, whilst the cap and pike became the uniform and weapon of the citizen soldier."

A. de Lamartine, History of the Girondists, book 13 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, volume 2, chapter 2.

LIBERTY GAP, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: TENNESSEE).

LIBERTY PARTY AND LIBERTY LEAGUE.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1840-1847.

LIBERTY TREE AND LIBERTY HALL.

"Lafayette said, when in Boston, 'The world should never forget the spot where once stood Liberty Tree, so famous in your annals.' … The open space at the four corners of Washington, Essex, and Boylston streets was once known as Hanover Square, from the royal house of Hanover, and sometimes as the Elm Neighborhood, from the magnificent elms with which it was environed. It was one of the finest of these that obtained the name of Liberty Tree, from its being used on the first occasion of resistance to the obnoxious Stamp Act. … At daybreak on the 14th August, 1765, nearly ten years before active hostilities broke out, an effigy of Mr. Oliver, the Stamp officer, and a boot, with the Devil peeping out of it,—an allusion to Lord Bute,—was discovered hanging from Liberty Tree. The images remained hanging all day, and were visited by great numbers of people, both from the town and the neighboring country. Business was almost suspended. Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson ordered the sheriff to take the figures down, but he was obliged to admit that he dared not do so. As the day closed in the effigies were taken down, placed upon a bier, and, followed by several thousand people of every class and condition," were borne through the city and then burned, after which much riotous conduct on the part of the crowd occurred. In 1766, when the repeal of the Stamp Act took place, a large copper plate was fastened to the tree, inscribed in golden characters:—'This tree was planted in the year 1646, and pruned by order of the Sons of Liberty, February 14th, 1766.' … The ground immediately about Liberty Tree was popularly known as Liberty Hall. In August, 1767, a flagstaff had been erected, which went through and extended above its highest branches. A flag hoisted upon this staff was the signal for the assembling of the Sons of Liberty. … In August, 1775, the name of Liberty having become offensive to the Tories and their British allies, the tree was cut down by a party led by one Job Williams."

S. A. Drake, Old Landmarks of Boston, chapter 14.

LIBERUM VETO, The.

See POLAND: A. D. 1578-1652.

LIBRA, The Roman.

The ancient Roman unit of weight was the libra, or pondus, from which the modern names of the livre and pound are derived. Its weight was equal to 5,015 Troy gr. or 325 grams, and it was identical with the Greek-Asiatic mina."

H. W. Chisholm, Science of Weighing and Measuring, chapter 2.

See, also, AS.

----------LIBRARIES: Start--------

LIBRARIES: Ancient, Babylonia and Assyria.

"The Babylonians were … essentially a reading and writing people. … Books were numerous and students were many. The books were for the most part written upon clay [tablets] with a wooden reed or metal stylus, for clay was cheap and plentiful, and easily impressed with the wedge-shaped lines of which the characters were composed. But besides clay, papyrus and possibly also parchment were employed as writing materials; at all events the papyrus is referred to in the texts."

A. H. Sayce, Social Life among the Assyrians and Babylonians, page 30.

"We must speak of the manner in which the tablet was formed. Fine clay was selected, kneaded, and moulded into the shape of the required tablet. One side was flat, and the other rounded. The writing was then inscribed on both sides, holes were pricked in the clay, and then it was baked. The holes allowed the steam which was generated during the process of baking to escape. It is thought that the clay used in some of the tablets was not only well kneaded, but ground in some kind of mill, for the texture of the clay is as fine as some of our best modern pottery. The wedges appear to have been impressed by a square headed instrument."

E. A. W. Budge, Babylonian Life and History, p. 105.

{2001}

Assurbanipal, the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, was the greatest and most celebrated of Assyrian monarchs. He was the principal patron of Assyrian literature, and the greater part of the grand library at Nineveh was written during his reign."

G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, chapter 18.

"Assurbanipal is fond of old books, particularly of the old sacred works. He collects the scattered specimens from the chief cities of his empire, and even employs scribes in Chaldea, Ourouk, Barsippa, and Babylon to copy for him the tablets deposited in the temples. His principal library is at Nineveh, in the palace which he built for himself upon the banks of the Tigris, and which he has just finished decorating. It contains more than thirty thousand tablets, methodically classified and arranged in several rooms, with detailed catalogues for convenient reference. Many of the works are continued from tablet to tablet and form a series, each bearing the first words of the text as its title. The account of the creation, which begins with the phrase: 'Formerly, that which is above was not yet called the heaven,' was entitled: 'Formerly, that which is above, No.1;' 'Formerly, that which is above, No.2;' and so on to the end. Assurbanipal is not less proud of his love of letters than of his political activity, and he is anxious that posterity should know how much he has done for literature. His name is inscribed upon every work in his library, ancient and modern. 'The palace of Assurbanipal, king of legions, king of multitudes, king of Assyria, to whom the god Nebo and the goddess Tasmetu have granted attentive ears and open eyes to discover the writings of the scribes of my kingdom, whom the kings my predecessors, have employed. In my respect for Nebo, the god of intelligence, I have collected these tablets; I have had them copied, I have marked them with my name, and I have deposited them in my palace.' The library at Dur-Sarginu, although not so rich as the one in Nineveh, is still fairly well supplied."

G. Maspéro, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, chapter 16.

Collections of inscribed tablets had been made by Tiglath-Pileser II., king of Assyria, B. C. 745, who had copied some historical inscriptions of his predecessors. Sargon, the founder of the dynasty to which Assur-bani-pal belonged, B. C. 722, had increased this library by adding a collection of astrological and similar texts, and Sennacherib, B. C. 705, had composed copies of the Assyrian canon, short histories, and miscellaneous inscriptions, to add to the collection. Sennacherib also moved the library from Calah, its original seat, to Nineveh, the capital. Esarhaddon, B. C. 681, added numerous historical and mythological texts. All the inscriptions of the former kings were, however, nothing compared to those written during the reign of Assur-bani-pal. Thousands of inscribed tablets from all places, and on every variety of subject, were collected, and copied, and stored in the library of the palace at Nineveh during his reign; and by his statements they appear to have been intended for the inspection of the people, and to spread learning among the Assyrians. Among these tablets one class consisted of historical texts, some the histories of the former kings of Assyria, and others copies of royal inscriptions from various other places. Similar to these were the copies of treaties, despatches, and orders from the king to his generals and ministers, a large number of which formed part of the library. There was a large collection of letters of all sorts, from despatches to the king on the one hand, down to private notes on the other. Geography found a place among the sciences, and was represented by lists of countries, towns, rivers, and mountains, notices of the position, products, and character of districts, &c., &c. There were tables giving accounts of the law and legal decisions, and tablets with contracts, loans, deeds of sale and barter, &c. There were lists of tribute and taxes, accounts of property in the various cities, forming some approach to a census and general account of the empire. One large and important section of the library was devoted to legends of various sorts, many of which were borrowed from other countries. Among these were the legends of the hero Izdubar, perhaps the Nimrod of the Bible. One of these legends gives the Chaldean account of the flood, others of this description give various fables and stories of evil spirits. The mythological part of the library embraced lists of the gods, their titles, attributes, temples, &c., hymns in praise of various deities, prayers to be used by different classes of men to different gods, and under various circumstances, as during eclipses or calamities, on setting out for a campaign, &c., &e. Astronomy was represented by various tablets and works on the appearance and motions of the heavens, and the various celestial phenomena. Astrology was closely connected with Astronomy, and formed a numerous class of subjects and inscriptions. An interesting division was formed by the works on natural history; these consisted of lists of animals, birds, reptiles, trees, grasses, stones, &c., &c., arranged in classes, according to their character and affinities as then understood, lists of minerals and their uses, lists of foods, &c., &c. Mathematics and arithmetic were found, including square and cube root, the working out of problems, &c., &c. Much of the learning on these tablets was borrowed from the Chaldeans and the people of Babylon, and had originally been written in a different language and style of writing, hence it was necessary to have translations and explanations of many of these; and in order to make their meaning clear, grammars, dictionaries, and lexicons were prepared, embracing the principal features of the two languages involved, and enabling the Assyrians to study the older inscriptions. Such are some of the principal features of the grand Assyrian library, which Assur-bani-pal established at Nineveh, and which probably numbered over 10,000 clay documents."

George Smith, Ancient History from the Monuments: Assyria, pages 188-191.

"It is now [1882] more than thirty years since Sir Henry Layard, passing through one of the doorways of the partially explored palace in the mound of Konyunjik, guarded by sculptured fish gods, stood for the first time in the double chambers containing a large portion of the remains of the immense library collected by Assurbannipal, King of Nineveh. … Since that time, with but slight intermissions, this treasure-house of a forgotten past has been turned over again and again, notably in the expeditions of the late Mr. George Smith, and still the supply of its cuneiform literature is not exhausted. Until last year [1881] this discovery remained unique; but the perseverance of the British Museum authorities and the patient labour of Mr. Rassam were then rewarded by the exhumation of what is apparently the library chamber of the temple or palace at Sippara, with all its 10,000 tablets, resting undisturbed, arranged in their position on the shelves, just as placed in order by the librarian twenty-five centuries ago. … {2002} From what Berosus tells us with regard to Sippara, or Pantibiblon (the town of books), the very city, one of whose libraries has just been brought to light, … it may be inferred that this was certainly one of the first towns that collected a library. … It is possible that the mound at Mugheir enshrines the oldest library of all, for here are the remains of the city of Ur (probably the Biblical Ur of the Chaldees). From this spot came the earliest known royal brick inscription, as follows:—'Urukh, King of Ur, who Bit Nanur built.' Although there are several texts from Mugheir, such as that of Dungi, son of Urukh, yet, unless by means of copies made for later libraries in Assyria, we cannot be said to know much of its library. Strange to say, however, the British Museum possesses the signet cylinder of one of the librarians of Ur, who is the earliest known person holding such an office. … Its inscription is given thus by Smith:—'Emuq-sin, the powerful hero, the King of Ur, King of the four regions; Amil Anu, the tablet-keeper, son of Gatu his servant.' … Erech, the modern Warka, is a city at which we know there must have been one or more libraries, for it was from thence Assurbannipal copied the famous Isdubar series of legends in twelve tablets, one of which contained the account of the Deluge. Hence also came the wonderful work on magic in more than one hundred tablets: for, as we have it, it is nothing more than a facsimile by Assurbannipal's scribes of a treatise which had formed part of the collection of the school of the priests at Erech. … Larsa, now named Senkereh, was the seat of a tablet collection that seems to have been largely a mathematical one; for in the remains we possess of it are tablets containing tables of squares and cube roots and others, giving the characters for fractions. There are from here also, however, fragments with lists of the gods, a portion of a geographical dictionary, lists of temples, &c. … To a library at Cutha we owe the remnants of a tablet work containing an account of the creation and the wars of the gods, and, among others, a very ancient terra-cotta tablet bearing a copy of an inscription engraved in the temple of the god Dup Lan at Cutha, by Dungi, King of Ur. The number of tablets and cylinders found by M. de Sarzec at Zirgulla show that there too the habit of committing so much to writing was as rife as in other cities of whose literary character we know more."

The Libraries of Babylonia and Assyria (Knowledge, November 24, 1882, and March 2, 1883).

"One of the most important results of Sir A. H. Layard's explorations at Nineveh was the discovery of the ruined library of the ancient city, now buried under the mounds of Kouyunjik. The broken clay tablets belonging to this library not only furnished the student with an immense mass of literary matter, but also with direct aids towards a knowledge of the Assyrian syllabary and language. Among the literature represented in the library of Kouyunjik were lists of characters, with their various phonetic and ideographic meanings, tables of synonymes, and catalogues of the names of plants and animals. This, however, was not all. The inventors of the cuneiform system of writing had been a people who preceded the Semites in the occupation of Babylonia, and who spoke an agglutinative language utterly different from that of their Semitic successors. These Accadians, as they are usually termed, left behind them a considerable amount of literature, which was highly prized by the Semitic Babylonians and Assyrians. A large portion of the Ninevite tablets, accordingly, consists of interlinear or parallel translations from Accadian into Assyrian, as well as of reading books, dictionaries, and grammars, in which the Accadian original is placed by the side of its Assyrian equivalent."

A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 1.

LIBRARIES: Greece.

"Pisistratus the tyrant is said to have been the first who supplied books of the liberal sciences at Athens for public use. Afterwards the Athenians themselves, with great care and pains, increased their number; but all this multitude of books, Xerxes, when he obtained possession of Athens, and burned the whole of the city except the citadel, seized and carried away to Persia. But king Seleucus, who was called Nicanor, many years afterwards, was careful that all of them should be again carried back to Athens." "That Pisistratus was the first who collected books, seems generally allowed by ancient writers. … In Greece were several famous libraries. Clearchus, who was a follower of Plato, founded a magnificent one in Heraclea. There was one in the island of Cnidos. The books of Athens were by Sylla removed to Rome. The public libraries of the Romans were filled with books, not of miscellaneous literature, but were rather political and sacred collections, consisting of what regarded their laws and the ceremonies of their religion."

Aulus Gellius, The Attic Nights, book 6, chapter 17 (volume 2), with foot-note by W. Beloe.

"If the libraries of the Greeks at all resembled in form and dimensions those found at Pompeii, they were by no means spacious; neither, in fact, was a great deal of room necessary, as the manuscripts of the ancients stowed away much closer than our modern books, and were sometimes kept in circular boxes, of elegant form, with covers of turned wood. The volumes consisted of rolls of parchment, sometimes purple at the back, or papyrus, about twelve or fourteen inches in breadth, and as many feet long as the subject required. The pages formed a number of transverse compartments, commencing at the left, and proceeding in order to the other extremity, and the reader, holding in either hand one end of the manuscript, unrolled and rolled it up as he read. Occasionally these books were placed on shelves, in piles, with the ends outwards, adorned with golden bosses, the titles of the various treatises being written on pendant labels."

J. A. St. John, The Hellenes, volume 2, page 84.

"The learned reader need not be reminded how wide is the difference between the ancient 'volumen,' or roll, and the 'volume' of the modern book-trade, and how much smaller the amount of literary matter which the former may represent. Any single 'book' or 'part' of a treatise would anciently have been called 'volumen,' and would reckon as such in the enumeration of a collection of books. The Iliad of Homer, which in a modern library may form but a single volume, would have counted as twenty-four 'volumina' at Alexandria. {2003} We read of authors leaving behind them works reckoned, not by volumes or tens of volumes, but by hundreds. … It will at once be understood that … the very largest assemblage of 'volumina' assigned as the total of the greatest of the ancient collections would fall far short, in its real literary contents, of the second-rate, or even third-rate collections of the present day."

Libraries, Ancient and Modern (Edinburgh Review, January, 1874).

LIBRARIES: Alexandria.

"The first of the Ptolemies, Lagus, not only endeavoured to render Alexandria one of the most beautiful and most commercial of cities, he likewise wished her to become the cradle of science and philosophy. By the advice of an Athenian emigrant, Demetrius of Phaleros, this prince established a society of learned and scientific men, the prototype of our academies and modern institutions. He caused that celebrated museum to be raised, that became an ornament to the Bruchion; and here was deposited the noble library, 'a collection,' says Titus Livius, 'at once a proof of the magnificence of those kings, and of their love of science.' Philadelphos, the successor of Lagus, finding that the library of the Bruchion already numbered 400,000 volumes, and either thinking that the edifice could not well make room for any more, or being desirous, from motives of jealousy, to render his name equally famous by the construction of a similar monument, founded a second library in the temple of Serapis, called the Serapeum, situated at some distance from the Bruchion, in another part of the town. These two libraries were denominated, for a length of time, the Mother and the Daughter. During the war with Egypt, Cæsar, having set fire to the king's fleet, which happened to be anchored in the great port, it communicated with the Bruchion; the parent library was consumed, and, if any remains were rescued from the flames, they were, in all probability, conveyed to the Serapeum. Consequently, ever after, there can be no question but of the latter. Euergetes and the other Ptolemies enlarged it successively; and Cleopatra added 200,000 manuscripts at once from the library of King Pergamos, given her by Mark Antony. … Aulus Gellius and Ammianus Marcellus seem to insinuate that the whole of the Alexandrian library had been destroyed by fire in the time of Cæsar. … But both are mistaken on this point. Ammianus, in the rest of his narrative, evidently confounds Serapeum and Bruchion. … Suetonius (in his life of Domitian) mentions that this emperor sent some amanuenses to Alexandria, for the purpose of copying a quantity of books that were wanting in his library; consequently a library existed in Alexandria a long while after Cæsar. Besides, we know that the Serapeum was only destroyed A. D. 301, by the order of Theodosius. Doubtless the library suffered considerably on this last-mentioned occasion; but that it still partly existed is beyond a doubt, according to the testimony of Oroses, who, twenty-four years later, made a voyage to Alexandria, and assures us that he 'saw, in several temples, presses full of books,' the remains of ancient libraries. … The trustworthy Oroses, in 415, is the last witness we have of the existence of a library at Alexandria. The numerous Christian writers of the fifth and sixth centuries, who have handed down to us so many trifling facts, have not said a word upon this important subject. We, therefore, have no certain documents upon the fate of our library from 415 to 636, or, according to others, 640, when the Arabs took possession of Alexandria—a period of ignorance and barbarism, of war and revolutions, and vain disputes between a hundred different sects. Now, towards A. D. 636, or 640, the troops of the caliph, Omar, headed by his lieutenant, Amrou, took possession of Alexandria. For more than six centuries, nobody in Europe took the trouble of ascertaining what had become of the library of Alexandria. At length, in the year 1660, a learned Oxford scholar, Edward Pococke, who had been twice to the East, and had brought back a number of Arabian manuscripts, first introduced the Oriental history of the physician Abulfarage to the learned world, in a Latin translation. In it we read the following passage:—'In those days flourished John of Alexandria, whom we have surnamed the Grammarian, and who adopted the tenets of the Christian Jacobites. … He lived to the time when Amrou Ebno'l-As took Alexandria. He went to visit the conqueror; and Amrou, who was aware of the height of learning and science that John had attained, treated him with every distinction, and listened eagerly, to his lectures on philosophy, which were quite new to the Arabians. Amrou was himself a man of intellect and discernment, and very clear-headed. He retained the learned man about his person. John one day said to him, "You have visited all the stores of Alexandria, and you have put your seal on all the different things you found there. I say nothing about those treasures which have any value for you; but, in good sooth, you might leave us those of which you make no use." "What then is it that you want?" interrupted Amrou. "The books of philosophy that are to be found in the royal treasury," answered John. "I can dispose of nothing," Amrou then said, "without the permission of the lord of all true believers, Omar Ebno'l-Chattab." He therefore wrote to Omar, informing him of John's request. He received an answer from Omar in these words. "As to the books you mention, either, they agree with God's holy book, and then God's book is all-sufficient without them; or they disagree with God's book, in which case they ought not to be preserved." And, in consequence, Amrou Ebno'l-As caused them to be distributed amongst the different baths of the city, to serve as fuel. In this manner they were consumed in half-a-year.' When this account of Abulfarage's was made known in Europe, it was at once admitted as a fact, without the least question. … Since Pococke, another Arab historian, likewise a physician, was discovered, who gave pretty nearly the same account. This was Abdollatif, who wrote towards 1200, and consequently prior to Abulfarage. … Abdollatif does not relate any of the circumstances accessory to the destruction of the library. But what faith can we put in a writer who tells us that he has actually seen what could no longer have been in existence in his time? 'I have seen;' says he, 'the portico and the college that Alexander the Great caused to be built, and which contained the splendid library,' &c. Now, these buildings were situated within the Bruchion; and since the reign of Aurelian, who had destroyed it—that is to say, at least nine hundred years before Abdollatif—the Bruchion was a deserted spot, covered with ruins and rubbish. {2004} Abulfarage, on the other hand, places the library in the Royal Treasury; and the anachronism is just as bad. The royal edifices were all contained within the walls of the Bruchion; and not one of them could then be left. … As a fact is not necessarily incontestable because advanced as such by one or even two historians, several persons of learning and research have doubted the truth of this assertion. Renaudot (Hist. des Patriarches d'Alexandrie) had already questioned its authenticity, by observing: 'This account is rather suspicious, as is frequently the case with the Arabians.' And, lastly, Querci, the two Assemani, Villoison, and Gibbon, completely declared themselves against it. Gibbon at once expresses his astonishment that two historians, both of Egypt, should not have said a word about so remarkable an event. The first of these is Eutychius, patriarch of Alexandria, who lived in that city 500 years after it was taken by the Saracens, and who gives a long and detailed account, in his Annals, both of the siege and the succeeding events; the second is Elmacin, a most veracious writer, the author of a History of the Saracens, and who especially relates the life of Omar, and the taking of Alexandria, with its minutest circumstances. Is it conceivable or to be believed that these two historians should have been ignorant of so important a circumstance? That two learned men who would have been deeply interested in such a loss should have made no mention of it, though living and writing in Alexandria—Eutychius, too, at no distant period from the event? and that we should learn it for the first time from a stranger who wrote, six centuries after, on the frontiers of Media? Besides, as Gibbon observes, why should the Caliph Omar, who was no enemy to science, have acted, in this one instance, in direct opposition to his character. … To these reasons may be added the remark of a German writer, M. Reinhard, who observes that Eutychius (Annals of Eutychius, volume ii. page 316) transcribes the very words of the letter in which Amrou gives the Caliph Omar an account of the taking of Alexandria after a long and obstinate siege. 'I have carried the town by storm,' says he, 'and without any preceding offer of capitulation. I cannot describe all the treasures it contains; suffice it to say, that it numbers 4,000 palaces, 4,000 baths, 40,000 taxable Jews, 400 theatres, 12,000 gardeners who sell vegetables. Your Mussulmans demand the privilege of pillaging the city, and sharing the booty.' Omar, in his reply, disapproves of the request, and expressly forbids all pillage or dilapidation. It is plain that, in his official report, Amrou seeks to exaggerate the value of his conquest, and to magnify its importance, like the diplomatists of our times. He does not overlook a single hovel, nor a Jew, nor a gardener. How then could he have forgotten the library, he who, according to Abulfarage, was a friend to the fine arts and philosophy? … Elmacin in turn gives us Amrou's letter nearly in the same terms, and not one word of the library. … We … run no great risk in drawing the conclusion, from all these premises, that the library of the Ptolemies no longer existed in 640 at the taking of Alexandria by the Saracens. … If it be true, as we have every reason to think, that in 640 … the celebrated library no longer existed, we may inquire in what manner it had been dispersed and destroyed since 415 when Oroses affirms that he saw it? In the first place we must observe that Oroses only mentions some presses which he saw in the temples. It was not, therefore, the library of the Ptolemies as it once existed in the Serapeum. Let us call to mind, moreover, that ever since the first Roman emperors, Egypt had been the theatre of incessant civil warfare, and we shall be surprised that any traces of the library could still exist in later times."

Historical Researches on the pretended burning of the Library of Alexandria by the Saracens (Fraser's Magazine. April, 1844).

"After summing up the evidence we have been able to collect in regard to these libraries, we conclude that almost all the 700,000 volumes of the earlier Alexandrian libraries had been destroyed before the capture of the city by the Arabs; that another of considerable size, but chiefly of Christian literature, had been collected in the 250 years just preceding the Arab occupation; and that Abulpharaj, in a statement that is not literally true, gives, in the main, a correct account of the final destruction of the Alexandrian Library."

C. W. Super, Alexandria and its Libraries (National Quarterly Review, December, 1875).

ALSO IN: E. Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, book 1, chapter 5 (volume 1).

E. Edwards, Libraries and the Founders of Libraries, chapter 1.

See, also, EDUCATION, ANCIENT: ALEXANDRIA; and ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246.

LIBRARIES: Pergamum.

See PERGAMUM.

LIBRARIES: Rome.

Pliny states that C. Asinius Pollio was the first who established a Public Library in Rome. But "Lucullus was undoubtedly before him in this claim upon the gratitude of the lovers of books. Plutarch tells us expressly that not only was the Library of Lucullus remarkable for its extent and for the beauty of the volumes which composed it, but that the use he made of them was even more to his honour than the pains he had taken in their acquisition. The Library, he says, 'was open to all. The Greeks who were at Rome resorted thither, as it were to the retreat of the Muses.' It is important to notice that, according to Pliny, the benefaction of Asinius Pollio to the literate among the Romans was 'ex manubiis.' This expression, conjoined with the fact that the statue of M. Varro was placed in the Library of Pollio, has led a recent distinguished historian of Rome under the Empire, Mr. Merivale, to suggest, that very probably Pollio only made additions to that Library which, as we know from Suetonius, Julius Cæsar had directed to be formed for public use under the care of Varro. These exploits of Pollio, which are most likely to have yielded him the 'spoils of war,' were of a date many years subsequent to the commission given by Cæsar to Varro. It has been usually, and somewhat rashly perhaps, inferred that this project, like many other schemes that were surging in that busy brain, remained a project only. In the absence of proof either way, may it not be reasonably conjectured that Varro's bust was placed in the Library called Pollio's because Varro had in truth carried out Cæsar's plan, with the ultimate concurrence and aid of Pollio? This Library—by whomsoever formed—was probably in the 'atrium libertatis' on the Aventine Mount. {2005} From Suetonius we further learn that Augustus added porticoes to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Mount, with (as appears from monumental inscriptions to those who had charge of them) two distinct Libraries of Greek and Latin authors; that Tiberius added to the Public Libraries the works of the Greek poets Euphorion, Rhianus, and Parthenius,—authors whom he especially admired and tried to imitate,—and also their statues; that Caligula (in addition to a scheme for suppressing Homer) had thoughts of banishing both the works and the busts of Virgil and of Livy—characterizing the one as a writer of no genius and of little learning, and the other (not quite so unfortunately) as a careless and verbose historian—from all the Libraries; and that Domitian early in his reign restored at vast expense the Libraries in the Capitol which had been burnt, and to this end both collected MSS. from various countries, and sent scribes to Alexandria expressly to copy or to correct works which were there preserved. In addition to the Libraries mentioned by Suetonius, we read in Plutarch of the Library dedicated by Octavia to the memory of Marcellus; in Aulus Gellius of a Library in the Palace of Tiberius and of another in the Temple of Peace; and in Dion Cassius of the more famous Ulpian Library founded by Trajan. This Library, we are told by Vopiscus, was in his day added, by way of adornment, to the Baths of Diocletian. Of private Libraries amongst the Romans one of the earliest recorded is that which Emilius Paulus found amongst the spoils of Perseus, and which he is said to have shared between his sons. The collection of Tyrunnion, some eighty years later (perhaps), amounted, according to a passage in Suidas, to 30,000 volumes. That of Lucullus—which, some will think, ought to be placed in this category—has been mentioned already. With that—the most famous of all—which was the delight and the pride of Cicero, every reader of his letters has an almost personal familiarity, extending even to the names and services of those who were employed in binding and in placing the books. … Of the Libraries of the long-buried cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum there is not a scintilla of information extant, other than that which has been gathered from their ruins. At one time great hopes were entertained of important additions to classical learning from remains, the discovery of which has so largely increased our knowledge both of the arts and of the manners of the Romans. But all effort in this direction has hitherto been either fruitless or else only tantalizing, from the fragmentary character of the results attained."

E. Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, pages 26-29.

"Most houses had a library, which, according to Vitruvius, ought to face the east in order to admit the light of the morning, and to prevent the books from becoming mouldy. At Herculaneum a library with bookcases containing 1,700 scrolls has been discovered. The grammarian Epaphroditus possessed a library of 30,000, and Sammanicus Serenus, the tutor of the younger Gordian, one of 62,000 books. Seneca ridicules the fashionable folly of illiterate men who adorned their walls with thousands of books, the titles of which were the delight of the yawning owner. According to Publius Victor, Rome possessed twenty-nine public libraries, the first of which was opened by Asinius Polio in the forecourt of the Temple of Peace; two others were founded during the reign of Augustus, viz., the Octavian and the Palatine libraries. Tiberius, Vespasian, Domitian, and Trajan added to their number; the Ulpian library, founded by the last-mentioned emperor, being the most important of all."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, The Life of the Greeks and Romans, p. 531.

LIBRARIES: Herculaneum.

"Herculaneum remained a subterranean city from the year 79 to the year 1706. In the latter year some labourers who were employed in digging a well came upon a statue, a circumstance which led—not very speedily but in course of time … —to systematic excavations. Almost half a century passed, however, before the first roll of papyrus was discovered, near to Portici at a depth from the surface of about 120 English feet. In the course of a year or two, some 250 rolls—most of them Greek—had been found. … In 1754, further and more careful researches were made by Camillo Paderni, who succeeded in getting together no less than 337 Greek volumes and 18 Latin volumes. The latter were of larger dimensions than the Greek, and in worse condition. Very naturally, great interest was excited by these discoveries amongst scholars in all parts of Europe. In the years 1754 and 1755 the subject was repeatedly brought before the Royal Society by Mr. Locke and other of its fellows, sometimes in the form of communications from Paderni himself; at other times from the notes and observations of travellers. In one of these papers the disinterred rolls are described as appearing at first 'like roots of wood, all black, and seeming to be only of one piece. One of them falling on the ground, it broke in the middle, and many letters were observed, by which it was first known that the rolls were of papyrus. … They were in wooden cases, so much burnt, … that they cannot be recovered.' … At the beginning of the present century the attention of the British government was, to some extent, attracted to this subject. … Leave was at length obtained from the Neapolitan government for a literary mission to Herculaneum, which was entrusted to Mr. Hayter, one of the chaplains to the Prince Regent. But the results were few and unsatisfactory. … The Commission subsequently entrusted to Dr. Sickler of Hildburghausen was still more unfortunate. … In 1818, a committee of the House of Commons was appointed to inquire into the matter. It reported that, after an expenditure of about £1,100, no useful results had been attained. This inquiry and the experiments of Sickler led Sir Humphrey Davy to investigate the subject, and to undertake two successive journeys into Italy for its thorough elucidation. His account of his researches is highly interesting. … 'My experiments,' says Sir Humphrey Davy, … 'soon convinced me that the nature of these MSS. had been generally misunderstood; that they had not, as is usually supposed, been carbonized by the operation of fire, … but were in a state analogous to peat or Bovey coal, the leaves being generally cemented into one mass by a peculiar substance which had formed during the fermentation and chemical change of the vegetable matter comprising them, in a long course of ages. The nature of this substance being known, the destruction of it became a subject of obvious chemical investigation; and I was fortunate enough to find means of accomplishing this, without injuring the characters or destroying the texture of the MSS.' These means Sir Humphrey Davy has described very minutely in his subsequent communications to the Royal Society. {2006} Briefly, they may be said to have consisted in a mixture of a solution of glue with alcohol, enough to gelatinize it, applied by a camel's hair brush, for the separation of the layers. The process was sometimes assisted by the agency of ether, and the layers were dried by the action of a stream of air warmed gradually up to the temperature of boiling water. 'After the chemical operation, the leaves of most of the fragments separated perfectly from each other, and the Greek characters were in a high degree distinct. … The MSS. were probably on shelves of wood, which were broken down when the roofs of the houses yielded to the weight of the superincumbent mass. Hence, many of them were crushed and folded in a moist state, and the leaves of some pressed together in a perpendicular direction … in confused heaps; in these heaps the exterior MSS. … must have been acted on by the water; and as the ancient ink was composed of finely divided charcoal suspended in a solution of glue or gum, wherever the water percolated continuously, the characters were more or less erased.' … Sir Humphrey Davy proceeds to state that, according to the information given him, the number of MSS. and fragments of MSS. originally deposited in the Naples Museum was 1,696; that of these 88 had then been unrolled and found to be legible; that 319 others had been operated upon, and more or less unrolled, but were illegible; that 24 had been sent abroad as presents; and that of the remaining 1,265—which he had carefully examined—the majority were either small fragments, or MSS. so crushed and mutilated as to offer little hope of separation; whilst only from 80 to 120 offered a probability of success (and he elsewhere adds:—'this estimate, as my researches proceeded, appeared much too high'). … 'Of the 88 unrolled MSS. … the great body consists of works of Greek philosophers or sophists; nine are of Epicurus; thirty-two bear the name of Philodemus, three of Demetrius, one of each of these authors:—Colotes, Polystratus, Carneades, Chrysippus; and the subjects of these works, … and of those the authors of which are unknown, are either Natural or Moral Philosophy, Medicine, Criticism, and general observations on Arts, Life, and Manners.'"

E. Edwards, Memoirs of Libraries, volume 1, book 1, chapter 5.

LIBRARIES: Constantinople.

"When Constantine the Great, in the year 336, made Byzantium the seat of his empire, he in a great measure newly built the city, decorated it with numerous splendid edifices, and called it after his own name. Desirous of making reparation to the Christians, for the injuries they had sustained during the reign of his tyrannical predecessor, this prince commanded the most diligent search to be made after those books which had been doomed to destruction. He caused transcripts to be made of such books as had escaped the Diocletian persecution; to these he added others, and with the whole formed a valuable Library at Constantinople. On the death of Constantine, the number of books contained in the Imperial Library was only six thousand nine hundred; but it was successively enlarged by the emperors, Julian and Theodosius the younger, the latter of whom augmented it to one hundred thousand volumes. Of these, more than half were burnt in the seventh century, by command of the emperor Leo III., in order to destroy all the monuments that might be quoted in proof against his opposition to the worship of images. In this library was deposited the only authentic copy of the Council of Nice: it has also been asserted that the works of Homer, written in golden letters, were consumed at the same time, together with a magnificent copy of the Four Gospels, bound in plates of gold to the weight of fifteen pounds, and enriched with precious stones. The convulsions that weakened the lower empire, were by no means favourable to the interests of literature. During the reign of Constantine Porphyrogennetus (in the eleventh entry) literature flourished for a short time: and he is said to have employed many learned Greeks in collecting books for a library, the arrangement of which he superintended himself. The final subversion of the Eastern Empire, and the capture of Constantinople by Mohammed II., A. D. 1453, dispersed the literati of Greece over Western Europe: but the Imperial Library was preserved by the express command of the conqueror, and continued to be kept in some apartments of the Seraglio; until Mourad (or Amurath) IV., in a fit of devotion, sacrificed (as it is reported) all the books in this Library to his hatred against the Christians."

T. H. Horne, Introduction to the Study of Bibliography, pages 23-25.

LIBRARIES: Tripoli. Destruction of Library by Crusaders.

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1104-1111.

LIBRARIES: Mediæval.

Monastic Libraries.

"In every monastery there was established first a library, then great studios, where, to increase the number of books, skilful caligraphers transcribed manuscripts; and finally, schools, open to all those who had need of, or desire for, instruction. At Montierender, at Lorsch, at Corvey, at Fulda, at St. Gall, at Reichenau, at Nonantula, at Monte Cassino, at Wearmouth, at St. Albans, at Croyland, there were famous libraries. At St. Michael, at Luneburg, there were two—one for the abbot and one for the monks. In other abbeys, as at Hirschau, the abbot himself took his place in the Scriptorium, where many other monks were occupied in copying manuscripts. At St. Riquier, books bought for high prices, or transcribed with the utmost care, were regarded as the most valuable jewels of the monastery. 'Here,' says the chronicler of the abbey, counting up with innocent pride the volumes which it contained—'here are the riches of the cloister, the treasures of the celestial life, which fatten the soul by their sweetness. This is how we fulfil the excellent precept, Love the study of the Scriptures, and you will not love vice.' If we were called upon to enumerate the principal centres of learning in this century, we should be obliged to name nearly all the great abbeys whose founders we have mentioned, for most of them were great homes of knowledge. … The principal and most constant occupation of the learned Benedictine nuns was the transcription of manuscripts. It can never be known how many services to learning and history were rendered by their delicate hands throughout the middle ages. They brought to the work a dexterity, an elegance, and an assiduity which the monks themselves could not attain, and we owe to them some of the most beautiful specimens of the marvellous caligraphy of the period. … Nuns, therefore, were the rivals of monks in the task of enlarging and fertilising the field of Catholic learning. {2007} Every one is aware that the copying of manuscripts was one of the habitual occupations of monks. By it they fed the claustral libraries already spoken of, and which are the principal source of modern knowledge. Thus we must again refer to the first beginning of the Monastic Orders to find the earliest traces of a custom which from that time was, as it were, identified with the practices of religious life. In the depths of the Thebaïde, in the primitive monasteries of Tabenna, every house … had its library. There is express mention made of this in the rule of St. Benedict. … In the seventh century, St. Benedict Biscop, founder and abbot of Wearmouth in England, undertook five sea-voyages to search for and purchase books for his abbey, to which each time he brought back a large cargo. In the ninth century, Loup of Ferrières transformed his monastery of St. Josse-sur-Mer into a kind of depot for the trade in books which was carried on with England. About the same time, during the wars which ravaged Lombardy, most of the literary treasures which are now the pride of the Ambrosian library were being collected in the abbey of Bobbio. The monastery of Pomposa, near Ravenna, had, according to contemporaries, a finer library than those of Rome or of any other town in the world. In the eleventh century, the library of the abbey of Croyland numbered 3,000 volumes. The library of Novalese had 6,700, which the monks saved at the risk of their lives when their abbey was destroyed by the Saracens in 905. Hirschau contained an immense number of manuscripts. But, for the number and value of its books, Fulda eclipsed all the monasteries of Germany, and perhaps of the whole Christian world. On the other hand, some writers assure us that Monte Cassino, under the Abbot Didier, the friend of Gregory VII., possessed the richest collection which it was possible to find. The libraries thus created by the labours of monks became, as it were, the intellectual arsenals of princes and potentates. … There were also collections of books in all the cathedrals, in all the collegiate churches, and in many of the castles. Much has been said of the excessive price of certain books during the middle ages: Robertson and his imitators, in support of this theory, are fond of quoting the famous collection of homilies that Grecia Countess of Anjou bought, in 1056, for two hundred sheep, a measure of wheat, one of millet, one of rye, several marten-skins, and four pounds of silver. An instance like this always produces its effect; but these writers forgot to say that the books bought for such high prices were admirable specimens of caligraphy, of painting, and of carving. It would be just as reasonable to quote the exorbitant sums paid at sales by bibliomaniacs of our days, in order to prove that since the invention of printing, books have been excessive in price. Moreover, the ardent fondness of the Countess Grecia for beautiful books had been shared by other amateurs of a much earlier date. Bede relates that Alfred, King of Northumbria in the seventh century, gave eight hides of land to St. Benedict Biscop in exchange for a Cosmography which that book-loving abbot had bought at Rome. The monks loved their books with a passion which has never been surpassed in modern times. … It is an error to … suppose that books of theology or piety alone filled the libraries of the monks. Some enemies of the religious orders have, indeed, argued that this was the case; but the proof of the contrary is evident in all documents relating to the subject. The catalogues of the principal monastic libraries during those centuries which historians regard as most barbarous, are still in existence; and these catalogues amply justify the sentence of the great Leibnitz, when he said, 'Books and learning were preserved by the monasteries.' It is acknowledged that if, on one hand, the Benedictines settled in Iceland collected the Eddas and the principal traditions of the Scandinavian mythology, on the other all the monuments of Greece and Rome which escaped the devastations of barbarians were saved by the monks of Italy, France, and Germany, and by them alone. And if in some monasteries the scarcity of parchment and the ignorance of the superiors permitted the destruction, by copyists, of a certain small number of precious works, how can we forget that without these same copyists we should possess nothing—absolutely nothing—of classic antiquity? … Alcuin enumerates among the books in the library at York the works of Aristotle, Cicero, Pliny, Virgil, Statius, Lucan, and of Trogus Pompeïus. In his correspondence with Charlemagne he quotes Ovid, Horace, Terence, and Cicero, acknowledging that in his youth he had been more moved by the tears of Dido than by the Psalms of David."

Count de Montalembert, The Monks of the West, book 18, chapter 4 (volume 6).

"It is in the great houses of the Benedictine Order that we find the largest libraries, such as in England at Bury St. Edmund's, Glastonbury, Peterborough, Heading, St. Alban's, and, above all, that of Christ Church in Canterbury, probably the earliest library formed in England. Among the other English monasteries of the libraries of which we still possess catalogues or other details, are St. Peter's at York, described in the eighth century by Alcuin, St. Cuthbert's at Durham, and St. Augustine's at Canterbury. At the dissolution of the monasteries their libraries were dispersed, and the basis of the great modern libraries is the volumes thus scattered over England. In general, the volumes were disposed much as now, that is to say, upright, and in large cases affixed to a wall, often with doors. The larger volumes at least were in many cases chained, so that they could only be used within about six feet of their proper place; and since the chain was always riveted on the fore-edge of one of the sides of a book, the back of the volume had to be thrust first into the shelf, leaving the front edge of the leaves exposed to view. Many old volumes bear a mark in ink on this front edge; and when this is the case, we may be sure that it was once chained in a library; and usually a little further investigation will disclose the mark of a rivet on one of the sides. Regulations were carefully made to prevent the mixture of different kinds of books, and their overcrowding or inconvenient position; while an organized system of lending was in vogue, by which at least once a year, and less formally at shorter intervals, the monks could change or renew the volumes already on loan. … Let us take an example of the arrangement of a monastic library of no special distinction in A. D. 1400,—that at Titchfield Abbey,—describing it in the words of the register of the monastery itself, only translating the Latin into English. {2008} 'The arrangement of the library of the monastery of Tychefeld is this:—There are in the library of Tychefeld four cases (columnae) in which to place books, of which two, the first and second, are on the eastern face; on the southern face is the third, and on the northern face the fourth. And each of them has eight shelves (gradus), marked with a letter and number affixed on the front of each shelf, that is to say, on the lower board of each of the aforesaid shelves; certain letters, however, are excepted, namely A, H, K, L, M, O, P, Q, which have no numbers affixed, because all the volumes to which one of those letters belongs are contained in the shelf to which that letter is assigned. [That is, the shelves with the letters A, H, K, etc., have a complete class of books in each, and in no case does that class overflow into a second shelf, so there was no need of marking these shelves with numbers as well as letters, in the way in which the rest were marked. Thus we should find 'B 1,' 'B 2,' 'B 3,' … 'B 7,' because B filled seven shelves; but 'A' only, because A filled one shelf alone.] So all and singular the volumes of the said library are fully marked on the first leaf and elsewhere on the shelf belonging to the book, with certain numbered letters. And in order that what is in the library may be more quickly found, the marking of the shelves of the said library, the inscriptions in the books, and the references in the register, in all points agree with each other. Anno Domini MCCCC.' … Titchfield Abbey was a Præmonstratensian house, founded in the thirteenth century, and never specially rich or prominent; yet we find it with a good library of sixty-eight books in theology, thirty-nine in Canon and Civil Law, twenty-nine in Medicine, thirty-seven in Arts, and in all three hundred and twenty-six volumes, many containing several treatises, so that the total number of works was considerably over a thousand."

F. Madan, Books in Manuscript, pp. 76-79.

LIBRARIES: Renaissance.

Italy.

On the revival of learning in Italy, "scarcity of books was at first a chief impediment to the study of antiquity. Popes and princes and even great religious institutions possessed far fewer books than many farmers of the present age. The library belonging to the Cathedral Church of S. Martino at Lucca in the ninth century contained only nineteen volumes of abridgements from ecclesiastical commentaries. The Cathedral of Novara in 1212 could boast copies of Boethius, Priscian, the Code of Justinian, the Decretals, and the Etymology of Isidorus, besides a Bible and some devotional treatises. This slender stock passed for great riches. Each of the precious volumes in such a collection was an epitome of mediæval art. Its pages were composed of fine vellum adorned with pictures. The initial letters displayed elaborate flourishes and exquisitely illuminated groups of figures. The scribe took pains to render his caligraphy perfect, and to ornament the margins with crimson, gold, and blue. Then he handed the parchment sheets to the binder, who encased them in rich settings of velvet or carved ivory and wood, embossed with gold and precious stones. The edges were gilt and stamped with patterns. The clasps were of wrought silver chased with niello. The price of such masterpieces was enormous. … Of these MSS. the greater part were manufactured in the cloisters, and it was here too that the martyrdom of ancient authors took place. Lucretius and Livy gave place to chronicles, antiphonaries, and homilies. Parchment was extremely dear, and the scrolls which nobody could read might be scraped and washed. Accordingly, the copyist erased the learning of the ancients, and filled the fair blank space he gained with litanies. At the same time it is but just to the monks to add that palimpsests have occasionally been found in which ecclesiastical works have yielded place to copies of the Latin poets used in elementary education. Another obstacle to the diffusion of learning was the incompetence of the copyists. It is true that at the great universities 'stationarii,' who supplied the text-books in use to students, were certified and subjected to the control of special censors called 'Preciani.' Yet their number was not large, and when they quitted the routine to which they were accustomed their incapacity betrayed itself by numerous errors. Petrarch's invective against the professional copyists shows the depth to which the art had sunk. 'Who,' he exclaims, 'will discover a cure for the ignorance and vile sloth of these copyists, who spoil everything and turn it to nonsense? If Cicero, Livy, and other illustrious ancients were to return to life, do you think they would understand their own works? There is no check upon these copyists, selected without examination or test of their capacity.' … At the same time the copyists formed a necessary and flourishing class of craftsmen. They were well paid. … Under these circumstances it was usual for even the most eminent scholars, like Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Poggio, to make their own copies of MSS. Niccolo de' Niccoli transcribed nearly the whole of the codices that formed the nucleus of the Library of the Mark. … It is clear that the first step toward the revival of learning implied three things: first, the collection of MSS. wherever they could be saved from the indolence of the monks; secondly, the formation of libraries for their preservation; and, thirdly, the invention of an art whereby they might be multiplied cheaply, conveniently, and accurately. The labour involved in the collection of classical manuscripts had to be performed by a few enthusiastic scholars, who received no help from the universities and their academical scribes, and who met with no sympathy in the monasteries they were bent on ransacking. … The monks performed at best the work of earthworms, who unwittingly preserve fragments of Greek architecture from corrosion by heaping mounds of mould and rubbish round them. Meanwhile the humanists went forth with the instinct of explorers to release the captives and awake the dead. From the convent libraries of Italy, from the museums of Constantinople, from the abbeys of Germany and Switzerland and France, the slumbering spirits of the ancients had to be evoked. … This work of discovery began with Petrarch. … It was carried on by Boccaccio. The account given by Benvenuto da Imola of Boccaccio's visit to Monte Cassino brings vividly before us both the ardour of these first explorers and the apathy of the Benedictines (who have sometimes been called the saviours of learning) with regard to the treasures of their own libraries. … {2009} 'Desirous of seeing the collection of books, which he understood to be a very choice one, he modestly asked a monk—for he was always most courteous in manners—to open the library, as a favour, for him. The monk answered stiffly, pointing to a steep staircase, "Go up; it is open." Boccaccio went up gladly; but he found that the place which held so great a treasure was without door or key. He entered, and saw grass sprouting on the windows, and all the books and benches thick with dust. In his astonishment he began to open and turn the leaves of first one tome and then another, and found many and divers volumes of ancient and foreign works. Some of them had lost several sheets; others were snipped and pared all round the text, and mutilated in various ways. At length, lamenting that the toil and study of so many illustrious men should have passed into the hands of most abandoned wretches, he departed with tears and sighs. Coming to the cloister, he asked a monk whom he met, why those valuable books had been so disgracefully mangled. He answered that the monks, seeking to gain a few soldi, were in the habit of cutting off sheets and making psalters, which they sold to boys. The margins too they manufactured into charms, and sold to women.' … What Italy contained of ancient codices soon saw the light. The visit of Poggio Bracciolini to Constance (1414) opened up for Italian scholars the stores that lay neglected in transalpine monasteries. … The treasures he unearthed at Reichenau, Weingarten, and above all S. Gallen, restored to Italy many lost masterpieces of Latin literature, and supplied students with full texts of authors who had hitherto been known in mutilated copies. The account he gave of his visit to S. Gallen in a Latin letter to a friend is justly celebrated. … 'In the middle [he says] of a well-stocked library, too large to catalogue at present, we discovered Quintilian, safe as yet and sound, though covered with dust and filthy with neglect and age. The books, you must know, were not housed according to their worth, but were lying in a most foul and obscure dungeon at the very bottom of a tower, a place into which condemned criminals would hardly have been thrust; and I am firmly persuaded that if anyone would but explore those ergastula of the barbarians wherein they incarcerate such men, we should meet with like good fortune in the case of many whose funeral orations have long ago been pronounced. Besides Quintilian, we exhumed the three first books and a half of the fourth book of the Argonautica of Flaccus, and the Commentaries of Asconius Pedianus upon eight orations of Cicero.' … Never was there a time in the world's history when money was spent more freely upon the collection and preservation of MSS., and when a more complete machinery was put in motion for the sake of securing literary treasures."

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Revival of Learning, chapter 3.

LIBRARIES: Modern. Europe: Rise and growth of the greater Libraries.

In a work entitled "Essai Statistique sur les Bibliothèques de Vienne," published in 1835, M. Adrien Balbi entered into an examination of the literary and numerical value of the principal libraries of ancient and modern times. M. Balbi, in this work, shows that "the Imperial Library of Vienna, regularly increasing from the epoch of its formation, by means equally honorable to the sovereign and to the nation, held, until the French revolution, the first place among the libraries of Europe. Since that period, several other institutions have risen to a much higher numerical rank. … No one of the libraries of the first class, now in existence, dates beyond the fifteenth century. The Vatican, the origin of which has been frequently carried back to the days of St. Hilarius, in 465, cannot, with any propriety, be said to have deserved the name of library before the reign of Martin the Fifth, by whose order it was removed from Avignon to Rome in 1417. And even then, a strict attention to the force of the term would require us to withhold from it this title, until the period of its final organization by Nicholas the Fifth, in 1447. It is difficult to speak with certainty concerning the libraries, whether public or private, which are supposed to have existed previous to the fifteenth century, both on account of the doubtful authority and indefiniteness of the passages in which they are mentioned, and the custom which so readily obtained, in those dark ages, of dignifying every petty collection with the name of library. But many libraries of the fifteenth century being still in existence, and others having been preserved long enough to make them the subject of historical inquiry before their dissolution, it becomes easier to fix, with satisfactory accuracy, the date of their foundation. We find accordingly, that, including the Vatican, and the libraries of Vienna, Ratisbon, and the Laurentian of Florence, which are a few years anterior to it, no less than ten were formed between the years 1430 and 1500. The increase of European libraries has generally been slowly progressive, although there have been periods of sudden augmentation in nearly all. Most of them began with a small number of manuscripts, sometimes with a few printed volumes, and often without any. To these, gradual accessions were made, from the different sources, which have always been more or less at the command of the sovereigns and nobles of Europe. In 1455, the Vatican contained 5,000 manuscripts. … Far different was the progress of the Royal Library of Paris. The origin of this institution is placed in the year 1595, the date of its removal from Fontainebleau to Paris by order of Henry the Fourth. In 1660, it contained but 1,435 printed volumes. In the course of the following year, this number was raised to 16,746, both printed volumes and manuscripts. During the ensuing eight years the library was nearly doubled; and before the close of the next century, it was supposed to have been augmented by upwards of 100,000 volumes more."

G. W. Greene, Historical Studies, pages 278-281.

"The oldest of the great libraries of printed books is probably that of Vienna, which dates from 1440, and is said to have been opened to the public as early as 1575. The Town Library of Ratisbon dates from 1430; St. Mark's Library at Venice, from 1468; the Town Library of Frankfort, from 1484; that of Hamburg, from 1529; of Strasburg, from 1531; of Augsburg, from 1537; those of Berne and Geneva, from 1550; that of Basel, from 1564. The Royal Library of Copenhagen was founded about 1550. In 1671 it possessed 10,000 volumes; in 1748, about 65,000; in 1778, 100,000; in 1820, 300,000; and it now contains 410,000 volumes. The National Library of Paris was founded in 1595, but was not made public until 1737. In 1640 it contained about 17,000 volumes; in 1684, 50,000; in 1775, 150,000; in 1790, 200,000."

E. Edwards, A Statistical View of the Principal Public Libraries in Europe and the United States Of America, (Journal of the Statistical Society, August., 1848).

{2010}

LIBRARIES: Modern. Germany.

According to "Minerva" (the "Year-book of the Learned World"), for 1893-94, the Royal Library at Berlin contains 850,000 printed books and 24,622 manuscripts; the Münich University Library, 370,000 books and 50,000 pamphlets, including 2,101 incunabula; the Leipsic University Library, 500,000 printed books, and 4,000 manuscripts; Heidelberg University Library, 400,000 bound volumes (including 1,000 incunabula), and 175,000 pamphlets and "dissertationen," with a large collection of manuscripts; Dresden Royal Public Library, 300,000 printed books (including 2,000 incunabula), 6,000 manuscripts, and 20,000 maps; Freiburg University Library, 250,000 volumes and over 500 manuscripts; Königsberg University Library, 220,000 volumes and 1,100 manuscripts; Tübingen University Library, 300,000 volumes and 3,500 manuscripts; Jena University Library, 200,000 volumes and 100,000 "dissertationen"; Halle University Library, 182,000 books and 800 manuscripts, besides 12,800 books, 35,000 pamphlets and 1,040 manuscripts in the Ponickausche Bibliothek, which is united with the University Library; Hamburg City Library, about 500,000 printed books and 5,000 manuscripts; Frankfort City Library (April, 1893), 326,139 volumes; Cologne City Library, 105,000 volumes, including 2,000 incunabula; Augsburg City and Provincial Library, about 200,000 volumes (including 1,760 incunabula) and 2,000 manuscripts; Göttingen University Library, 456,000 volumes of books and 5,300 manuscripts; Gotha Public Library, 200,000 printed books, including 1,029 incunabula, and 7,037 manuscripts, of which 3,500 are oriental; Greifswald University Library, 143 volumes of printed books and about 800 manuscripts; Bamberg Royal Public Library, 300,000 volumes, 3,132 manuscripts; Berlin University Library, 142,129 volumes; Bonn University Library, 219,000 volumes, including 1,235 incunabula, and 1,273 manuscripts; Bremen City Library, 120,000 volumes; Breslau University Library, 300,000 volumes, including about 2,500 incunabula, and about 3,000 manuscripts; Breslau City Library, 150,000 volumes and 3,000 manuscripts; Erlangen University Library, 180,000 volumes; Hanover Royal Public Library, 180,000 books and 3,500 manuscripts; Hanover City Library, 47,000 volumes; Carlsruhe Grand-ducal Library, 159,842 books and 3,754 manuscripts; Kiel University Library, 217,039 volumes, 2,375 manuscripts; Colmar City Library, 80,000 volumes; Marburg University Library, 150,000 volumes; Strasburg University Library, 700,000 volumes; Strasburg City Library, 90,000 volumes; Weimar Grand-ducal Library, 223,000 volumes and 2,000 manuscripts; Würzburg University Library, 300,000 volumes.

Minerva, 1893-94.

"The Munich library, … in matter of administration, resembles the British Museum. Here one finds carefully catalogued that great wealth of material that appears only in doctorate theses, and for this reason is most valuable to the historic student. No tedious formalities are insisted upon, and orders for books are not subjected to long delays. The Vienna library moves slowly, as though its machinery were retarded by the weight of its royal imperial name. The catalogue is not accessible, the attendants are not anxious to please, and the worker feels no special affection for the institution. But at the royal library of Berlin there exists an opposite state of affairs—with the catalogue at hand one can readily give the information needful in filling up the call card. This being a lending library, one occasionally meets with disappointment, but, as the privilege of borrowing is easily had, this feature can have a compensatory side. The most marked peculiarity found here is the periodic delivery of books. All books ordered before nine o'clock are delivered at eleven; those before eleven, at one; those before one, at three; and those after three are delivered the same day if possible. This causes some delay, but as soon as the rule is known it has no drawback for the continuous user, and for the benefit of one who wants only a single order there is placed at the outer door of the building a box into which one can deposit the call card, and returning at the proper time find the book waiting in the reading room above. This saves the climbing of many steps, and enables one to perform other duties between ordering and receiving. As far as I know, here alone does one purchase the call cards, but as the price is only twenty cents per hundred the cost is not an important item."

J. H. Gore, Library Facilities for Study in Europe (Educational Review, June, 1893).

In Berlin, "the report of the city government for 1889-00 reckons 25 public free libraries; 334,837 books were read by 14,900 persons, i. e., 17,219 volumes less than last year. The expenses were 26,490 marks, the allowance from the city treasury 23,400 marks [less than $6,000]."

The Library Journal, May, 1892.

LIBRARIES: France: The Bibliothèque Nationale.

"The history of the vast collection of books which is now, after many wanderings, definitely located in the Rue de Richelieu, divides itself naturally into three periods, which, for the sake of convenience, may well be called by three of the names under which the Library has, at different times, been known. The first period is that in which the Library was nothing more than the private collection of each successive sovereign of France, which sometimes accompanied him in his journeys, and but too often, as in the case of King John, or that of Charles VII., shared in his misfortunes; it was then fitly called the 'Bibliothèque du Roi.' This period may be considered as ending in the time of Henry IV., who transferred the royal collection from Fontainebleau to Paris, and gave it a temporary home in the College de Clermont. Although its abode has often been changed since, it has never again been attached to a royal palace, or been removed from the capital. The second period dates from this act of Henry the Fourth's, and extends down to the Revolution of 1780, during which time the Library, although open with but slight restrictions to all men of letters who were well recommended, and to the general public for two days a week, from the year 1692, was not regarded as national property, but as an appendage of the Crown, which was indeed graciously opened to the learned, but was only national property in the same sense that the Queen's private library at Windsor is national property. {2011} Although still called the Bibliothèque du Roi during this period, it may well be here spoken of, for the sake of distinction, as the Bibliothèque Royale down to the Revolution. In 1791, the King's library was proclaimed national property, and it was decreed that it should henceforth be called 'Bibliothèque Nationale,' which name it bore till the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French, in 1805, when it was styled 'Bibliothèque Impériale.' Of course it was Bibliothèque Royale again in 1815, 'Nationale' in 1848, and once again, in 1852, was declared to be the 'Bibliothèque Impériale.'"

Imperial Library of Paris (Westminster Review, April, 1870).

After the fall of the Second Empire, the great library again became "Nationale" in name. According to a report made in the spring of 1894, the Bibliothèque Nationale of France contained, at the end of the previous year, 1,934,154 "'numbers,' forming at least 2,600,000 volumes." This report was made by a committee of twenty persons, appointed to consider the advisability and method of printing the catalogue of the library. The conclusions of the committee are favorable to the printing of the catalogue.

The Nation, May 17, 1894.

Books come to the National Library "in three ways: from (1) gifts, about 3,000 a year; … (2) purchase, 4,500 (the library has $20,000 a year to spend on books and binding); (3) copyright, 22,000 articles and 6,000 pieces of music. The printer, not the publisher, is bound to make the deposit, so that if the text and the illustrations are printed at different places there is a chance, unless everyone is careful, that the library will have an imperfect copy. But the greatest trouble comes from periodicals, of which the Bibliothèque Nationale receives 3,000. What would some of our librarians think of this who are inclined to boast or to lament that they receive 300? Every number of every newspaper in France must be received, sent for if it fails to come, registered, put on its pile, and at the end of the year tied up in a bundle and put away (for only the most important are bound). … The titles of new books are printed in a bulletin in two series, French and Foreign (causing a printer's bill of 5,000 francs a year). This began in 1875 for the foreign, and in 1882 for the French. These bulletins are cut up and the titles mounted on slips, which are fastened in a Leyden binder, three making a small folio page. The result is a series of 900 volumes, less easy to consult than a good card catalog, very much less easy than the British Museum pasted catalog, the Rudolph books, or the Rudolph machine. … The books received at the Bibliothèque Nationale before 1875 and 1882 are entered on some 2,000,000 slips, which are divided between two catalogs, that of the old library ('fonds ancien'), and of the intermediate library ('fonds intermédiarie'). In each of these catalogs they are arranged in series according to the subject divisions given above and under each subject alphabetically. There is no author catalog and the public are not allowed to consult these catalogs. If then a reader asks for a work received before 1875 the attendant guesses in which 'fonds' it is and what subject it treats of; if he does not find it where he looks first he tries some other division. No wonder it takes on an average half an hour for the reader to get his book. I must bear witness to the great skill which necessity has developed in the officials charged with this work. Some of their successes in bringing me out-of-the-way books were marvellous. On the other hand, when they reported certain works not in the library I did not feel at all sure that they were right, and I dare say they doubted themselves. All this will be changed when the library gets a printed alphabetical catalog of authors and has made from it a pasted alphabetical catalog of subjects. The author catalog, by the way, is expected to fill 40,000 double-columned quarto pages. … The library now has 50 kilometres (31 miles) of shelves and is full. A new store-house is needed and a public reading room ('salle de lecture'), which can be lighted by electricity, and be opened, like the British Museum, in the evening."

C. A. Cutter, Notes on the Bibliothèque Nationale (Library Journal, June, 1894).

LIBRARIES: France: Paris Municipal Libraries.

"The Bibliothèques Municipales de Paris have undergone a rapid development within the last few years. In 1878 there were only nine altogether, of which five were little used, and four practically unused. A special Bureau was then appointed by the Municipal Council to take charge of them, with the result that altogether 22 libraries have been opened, while the number of volumes lent rose from 29,339 in 1878 to 57,840 in 1879, to 147,567 in 1880, to 242,738 in 1881, and to 363,322 in 1882. … A sum of 3,050 francs is placed at the disposal of each library by the Municipal Council, which is thus appropriated; Books and Binding, Fr. 1,750; Librarian, 1,000; Attendant, 300. The amount of the sums thus voted by the Municipal Council in the year 1883 was 110,150 fr. For the year of 1884 the sum of 171,700 fr. has been voted, the increase being intended to provide for the establishment of fifteen new libraries in Communal Schools, as well as for the growing requirements of some of the libraries already established. The individual libraries are not, of course, as yet very considerable in point of numbers. The stock possessed by the twenty-two Bibliothèques Municipales in 1882 was 87,831 volumes, of which 20,411 had been added during that year. Information received since the publication of M. Dardenne's Report places the number in 1883 at 98,843 volumes. … The libraries are open to the public gratuitously every evening from 8 to 10 o'clock, and are closed on five days only during the whole year. Books may be read in the library or are lent out for home use. … Music is lent as well as books, the experiment having been first tried at the Mairie of the second arrondissement, in 1879, and having proved so successful that nine arrondissements have followed suit, and the total number of musical issues from the ten libraries in 1882 was 9,085. … Beside these libraries under the direction of the Mairies, there are a certain number of popular free libraries established and supported by voluntary efforts. Without dwelling upon the history of these libraries, all of which have been formed since 1860, it may be stated that there are now fourteen such libraries in as many arrondissements."

E. C. Thomas, The Popular Libraries of Paris (Library Chronicle, volume 1, 1884, pages 13-14).

{2012}

"The Journal Officiel' contains in the number for August 29, of this year (1891), the substance of the following account: … The city of Paris has now 64 public libraries, all of which send out books and accommodate readers in their halls; they are open at the times when the factories and shops are closed. … The libraries are kept in the mayoralty buildings or ward district school-houses; a central office provides for the administration and support, while in each precinct a committee of superintendence attends to the choice and ordering of new accessions. All expenses are paid by the city, which, in its last budget, in 1890, appropriated therefor the trifle of 225,000 francs. On every library in full use are bestowed yearly about 2,400 francs, while 14,000 francs are employed in founding new ones. The number of books circulated in 1890 was 1,386,642, against 29,339 in 1878, in the nine libraries then existing. In 1878 there was an average of only 3,259 readers for each library, and in the last year the average was 23,500, which shows a seven-fold use of the libraries."

Public Libraries in Paris; translated from the Börsenblatt, October 7, 1891 (Library Journal, May, 1892).

LIBRARIES: France: Other Libraries.

A library of importance in Paris second only to the great National is the Mazarin, which contains 300,000 volumes (1,000 incunabula), and 5,800 manuscripts. The Library of the University has 141,678 volumes; the Library of the Museum of Natural History has 140,850 books and 2,050 manuscripts; the Sainte-Genevieve Library contains 120,000 volumes and 2,392 manuscripts; the Library of the City of Paris, 90,000 volumes and 2,000 manuscripts. The principal libraries of the provincial cities are reported as follows: Caen Municipal Library, 100,000 volumes, 620 manuscripts; Dijon Municipal Library, 100,000 volumes, 1,558 manuscripts; Marseilles City Library, 102,000 volumes, 1,656 manuscripts; Montpelier City Library, 120,000 volumes; Nantes City Library, 102,172 volumes, 2,231 manuscripts; Rheims Library, 100,000 books and 1,700 manuscripts; Lyons City Library and Library of the Palace of Arts, 160,000 volumes and 1,900 manuscripts; Toulouse City Library, 100,000 volumes and 950 manuscripts; Rouen City Library, 132,000 printed books and 3,800 manuscripts; Avignon, 117,000 volumes and 3,300 manuscripts; Bordeaux, 160,000 volumes, 1,500 manuscripts; Tours, 100,000 volumes and 1,743 manuscripts; Amiens, 80,000 volumes, 1,500 manuscripts; Besançon, 140,000 volumes and 1,850 manuscripts.

Minerva, 1893-94.

LIBRARIES: Italy.

"There are in Italy between thirty and forty libraries which the present National Government, in recognition of former Governmental support, is committed to maintain, at least in some degree. It is a division of resources which even a rich country would find an impediment in developing a proper National Library, and Italy, with its over-burdened Treasury, is far from being in a position to offer the world a single library of the first class. … Italy, to build up a library which shall rank with the great national libraries of the future, will need to concentrate her resources; for though she has libraries now which are rich in manuscripts, she has not one which is able to meet the great demands of modern scholarship for printed books. … If with this want of fecundity there went a corresponding slothfulness in libraries, there would be little to be hoped of Italy in amassing great collections of books. In some respects I have found a more active bibliothecal spirit in Italy than elsewhere in Europe, and I suspect that if Italian unification has accomplished nothing else, it has unshackled the minds of librarians, and placed them more in sympathy with the modern gospel which makes a library more the servant than the master of its users. I suspect this is not, as a rule, the case in Germany. … I have certainly found in Italian librarians a great alertness of mind and a marked eagerness to observe the advances in library methods which have taken place elsewhere during the last five and twenty years. But at the same time, with all this activity, the miserable bureaucratic methods of which even the chance stranger sees so much in Italy, are allowed to embarrass the efforts of her best librarians. … In the present condition of Italian finances nothing adequate to the needs of the larger libraries can be allowed, and the wonder is that so much is done as is apparent; and it is doubtless owing to the great force of character which I find in some of the leading librarians that any progress is made at all. During the years when the new Italian kingdom had its capital in Florence a certain amount of concentration started the new Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale on its career; and when later the Government was transferred to Rome, the new capital was given another library, got together in a similar way, which is called the Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele. Neither collection is housed in any way suited to its functions, and the one at Florence is much the most important; indeed it is marvellously rich in early printed books and in manuscripts."

J. Winsor, The condition of Italian Libraries (The Nation, July 9, 1891).

LIBRARIES: The Vatican Library.

"Even so inveterate a hater of literature as the Calif, who conquered Alexandria and gave its precious volumes to the flames, would have appreciated such a library as the Vatican. Not a book is to be seen—not a shelf is visible, and there is nothing to inform the visitor that he is in the most famous library in the world. … The eye is bewildered by innumerable busts, statues, and columns. The walls are gay with brilliant arabesques, and the visitor passes through lofty corridors and along splendid galleries, finding in every direction something to please and interest him. … The printed books number about 125,000 volumes and there are about 25,000 manuscripts. The books and manuscripts are enclosed in low wooden cases around the walls of the various apartments, the cases are painted in white and gold colors, and thus harmonize with the gay appearance of the walls and ceilings. … The honor of founding the Vatican Library belongs to Pope Nicholas V., who, in 1447, transferred to the Palace of the Vatican the manuscripts which had been collected in the Lateran. At his death the library contained 9,000 manuscripts, but many of them were dispersed under his successor, Calixtus III. Sixtus IV. was very active in restoring and increasing the library. In 1588, the present library building was erected by Sixtus V., to receive the immense collection obtained by Leo X. In the year 1600 the value of the library was greatly augmented by the acquisition of the collection of Fulvius Ursinus and the valuable manuscripts from the Benedictine Monastery of Bobbio, composed chiefly of palimpsests. … {2013} The next acquisition was the Library of the Elector Palatine, captured in 1621, at Heidelberg, by De Tilley, who presented it to Gregory XV. It numbered 2,388 manuscripts, 1,956 in Latin, and 432 in Greek. In 1658 the Library founded by Duke Federigo de Urbino—1,711 Greek and Latin manuscripts—was added to the valuable collection. One of the most valuable accessions was the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden, containing all the literary works which her father, Gustavus Adolphus, had captured at Prague, Bremen, etc., amounting to 2,291 manuscripts, Greek and Latin. In 1746 the magnificent library of the Ottobuoni family, containing 3,862 Greek and Latin manuscripts, enriched the Vatican collection. After the downfall of Napoleon and the restoration of the peace of Europe in 1815, the King of Prussia, at the suggestion of Humboldt, applied to Pope Pius VII for the restoration of some of the manuscripts which De Tilley had plundered from the Heidelberg Library. The Pope, mindful of the prominent part taken by Prussia in the restoration of the Papal See, immediately complied with the royal request, and many manuscripts of great value to the German historians were sent back to Germany."

E. L. Didier, The Vatican Library (Literary World, June 28, 1884).

The following recent statistics of other Italian libraries are from "Minerva," 1893-94: Florence National Central Library, 422,183 printed books, 398,845 pamphlets and 17,386 manuscripts; Rome, National Central Library of Victor Emmanuel, 241,978 books, 130,728 pamphlets, 4,676 manuscripts; Naples University Library, 181,072 printed books, 43,453 pamphlets, and 109 manuscripts; Bologna University Library, 251,700 books, 43,633 pamphlets and 5,000 manuscripts; Pavia University Library, 136,000 books, 80,000 pamphlets and 1,100 manuscripts; Turin National Library, 196,279 printed books and 4,119 manuscripts; Venice, National Library of St. Mark, 401,652 printed and bound books, 80,450 pamphlets, and 12,016 manuscripts; Pisa University Library, 108,188 books, 22,960 pamphlets and 274 manuscripts; Genoa University Library, 106,693 books, 46,231 pamphlets, and 1,586 manuscripts; Modena, the Este Library, 123,300 volumes, and 5,000 manuscripts; Padua University Library, 135,837 volumes, 2,326 manuscripts, and 63,849 pamphlets, etc.; Palermo National Library, 177,892 volumes and pamphlets, and 1,527 manuscripts; Palermo Communal Library, 209,000 books, 16,000 pamphlets, etc., 3,000 manuscripts; Parma Palatine Library, 250,000 books, 20,313 pamphlets, etc., 4,769 manuscripts; Siena Communal Library 67,966 volumes, 26,968 pamphlets, 4,890 manuscripts.

LIBRARIES: Austria-Hungary.

The principal libraries in the Empire are reported to contain as follows: Vienna University Library, 416,608 volumes, 373 incunabula, 498 manuscripts; Vienna Imperial and Royal Court Library, 500,000 volumes, 6,461 incunabula, and 20,000 manuscripts; Budapest University Library, 200,000 volumes, 1,000 manuscripts; Hungarian National Museum, 400,000 volumes and 63,000 manuscripts, mostly Hungarian; Czernowitz University Library, 64,586 volumes and over 30,000 pamphlets, etc.; Graz University 131,397 volumes of books and 1,708 manuscripts; Innspruck University Library, 135,000 printed books, including 1,653 incunabula, and 1,046 manuscripts; Cracow University Library, 283,858 volumes and 5,150 manuscripts; Lemberg University Library, 120,900 volumes; Prague University Library, 211,131 volumes, 3,848 manuscripts.

Minerva, 1893-94.

LIBRARIES: Switzerland.

The principal libraries of Switzerland are the following: Basle Public Library, 170,000 volumes of printed books and about 5,000 manuscripts; Berne City Library, 80,000 volumes and a valuable manuscript collection; Berne University Library, 35,000 volumes; St. Gall "Stiftsbibliothek," about 40,000 volumes, including l,584 incunabula, and 1,730 manuscripts; Lucerne Cantonal Library, 80,000 volumes; Zurich City Library, 130,000 volumes.

Minerva, 1893-94.

LIBRARIES: Holland.

The following statistics of libraries in Holland are given in the German handbook, "Minerva," 1893-94: Leyden University Library, 190,000 volumes of printed books and 5,400 manuscripts, of which latter 2,400 are oriental; Utrecht University Library, 200,000 volumes, besides pamphlets; Groningen University Library, 70,000 volumes.

LIBRARIES: Belgium.

Brussels Royal Library, 375,000 volumes, and 27,000 manuscripts; Ghent, Library of the City and University of Gand, 300,000 volumes.

LIBRARIES: Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

The principal libraries of the Scandinavian kingdoms contain as follows: Christiania University Library, 312,000 volumes; Gothenburg City Library, about 60,000 volumes; Copenhagen University Library 300,000 books and 5,000 manuscripts; Lund University Library, 150,000 volumes; Stockholm Royal Library, 300,000 printed books and 11,000 manuscripts; Upsala University Library, 275,000 volumes and 11,000 manuscripts.

Minerva, 1893-94.

LIBRARIES: Spain.

The principal libraries in Spain are the following: Barcelona Provincial and University Library, 54,000 volumes; Madrid University Library, 200,761 volumes and 3,000 manuscripts; Madrid National Library, 450,000 volumes and 10,000 manuscripts; Salamanca University Library, 72,000 volumes and 870 manuscripts; Seville University Library, 62,000 volumes; Valencia University Library, 45,000 volumes; Valladolid University Library, 32,000 volumes.

Minerva, 1893-94.

LIBRARIES: Russia.

"The most notable [Russian] libraries are those founded by the government. Of these, two deserve special attention: the library of the Academy of Sciences and the Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg. Books taken by the Russian armies from the Baltic provinces at the beginning of the eighteenth century formed the foundation of the first. The Imperial Library was the result of the Russian capture of Warsaw. Count Joseph Zalussky, bishop of Kiev, spent forty-three years collecting a rich library of 300,000 volumes and 10,000 manuscripts, devoting all his wealth to the purchase of books. His brother Andrew further enriched the library with volumes taken from the museum of the Polish king, John III. In 1747 Joseph Zalussky opened the library to the public, and in 1761 bequeathed it to a college of Jesuits in Warsaw. Six years later (1767) Zalussky was arrested and his library removed to St. Petersburg. The transfer took place in bad weather and over poor roads, so that many books were injured and many lost in transit. When the library reached St. Petersburg it numbered 262,640 volumes and 24,500 estampes. Many had been stolen during the journey, and years later there were to be found in Poland books bearing the signature of Zalussky. {2014} To the Imperial Library Alexander I. added, in 1805, the Dubrovsky collection. … Dubrovsky gathered his collection during a twenty-five years' residence in Paris, Rome, Madrid, and other large cities of Europe. He acquired many during the French revolution. … The Imperial Library possesses many palimpsests, Greek manuscripts of the second century, … besides Slavonian, Latin, French, and Oriental manuscripts. … The library is constantly growing, about 25,000 volumes being added every year. In income, size, and number of readers it vastly surpasses all private libraries in Russia, the largest of which does not exceed 25,000 volumes. In later years the village schools began to open libraries for limited circles of readers. Small libraries were successfully maintained in cities and the demand for good reading steadily increased among the people."

A. V. Babine, Libraries in Russia, (Library Journal, March, 1893).

The principal libraries of Russia reported in the German yearbook "Minerva" 1893-94 are the following: Charkow University Library, 123,000 volumes; Dorpat University Library, 170,000 volumes, and 104,700 dissertationen; Helsingfors University Library 170,000 volumes; Kasan University Library, 100,000 volumes; Kiev University Library, 118,000 volumes; Moscow University Library, 217,000 volumes; Odessa University Library, 102,000 volumes; St. Petersburg University Library, 215,700 volumes; St. Petersburg Imperial Public Library, 1,050,000 volumes, 28,000 manuscripts.

LIBRARIES: England: The King's Library and the British Museum.

"No monarch of England is known to have been an extensive collector of books (in the modern acceptation of the term) except George III., or, if the name of Charles I. should be added, it must be in a secondary rank, and with some uncertainty, because we have not the same evidence of his collection of books as we have of his pictures, in the catalogue which exists of them. A royal library had, indeed, been established in the reign of Henry VII.; it was increased, as noticed by Walpole, by many presents from abroad, made to our monarchs after the restoration of learning and the invention of printing; and naturally received accessions in every subsequent reign, if it were only from the various presents by which authors desired to show their respect or to solicit patronage, as well as from the custom of making new year's gifts, which were often books. There were also added to it the entire libraries of Lord Lumley (including those of Henry, Earl of Arundel, and Archbishop Cranmer), of the celebrated Casaubon, of Sir John Morris, and the Oriental MSS. of Sir Thomas Roe. Whilst this collection remained at St. James's Palace, the number of books amassed in each reign could have been easily distinguished, as they were classed and arranged under the names of the respective sovereigns. In 1759 King George II. transferred the whole, by letters patent, to the then newly-formed establishment of the British Museum; the arrangement under reigns was some time after departed from, and the several royal collections interspersed with the other books obtained from Sir Hans Sloane, Major Edwards, and various other sources. … George III., on his accession to the crown, thus found the apartments which had formerly contained the library of the Kings of England vacated by their ancient tenants. … Sir F. A. Barnard states that 'to create an establishment so necessary and important, and to attach it to the royal residence, was one of the earliest objects which engaged his majesty's attention at the commencement of his reign;' and he adds that the library of Joseph Smith, Esq., the British Consul at Venice, which was purchased in 1762, 'became the foundation of the present Royal Library.' Consul Smith's collection was already well known, from a catalogue which had been printed at Venice in 1755, to be eminently rich in the earliest editions of the classics, and in Italian literature.' Its purchase was effected for about £10,000, and it was brought direct to some apartments at the Queen's Palace commonly called Buckingham House. Here the subsequent collections were amassed; and here, after they had outgrown the rooms at first appropriated to them, the King erected two large additional libraries, one of which was a handsome octagon. Latterly the books occupied no less than seven apartments. … Early in the year 1823, it was made known to the public that King George IV. had presented the Royal Library to the British nation. … Shortly after, the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated in the House of Commons that it was his majesty's wish that the library should be placed in the British Museum, but in a separate apartment from the Museum Library."

Gentleman's Magazine, 1834, pages 16-22.

"In the chief countries of the Continent of Europe … great national Museums have, commonly, had their origin in the liberality and wise foresight either of some sovereign or other, or of some powerful minister whose mind was large enough to combine with the cares of State a care for Learning. In Britain, our chief public collection of literature and of science originated simply in the public spirit of private persons. The British Museum was founded precisely at that period of our history when the distinctively national, or governmental, care for the interests of literature and of science was at its lowest, or almost its lowest, point. As regards the monarchs, it would be hard to fix on any, since the dawn of the Revival of Learning, who evinced less concern for the progress and diffusion of learning than did the first and second princes of the House of Hanover. As regards Parliament, the tardy and languid acceptance of the boon proffered, posthumously, by Sir Hans Sloane, constitutes just the one exceptional act of encouragement that serves to give saliency to the utter indifference which formed the ordinary rule. Long before Sloane's time … there had been zealous and repeated efforts to arouse the attention of the Government as well to the political importance as to the educational value of public museums. Many thinkers had already perceived that such collections were a positive increase of public wealth and of national greatness, as well as a powerful instrument of popular education. It had been shewn, over and over again, that for lack of public care precious monuments and treasures of learning had been lost; sometimes by their removal to far-off countries; sometimes by their utter destruction. Until the appeal made to Parliament by the Executors of Sir Hans Sloane, in the middle of the eighteenth century, all those efforts had uniformly failed. But Sir Hans Sloane cannot claim to be regarded, individually or very specially, as the Founder of the British Museum. His last Will, indeed, gave an opportunity for the foundation. {2015} Strictly speaking, he was not even the Founder of his own Collection, as it stood in his lifetime. The Founder of the Sloane Museum was William Courten, the last of a line of wealthy Flemish refugees, whose history, in their adopted country, is a series of romantic adventures. Parliament had previously accepted the gift of the Cottonian Library, at the hands of Sir John Cotton, third in descent from its Founder, and its acceptance of that gift had been followed by almost unbroken neglect, although the gift was a noble one. Sir John, when conversing, on one occasion, with Thomas Carte, told the historian that he had been offered £60,000 of English money, together with a carte blanche for some honorary mark of royal favour, on the part of Lewis XIV., for the Library which he afterwards settled upon the British nation. It has been estimated that Sloane expended (from first to last) upon his various collections about £50,000; so that even from the mercantile point of view, the Cotton family may be said to have been larger voluntary contributors towards our eventual National Museum than was Sir Hans Sloane himself. That point of view, however, would be a very false, because very narrow, one. Whether estimated by mere money value, or by a truer standard, the third, in order of time, of the Foundation-Collections,—that of the 'Harleian Manuscripts,'—was a much less important acquisition for the Nation than was the Museum of Sloane, or the Library of Cotton; but its literary value, as all students of our history and literature know, is, nevertheless, considerable. Its first Collector, Robert Harley, the Minister of Queen Anne and the first of the Harleian Earls of Oxford, is fairly entitled to rank, after Cotton, Courten, and Sloane, among the virtual or eventual co-founders of the British Museum. Chronologically, then, Sir Robert Cotton, William Courten, Hans Sloane, and Robert Harley, rank first as Founders; so long as we estimate their relative position in accordance with the successive steps by which the British Museum was eventually organized. But there is another synchronism by which greater accuracy is attainable. Although four years had elapsed between the passing—in 1753—of 'An Act for the purchase of the Museum or Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, and of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, and for providing one general repository for the better reception and more convenient use of the said Collections, and of the Cottonian Library and of the additions thereto,' and the gift—in 1757—to the Trustees of those already united Collections by King George II. of the Old Royal Library of the Kings his predecessors, yet that royal collection itself had been (in a restricted sense of the words) a Public and National possession soon after the days of the first real and central Founder of the present Museum, Sir Robert Cotton. But, despite its title, that Royal Library, also, was—in the main—the creation of subjects, not of Sovereigns or Governments. Its virtual founder Was Henry, prince of Wales [son of James I.]. It was acquired, out of his privy purse, as a subject, not as a Prince. He, therefore, has a title to be placed among the individual Collectors whose united efforts resulted—after long intervals of time—in the creation, eventually, of a public institution second to none, of its kind, in the world."

E. Edwards, Founders of the British Museum, book 1, chapter 1.

"Montague House was purchased by the Trustees in 1754 for a general repository, and the collections were removed to it. … On the 15th of January, 1750, the British Museum was opened for the inspection and use of the public. At first the Museum was divided into three departments, viz., Printed Books, Manuscripts, and Natural History; at the head of each of them was placed an officer designated as 'Under Librarian.' The increase of the collections soon rendered it necessary to provide additional accommodation for them, Montague House proving insufficient. The present by George III. of Egyptian Antiquities, and the purchase of the Hamilton and Townley Antiquities, made it moreover imperative to create an additional department—that of Antiquities and Art—to which were united the Prints and Drawings, as well as the Medals and Coins, previously attached to the library of Printed Books and Manuscripts. The acquisition of the Elgin Marbles in 1816 made the Department of Antiquities of the highest importance, and increased room being indispensable for the exhibition of those marbles, a temporary shelter was prepared for them. This was the last addition to Montague House. When, in 1823, the library collected by George III. was presented to the nation by George IV. it became necessary to erect a building fit to receive this valuable and extensive collection. It was then decided to have an entirely new edifice to contain the whole of the Museum collection, including the recently-acquired library. Sir R. Smirke was accordingly directed by the Trustees to prepare plans. The eastern side of the present structure was completed in 1828, and the Royal Library was then placed in it. The northern, southern, and western sides of the building were subsequently added, and in 1845 the whole of Montague House and its additions had disappeared; while the increasing collections had rendered it necessary to make various additions to the original design of Sir R. Smirke, some of them even before it had been carried out."

J. W. Jones, British Museum: a Guide, pages ii-iii.

"The necessity of a general enlargement of the library led to the suggestion of many plans—some impracticable—some too expensive—and all involving a delay which would have been fatal to the efficiency of the Institution. … Fortunately … after much vigorous discussion, a plan which had been suggested by the … Principal Librarian [Mr. Panizzi] for building in the vacant quadrangle, was adopted and carried out under his own immediate and watchful superintendence. … The quadrangle within which the new library is built is 313 feet in length by 235 wide, comprising an area of 73,555 square feet. Of this space the building covers 47,472 feet, being 258 feet long by 184 feet in width, thus leaving an interval of from 27 to 30 feet all round. By this arrangement, the light and ventilation of the surrounding buildings is not interfered with, and the risk of fire from the outer buildings is guarded against. The Reading Boom is circular. The dome is 140 feet in diameter, and its height 106 feet. The diameter of the lantern is 40 feet. Light is further obtained from twenty circular-headed windows, 27 feet high by 12 feet wide, inserted at equal intervals round the dome at a height of 35 feet from the ground. {2016} In its diameter the dome of the Reading Room exceeds all others, with the exception of the Pantheon of Rome, which is about 2 feet wider. That of St. Peter's at Rome, and of Santa Maria in Florence are each only 139 feet; that of the tomb of Mahomet at Bejapore, 135; of St. Paul's, 112; of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, 107; and of the church of Darmstadt, 105. The new Reading Room contains 1,250,000 cubic feet of space, and the surrounding libraries 750,000. These libraries are 24 feet in height, with the exception of that part which runs round the outside of the Reading Room, which is 32 feet high; the spring of the dome being 24 feet from the floor of the Reading Room, and the ground excavated 8 feet below this level. The whole building is constructed principally of iron. … The Reading Room contains ample and comfortable accommodation for 302 readers. There are thirty-five tables: eight are 34 feet long, and accommodate sixteen readers, eight on each side; nine are 30 feet long, and accommodate fourteen readers, seven on each side; two are 30 feet long, and accommodate eight readers each, viz., seven on one side and one on the other—these two tables are set apart for the exclusive use of ladies; sixteen other tables are 6 feet long, and accommodate two readers each—these are fitted up with rising desks of a large size for those readers who may have occasion to consult works beyond the usual dimensions. Each person has allotted to him, at the long tables, a space of 4 feet 3 inches in length by 2 feet 1 inch in depth. He is screened from the opposite occupant by a longitudinal division, which is fitted with a hinged desk graduated on sloping racks, and a folding shelf for spare books. In the space between the two, which is recessed, an inkstand is fixed, having suitable penholders. … The framework of each table is of iron, forming air-distributing channels, which are contrived so that the air may be delivered at the top of the longitudinal screen division, above the level of the heads of the readers, or, if desired, only at each end pedestal of the tables, all the outlets being under the control of valves. A tubular foot-rail also passes from end to end of each table, which may have a current of warm water through it at pleasure, and be used as a foot-warmer if required. The pedestals of the tables form tubes communicating with the air-chamber below, which is 6 feet high, and occupies the whole area of the Reading Room: it is fitted with hot-water pipes arranged in radiating lines. The supply of fresh air is obtained from a shaft 60 feet high. … The shelves within the Reading Room contain about 60,000 volumes: the new building altogether will accommodate about 1,500,000 volumes."

List of the Books of Reference in the Reading Room of the British Museum; preface.

The number of volumes of printed books in the British Museum in 1893 is reported to have been 1,600,000, the number of manuscripts 50,000 and the maps and charts 200,000.

Minerva, 1893-94.

A purchase from the Duke of Bedford, of adjoining land, to the extent of five and a half acres, for the enlargement of the Museum, was announced by the London Times, March 18, 1894. With this addition, the area of ground occupied by the Museum will be fourteen acres.

LIBRARIES: England: The Bodleian Library.

"Its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley, was a worthy of Devon, who had been actively employed by Queen Elizabeth as a diplomatist, and had returned tired of court life to the University, where long before he had been Fellow of Merton College. He found the ancient library of the University (which, after growing slowly with many vicissitudes from small beginnings, had suddenly been enriched in 1439-46 by a gift of 264 valuable MSS. from Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester) utterly destroyed by Edward VI.'s Commissioners, and the room built for its reception (still called 'Duke Humphrey's library') swept clear even of the readers' desks. His determination to refound the library of the University was actively carried out, and on November 8, 1602, the new institution was formally opened with about 2,000 printed and manuscript volumes. Two striking advantages were possessed by the Bodleian almost from the first. Sir Thomas Bodley employed his great influence at court and with friends to induce them to give help to his scheme, and accordingly we find not only donations of money and books from personal friends, but 240 MSS. contributed by the Deans and Chapters of Exeter and Windsor. Moreover, in 1610, he arranged with the Stationers' Company that they should present his foundation with a copy of every printed book published by a member of the Company; and from that time to this the right to every book published in the kingdom has been continuously enjoyed."

F. Madan, Books in Manuscript, page 84.

In 1891 the Bodleian Library was said to contain 400,000 printed books and 30,000 manuscripts. Under the copyright act of Great Britain, the British Museum, the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the Cambridge University Library, the Advocates Library, Edinburgh, and the Trinity College Library, Dublin, are each entitled to a copy of every work published in the United Kingdom.

LIBRARIES: England: Rise and Growth of Free Town-Libraries.

In the "Encyclopædia Britannica" (9th edition) we read, in the article "Libraries," that "the fine old library instituted by Humphrey Chetham in Manchester, in 1653, and which is still 'housed in the old collegiate buildings where Raleigh was once entertained by Dr. Dee, might be said to be the first free library' in England. Two centuries, however, before worthy Chetham had erected his free fountain of knowledge for thirsty souls, a grave fraternity known as the Guild of Kalendars had established a free library, for all comers, in connection with a church yet standing in one of the thoroughfares of Old Bristol. … John Leland (temp. Henry VIII.) speaks of the Kalendars as an established body about the year 1170: and when in 1216 Henry III. held a Parliament in Bristol, the deeds of the guild were inspected, and ratified on account of the antiquity and high character of the fraternity ('propter antiquitates et bonitates in eâ Gilda repertas'), and Gualo, the Papal Legate, commended the Kalendars to the care of William de Blois, Bishop of Worcester, within whose diocese Bristol then lay. It was the office of the Kalendars to record local events and such general affairs as were thought worthy of commemoration, whence their name. They consisted of clergy and laity, even women being admitted to their Order. … {2017} It was ordered by Wolstan, Bishop of Worcester, who in visitation of this part of his diocese, July 10, 1340, examined the ancient rules of the College, that a prior in priest's orders should be chosen by the majority of the chaplains and lay brethren, without the solemnity of confirmation, consecration or benediction of superiors, and eight chaplains who were not bound by monastic rules, were to be joined with him to celebrate for departed brethren and benefactors every day. By an ordinance of John Carpenter, Bishop of Worcester, A. D. 1464, the Prior was to reside in the college, and take charge of a certain library newly erected at the Bishop's expense, so that every festival day from seven to eleven in the forenoon admission should be freely allowed to all desirous of consulting the Prior, to read a public lecture every week in the library, and elucidate obscure places of Scripture as well as he could to those desirous of his teachings. … Lest, through negligence or accident, the books should be lost, it was ordered that three catalogues of them should be kept; one to remain with the Dean of Augustinian Canons, whose 14th-century church is now Bristol Cathedral, another with the Mayor for the time being, and the third with the Prior himself. Unfortunately, they are all three lost. … This interesting library was destroyed by fire in 1466 through the carelessness of a drunken 'point-maker,' two adjoining houses against the steeple of the church being at the same time burnt down."

J. Taylor, The First English Free Library and its Founders (Murray's Magazine, November, 1891).

"Free town-libraries are essentially a modern institution, and yet can boast of a greater antiquity than is generally supposed, for we find a town-library at Auvergne in 1540, and one at a still earlier date at Aix. Either the munificence of individuals or the action of corporate authorities has given very many of the continental towns freely accessible libraries, some of them of considerable extent. In England the history of town-libraries is much briefer. There is reason to believe that London at an early date was possessed of a common library; and Bristol, Norwich, and Leicester, had each town-libraries, but the corporations proved but careless guardians of their trust, and in each case allowed it to be diverted from the free use of the citizens for the benefit of a subscription library. At Bristol, in 1613, Mr. Robert Redwood 'gave his lodge to be converted into a library or place to put books in for the furtherance of learning.' Some few years after, Tobie Matthew, Archbishop of York, left some valuable books in various departments of literature for free access 'to the merchants and shopkeepers.' … The paucity of our public libraries, twenty years ago, excited the attention of Mr. Edward Edwards, to whose labours in this field the country owes so much. Having collected a large amount of statistics as to the comparative number of these institutions in different States, he communicated the result of his researches to the Statistical Society, in a paper which was read on the 20th of March, 1848, and was printed in this 'Journal' in the August following. The paper revealed some unpleasant facts, and showed that, in respect of the provision of public libraries, Great Britain occupied a very unworthy position. In the United Kingdom (including Malta) Mr. Edwards could only discover 29 libraries having more than 10,000 volumes, whilst France could boast 107, Austria 41, Switzerland 13. The number of volumes to every hundred of the population of cities containing libraries, was in Great Britain 43, France 125, Brunswick 2,353. Of the 29 British libraries enumerated by Mr. Edwards, some had only doubtful claims to be considered as public, and only one of them was absolutely free to all comers, without influence or formality. That one was the public library at Manchester, founded by Humphrey Chetham in 1665. The paper read before this Society twenty-two years ago was destined to be productive of great and speedy results. From the reading of it sprang the present system of free town-libraries. The seed was then sown, and it is now fructifying in the libraries which are springing up on every hand. The paper attracted the attention of the late William Ewart, Esq., M. P., and ultimately led to the appointment of a parliamentary committee on the subject of public libraries. The report of this committee paved the way for the Public Libraries Act of 1850."

W. E. A. Axon, Statistical Notes on the Free Town-Libraries of Great Britain and the Continent (Journal of the Statistical Society, September 1870, volume 33).

The progress of free public libraries in England under the Act of 1850 was not, for a long time, very rapid. "In the 36 years from 1850 onward—that is, down to 1886—133 places had availed themselves of the benefits of the act. That was not a very large number, not amounting quite, upon the average, to four in each of those 36 years. … Now, see the change which has taken place. We have only four years, from 1887 to 1890, and in those four years no less than 70 places have taken advantage of the act, so that instead of an average of less than four places in the year, we have an average of more than 17 places."

W. E. Gladstone, Address at the Opening of the Free Public Library of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.

"The Clerkenwell Library Commissioners draw attention to the enormous strides London has made within the last five years in the matter of public libraries. In 1886 four parishes had adopted the Acts; by December, 1891, 29 parishes had adopted them, and there are already 30 libraries and branches opened throughout the County of London, possessing over 250,000 volumes, and issuing over 3,000,000 volumes per annum."

The Library Journal, February, 1892.

Under a new law, which came into force in 1893, "any local authority (i. e., town council or district board), save in the County of London, may establish and maintain public libraries without reference to the wishes of the rate payers."

The Library Journal, October, 1893 (volume 18, page 442).

LIBRARIES: United States of America: Franklin and the first Subscription Library.

When Franklin's club, at Philadelphia, the Junto, was first formed, "its meetings were held (as the custom of clubs was in that clubbing age) in a tavern; and in a tavern of such humble pretensions as to be called by Franklin an ale-house. But the leathern-aproned philosophers soon removed to a room of their own, lent them by one of their members, Robert Grace. It often happened that a member would bring a book or two to the Junto, for the purpose of illustrating the subject of debate, and this led Franklin to propose that all the members should keep their books in the Junto room, as well for reference while debating as for the use of members during the week. The suggestion being approved, one end of their little apartment was soon filled with books; and there they remained for the common benefit a year. {2018} But some books having been injured, their owners became dissatisfied, and the books were all taken home. Books were then scarce, high-priced, and of great bulk. Folios were still common, and a book of less magnitude than quarto was deemed insignificant. … Few books of much importance were published at less than two guineas. Such prices as four guineas, five guineas, and six guineas were not uncommon. Deprived of the advantage of the Junto collection, Franklin conceived the idea of a subscription library. Early in 1731 he drew up a plan, the substance of which was, that each subscriber should contribute two pounds sterling for the first purchase of books, and ten shillings a year for the increase of the library. As few of the inhabitants of Philadelphia had money to spare, and still fewer cared for reading, he found very great difficulty in procuring a sufficient number of subscribers. He says: 'I put myself as much as I could out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a number of friends, who had requested me to go about and propose it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this way my affairs went on more smoothly, and I ever after practiced it on such occasions, and from my frequent successes can heartily recommend it.' Yet it was not until November, 1731, at least five months after the project was started, that fifty names were obtained; and not till March, 1732, that the money was collected. After consulting James Logan, 'the best judge of books in these parts,' the first list of books was made out, a draft upon London of forty-five pounds was purchased, and both were placed in the hands of one of the directors who was going to England. Peter Collinson undertook the purchase, and added to it presents of Newton's 'Principia,' and 'Gardener's Dictionary.' All the business of the library Mr. Collinson continued to transact for thirty years, and always swelled the annual parcel of books by gifts of valuable works. In those days getting a parcel from London was a tedious affair indeed. All the summer of 1732 the subscribers were waiting for the coming of the books, as for an event of the greatest interest. … In October the books arrived, and were placed, at first, in the room of the Junto. A librarian was appointed, and the library was opened once a week for giving out the books. The second year Franklin himself served as librarian. For many years the secretary to the directors was Joseph Breintnal, by whose zeal and diligence the interests of the library were greatly promoted. Franklin printed a catalogue soon after the arrival of the books, for which, and for other printing, he was exempted from paying his annual ten shillings for two years. The success of this library, thus begun by a few mechanics and clerks, was great in every sense of the word. Valuable donations of books, money and curiosities were frequently made to it. The number of subscribers slowly, but steadily, increased. Libraries of similar character sprung up all over the country, and many were started even in Philadelphia. Kalm, who was in Philadelphia in 1748, says that then the parent library had given rise to 'many little libraries,' on the same plan as itself. He also says that non-subscribers were then allowed to take books out of the library, by leaving a pledge for the value of the book, and paying for a folio eight pence a week, for a quarto six pence, and for all others four pence. 'The subscribers,' he says, 'were so kind to me as to order the librarian, during my stay here, to lend me every book I should want, without requiring any payment of me.' In 1764, the shares had risen in value to nearly twenty pounds, and the collection was considered to be worth seventeen hundred pounds. In 1785, the number of volumes was 5,487; in 1807, 14,457; in 1861, 70,000. The institution is one of the few in America that has held on its way, unchanged in any essential principle, for a century and a quarter, always on the increase, always faithfully administered, always doing well its appointed work. There is every reason to believe that it will do so for centuries to come. The prosperity of the Philadelphia Library was owing to the original excellence of the plan, the good sense embodied in the rules, the care with which its affairs were conducted, and the vigilance of Franklin and his friends in turning to account passing events. Thomas Penn, for example, visited Philadelphia a year or two after the library was founded; when the directors of the library waited upon him with a dutiful address, and received, in return, a gift of books and apparatus. It were difficult to over-estimate the value to the colonies of the libraries that grew out of Franklin's original' conception. They were among the chief means of educating the colonies up to Independence. 'Reading became fashionable,' says Franklin; 'and our people having no public amusements to divert their attention from study, became better acquainted with books, and in a few years were observed, by strangers, to be better instructed and more intelligent than people of the same rank generally are in other countries.' … What the Philadelphia Library did for Franklin himself, the libraries, doubtless, did for many others. It made him a daily student for twenty years. He set apart an hour or two every day for study, and thus acquired the substance of all the most valuable knowledge then possessed by mankind. Whether Franklin was the originator of subscription libraries, and of the idea of permitting books to be taken to the homes of subscribers, I cannot positively assert. But I can discover no trace of either of those two fruitful conceptions before his time."

J. Parton, Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, pages 200-203.

"The books were at first kept in the house of Robert Grace, whom Franklin characterizes as 'a young gentleman of some fortune, generous, lively, and witty, a lover of punning and of his friends.' Afterward they were allotted a room in the State-House; and, in 1742, a charter was obtained from the Proprietaries. In 1790, having in the interval absorbed several other associations and sustained a removal to Carpenter's Hall, where its apartment had been used as a hospital for wounded American soldiers, the Library was at last housed in a building especially erected for it at Fifth and Chestnut streets, where it remained until within the last few years. It brought only about eight thousand volumes into its new quarters, for it had languished somewhat during the Revolution and the war of words which attended our political birth. But it had received no injury. … Two years after removal to its quarters on Fifth street, the Library received the most valuable gift of books it has as yet had. James Logan, friend and adviser of Penn, … had gathered a most important collection of books. {2019} Mr. Logan was translator of Cicero's 'Cato Major,' the first classic published in America, besides being versed in natural science. His library comprised, as he tells us, 'over one hundred volumes of authors, all in Greek, with mostly their versions; all the Roman classics without exception; all the Greek mathematicians. … Besides there are many of the most valuable Latin authors, and a great number of modern mathematicians.' These, at first bequeathed as a public library to the city, became a branch of the Philadelphia Library under certain conditions, one of which was that, barring contingencies, one of the donor's descendants should always hold the office of trustee. And to-day his direct descendant fills the position, and is perhaps the only example in this country of an hereditary office-holder. … In 1869 died Dr. James Rush, son of Benjamin Rush, and himself well known as the author of a work on the human voice, and as husband of a lady who almost succeeded in naturalizing the salon in this country. By his will about one million dollars were devoted to the erection and maintenance of an isolated and fire-proof library-building, which was to be named the Ridgway Library, in memory of his wife. This building was offered to the Philadelphia Company, and the bequest was accepted. That institution had by this time accumulated about one hundred thousand volumes. … A building of the Doric order was erected, which with its grounds covers an entire square or block, and is calculated to contain four hundred thousand volumes, or three times as many as the Library at present has, and to this building the more valuable books of the Library were removed in 1878; the fiction and more modern works being placed in another designed in imitation of the old edifice, and nearer the center of the city."

B. Samuel, The Father of American Libraries (Century Magazine, May, 1883).

In 1893, the library of the Philadelphia Library Company contained 171,069 volumes.

LIBRARIES: The First Library in New York.

The New York Society Library is the oldest institution of the kind in the city of New York. "In 1729, the Reverend Dr. Millington, Rector of Newington, England, by his will, bequeathed his library to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. By this society the library of Dr. Millington was presented to the corporation of the city, for the use of the clergy and gentlemen of New-York and the neighbouring provinces. … 'In 1754 [as related in Smith's History of New York] a set of gentlemen undertook to carry about a subscription towards raising a public library, and in a few days collected near 600 pounds, which were laid out in purchasing about 700 volumes of new, well-chosen books. Every subscriber, upon payment of five pounds principal, and the annual sum of ten shillings, is entitled to the use of these books,—his right, by the articles, is assignable, and for non-compliance with them may be forfeited. The care of this library is committed to twelve trustees, annually elected by the subscribers, on the last Tuesday of April, who are restricted from making any rules repugnant to the fundamental subscription. This is the beginning of a library which, in process of time, will probably become vastly rich and voluminous, and it would be very proper for the company to have a Charter for its security and encouragement.' The library of the corporation above alluded to, appearing to have been mismanaged, and at length entirely disused, the trustees of the New-York Society Library offered to take charge of it, and to deposit their own collection with it, in the City-Hall. This proposal having been acceded to by the corporation, the Institution thenceforward received the appellation of 'The City Library,' a name by which it was commonly known for a long time. A good foundation having been thus obtained, the library prospered and increased. … In 1772, a charter was granted to it by the colonial government. The war of the revolution, however, which soon after occurred, interfered with these pleasing prospects; the city fell into the possession of the enemy; the effect on all our public institutions was more or less disastrous, and to the library nearly fatal. An interval of no less than fourteen years, (of which it possesses no record whatever,) here occurs in the history of the society. At length it appears from the minutes, that 'the accidents of the late war having nearly destroyed the former library, no meeting of the proprietors for the choice of trustees was held from the last Tuesday in April, 1774, until Saturday, the 21st December, 1788, when a meeting was summoned.' In 1789, the original charter, with all its privileges, was revived by the legislature of this state; the surviving members resumed the payment of their annual dues, an accession of new subscribers was obtained, and the society, undeterred by the loss of its books, commenced almost a new collection."

Catalogue of the New York Society Library: Historical Notice.

LIBRARIES: Redwood Library.

While Bishop Berkeley was residing, in 1729, on his farm near Newport, Rhode Island, "he took an active share in forming a philosophical society in Newport. … Among the members were Colonel Updike, Judge Scott (a granduncle of Sir Walter Scott), Nathaniel Kay, Henry Collins, Nathan Townsend, the Reverend James Honeyman, and the Reverend Jeremiah Condy. … The Society seems to have been very successful. One of its objects was to collect books. It originated, in 1747, the Redwood Library."

A. C. Fraser, Life and Letters of George Berkeley (volume 4 of Works), page 169.

The library thus founded took its name from Abraham Redwood, who gave £500 to it in 1747. Other subscriptions were obtained in Newport to the amount of £5,000, colonial currency, and a building for the library erected in 1750.

United States of America: Free Public Libraries.

"Mr. Ewart, in his Report of the Select Committee on Public Libraries, 1849, says: 'Our younger brethren, the people of the United States, have already anticipated us in the formation of libraries entirely open to the public.' No free public library, however, was then in operation, in the United States, yet one had been authorized by legislative action. The movements in the same direction in England and the United States seem to have gone on independently of each other; and in the public debates and private correspondence relating to the subject there seems to have been no borrowing of ideas, or scarcely an allusion, other than the one quoted, to what was being done elsewhere. In October, 1847, Josiah Quincy, Jr., Mayor of Boston, suggested to the City Council that a petition be sent to the State legislature asking for authority to lay a tax by which the city of Boston could establish a library free to all its citizens. The Massachusetts legislature, in March, 1848, passed such an act, and in 1851 made the act apply to all the cities and towns in the State. {2020} In 1849 donations of books were made to the Boston Public Library. Late in the same year Mr. Edward Everett made to it the donation of his very complete collection of United States documents, and Mayor Bigelow a gift of $1,000. In May, 1852, the first Board of Trustees, with Mr. Everett as president, was organized, and Mr. Joshua Bates, of London, made his first donation of $50,000 for the use of the library. It was fortunate that the public-library system started where it did and under the supervision of the eminent men who constituted the first board of trustees of the Boston Public Library. Mr. George Ticknor was the person who mapped out the sagacious policy of that library—a policy which has never been improved, and which has been adopted by all the public libraries in this country, and, in its main features, by the free libraries of England. For fifteen years or more Mr. Ticknor gave the subject his personal attention. He went to the library every day, as regularly as any of the employes, and devoted several hours to the minutest details of its administration. Before he had any official relations with it, he gave profound consideration to, and settled in his own mind, the leading principles on which the library should be conducted. … Started as the public-library system was on such principles, and under the guidance of these eminent men, libraries sprang up rapidly in Massachusetts, and similar legislation was adopted in other States. The first legislation in Massachusetts was timid. The initiative law of 1848 allowed the city of Boston to spend only $5,000 a year on its Public Library, which has since expended $125,000 a year. The State soon abolished all limitation to the amount which might be raised for library purposes. New Hampshire, in 1849, anticipated Massachusetts, by two years, in the adoption of a general library law. Maine followed in 1854; Vermont in 1865; Ohio in 1867; Colorado, Illinois, and Wisconsin in 1872; Indiana and Iowa in 1873; Texas in 1874; Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1875; Michigan and Nebraska in 1877; California in 1878; Missouri and New Jersey in 1885; Kansas in 1886. … The public library law of Illinois, adopted in 1872, and since enacted by other Western States, is more elaborate and complete than the library laws of any of the New England States. … The law of Wisconsin is similar to that of Illinois. … New Jersey has a public-library law patterned after that of Illinois."

W. F. Poole, President's Address at the annual meeting of the American Library Association, 1887.

The State of New York adopted a library law in 1892, under which the creation of free libraries has been promisingly begun. A law having like effect was adopted in New Hampshire in 1891.

LIBRARIES: United States of America: Library Statistics of 1891.

"As to the early statistics of libraries in this country but little can be found. Prof. Jewett, in his 'Notices of Public Libraries,' published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1850, gave a summary of public libraries, amounting to 694 and containing at that time 2,201,632 volumes. In the census of 1850 an attempt was made to give the number of libraries and the number of volumes they contained, exclusive of school and Sunday school libraries. This number was 1,560; the number of volumes, 2,447,086. In 1856 Mr. Edward Edwards in his summary of libraries gave a much smaller number of libraries, being only 341, but the number of volumes was nearly the same, being 2,371,887, and was also based upon the census of 1850. Mr. William J. Rhees, in his 'Manual of Public Libraries,' which was printed in 1859, gave a list of 2,902 libraries, but of all this number only 1,312 had any report whatever of the number of volumes they contained. From these meager statistics it is seen that the reports do not vary very much, giving about the same number of libraries and number of volumes in them, taking account of the changes that would occur from the different classifications as to what was excepted or omitted as a library. The annual reports of the Bureau from 1870 to 1874 contained limited statistics of only a few hundred libraries, and little more is shown than the fact that there were about 2,000 public libraries of all kinds in the United States. About five years of labor was expended in collecting material for the special report of the Bureau upon public libraries, which was printed in 1876, and this gave a list of 3,649 libraries of over 300 volumes, and the total number of volumes was 12,276,964, this being about the first fairly complete collection of library statistics. In the report of the Bureau for 1884-85, after considerable correspondence and using the former work as a basis, another list of public libraries was published, amounting to 5,388 libraries of over 300 volumes, an increase of 1,869 libraries in ten years, or almost 54 per cent. The number of volumes contained in these libraries at that time was 20,622,076, or an increase of about 66 per cent, and showing that the percentage of increase in the number of volumes was even greater than that of the number of libraries. An estimate of the proportion of smaller libraries under 500 volumes in that list indicates that these smaller libraries included only about 20 per cent of the books, so that this list could be said to fairly show the extent of the libraries at that time. In the report for 1886-87, detailed statistics of the various classes of libraries were given, except those of colleges and schools, which were included in the statistics of those institutions. From the uncertainty of the data and the imperfect records given of the very small libraries, it was deemed best to restrict the statistics to collections of books that might be fairly called representative, and as those having less than 1,000 volumes made but a proportionally small percentage of the whole number of books the basis of 1,000 volumes or over was taken. This list includes the statistics only of libraries of this size and amounted to 1,777 libraries, containing 14,012,370 volumes, and were arranged in separate lists by classes as far as it could be done. … The number of libraries and of volumes in each of the seven special classes in the report made in 1887 was as follows: Free public lending libraries, 434; volumes, 3,721,191; free public reference libraries, 153; volumes, 3,075,099; free public school libraries, 93; volumes, 177,560; free corporate lending libraries, 241; volumes 1,727,870; libraries of clubs, associations, etc., 341; volumes, 2,460,334; subscription corporate libraries, 452; volumes, 2,644,929; and circulating libraries proper, 751; volumes, 215,487. The statistics [now] given … are for the year 1891, and include only libraries of 1,000 volumes and over, thus differing from the complete report of 1885. … {2021} There were, in 1891, 3,804 libraries. Of these, 3 contain over 500,000 volumes; 1 between 300,000 and 500,000; 26 between 100,000 and 300,000; 68 between 50,000 and 100,000; 128 between 25,000 and 50,000; 383 between 10,000 and 25,000; 565 between 5,000 and 10,000; and 2,360 between 1,000 and 5,000. … The North Atlantic Division contains 1,913 libraries, or 50.3 per cent of the whole number; the South Atlantic, 339, or 8.88 per cent; the South Central, 256, or 6.73 per cent; the North Central, 1,098, or 28.87 per cent, and the Western, 198, or 5.22 per cent. Of the distribution of volumes in the libraries, the North Atlantic Division has 16,605,286 or 53.34 per cent; the South Atlantic, 4,276,894, or 13.71 per cent; the South Central 1,345,708, or 4.03 per cent; the North Central, 7,320,045, or 23.32 per cent; and the Western, 1,593,974, or 5.34 per cent. … From [1885 to 1891] the increase in the United States in the number of libraries was from 2,987 to 3,804, an increase of 817, or 27.35 per cent; in the North Atlantic, from 1,543 to 1,913, an increase of 370, or 24 per cent; in the South Atlantic, from 289 to 338, an increase of 49, or 17 per cent; in the South Central, from 201 to 256, an increase of 55, or 27.5 per cent; in the North Central, from 813 to 1,099, an increase of 286, or 35.18 per cent; and in the Western, from 141 to 198, an increase of 57, or 40.43 per cent. These figures show that, comparatively, the largest increase in the number of libraries was in the Western Division, and of the number of volumes the greatest increase was in the North Central Division. The percentage of increase in the whole country was 66.3 for six years, or an average of over 11 per cent each year, which at this rate would double the number of volumes and libraries every nine years. … In the United States in 1885 there was one library to each 18,822 of the population, while in 1891 there was one to every 16,462, or a decrease of population to a library of 2,360, or 12.5 percent; in the North Atlantic Division the decrease was from 10,246 to 9,096, 1,150, or 11.2 per cent; in the South Atlantic, from 28,740 to 26,206, 2,534, or 8.08 per cent; in the South Central, from 48,974 to 42,863, 6,111, or 12.5 per cent; in the North Central, from 24,807 to 20,348, 4,459, or 18 per cent; and in the Western, from 15,557 to 15,290, 277 or 1.8 per cent. The distribution of libraries in the North Atlantic Division shows the smallest average population to a library and the least change in the number, except the Western Division, where the increase of population from immigration has been greater than the increase in the number of libraries. But, generally, the establishment and growth in the size of libraries have been very large in nearly every section. … This shows that in 1885 there were in the United States in the libraries of the size mentioned 34 books to every 100 of the population, while in 1891 this number was 50, or an increase of 16 books, or 47 per cent. In the North Atlantic Division the increase was from 66 to 95, an increase of 29 books, or 34 per cent; in the South Atlantic, from 34 to 48, an increase of 14, or 41 per cent; in the South Central, from 9 to 12, an increase of 3, or 33.33 per cent; in the North Central, from 20 to 33, an increase of 13, or 65 per cent; and in the Western, from 43 to 53, an increase of 10, or 23 per cent. These figures show that, comparatively, the largest increase of books to population has been in the great Northwest, over 11 per cent each year. In the whole country there has been an average increase of 7.8 per cent per annum; that is, the increase of the number of books in the libraries of the country has been 7.8 per cent greater than the increase of the population during the past six years."

W. Flint, Statistics of Public Libraries (United States Bureau of Education, Circ. of Information Number 7, 1893).

LIBRARIES: United States of America: Massachusetts Free Libraries.

"In 1839 the Hon. Horace Mann, then Secretary of the Board of Education, stated as the result of a careful effort to obtain authentic information relative to the libraries in the State, that there were from ten to fifteen town libraries, containing in the aggregate from three to four thousand volumes, to which all the citizens of the town had the right of access; that the aggregate number of volumes in the public libraries, of all kinds, in the State was about 300,000; and that but little more than 100,000 persons, or one-seventh of the population of the State, had any right of access to them. A little over a half century has passed. There are now 175 towns and cities having free public libraries under municipal control, and 248 of the 351 towns and cities contain libraries in which the people have rights or free privileges. There are about 2,500,000 volumes in these libraries, available for the use of 2,104,224 of the 2,238,943 inhabitants which the State contains according to the census of 1890. The gifts of individuals in money, not including gifts of books, for libraries and library buildings, exceed five and a half million dollars. There are still 103 towns in the State, with an aggregate population of 134,719, which do not have the benefit of the free use of a public library. These are almost without exception small towns, with a slender valuation, and 67 of them show a decline in population in the past five years. The State has taken the initiative in aiding the formation of free public libraries in such towns."

First Report of the Free Public Library Commission of Massachusetts, 1891, pref.

The second report of the Commissioners, 1892, showed an addition of 36 to the towns which have established free public libraries.

LIBRARIES: United States of America: The American Library Association.

A distinctly new era in the history of American libraries—and in the history, it may be said, of libraries throughout the English-speaking world,—was opened, in 1876, by the meeting of a conference of librarians at Philadelphia, during the Centennial Exhibition of the summer of that year. The first fruit of the conference was the organization of a permanent American Library Association, which has held annual meetings since, bringing large numbers of the librarians of the country together every year, making common property of their experience, their knowledge, their ideas,—animating them with a common spirit, and enlisting them in important undertakings of cooperative work. Almost simultaneously with the Philadelphia meeting, but earlier, there was issued the first number of a "Library Journal," called into being by the sagacious energy of the same small band of pioneers who planned and brought about the conference. The Library Journal became the organ of the American Library Association, and each was stimulated and sustained by the other: Their combined influence has acted powerfully upon those engaged in the work of American libraries, to elevate their aims, to increase their efficiency, and to make their avocation a recognized profession, exacting well-defined qualifications. {2022} The general result among the libraries of the country has been an increase of public usefulness beyond measure. To this renaissance in the library world many persons contributed; but its leading spirits were Melvil Dewey, latterly Director of the New York State Library; Justin Winsor, Librarian of Harvard University, formerly of the Boston Public Library; the late William F. Poole, LL.D., Librarian of the Newberry Library and formerly of the Chicago Public Library; Charles A. Cutter, lately Librarian of the Boston Athenæum; the late Frederick Leypoldt, first publisher of the "Library Journal," and his successor, R. R. Bowker. The new library spirit was happily defined by James Russell Lowell, in his address delivered at the opening of a free public library in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and published in the volume of his works entitled "Democracy and other Addresses"; "Formerly," he said, "the duty of a librarian was considered too much that of a watch-dog, to keep people as much as possible away from the books, and to hand these over to his successor as little worn by use as he could. Librarians now, it is pleasant to see, have a different notion of their trust, and are in the habit of preparing, for the direction of the inexperienced, lists of such books as they think best worth reading. Cataloguing has also, thanks in great measure to American librarians, become a science, and catalogues, ceasing to be labyrinths without a clew, are furnished with finger-posts at every turn. Subject catalogues again save the beginner a vast deal of time and trouble by supplying him for nothing with one at least of the results of thorough scholarship, the knowing where to look for what he wants. I do not mean by this that there is or can be any short cut to learning, but that there may be, and is, such a short cut to information that will make learning more easily accessible."

The organization of the American Library Association led to the formation, in 1877, of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, which was incident to the meeting of an international conference of Librarians held in London.

LIBRARIES: United States of America: Principal Libraries.

The following are the libraries in the United States which exceeded 100,000 volumes in 1891, as reported in the "Statistics of Public Libraries" published by the Bureau of Education. The name of each library is preceded by the date of its foundation:

1638. Harvard University Library, 292,000 volumes; 278,097 pamphlets.

1701. Yale College Library, New Haven, 185,000 volumes; 100,000 pamphlets.

1731. Philadelphia Library Company, 165,487 volumes; 30,000 pamphlets.

1749. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 100,000 volumes; 100,000 pamphlets.

1754. Columbia College Library, New York, 135,000 volumes.

1789. Library of the House of Representatives, Washington, 125,000 volumes.

1800. Library of Congress, Washington, 659,843 volumes; 210,000 pamphlets.

1807. Boston Athenæum, 173,831 volumes; 70,000 pamphlets.

1818. New York State Library, Albany, 157,114 volumes.

1820. New York Mercantile Library, New York, 239,793 volumes.

1821. Philadelphia Mercantile Library, 166,000 volumes; 10,000 pamphlets.

1826. Maryland State Library, Annapolis, 100,000 volumes.

1849. Astor Library, New York, 238,946 volumes; 12,000 pamphlets.

1852. Boston Public Library, 556,283 volumes.

1857. Brooklyn Library, 113,251 volumes; 21,500 pamphlets.

1857. Peabody Institute, Baltimore, 110,000 volumes; 13,500 pamphlets.

1865. Library of the Surgeon-General's Office, Washington, 104,300 volumes; 161,700 pamphlets.

1865. Detroit Public Library, 108,720 volumes.

1867. Cincinnati Public Library, 156,673 volumes; 18,326 pamphlets.

1868. Cornell University Library, Ithaca, New York, 111,007 volumes; 25,000 pamphlets.

1872. Chicago Public Library, 175,874 volumes; 25,293 pamphlets.

1882. Enoch Pratt Free Library, Baltimore, 106,663 volumes; 1,500 pamphlets.

1890. University of Chicago Library, 280,000 volumes.

1891. Sutro Library, San Francisco, 200,000 volumes.

LIBRARIES: United States of America: Library Gifts.

A remarkable number of the free public libraries of the United States are the creations of private wealth, munificently employed for the common good. The greater institutions which have this origin are the Astor Library in New York, founded by John Jacob Astor and enriched by his descendants; the Lenox Library in New York, founded by James Lenox; the Peabody Institute, in Baltimore, founded by George Peabody; the Enoch Pratt Free Library, in Baltimore, founded by the gentleman whose name it bears; the Newberry Library, in Chicago, founded by the will of Walter L. Newberry, who died in 1868; the Sutro Library in San Francisco, founded by Adolph Sutro, and the Carnegie Libraries founded at Pittsburg, Alleghany City and Braddock by Andrew Carnegie. By the will of John Crerar, who died in 1889, trustees for Chicago are in possession of an estate estimated at $2,500,000 or $3,000,000, for the endowment of a library which will soon exist. The intention of the late Samuel J. Tilden, former Governor of the State of New York, to apply the greater part of his immense estate to the endowment of a free library in the City of New York, has been partially defeated by contesting heirs; but the just feeling of one among the heirs has restored $2,000,000 to the purpose for which $5,000,000 was appropriated in Mr. Tilden's intent. Steps preparatory to the creation of the library are in progress. The lesser libraries, and institutions including libraries of considerable importance, which owe their origin to the public spirit and generosity of individual men of wealth, are quite too numerous in the country to be catalogued in this place. In addition to such, the bequests and gifts which have enriched the endowment of libraries otherwise founded are beyond computation.

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LIBRARIES: United States of America: Government Departmental Libraries at Washington.

A remarkable creation of special libraries connected with the departments and bureaus of the national Government, has occurred within a few years past. The more important among them are the following:

Department of Agriculture, 20,000 volumes and 15,000 pamphlets;

Department of Justice, 21,500 volumes;

Department of State, 50,000 volumes;

Department of the Interior, 11,500;

Navy Department, 24,518;

Post Office Department, 10,000;

Patent Office Scientific Library, 50,000 volumes and 10,000 pamphlets;

Signal Office, 10,540 volumes;

Surgeon General's Office, 104,300 volumes and 161,700 pamphlets (reputed to be the best collection of medical literature, as it is certainly the best catalogued medical library, in the world);

Treasury Department, 21,000 volumes;

Bureau of Education, 45,000 volumes and 120,000 pamphlets;

Coast and Geodetic Survey, 12,000 volumes and 4,000 pamphlets;

Geological Survey, 30,414 volumes, and 42,917 pamphlets;

Naval Observatory, 13,000 volumes and 3,000 pamphlets;

United States Senate, 72,592 volumes;

United States House of Representatives, 125,000 (both of these being distinct from the great Library of Congress, which contained, in 1891, 659,843 volumes);

War Department, 30,000 volumes.

LIBRARIES: Canada.

"In 1779 a number of the officers stationed at Quebec, and of the leading merchants, undertook the formation of a subscription library. The Governor, General Haldimand, took an active part in the work, and ordered on behalf of the subscribers £500 worth of books from London. The selection was entrusted to Richard Cumberland, the dramatist: and an interesting letter from the Governor addressed to him, describing the literary wants of the town and the class of books to be sent, is now in the Public Archives. A room for their reception was granted in the Bishop's Palace; and as late as 1806, we learn from Lambert's Travels that it was the only library [?] in Canada. Removed several times, it slowly increased, until in 1882 it numbered 4,000 volumes. The list of subscribers having become very much reduced, it was leased to the Quebec Literary Association in 1843. In 1854 a portion of it was burnt with the Parliament Buildings, where it was then quartered; and finally in 1866 the entire library, consisting of 6,990 volumes, were sold, subject to conditions, to the Literary and Historical Society for a nominal sum of $500. … Naturally on the organization of each of the provinces, libraries were established in connection with the Parliaments. We have therefore the following:

Nova Scotia, Halifax, 25,319; New Brunswick, Fredericton, 10,850; Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, 4,000; Quebec, Quebec, 17,400; Ontario, Toronto, 40,000; Manitoba, Winnipeg, 10,000; Northwest Territory, Regina, 1,480; British Columbia, Victoria, 1,200; Dominion of Canada, Ottawa, 120,000. Total volumes in Parliamentary libraries, 230,249.

By far the most important of our Canadian libraries is the Dominion Library of Parliament at Ottawa. Almost corresponding with the Congressional Library at Washington in its sources of income and work, it has grown rapidly during the past ten years, and now numbers 120,000 volumes. Originally established on the union of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada in 1841, it was successively removed with the seat of government from Kingston to Montreal, to Quebec, to Toronto, again to Quebec, and finally to Ottawa. … The 38 colleges in Canada are provided with libraries containing 429,470 volumes, or an average of 11,302. The senior of these, Laval College, Quebec, is famous as being, after Harvard, the oldest on the continent, being founded by Bishop Laval in 1663. … In 1848 the late Dr. Ryerson, Superintendent of Education from 1844-1876, drafted a school bill which contained provisions for school and township libraries, and succeeded in awakening a deep interest in the subject. … In 1854 Parliament passed the requisite act and granted him the necessary funds to carry out his views in the matter. The regulations of the department authorized each county council to establish four classes of libraries—

1. An ordinary common school library in each schoolhouse for the use of the children and rate-payers.

2. A general public lending library available to all the ratepayers in the municipality.

3. A professional library of books on teaching, school organization, language, and kindred subjects, available for teachers only.

4. A library in any public institution under the control of the municipality, for the use of the inmates, or in any county jail, for the use of the prisoners. …

The proposal to establish the second class was however premature; and accordingly, finding that mechanics institutes were being developed throughout the towns and villages, the Educational Department wisely aided the movement by giving a small grant proportionate to the amount contributed by the members and reaching a maximum of $200, afterwards increased to $400 annually. In 1869 these had grown to number 26; in 1880, 74; and in 1886, 125. The number of volumes possessed by these 125 is 206,146, or an average of 1,650. … In the cities, however, the mechanics institute, with its limited number of subscribers, has been found unequal to the task assigned it, and accordingly, in 1882, the Free Libraries Act was passed, based upon similar enactments in Britain and the United States. … By the Free Libraries Act, the maximum of taxation is fixed at ½ a mill on the annual assessment. … None of the other provinces have followed Ontario in this matter."

J. Bain, Brief Review of the Libraries of Canada (Thousand Islands Conference of Librarians, 1887).

"The total number of public libraries in Canada of all kinds containing 1,000 or more volumes is 202, and of this number the Province of Ontario alone has 152, or over three-fourths of all, while Quebec has 27 or over one-half of the remaining fourth, the other provinces having from 2 to 6 libraries each. The total number of volumes and pamphlets in all the libraries reported is 1,478,910, of which the Province of Ontario has 863,332 volumes, or almost 60 per cent, while the Province of Quebec has 490,354, or over 33 percent; Nova Scotia, 48,250 volumes, or 3½ per cent; New Brunswick, 34,894 volumes, a little over 2.3 per cent; Manitoba, 31,025 volumes, or 2.1 per cent; British Columbia, 10,225 volumes, or not quite 0.7 per cent; and Prince Edward Island, 5,200 volumes, or over 0.3 per cent of the total number."

V. Flint, Statistics [1891] of Public Libraries in the United States and Canada (United States Bureau of Education, Circular of Information No.7, 1893).

LIBRARIES: Mexico.

The National Library of Mexico contains 155,000 books, besides manuscripts and pamphlets.

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LIBRARIES: China. The Imperial Library.

"It would be surprising if a people like the Chinese, who have the literary instinct so strongly developed, had not at an early date found the necessity of those great collections of books which are the means for carrying on the great work of civilization. China had her first great bibliothecal catastrophe two centuries before the Christian era, when the famous edict for the burning of the books was promulgated. Literature and despotism have never been on very good terms, and the despot of Tsin, finding a power at work which was unfavorable to his pretensions, determined to have all books destroyed except those relating to agriculture, divination and the history of his own house. His hatred to books included the makers of them, and the literati have not failed to make his name execrated for his double murders of men and books. When the brief dynasty of Tsin passed, the Princes of Han showed more appreciation of culture, and in 190 B. C. the atrocious edict was repealed, and the greatest efforts made to recover such literary treasures as had escaped the destroyer. Some classics are said to have been rewritten from the dictation of scholars who had committed them to memory. Some robbers broke open the tomb of Seang, King of Wei, who died B. C. 295, and found in it bamboo tablets containing more than 100,000 peen [bamboo slips]. These included a copy of the Classic of Changes and the Annals of the Bamboo Books, which indeed take their title from this circumstance. This treasure trove was placed in the Imperial Library. So the Shoo-king is said to have been found in a wall where it had been hidden by a descendant of Confucius, on the proclamation of the edict against books. Towards the close of the first century a library had been formed by Lew Heang and his son Lew Hin. … Succeeding dynasties imitated more or less this policy, and under the later Han dynasty great efforts were made to restore the library. … In the troubles at the close of the second century the palace at Lo-Yang was burned, and the greater part of the books destroyed. … Another Imperial collection at Lo-Yang, amounting to 29,945 books, was destroyed A. D. 311. In A. D. 431, Seäy Ling-Yuen, the keeper of the archives, made a catalogue of 4,582 books in his custody. Another catalogue was compiled in 473, and recorded 5,704 books. Buddhism and Taouism now began to contribute largely to the national literature. Amongst the other consequences of the overthrow of the Tse dynasty at the end of the fifth century was the destruction of the royal library of 18,010 books. Early in the next century a collection of 33,106 books, not including the Buddhist literature, was made chiefly, it is said, by the exertions of Jin Fang, the official curator. The Emperor Yuen-te removed his library, then amounting to 70,000 books, to King Chow, and the building was burnt down when he was threatened by the troops of Chow. The library of the later Wei dynasty was dispersed in the insurrection of 531, and the efforts made to restore it were not altogether successful. The later Chow collected a library of 10,000 books, and, on the overthrow of the Tse dynasty, this was increased by a mass of 5,000 mss. obtained from the fallen dynasty. When towards the close of the sixth century the Suy became masters of the empire they began to accumulate books. … The Tang dynasty are specially remarkable for their patronage of literature. Early in the eighth century the catalogue extended to 53,915 books, and a collection of recent authors included 28,469 books. Printing began to supersede manuscript in the tenth century, plentiful editions of the classics appeared and voluminous compilations. Whilst the Sung were great patrons of literature, the Leaou were at least lukewarm, and issued an edict prohibiting the printing of books by private persons. The Kin had books translated into their own tongue, for the benefit of the then Mongolian subjects. A similar policy was pursued by the Yuen dynasty, under whom dramatic literature and fiction began to flourish. In the year 1406, the printed books in the Imperial Library are said to have amounted to 300,000 printed books and twice the number of mss. … The great Imperial Library was founded by K'in Lung in the last century. In response to an imperial edict, many of the literati and book-lovers placed rare editions at the service of the government, to be copied. The Imperial Library has many of its books, therefore, in mss. Chinese printing, however, is only an imperfect copy of the caligraphy of good scribes. Four copies were made of each work. One was destined for the Wan Yuen Repository at Peking; a second for the Wan-tsung Repository at Kang-ning, the capital of Kiang-su province; a third for the Wan-hwui Repository at Yang-chou-fu, and the fourth for the Wan-lan Repository at Hong-Chou, the capital of Cheh-Kiang. A catalogue was published from which it appears that the library contained from ten to twelve thousand distinct works, occupying 168,000 volumes. The catalogue is in effect an annotated list of Chinese literature, and includes the works which were still wanting to the library and deemed essential to its completion. Dr. D. J. McGowan, who visited the Hong-Chou collection, says that it was really intended for a public library, and that those who applied for permission to the local authorities, not only were allowed access, but were afforded facilities for obtaining food and lodging, 'but from some cause or other the library is rarely or never consulted.' Besides the Imperial, there are Provincial, Departmental and District Libraries. Thus, the examination hall of every town will contain the standard classical and historical books. At Canton and other cities there are extensive collections, but their use is restricted to the mandarins. There are collections of books and sometimes printing presses in connection with the Buddhist monasteries."

W. E. A. Axon, Notes on Chinese Libraries (Library Journal, January and February, 1880).

For an account of the ancient library of Chinese classics in stone,

See EDUCATION, ANCIENT: CHINA.

{2025}

LIBRARIES: Japan.

"The Tokyo Library is national in its character, as the Congressional Library of the United States, the British Museum of Great Britain, etc. It is maintained by the State, and by the copyright Act it is to receive a copy of every book, pamphlet, etc., published in the empire. The Tokyo Library was established in 1872 by the Department of Education with about 70,000 volumes. In 1873 it was amalgamated with the library belonging to the Exhibition Bureau and two years later it was placed under the control of the Home Department, while a new library with the title of Tokyo Library was started by the Education Department at the same time with about 28,000 volumes newly collected. Thus the Tokyo Library began its career on a quite slender basis; but in 1876, the books increased to 68,953, and in 1877 to 71,853. Since that time, both the numbers of books and visitors have steadily increased, so much so that in 1884 the former reached 102,350 and latter 115,986, averaging 359 persons per one day. The library was then open free to all classes; but the presence of too many readers of the commonest text-books and light literature was found to have caused much hindrance to the serious students. … This disadvantage was somewhat remedied by introducing the fee system, which, of course, placed much restriction to the visitors of the library. … It is very clear from the character of the library that it is a reference library and not a circulating library. But as there are not any other large and well-equipped libraries in Tokyo, a system of 'lending out' is added, something like that of Königliche Bibliothek zu Berlin, with a subscription of 5 yen (about $5) per annum. … The Tokyo Library now contains 97,550 Japanese and Chinese books and 25,559 European books, besides about 100,000 of duplicates, popular books, etc., which are not used. The average number of books used is 337,262 a year. … The Library of the Imperial University, which is also under my charge, comprises all the books belonging to the Imperial University of Japan. These books are solely for the use of the instructors, students, and pupils, no admittance being granted to the general public. The library contains 77,991 European books and 101,217 Japanese and Chinese books. As to other smaller libraries of Japan, there are eight public and ten private libraries in different parts of the empire. The books contained in them are 66,912 Japanese and Chinese books and 4,731 European books with 43,911 visitors! Besides these, in most of towns of respectable size, there are generally two or three small private circulating libraries, which contain books chiefly consisting of light literature and historical works popularly treated."

I. Tanaka, Tokyo Library (San Francisco Conference of Librarians, 1891).

LIBRARIES: India.

The first free library in a native state of India was opened in 1892, with 10,000 volumes, 7,000 being in English. It was founded by the brother of the Maharajah.

Library Journal, volume 17, page 395.

----------LIBRARIES: End----------

LIBURNIANS, The.

See KORKYRA.

LIBYAN SIBYL.

See SIBYLS.

LIBYANS, The.

"The name of Africa was applied by the ancients only to that small portion of country south of Cape Bon; the rest was called Libya. The bulk of the population of the northern coast, between Egypt and the Pillars of Hercules, was of the Hamitic race of Phut, who were connected with the Egyptians and Ethiopians, and to whom the name of Libyans was not applied until a later date, as this name was originally confined to some tribes of Arian or Japhetic race, who had settled among the natives. From these nations sprung from Phut descended the races now called Berbers, who have spread over the north of Africa, from the northernmost valleys of the Atlas to the southern limits of the Sahara, and from Egypt to the Atlantic; perhaps even to the Canaries, where the ancient Guanches seem to have spoken a dialect nearly approaching that of the Berbers of Morocco. These Berbers—now called Amazigh, or Shuluh, in Morocco; Kabyles, in the three provinces of Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli; Tibboos, between Fezzan and Egypt; and Tuariks in the Sahara—are the descendants of the same great family of nations whose blood, more or less pure, still runs in the veins of the tribes inhabiting the different parts of the vast territory once possessed by their ancestors. The language they still speak, known through the labours of learned officers of the French army in Africa, is nearly related to that of Ancient Egypt. It is that in which the few inscriptions we possess, emanating from the natives of Libya, Numidia, and Mauritania in olden times, are written. The alphabet peculiar to these natives, whilst under the Carthaginian rule, is still used by the Tuariks. Sallust, who was able to consult the archives of Carthage, and who seems more accurate than any other classical writer on African history, was acquainted with the annals of the primitive period, anterior to the arrival of the Arian tribes and the settlement of the Phœnician colonies. Then only three races, unequally distributed in a triple zone, were to be met with throughout Northern Africa. Along the shore bordering the Mediterranean were the primitive Libyans, who were Hamites, descendants of Phut; behind them, towards the interior, but on the western half only, were the Getulians … ; further still in the interior, and beyond the Sahara, were the negroes, originally called by the Greek name 'Ethiopians, which was afterwards erroneously applied to the Cushites of the Upper Nile. Sallust also learnt, from the Carthaginian traditions, of the great Japhetic invasion of the coast of Africa. … The Egyptian monuments have acquainted us with the date of the arrival of these Indo-Europeans in Africa, among whom were the Libyans, properly so called, the Maxyans, and Macæ. It was contemporary with the reigns of Seti I. and Ramses II."

F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 6, chapter 5 (volume 2).

See, also, NUMIDIANS; and AMORITES.

LICINIAN LAWS, The.

See ROME: B. C. 376-367.

LICINIUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 307-323.

LICTORS. FASCES.

"The fasces were bundles of rods (virgæ) of elm or birchwood, tied together round the handle of an axe (securis) with (most likely red) straps. The iron of the axe, which was the executioner's tool, protruded from the sticks. The fasces were carried on their left shoulders by the lictors, who walked in front of certain magistrates, making room for them, and compelling all people to move out of the way (summovere), barring Vestals and Roman matrons. To about the end of the Republic, when a special executioner was appointed, the lictors inflicted capital punishment. The king was entitled to twelve fasces, the same number being granted to the consuls. … The dictator was entitled to twenty-four lictors. … Since 42 B. C. the Flamen Dialis and the Vestals also were entitled to one lictor each. In case a higher official met his inferior in the street, he was saluted by the lictors of the latter withdrawing the axe and lowering the fasces."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 107, foot-note.

{2026}

LIDUS, LEUD, LATT, The.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL: GERMANY.

----------LIÈGE: Start--------

LIÈGE: The Episcopal Principality.

"Liège lies on the borderland of the French and German speaking races. … It was the capital of an ecclesiastical principality, whose territory extended some distance up the river and over the wooded ridges and green valleys of the Ardennes. The town had originally sprung up round the tomb of St. Lambert—a shrine much frequented by pilgrims. … The Prince Bishop of Liège was the vassal of the emperor, but his subjects had long considered the kings of France their natural protectors. It was in France that they found a market for their manufactures, from France that pilgrims came to the tomb of St. Lambert or to the sylvan shrine of St. Hubert. Difference of language and rivalry in trade separated them from their Dutch-speaking neighbours. We hear, as early as the 10th century, of successful attempts on the part of the people of Liège, supported and directed by their bishops, to subdue the lords of the castles in their neighbourhood. A population of traders, artizans, and miners, were unlikely to submit to the pretensions of a feudal aristocracy. Nor was there a burgher oligarchy, as in many of the Flemish and German towns. Every citizen was eligible to office if he could obtain a majority of the votes of the whole male population. Constitutional limits were imposed on the power of the bishop; but he was the sole fountain of law and justice. By suspending their administration he could paralyse the social life of the State, and by his interdicts annihilate its religious life. Yet the burghers were involved in perpetual disputes with their bishop. When the power of the Dukes of Burgundy was established in the Low Countries, it was to them that the latter naturally applied for assistance against their unruly flock. John the Fearless defeated the citizens with great slaughter in 1408. He himself reckoned the number of slain at 25,000. In 1431 Liège was compelled to pay a fine of 200,000 crowns to the Duke of Burgundy." The Duke—Philip the Good—afterwards forced the reigning bishop to resign in favor of a brother of the Duke of Bourbon, a dissolute boy of eighteen, whose government was reckless and intolerable.

P. F. Willert, Reign of Lewis XI., pages 93-94.

ALSO IN: J. F. Kirk, History of Charles the Bold, book 1, chapter 7.

LIÈGE: A. D. 1467-1468. War with Charles the Bold of Burgundy and destruction of the city.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1467-1468; also, DINANT.

LIÈGE: A. D. 1691. Bombardment by the French.

The Prince-bishop of Liège having joined the League of Augsburg against Louis XIV., and having received troops of the Grand Alliance into his city, the town was bombarded in May, 1691, by the French General Boufflers. There was no attempt at a siege; the attack was simply one of destructive malice, and the force which made it withdrew speedily.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 2.

LIÈGE: A. D. 1702. Reduced by Marlborough.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704.

LIÈGE: A. D. 1792-1793. Occupation and surrender by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER); and 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).

----------LIÈGE: Start--------

----------LIEGNITZ: Start----------

LIEGNITZ, The Battle of (1241).

On the 9th of April, A. D. 1241, the Mongols, who had already overrun a great part of Russia, defeated the combined forces of Poland, Moravia and Silesia in a battle which filled all Europe with consternation. It was fought near Lignitz (or Liegnitz), on a plain watered by the river Keiss, the site being now occupied by a village called Wahlstadt, i. e., "Field of Battle." "It was a Mongol habit to cut off an ear from each corpse after a battle, so as to have a record of the number slain; and we are told they filled nine sacks with these ghastly trophies," from the field of Lignitz.

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, part 1, page 144.

See MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294.

LIEGNITZ: Battle of (1760).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1760.

----------LIEGNITZ: End----------

LIGERIS, The.

The ancient name of the river Loire.

LIGHT BRIGADE, The Charge of the.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

LIGII, The.

See LYGIANS.

LIGNY, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JUNE).

LIGONIA.

See MAINE: A. D. 1629-1631; and 1643-1677.

LIGURIAN REPUBLIC, The.

The mediæval republic of Genoa is often referred to as the Ligurian Republic; but the name was distinctively given by Napoleon to one of his ephemeral creations in Italy.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER), and 1804-1805.

LIGURIANS, The.

"The whole of Piedmont in its present extent was inhabited by the Ligurians: Pavia, under the name of Ticinum, was founded by a Ligurian tribe, the Lævians. When they pushed forward their frontier among the Apennines into the Casentino on the decline of the Etruscans, they probably only recovered what had before been wrested from them. Among the inhabitants of Corsica there were Ligurians. … The Ligurians and Iberians were anciently contiguous; whereas in aftertimes they were parted by the Gauls. We are told by Scylax, that from the borders of Iberia, that is, from the Pyrenees, to the Rhone, the two nations were dwelling intermixed. … But it is far more probable that the Iberians came from the south of the Pyrenees into Lower Languedoc, as they did into Aquitaine, and that the Ligurians were driven back by them. When the Celts, long after, moving in an opposite direction, reached the shore of the Mediterranean, they too drove the Ligurians close down to the coast, and dwelt as the ruling people amongst them, in the country about Avignon, as is implied by the name Celto-Ligurians. … Of their place in the family of nations we are ignorant: we only know that they were neither Iberians nor Celts."

G. B. Niebuhr, History of Rome, volume 1.

"On the coast of Liguria, the land on each side of the city of Genoa, a land which was not reckoned Italian in early times, we find people who seem not to have been Aryan. And these Ligurians seem to have been part of a race which was spread through Italy and Sicily before the Aryan settlements, and to have been akin to the non-Aryan inhabitants of Spain and southern Gaul, of whom the Basques … remain as a remnant."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: I. Taylor, Origin of the Aryans, chapter 2, section 7.

See, also, APPENDIX A, VOLUME 1.

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----------LILLE: Start--------

LILLE: A. D. 1583. Submission to Spain.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585 LIMITS OF THE UNITED PROVINCES.

LILLE: A. D. 1667. Taken by the French.

See NETHERLANDS (THE SPANISH PROVINCES): A. D. 1667.

LILLE: A. D. 1668. Ceded to France.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1668.

LILLE: A. D. 1708. Siege and capture by Marlborough and Prince Eugene.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709.

LILLE: A. D. 1713. Restoration to France.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

----------LILLE: End--------

LILLEBONNE, Assembly of.

A general assembly of Norman barons convened by Duke William, A. D. 1066, for the considering of his contemplated invasion of England.

E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest, chapter 13, section 3 (volume 3).

LILLIBULLERO.

"Thomas Wharton, who, in the last Parliament, had represented Buckinghamshire, and who was already conspicuous both as a libertine and as a Whig, had written [A. D. 1688, just prior to the Revolution which drove James II. from the English throne] a satirical ballad on the administration of Tyrconnel [Richard Talbot, Earl of Tyrconnel, James' Lord Deputy in Ireland.]

See IRELAND: A. D. 1685-1688.

In this little poem an Irishman congratulates a brother Irishman, in a barbarous jargon, on the approaching triumph of Popery and of the Milesian race. … These verses, which were in no respect above the ordinary standard of street poetry, had for burden some gibberish which was said to have been used as a watchword by the insurgents of Ulster in 1641. The verses and the tune caught the fancy of the nation. From one end of England to the other all classes were constantly singing this idle rhyme. It was especially the delight of the English army. More than seventy years after the Revolution, a great writer delineated, with exquisite skill, a veteran who had fought at the Boyne and at Namur. One of the characteristics of the good old soldier is his trick of whistling Lillibullero. Wharton afterwards boasted that he had sung a King out of three kingdoms. But in truth the success of Lillibullero was the effect, and not the cause, of that excited state of public feeling which produced the Revolution. … The song of Lillibullero is among the State Poems. In Percy's Relics the first part will be found, but not the second part, which was added after William's landing."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 9, with foot-note.

ALSO IN: W. W. Wilkins, Political Ballads of the 17th and 18th Centuries, volume 1, page 275.

LILY OF FLORENCE, The.

See FLORENCE: ORIGIN AND NAME.

----------LILYBÆUM: Start--------

LILYBÆUM: B. C. 368. Siege by Dionisius.

"This town, close to the western cape of Sicily, appears to have arisen as a substitute for the neighbouring town of Motye (of which we hear little more since its capture by Dionysius in 396 B. C.), and to have become the principal Carthaginian station." Lilybæum was first besieged and then blockaded by the Syracuse tyrant, Dionysius, B. C. 368; but he failed to reduce it. It was made a powerful stronghold by the Carthaginians.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 83.

LILYBÆUM: B. C. 277. Siege by Pyrrhus.

See ROME: B. C. 282-275.

LILYBÆUM: B. C. 250-241. Siege by the Romans.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

----------LILYBÆUM: End--------

LIMA: Founded by Pizarro (1535).

See PERU: A. D. 1533-1548.

LIMBURG: Capture by the Dutch (1632).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1621-1633.

----------LIMERICK: Start--------

LIMERICK: A. D. 1690-1691. Sieges and surrender.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

LIMERICK: A. D. 1691. The treaty of surrender and its violation.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1691.

----------LIMERICK: End--------

LIMES, The.

This term was applied to certain Roman frontier-roads. "Limes is not every imperial frontier, but only that which is marked out by human hands, and arranged at the same time for being patrolled and having posts stationed for frontier-defence, such as we find in Germany and in Africa. … The Limes is thus the imperial frontier-road, destined for the regulation of frontier-intercourse, inasmuch as the crossing of it was allowed only at certain points corresponding to the bridges of the river boundary, and elsewhere forbidden. This was doubtless effected in the first instance by patrolling the line, and, so long as this was done, the Limes remained a boundary road. It remained so, too, when it was fortified on both sides, as was done in Britain and at the mouth of the Danube; the Britannic wall is also termed Limes."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 4, foot-note.

LIMIGANTES, The.

The Limigantes were a tribe occupying, in the fourth century, a region of country between the Danube and the Theiss, who were said to have been formerly the slaves of a Sarmatian people in the same territory and to have overpowered and expelled their masters. The latter, in exile, became dependents of the warlike nation of the Quadi. At the end of a war with the latter, A. D. 357-359, in which they were greatly humbled, the Emperor Constantius commanded the Limigantes to surrender their stolen territory to its former owners. They resisted the mandate and were exterminated.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapters 18-19.

The Limigantes were a branch of the Iazyges or Jazyges, a nomadic Sarmatian or Sclavonic people who were settled in earlier times on the Palus Mæotis.

LIMISSO.

See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN: A. D. 1118-1310.

----------LIMOGES: Start--------

LIMOGES, Origin of the town.

See LEMOVICES.

LIMOGES, A. D. 1370. Massacre by the Black Prince.

A foul crime which stains the name of "the Black Prince." Taking the city of Limoges, in France, after a short siege, A. D. 1370, he ordered a promiscuous massacre of the population, and more than 3,000 men, women and children were slain, while the town was pillaged and burned.

Froissart, Chronicles (translated by Johnes), book 1, chapters 288, 290.

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1360-1380.

----------LIMOGES: End--------

LIMONUM.

See POITIERS.

LIMOUSIN, Early inhabitants of the.

See LEMOVICES.

{2028}

LINCOLN, Abraham. Election to the Presidency.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1860 (APRIL-NOVEMBER).

LINCOLN, Abraham. Inauguration and Presidential administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY-MARCH), to 1865 (APRIL).

LINCOLN, Abraham. Gettysburg address.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (NOVEMBER).

LINCOLN, Abraham. Reëlection to the Presidency.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-NOVEMBER).

LINCOLN, Abraham. Visit to Richmond.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL: VIRGINIA).

LINCOLN, Abraham. Assassination.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL 14TH).

LINCOLN, General Benjamin, in the War of the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779 THE WAR CARRIED INTO THE SOUTH; 1779 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER); 1780 (FEBRUARY-AUGUST).

LINCOLN, Battle of.

See LAMBETH, TREATY OF.

LINCOLN, Origin of.

See LINDUM.

LINDISWARA, LINDESFARAS.

"Dwellers about Lindum," or Lincoln; a name given for a time to the Angles who seized and settled in that English district.

J. R. Green, The Making of England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.

LINDSEY, Kingdom of.

One of the small and transient kingdoms of the Angles in early England.

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 7, section 70 (volume 1).

LINDUM.

The Roman city from which sprang the English city of Lincoln.

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

LINGONES, The.

A tribe in ancient Gaul whose territory embraced parts in the modern French departments of the Haute-Marne, the Aube, the Yonne and the Côte-d'Or.

Napoleon III., History of Cæsar, book 3, chapter 2, foot-note (volume 2).

See, also, ROME: B. C. 390-347.

LINKÖPING, Battle of (1598).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1523-1604.

LION AND THE SUN, The Order of the.

A Persian order, instituted in 1808.

LION OF ST. MARK, The Winged.

The standard of the Venetian republic. "Historians have failed or omitted to fix the precise time when this ensign of the lion was first adopted by the Republic. But when the two granite columns ['trophies of a successful raid in the Archipelago'], still the conspicuous ornaments of the Piazetta of St. Mark, were erected, in or about 1172, a winged lion in bronze was placed on one of them, and a statue of St. Theodore, a patron of earlier standing, on the other."

The Republic of Venice (Quarterly Review, Oct., 1874), page 423.

See, also, VENICE: A. D. 829.

LIPAN, Battle of (1434).

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1419-1434.

----------LISBON: Start--------

LISBON: Origin and early history.

See PORTUGAL: EARLY HISTORY.

LISBON: A. D. 1147. Capture from the Moors. Made the capital of Portugal.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1095-1325.

LISBON: A. D. 1755. The great Earthquake.

"On the morning of the 1st of November in this year, at the same period, though in less or greater degree a far-spreading earthquake ran through great part both of Europe and Barbary. In the north its effects, as usual with earthquakes in that region, were happily slight and few. Some gentle vibrations were felt as far as Dantzick. … In Madrid a violent shock was felt, but no buildings, and only two human beings, perished. In Fez and in Morocco, on the contrary, great numbers of houses fell down, and great multitudes of people were buried beneath the ruins. But the widest and most fearful destruction was reserved for Lisbon. Already, in the year 1531, that city had been laid half in ruins by an earthquake. The 1st of November 1755 was All Saints' Day, a festival of great solemnity; and at nine in the morning all the churches of Lisbon were crowded with kneeling worshippers of each sex, all classes, and all ages, when a sudden and most violent shock made every church reel to its foundations. Within the intervals of a few minutes two other shocks no less violent ensued, and every church in Lisbon—tall column and towering spire—was hurled to the ground. Thousands and thousands of people were crushed to death, and thousands more grievously maimed, unable to crawl away, and left to expire in lingering agony. The more stately and magnificent had been the fabric, the wider and more grievous was the havoc made by its ruin. About one fourth, as was vaguely computed, of all the houses in the city toppled down. The encumbered streets could scarce afford an outlet to the fugitives; 'friends,' says an eye-witness, 'running from their friends, fathers from their children, husbands from their wives, because every one fled away from their habitations full of terror, confusion, and distraction.' The earth seemed to heave and quiver like an animated being. The sun was darkened with the clouds of lurid dust that arose. Frantic with fear a headlong multitude rushed for refuge to a large and newly built stone pier which jutted out into the Tagus, when a sudden convulsion of the stream turned this pier bottom uppermost, like a ship on its keel in the tempest, and then engulphed it. And of all the living creatures who had lately thronged it,—full 3,000, it is said,—not one, even as a corpse, ever rose again. From the banks of the river other crowds were looking on in speechless affright, when the river itself came rushing in upon them like a torrent, though against wind and tide. It rose at least fifteen feet above the highest spring tides, and then again subsided, drawing in or dashing to pieces every thing within its reach, while the very ships in the harbour were violently whirled around. Earth and water alike seemed let loose as scourges on this devoted city. 'Indeed every clement,' says a person present, 'seemed to conspire to our destruction … for in about two hours after the shock fires broke out in three different parts of the city, occasioned from the goods and the kitchen fires being all jumbled together.' At this time also the wind grew into a fresh gale, which made the fires spread in extent and rage with fury during three days, until there remained but little for them to devour. Many of the maimed and wounded are believed to have perished unseen and unheeded in the flames; some few were almost miraculously rescued after being for whole days buried where they fell, without light or food or hope. The total number of deaths was computed at the time as not less than 30,000."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 32 (volume 4).

LISBON: A. D. 1807. Occupied by the French. Departure of the Royal Family for Brazil.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1807.

----------LISBON: End-------- {2029}

LISLE.

See LILLE.

LISSA, Battle of (1866).

See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.

LIT DE JUSTICE.

See BED OF JUSTICE.

----------LITHUANIA: Start--------

LITHUANIA: A. D. 1235. Formation of the Grand Duchy.

"From 1224 [when Russia was prostrated by the Mongol conquest] to 1487 … is a period of obscuration in Russian history, during which Russia is nothing in the Slavonian world. The hour of Russia's weakness was that in which the Lithuanians, formerly a mere chaos of Slavo-Finnish tribes, assumed organization and strength. Uniting the original Lithuanian tribes into one government, and extending his sway over those territories, formerly included in the Russian Empire, which the Mongolian destruction of the Russian power had left without a ruler, a native chief, named Ringold, founded (1235) a new state called the Grand-Duchy of Lithuania. The limits of this state extended from the Baltic coast, which it touched at a single point, across the entire continent, almost to the Black Sea, with Lithuania proper as its northern nucleus, and the populations along the whole course of the Dnieper as its subjects. The Lithuanians, thus made formidable by the extent of their dominion, were at this time still heathens."

Poland: Her History and Prospects (Westminster Review, January, 1855), page 119.

See, also, RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.

LITHUANIA: A. D. 1386. Union with Poland under the Jagellon kings.

See POLAND: A. D. 1333-1572.

----------LITHUANIA: End--------

LITHUANIANS. LETTS.

"They and the Slavonians are branches of the same Sarmatian family; so, of course, their languages, though different, are allied. But next to the Slavonic what tongues are nearest the Lithuanic? Not the speech of the Fin, the German, or the Kelt, though these are the nearest in geography. The Latin is liker than any of these; but the likest of all is the ancient sacred language of India—the Sanskrit of the Vedas, Puranas, the Mahabharata, and the Ramayana. And what tongue is the nearest to the Sanskrit? Not those of Tibet and Armenia, not even those of Southern India. Its nearest parallel is the obscure and almost unlettered languages of Grodno, Wilna, Vitepsk, Courland, Livonia, and East Prussia. There is a difficult problem here. … The present distribution of the Lithuanian populations is second only in importance to that of the Ugrians. Livonia is the most convenient starting-point. Here it is spoken at present; though not aboriginal to the province. The Polish, German, and Russian languages have encroached on the Lithuanian, the Lithuanian on the Ugrian. It is the Lett branch of the Lithuanian which is spoken by the Letts of Livonia (Liefland), but not by the Liefs. The same is the case in Courland. East Prussia lies beyond the Russian empire, but it is not unnecessary to state that, as late as the sixteenth century, a Lithuanian tongue was spoken there. Vilna, Grodno, and Vitepsk are the proper Lithuanian provinces. There, the original proper Lithuanic tongue still survives; uncultivated, and day by day suffering from the encroachment of the Russian, but, withal, in the eyes of the ethnologist, the most important language in Europe."

R. G. Latham, Ethnology of Europe, chapter 6.

LITTLE BIG HORN, Battle of the.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1876.

LITTLE BRETHREN.

See BEGUINES, &c.

LITTLE ROCK, Federal occupation of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

LITTLE RUSSIA.

See RUSSIA, GREAT.

LITTLE YAHNI, Battle of (1877).

See TURKS: A. D. 1877-1878.

LITURGIES.

"It was not only by taxation of its members that the [Athenian] State met its financial needs, but also by many other kinds of services which it demanded from them, and which, though not, like the former, producing an income, yet nevertheless saved an expense. Such services are called Liturgies [i. e.; properly, services for the people.'—Footnote]. They are partly ordinary or 'encyclic'— such, that is, as occurred annually, even in times of peace, according to a certain order, and which all bore some relation to worship and to the celebration of festivals—and partly extraordinary, for the needs of war. Among the former class the most important is the so-called Choregia, i. e., the furnishing of a chorus for musical contests and for festivals. … A similar though less burdensome Liturgy was the Gymnasiarchy for those feasts which were celebrated with gymnastic contests. The gymnasiarch, as it seems, was compelled to have all who wished to come forward as competitors trained in the gymnasia, to furnish them with board during the time of training, and at the games themselves to furnish the necessary fittings and ornaments of the place of contest. … More important and more costly than all these ordinary or encyclic Liturgies was the extraordinary Liturgy of trierarchy, i. e., the equipment of a ship of war."

G. F. Schumann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 3.

"The Liturgiæ, which are sometimes considered as peculiar to the Athenians, … were common to all democracies at least [in the Greek states], and even to certain aristocracies or oligarchies. … The Liturgiæ of the Greeks were distinguished by a much more generous and noble characteristic than the corresponding services and contributions of the present day. They were considered honorable services. … Niggardliness in the performance of them was considered disgraceful. The state needed no paid officer, or contractors to superintend or undertake their execution. … The ordinary Liturgiæ … are principally the choregia, the gymnasiarchia, and the feasting of the tribes [or hestiasis]. … The lampadarchy, if not the only kind, was certainly the most important and expensive kind of gymnasiarchy. The race on foot with a torch in the hand was a common game. The same kind of race was run with horses for the first time at Athens in the time of Socrates. The art consisted, besides other particulars, in running the fastest, and at the same time not extinguishing the torch. … Since the festivity was celebrated at night, the illumination of the place which was the scene of the contest was necessary. Games of this kind were celebrated specially in honor of the gods of light and fire. … The expenses of the feasting of the tribes were borne by a person selected for this purpose from the tribe. … The entertainments, the expenses of which were defrayed by means of this liturgia, were different from the great feastings of the people, the expenses of which were paid from the treasury of the theorica. They were merely entertainments at the festivals of the tribes."

A. Boeckh, Public Economy of the Athenians (translated by Lamb), book 3, chapters 1 and 21-23.

ALSO IN: E. G. Bulwer-Lytton, Athens, book 5, chapter 2.

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LITUS, The.

In the Salic law, of the Franks, the litus appears as representing a class in that Germanic nation. He "was no doubt identical with the serf whom Tacitus represents as cultivating the soil, and paying a rent in kind to his lord. That the litus was not free is evident from the mention of his master and the fact that he could be sold; though we find a weregild set upon his life equal to that of a free Roman."

W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 10.

LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER RAILWAY, The.

See STEAM LOCOMOTION ON LAND.

LIVERPOOL MINISTRY, The,

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1812-1813.

LIVERY, Origin of the term.

"After an ancient custom, the kings of France, at great solemnities, gave such of their subjects as were at court certain capes or furred mantles, with which the latter immediately clothed themselves before leaving the court. In the ancient 'comptes' (a sort of audits) these capes were called 'livrées' (whence, no doubt, our word livery), because the monarch gave them ('les livrait') himself."

J. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, book 13.

LIVERY COMPANIES.

See GUILDS, MEDIÆVAL.

LIVERY OF SEIZIN.

See FEUDAL TENURES.

LIVINGSTON MANOR, The.

Robert Livingston, "secretary of Albany," son of a Scotch clergyman, began to acquire a landed estate, by purchases from the Indians, soon after his arrival in America, which was about 1674. "The Mohegan tribes on the east side of the Hudson had become reduced to a few old Indians and squaws, who were ready to sell the lands of which they claimed the ownership. Livingston's position as clerk of Indian affairs gave him exceptional opportunities to select and to purchase the best lands in desirable localities. … In 1702, Lord Bellomont [then governor of New York] writes, 'I am told Livingston has on his great grant of 16 miles long and 24 broad, but four or five cottages, occupied by men too poor to be farmers, but are his vassals.' After the close of the war [Queen Anne's War], Livingston made more rapid progress in his improvements. He erected flour and timber mills, and a new manor-house." In 1715 Livingston obtained from Governor Hunter a confirmatory patent, under an exact and careful survey of his estate. "Although it does not give the number of acres, the survey computes the area of the manor to contain 160,240 acres. It was now believed to be secure against any attack. … Philip, the second proprietor, was not disturbed as to title or limits. He was a merchant, and resided in New York, spending his summers at the Manor House. … His son, Robert, succeeded him as the third proprietor, but he had hardly come into possession before he began to be harassed by his eastern neighbors, the people of Massachusetts. … Massachusetts, by her charter, claimed the lands lying west of her eastern boundary to the Pacific Ocean. She had long sought to make settlements within the province of New York. Now as her population increased she pushed them westward, and gradually encroached on lands within the limits of a sister province. In April, 1752, Livingston wrote to Governor Clinton, and entered complaint against the trespassers from Massachusetts. A long correspondence between the governors of the two provinces followed, but settled nothing. The trouble continued," for a number of years, and frequent riots were incident to it, in which several men were killed. At length, "the boundary between New York and Massachusetts was finally settled, and the claimants ceased their annoyance. … The Revolution was approaching. The public mind was occupied with politics. … Land titles ceased to be topics of discussion. The proprietors of the old manor, and all bearing their name, with a few unimportant exceptions, took a decided stand in favor of independence. During the war that followed, and for some years after its close, their title and possession of their broad acres were undisputed. But in 1795 another effort was made to dispossess them. The old methods of riots and arrests were abandoned. The title was now attacked by the tenants, incited and encouraged by the envious and disaffected. A petition, numerously signed by the tenants of the manor, was sent to the Legislature. … The committee to which the petition was referred reported adversely, and this was approved by the House on March 23, 1795. … After the failure of 1795 to break the title, there was a season of comparative quiet continued for nearly forty years. Then a combination was formed by the tenants of the old manorial estates, including those of large landed proprietors in other parts of the State, termed 'anti-renters.' It was a civil association with a military organization. It was their purpose to resist the payment of rents. The tenants of the Van Rensselaer and the Livingston Manors, being the most numerous, were the projectors and leaders, giving laws and directions. … Landlords and officers were intimidated by bands disguised as Indians, and some property was destroyed. The anti-renters carried their grievances into politics, throwing their votes for the party which would give them the most favorable legislation. In 1844, they petitioned the Legislature to set aside as defective the Van Rensselaer title, and put the tenants in legal possession of the farms they occupied. The petition was referred to the Judiciary Committee of the Assembly, the late Judge William Allen being chairman. Anti-renters of known ability were on the committee, and a favorable report was anticipated. But after a long and thorough investigation of the title … the committee unanimously reported against the prayer of the petition. This put an end to the combination, and to the anti-rent war, although resistance to the collection of rents in isolated cases, with bloodshed and loss of life, is still [1885] continued. The landlords, however, particularly the Livingstons, were tired of the strife. They adopted measures of compromise, selling to their tenants the lands they occupied at reduced valuations. Only small portions of the old manor now remain in the hands of Robert Livingston's descendants."

G. W. Schuyler, Colonial New York, volume I, pages 243-285.

ALSO IN: E. P. Cheyney, Anti-Rent Agitations in New York (University of Pennsylvania Pubs.).

{2031}

LIVONIA: 12th-13th Centuries. First introduction of Commerce and Christianity.

"Till the year A. D. 1158 … Livonia was well-nigh utterly unknown to the rest of Europe. Some traders of Bremen then visited it, and formed several settlements along the coast. These commercial relations with their western neighbours first opened up the country to missionary enterprise, and in the year A. D. 1186 one of the merchant-ships of Bremen brought to the mouth of the Düna a venerable canon named Meinhard." Meinhard died in 1196, having accomplished little. He was succeeded by a Cistercian abbot named Berthold, who, being driven away by the obstinate pagans, returned wrathfully in 1198, with a crusading army, which Pope Innocent III. had commissioned him to lead against them. This was the beginning of a long and merciless crusading warfare waged against the Livonians, or Lieflanders, and against their Prussian and other Sclavonic neighbors, until all were forced to submit to the religious rites of their conquerors and to call themselves Christians. For the furthering of this crusade, Berthold's successor, Albert von Apeldern, of Bremen (who founded the town of Riga), "instituted, in the year A. D. 1201, with the concurrence of the emperor Otho IV. and the approbation of the Pope, the knightly 'Order of the Sword,' and placed it under the special protection of the Virgin Mary. The members of this order bound themselves by solemn vows to hear mass frequently, to abstain from marriage, to lead a sober and chaste life, and to fight against the heathen. In return for these services they were to have and to enjoy whatever lands they might wrest with their swords from their pagan adversaries. … Albert von Apeldern made Riga the starting-point of his operations. Thence, aided by Waldemar II. king of Denmark, he directed the arms of his crusaders against Esthonia, and the neighbouring countries of Semgallen and Courland. On these war-wasted districts he succeeded in imposing a nominal form of Christianity." The Order of the Sword was subsequently united with the Teutonic Order, which turned its crusading energies from the Moslems of the Holy Land to the heathendom of the Baltic.

G. F. Maclear, Apostles of Mediæval Europe, chapters 15-16.

ALSO IN: A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 1, chapter 9.

See, also PRUSSIA: 13TH CENTURY.

LLANOS.

See PAMPAS.

LLORENS, Battle of (1645).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646.

LOANO, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER).

LOBBY, The.

"'The Lobby' is the name given in America to persons, not being members of a legislature, who undertake to influence its members, and thereby to secure the passing of bills. The term includes both those who, since they hang about the chamber, and make a regular profession of working upon the members, are called 'lobbyists,' and those persons who on any particular occasion may come up to advocate, by argument or solicitation, any particular measure in which they happen to be interested. The name, therefore, does not necessarily impute any improper motive or conduct, though it is commonly used in what Bentham calls a dyslogistic sense."

J. Bryce, The American Commonwealth, volume 1, appendix note (B) to chapter 16.

LOBOSITZ, OR LOWOSITZ, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1756.

LOCH LEVEN, Mary Stuart's captivity at.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568.

LOCHLANN.

The Celtic name for Norway, meaning Lakeland.

LOCKE'S CONSTITUTION FOR THE CAROLINAS.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1669-1693.

LOCOFOCOS.

"In 1835, in the city and county of New York, a portion of the democrats organized themselves into the 'equal rights' party. At a meeting in Tammany Hall they attempted to embarrass the proceedings of the democratic nominating committee, by presenting a chairman in opposition to the one supported by the regular democrats. Both parties came to a dead lock, and, in the midst of great confusion, the committee extinguished the lights. The equal rights men immediately relighted the room with candles and locofoco matches, with which they had provided themselves. From this they received the name of locofocos, a designation which, for a time, was applied to the whole democratic party by the opposition."

W. R. Houghton, History of American Politics, page 219.

LOCRI.

The city of Locri, or Locri Epizephyrii, an ancient Greek settlement in Southern Italy, was founded by the Locrians as early as B. C. 683. The elder Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, married a Locrian woman and showed great favor to the city, of which he acquired control; but it suffered terribly from his son, the younger Dionysius, who transferred his residence to Locri when first driven from Syracuse.

LOCRIANS, The.

See LOKRIANS.

LODGER FRANCHISE.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1884-1885.

LODI, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

LODI, Treaty of (1454).

See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454; and ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.

LOEN, OR STADTLOHN, Battle of (1623).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

LŒTIC COLONIES.

During and after the civil wars of the declining years of the Roman empire, large numbers of Germans were enlisted in the service of the rival factions, and were recompensed by gifts of land, on which they settled as colonists. "They were called Lœti, and the colonies lœtic colonies, probably from the German word 'leute,' people, because they were regarded as the people or men of the empire."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 3, chapter 9, foot-note.

LOG, The.

See EPHAH.

LOG CABIN AND HARD CIDER CAMPAIGN.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1840.

LOGAN CROSS ROADS, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE).

LOGAN'S WRONGS. LOGAN'S WAR. LOGAN'S FAMOUS SPEECH.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

LÖGBERG, The.

See THING.

LOGI, The.

See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES.

LOGISTÆ AND EUTHYNI, The.

"In Athens, all accounts, with the exception of those of the generals, were rendered to the logistæ and euthyni. Both authorities, before and after the archonship of Euclid, existed together at the same time. Their name itself shows that the logistæ were auditors of accounts. The euthyni were in immediate connection with them. … The logistæ were the principal persons in the auditing board."

A. Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens (translated by Lamb), book 2, chapter 8.

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LOGOGRAPHI, The.

The earlier Ionian Greek historians "confined their attention to the circle of myths and antiquities connected with single families, single cities and districts. These were the Ionic 'logographi,' so called because they noted down in easy narrative the remarkable facts that they had collected and obtained by inquiry as to the foundation of the cities, the myths of the prehistoric age, and the natural, political, and social condition of different countries."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2).

LOGOTHETES.

A class of officers created under Justinian for the administration of the imperial finances in Italy, after its conquest from the Goths. Their functions corresponded with those of a modern auditor, or comptroller.

T. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, book 5, chapter 15 (volume 4).

LOGSTOWN.

About the middle of the 18th century, Logstown was "an important Indian village a little below the site of the present city of Pittsburg. Here usually resided Tanacharisson, a Seneca chief of great note, being head sachem of the mixed tribes which had migrated to the Ohio and its branches. He was generally surnamed the half-king, being subordinate to the Iroquois confederacy."

W. Irving, Life of Washington, volume 1, chapter 5.

LOIDIS.

See ELMET.

LOJA: Sieges and capture by the Spaniards (1482-1483).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1476-1492.

LOJERA, Battle of (1353).

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 1348-1355.

LOKRIANS, The.

"The coast [of Greece, in ancient times] opposite to the western side of Eubœa, from the neighbourhood of Thermopylæ as far as the Bœotian frontier at Anthedon, was possessed by the Lokrians, whose northern frontier town, Alpeni, was conterminous with the Malians. There was, however, one narrow strip of Phokis—the town of Daphnus, where the Phokians also touched the Eubœan sea—which broke this continuity and divided the Lokrians into two sections,—Lokrians of Mount Knemis, or Epiknemidian Lokrians, and Lokrians of Opus, or Opuntian Lokrians. … Besides these two sections of the Lokrian name, there was also a third, completely separate, and said to have been colonised from Opus,—the Lokrians surnamed Ozolæ,—who dwelt apart on the western side of Phokis, along the northern coast of the Corinthian Gulf. … Opus prided itself on being the mother-city of the Lokrian name. … The whole length of this Lokrian coast is celebrated for its beauty and fertility, both by ancient and modern observers."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 3 (volume 2).

LOLLARDS. The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1360-1414; and BEGUINES.—BEGHARDS.

LOLLARDS' TOWER.

When the persecution of the Lollards, or disciples of Wyclif, began in England, under Henry IV., the prisons were soon crowded, and the Archbishop of Canterbury found need of building an additional tower to his palace at Lambeth for the custody of them. The Lollards' Tower, as it was named, is still standing, with the rings in its walls to which the captives were chained.

LOMBARDS, OR LANGOBARDI. Early history.

"The Langobardi … are ennobled by the smallness of their numbers; since, though surrounded by many powerful nations, they derive security, not from obsequiousness, but from their martial enterprise."

Tacitus, Germany, Oxford translation, chapter 40.

"In the reign of Augustus, the Langobardi dwelt on this side the Elbe, between Luneburg and Magdeburg. When conquered and driven beyond the Elbe by Tiberius, they occupied that part of the country where are now Prignitz, Ruppin, and part of the Middle Marche. They afterward founded the Lombard kingdom in Italy."

Tacitus, Germany, Oxford translation, Translator's note.

The etymology which explains the name of the Lombards or Langobardi by finding in it a reference to the length of their beards is questioned by some modern writers. Sheppard ("Fall of Rome") conjectures that the name originally meant "long-spears" rather than "long-beards." Other writers derive the name "from the district they inhabited on the banks of the Elbe, where Börde (or Bord) still signifies 'a fertile plain by the side of a river,' and a district near Magdeburg is still called the lange Börde. According to this view, Langobardi would signify 'inhabitants of the long bord of the river'; and traces of their name are supposed still to occur in such names as Bardengau and Bardewick, in the neighbourhood of the Elbe."

Dr. W. Smith, Note to Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 42.

From the Elbe the Langobardi moved in time to the Danube. "Here they encountered the Gepidæ, who, … after having taken a leading part in the defeat and dispersion of the Huns in the great battle of Netad [A. D. 453], had settled in the plains of Upper Hungary and on the Transylvanian hills. For thirty years these two powerful tribes continued a contest in which both sides sought the assistance of the Greek emperor, and both were purposely encouraged in their rivalry with a view to their common destruction." In 566 the struggle was decided by a tremendous battle in which the Gepidæ were crushed. The Lombards, in this last encounter, had secured the aid of the pretended Avars, then lately arrived on the Danube; but the prestige of the overwhelming victory attached itself to the name of the young Lombard king, Alboin. "In the days of Charlemagne, the songs of the German peasant still told of his beauty, his heroic qualities, and the resistless vigour of his sword. His renown crossed the Alps, and fell, with a foreboding sound, upon the startled ears of the Italians, now experienced in the varied miseries of invasion."

J. G. Sheppard, Fall of Rome, lecture 6.

LOMBARDS: A. D. 568-573. Conquests and settlement in Italy.

When the Lombards and the Avars crushed the nation of the Gepidæ (see AVARS), in 566, it was one of the terms of the bargain between them that the former should surrender to the Avars, not only the conquered territory—in Wallachia, Moldavia, Transylvania and part of Hungary—but, also, their own homes in Pannonia and Noricum. No doubt the ambitious Lombard king, Alboin, had thoughts of an easy conquest of Italy in his mind when he assented to so strange an agreement. Fourteen years before, the Lombard warriors had traversed the sunny peninsula in the army of Narses, as friends and allies of the Roman-Greeks. {2033} The recollection of its charms, and of its still surviving wealth, invited them to return. Their old leader, Narses, had been deposed from the exarchate at Ravenna; it is possible that he encouraged their coming. "It was not an army, but an entire nation, which descended the Alps of Friuli in the year 568. The exarch Longinus, who had succeeded Narses, shut himself up within the walls of Ravenna, and offered no other resistance. Pavia, which had been well fortified by the kings of the Ostrogoths, closed its gates, and sustained a siege of four years. Several other towns, Padua, Monzelice, and Mantua, opposed their isolated forces, but with less perseverance. The Lombards advanced slowly into the country, but still they advanced; at their approach, the inhabitants fled to the fortified towns upon the sea coast in the hope of being relieved by the Greek fleet, or at least of finding a refuge in the ships, if it became necessary to surrender the place. … The islands of Venice received the numerous fugitives from Venetia, and at their head the patriarch of Aquileia, who took up his abode at Grado; Ravenna opened its gates to the fugitives from the two banks of the Po; Genoa to those from Liguria; the inhabitants of La Romagna, between Rimini and Ancona, retired to the cities of the Pentapolis; Pisa, Rome, Gaeta, Naples, Amalfi, and all the maritime towns of the south of Italy were peopled at the same time by crowds of fugitives."

J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 11 (volume 1).

"From the Trentine hills to the gates of Ravenna and Rome, the inland regions of Italy became, without a battle or a siege, the lasting patrimony of the Lombards. … One city, which had been diligently fortified by the Goths, resisted the arms of a new invader; and, while Italy was subdued by the flying detachments of the Lombards, the royal camp was fixed above three years before the western gate of Ticinum, or Pavia. … The impatient besieger had bound himself by a tremendous oath that age, and sex, and dignity should be confounded in a general massacre. The aid of famine at length enabled him to execute his bloody vow; but as Alboin entered the gate his horse stumbled, fell, and could not be raised from the ground. One of his attendants was prompted by compassion, or piety, to interpret this miraculous sign of the wrath of Heaven: the conqueror paused and relented. … Delighted with the situation of a city which was endeared to his pride by the difficulty of the purchase, the prince of the Lombards disdained the ancient glories of Milan; and Pavia during some ages was respected as the capital of the kingdom of Italy."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 45.

LOMBARDS: A. D. 573-754. Their kingdom.

Alboin survived but a short time the conquest of his Italian kingdom. He was murdered in June, 573, at the instigation of his wife, the Gepid princess Rosamond, whose alliance with him had been forced and hateful. His successor, Clef, or Clepho, a chief elected by the assembly of the nation at Pavia, reigned but eighteen months, when he, too, was murdered. After a distracted period of ten years, in which there was no king, the young son of Clepho, named Autharis, came to manhood and was raised to the throne. "Under the standard of their new king, the conquerors of Italy withstood three successive invasions [of the Franks and the Alemanni], one of which was led by Childebert himself, the last of the Merovingian race who descended from the Alps. … During a period of 200 years Italy was unequally divided between the kingdom of the Lombards and the exarchate of Ravenna. … From Pavia, the royal seat, their kingdom [that of the Lombards] was extended to the east, the north, and the west, as far as the confines of the Avars, the Bavarians, and the Franks of Austrasia and Burgundy. In the language of modern geography, it is now represented by the Terra Firma of the Venetian republic, Tyrol, the Milanese, Piedmont, the coast of Genoa, Mantua, Parma, and Modena, the grand duchy of Tuscany, and a large portion of the ecclesiastical state from Perugia to the Adriatic. The dukes, and at length the princes, of Beneventum, survived the monarchy, and propagated the name of the Lombards. From Capua to Tarentum, they reigned near 500 years over the greatest part of the present kingdom of Naples."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 45.

LOMBARDS: A. D. 754-774. The Fall of their monarchy. Charlemagne's conquest.

Until 754 the Lombard kings pursued a generally prosperous career of aggrandizement, in Italy. They had succeeded, at the last, in expelling the exarchs of the Eastern Empire from Ravenna and in taking possession of that capital, with much of the territory and many of the cities in central Italy which depended on it. These successes inflamed their determination to acquire Rome, which had practically resumed its independence, and theoretically reconstituted itself a republic, with the Pope, in fact, ruling it as an actual prince. In 753 the Papal chair was filled by Stephen II. and the Lombard throne by King Aistaulf, or Astolphus. The former, being newly threatened by the latter, made a journey to the court of the Frank king, Pippin, to solicit his aid. Pippin was duly grateful for the sanction which the preceding pope had given to his seizure of the Merovingian crown, and he responded to the appeal in a vigorous way. In a short campaign beyond the Alps, in 754, he extorted from the Lombard king a promise to make over the cities of the exarchate to the Pope and to respect his domain. But the promise was broken as soon as made. The Franks were hardly out of Italy before Aistulf was ravaging the environs of Rome and assailing its gates. On this provocation Pippin came back the next year and humbled the Lombard more effectually, stripping him of additional territory, for the benefit of the Pope, taking heavy ransom and tributes from him, and binding him by oaths and hostages to acknowledge the supremacy of the king of the Franks. This chastisement sufficed for nearly twenty years; but in 773 the Pope (now Hadrian) was driven once more to appeal to the Frank monarch for protection against his northern neighbors. Pippin was dead and his great son Charles, or Charlemagne, had quarrels of his own with Lombardy to second the Papal call. He passed the Alps at the head of a powerful army, reduced Pavia after a year-long siege and made a complete conquest of the kingdom, immuring its late king in a cloister for the remainder of his days. He also confirmed, it is said, the territorial "donations" of his father to the Holy See and added some provinces to them. "Thus the kingdom of the Lombards, after a stormy existence of over two hundred years, was forever extinguished. {2034} Comprising Piedmont, Genoa, the Milanese, Tuscany, and several smaller states, it constituted the most valuable acquisition, perhaps, the Franks had lately achieved. Their limits were advanced by it from the Alps to the Tiber; yet, in the disposal of his spoil, the magnanimous conqueror regarded the forms of government which had been previously established. He introduced no changes that were not deemed indispensable. The native dukes and counts were confirmed in their dignities; the national law was preserved, and the distributions of land maintained, Karl receiving the homage of the Lombard lords as their feudal sovereign, and reserving to himself only the name of King of Lombardy."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapters 15-16.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 49.

J. I. Mombert, Charlemagne, book 1, chapter 2, and book 2, chapter 2.

J. Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire, chapters 4-5.

See, also, PAPACY: A. D. 728-774.

----------LOMBARDY: Start--------

LOMBARDY: A. D. 754. Charlemagne's reconstitution of the kingdom.

See LOMBARDS: A. D. 754-774.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 961-1039. The subjection to Germany.

See ITALY: A. D. 961-1039.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1056-1152. The rise of the Republican cities.

See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1154-1183. The wars of Frederick Barbarossa against the Communes. The League of Lombardy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162, to 1174-1183; and FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: MEDIÆVAL LEAGUE OF LOMBARDY.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1183-1250. The conflict with Frederick II.

See ITALY: A. D. 1183-1250.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1250-1520. The Age of the Despots.

See ITALY: A. D. 1250-1520.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1277-1447. Rise and domination of the Visconti of Milan, and the dissolution of their threatening tyranny.

See MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1310-1313. Visit of the Emperor Henry VII. His coronation with the Iron Crown.

See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1327-1330. Visit and coronation of Louis IV. of Bavaria.

See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1360-1391. The Free Companies and the wars with Florence and with the Pope.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1412-1422. Reconquest by Filippo Maria Visconti, third duke of Milan.

See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1447-1454. Disputed succession of the Visconti in Milan. The duchy seized by Francesco Sforza. War of Venice, Naples, and other States against Milan and Florence.

See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1492-1544. The struggle for the Milanese territory, until its acquisition by the Spanish crown.

See references under MILAN: A. D. 1492-1496, to 1544.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1713. Cession of the duchy of Milan to Austria.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1745-1746. Occupied by the Spaniards and French and recovered by the Austrians.

See ITALY: A. D. 1745; and 1746-1747.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1749-1792. Under Austrian rule, after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.

See ITALY: A. D. 1749-1792.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1796-1797. Conquest by Bonaparte. Creation of the Cisalpine Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER); 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL); and 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1799. French evacuation.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1800. Recovery by the French.

See FRANCE: A: D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1805. The Iron Crown bestowed on Napoleon, as King of Italy.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1814. French evacuation.

See ITALY: A. D. 1814.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1814-1815. Restored to Austria. Formation of the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE); VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF; ITALY: A. D. 1814-1815; and AUSTRIA: A. D. 1815-1846.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1848-1849. The struggle for freedom from Austrian misrule and its failure.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

LOMBARDY: A. D. 1859. Emancipation from the Austrians. Absorption in the kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.

----------LOMBARDY: End----------

LOMBARDY, The iron crown of.

The crown of the Lombard kings was lined with an iron band, believed to have been wrought of the nails used in the Crucifixion. Hence it was called the Iron Crown.

J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great, book 2, chapter 2.

LONATO, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

LONDINIUM. The Roman name of the city of London.

See LONDON.

----------LONDON: Start----------

LONDON: The origin of the city and its name.

"When Plautius [Aulus Plautius, who, in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, A. D. 43, led the second Roman invasion of Britain, that of Cæsar having been the first] withdrew his soldiers from the marshes they had vainly attempted to cross, he, no doubt, encamped them somewhere in the neighbourhood. I believe the place was London. The name of London refers directly to the marshes, though I cannot here enter into a philological argument to prove the fact. At London the Roman general was able both to watch his enemy and to secure the conquests he had made, while his ships could supply him with all the necessaries he required. When, in the autumn of the year 43, he drew the lines of circumvallation round his camp, I believe he founded the present metropolis of Britain. The notion entertained by some antiquaries that a British town preceded the Roman camp has no foundation to rest upon, and is inconsistent with all we know of the early geography of this part of Britain."

E. Guest, Origines Celticæ, volume 2, part 2, chapter 13.

"Old as it is, London is far from being one of the oldest of British cities; till the coming of the Romans, indeed, the loneliness of its site seems to have been unbroken by any settlement whatever. The 'dun' was, in fact, the centre of a vast wilderness. … We know nothing of the settlement of the town; but its advantages as the first landing-place along the Thames secured for it at once the command of all trading intercourse with Gaul, and through Gaul with the empire at large. So rapid was its growth that only a few years after the landing of Claudius [who joined Aulus Plautius in the autumn of 43] London had risen into a flourishing port."

J. R. Green, The Making of England, chapter 3.

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"The derivation of 'Londinium' from 'Llyn-din,' the lake fort, seems to agree best with the situation and the history. The Roman could not frame to pronounce the British word 'Llyn,' a word which must have sounded to his ears very much like 'Clun,' or 'Lun,' and the fact, if it is a fact, that Llyn was turned into Lon, goes to increase the probability that this is the correct derivation of the name. The first founder called his fastness the 'Fort of the Lake,' and this is all that remains of him or it. … London was in those days emphatically a Llyndin, the river itself being more like a broad lake than a stream, and behind the fortress lying the great northern lake,' as a writer so late as Fitzstephen calls it, where is now Moorfields. I take it, it was something very like an island, if not quite—a piece of high ground rising out of lake, and swamp, and estuary."

W. J. Loftie, History of London, chapter 1, and foot-note.

LONDON: A. D. 61. Destruction by the Iceni.

Londinium was one of the Roman towns in Britain destroyed by the Iceni, at the time of the furious insurrection to which they were incited by their outraged queen Boadicea, A. D. 61. It "was crowded with Roman residents, crowded still more at this moment with fugitives from the country towns and villas: but it was undefended by walls, its population of traders was of little account in military eyes, and Suetonius sternly determined to leave it, with all the wealth it harboured, to the barbarians, rather than sacrifice his soldiers in the attempt to save it. … Amidst the overthrow of the great cities of southern Britain, not less than 70,000 Roman colonists … perished. The work of twenty years was in a moment undone. Far and wide every vestige of Roman civilization was trodden into the soil. At this day the workmen who dig through the foundations of the Norman and the Saxon London, strike beneath them on the traces of a double Roman city, between which lies a mass of charred and broken rubbish, attesting the conflagration of the terrible Boadicea."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 51.

LONDON: 4th Century. The Roman Augusta and its walls.

"It is certain that, either under Constantine [the emperor] himself, or under one of his immediate successors, the outer wall was built. Though the building of the Roman wall, which still in a sense defines the city boundaries, is an event in the history of London not second in importance even to its foundation, since it made a mere village and fort with a 'tête du pont' into a great city and the capital of provincial Britain, yet we have no records by which an exact date can be assigned to it. All we know is that in 350 London had no wall: and in 369 the wall existed. The new wall must have taken in an immense tract of what was until then open country, especially along the Watling Street, towards Cheap and Newgate. It transformed London into Augusta; and though the new name hardly appears on the page of history, and never without a reference to the older one, its existence proves the increase in estimation which was then accorded to the place. The object of this extensive circumvallation is not very clear. The population to be protected might very well have been crowded into a much smaller space. … The wall enclosed a space of 380 acres, being 5,485 yards in length, or 3 miles and 205 yards. The portion along the river extended from Blackfriars to the Tower."

W. J. Loftie, History of London, chapter 2 (volume 1).

"The historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote about A. D. 380, in the reign of Gratian, states that Londinium (he calls it Lundinium) was in his days called Augusta. From him we learn that Lupicinus, who was sent by Julian to repress the inroads of the Scots and Picts, made Londinium his head quarters, and there concerted the plan of the campaign. In the reign of Valentinian Britain was again disturbed, not only by the northern barbarians, but also by the Franks and Saxons. Theodosius, who was appointed commander of the legions and cohorts selected for this service, came from Boulogne, by way of Rutupiæ, to Londinium, the same route taken a few years previously by Lupicinus, and there he also matured his plan for the restoration of the tranquillity of the province. It is on this occasion that Marcellinus speaks twice of Londinium as an ancient town, then called Augusta. By the anonymous chorographer of Ravenna it is called Londinium Augusta; and it is in this sense, a cognomen or distinguishing appellation, as applied to a pre-eminent town or capital, that we must probably understand the term as used by Marcellinus in relation to Londinium. … The extent of Londinium, from Ludgate on the west to the Tower on the east, was about a mile, and about half a mile from the wall on the north (London Wall) to the Thames, giving dimensions far greater than those of any other Roman town in Britain. These were the limits of the city when the Romans relinquished the dominion of the island."

Charles Roach Smith, Illustrations of Roman London, pages 11-12.

LONDON: 4th Century. The growth of the Roman city.

"That London gradually increased in importance beyond the dignity of a commercial city is plain, from the mention of it in the Itinera, which show the number of marching roads beginning and terminating there. … London then [in the times of Julian and Theodosius] bore the name of 'Augusta,' or 'Londinium Augusta,' and this title is only applied to cities of pre-eminent importance. The area of Roman London was considerable, and, from discoveries made at different times, appears to have extended with the growth of Roman power. The walls when the Romans left Britain reached from Ludgate, on the west, to the Tower on the east, about one mile in length, and from London Wall to the Thames. … It also extended across the river on the Kentish side."

H. M. Scarth, Roman Britain, chapter 15.

"Roman Loudon was built on the elevated ground on both sides of a stream, known in after time by the name of Wallbrook, which ran into the Thames not far from Southwark Bridge. … Its walls were identical with those which enclosed the mediæval city of London. … The northern and north-eastern parts of the town were occupied with extensive and—to judge by the remains which have been brought to light—magnificent mansions. … At the period to which our last chapter had brought us [A. D. 353], the city had extended to the other side of the Thames, and the borough of Southwark stands upon ground which covers the floors of Roman houses and the pavings of Roman streets."

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: C. Roach Smith, Antiquities of Roman London.

{2036}

LONDON: 6th-9th Centuries. During the Saxon conquest and settlement.

For nearly half a century after its conquest by the East-Saxons (which took place probably about the middle of the 6th century) London "wholly disappears from our view." "We know nothing of the circumstances of its conquest, of the fate of its citizens, or of the settlement of the conquerors within its walls. That some such settlement had taken place, at least as early as the close of the seventh century, is plain from the story of Mellitus, when placed as bishop within its walls [see ENGLAND: A. D. 597-685]; but it is equally plain that the settlement was an English one, that the provincials had here as elsewhere disappeared, and that the ruin of the city had been complete. Had London merely surrendered to the East-Saxons and retained its older population and municipal life, it is hard to imagine how, within less than half a century, its burghers could have so wholly lost all trace of Christianity that not even a ruined church, as at Canterbury, remained for the use of the Christian bishop, and that the first care of Mellitus was to set up a mission church in the midst of a heathen population. It is even harder to imagine how all trace of the municipal institutions to which the Roman towns clung so obstinately should have so utterly disappeared. But more direct proofs of the wreck of the town meet us in the stray glimpses which we are able to get of its earlier topographical history. The story of early London is not that of a settled community slowly putting off the forms of Roman for those of English life, but of a number of little groups scattered here and there over the area within the walls, each growing up with its own life and institutions, gilds, sokes, religious houses, and the like, and only slowly drawing together into a municipal union which remained weak and imperfect even at the Norman Conquest. … Its position indeed was such that traffic could not fail to recreate the town; for whether a bridge or a ferry existed at this time, it was here that the traveller from Kent or Gaul would still cross the Thames, and it was from London that the roads still diverged which, silent and desolate as they had become, furnished the means of communication to any part of Britain."

J. R. Green, The Conquest of England, pages 149 and 452-459.

"London may be said after this time [early in the 9th century] to be no longer the capital of one Saxon kingdom, but to be the special property of whichever king of whichever kingdom was then paramount in all England. When the supremacy of Mercia declined, and that of Wessex arose, London went to the conqueror. In 823, Egbert receives the submission of Essex, and in 827 he is in London, and in 833 a Witan is held there, at which he presides. Such are the scanty notes from which the history of London during the so-called Heptarchy must be compiled. … London had to bear the brunt of the attack [of the Danes] at first. Her walls wholly failed to protect her. Time after time the freebooters broke in. If the Saxons had spared anything of Roman London, it must have disappeared now. Massacre, slavery, and fire became familiar in her streets. At last the Danes seemed to have looked on her as their headquarters, and when, in 872, Alfred was forced to make truce with them, they actually retired to London as to their own city, to recruit. To Alfred, with his military experience and political sagacity, the possession of London was a necessity; but he had to wait long before he obtained it. His preparations were complete in 884. The story of the conflict is the story of his life. His first great success was the capture of London after a short siege: to hold it was the task of all his later years."

W. J. Loftie, History of London, chapter 3 (volume 1).

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 477-527.

LONDON: A. D. 1013-1016. Resistance to the Danes.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 979-1016.

LONDON: 12th Century. Magnitude and importance of the city.

"We find them [the Londoners] active in the civil war of Stephen and Matilda. The famous bishop of Winchester tells the Londoners that they are almost accounted as noblemen on account of the greatness of their city; into the community of which it appears that some barons had been received. Indeed, the citizens, themselves, or at least the principal of them, were called barons. It was certainly by far the greatest city in England. There have been different estimates of its population, some of which are extravagant; but I think it could hardly have contained less than 30,000 or 40,000 souls within its walls; and the suburbs were very populous."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 8, part 3 (volume 3).

LONDON: 14th Century. Guilds. Livery Companies.

See GUILDS.

LONDON: A. D. 1381. In the hands of the followers of Wat Tyler and John Ball.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1381.

LONDON: 16th Century. In Shakespeare's time.

"The London of those days did not present the gigantic uniformity of the modern metropolis, and had not as yet become wholly absorbed in the whirl of business life. It was not as yet a whole province covered with houses, but a city of moderate size, surveyable from end to end, with walls and gates, beyond which lay pleasant suburbs. … Compared with the London of today, it possessed colour and the stamp of originality; for, as in the southern climes, business and domestic operations were carried on in the streets—and then the red houses with their woodwork, high gables, oriel windows and terraces, and the inhabitants in picturesque and gay attire. The upper circles of society did not, as yet, live apart in other districts; the nobility still had their mansions among the burgher class and the working people. Queen Elizabeth might be seen driving in an unwieldy gilt coach to some solemn service in St. Paul's Cathedral, or riding through the city to the Tower, to her hunting grounds, to a review of her troops, or might be seen starting for Richmond or Greenwich, accompanied by a brilliant retinue, on one of her magnificent barges that were kept in readiness close to where the theatres stood. Such a scene, with but little stretch of the imagination, might have led Shakespeare to think of the brilliant picture of Cleopatra on the Cydnus. The Thames was crossed by one bridge only, and was still pure and clear as crystal; swans swam about on it, and gardens and meadows lined its banks where we now have dusty wharfs and warehouses. Hundreds of boats would be skimming up and down the stream, and incessant would be the calls between the boatmen of 'Westward ho!' or 'Eastward ho!' And yet the loungers in the Temple Gardens and at Queenhithe could amuse themselves by catching salmon. {2037} In the streets crowds would be passing to and fro; above all, the well-known and dreaded apprentices, whose business it was to attract customers by calling out in front of the shops: 'What d'ye lack, gentles? what d'ye lack? My ware is best! Here shall you have your choice!' &c. Foreigners, too, of every nationality, resident in London, would be met with. Amid all this life every now and again would be seen the perambulation of one or other of the guilds, wedding processions, groups of country folk, gay companies of train-bands and archers. … The city was rich in springs and gardens, and the inhabitants still had leisure to enjoy their existence; time had not yet come to be synonymous with money, and men enjoyed their gossip at the barbers' and tobacconists' shops; at the latter, instruction was even given in the art of smoking, and in 1614 it is said that there were no less than 7,000 such shops in London. St. Paul's was a rendezvous for promenaders and idle folk; and on certain days, Smithfield and its Fair would be the centre of attraction; also Bartholomew Fair, with its puppet-shows and exhibitions of curiosities, where Bankes and his dancing-horse Morocco created a great sensation for a long time; Southwark, too, with its Paris Garden, attracted visitors to see the bear-baiting; it was here that the famous bear Sackerson put the women in a pleasant state of flutter; Master Slender had seen the bear loose twenty times, and taken it by the chain. No less attractive were the bowling-alleys, the fights at the Cock-pit and the tent-pegging in the tiltyard; and yet all these amusements were even surpassed by the newly-risen star of the theatre. … The population of London during the reign of the Bloody Mary is estimated by the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Micheli, at 150,000, or, according to other MS. reports of his, at 180,000 souls. The population must have increased at an almost inconceivable rate, if we are to trust the reports of a second Venetian ambassador, Marc Antonio Correr, who, in 1610, reckoned the number of inhabitants at 300,000 souls; however, according to Raumer, another Venetian, Molino, estimated the population at 300,000 in 1607. The number of foreigners in London was extremely large, and in 1621 the colony of foreigners of all nations found settled there amounted to no less than 10,000 persons. Commerce, trade, and the industries were in a very flourishing state. The Thames alone, according to John Norden in his MS. description of Essex (1594), gave occupation to 40,000 men as boatmen, sailors, fishermen, and others. Great political and historical events had put new life into the English nation, and given it an important impetus, which manifested itself in London more especially, and exercised a stimulating influence upon literature and poetry. Indeed, it may be said that Shakespeare had the good fortune of having his life cast in one of the greatest historical periods, the gravitating point of which lay principally in London."

K. Elze, William Shakespeare, chapter 3.

LONDON: A. D. 1647. Outbreak against the Independents and the Army.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1647 (APRIL-AUGUST).

LONDON: A. D. 1665 The Great Plague.

"The water supply, it is now generally acknowledged, is the first cause of epidemic disease. In London, at the beginning of the reign of James I., it was threefold. Some water came to public conduits, like those in Cheap, by underground pipes from Tyburn. Some was drawn by water-wheels and other similar means from the Thames, polluted as it was, at London Bridge. A third source of supply was still more dangerous: in all the suburbs, and probably also in most houses in the city itself, people depended on wells. What wells among habitations, and especially filthy habitations, become, we know now, but in the 17th century, and much later, the idea of their danger had not been started. Such being the conditions of existence in London; the plague now and then smouldering for a year or two, now and then breaking out as in 1603, 1625, and 1636, a long drouth, which means resort to half dry and stagnant reservoirs, was sufficient to call it forth in all its strength. The heat of the summer weather in 1665 was such that the very birds of the air were imagined to languish in their flight. The 7th of June, said Pepys, was the hottest day that ever he felt in his life. The deaths from the plague, which had begun at the end of the previous year, in the suburb of St. Giles' in the Fields, at a house in Long Acre, where two Frenchmen had died of it, rose during June from 112 to 268. The entries in the diary are for four months almost continuous as to the progress of the plague. Although it was calculated that not less than 200,000 people had followed the example of the king and court, and fled from the doomed city, yet the deaths increased daily. The lord mayor, Lawrence, held his ground, as did the brave earl of Craven and General Monk, now became duke of Albemarle. Craven provided a burial-ground, the Pest Field, with a kind of cottage-hospital in Soho; but the only remedy that could be devised by the united wisdom of the corporation, fortified by the presence of the duke and the earl, was to order fires in all the streets, as if the weather was not already hot enough. Medical art seems to have utterly broken down. Those of the sick who were treated by a physician, only died a more painful death by cupping, scarifying and blistering. The city rectors, too, who had come back with the king, fled from the danger, as might be expected from their antecedents, and the nonconformist lecturers who remained had overwhelming congregations wherever they preached repentence to the terror-stricken people. … The symptoms were very distressing. Fever and vomiting were among the first, and every little ailment was thought premonitory, so that it was said at the time that as many died of fright as of the disease itself. … The fatal signs were glandular swellings which ran their course in a few hours, the plague spots turning to gangrene almost as soon as they appeared. The patients frequently expired the same day that they were seized. … The most terrible stories of premature burial were circulated. All business was suspended. Grass grew in the streets. No one went about. The rumbling wheels of the cart, and the cry, 'Bring out your dead!' alone broke the stillness of the night. … In the first weeks of September the number of fatal cases rose to 1,500 a day, the bills of mortality recording 24,000 deaths between the 1st and 21st of that month. Then at last it began to decline, but rose again at the beginning of October. {2038} A change of weather at length occurred, and the average declined so rapidly that, by the beginning of November, the number of deaths was reduced to 1,200, and before Christmas came it had fallen to the usual number of former years. In all, the official statements enumerated 97,306 deaths during the year, and, if we add those unrecorded, a very moderate estimate of the whole mortality would place it at the appalling figure of 100,000 at least."

W. J. Loftie, History of London, chapter 11 (volume 1).

ALSO IN; S. Pepys, Diary, 1665.

LONDON: A. D. 1666. The Great Fire.

"While the war [with the Dutch] continued without any decisive success on either side, a calamity happened in London which threw the people into great consternation. Fire, breaking out [September 2, 1666] in a baker's house near the bridge, spread itself on all sides with such rapidity that no efforts could extinguish it, till it laid in ashes a considerable part of the city. The inhabitants, without being able to provide effectually for their relief, were reduced to be spectators of their own ruin; and were pursued from street to street by the flames which unexpectedly gathered round them. Three days and nights did the fire advance; and it was only by the blowing up of houses that it was at last extinguished. … About 400 streets and 13,000 houses were reduced to ashes. The causes of the calamity were evident. The narrow streets of London, the houses built entirely of wood, the dry season, and a violent east wind which blew; these were so many concurring circumstances which rendered it easy to assign the reason of the destruction that ensued. But the people were not satisfied with this obvious account. Prompted by blind rage, some ascribed the guilt to the republicans, others to the Catholics. … The fire of London, though at that time a great calamity, has proved in the issue beneficial both to the city and the kingdom. The city was rebuilt in a very little time, and care was taken to make the streets wider and more regular than before. … London became much more healthy after the fire."

D. Hume, History of England, chapter 64.

"I went this morning [September 7] on foot from Whitehall as far as London Bridge, thro' the late Fleete-street, Ludgate hill, by St. Paules, Cheapeside, Exchange, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, and out to Moorefields, thence through Cornehill, &c., with extraordinary difficulty, clambering over heaps of yet smoking rubbish, and frequently mistaking where I was. The ground under my feete so hot, that it even burnt the soles of my shoes. … At my returne I was infinitely concerned to find that goodly Church St. Paules now a sad ruine. … Thus lay in ashes that most venerable church, one of the most ancient pieces of early piety in ye Christian world, besides neere 100 more. … In five or six miles traversing about I did not see one loade of timber unconsum'd, nor many stones but what were calcin'd white as snow. … I then went towards Islington and Highgate, where one might have seen 200,000 people of all ranks and degrees dispers'd and lying along by their heaps of what they could save from the fire, deploring their losse, and tho' ready to perish for hunger and destitution, yet not asking one penny for reliefe, which to me appear'd a stranger sight than any I had yet beheld."

J. Evelyn, Diary, September 7, 1666 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: S. Pepys, Diary, September 2-15, 1666 (volume 4).

L. Phillimore, Sir Christopher Wren, chapters 6-7.

LONDON: A. D. 1685. The most populous capital in Europe. The first lighting of the streets.

"There is reason to believe that, in 1685, London had been, during about half a century, the most populous capital in Europe. The inhabitants, who are now [1848] at least 1,900,000, were then probably little more than half a million. London had in the world only one commercial rival, now long ago outstripped, the mighty and opulent Amsterdam. … There is, indeed, no doubt that the trade of the metropolis then bore a far greater proportion than at present to the whole trade of the country; yet to our generation the honest vaunting of our ancestors must appear almost ludicrous. The shipping which they thought incredibly great appears not to have exceeded 70,000 tons. This was, indeed, then more than a third of the whole tonnage of the kingdom. … It ought to be noticed that, in the last year of the reign of Charles II. [1685], began a great change in the police of London, a change which has perhaps added as much to the happiness of the body of the people as revolutions of much greater fame. An ingenious projector, named Edward Heming, obtained letters patent conveying to him, for a term of years, the exclusive right of lighting up London. He undertook, for a moderate consideration, to place a light before every tenth door, on moonless nights, from Michaelmas to Lady Day, and from six to twelve of the clock."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 3 (volume 1).

LONDON: A. D. 1688. The Irish Night.

The ignominious flight of James II. from his capital, on the morning of December 11, 1688, was followed by a wild outbreak of riot in London, which no effective authority existed to promptly repress. To the cry of "No Popery," Roman Catholic chapels and the residences of ambassadors of Roman Catholic States, were sacked and burned. "The morning of the 12th of December rose on a ghastly sight. The capital in many places presented the aspect of a city taken by storm. The Lords met at Whitehall, and exerted themselves to restore tranquillity. … In spite, however, of the well-meant efforts of the provisional government, the agitation grew hourly more formidable. … Another day of agitation and terror closed, and was followed by a night the strangest and most terrible that England had ever seen." Just before his flight, King James had sent an order for the disbanding of Ins army, which had been composed for the most part of troops brought over from Ireland. A terrifying rumor that this disbanded Irish soldiery was marching on London, and massacring men, women and children on the road, now spread through the city. "At one in the morning the drums of the militia beat to arms. Everywhere terrified women were weeping and wringing their hands, while their fathers and husbands were equipping themselves for fight. Before two the capital wore a face of stern preparedness which might well have daunted a real enemy, if such an enemy had been approaching. Candles were blazing at all the windows. The public places were as bright as at noonday. All the great avenues were barricaded. More than 20,000 pikes and muskets lined the streets. The late daybreak of the winter solstice found the whole City still in arms. During many years the Londoners retained a vivid recollection of what they called the Irish Night. … The panic had not been confined to London. The cry that disbanded Irish soldiers were coming to murder the Protestants had, with malignant ingenuity, been raised at once in many places widely distant from each other."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 10.

{2039}

LONDON: A. D. 1780. The Gordon No-Popery Riots.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1778-1780.

LONDON: A. D. 1848. The last Chartist demonstration.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1848.

LONDON: A. D. 1851. The great Exhibition.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1851.

----------LONDON: End----------

LONDON COMPANY FOR VIRGINIA, A. D. 1606-1625. Charter and undertakings in Virginia.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607, and after.

LONDON COMPANY FOR VIRGINIA. D. 1619. The unused patent granted to the Pilgrims at Leyden.

See INDEPENDENTS OR SEPARATISTS: A. D. 1617-1620; and, also, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620, and 1621.

----------LONDONDERRY: Start--------

LONDONDERRY: Origin and Name.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1607-1611.

LONDONDERRY: A. D. 1688. The shutting of the gates by the Prentice Boys.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1685-1688.

LONDONDERRY: A. D. 1689. The Siege.

James II. fled in December, 1688, to France, from the Revolution in England which gave his throne to his daughter Mary, and her husband, William of Orange. He received aid from the French king and was landed in Ireland the following March, to attempt the maintenance of his sovereignty in that kingdom, if no more. Almost immediately upon his arrival he led his forces against Londonderry, where a great part of the Protestants of Ulster had taken refuge, and William and Mary had been proclaimed. "The city in 1689 was contained within the walls; and it rose by a gentle ascent from the base to the summit of a hill. The whole city was thus exposed to the fire of an enemy. There was no moat nor counterscarp. A ferry crossed the river Foyle from the east gate, and the north gate opened upon a quay. At the entrance of the Foyle was the strong fort of Culmore, with a smaller fort on the opposite bank. About two miles below the city were two forts—Charles Fort and Grange Fort. The trumpeter sent by the king with a summons to the obstinate city found the inhabitants 'in very great disorder, having turned out their governor Lundy, upon suspicion.' The cause of this unexpected reception was the presence of 'one Walker, a minister.' He was opposed to Lundy, who thought the place untenable, and counselled the townsmen to make conditions; 'but the fierce minister of the Gospel, being of the true Cromwellian or Cameronian stamp, inspired them with bolder resolutions.' The reverend George Walker and Major Baker were appointed governors during the siege. They mustered 7,020 soldiers, dividing them into regiments under eight colonels. In the town there were about 30,000 souls; but they were reduced to a less burdensome number, by 10,000 accepting an offer of the besieging commander to restore them to their dwellings. There were, according to Lundy's estimation, only provisions for ten days. The number of cannon possessed by the besieged was only twenty. On the 20th of April the city was invested, and the bombardment was begun. … No impression was made during nine days upon the determination to hold out; and on the 29th King James retraced his steps to Dublin, in considerable ill humour. The siege went on for six weeks with little change. Hamilton was now the commander of James's forces. The garrison of Londonderry and the inhabitants were gradually perishing from fatigue and insufficient food. But they bravely repelled an assault, in which 400 of the assailants fell. … Across the narrow part of the river, from Charles Fort to Grange Fort, the enemy stretched a great boom of fir-timber, joined by iron chains, and fastened on either shore by cables of a foot thick. On the 15th of June an English fleet of thirty sail was descried in the Lough. Signals were given and answered; but the ships lay at anchor for weeks. At the end of June, Baker, one of the heroic governors, died. Hamilton had been superseded in his command by Rosen, who issued a savage proclamation, declaring that unless the place were surrendered by the 1st of July, he would collect all the Protestants from the neighbouring districts, and drive them under the walls of the city to starve with those within the walls. A famished troop came thus beneath the walls of Londonderry, where they lay starving for three days. The besieged immediately threatened to hang all the prisoners within the city. This threat had its effect, and the famished crowd wended back their way to their solitary villages. It is but justice to James to say that he expressed his displeasure at this proceeding."

C. Knight, Crown History of England, chapter 34.

"The state of the city was, hour by hour, becoming more frightful. The number of the inhabitants had been thinned more by famine and disease than by the fire of the enemy. Yet that fire was sharper and more constant than ever. … Every attack was still repelled. But the fighting men of the garrison were so much exhausted that they could scarcely keep their legs. Several of them, in the act of striking at the enemy, fell down from mere weakness. A very small quantity of grain remained, and was doled out by mouthfuls. The stock of salted hides was considerable, and by gnawing them the garrison appeased the rage of hunger. Dogs, fattened on the blood of the slain who lay unburied round the town, were luxuries which few could afford to purchase. The price of a whelp's paw was five shillings and sixpence. Nine horses were still alive, and but barely alive. They were so lean that little meat was likely to be found upon them. It was, however, determined to slaughter them for food. … The whole city was poisoned by the stench exhaled from the bodies of the dead and of the half dead. … It was no slight aggravation of the sufferings of the garrison that all this time the English ships were seen far off in Lough Foyle." At length, positive orders from England compelled Kirke, the commander of the relieving expedition "to make an attempt which, as far as appears, he might have made, with at least an equally fair prospect of success, six weeks earlier." Two merchant ships, the Mountjoy and the Phœnix, loaded with provisions, and the Dartmouth, a frigate of thirty-six guns, made a bold dash up the river, broke the great boom, ran the gauntlet of forts and batteries, and reached the city at ten o'clock in the evening of the 28th of July. {2040} The captain of the Mountjoy was killed in the heroic undertaking, but Londonderry, his native town, was saved. The enemy continued their bombardment for three days more. "But, on the third night, flames were seen arising from the camp; and, when the first of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the besiegers. … So ended this great siege, the most memorable in the annals of the British isles. It had lasted 105 days. The garrison had been reduced from about 7,000 effective men to about 3,000. The loss of the besiegers cannot be precisely ascertained. Walker estimated it at 8,000 men."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 12.

ALSO in: W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapter 21.

See, also, IRELAND: A. D. 1689-1691.

----------LONDONDERRY: End--------

LONE JACK, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

LONE STAR, Order of the.

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

LONE STAR FLAG. LONE STAR STATE.

On assuming independence, in 1836, the republic of Texas adopted a flag bearing a single star, which was known as 'the flag of the lone Star.' With reference to this emblem, Texas is often called the Lone Star State.

----------LONG ISLAND: Start--------

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1614. Explored by the Dutch.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1624. Settlement of Brooklyn.

See BROOKLYN.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1634. Embraced in the Palatine grant of New Albion.

See NEW ALBION.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1650. Division between the Dutch of New Netherland and the English of Connecticut.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1650.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1664. Title acquired for the Duke of York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1673. The Dutch reconquest.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1674. Annexed to New York.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1674-1675.

LONG ISLAND: A. D. 1776. The defeat of the American army by Lord Howe.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (AUGUST).

----------LONG ISLAND: End--------

LONG KNIVES, The.

See YANKEE.

LONG PARLIAMENT.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1641.

LONG WALLS OF ATHENS.

The walls which the Athenians built, B. C. 457, one, four miles long, to the harbor of Phalerum, and others, four and one half miles long, to the Piræus, to protect the communication of their city with its port, were called the Long Walls. The same name had been previously given to the walls built by the Athenians to protect the communication of Megara, then their ally, with its port of Nisæa; and Corinth had, also, its Long Walls, uniting it with the port Lechæum. The Long Walls of Athens were destroyed on the surrender of the city, at the termination of the Peloponnesian War, B. C. 404, and rebuilt, B. C. 393, by Conon, with Persian help.

See ATHENS: B. C. 466-454.

LONGJUMEAU, Peace of (1568).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

LONGSTREET, General James. Siege of Knoxville.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: TENNESSEE).

LONGUEVILLE, The Duchess de, and the Fronde.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1649, to 1651-1653.

LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, its position, and the battle on it.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: TENNESSEE); and (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).

LOOM, Cartwright's invention of the power.

See COTTON MANUFACTURE.

LOPEZ, The Tyranny of.

See PARAGUAY: A. D. 1608-1873.

LOPEZ FILIBUSTERING EXPEDITION (1851).

See CUBA: A. D. 1845-1860.

LORD.

"Every Teutonic King or other leader was surrounded by a band of chosen warriors, personally attached to him of their own free choice [see COMITATUS]. … The followers served their chief in peace and in war; they fought for him to the death, and rescued or avenged his life with their own. In return, they shared whatever gifts or honours the chief could distribute among them; and in our tongue at least it was his character of dispenser of gifts which gave the chief his official title. He was the 'Hlaford,' the 'Loaf-giver,' a name which, through a series of softenings and contractions, and with a complete forgetfulness of its primitive meaning, has settled down into the modern form of Lord."

E. A. Freeman, History Norman Conquests, chapter 3, section 2 (volume 1).

On the Latin equivalent, 'Dominus,'

See IMPERATOR: FINAL SIGNIFICATION.

LORD CHANCELLOR, The.

See CHANCELLOR.

LORD DUNMORE'S WAR.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1774.

LORDS, British House of.

"The ancient National Assembly [of England] gradually ceased to be anything more than an assembly of the 'greater barons,' and ultimately developed into a hereditary House of Lords, the Upper House of the National Parliament. The hereditary character of the House of Lords—now long regarded as fixed and fundamental—accrued slowly and undesignedly, as a consequence of the hereditary descent of the baronial fiefs, practically inalienable, in right of which summonses to the national council were issued."

T. P. Taswell-Langmead, English Constitutional History, chapter 7.

"The English aristocracy is a typical example of the way in which a close corporation dies out. Its members are almost always wealthy in the first instance, and their estates have been constantly added to by favour from the Crown, by something like the monopoly of the best Government appointments, and by marriages with wealthy heiresses. They are able to command the field sports and open-air life that conduce to health, and the medical advice that combats disease. Nevertheless, they die out so rapidly that only five families out of nearly six hundred go back without a break, and in the male line, to the fifteenth century. … 155 peers were summoned to the first Parliament of James II. In 1825, only 140 years later, only forty-eight of these nobles were represented by lineal descendants in the male line. The family has in several instances been continued by collaterals begging the peerage, which they could not have claimed at law, and in this way the change may seem less than it has really been; but the broad result appears to be that left to itself from 1688, with new creations absolutely forbidden, the House of Lords would by this time have been practically extinguished. {2041} Of Charles II. 's six bastards, who were made dukes, only three have perpetuated the race. Three peerages have been lost to the Howard family, three to the Greys, two to the Mordaunts, two to the Hydes, two to the Gerards, and two to the Lucases. … It is in the lower strata of society that we have to seck for the springs of national life."

C. H. Pearson, National Life and Character, pages 70-73.

"The British peerage is something unique in the world. In England there is, strictly speaking, no nobility. This saying may indeed sound like a paradox. The English nobility, the British aristocracy, are phrases which are in everybody's mouth. Yet, in strictness, there is no such thing as an aristocracy or a nobility in England. There is undoubtedly an aristocratic element in the English constitution; the House of Lords is that aristocratic element. And there have been times in English history when there has been a strong tendency to aristocracy, when the lords have been stronger than either the king or the people. … But a real aristocracy, like that of Venice, an aristocracy not only stronger than either king or people, but which had driven out both king and people, an aristocracy from whose ranks no man can come down and into whose ranks no man can rise save by the act of the privileged body itself,—such an aristocracy as this England has never seen. Nor has England ever seen a nobility in the true sense, the sense which the word bears in every continental land, a body into which men may be raised by the king, but from which no man may come down, a body which hands on to all its members, to the latest generations, some kind of privilege or distinction, whether its privileges consist in substantial political power, or in bare titles and precedence. In England there is no nobility. The so-called noble family is not noble in the continental sense; privilege does not go on from generation to generation; titles and precedence are lost in the second or third generation; substantial privilege exists in only one member of the family at a time. The powers and privileges of the peer himself are many; but they belong to himself only; his children are legally commoners; his grandchildren are in most cases undistinguishable from other commoners. … A certain great position in the state is hereditary; but nobility in the strict sense there is none. The actual holder of the peerage has, as it were, drawn to his own person the whole nobility of the family."

E. A. Freeman, Practical Bearings of European History (Lectures to American Audiences), pages 305-307.

"At the end of 1892 there were 545 members of the House of Lords, made up thus: Peers, 469; Lords of Appeal and Ex-Lords of Appeal, 5; Representative Peers of Scotland, 16; Representative Peers of Ireland, 28; Lords Spiritual, 27.

The Lords of Appeal are lawyers of great distinction who are appointed by the Queen and hold office during good behavior. Their number is always about the same. Their work is mainly judicial; but these Law Lords, as they are called, also speak and vote in the deliberative and legislative proceedings of the Upper House. The position of a Lord of Appeal differs from that of an ordinary peer in that his office is not hereditary. As regards the representative peers, those from Ireland, who number 28, are elected for life; those from Scotland, who number 16, are elected at a meeting of Scotch peers, held in Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh, after each General Election, and hold office during the lifetime of a Parliament. The Lords Spiritual include (1) the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester; and (2) twenty-two out of the other twenty-nine bishops of the Church of England. The prelates whose titles have been given take their seats in the House immediately on appointment; the other bishops take their seats by order of seniority of consecration. The prelates who are without seats in the House of Lords are known as junior bishops. The Bishop of Sodor and Man has a seat in the House of Lords, but no vote."

E. Porritt, The Englishman at Home, chapter 6.

For an account of the transient abolition of the House of Lords in 1649,

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY).

See, also, PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH; and ESTATES, THE THREE.

LORDS OF ARTICLES.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1326-1603; and 1688-1690.

LORDS OF THE CONGREGATION.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1557; and 1558-1560.

LORDS OF THE ISLES.

See HEBRIDES: A. D. 1346-1504; and HARLAW, BATTLE OF.

LORDS SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL, The.

See ESTATES, THE THREE.

LORENZO DE' MEDICI (called The Magnificent), The rule of.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1469-1492.

----------LORRAINE: Start--------

LORRAINE: A. D. 843-870. Formation and dissolution of the kingdom.

In the division of the empire of Charlemagne among his three grandsons, made by the treaty of Verdun, A. D. 843, the elder, Lothaire, bearing the title of Emperor, received the kingdom of Italy, and, with it, another kingdom, named, after himself, Lotharingia—afterwards called Lorraine. This latter was so formed as to be an extension northwestwardly of his Italian kingdom, and to stretch in a long belt between the Germanic dominion of his brother Ludwig and the Francia Nova, or France, of his brother Charles. It extended "from the mouth of the Rhine to Provence, bounded by that river on one frontier, by France on the other."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 1, part 1, note.

"Between these two states [of the Eastern and Western, or Germanic and Gallic Franks] the policy of the ninth century instinctively put a barrier, The Emperor Lothar, besides Italy, kept a long narrow strip of territory between the dominions of his Eastern and Western brothers. … This land, having … been the dominion of two Lothars, took the name of Lotharingia, Lothringen, or Lorraine, a name which part of it has kept to this day. This land, sometimes attached to the Eastern kingdom, sometimes to the Western, sometimes divided between the two, sometimes separated from both, always kept its character of a border-land. … Lotharingia took in the two duchies of the Ripuarian Lotharingia and Lotharingia on the Mosel. The former contains a large part of the modern Belgium and the neighboring lands on the Rhine, including the royal city of Aachen. Lotharingia on the Mosel answers roughly to the later duchy of that name, though its extent to the East is considerably larger."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 6, section 1.

{2042}

"Upon the death of the Emperor Lothair [A. D. 855] his share of the Carlovingian inheritance, the Kingdom acquired by disobedience, violence, deceit and fraud, sustained further partitions: Lothair's piece of the rent garment was clutched and tattered again and again by his nearest of kin, his three sons, and their two uncles, and the sons and the sons' sons of his sons and uncles, till the lineage ended. … The Emperor Lothair had directed and confirmed the partition of his third of the Carlovingian Empire, appointed to him by the treaty of Verdun." His namesake, his second son, Lothair II., received the kingdom called "Lotharingia, Lothierregne, or Lorraine," and which is defined in the terms of modern geography as follows: "The thirteen Cantons of Switzerland with their allies and tributaries, East or Free Friesland, Oldenburgh, the whole of the United Netherlands, all other territories included in the Archbishopric of Utrecht, the Trois Evéchés, Metz, Toul and Verdun, the electorates of Trèves and of Cologne, the Palatine Bishopric of Liège, Alsace and Franche-Comté, Hainault and the Cambresis, Brabant (known in intermediate stages as Basse-Lorraine, or the Duchy of Lohier), Namur, Juliers and Cleves, Luxemburgh and Limburg, the Duchy of Bar and the Duchy which retained the name of Lorraine, the only memorial of the antient and dissolved kingdom. … After King Lothair's death [A. D. 869] nine family competitors successively came into the field for that much-coveted Lotharingia." Charles the Bald, one of the uncles of the deceased king,—he who held the Neustrian or French dominion,—took possession and got himself crowned king of Lotharingia. But the rival uncle, Louis the German, soon forced him (A. D. 870) to a division of the spoils. "The lot of Charles consisted of Burgundy and Provence, and most of those Lotharingian dominions where the French or Walloon tongue was and yet is spoken; … he also took some purely Belgic territories, especially that very important district successively known as Basse-Lorraine, the Duchy of Lohier, and Brabant. Modern history is dawning fast upon us. Louis-le-Germanique received Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne, Treves, Utrecht, Strasburgh, Metz,—indeed nearly all the territories of the Belgic and German tongues."

Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, volume 1, pages 361-370.

See, also, VERDUN, TREATY OF.

LORRAINE: A. D. 911-980. The dukedom established.

The definite separation of the East Franks, who ultimately constituted the Germany of modern history, from the West or Neustrian Franks, out of whose political organization sprang the kingdom of France, took place in 911, when the Franconian duke Conrad was elected king by the Germanic nations, and the rule of the Carolingian princes was ended for them. In this proceeding Lotharingia, or Lorraine, refused to concur. "Nobles and people held to the old imperial dynasty. … Opinions, customs, traditions, still rendered the Lotharingians mainly members of Romanized Gaul. They severed themselves from the Germans beyond the Rhine, separated by influences more powerful than the stream." The Lotharingians, accordingly, repudiated the sovereignty of Conrad and placed themselves under the rule of Charles the Simple, the Carolingian king then struggling to maintain his slender throne at Laon. "Twice did King Conrad attempt to win Lotharingia and reunite the Rhine-kingdom to the German realm: he succeeded in obtaining Alsace, but the remainder was resolutely retained by Charles." In 916 this remainder was constituted a duchy, by Charles, and conferred upon Gilbert, son of Rainier, Count of Hainault, who had been the leader of the movement against Conrad and the Germanic nations. A little later, when the Carolingian dynasty was near its end, Henry the Fowler and his son Otho, the great German king who revived the empire, recovered the suzerainty of Lorraine, and Otho gave it to his brother Bruno, Archbishop of Cologne. Under Bruno it was divided into two parts, Upper and Lower Lorraine. Lower Lorraine was subsequently conferred by Otho II. upon his cousin Charles, brother to Lothaire, the last of the French Carolingian kings. "The nature and extent of this same grant has been the subject of elaborate critical enquiry; but, for our purposes, it is sufficient to know, that Charles is accepted by all the historical disputants as first amongst the hereditary Dukes of the 'Basse-Lorraine'; and, having received investiture, he became a vassal of the Emperor." In 980, this disposition of Lower Lorraine was ratified by Lothaire, the French king, who, "abandoning all his rights and pretensions over Lorraine, openly and solemnly renounced the dominions, and granted the same to be held without let or interference from the French, and be subjected for ever to the German Empire."

Sir F. Palgrave, History of Normandy and England, book 1, part 2, chapter 1 and chapter 4, part 2.

"Lotharingia retained its Carolingian princes, but it retained them only by definitively becoming a fief of the Teutonic Kingdom. Charles died in prison, but his children continued to reign in Lotharingia as vassals of the Empire. Lotharingia was thus wholly lost to France; that portion of it which was retained by the descendants of Charles in the female line still preserves its freedom as part of the independent Kingdom of Belgium."

E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest of England, chapter 4, section 4 (volume 1).

LORRAINE: A. D. 1430. Acquisition of the duchy by René, Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence, afterwards King of Naples. Union with Bar.

See ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1476. Short-lived conquest by Charles the Bold.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1476-1477.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1505-1559. Rise of the Guises, a branch of the ducal house. Cession to France of Les Trois Evéchés.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1624-1663. Quarrels and war of Duke Charles IV. with Richelieu and France. Ruin and depopulation of the duchy. Its possession by the French.

Early in Richelieu's administration of the French government, the first steps were taken towards the union of Lorraine with France. "Its situation, as well as its wealth and fertility, made it an acquisition specially valuable to that kingdom. … Lorraine had long been ruled by the present family of dukes, and in its government more had remained of feudal usages than in the monarchy that had grown up beside it. The character and career of the members of the house of Guise had brought Lorraine into very intimate connection with France, and the closeness of its relations added danger to its position as an independent state. Charles IV. became Duke of Lorraine in 1624 by virtue of the rights of his cousin and wife, the daughter of the last duke. … {2043} He soon began to take part in the intrigues of the French Court, and he enrolled himself among the lovers of Mme. de Chevreuse and the enemies of Richelieu. … Richelieu had long sought occasion for offence against the Duke Charles. The Duke of Lorraine was bound to do honor to the French king for the Duchy of Bar [which was a fief of the French crown, while Lorraine was an imperial fief], a duty which was often omitted, and the agents of Richelieu discovered that France had ancient and valid claims to other parts of his territory. His relations with France were rendered still more uncertain by his own untrustworthy character. To tell the truth or to keep his agreement were equally impossible for Duke Charles, and he was dealing with a man with whom it was dangerous to trifle. Gustavus Adolphus had invaded Germany, and the Duke of Lorraine was eager in defending the cause of the Emperor. In January, 1632, he was forced to make a peace with France, by which he agreed to make no treaty with any other prince or state without the knowledge and permission of the French king. Charles paid no attention to this treaty, and for all these causes in June, 1632, Louis [XIII.] invaded his dominions. They lay open to the French army, and no efficient opposition could be made. On June 26th Charles was forced to sign a second treaty, by which he surrendered the city and county of Clermont, and also yielded the possession for four years of the citadels of Stenay and Jametz. … This treaty made little change in the condition of affairs. Charles continued to act in hostility to the Swedes, to assist Gaston [Duke of Orleans, the rebellious and troublesome brother of Louis XIII., who had married Margaret of Lorraine, the Duke's sister], and in every way to violate the conditions of the treaty he had made. He seethed resolved to complete his own ruin, and he did not have to wait long for its accomplishment. In 1633 Louis a second time invaded Lorraine, and the Swedes, in return for the duke's hostility to them, also entered the province. Charles' forces were scattered and he was helpless, but he was as false as he was weak. He promised to surrender his sister Margaret, and he allowed her to escape. He sent his brother to make a treaty and then refused to ratify it. At last, he made the most disadvantageous treaty that was possible, and surrendered his capital, Nancy, the most strongly-fortified city of Lorraine, into Louis' possession until all difficulties should be settled between the king and the duke, which, as Richelieu said, might take till eternity. In January, 1634, Charles pursued his eccentric career by granting all his rights in the duchy to his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine. The new duke also married a cousin in order to unite the rights of the two branches. … Charles adopted the life of a wandering soldier of fortune, which was most to his taste, and commanded the imperial forces at the battle of Nordlingen. He soon assumed again the rights which he had ceded, but his conduct rendered them constantly less valuable. The following years were filled with struggles with France, which resulted in her taking possession of still more of Lorraine, until its duke was entirely a fugitive. Such struggles brought upon its inhabitants a condition of constantly increasing want and misery. … It was ravaged by the hordes of the Duke of Weimar and the Swedes [see GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639], and on every side were pillage and burning and murders. Famine followed, and the horrors perpetrated from it were said to be more than could be described. Richelieu himself wrote that the inhabitants of Lorraine were mostly dead, villages burned, cities deserted, and a century would not entirely restore the country. Vincent de Paul did much of his charitable work in that unhappy province. … The duke at last, in 1641, came as a suppliant to Richelieu to ask for his duchy, and it was granted him, but on the condition that Stenay, Dun, Jametz, and Clermont should be united to France, that Nancy should remain in the king's possession until the peace, and that the duke should assist France with his troops against all enemies whenever required. … Charles was hardly back in his dominions before he chose to regard the treaty he had made as of no validity, and in July he violated it openly, and shortly took refuge with the Spanish army. … Thereupon the French again invaded Lorraine, and by October, 1641, practically the whole province was in their hands. It so continued until 1663."

J. B. Perkins, France under [Richelieu and] Mazarin, chapter 5 (volume 1).

"The faithfulness with which he [the Duke of Lorraine] adhered to his alliance with Austria, in spite of threatened losses, formed in the end a strong bond of reciprocal attachment and sympathy between the Hapsburgs and the Princes of Lorraine, which, at a later day, became even firmer, and finally culminated in the marriage of Stephen of Lorraine and Maria Theresa."

A. Gindely, History of the Thirty Years' War, volume 2, chapter 6, section 3.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1648. Desertion of the cause of the duke in the Peace of Westphalia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1659. Restored to the duke with some shearing of territory.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1679. Restoration refused by the duke.

See NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1680. Entire absorption of Les Trois Evêchés in France with boundaries extended by the Chamber of Reannexation.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1697. Restored to the duke by the Treaty of Ryswick.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.

LORRAINE: A. D. 1735. Ceded to France. Reversion of Tuscany secured to the former duke.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

LORRAINE: A. D, 1871. One fifth ceded to the German empire by France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1871 (JANUARY-MAY).

LORRAINE: A. D. 1871-1879. Organization of the government of Alsace-Lorraine as a German imperial province.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1871-1879.

----------LORRAINE: End----------

LOSANTIVILLE.

See CINCINNATI: A. D. 1788.

LOSE-COAT FIELD, Battle of.

In 1470 an insurrection against the government of King Edward IV. broke out in Lincolnshire, England under the lead of Sir Robert Welles, who raised the Lancastrian standard of King Henry. The insurgents were vigorously attacked by Edward, at a place near Stamford, when the greater part of them "flung away their coats and took to flight, leaving their leader a prisoner in the hands of his enemies. The manner in which the rebels were dispersed caused the action to be spoken of as the battle of Lose-coat Field."

J. Gairdner, Houses of Lancaster and York, chapter 8.

The engagement is sometimes called the Battle of Stamford.

{2044}

LOST TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL.

See JEWS: KINGDOMS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH; also, SAMARIA.

LOTHAIRE, King of France, A. D. 954-986.

Lothaire I., King of Italy and Rhineland, 817-855; King of Lotharingia, and titular Emperor, 843-855.

Lothaire II., Emperor, 1133-1137; King of Germany, 1125-1137.

LOTHARINGIA.

See LORRAINE.

LOTHIAN.

See SCOTLAND: 10-11TH CENTURIES.

LOUIS, King of Portugal, A. D. 1861-1889.

Louis of Nassau, and the struggle in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1562-1566, to 1573-1574.

Louis I. (called The Pious), Emperor of the West, A. D. 814-840; King of Aquitaine, 781-814; King of the Franks, 814-840.

Louis I. (called The Great), King of Hungary, 1342-1382; King of Poland, 1370-1382.

Louis I., King of Naples, 1382-1384; Count of Provence and Duke of Anjou, 1339-1384.

Louis I., King of Sicily, 1342-1355.

Louis II. (called The Stammerer), King of France, 877-879.

Louis II. (called The German), King of the East Franks (Germany), 843-875.

Louis II., King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1516-1526.

Louis II., King of Naples, 1389-1399; Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence, 1384-1417.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389, and 1386-1414.

Louis III., King of the Franks (Northern France), 879-882; East Franks (Germany—in association with Carloman), 876-881.

Louis III. (called The Child), King of the East Franks (Germany), 899-910.

Louis III., King of Provence, 1417-1434.

Louis III., Duke of Anjou, Count of Provence, and titular King of Naples, 1417-1434.

Louis IV., King of France, 936-954.

Louis V. (of Bavaria), Emperor, 1327-1347; King of Germany (in rivalry with Frederick III.), 1313-1347; King of Italy, 1327-1347.

Louis V., King of France, 986-987.

Louis VI. (called The Fat), King of France, 1108-1137.

Louis VII., King of France, 1137-1180.

Louis VIII., King of France, 1223-1226.

Louis IX. (called Saint Louis), King of France, 1226-1270.

Louis X. (called Le Hutin, or The Brawler), King of France, 1314-1316; King of Navarre, 1305-1316.

Louis XI., King of France, 1461-1483.

Louis XII., King of France, 1498-1515.

Louis XIII., King of France, 1610-1643… .

Louis XIV. (called "The Grand Monarch "), King of France, 1643-1715.

Louis XV., King of France, 1715-1774.

Louis XVI., King of France, 1774-1793.

Louis XVII., nominal King of France, 1793-1796, during the Revolution; died in prison, aged twelve years.

Louis XVIII., King of France; 1814-1824.

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.

See NAPOLEON III.

Louis Philippe, King of France (of the House of Orleans), 1830-1848.

LOUIS, Saint, Establishments of.

See WAGER OF BATTLE.

----------LOUISBOURG: Start--------

LOUISBOURG: A. D. 1720-1745. The fortification of the Harbor.

See CAPE BRETON: A. D. 1720-1745.

LOUISBOURG: A. D. 1745. Surrender to the New Englanders.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745.

LOUISBOURG: A. D. 1748. Restoration to France.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748.

LOUISBOURG: A. D. 1757. English designs against, postponed.

See CANADA: A. D. 1756-1757.

LOUISBOURG: A. D. 1758-1760. Final capture and destruction of the place by the English.

See CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

----------LOUISBOURG: End--------

LOUISIANA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY, and PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1629. Mostly embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath, by Charles I. of England.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1682. Named and possession taken for the king of France, by La Salle.

See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712. Iberville's colonization. Separation in government from New France. Crozat's monopoly. The French territorial claim.

"The court of France had been engaged in wars and political intrigues, and nothing toward colonizing Louisiana had been effected since the disastrous expedition of La Salle. Twelve years had elapsed, but his discoveries and his unfortunate fate had not been forgotten. At length, in 1698, an expedition for colonizing the region of the Lower Mississippi was set on foot by the French king. It was placed under the command of M. D'Iberville, who had been an experienced and distinguished naval commander in the French wars of Canada, and a successful agent in establishing colonies in Canada, Acadie and Cape Breton. … With his little fleet of two frigates, rating 30 guns each, and two smaller vessels, bearing a company of marines and 200 colonists, including a few women and children, he prepared to set sail from France for the mouth of the Mississippi. The colonists were mostly soldiers who had served in the armies of France and had received an honorable discharge. They were well supplied with provisions and implements requisite for opening settlements in the wilderness. It was on the 24th day of September, 1698, that this colony sailed from Rochelle." On the 2d of the following March, after considerable exploration of the coast, west from the Spanish settlement at Pensacola, Iberville found the mouth of the Mississippi, being confirmed in the identification of it by discovery of a letter, in the hands of the Indians, which Tonti had written to La Salle thirteen years before. "Soon afterward, Iberville selected a site and began to erect a fort upon the northeast shore of the Bay of Biloxi, about fifteen miles north of Ship Island. Here, upon a sandy shore, and under a burning sun, upon a pine barren, he settled his colony, about 80 miles northeast from the present city of New Orleans. … Having thus located his colony, and protected them [by a fort] from the danger of Indian treachery and hostility, he made other provision for their comfort and security, and then set sail for France, leaving his two brothers, Sauvolle and Bienville, as his lieutenants." The following September an English corvette appeared in the river, intending to explore it, but was warned off by the French, and retired. During the summer of 1699 the colonists suffered terribly from the maladies of the region, and M. Sauvolle, with many others, died. {2045} "Early in December following D'Iberville returned with an additional colony and a detachment of troops, in company with several vessels of war. Up to this time, the principal settlements had been at Ship Island and on the Bay of Biloxi; others had been begun at the Bay of St. Louis and on the Bay of Mobile. These were made as a matter of convenience, to hold and occupy the country; for his principal object was to colonize the banks of the Mississippi itself." Iberville now built a fort and located a small colony at a point about 54 miles above the mouth of the river, and about 38 miles below the present city of New Orleans. The next year, having been joined by the veteran De Tonti with a party of French Canadians from the Illinois, Iberville ascended the river nearly 400 miles, formed a friendly alliance with the Natchez tribe of Indians, and selected for a future settlement the site of the present city of Natchez. "In the spring of 1702 war had been declared by England against France and Spain, and by order of the King of France the headquarters of the commandant were removed to the western bank of the Mobile River. This was the first European settlement within the present State of Alabama. The Spanish settlement at Pensacola was not remote; but as England was now the common enemy, the French and Spanish commandants arranged their boundary between Mobile and Pensacola Bays to be the Perdido River. … The whole colony of Southern Louisiana as yet did not number 30 families besides soldiers. Bilious fevers had cut off many of the first emigrants, and famine and Indian hostility now threatened the remainder." Two years later, Iberville was broken in health by an attack of yellow fever and retired to France. After six further years of hardship and suffering, the colony, in 1710, still "presented a population of only 380 souls, distributed into five settlements, remote from each other. These were on Ship Island, Cat Island, at Biloxi, Mobile, and on the Mississippi. … Heretofore the settlements of Louisiana had been a dependence on New France, or Canada, although separated by a wilderness of 2,000 miles in extent. Now it was to be made an independent government, responsible only to the crown, and comprising also the Illinois country under its jurisdiction. The government of Louisiana was accordingly placed [1711] in the hands of a governor-general. The headquarters, or seat of the colonial government, was established at Mobile, and a new fort was erected upon the site of the present city of Mobile. … In France it was still believed that Louisiana presented a rich field for enterprise and speculation. The court, therefore, determined to place the resources of the province under the influence of individual enterprise. For this purpose, a grant of exclusive privileges, in all the commerce of the province, for a term of 15 years, was made to Anthony Crozat, a rich and influential merchant of France. His charter was dated September 26th, 1712. At this time the limits of Louisiana, as claimed by France, were very extensive. As specified in the charter of Crozat, it was 'bounded by New Mexico on the west, by the English lands of Carolina on the east, including all the establishments, ports, havens, rivers, and principally the port and haven of the Isle of Dauphin, heretofore called Massacre; the River St. Louis, heretofore called Mississippi, from the edge of the sea as far as the Illinois together with the River St. Philip, heretofore called Missouri, the River St. Jerome, heretofore called Wabash, with all the lands, lakes, and rivers mediately or immediately flowing into any part of the River St. Louis or Mississippi.' Thus Louisiana, as claimed by France at that early period, embraced all the immense regions of the United States from the Alleghany Mountains on the east to the Rocky Mountains on the west, and northward to the great lakes of Canada."

J. W. Monette, History of the Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, book 2, chapter 5 (volume 1).

Louisiana: A. D. 1717-1718. Crozat's failure and John Law's Mississippi Bubble. The founding of New Orleans.

"Crozat's failure was, in the nature of things, foreordained. His scheme, indeed, proved a stumbling-block to the colony and a loss to himself. In five years (1717) he was glad to surrender his monopoly to the crown. From its ashes sprung the gigantic Mississippi Scheme of John Law, to whom all Louisiana, now including the Illinois country, was granted for a term of years. Compared with this prodigality Crozat's concession was but a plaything. It not only gave Law's Company proprietary rights to the soil, but power was conferred to administer justice, make peace or war with the natives, build forts, levy troops and with consent of the crown to appoint such military governors as it should think fitting. These extraordinary privileges were put in force by a royal edict, dated in September, 1717. The new company [called the Western Company] granted lands along the river to individuals or associated persons, who were sometimes actual emigrants, sometimes great personages who sent out colonists at their own cost, or again the company itself undertook the building up of plantations on lands reserved by it for the purpose. One colony of Alsatians was sent out by Law to begin a plantation on the Arkansas. Others, more or less flourishing, were located at the mouth of the Yazoo, Natchez and Baton Rouge. All were agricultural plantations, though in most cases the plantations themselves consisted of a few poor huts covered with a thatch of palm-leaves. The earliest forts were usually a square earthwork, strengthened with palisades about the parapet. The company's agricultural system was founded upon African slave labor. Slaves were brought from St. Domingo or other of the West India islands. By some their employment was viewed with alarm, because it was thought the blacks would soon outnumber the whites, and might some day rise and overpower them; but we find only the feeblest protest entered against the moral wrong of slavery in any record of the time. Negroes could work in the fields, under the burning sun, when the whites could not. Their labor cost no more than their maintenance. The planters easily adopted what, indeed, already existed among their neighbors. Self-interest stilled conscience. The new company wisely appointed Bienville governor. Three ships brought munitions, troops, and stores of every sort from France, with which to put new life into the expiring colony. It was at this time (February, 1718) that Bienville began the foundation of the destined metropolis of Louisiana. The spot chosen by him was clearly but a fragment of the delta which the river had been for ages silently building of its own mud and driftwood. {2046} It had literally risen from the sea. Elevated only a few feet above sea-level, threatened with frequent inundation, and in its primitive estate a cypress swamp, it seemed little suited for the abode of men, yet time has confirmed the wisdom of the choice. Here, then, a hundred miles from the Gulf, on the alluvial banks of the great river, twenty-five convicts and as many carpenters were set to work clearing the ground and building the humble log cabins, which were to constitute the capital, in its infancy. The settlement was named New Orleans, in honor of the Regent, Orleans, who ruled France during the minority of Louis XV.

S. A. Drake, The Making of the Great West, pages 126-128.

ALSO IN: A. McF. Davis, Canada and Louisiana (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 5, chapter 1).

A. Thiers, The Mississippi Bubble, chapters 3-8.

C. Mackay, Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, volume 1, chapter 1.

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1720.

LOUISIANA: A. D 1719-1750. Surrendered to the Crown. Massacre of French by the Natchez, and destruction of that tribe. Unsuccessful war with the Chickasaws.

"The same prodigality and folly which prevailed in France during the government of John Law, over credit and commerce, found their way to his western possessions; and though the colony then planted survived, and the city then founded became in time what had been hoped,—it was long before the influence of the gambling mania of 1718-19-20 passed a way. Indeed the returns from Louisiana never repaid the cost and trouble of protecting it, and, in 1732, the Company asked leave to surrender their privileges to the crown, a favor which was granted them. But though the Company of the West did little for the enduring welfare of the Mississippi valley, it did something; the cultivation of tobacco, indigo, rice, and silk, was introduced, the lead mines of Missouri were opened, though at vast expense and in hope of finding silver; and, in Illinois, the culture of wheat began to assume some degree of stability and of importance. In the neighborhood of the river Kaskaskia, Charlevoix found three villages, and about Fort Chartres, the head quarters of the Company in that region, the French were rapidly settling. All the time, however, during which the great monopoly lasted, was, in Louisiana, a time of contest and trouble. The English, who, from an early period, had opened commercial relations with the Chickasaws, through them constantly interfered with the trade of the Mississippi. Along the coast, from Pensacola to the Rio del Norte, Spain disputed the claims of her northern neighbor: and at length the war of the Natchez struck terror into the hearts of both white and red men. Amid that nation … D'Iberville had marked out Fort Rosalie [on the site of the present city of Natchez], in 1700, and fourteen years later its erection had been commenced. The French, placed in the midst of the natives, and deeming them worthy only of contempt, increased their demands and injuries until they required even the abandonment of the chief town of the Natchez, that the intruders might use its site for a plantation. The inimical Chickasaws heard the murmurs of their wronged brethren, and breathed into their ears counsels of vengeance; the sufferers determined on the extermination of their tyrants. On the 28th of November, 1729, every Frenchman in that colony died by the hands of the natives, with the exception of two mechanics: the women and children were spared. It was a fearful revenge, and fearfully did the avengers suffer for their murders. Two months passed by, and the French and Choctaws in one day took 60 of their scalps; in three months they were driven from their country and scattered among the neighboring tribes; and within two years the remnants of the nation, chiefs and people, were sent to St. Domingo and sold into slavery. So perished this ancient and peculiar race, in the same year in which the Company of the West yielded its grants into the royal hands. When Louisiana came again into the charge of the government of France, it was determined, as a first step, to strike terror into the Chickasaws, who, devoted to the English, constantly interfered with the trade on the Mississippi. For this purpose the forces of New France, from New Orleans to Detroit, were ordered to meet in the country of the inimical Indians, upon the 10th of May, 1736, to strike a blow which should be final." D'Artaguette, governor of Illinois, was promptly at the rendezvous, with a large force of Indians, and a small body of French, but Bienville, from the southern province, proved dilatory. After waiting ten days, D'Artaguette attacked the Chickasaws, carried two of their defenses, but fell and was taken prisoner in the assault of a third; whereupon his Indian allies fled. Bienville, coming up five days afterwards, was repulsed in his turn and retreated, leaving D'Artaguette and his captive companions to a fearful fate. "Three years more passed away, and again a French army of nearly 4,000 white, red and black men, was gathered upon the banks of the Mississippi, to chastise the Chickasaws. From the summer of 1739 to the spring of 1740, this body of men sickened and wasted at Fort Assumption, upon the site of Memphis. In March of the last named year, without a blow struck, peace was concluded, and the province of Louisiana once more sunk into inactivity. Of the ten years which followed we know but little that is interesting."

J. H. Perkins, Annals of the West, pages 61-63.

ALSO IN: M. Dumont, Historical Memoirs (French's Historical Collections of Louisiana, part 5).

C. Gayarre, Louisiana; its Colonial History and Romance, 2d series, lectures 5-7.

S. G. Drake, Aboriginal Races of North America, book 4, chapter 5.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1728. The Casket Girls. Wives for the colonists.

"In the beginning of 1728 there came a vessel of the company with a considerable number of young girls, who had not been taken, like their predecessors, from houses of correction. The company had given to each of them a casket containing some articles of dress. From that circumstance they became known in the colony under the nickname of the 'filles à la cassette', or 'the casket girls.' … Subsequently, it became a matter of importance in the colony to derive one's origin from the casket girls, rather than from the correction girls."

C. Gayarre, Louisiana; its Colonial History and Romance, page 396.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1755. Settlement of exiled Acadians.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1755.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1763. East of the Mississippi, except New Orleans, ceded to Great Britain, and west of the Mississippi, with New Orleans, to Spain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR.

{2047}

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1766-1768. Spanish occupation and the revolt against it. The short-lived republic of New Orleans.

"Spain accepted Louisiana [west of the Mississippi, with New Orleans] with reluctance, for she lost France as her bulwark, and, to keep the territory from England, assumed new expenses and dangers. Its inhabitants loved the land of their ancestry; by every law of nature and human freedom, they had the right to protest against the transfer of their allegiance." Their protests were unavailing, however, and their appeals met the response: "France cannot bear the charge of supporting the colony's precarious existence." In March, 1766, Antonio de Ulloa arrived at New Orleans from Havana, to take possession for the Spanish king. "Ulloa landed with civil officers, three capuchin monks, and 80 soldiers. His reception was cold and gloomy. He brought no orders to redeem the seven million livres of French paper money, which weighed down a colony of less than 6,000 white men. The French garrison of 300 refused to enter the Spanish service, the people to give up their nationality, and Ulloa was obliged to administer the government under the French flag by the old French officers, at the cost of Spain. In May of the same year, the Spanish restrictive system was applied to Louisiana; in September, an ordinance compelled French vessels having special permits to accept the paper currency in pay for their cargoes, at an arbitrary tariff of prices. … The ordinance was suspended, but not till the alarm had destroyed all commerce. Ulloa retired from New Orleans to the Balise. Only there, and opposite Natchez, and at the river Iberville, was Spanish jurisdiction directly exercised. This state of things continued for a little more than two years. But the arbitrary and passionate conduct of Ulloa, the depreciation of the currency with the prospect of its becoming an almost total loss, the disputes respecting the expenses incurred since the session of 1762, the interruption of commerce, a captious ordinance which made a private monopoly of the traffic with the Indians, uncertainty of jurisdiction and allegiance, agitated the colony from one end to the other. It was proposed to make of New Orleans a republic, like Amsterdam or Venice, with a legislative body of 40 men, and a single executive. The people of the country parishes crowded in a mass into the city, joined those of New Orleans, and formed a numerous assembly, in which Lafrénière, John Milhet, Joseph Milhet, and the lawyer Doucet were conspicuous. … On the 25th of October, 1768, they adopted an address to the superior council, written by Lafrénière and Caresse, rehearsing their griefs; and, in their petition of rights, they claimed freedom of commerce with the ports of France and America, and the expulsion of Ulloa from the colony. The address, signed by 500 or 600 persons, was adopted the next day by the council … ; when the French flag was displayed on the public square, children and women ran up to kiss its folds, and it was raised by 900 men, amid shouts of 'Long live the king of France! we will have no king but him.' Ulloa retreated to Havana, and sent his representations to Spain. The inhabitants elected their own treasurer and syndics, sent envoys to Paris, … and memorialized the French monarch to stand as intercessor between them and the Catholic king, offering no alternative but to be a colony of France or a free commonwealth."

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), volume 3, pages 316-318.

ALSO IN: M. Thompson, Story of Louisiana, chapter 4.

C. Gayarré, History of Louisiana: French Domination, volume 2, lecture 3-6.

LOUISIANA: A. D., 1769. Spanish authority established by "Cruel O'Reilly."

"It was the fate of the Creoles—possibly a climatic result—to be slack-handed and dilatory. Month after month followed the October uprising without one of those incidents that would have succeeded in the history of an earnest people. In March, 1769, Foucault [French intendant] covertly deserted his associates, and denounced them, by letter, to the French cabinet. In April the Spanish frigate sailed from New Orleans. Three intrepid men (Loyola, Gayarre, and Navarro), the governmental staff which Ulloa had left in the province, still remained, unmolested. Not a fort was taken, though it is probable not one could have withstood assault. Not a spade was struck into the ground, or an obstruction planted, at any strategic point, throughout that whole 'Creole' spring time which stretches in its exuberant perfection from January to June. … One morning toward the end of July, 1769, the people of New Orleans were brought suddenly to their feet by the news that the Spaniards were at the mouth of the river in overwhelming force. There was no longer any room to postpone choice of action. Marquis, the Swiss captain, with a white cockade in his hat (he had been the leading advocate for a republic), and Petit, with a pistol in either hand, came out upon the ragged, sunburnt grass of the Place d'Armes and called upon the people to defend their liberties. About 100 men joined them; but the town was struck motionless with dismay; the few who had gathered soon disappeared, and by the next day the resolution of the leaders was distinctly taken, to submit. But no one fled. … Lafrénière, Marquis, and Milhet descended the river, appeared before the commander of the Spaniards, and by the mouth of Lafrénière in a submissive but brave and manly address presented the homage of the people. The captain-general in his reply let fall the word seditious. Marquis boldly but respectfully objected. He was answered with gracious dignity and the assurance of ultimate justice, and the insurgent leaders returned to New Orleans and to their homes. The Spanish fleet numbered 24 sail. For more than three weeks it slowly pushed its way around the bends of the Mississippi, and on the 18th of August it finally furled its canvas before the town. Aubry [commanding the small force of French soldiers which had remained in the colony under Spanish pay] drew up his French troops with the colonial militia at the bottom of the Place d'Armes, a gun was fired from the flagship of the fleet, and Don Alexandro O'Reilly, accompanied by 2,600 chosen Spanish troops, and with 50 pieces of artillery, landed in unprecedented pomp, and took formal possession of the province. On the 21st, twelve of the principal insurrectionists were arrested. … Villeré [a planter, of prominence] either 'died raving mad on the day of his arrest,' as stated in the Spanish official report, or met his end in the act of resisting the guard on board the frigate where he had been placed in confinement. Lafrénière [former attorney-general and leader of the revolt], Noyan [a young ex-captain of cavalry], Caresse [a merchant], Marquis, and Joseph Milhet [a merchant] were condemned to be hanged. {2048} The supplications both of colonists and Spanish officials saved them only from the gallows, and they fell before the fire of a file of Spanish grenadiers." The remaining prisoners were sent to Havana and kept in confinement for a year. "'Cruel O'Reilly'—the captain-general was justly named. … O'Reilly had come to set up a government, but not to remain and govern. On organizing the cabildo [a feebly constituted body—'like a crane, all feathers,' 'which, for the third part of a century, ruled the pettier destinies of the Louisiana Creoles '], he announced the appointment of Don Louis de Unzaga, colonel of the regiment of Havana, as governor of the province, and yielded him the chair. But under his own higher commission of captain-general he continued for a time in control. He established in force the laws of Castile and the Indies and the use of the Spanish tongue in the courts and the public offices. … Spanish rule in Louisiana was better, at least, than French, which, it is true, scarcely deserved the name of government. As to the laws themselves, it is worthy of notice that Louisiana 'is at this time the only State, of the vast territories acquired from France, Spain, and Mexico, in which the civil law has been retained, and forms a large portion of its jurisprudence.' On the 29th of October, 1770, O'Reilly sailed from New Orleans with most of his troops, leaving the Spanish power entirely and peacefully established. The force left by him in the colony amounted to 1,200 men. He had dealt a sudden and terrible blow; but he had followed it only with velvet strokes."

G. W. Cable, The Creoles of Louisiana, chapter 10-11.

ALSO IN: G. E. Waring, Jr., and G. W. Cable, History and Present Condition of New Orleans (United States Tenth Census, volume 19).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1779-1781. Spanish reconquest of West Florida.

See FLORIDA: A. D.1779-1781.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800. The question of the Navigation of the Mississippi, in dispute between Spain and the United States. Discontent of settlers in Kentucky and Tennessee. Wilkinson's intrigues.

"Settlers in considerable numbers had crossed the mountains into Kentucky and Tennessee while the war of Independence was in progress. … At once it became a question of vital importance how these people were to find avenues of commerce with the outer world. … Immigration to the interior must cross the mountains; but the natural highway for commerce was the Mississippi River. If the use of this river were left free, nothing better could be desired. Unfortunately it was not free. The east bank of the river, as far south as the north boundary of Florida [which included some part of the present states of Alabama and Mississippi, but with the northern boundary in dispute—see FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787], was the property of the United States, but the west bank, together with the island of Orleans, was held by Spain. That power, while conceding to the people of the United States the free navigation of the Mississippi as far down as the American ownership of the left bank extended, claimed exclusive jurisdiction below that line, and proposed to exact customs duties from such American commerce as should pass in or out of the mouth of the river. This pretension if yielded to would place all that commerce at the mercy of Spain, and render not merely the navigation of the river of little value, but the very land from which the commerce sprung. It was inconceivable that such pretensions should be tolerated if successful resistance were possible, but the settlers were able to combat it on two grounds, either of which seemed, according to recognized rules of international law, conclusive. First, As citizens of the country owning one of the banks on the upper portion of the stream, they claimed the free navigation to the sea with the privilege of a landing place at its mouth as a natural right; and they were able to fortify this claim—if it needed support—with the opinions of publicists of acknowledged authority. Second, They claimed under the treaty of 1763 between Great Britain and France, whereby the latter, then the owner of Louisiana, had conceded to the former the free navigation of the Mississippi in its whole breadth and length, with passage in and out of its mouth, subject to the payment of no duty whatsoever. … Thus both in natural right and by treaty concession the claim of the American settlers seemed incontrovertible, and perhaps it may fairly be said that the whole country agreed in this view. When Mr. Jay, while the war of independence was still in progress, was sent to Spain to negotiate a treaty of amity and assistance, he was specially charged with the duty to see that the free navigation of the Mississippi was conceded. All his endeavors to that end, however, resulted in failure, and he was compelled to return home with the American claim still disputed. In 1785 the negotiation was transferred to this country, and Mr. Jay renewed his effort to obtain concessions, but without avail. The tenacity with which Spain held to its claim was so persistent that Congress in its anxiety to obtain a treaty of commerce finally instructed Mr. Jay on its behalf to consent that for twenty-five years the United States should forbear to claim the right in dispute. The instruction was given by the vote of the seven Northern States against a united South; and the action was so distinctly sectional as to threaten the stability of the Union. … In the West the feeling of dissatisfaction was most intense and uncompromising. The settlers of Kentucky already deemed themselves sufficiently numerous and powerful to be entitled to set up a state government of their own, and to have a voice in the councils of the Confederation. … In Tennessee as well as in Kentucky settlements had been going on rapidly; and perhaps in the former even more distinctly than in the latter a growing indifference to the national bond was manifest. … One of the difficult questions which confronted the new government, formed under the Federal constitution, was how to deal with this feeling and control or remove it. Spanish levies on American commerce were in some cases almost prohibitory, reaching fifty or seventy-five per cent. ad valorem, and it was quite out of the question that hardy backwoodsmen trained to arms should for any considerable time submit to pay them. If the national government failed to secure their rights by diplomacy, they would seek redress in such other way as might be open to them. … Among the most prominent of the Kentucky settlers was General James Wilkinson, who had gone there as a merchant in 1784. He was shortly found advocating, though somewhat covertly, the setting up of an independent State Government. {2049} In 1787 he opened trade with New Orleans, and endeavored to impress upon the Spanish authorities the importance of an amicable understanding with the settlers in the Ohio valley. His representations for a time had considerable effect, and the trade was not only relieved of oppressive burdens, but Americans were invited to make settlements within Spanish limits in Louisiana and West Florida. A considerable settlement was actually made at New Madrid under this invitation. But there is no reason to believe that genuine good feeling inspired this policy; the purpose plainly in view was to build up a Spanish party among the American settlers and eventually to detach them from the United States. But the course pursued was variable, being characterized in turn by liberality and by rigor. Wilkinson appears to have been allowed special privileges in trade, and this, together with the fact that he was known to receive a heavy remittance from New Orleans, begat a suspicion that he was under Spanish pay; a suspicion from which he was never wholly relieved, and which probably to some extent affected the judgment of men when he came under further suspicion in consequence of equivocal relations with Aaron Burr. In 1789 a British emissary made his appearance in Kentucky, whose mission seemed to be to sound the sentiments of the people respecting union with Canada. He came at a bad time for his purposes; for the feeling of the country against Great Britain was then at its height, and was particularly strong in the West, where the failure to deliver up the posts within American limits was known to have been influential in encouraging Indian hostilities. The British agent, therefore, met with anything but friendly reception. … Meantime Spain had become so far complicated in European wars as to be solicitous regarding the preservation of her own American possessions, then bordered by a hostile people, and at her suggestion an envoy was sent by the United States to Madrid, with whom in October 1795 a treaty was made, whereby among other things it was agreed that Spain should permit the people of the United States for the term of three years to make use of the port of New Orleans as a place of deposit for their produce and merchandise, and to export the same free from all duty or charge except for storage and incidental expenses. At the end of the three years the treaty contemplated further negotiations, and it was hoped by the American authorities that a decisive step had been taken towards the complete recognition of American claims. The treaty, however, was far from satisfying the people of Kentucky and Tennessee, who looked upon the assent of Spain to it as a mere makeshift for the protection of her territory from invasion. Projects for taking forcible possession of the mouth of the Mississippi continued therefore to be agitated. … The schemes of Don Francisco de Miranda for the overthrow of Spanish authority in America now became important. Miranda was of Spanish-American birth, and had been in the United States while the war of Independence was pending and formed acquaintance among the American officers. Conceiving the idea of liberating the Spanish colonies, he sought assistance from England and Russia, but when the French Revolution occurred he enlisted in the French service and for a time held important military positions. Driven from France in 1797 he took up his old scheme again: looking now to England and America for the necessary assistance. Several leading American statesmen were approached on the subject, Hamilton among them; and while the relations between France and the United States seemed likely to result in war, that great man, who had no fear of evils likely to result from the extension of territory, listened with approval to the project of a combined attack by British and American forces on the Spanish Colonies, and would have been willing, with the approval of the government, to personally take part in it. President Adams, however, frowned upon the scheme, and it was necessarily but with great reluctance abandoned. And now occurred an event of highest interest to the people of the United States. Spain, aware of her precarious hold upon Louisiana, in 1800 retroceded it to France."

T. M. Cooley, The Acquisition of Louisiana (Indiana Historical Society Pamphlets, no. 3).

ALSO IN: W. H. Safford, The Blennerhassett Papers, chapter 5.

H. Marshall, History of Kentucky, volume 1, chapters 12-15.

J. H. Monette, Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, book 5, chapter 6 (volume 2).

J. M. Brown, The Political Beginnings of Kentucky.

T. M. Green, The Spanish Conspiracy.

LOUISIANA: D. 1798-1803. The last days of Spanish rule. The great domain transferred to France, and sold by Napoleon to the United States. The bounds of the purchase.

"During the years 1796-97 the Spanish authorities exhausted every means for delaying a confirmation of the boundary line as set forth in the treaty of 1783. By one pretext and another, they avoided the surrender of the Natchez territory and continued to hold the military posts therein. Not until the 23d of March, 1798, was the final step taken by which the Federal Government was permitted to occupy in full the province of Mississippi. … Soon after this we find the newly made territory of Mississippi occupied by a Federal force, and, strange to say, with General Wilkinson in command. The man who but lately had been playing the rôle of traitor, spy, insurrectionist and smuggler, was now chief commander on the border and was building a fort at Loftus Heights just above the boundary line. The new governor of Louisiana [Gayoso de Lemos], seeing the hope of detaching Kentucky and Tennessee fall dead at his feet, finally turned back to the old policy of restricting immigration and of discriminating against Protestants. By the treaty signed at Madrid in 1795, it had been stipulated that the citizens of the United States should not only have free navigation of the Mississippi River, but that they should also have the right to deposit in New Orleans all their produce during the space of three years. This limit, it was agreed, was to be extended by the Spanish Government, or, instead of an extension of time, a new point on the island of New Orleans was to be designated for depot. But at the expiration of the three years Morales, the Spanish intendant at New Orleans, declined to permit further deposits there, and refused to designate another place in accordance with the stipulation. This action aroused the people of the West; a storm of resentment broke forth and the government of the United States was forced to make a threatening demonstration in the direction of Louisiana. {2050} Three regiments of the regular army were at once dispatched to the Ohio. The people flew to arms. Invasion appeared imminent." But the Spanish authorities gave way, and a new intendant at New Orleans "received from his Government orders to remove the interdict issued by Gayoso and to restore to the Western people the right of deposit at New Orleans. These orders he promptly obeyed, thus reviving good feelings between his province and the United States. Trade revived; immigration increased. … The deluge of immigration startled the Spaniards. They saw to what it was swiftly tending. A few more years and this tide would rise too high to be resisted and Louisiana would be lost to the king, lost to the holy religion, given over to freedom, republicanism and ruin. … On the 18th of July … [1802] the king ordered that no more grants of land be given to citizens of the United States. This effectually killed the commerce of the Mississippi River, and the indignation of the Western people knew no bounds. … Rumors, apparently well founded, were afloat that the irresistible genius of Napoleon was wringing the province from Spain and that this meant a division of the territories between France and the United States. To a large majority of Louisiana's population these were thrillingly welcome rumors. The very thought of once more becoming the subjects of France was enough to intoxicate them with delight. The treaty of Ildefonso, however, which had been ratified at Madrid on the 21st of March, 1801, had been kept a secret. Napoleon had hoped to occupy Louisiana with a strong army, consisting of 25,000 men, together with a fleet to guard the coast; but his implacable and ever watchful foe, England, discovered his design and thwarted it. But by the terms of the treaty, the colony and province of Louisiana had gone into his hands. He must take possession and hold it, or he must see England become its master. Pressed on every side at that time by wars and political complications and well understanding that it would endanger his power for him to undertake a grand American enterprise, he gladly opened negotiations with the United States looking to the cession of Louisiana to that Government. … Napoleon had agreed with Spain that Louisiana should not be ceded to any other power. … Diplomacy very quickly surmounted so small an obstacle. … The treaty of cession was signed on the 30th of April, 1803, the United States agreeing to pay France 60,000,000 francs as the purchase price of the territory. … In addition, the sum due American citizens … was assumed by the United States. The treaty of April was ratified by Napoleon in May, 1803, and by the Senate of the United States in October. … Pausing to glance at this strange transaction, by which one republic sells outright to another republic a whole country without in the least consulting the wishes of the inhabitants, whose allegiance and all of whose political and civil rights are changed thereby, we are tempted to wonder if the republic of the United States could to-day sell Louisiana with the same impunity that attended the purchase! She bought the country and its people, just as she might have bought a desert island with its goats."

M. Thompson, The Story of Louisiana, chapter 6, with foot-note.

"No one could say what was the southwest boundary of the territory acquired; whether it should be the Sabine or the Rio del Norte; and a controversy with Spain on the subject might at any time arise. The northwest boundary was also somewhat vague and uncertain, and would be open to controversy with Great Britain. [That] the territory extended west to the Rocky Mountains was not questioned, but it might be claimed that it extended to the Pacific. An impression that it did so extend has since prevailed in some quarters, and in some public papers and documents it has been assumed as an undoubted fact. But neither Mr. Jefferson nor the French, whose right he purchased, ever claimed for Louisiana any such extent, and our title to Oregon has been safely deduced from other sources. Mr. Jefferson said expressly: 'To the waters of the Pacific we can found no claim in right of Louisiana.'"

Judge T. M. Cooley, The Acquisition of Louisiana (Indiana History Society Pamphlets, number 3).

"By the charter of Louis XIV., the country purchased to the north included all that was contiguous to the waters that flowed into the Mississippi. Consequently its northern boundary was the summit of the highlands in which its northern waters rise. By the tenth article of the treaty of Utrecht, France and England agreed to appoint commissioners to settle the boundary, and these commissioners, as such boundary, marked this summit on the 49th parallel of north latitude. This would not carry the rights of the United States beyond the Rocky Mountains. The claim to the territory beyond was based upon the principle of continuity, the prolongation of the territory to the adjacent great body of water. As against Great Britain, the claim was founded on the treaty of 1763, between France and Great Britain, by which the latter power ceded to the former all its rights west of the Mississippi River. The United States succeeded to all the rights of France. Besides this, there was an independent claim created by the discovery of the Columbia River by Gray, in 1792, and its exploration by Lewis and Clarke. All this was added to by the cession by Spain, in 1819, of any title that it had to all territory north of the 42d degree."

Rt. Rev. C. F. Robertson, The Louisiana Purchase (Papers of American Historical Association, volume 1, page 259).

As its southwestern and southeastern boundaries were eventually settled by treaty with Spain [see FLORIDA: A. D. 1819-1821], the Louisiana purchase embraced 2,300 square miles in the present state of Alabama, west of the Perdido and on the gulf, below latitude 31° north; 3,600 square miles in the present state of Mississippi, south of the same latitude; the whole of the present states of Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas; Minnesota, west of the Mississippi; Kansas, all but the southwest corner; the whole of the Indian Territory, and so much of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana as lies on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. If it is held that the French claim was good to the Pacific, then we may say that we owe the remainder of Montana, with Idaho, Oregon and Washington to the same great purchase.

T. Donaldson, The Public Domain, page 105.

On the constitutional and political aspects of the Louisiana purchase,

See UNITED STATES: A. D. 1803.

Detailed accounts of the interesting circumstances and incidents connected with the negotiation at Paris will be found in the following works:—

H. Adams, History of the United States: First Administration of Jefferson; volume 2, chapters 1-3.

D. O. Gilman, James Monroe, chapter 4.

B. Marbois, History of Louisiana, part 2.

American State Papers: Foreign Relations, volume 2, pages 506-583.

{2051}

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1804-1805. Lewis and Clark's exploration of the northwestern region of the purchase, to the Pacific.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1805.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1804-1812. The purchase divided into the Territories of Orleans and Louisiana. The first named becomes the State of Louisiana; the second becomes the Territory of Missouri.

"On the 26th of March, 1804, Congress passed an act dividing the province into two parts on the 33d parallel of latitude, the present northern boundary of Louisiana, and establishing for the lower portion a distinct territorial government, under the title of the territory of Orleans. The act was to go into effect in the following October. One of its provisions was the interdiction of the slave-trade. … The labors of the legislative council began on the 4th of December. A charter of incorporation was given by it to the city of New Orleans."

G: E. Waring, Jr., and G. W. Cable, History and Present Condition of New Orleans (United States Tenth Census, volume 19). pages 32-33.

"All north of the 33d parallel of north latitude was formed into a district, and styled the District of Louisiana. For judicial and administrative purposes this district, or upper Louisiana as we shall continue to call it, was attached to the territory of Indiana." But in March, 1805, Congress passed an act "which erected the district into a territory of the first or lowest grade, and changed its title from the District to the Territory of Louisiana." Seven years later, in June 1812, the Territory of Orleans (the lower Louisiana of old) having been received into the federal Union as the State of Louisiana, the territory which bore the ancient name was advanced by act of Congress "from the first to the second grade of territories, and its name changed to Missouri."

L. Carr, Missouri, chapter 5.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1806-1807. Burr's Filibustering conspiracy.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1806-1807.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1812. The Territory of Orleans admitted to the Union as the State of Louisiana.

"The population of the Territory of Orleans had been augmented annually by emigration from the United States. According to the census of 1810, the whole territory, exclusive of the Florida parishes, contained an aggregate of 76,550 souls. Of this number, the city of New Orleans and its precincts contained 24,552 persons, leaving 52,000 souls for the remainder of the territory. Besides these, the inhabitants of the Florida parishes amounted, probably, to not less than 2,500, including slaves. … Congress, by an act approved February 11th, 1811, … authorized the election of a convention to adopt a Constitution, preparatory to the admission of the Territory into the Union as an independent state. The convention, consisting of 60 delegates from the original parishes, met according to law, on the first Monday in November, and concluded its labors on the 22d day of January following, having adopted a Constitution for the proposed new 'State of Louisiana.' … The Constitution was accepted by Congress, and the State of Louisiana was formally admitted into the Union on the 8th day of April, 1812, upon an equal footing with the original states, from and after the 30th day of April, it being the ninth anniversary of the treaty of Paris. A few days subsequently, a 'supplemental act' of Congress extended the limits of the new state by the addition of the Florida parishes.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.

This gave it the boundaries it has at present."

J. W. Monette, Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, book 5, chapter 15 (volume 2).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1813-1814. The Creek War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1815. Jackson's defense of New Orleans.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815 (JANUARY).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1861 (January). Secession from the Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1862 (April). Farragut's capture of New Orleans.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

LOUISIANA: A. D.1862 (May-December). New Orleans under General Butler.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY-DECEMBER: LOUISIANA).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1862 (June). Appointment of a Military Governor.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH-JUNE).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1864. Reconstruction of the state under President Lincoln's plan.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-JULY).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1864. The Red River Expedition.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-MAY: LOUISIANA).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1865. President Johnson's recognition of the reconstructed state government.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1865-1867. The first Reconstruction experiment. The Riot at New Orleans. Establishment of military rule.

"In 1865 the returned Confederates, restored to citizenship by the President's amnesty proclamation soon got control of almost all the State [as reorganized under the constitution framed and adopted in 1864].

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).

The Legislature was in their hands, as well as most of the State and municipal offices; so, when the President, on the 20th of August, 1866, by proclamation, extended his previous instructions regarding civil affairs in Texas so as to have them apply to all the seceded States, there at once began in Louisiana a system of discriminative legislation directed against the freedmen, that led to flagrant wrongs in the enforcement of labor contracts, and in the remote parishes to numbers of outrages and murders. To remedy this deplorable condition of things, it was proposed, by those who had established the government of 1864, to remodel the constitution of the State; and they sought to do this by reassembling the convention, that body before its adjournment having provided for reconvening under certain conditions, in obedience to the call of its president. Therefore, early in the summer of 1866, many members of this convention met in conference at New Orleans, and decided that a necessity existed for reconvening the delegates, and a proclamation was issued accordingly by B. K. Howell, President pro tempore. {2052} Mayor John T. Monroe and the other officials of New Orleans looked upon this proposed action as revolutionary, and by the time the convention assembled (July 30) such bitterness of feeling prevailed that efforts were made by the mayor and city police to suppress the meeting. A bloody riot followed, resulting in the killing and wounding of about 160 persons. I happened [the writer is General Sheridan, then in command of the Military Division of the Gulf] to be absent from the city at the time, returning from Texas, where I had been called by affairs on the Rio Grande. On my way up from the mouth of the Mississippi I was met on the night of July 30 by one of my staff, who reported what had occurred, giving the details of the massacre—no milder term is fitting—and informing me that, to prevent further slaughter, General Baird, the senior military officer present, had assumed control of the municipal government. On reaching the city I made an investigation, and that night sent [a brief report, which was followed, on the 6th of August, by an extended account of the facts of the riot, containing the following statements]: … 'The convention assembled at 12 M. on the 30th, the timid members absenting themselves because the tone of the general public was ominous of trouble. … About 1 P. M. a procession of say from 60 to 130 colored men marched up Burgundy Street and across Canal Street toward the convention, carrying an American flag. These men had about one pistol to every ten men, and canes and clubs in addition. While crossing Canal Street a row occurred. … On arrival at the front of the Institute [where the convention was held] there was some throwing of brickbats by both sides. The police, who had been held well in hand, were vigorously marched to the scene of disorder. The procession entered the Institute with the flag, about 6 or 8 remaining outside. A row occurred between a policeman and one of these colored mob, and a shot was again fired by one of the parties, which led to an indiscriminate fire on the building through the windows by the policemen. This had been going on for a short time, when a white flag was displayed from the windows of the Institute, whereupon the firing ceased, and the police rushed into the building. From the testimony of wounded men, and others who were inside the building, the policemen opened an indiscriminate fire upon the audience until they had emptied their revolvers, when they retired, and those inside barricaded the doors. The door was broken in, and the firing again commenced, when many of the colored and white people either escaped throughout the door or were passed out by the policemen inside; but as they came out the policemen who formed the circle nearest the building fired upon them, and they were again fired upon by the citizens that formed the outer circle. Many of those wounded and taken prisoners, and others who were prisoners and not wounded, were fired upon by their captors and by citizens. The wounded were stabbed while lying on the ground, and their heads beaten with brickbats. … Some were killed and wounded several squares from the scene.' … Subsequently a military commission investigated the subject of the riot, taking a great deal of testimony. The commission substantially confirmed the conclusions given in my despatches, and still later there as an investigation by a select committee of the House of Representatives. … A list of the killed and wounded was embraced in the committee's report, and among other conclusions reached were the following: … 'This riotous attack upon the convention, with its terrible results of massacre and murder, was not an accident. It was the determined purpose of the mayor of the city of New Orleans to break up this convention by armed force.' … The committee held that no legal government existed in Louisiana, and recommended the temporary establishment of a provisional government therein." In the following March the Military Reconstruction Acts were passed by Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (MARCH).

General Sheridan was assigned to the command of the fifth military district therein defined, consisting of Louisiana and Texas.

P. H. Sheridan, Personal Memoirs, volume 2, chapters 10-11.

ALSO IN: Report of Select Committee on New Orleans Riot, 39th Congress, 2d Session, H. R. Report, Number 16.

LOUISIANA: A. D. 1868. Reconstruction complete. Restored representation in Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1868-1870.

----------LOUISIANA: End----------

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY: Threatened by the Rebel Army under Bragg.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).

----------LOUVAIN: Start--------

LOUVAIN: A. D. 1635. Unsuccessful siege by the French.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638.

LOUVAIN: A. D. 1706. Taken by Marlborough and the Allies.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1706-1707.

----------LOUVAIN: End--------

LOUVAIN, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).

LOUVRE, The.

"The early history of the Louvre is involved in great obscurity. The name of its founder and the period of its erection are alike unknown; the first notice of it we meet with upon record is in the 7th century, when Dagobert kept here his horses and hounds. The kings [Merovingeans] called 'fainéans' often visited it, when after dinner they rode in a sort of coach through the forest, which covered this side of the river, and in the evening returned in a boat, fishing by the way, to the city, where they supped and slept. There is no mention of this royal dwelling under the second, nor even under the third race of kings, till the reign of Philip Augustus. About the year 1204, that prince converted it into a kind of citadel, surrounded with wide ditches and flanked with towers. … The walls erected by Philip Augustus did not take in the Louvre, but after having remained outside of Paris more than six centuries, it was enclosed by the walls begun in 1367, under Charles V., and finished in 1383, under Charles VI. … Charles IX., Henry III., Henry IV., and Louis XIII., inhabited the Louvre and added to its buildings. Nothing remains of the old château of Philip Augustus, which Charles V. repaired; the most ancient part now in existence is that called 'le Vieux Louvre,' begun by Francis I. in 1539, and finished by Henry II. in 1548."

History of Paris (London, 1827), chapter 2 (volume 2).

{2053}

The origin of the word Louvre is believed to be a Saxon word, 'Leowar' or 'Lower,' which meant a fortified camp. … Francis I. did little more than decide the fate of the old Louvre by introducing the new fashion. His successors went on with the work; and the progress of it may be followed, reign after reign, till the last visible fragment of the Gothic castle had been ruthlessly carted away. … Vast as is the Louvre that we know, it is as nothing in comparison with the prodigious scheme imagined by Richelieu and Louis XIII.; a scheme which, though never carried out, gave a very strong impulse to the works, and ensured the completion of the present building, at least in a subsequent reign. … Happily for the Louvre Louis XIV. interested himself in it before he engulfed his millions at Marly and Versailles. … The sums of money expended on the Louvre and Tuileries defy all calculation. … The greatest spender on these palaces was Napoleon III."

P. G. Hamerton. Paris in Old and Present Times, chapter 6.

LOVERS, War of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1578-1580.

LOW CHURCH.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1689 (APRIL-AUGUST).

LOW COUNTRIES, The.

See NETHERLANDS.

LOWLANDS OF SCOTLAND.

See SCOTCH HIGHLAND and LOWLAND.

LOWOSITZ, OR LOBOSITZ, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1756.

LOYALISTS, American.

See TORIES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

LOYOLA, and the founding of the Order of Jesus.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1540-1556.

----------LUBECK: Start--------

LUBECK: Origin and rise.

"Near the mouth of the river Trave there had long existed a small settlement of pirates or fishermen. The convenience of the harbour had led to this settlement and it had been much frequented by Christian merchants. The unsettled state of the country, however, afforded them little security, and it had been often taken and plundered by the Pagan freebooters. When Henry acquired the dominion of the soil [Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, who subdued the heathen Wendish tribe of the Oborites, A. D. 1165, and added their country to his dominions] he paid particular attention to this infant establishment, and under the shadow of his power the city of Lubeck (for so it became) arose on a broad and permanent basis. He made it … the seat of a bishop; he also established a mint and a custom-house, and by the grant of a municipal government, he secured the personal, while he prepared the way for the political, rights of its burghers. The ancient name of the harbour was Wisby, and by a proclamation addressed to the Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and Russians, he invited them to frequent it, with an assurance that the ways should be open and secure by land and water. … This judicious policy was rewarded by a rapid and large increase to the wealth and commerce of Lubeck."

Sir A. Halliday, Annals of the House of Hanover, volume 1, pages 229-230.

See, also, HANSA TOWNS.

LUBECK: A. D. 1801-1803. One of six free cities which survived the Peace of Luneville.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

LUBECK: A. D. 1806. Battle of French and Prussians.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER).

LUBECK: A. D. 1810. Annexation to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810 (FEBRUARY-DECEMBER).

LUBECK: A. D. 1810-1815. Loss and recovery of autonomy as a "free city."

See CITIES, IMPERIAL AND FREE, OF GERMANY; and VIENNA, CONGRESS OF.

LUBECK: A. D. 1866. Surrender of free privileges. Entrance into the Zollverein.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1888.

----------LUBECK: End--------

LUBECK, Treaty of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1627-1629.

LUCANIANS, The.

See SABINES; also, SAMNITES.

----------LUCCA: Start--------

LUCCA: The founding of the city.

See MUTINA AND PARMA.

LUCCA: 8th Century. The seat of Tuscan government.

See TUSCANY: A. D. 685-1115.

LUCCA: A. D. 1248-1278. In the wars of the Guelfs and Ghibellines.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.

LUCCA: A. D. 1284-1293. War with Pisa.

See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.

LUCCA: A. D. 1314-1328. The brief tyranny of Uguccione della Faggiuola, and the longer despotism of Castruccio Castracani. Erected into an imperial duchy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.

LUCCA: A. D. 1335-1341. Acquired by Mastino della Scala of Verona. Sold to Florence. Taken by Pisa.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1341-1343.

LUCCA: A. D. 1805. Conferred on the sister of Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

LUCCA: A. D. 1814-1860.

After the fall of Napoleon Lucca was briefly occupied by the Neapolitans; then, in the new arrangements, figured for some time as a distinct duchy; afterwards became part of Tuscany, until its absorption in the kingdom of Italy.

----------LUCCA: End--------

LUCENA, Battle of (1483).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1476-1492.

LUCERES, The.

See ROME: BEGINNING AND NAME.

LUCHANA, Battle of (1836).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1833-1846.

LUCIUS II., Pope, A. D. 1144-1145.

Lucius III., Pope, 1181-1185.

LUCKA, Battle of (1308).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.

LUCKNOW, The siege of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1857 (MAY-AUGUST), and 1857-1858 (JULY-JUNE).

LUCOTECIA.

See LUTETIA.

LUD. Ancient Lydia.

LUDDITES, Rioting of the.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1812-1813.

LUDI. LUDI CIRCENSES, ETC.

"Public games (Ludi) formed an important feature in the worship of the gods [in ancient Rome], and in the earlier ages were always regarded as religious rites; so that the words Ludi, Feriae and Dies Festi are frequently employed as synonymous. Games celebrated every year upon a fixed day were denominated Ludi Stati. Such were the Ludi Romani s. Magni, held invariably on the 21st of September; the Megalesia on 4th April; the Floralia on 28th April, and many others. … Another classification of Ludi was derived from the place where they were exhibited and the nature of the exhibition …

1. Ludi Circenses, chariot races and other games exhibited in a circus. 2. Ludi Scenici, dramatic entertainments exhibited in a theatre. 3. Munera Gladiatoria, prize-fights, which were usually exhibited in an amphitheatre."

W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 10.

{2054}

LUDI MAXIMI ROMANI.

See ROMAN CITY FESTIVAL.

LUDI SÆCULARES, The.

See SECULAR GAMES.

LUDOVICO (called Il Moro), Duke of Milan, A. D. 1494-1500.

LUDWIG.

See LOUIS.

LUGDUNENSIS AND LUGDUNUM.

See LYONS: UNDER THE ROMANS.

LUGUVALLIUM.

The Roman military station at the western extremity of the Roman wall in Britain; the site of the modern city of Carlisle.

H. M. Scarth, Roman Britain, chapter 8.

LUITPERTUS, King of the Lombards, A. D. 700-701.

LUKETIA.

See LUTETIA.

LUNA: Destruction by the Northmen.

See NORMANS: A. D. 849-860.

LUND, Battle of (1676).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.

LUNDY, Benjamin, and the rise of the Abolitionists.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1828-1832.

LUNDY'S LANE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

LUNEBURG, Duchy of.

See SAXONY: THE OLD DUCHY; and A. D. 1178-1183.

LUNEBURG HEATH, Battle of (A. D. 880).

See EBBSDORF.

LUNEVILLE, The Treaty of (1801).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

LUPERCAL. LUPERCALIA.

The Lupercal was the wolf cave in which, according to Roman legend, the twins, Romulus and Remus, were nursed by a she-wolf. It was supposed to be situated at the foot of the Palatine Hill. "The Lupercal is described by Dionysius as having once been a large grotto, shaded with thick bushes and large trees, and containing a copious spring of water. This grotto was dedicated to Lupercus, an ancient Latin pastoral divinity, who was worshipped by shepherds as the protector of their flocks against wolves. A festival was held every year, on the 15th of February, in the Lupercal, in honour of Lupercus; the place contained an altar and a grove sacred to the god. … Gibbon tells us the festival of the Lupercalia, whose origin had preceded the foundation of Rome, was still celebrated in the reign of Anthemus, 472 A.D."

H. M. Westropp, Early and Imperial Rome, page 35.

"At the Lupercalia youths ran through the streets dressed in goats' skins, beating all those they met with strips of goats' leather."

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 13.

LURIS.

See GYPSIES.

LUSIGNAN, House of.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 1149-1187, 1192-1229, and 1291; also, CYPRUS: A. D. 1191, and 1192-1489.

LUSITANIA. LUSITANIANS.

The Lusitani or Lusitanians were the people who resisted the Roman conquest of Spain most obstinately—with even more resolution than their neighbors and kinsmen, the Celtiberians. In 153 B. C. they defeated a Roman army, which lost 6,000 men. The following year they inflicted another defeat, on the prætor Mummius, who lost 9,000 of his soldiers. Again, in 151, the prætor Galba suffered a loss of 7,000 men at their hands. But, in 150, Galba ravaged the Lusitanian country so effectually that they sued for peace. Pretending to arrange terms of friendship with them, this infamous Roman persuaded three large bands of the Lusitanians to lay down their arms, which being done he surrounded them with his troops and massacred them in cold blood. One of the few who escaped was a man named Viriathus, who became thenceforth the leader of his surviving countrymen in a guerrilla warfare which lasted for ten years, and which cost the Romans thousands of men. In the end they could not vanquish Viriathus, but basely bribed some traitors in his own camp to murder him. The Roman province which was afterwards formed out of the country of the Lusitanians, and which took their name, has been mistakenly identified with the modern kingdom of Portugal, which it coincided with only in part.

W. Ihne, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 6 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: H. M. Stephens, The Story of Portugal, chapter 1.

See PORTUGAL: EARLY HISTORY.

On the settlement of the Alans,

See SPAIN: A. D. 409-414.

LUSTRUM.

After the [Roman] Censors had concluded the various duties committed to their charge, they proceeded in the last place to offer up, on behalf of the whole Roman people, the great expiatory sacrifice called Lustrum, and this being offered up once only in the space of five years, the term Lustrum is frequently employed to denote that space of time. … On the day fixed, the whole body of the people were summoned to assemble in the Campus Martius in martial order (exercitus) ranked according to their Classes and Centuries, horse and foot. The victims, consisting of a sow, a sheep, and a bull, whence the sacrifice was termed Suovetaurilia, before being led to the altar, were carried thrice round the multitude, who were then held to be purified and absolved from sin, and while the immolation took place the Censor recited a set form of prayer for the preservation and aggrandizement of the Roman State."

W. Ramsay, Manual of Roman Antiquity, chapter 5.

LUTETIA, LUKETIA, LUCOTECIA.

The beginning of the great city of Paris was represented by a small town named as above—the stronghold of the Gallic people called the Parisii—built on one of the islands in the Seine which Paris now covers and surrounds.

See PARIS, BEGINNING OF.

LUTHER, Martin, and the Reformation.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1516-1517, 1517, 1517-1521, 1521-1522, 1522-1525, 1525-1529, 1530-1531; also, GERMANY: A. D. 1530-1532.

LUTHER: On Education.

See EDUCATION, RENAISSANCE: GERMANY.

LUTTER, Battle of (1626).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626.

LÜTZEN, Battle of (1632). Death of Gustavus Adolphus.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.

LÜTZEN, OR GROSS GÖRSCHEN, Battle of (1813).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (APRIL-MAY).

LUXEMBURG, The House of: Its aggrandizement in the Empire, in Bohemia, Hungary, and Brandenburg.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1308-1313, and 1347-1493; also, HUNGARY: A. D. 1301-1442; and BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1168=1417.

----------LUXEMBURG: Start--------

{2055}

LUXEMBURG: A. D. 1713. Ceded to Holland.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

LUXEMBURG: A. D. 1795. Siege and capture by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (JUNE-DECEMBER).

LUXEMBURG: A. D. 1867. Separated from Germany and formed into a neutral state.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866-1870.

----------LUXEMBURG: End--------

LUZZARA, Battle of (1702).

See ITALY: A. D. 1701-1713.

LYCEUM, The Athenian.

See ACADEMY, THE ATHENIAN; and GYMNASIA, GREEK; also, relative to the suppression of the Lyceum, see ATHENS: A. D. 529.

LYCIAN LEAGUE, The.

"Probably the best constructed Federal Government that the ancient world beheld. The account given by Strabo, our sole authority, is so full, clear, and brief, that I cannot do better than translate it. The 'ancestral constitution of the Lykian League' is described by the great geographer in these words: 'There are three and twenty cities which have a share in the suffrage, and they come together from each city in the common Federal Assembly, choosing for their place of meeting any city which they think best. And, among the cities, the greatest are possessed of three votes apiece, the middle ones of two, and the rest of one; and in the same proportion they pay taxes, and take their share of other public burthens. … And, in the Federal Assembly, first the Lykiarch is chosen and then the other Magistrates of the League, and bodies of Federal Judges are appointed; and formerly they used to consult about war, and peace, and alliance; this now, of course, they cannot do, but these things must needs rest with the Romans.' … On the practical working of this constitution Strabo bestows the highest praise. Lykia was, in his day, a Roman dependency, but it retained its own laws and internal government."

E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapter 4, section 4.

LYCIANS, The.

The people who occupied in ancient times the extreme southern peninsula of Asia Minor. "The ancients knew of no unmixed population in this district. The Phœnicians explored the Lycian Taurus as well as the Cilician; and by land also Semitic tribes seem to have immigrated out of Syria and Cilicia; and these tribes formed the tribe of the Solymi. Another influx of population was conducted to this coast by means of the Rhodian chain of islands: men of Crete came across, who called themselves Termili or Trameli, and venerated Sarpedon as their Hero. After an arduous struggle, they gradually made themselves masters of the land encircled by sea and rock. … From the mouth of the Xanthus the Cretans entered the land. There Leto had first found a hospitable reception; in Patara, near by, arose the first great temple of Apollo, the god of light, or Lycius, with the worship of whom the inhabitants of the land became subsequently to such a degree identified as to receive themselves from the Greeks on whose coasts they landed the same name as the god, viz., Lycians. … We know that the Lycians, in courage and knowledge of the sea fully the equals of the most seafaring nation of the Archipelago, from a desire of an orderly political life, renounced at an early period the public practice of piracy, which their neighbours in Pisidia and Cilicia never relinquished. Their patriotism they proved in heroic struggles, and in the quiet of home developed a greater refinement of manners, to which the special honour in which they held the female sex bears marked testimony."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).

LYCURGUS, Constitution of.

See SPARTA: THE CONSTITUTION.

LYDIANS, The.

"On the western coast of Asia Minor the nation of the Lydians, which possessed the vallies of the Hermus and Mæander, had early arrived at a monarchy and a point of civilization far in advance of the stages of primitive life. … When the Greeks forced the Phenicians from the islands of the Ægean sea, and then, about the end of the eleventh and beginning of the tenth century, B. C., landed on the western coast of Asia Minor, the Lydians were not able any more than the Teucrians and Mysians in the North, or the Carians in the South, to prevent the establishment of the Greeks on their coasts, the loss of the ancient native sanctuaries at Smyrna, Colophon, Ephesus, and the founding of Greek cities in their land on the mouths of the Lydian rivers, the Hermus and the Cayster, though the Greek emigrants came in isolated expeditions over the sea. It was on the Lydian coasts that the most important Greek cities rose: Cyme, Phocæa, Smyrna, Colophon, Ephesus. Priene, Myus, and Miletus were on the land of the Carians."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 4, chapter 17.

"On the basis of a population related to the Phrygians and Armenians arose the nation of the Lydians, which through its original ancestor, Lud, would appear in Eastern tradition also to be reckoned as a member of the Semitic family. As long as we remain unacquainted with the spoken and written language of the Lydians, it will be impossible to define with any accuracy the mixture of peoples which here took place. But, speaking generally, there is no doubt of the double relationship of this people, and of its consequent important place in civilization among the groups of the nations of Asia Minor. The Lydians became on land, as the Phœnicians by sea, the mediators between Hellas and Anterior Asia. … The Lydians are the first among the nations of Asia Minor of whom we have any intimate knowledge as a political community."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).

The first, perhaps legendary, dynasty of Lydia, called the Atyadæ, was followed by one called the Herakleidæ by the Greeks, which is said to have ruled over 500 years. The last king of that family, Kandaules, was murdered, about B. C. 715, by Gyges, who founded the dynasty of the Mermnadæ, under whom the Lydian dominion was extended over most of Asia Minor, and its kings contended on fairly equal terms with the power of the Medes. But their monarchy was overthrown by Cyrus, B. C. 546, and the famous Crœsus, last of their line, ended his days as an attendant and counselor of the Persian king.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapters 17 and 32.

Recent discoveries tend to the conclusion that the primitive inhabitants of Lydia were of a race to which the Hittites belonged.

A. H. Sayce, editor, Ancient Empires of the East, appendix 4.

See, also, ASIA MINOR: B. C. 724-539; and PERSIA: B. C. 549-521.

{2056}

LYGIANS, The.

"Of all the invaders of Gaul [in the reign of Probus, A. D.277] the most formidable were the Lygians, a distant people who reigned over a wide domain on the frontiers of Poland and Silesia. In the Lygian nation the Arii held the first rank by their numbers and fierceness. 'The Arii' (it is thus that they are described by the energy of Tacitus) 'study to improve by art and circumstances the innate terrors of their barbarism. Their shields are black, their bodies are painted black. They choose for the combat the darkest hour of the night.' … Yet the arms and discipline of the Romans easily discomfited these horrid phantoms. The Lygii were defeated in a general engagement, and Semno, the most renowned of their chiefs, fell alive into the hands of Probus. That prudent emperor, unwilling to reduce a brave people to despair, granted them an honourable capitulation and permitted them to return in safety to their native country. But the losses which they suffered in the march, the battle, and the retreat, broke the power of the nation; nor is the Lygian name ever repeated in the history either of Germany or of the empire."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 12.

"Lygii appears to have been the generic name of the Slavonians on the Vistula. They are the same people as those called Lekhs by Nestor, the Russian chronicler of the twelfth century. These Lekhs are the ancestors of the Poles."

See Latham, The Germania of Tacitus, page 158.

W. Smith, Note to above, from Gibbon.

"The Ligii were a widely-spread tribe, comprehending several clans. Tacitus names the Harii [or Arii], Helvecones, Manimi, Elisii, and Nahanarvali. Their territory was between the Oder and Vistula, and would include the greater part of Poland, and probably a portion of Silesia."

Church and Brodribb, Geographical Notes to the Germany of Tacitus.

"The Elysii are supposed to have given name to Silesia."

Note to the Oxford Translation of Tacitus: Germany, chapter 43.

LYKIANS, The.

See LYCIANS.

LYMNE, in Roman times.

See PORTUS LEMANIS.

LYON, General Nathaniel: Campaign in Missouri, and death.

See MISSOURI; A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY-JULY); and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER; MISSOURI).

----------LYONS: Start--------

LYONS: Under the Romans.

Minutius Plancus, Roman governor of Gallia Comata, or the Gaul of Cæsar's conquest, founded, B. C. 43, a city called Lugdunum, at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saone. A few years later, under Augustus, it was made the capital of a province to which it gave its name—Lugdunensis—and which comprised the whole of central Gaul, between the Loire and the Seine with the Armorican peninsula. In time the name Lugdunum became softened and shorn to Lyons. "Lyons, which stood on the west side of the Rhone, not so near the confluence of the Sâone as now, appears to have been settled by fugitive Romans driven out of Vienne by another party. It grew with as marvelous a rapidity as some of our western cities, for in fifteen years it swelled from a simple colony into a metropolis of considerable splendor. … Lugdun appears to have been a Keltic designation, and, as the 'g' in that speech took the sound of 'y' and 'd' was silent, we can easily see how the name became Lyon."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, book 2, chapter 5, with foot-note.

"Not having originated out of a Celtic canton, and hence always with a territory of narrow limits, but from the outset composed of Italians and in possession of the full Roman franchise, it [Lyons] stood forth unique in its kind among the communities of the three Gauls—as respects its legal relations, in some measure resembling Washington in the North American federation. … Only the governor of the middle or Lugudunensian province had his seat there; but when emperors or princes stayed in Gaul they as a rule resided in Lyons. Lyons was, alongside of Carthage, the only city of the Latin half of the empire which obtained a standing garrison, after the model of that of the capital. The only mint for imperial money which we can point to with certainty, for the earlier period of the empire, is that of Lyons. Here was the headquarters of the transit-dues which embraced all Gaul; and to this as a centre the Gallic network of roads converged. … Thus Lugudunum rapidly rose into prosperity. … In the later period of the empire, no doubt, it fell behind Treves."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 3.

LYONS: A. D. 500. Under the Burgundians.

See BURGUNDIANS: A. D. 500.

LYONS: 10th Century. In the kingdom of Aries.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 843—933.

LYONS: 12th Century. The Poor Men of Lyons."

See WALDENSES.

LYONS: A. D. 1685-1698. Loss in the silk weaving industry by the Huguenot exodus.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1698.

LYONS: A. D. 1793-1794. Revolt against the Revolutionary government at Paris. Siege and capture and fearful vengeance by the Terrorists.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JUNE), (JULY-DECEMBER); and 1793—1794 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

LYONS: A. D. 1795. Reaction against the Reign of Terror. The White Terror.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

----------LYONS: End----------

LYONS, Battle of (A. D. 197).

See ROME: A. D. 192-284.

LYSIMACHUS, and the wars of the Diadochi.

See MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316, to 297-280.

LYTTON, Lord, The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1876, 1877; and AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.

MAARMORS.

See MORMAERS.

MACÆ, The.

See LIBYANS.

McALLISTER, Fort, The storming of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER: GEORGIA).

MACALO, Battle of (1427).

See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.

MACBETH, King of Scotland: A. D. 1039-1054.

MACCABEES, The.

See JEWS: B. C. 166-40.

MACCIOWICE, Battle of (1794).

See POLAND: A. D. 1793-1796.

McCLELLAN, General George B. Campaign in West Virginia.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JUNE-JULY: WEST VIRGINIA).

McCLELLAN, General George B: Appointment to chief command. Organization of the Army of the Potomac.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

{2057}

McCLELLAN, General George B: Protracted inaction through the winter of 1861-62.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (DECEMBER-MARCH: VIRGINIA).

McCLELLAN, General George B: Peninsular campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH-MAY: VIRGINIA), (JULY-AUGUST: VIRGINIA).

McCLELLAN, General George B: During General Pope's campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-AUGUST: VIRGINIA), to (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER, VIRGINIA).

McCLELLAN, General George B: Antietam Campaign, and removal from command.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER: MARYLAND); and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER: VIRGINIA).

McCLELLAN, General George B: Defeat in Presidential election.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-NOVEMBER).

MACDONALD, Marshal. Campaigns of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL), 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER); GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JULY-SEPTEMBER); 1813 (APRIL-MAY), (AUGUST), (OCTOBER), (OCTOBER-DECEMBER); and RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

MACDONOUGH, Commodore Thomas, and his victory on Lake Champlain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (SEPTEMBER).

McDOWELL, Battle at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862. (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA).

MACE, as a symbol of authority, The.

"The club or mace, formed originally of hard wood, and the latter, subsequently either wholly or in part of metal, would naturally be adopted as one of the earliest weapons of primitive man, but it soon came to be regarded as a symbol of authority. … In the Middle Ages the mace was a common weapon with ecclesiastics, who, in consequence of their tenures, frequently took the field, but were, by a canon of the Church, forbidden to wield the sword. It strikes me as not improbable that in this custom we have the origin of the use of the mace as a symbol of authority by our cathedral and other ancient religious bodies. … In all probability its use by lay corporations may be traced to the corps of sergeants-at-mace, instituted as a body-guard both by Philip Augustus of France and our own Richard I., whilst with the Crusaders in Palestine. We learn that when the former monarch was in the Holy Land he found it necessary to secure his person from the emissaries of a sheik, called 'the Old Man of the Mountain,' who bound themselves to assassinate whomsoever he assigned. 'When the king,' says an ancient chronicler, 'heard of this he began to reflect seriously, and took counsel how he might best guard his person. He therefore instituted a guard of serjeants-à-maces who night and day were to be about his person in order to protect him.' These sergens-à-maces were 'afterwards called sergeants-at-arms, for Jean Bouteiller, … who lived in the time of Charles VI., that is, at the conclusion of the fourteenth century tells us, "The sergens d'armes are the mace-bearers that the king has to perform his duty, and who carry maces before the king; these are called sergeants-at-arms, because they are sergeants for the king's body.'" We learn further that Richard I. of England soon imitated the conduct of the French king, but he seems to have given his corps of sergeants-at-arms a more extensive power. Not only were they to watch round the king's tent in complete armour, with a mace, a sword, a bow and arrows, but were occasionally to arrest traitors and other offenders about the court, for which the mace was deemed a sufficient authority. … Hence, in all probability, was derived the custom of the chief magistrate of a municipality, who, as such, is the representative of the sovereign, being attended by his mace-bearer, as a symbol of the royal authority thus delegated to him."

W. Kelly, The Great Mace (Royal Historical Society Transactions, volume 3).

----------MACEDONIA: Start--------

MACEDONIA AND MACEDONIANS, The.

"The Macedonians of the fourth century B. C. acquired, from the ability and enterprise of two successive kings, a great perfection in Greek military organization, without any of the loftier Hellenic qualities. Their career in Greece is purely destructive, extinguishing the free movement of the separate cities, and disarming the citizen-soldier to make room for the foreign mercenary whose sword was unhallowed by any feelings of patriotism—yet totally incompetent to substitute any good system of central or pacific administration. But the Macedonians of the seventh and sixth centuries B. C. are an aggregate only of rude inland tribes, subdivided into distinct petty principalities, and separated from the Greeks by a wider ethnical difference even than the Epirots; since Herodotus, who considers the Epirotic Molossians and Thesprotians as children of Hellen, decidedly thinks the contrary respecting the Macedonians. In the main, however, they seem at this early period analogous to the Epirots in character and civilization. They had some few towns, but they were chiefly village residents, extremely brave and pugnacious. … The original seats of the Macedonians were in the regions east of the chain of Skardus (the northerly continuation of Pindus)—north of the chain called the Cambunian mountains, which connects Olympus with Pindus, and which forms the north-western boundary of Thessaly; but they did not reach so far eastward as the Thermaic Gulf. … The Macedonian language was different from Illyrian, from Thracian, and seemingly also from Pæonian. It was also different from Greek, yet apparently not more widely distinct than that of the Epirots; so that the acquisition of Greek was comparatively easy to the chiefs and people. … The large and comparatively productive region covered by the various sections of Macedonians, helps to explain that increase of ascendency which they successively acquired over all their neighbours. It was not however until a late period that they became united under one government. At first, each section—how many we do not know—had its own prince or chief. The Elymiots, or inhabitants of Elymeia, the southernmost portion of Macedonia, were thus originally distinct and independent; also the Orestæ, in mountain-seats somewhat north-west of the Elymiots. … The section of the Macedonian name who afterwards swallowed up all the rest and became known as 'The Macedonians' had their original centre at Ægæ or Edessa—the lofty, commanding and picturesque site of the modern Vodhena."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 25 (volume 3).

MACEDONIA: B. C. 508. Subjection to Persia.

See PERSIA: B. C. 521-493.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 383-379. Overthrow of the Olynthian Confederacy by Sparta.

See GREECE: B. C. 383-379.

{2058}

MACEDONIA: B. C. 359-358. Accession and first proceedings of King Philip. His acquisition of Amphipolis.

See GREECE: B. C. 359-358.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 353-336. Philip's conquest of Thessaly. Intervention in the Sacred War. Victory at Chæronea. Mastery of Greece. Preparation to invade Persia. Assassination.

See GREECE: B. C. 357-336.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 351-348. War with the Olynthian Confederacy. Destruction of Olynthus.

See GREECE: B. C. 351-348.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 340. Philip's unsuccessful siege of Byzantium.

See GREECE: B. C. 340.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 336-335. Alexander's campaigns at the north. Revolt and destruction of Thebes.

See GREECE: B. C. 336-335.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 334-330. Invasion and conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander the Great.

Philip of Macedonia fell under the hand of an assassin in the midst of his preparations (B. C. 336) for the invasion of the Persian Empire. He was succeeded by his son, Alexander, who applied himself first, with significant energy, to the chastisement of the troublesome barbarians on his northern frontier, and to the crushing of revolt in Greece (see GREECE: B. C. 336-335). He had not yet been a year on the throne "when he stood forth a greater and more powerful sovereign than his father, with his empire united in the bonds of fear and admiration, and ready to carry out the long premeditated attack of the Greeks on the dominion of the Great king. … He had indeed a splendid army of all branches, heavy infantry, light infantry, slingers and archers, artillery such as the ancients could produce without gunpowder, and cavalry, both Thessalian and Macedonian, fit for both skirmishing and the shock of battle. If its numbers were not above 40,000, this moderate force was surely as much as any commander could handle in a rapid campaign with long marches through a hostile country. … After a Homeric landing on the coast near Ilium, and sacrifices to the Ilian goddess at her ancient shrine, with feasts and games, the king started East to meet the Persian satraps, who had collected their cavalry and Greek mercenary infantry on the plain of Zeleia, behind the river Granicus (B. C. 334). Here he fought his first great battle, and showed the nature of his tactics. He used his heavy infantry, divided into two columns or phalanxes as his left wing, flanked by Thessalian cavalry, to threaten the right of the enemy, and keep him engaged while he delivered his main attack. Developing this movement by a rapid advance in echelonned squadrons thrown forward to the right, threatening to outflank the enemy, he induced them to spread their forces towards their left wing, and so weaken their left centre. No sooner had he succeeded in this than he threw his heavy cavalry on this weak point, and after a very severe struggle in crossing the river, and climbing its rugged banks, he completely broke the enemy's line. … He did not strike straight into Asia, for this would have left it possible for Mentor and Memnon, the able Rhodians who commanded on the coast for Darius, either to have raised all Asia Minor against him, or to have transferred the war back to Macedon. … So then he seized Sardis, the key of all the highroads eastwards; he laid siege to Halicarnassus, which made a very long and stubborn resistance, and did not advance till he had his rear safe from attack. Even with all these precautions, the Persian fleet, under Memnon, was producing serious difficulties, and had not that able general died at the critical moment (B. C. 333), the Spartan revolt, which was put down the following year in Greece, would have assumed serious proportions. Alexander now saw that he could press on, and strike at the headquarters of the enemies' power—Phœnicia and the Great king himself. He crossed the difficult range of the Taurus, the southern bulwark of the Persian Empire, and occupied Cilicia. Even the sea was supposed to have retreated to allow his army to pass along a narrow strand under precipitous cliffs. The Great king was awaiting him with a vast army—grossly exaggerated, moreover, in our Greek accounts—in the plain of Syria, near Damascus. Foolish advisers persuaded him, owing to some delay in Alexander's advance, to leave his favourable position, where the advantage of his hosts of cavalry was clear. He therefore actually crossed Alexander, who had passed on the sea side of Mount Amanus, southward, and occupied Issus on his rear. The Macedonian army was thus cut off from home, and a victory necessary to its very existence. The great battle of Issus was fought on such narrow ground, between the sea and the mountains, that neither side had room for outflanking its opponent, except by occupying the high ground on the inland side of the plain (B. C. 333). This was done by the Persians, and the banks of a little river (the Pinarus) crossing their front were fortified as at the Granicus. Alexander was obliged to advance with a large reserve to protect his right flank. As usual he attacked with his right centre, and as soon as he had shaken the troops opposed to him, wheeled to the left, and made straight for the king himself, who occupied the centre in his chariot. Had Darius withstood him bravely and for some time, the defeat of the Macedonians' left wing would probably have been complete, for the Persian cavalry on the coast, attacking the Thessalians on Alexander's left wing, were decidedly superior, and the Greek infantry was at this time a match for the phalanx. But the flight of Darius, and the panic which ensued about him, left Alexander leisure to turn to the assistance of his hard-pressed left wing, and recover the victory. … The greatness of this victory completely paralyzed all the revolt prepared in his rear by the Persian fleet. Alexander was now strong enough to go on without any base of operation, and he boldly (in the manifesto he addressed to Darius after the battle) proclaimed himself King of' Persia by right of conquest, who would brook no equal. Nevertheless, he delayed many months (which the siege of Tyre [see TYRE: B. C. 332] cost him, B. C. 332), and then, passing through Jerusalem, and showing consideration for the Jews, he again paused at the siege of Gaza [see GAZA: B. C. 332], merely, we may suppose, to prove that he was invincible, and to settle once for all the question of the world's mastery. He delayed again for a short while in Egypt [see EGYPT: B. C. 332], when he regulated the country as a province under his sway, with kindness towards the inhabitants, and respect for their religion, and founded Alexandria; nay, he even here made his first essay in claiming divinity; and then, at last, set out to conquer the Eastern provinces of Darius' empire. {2059} The great decisive battle in the plains of Mesopotamia (B. C. 331)—it is called either Arbela or Gaugamela—was spoken of as a trial of strength, and the enormous number of the Persian cavalry, acting on open ground, gave timid people room to fear; but Alexander had long since found out, what the British have found in their many Eastern wars, that even a valiant cavalry is helpless, if undisciplined, against an army of regulars under a competent commander. … The Macedonian had again, however, failed to capture his opponent, for which he blamed Parmenio. … So then, though the issue of the war was not doubtful, there was still a real and legitimate rival to the throne, commanding the sympathies of most of his subjects. For the present, however, Alexander turned his attention to occupying the great capitals of the Persian empire—capitals of older kingdoms, embodied in the empire. … These great cities, Babylon in Mesopotamia, Susa (Shushan) in Elam, Persepolis in Persia proper, and Ecbatana in Media, were all full of ancient wealth and splendour, adorned with great palaces, and famed for monstrous treasures. The actual amount of gold and silver seized in these hoards (not less than £30,000,000 of English money, and perhaps a great deal more) had a far larger effect on the world than the discovery of gold and silver mines in recent times. Every adventurer in the army became suddenly rich; all the means and materials for luxury which the long civilization of the East had discovered and employed, were suddenly thrown into the hands of comparatively rude and even barbarous soldiers. It was a prey such as the Spaniards found in Mexico and Peru, but had a far stronger civilization, which must react upon the conquerors. And already Alexander showed clear signs that he regarded himself as no mere Macedonian or Greek king, but as the Emperor of the East, and successor in every sense of the unfortunate Darius. He made superhuman efforts to overtake Darius in his retreat from Ecbatana through the Parthian passes to the northern provinces—Balkh and Samarcand. The narrative of this famous pursuit is as wonderful as anything in Alexander's campaign. He only reached the fleeing Persian as he was dying of the wounds dealt him by the traitor Bessus, his satrap in Bactria, who had aspired to the crown (B. C. 330). Alexander signally executed the regicide, and himself married the daughter of Darius—who had no son—thus assuming, as far as possible, the character of Darius' legitimate successor."

J. P. Mahaffy, The Story of Alexander's Empire, chapters 2-3.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapters 49-50 (volume 6).

E. S. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles: Arabela.

T. A. Dodge, Alexander, chapters 18-31.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 330-323. Alexander's conquest of Afghanistan, Bactria and Sogdiana. His invasion of India. His death at Babylon. His character and aims.

"After reducing the country at the south of the Caspian, Alexander marched east and south, through what is now Persia and Afghanistan. On his way he founded the colony of Alexandria Arion, now Herat, an important military position on the western border of Afghanistan. At Prophthasia (Furrah), a little further south, he stayed two months. … Thence he went on eastwards and founded a city, said to be the modern Candahar, and then turned north and crossed the Hindo Koosh mountains, founding another colony near what is now Cabul. Bessus had intended to resist Alexander in Bactria (Balkh), but he fled northwards, and was taken and put to death. Alexander kept on marching northwards, and took Mara Kanda, now Samarcand, the capital of Bokhara (B. C. 329). He crossed the river Jaxartes (Sir), running into the sea of Aral, and defeated the Scythians beyond it, but did not penetrate their country. He intended the Jaxartes to be the northern frontier of his empire. … The conquest of Sogdiana (Bokhara) gave Alexander some trouble, and occupied him till the year B. C. 327. In B. C. 327 Alexander set out from Bactria to conquer India [see INDIA: B. C. 327-312]. … Alexander was as eager for discovery as for conquest; and from the mouth of the Indus he sent his fleet, under the admiral Nearchus, to make their way along the coast to the mouth of the Euphrates. He himself marched westwards with the army through the deserts of Beloochistan, and brought them after terrible sufferings, through thirst, disease, and fatigue, again to Persepolis (B. C. 324). From this he went to Susa, where he stayed some months, investigating the conduct of his satraps, and punishing some of them severely. Since the battle of Arbela, Alexander had become more and more like a Persian king in his way of living, although he did not allow it to interfere with his activity. He dressed in the Persian manner, and took up the ceremonies of the Persian court. The soldiers were displeased at his giving up the habits of Macedonia, and at Susa he provoked them still more by making eighty of his chief officers marry Persian wives. The object of Alexander was to break down distinctions of race and country in his empire, and to abolish the great gulf that there had hitherto been between the Greeks and the Asiatics. He also enrolled many Persians in the regiments which had hitherto contained none but Macedonians, and levied 30,000 troops from the most warlike districts of Asia, whom he armed in the Macedonian manner. Since the voyage of Nearchus, Alexander had determined on an expedition against Arabia by sea, and had given orders for ships to be built in Phœnicia, and then taken to pieces and carried by land to Thapsakus on the Euphrates. At Thapsakus they were to be put together again, and so make their way to Babylon, from which the expedition was to start. In the spring of B. C. 323, Alexander set out from Susa for Babylon. On his journey he was met by embassies from nearly all the States of the known world. At Babylon he found the ships ready: fresh troops had arrived, both Greek and Asiatic; and the expedition was on the point of starting, when Alexander was seized with fever and died (June, B. C. 323). He was only thirty-two years old."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Greece (Primer), chapter 7.

"Three great battles and several great sieges made Alexander master of the Persian empire. And it is worth remark that the immediate results of the three battles, Granikos, Issos, and Gaugamela, coincide with lasting results in the history of the world. The victory of the Granikos made Alexander master of Asia Minor, of a region which in the course of a few centuries was thoroughly hellenized, and which remained Greek, Christian, and Orthodox, down to the Turkish invasions of the 11th century. {2060} The territory which Alexander thus won, the lands from the Danube to Mount Tauros, answered very nearly to the extent of the Byzantine Empire for several centuries, and it might very possibly have been ruled by him, as it was in Byzantine times, from an European centre. The field of Issos gave him Syria and Egypt, lands which the Macedonian and the Roman kept for nearly a thousand years, and which for ages contained, in Alexandria and Antioch, the two greatest of Grecian cities. But Syria and Egypt themselves never became Greek; when they became Christian, they failed to become Orthodox, and they fell away at the first touch of the victorious Saracen. Their government called for an Asiatic or Egyptian capital, but their ruler might himself still have remained European and Hellenic. His third triumph at Gaugamela gave him the possession of the whole East; but it was but a momentary possession: he had now pressed onward into lands where neither Grecian culture, Roman dominion, nor Christian theology proved in the end able to strike any lasting root. … He had gone too far for his original objects. Lasting possession of his conquests beyond the Tigris could be kept only in the character of King of the Medes and Persians. Policy bade him put on that character. We can also fully believe that he was himself really dazzled with the splendour of his superhuman success. … His own deeds had outdone those which were told of any of his divine forefathers or their comrades; Achilleus, Herakles, Theseus, Dionysos, had done and suffered less than Alexander. Was it then wonderful that he should seriously believe that one who had outdone their acts must come of a stock equal to their own? Was it wonderful if, not merely in pride or policy, but in genuine faith, he disclaimed a human parent in Philip, and looked for the real father of the conqueror and lord of earth in the conqueror and lord of the heavenly world? We believe then that policy, passion, and genuine superstition were all joined together in the demand which Alexander made for divine, or at least for unusual, honours. He had taken the place of the Great King, and he demanded the homage which was held to be due to him who held that place. Such homage his barbarian' subjects were perfectly ready to pay; they would most likely have had but little respect for a king who forgot to call for it. But the homage which to a Persian seemed only the natural expression of respect for the royal dignity, seemed to Greeks and Macedonians an invasion of the honour due only to the immortal Gods. … He not only sent round to all the cities of Greece to demand divine honours, which were perhaps not worth refusing, but he ordered each city to bring back its political exiles. This last was an interference with the internal government of the cities which certainly was not warranted by Alexander's position as head of the Greek Confederacy. And, in other respects also, from this unhappy time all the worst failings of Alexander become more strongly developed. … The unfulfilled designs of Alexander must ever remain in darkness; no man can tell what might have been done by one of such mighty powers who was cut off at so early a stage of his career. That he looked forward to still further conquests seems beyond doubt. The only question is, Did his conquests, alike those which were won and those which were still to be won, spring from mere ambition and love of adventure, or is he to be looked on as in any degree the intentional missionary of Hellenic culture? That such he was is set forth with much warmth and some extravagance in a special treatise of Plutarch; it is argued more soberly, but with true vigour and eloquence, in the seventh volume of Bishop Thirlwall. Mr. Grote denies him all merit of the kind."

E. A. Freeman, Alexander (Historical Essays, series 2).

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapters 51-55 (volumes 6-7).

MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-322. Revolt in Greece. The Lamian War. Subjugation of Athens.

See GREECE: B. C. 323-322.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 323-316. The Partition of the Empire of Alexander. First Period of the Wars of the Diadochi or Successors of Alexander.

Alexander "left his wife Roxana pregnant, who at the end of three months brought into the world the rightful heir to the sceptre, Alexander; he left likewise an illegitimate son, Hercules; a bastard half-brother, Arrhidæus; his mother, the haughty and cruel Olympias, and a sister, Cleopatra, both widows; the artful Eurydice, (daughter to Cyane, one of Philip's sisters,) subsequently married to the king, Arrhidæus; and Thessalonica, Philip's daughter, afterwards united to Cassander of Macedonia. The weak Arrhidæus, under the name of Philip, and the infant Alexander, were at last proclaimed kings, the regency being placed in the hands of Perdiccas, Leonnatus, and Meleager; the last of whom was quickly cut off at the instigation of Perdiccas." The provinces of the Empire which Alexander had conquered were now divided between the generals of his army, who are known in history as the Diadochi, that is, the Successors. The division was as follows: "Ptolemy son of Lagus received Egypt [see EGYPT: B. C. 323-30]; Leonnatus, Mysia; Antigonus, Phyrgia, Lycia, and Pamphylia; Lysymachus, Macedonian Thrace; Antipater and Craterus remained in possession of Macedonia. … The remaining provinces either did not come under the new division [see SELEUCIDAE], or else their governors are unworthy of notice,"

A. H. L. Heeren, Manual of Ancient History, page 222.

Meantime, "the body of Alexander lay unburied and neglected, and it was not until two years after his death that his remains were consigned to the tomb. But his followers still shewed their respect for his memory by retaining the feeble Arrhidæus on the throne, and preventing the marriage of Perdiccas with Cleopatra, the daughter of Philip; a union which manifestly was projected to open a way to the throne. But while this project of marriage occupied the attention of the regent, a league had secretly been formed for his destruction; and the storm burst forth from a quarter whence it was least expected. … The barbarous tribes of the Cappadocians and Paphlagonians … asserted their independence after the death of Alexander, and chose Ariarathes for their leader. Perdiccas sent against them Eumenes, who had hitherto fulfilled the peaceful duties of a secretary; and sent orders to Antigonus and Leonatns, the governors of Western Asia, to join the expedition with all their forces. These commands were disobeyed; and Perdiccas was forced to march with the royal army against the insurgents. He easily defeated these undisciplined troops, but sullied his victory by unnecessary cruelty. {2061} On his return he summoned the satraps of Western Asia to appear before his tribunal, and answer for their disobedience. Antigonus, seeing his danger, entered into a league with Ptolemy the satrap of Egypt, Antipater the governor of Macedon, and several other noblemen, to crush the regency. Perdiccas, on the other hand, leaving Eumenes to guard Lower Asia, marched with the choicest divisions of the royal army against Ptolemy, whose craft and ability he dreaded even more than his power. Antipater and Craterus were early in the field; they crossed the Hellespont with the army that had been left for the defence of Macedon. … Seduced by … false information, they divided their forces; Antipater hastening through Phrygia in pursuit of Perdiccas, while Craterus and Neoptolemus marched against Eumenes. They encountered him in the Trojan plain, and were completely defeated. … Eumenes sent intelligence of his success to Perdiccas; but two days before the messenger reached the royal camp the regent was no more. His army, wearied by the long siege of Pelusium, became dissatisfied; their mutinous dispositions were secretly encouraged by the emissaries of Ptolemy … and Perdiccas was murdered in his tent (B. C. 321). … In the meantime a brief struggle for independence had taken place in Greece, which is commonly called the Lamian war [see GREECE: B. C. 323-322]. … As soon as Ptolemy had been informed of the murder of Perdiccas, he came to the royal army with a large supply of wine and provisions. His kindness and courteous manners so won upon these turbulent soldiers, that they unanimously offered him the regency; but he had the prudence to decline so dangerous an office. On his refusal, the feeble Arrhidæus and the traitor Python were appointed to the regency, just as the news arrived of the recent victory of Eumenes. This intelligence filled the royal army with indignation. … They hastily passed a vote proclaiming Eumenes and his adherents public enemies. … The advance of an army to give effect to these decrees was delayed by a new revolution. Eurydice, the wife of Arrhidæus, a woman of great ambition and considerable talent for intrigue, wrested the regency from her feeble husband and Python, but was stripped of power on the arrival of Antipater, who reproached the Macedonians for submitting to the government of a woman; and, being ably supported by Antigonus and Seleucus, obtained for himself the office of regent. No sooner had Antipater been invested with supreme power than he sent Arrhidæus and Eurydice prisoners to Pella, and entrusted the conduct of the war against Eumenes to the crafty and ambitious Antigonus. … Eumenes was unable to cope with the forces sent against him; having been defeated in the open field, he took shelter in Nora, a Cappadocian city, and maintained a vigorous defence, rejecting the many tempting offers by which Antigonus endeavoured to win him to the support of his designs (B. C. 318). The death of Antipater produced a new revolution in the empire; and Eumenes in the meantime escaped from Nora, accompanied by his principal friends. … Antipater, at his death, bequeathed the regency to Polysperchon, excluding his son Cassander from power on account of his criminal intrigues with the wicked and ambitious Eurydice. Though a brave general, Polysperchon had not the qualifications of a statesman; he provoked the powerful resentment of Antigonus by entering into a close alliance with Eumenes; and he permitted Cassander to strengthen himself in southern Greece, where he seized the strong fortress of Munychia. … Polysperchon, unable to drive Cassander from Attica, entered the Peloponnesus to punish the Arcadians, and engaged in a fruitless siege of Megalopolis. In the meantime Olympias, to whom he had confided the government of Macedon, seized Arrhidæus and Eurydice, whom she had murdered in prison. Cassander hasted, at the head of all his forces, to avenge the death of his mistress: Olympias, unable to meet him in the field, fled to Pydna; but the city was forced to surrender after a brief defence, and Olympias was immediately put to death. Among the captives were Roxana the widow, Alexander Ægus the posthumous son, and Thessalonica the youngest daughter, of Alexander the Great. Cassander sought and obtained the hand of the latter princess, and thus consoled himself for the loss of his beloved Eurydice. By this marriage he acquired such influence, that Polysperchon did not venture to return home, but continued in the Peloponnesus, where he retained for some time a shadow of authority over the few Macedonians who still clung to the family of Alexander. In Asia, Eumenes maintained the royal cause against Antigonus, though deserted by all the satraps, and harassed by the mutinous dispositions of his troops, especially the Argyraspides, a body of guards that Alexander had raised to attend his own person, and presented with the silver shields from which they derived their name. After a long struggle, both armies joined in a decisive engagement; the Argyraspides broke the hostile infantry, but learning that their baggage had in the meantime been captured by the light troops of the enemy, they mutinied in the very moment of victory, and delivered their leader, bound with his own sash, into the hands of his merciless enemy (B. C. 315). The faithful Eumenes was put to death by the traitorous Antigonus; but he punished the Argyraspides for their treachery."

W. C. Taylor, The Student's Manual of Ancient History, chapter 11, section 3.

ALSO IN: P. Smith, History of the World: Ancient, chapter 17 (volume 2).

G. Grote, History of Greece, chapter 96 (volume 12).

See, also, GREECE: B. C. 321-312.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 315-310. The first league and war against Antigonus. Extermination of the heirs of Alexander.

"Antigonus was now unquestionably the most powerful of the successors of Alexander the Great. As master of Asia, he ruled over those vast and rich lands that extended from India to the Mediterranean Sea. … Although nearly seventy years old, and blind in one eye, he still preserved the vigor of his forces. … He was fortunate in being assisted by a son, the famous Demetrius, who, though possessed of a very passionate nature, yet from early youth displayed wonderful military ability. Above all, the prominent representatives of the royal family had disappeared, and there remained only the youthful Alexander, Herakles, the illegitimate son of Alexander the Great, who had no lawful claim whatever to the sovereignty, and two daughters of Philip, Kleopatra, who lived at Sardis, and Thessalonike, whom Kassander had recently married—none of whom were sufficiently strong to assert their rights to the throne. {2062} Thus Antigonus seemed indeed destined to become vicar and master of the entire Alexandrian kingdom, and to restore the unity of the empire. But not only was this union not realized, but even the great realm which Antigonus had established in Asia was doomed to inevitable destruction. The generals who possessed the various satrapies of the empire could not bear his supremacy, and accordingly entered into a convention, which gradually ripened into an active alliance against him. The principal organ of this movement was Seleukus, who, having escaped to Ptolemy of Egypt, first of all persuaded the latter to form an alliance—which Kassander of Macedonia and Lysimachus of Thrace readily joined—against the formidable power of Antigonus. The war lasted for four years, and was carried on in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Its fortunes were various [the most noteworthy event being a bloody defeat inflicted upon Demetrius the son of Antigonus, by Ptolemy, at Gaza, in 312], but the result was not decisive. … In 311 B. C. a compact was made between Antigonus on one side, and Kassander, Ptolemy, and Lysimachus on the other, whereby 'the supreme command in Europe was guaranteed to Kassander, until the maturity of Alexander, son of Roxana; Thrace being at the same time assured to Lysimachus, Egypt to Ptolemy, and the whole of Asia to Antigonus. It was at the same time covenanted by all that the Hellenic cities should be free.' Evidently this peace contained the seeds of new disputes and increasing jealousies. The first act of Kassander was to cause the death of Roxana and her child in the fortress of Amphipolis, where they had been confined; and thus disappeared forever the only link which apparently maintained the union of the empire, and a ready career now lay open to the ambition of the successors. Again, the name of Seleukus was not even mentioned in the peace, while it was well known at the time it was concluded that he had firmly established his rule over the eastern satrapies of Asia. … The troops also of Antigonus, notwithstanding the treaty, still remained in Hellas, under command of his nephew Ptolemy. Ptolemy of Egypt, therefore, accusing Antigonus of having contravened the treaty by garrisoning various Hellenic cities, renewed the war and the triple alliance against him." A series of assassinations soon followed, which put out of the way the young prince Herakles, bastard son of Alexander the Great, and Kleopatra, the sister of Alexander, who was preparing to wed Ptolemy of Egypt when Antigonus brought about her murder, to prevent the marriage. Another victim of the jealousies that were rife among the Diadochi was Antigonus' nephew Ptolemy, who had deserted his uncle's side, but who was killed by the Egyptian Ptolemy. "For more than ten years … Antigonus, Ptolemy, Lysimachus, and Kassander successively promised to leave the Greeks independent, free, and unguarded; but the latter never ceased to be guarded, taxed, and ruled by Macedonian despots. We may, indeed, say that the cities of Hellas never before had suffered so much as during the time when such great promises were made about their liberty. The Ætolians alone still possessed their independence. Rough, courageous, warlike, and fond of freedom, they continued fighting against the Macedonian rule."

T. T. Timayenis, History of Greece, part 9, chapter 5 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. P. Mahaffy, Story of Alexander's Empire, chapters 5-6.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301. Demetrius Poliorcetes at Athens. His siege of Rhodes. The last combination against Antigonus. His defeat and death at Ipsus. Partition of his dominions.

After the war which was renewed in 310 B. C. had lasted three years, "Antigonus' resolved to make a vigorous effort to wrest Greece from the hands of Cassander and Ptolemy, who held all the principal towns in it. Accordingly, in the summer of 307 B. C., he despatched his son Demetrius from Ephesus to Athens, with a fleet of 250 sail, and 5,000 talents in money. Demetrius, who afterwards obtained the surname of 'Poliorcetes,' or 'Besieger of Cities,' was a young man of ardent temperament and great abilities. Upon arriving at the Piræus, he immediately proclaimed the object of his expedition to be the liberation of Athens and the expulsion of the Macedonian garrison. Supported by the Macedonians, Demetrius the Phalerean had now ruled Athens for a period of more than ten years. … During the first period of his administration he appears to have governed wisely and equitably, to have improved the Athenian laws, and to have adorned the city with useful buildings. But in spite of his pretensions to philosophy, the possession of uncontrolled power soon altered his character for the worse, and he became remarkable for luxury, ostentation, und sensuality. Hence he gradually lost the popularity which he had once enjoyed. … The Athenians heard with pleasure the proclamations of the son of Antigonus; his namesake, the Phalerean, was obliged to surrender the city to him, and to close his political career by retiring to Thebes. … Demetrius Poliorcetes then formally announced to the Athenian assembly the restoration of their ancient constitution, and promised them a large donative of corn and ship-timber. This munificence was repaid by the Athenians with the basest and most abject flattery

See GREECE: B. C. 307-197.

… Demetrius Poliorcetes did not remain long at Athens. Early in 306 B. C. he was recalled by his father, and, sailing to Cyprus, undertook the siege of Salamis. Ptolemy hastened to its relief with 140 vessels and 10,000 troops. The battle that ensued was one of the most memorable in the annals of ancient naval warfare, more particularly on account of the vast size of the vessels engaged. Ptolemy was completely defeated; and so important was the victory deemed by Antigonus, that on the strength of it he assumed the title of king, which he also conferred upon his son. This example was followed by Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Lysimachus. Encouraged by their success at Cyprus, Antigonus and Demetrius made a vain attempt upon Egypt, which, however, proved a disastrous failure. By way of revenge, Demetrius undertook an expedition against Rhodes, which had refused its aid in the attack upon Ptolemy. It was from the memorable siege of Rhodes that Demetrius obtained his name of Poliorcetes. … After a year spent in the vain attempt to take the town, Demetrius was forced to retire and grant the Rhodians peace.

See RHODES: B. C. 305-304.

{2063}

Whilst Demetrius was thus employed, Cassander had made great progress in reducing Greece. He had taken Corinth, and was besieging Athens, when Demetrius entered the Euripus. Cassander immediately raised the siege, and was subsequently defeated in an action near Thermopylae. When Demetrius entered Athens he was received as before with the most extravagant flatteries. He remained two or three years in Greece, during which his superiority over Cassander was decided, though no great battle was fought. In the spring of 301 B. C. he was recalled by his father Antigonus, who stood in need of his assistance against Lysimachus and Seleucus. In the course of the same year the struggle between Antigonus and his rivals was brought to a close by the battle of Ipsus in Phrygia, in which Antigonus was killed, and his army completely defeated. Antigonus had attained the age of 81 at the time of his death. Demetrius retreated with the remnant of the army to Ephesus, whence he sailed to Cyprus, and afterwards proposed to go to Athens; but the Athenians, alienated by his ill-fortune at Ipsus, refused to receive him."

W. Smith, History of Greece, chapter 45.

"After the battle [of Ipsus] it remained for the conquerors to divide the spoil. The dominions of Antigonus were actually in the hands of Seleucus and Lysimachus, and they alone had achieved the victory. It does not appear that they consulted either of their allies on the partition, though it seems that they obtained the assent of Cassander. They agreed to share all that Antigonus had possessed between themselves. It is not clear on what principle the line of demarcation was drawn, nor is it possible to trace it. But the greater part of Asia Minor was given to Lysimachus. The portion of Seleucus included not only the whole country between the coast of Syria and the Euphrates, but also, it seems, a part of Phrygia and of Cappadocia. Cilicia was assigned to Cassander's brother Pleistarchus. With regard to Syria however a difficulty remained. The greater part of it had … been conquered by Ptolemy: Tyre and Sidon alone were still occupied by the garrisons of Antigonus. Ptolemy had at least as good a right as his ally to all that he possessed. … Seleucus however began to take possession of it, and when Ptolemy pressed his claims returned an answer, mild in sound, but threatening in its import … : and it appears that Ptolemy was induced to withdraw his opposition. There were however also some native princes [Ardoates in Armenia, and Mithridates, son of Ariobarzanes, in Pontus—see MITHRIDATIC WARS] who had taken advantage of the contests between the Macedonian chiefs to establish their authority over extensive territories in the west of Asia. … So far as regards Asia, the battle of Ipsus must be considered as a disastrous event. Not because it transferred the power of Antigonus into different hands, nor because it would have been more desirable that he should have triumphed over Seleucus. But the new distribution of territory led to calamitous consequences, which might perhaps otherwise have been averted. If the empire of Seleucus had remained confined between the Indus and the Euphrates, it might have subsisted much longer, at least, as a barrier against the inroads of the barbarians, who at last obliterated all the traces of European civilisation left there by Alexander and his successors. But shortly after his victory, Seleucus founded his new capital on the Orontes, called, after his father, Antiochia, peopling it with the inhabitants of Antigonia. It became the residence of his dynasty, and grew, while their vast empire dwindled into the Syrian monarchy. For the prospects of Greece, on the other hand, the fall of Antigonus must clearly be accounted an advantage, so far as the effect was to dismember his territory, and to distribute it so that the most powerful of his successors was at the greatest distance. It was a gain that Macedonia was left an independent kingdom, within its ancient limits, and bounded on the north by a state of superior strength. It does not appear that any compact was made between Cassander and his allies as to the possession of Greece. It was probably understood that he should keep whatever he might acquire there."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 59 (volume 7).

ALSO IN: B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History, lectures 86-87 (volume 3).

MACEDONIA: B. C. 297-280. Death of Casander. Intrigues of Ptolemy Keraunos. Overthrow and death of Lysimachus. Abdication and death of Ptolemy. Murder of Seleucus. Seizure of the Macedonian crown by Keraunos.

"Casander died of disease (a rare end among this seed of dragon's teeth) in 297 B. C., and so the Greeks were left to assert their liberty, and Demetrius to machinate and effect his establishment on the throne of Macedonia, as well as to keep the world in fear and suspense by his naval forces, and his preparations to reconquer his father's position. Lysimachus, Seleucus, and Ptolemy were watching one another, and alternating in alliance and in war. All these princes, as well as Demetrius and Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, were connected in marriage; they all married as many wives as they pleased, apparently without remonstrance from their previous consorts. So the whole complex of the warring kings were in close family relations. … Pyrrhus was now a very rising and ambitions prince; if not in alliance with Demetrius, he was striving to extend his kingdom of Epirus into Macedonia, and would doubtless have succeeded, but for the superior power of Lysimachus. This Thracian monarch, in spite of serious reverses against the barbarians of the North, who took both him and his son prisoners, and released them very chivalrously, about this time possessed a solid and secure kingdom, and moreover an able and righteous son, Agathocles, so that his dynasty might have been established, but for the poisonous influence of Arsinoe, the daughter of Ptolemy, whom he, an old man, had married in token of an alliance after the battle of Ipsus. … The family quarrel which upset the world arose in this wise. To seal the alliance after Ipsus, old king Ptolemy sent his daughter Arsinoe to marry his rival and friend Lysimachus, who, on his side, had sent his daughter, another Arsinoe, in marriage to the younger Ptolemy (Philadelphus). This was the second son of the great Ptolemy, who had chosen him for the throne in preference to his eldest son, Keraunos, a man of violent and reckless character, who accordingly left the country, and went to seek his fortune at foreign courts. Meanwhile the old Ptolemy, for safety's sake, installed his second son as king of Egypt during his own life, and abdicated at the age of 83 [B. C. 283], full of honours, nor did he leave the court, where he appeared as a subject before his son as king. Keraunos naturally visited, in the first instance, the Thracian court, where he not only had a half sister (Arsinoe) queen, but where his full sister, Lysandra, was married to the crown prince, the gallant and popular Agathocles; but Keraunos and the queen conspired against this prince; they persuaded old Lysimachus that he was a traitor, and so Keraunos was directed to put him to death. {2064} This crime caused unusual excitement and odium all through the country, and the relations and party of the murdered prince called on Seleucus to avenge him. He did so, and advanced with an army against Lysimachus, whom he defeated and slew in a great battle, somewhere not far from the field of Ipsus. It was called the plain of Coron (B. C. 281). Thus died the last but one of Alexander's Companions, at the age of 80, he, too, in battle. Ptolemy was already laid in his peaceful grave (B. C. 283). There remained the last and greatest, the king of Asia, Seleucus. He, however, gave up all his Asiatic possessions from the Hellespont to the Indus to his son Antiochus, and meant to spend his last years in the home of his fathers, Macedonia; but as he was entering that kingdom he was murdered by Keraunos, whom he brought with him in his train. This bloodthirsty adventurer was thus left with an army which had no leader, in a kingdom which had no king; for Demetrius' son, Antigonus, the strongest claimant, had not yet made good his position. All the other kings, whose heads were full with their newly acquired sovereignties, viz., Antiochus in Asia and Ptolemy II. in Egypt, joined with Keraunos in buying off the dangerous Pyrrhus [king of Epirus—see ROME: B. C. 282-275], by bribes of men, money, and elephants, to make his expedition to Italy, and leave them to settle their affairs. The Greek cities, as usual, when there was a change of sovereign in Macedonia, rose and asserted what they were pleased to call their liberty, so preventing Antigonus from recovering his father's dominions. Meanwhile Keraunos established himself in Macedonia; he even, like our Richard, induced the queen, his step-sister, his old accomplice against Agathocles, to marry him! but it was only to murder her children by Lysimachus, the only dangerous claimants to the Thracian provinces. The wretched queen fled to Samothrace, and thence to Egypt, where she ended her guilty and chequered career as queen of her full brother Ptolemy II. (Philadelphus), and was deified during her life! Such then was the state of Alexander's Empire in 280 B. C. All the first Diadochi were dead, and so were even the sons of two of them, Demetrius and Agathocles. The son of the former was a claimant for the throne of Macedonia, which he acquired after long and doubtful struggles. Antiochus, who had long been regent of the Eastern provinces beyond Mesopotamia, had come suddenly, by his father's murder, into possession of so vast a kingdom, that he could not control the coast of Asia Minor, where sundry free cities and dynasts sought to establish themselves. Ptolemy II. was already king of Egypt, including the suzerainty of Cyrene, and had claims on Palestine and Syria. Ptolemy Keraunos, the double-dyed villain and murderer, was in possession of the throne of Macedonia, but at war with the claimant Antigonus. Pyrrhus of Epirus was gone to conquer a new kingdom in the West. Such was the state of things when a terrible new scourge [the invasion of the Gauls] broke over the world."

J. P. Mahaffy, The Story of Alexander's Empire, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 60 (volume 8).

MACEDONIA: B. C. 280-279. Invasion by the Gauls. Death of Ptolemy Keraunos.

See GAULS: B. C. 280-279.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 277-244. Strife for the throne. Failures of Pyrrhus. Success of Antigonus Gonatus. His subjugation of Athens and Corinth.

"On the retirement of the Gauls, Antipater, the nephew of Cassander, came forward for the second time, and was accepted as king by a portion, at any rate, of the Macedonians. But a new pretender soon appeared upon the scene. Antigonus Gonatus, the son of Demetrius Poliorcetes, who had maintained himself since that monarch's captivity as an independent prince in Central or Southern Hellas, claimed the throne once filled by his father, and, having taken into his service a body of Gallic mercenaries, defeated Antipater and made himself master of Macedonia. His pretensions being disputed by Antiochus Soter, the son of Seleucus, who had succeeded to the throne of Syria, he engaged in war with that prince, crossing into Asia and uniting his forces with those of Nicomedes, the Bithynian king, whom Antiochus was endeavouring to conquer. To this combination Antiochus was forced to yield: relinquishing his claims, he gave his sister, Phila, in marriage to Antigonus, and recognised him as king of Macedonia. Antigonus upon this fully established his power, repulsing a fresh attack of the Gauls. … But he was not long left in repose. In B. C. 274, Pyrrhus finally quitted Italy, having failed in all his schemes, but having made himself a great reputation. Landing in Epirus with a scanty force, he found the condition of Macedonia and of Greece favourable to his ambition. Antigonus had no hold on the affections of his subjects, whose recollections of his father, Demetrius, were unpleasing. The Greek cities were, some of them, under tyrants, others occupied against their will by Macedonian garrisons. Above all, Greece and Macedonia were full of military adventurers, ready to flock to any standard which offered them a fair prospect of plunder. Pyrrhus, therefore, having taken a body of Celts into his pay, declared war against Antigonus, B. C. 273, and suddenly invaded Macedonia. Antigonus gave him battle, but was worsted, owing to the disaffection of his soldiers, and being twice defeated became a fugitive and a wanderer. The victories of Pyrrhus, and his son Ptolemy, placed the Macedonian crown upon the brow of the former, who might not improbably have become the founder of a great power, if he could have turned his attention to consolidation, instead of looking out for fresh conquests. But the arts and employments of peace had no charm for the Epirotic knight-errant. Hardly was he settled in his seat when, upon the invitation of Cleonymus of Sparta, he led an expedition into the Peloponnese, and attempted the conquest of that rough and difficult region. Repulsed from Sparta, which he had hoped to surprise, he sought to cover his disappointment by the capture of Argos; but here he was still more unsuccessful. Antigonus, now once more at the head of an army, watched the city, prepared to dispute its occupation, while the lately threatened Spartans hung upon the invader's rear. {2065} In a desperate attempt to seize the place by night, the adventurous Epirote was first wounded by a soldier and then slain by the blow of a tile, thrown from a housetop by an Argive woman, B. C. 271. On the death of Pyrrhus the Macedonian throne was recovered by Antigonus, who commenced his second reign by establishing his influence over most of the Peloponnese, after which he was engaged in a long war with the Athenians (B. C. 268 to 263), who were supported by Sparta and by Egypt [see ATHENS: B. C. 288-263]. These allies rendered, however, but little help; and Athens must have soon succumbed, had not Antigonus been called away to Macedonia by the invasion of Alexander, son of Pyrrhus. This enterprising prince carried, at first, all before him, and was even acknowledged as Macedonian king; but ere long Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, having defeated Alexander near Derdia, re-established his father's dominion over Macedon, and, invading Epirus, succeeded in driving the Epirotic monarch out of his paternal kingdom. The Epirots soon restored him; but from this time he remained at peace with Antigonus, who was able once more to devote his undivided attention to the subjugation of the Greeks. In B. C. 263 he took Athens, and rendered himself complete master of Attica; and, in B. C. 244, … he contrived by a treacherous stratagem to obtain possession of Corinth. But at this point his successes ceased. A power had been quietly growing up in a corner of the Peloponnese [the Achaian League—see GREECE: B. C. 280-146] which was to become a counterpoise to Macedonia, and to give to the closing scenes of Grecian history an interest little inferior to that which had belonged to its earlier pages."

G. Rawlinson, Manual of Ancient History, pages 261-263.

ALSO IN: B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient History, lectures 100-102.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 214-168. The Roman conquest. Extinction of the kingdom.

See GREECE: B. C. 214-146.

MACEDONIA: B. C. 205-197. Last relations with the Seleucid empire.

See SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187.

Slavonic occupation.

See SLAVONIC PEOPLES: 6-7TH CENTURIES.

----------MACEDONIA: End----------

MACEDON IAN DYNASTY, The.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 820-1057.

MACEDONIAN PHALANX.

See PHALANX, MACEDONIAN.

MACEDONIAN WARS, The.

See GREECE: B. C. 214-146.

MACERATA, Battle of (1815).

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1815.

McHENRY, Fort, The bombardment of, by the British.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

MACHICUIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

MACHINE, Political.

See STALWARTS.

MACK, Capitulation of, at Ulm.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (MARCH-DECEMBER).

MACKENZIE, William Lyon, and the Canadian Rebellion.

See CANADA: A. D.1837; and 1837-1838.

----------MACKINAW: Start--------

MACKINAW (MICHILLIMACKINAC): Discovery and first Jesuit Mission.

See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673.

MACKINAW: Rendezvous of the Coureurs de Bois.

See COUREURS DE BOIS.

MACKINAW: A. D. 1763. Captured by the Indians.

See PONTIAC'S WAR.

----------MACKINAW: End--------

McKINLEY TARIFF ACT, The.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1890.

McLEOD CASE, The.

See CANADA: A. D. 1840-1841.

MacMAHON, Marshal, President of the French Republic, A. D. 1873-1879.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1871-1876; and 1875-1889.

MACON, Fort, Capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-APRIL: NORTH CAROLINA).

McPHERSON, General: Death in the Atlanta campaign.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY: GEORGIA); and (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA).

MACRINUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 217-218.

MACUSHI, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CARIBS AND THEIR KINDRED.

MADAGASCAR: A. D. 1882-1883. French claims and demands enforced by war.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1875-1889.

MADEIRA ISLAND, Discovery of.

In the year 1419, Joham Gonçalvez Zarco and Tristam Vaz, "seeing from Porto Santo something that seemed like a cloud, but yet different (the origin of so much discovery, noting the difference in the likeness), built two boats, and, making for this cloud, soon found themselves alongside a beautiful island, abounding in many things, but most of all in trees, on which account they gave it the name of Madeira (wood)."

A. Helps, Spanish Conquest, book 1, chapter 1.

MADISON, James, and the framing and adoption of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787; 1787-1789.

Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1808 to 1817.

MADRAS: A. D. 1640. The founding of the city.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

MADRAS: A. D. 1746-1748. Taken by the French. Restored to England.

See INDIA: A. D. 1743-1752.

MADRAS: A. D. 1758-1759. Unsuccessful siege by the French.

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

----------MADRID: Start--------

MADRID: A. D. 1560. Made the capital of Spain by Philip II.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1559-1563.

MADRID: A. D. 1706-1710. Taken and retaken by the French and Austrian claimants of the crown.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1706; and 1707-1710.

MADRID: A. D. 1808. Occupied by the French. Popular insurrection.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1807-1808.

MADRID: A. D. 1808. Arrival of Joseph Bonaparte, as king, and his speedy flight.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).

MADRID: A. D. 1808 (December). Recovery by the French. Return of King Joseph Bonaparte.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

MADRID: A. D. 1812. Evacuation by the French. Occupation of the city by Wellington and his army.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-AUGUST).

MADRID: A. D. 1823. Again occupied by the French.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1814-1827.

{2066}

MADRID, The Treaty of (1526).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1525-1526.

----------MADRID: End--------

MÆATÆ, The.

A common or national name given by the Romans to the tribes in Scotland which dwelt between the Forth and the Clyde, next to "the wall."

MÆOTIS PALUS, PALUS MÆOTIS.

The ancient Greek name of the body of water now called the Sea of Azov.

----------MAESTRICHT: Start--------

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1576. The Spanish Fury.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577.

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1579. Spanish siege, capture and massacre.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581.

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1632. Siege and capture by the Dutch.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1621-1633.

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1673. Siege and capture by Vauban and Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674.

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1676. Unsuccessfully besieged by William of Orange.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1678. Restored to Holland.

See NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1748. Taken by the French and restored to Holland.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1747; and AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, CONGRESS AND TREATY.

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1793. Unsuccessful siege by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).

MAESTRICHT: A. D. 1795. Ceded to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY).

----------MAESTRICHT: End--------

MAFRIAN.

See JACOBITE CHURCH.

MAGADHA, The kingdom of.

See INDIA: B. C. 327-312; and 312—.

MAGDALA, Capture of (1868).

See ABYSSINIA: A. D. 1854-1889.

MAGDEBURG: A. D. 1631. Siege, storming, and horrible sack and massacre by the troops of Tilly.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1630-1631.

MAGELLAN, Voyage of.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524.

MAGENTA, Battle of (1859).

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859.

MAGESÆTAS, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.

MAGIANS. MAGI.

The priesthood of the ancient Iranian religion—the religion of the Avesta and of Zarathrustra, or Zoroaster—as it existed among the Medes and Persians. In Eastern Iran the priests were called Athravas. In Western Iran "they are not called Athravas, but Magush. This name is first found in the inscription which Darius caused to be cut on the rock-wall of Behistun; afterwards it was consistently used by Western writers, from Herodotus to Agathias, for the priests of Iran."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 8 (volume 5).

"The priests of the Zoroastrians, from a time not long subsequent to Darius Hystaspis, were the Magi. This tribe, or caste, originally perhaps external to Zoroastrianism, had come to be recognised as a true priestly order; and was entrusted by the Sassanian princes with the whole control and direction of the religion of the state. Its chief was a personage holding a rank but very little inferior to the king. He bore the title of 'Tenpet,' 'Head of the Religion,' or 'Movpetan Movpet,' 'Head of the Chief Magi.'"

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 28.

"To the whole ancient world Zoroaster's lore was best known by the name of the doctrine of the Magi, which denomination was commonly applied to the priests of India, Persia, and Babylonia. The earliest mention of them is made by the prophet Jeremiah (xxxix. 3), who enumerated among the retinue of King Nebuchadnezzar at his entry into Jerusalem, the 'Chief of the Magi' ('rab mag' in Hebrew), from which statement we may distinctly gather that the Magi exercised a great influence at the court of Babylonia 600 years B. C. They were, however, foreigners, and are not to be confounded with the indigenous priests. … The name Magi occurs even in the New Testament. In the Gospel according to St. Matthew (ii. 1), the Magi (Greek 'magoi,' translated in the English Bible by 'wise men') came from the East to Jerusalem, to worship the new-born child Jesus at Bethlehem. That these Magi were priests of the Zoroastrian religion, we know from Greek writers."

M. Haug, Essays on the Religion of the Parsis, 1.

See, also, ZOROASTRIANS.

MAGNA CARTA.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1215.

MAGNA GRÆCIA.

"It was during the height of their prosperity, seemingly, in the sixth century B. C., that the Italic Greeks [in southern Italy] either acquired for, or bestowed upon, their territory the appellation of Magna Græcia, which at that time it well deserved; for not only were Sybaris and Kroton then the greatest Grecian cities situated near together, but the whole peninsula of Calabria may be considered as attached to the Grecian cities on the coast. The native Œnotrians and Sikels occupying the interior had become hellenised, or semi-hellenised, with a mixture of Greeks among them—common subjects of these great cities."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 22.

On the Samnite conquest of Magna Græcia

See SAMNITES.

MAGNANO, Battle of (1799).

See FRANCE: A. D, 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

MAGNATÆ, The.

See IRELAND, TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

MAGNESIA.

The eastern coast of Thessaly was anciently so called. The Magnetes who occupied it were among the people who became subject to the Thessalians or Thesprotians, when the latter came over from Epirus and occupied the valley of the Peneus.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 3.

Two towns named Magnesia in Asia Minor were believed to be colonies from the Magnetes of Thessaly. One was on the south side of the Meander; the other, more northerly, near the river Harmus.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 13.

MAGNESIA, Battle of (B. C. 190).

See SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187.

MAGNUS I., King of Denmark, A. D. 1042-1047.

Magnus I. (called The Good), King of Norway, 1035-1047.

Magnus I., King of Sweden, 1275-1290.

Magnus II., King of Norway, 1066-1069.

Magnus II., King of Sweden, 1319-1350, and 1359-1363; and VII. of Norway, 1319-1343.

Magnus III., King of Norway, 1093-1103.

Magnus IV., King of Norway, 1130-1134.

Magnus V., King of Norway, 1162-1186.

Magnus VI., King of Norway, 1263-1280.

{2067}

MAGYARS, The.

See HUNGARIANS.

MAHARAJA.

See RAJA.

MAHDI, Al, Caliph, A. D. 775-785.

MAHDI, The.

"The religion of Islam acknowledges the mission of Jesus, but not His divinity. Since the Creation, it teaches, five prophets had appeared before the birth of Mahomet—Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus—each being greater than his predecessor, and each bringing a fuller and higher revelation than the last. Jesus ranks above all the prophets of the old dispensation, but below those of the new, inaugurated by Mahomet. In the final struggle He will be but the servant and auxiliary of a more august personage—the Mahdi. The literal meaning of the word Mahdi is not, as the newspapers generally assert, 'He who leads,' a meaning more in consonance with European ideas, but 'He who is led.' … If he leads his fellow-men it is because he alone is the 'well-guided one,' led by God—the Mahdi. The word Mahdi is only an epithet which may be applied to any prophet, or even to any ordinary person; but used as a proper name it indicates him who is 'well-guided' beyond all others, the Mahdi 'par excellence,' who is to end the drama of the world, and of whom Jesus shall only be the vicar. … The Koran does not speak of the Mahdi, but it seems certain that Mahomet must have announced him. … The idea of the Mahdi once formed, it circulated throughout the Mussulman world: we will follow it rapidly in its course among the Persians, the Turks, the Egyptians, and the Arabs of the Soudan; but without for an instant pretending to pass in review all the Mahdis who have appeared upon the prophetic stage; for their name is Legion."

J. Darmesteter, The Mahdi, Past and Present, chapters 1-2.

See, also, ISLAM; ALMOHADES; and EGYPT: A. D. 1870-1883, and 1884-1885.

MAHDIYA: Taken by the Moorish Corsair, Dragut, and retaken by the Spaniards (1550).

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.

MAHMOUD I., Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1730-1754.

Mahmoud II., Turkish Sultan, 1808-1839.

Mahmoud, the Afghan, Shah of Persia, 1722-1725.

Mahmoud, the Gaznevide, The Empire of.

See TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.

----------MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: Start--------

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632. The Mission of the Prophet.

Mahomet (the usage of Christendom has fixed this form of the name Mohammad) was born at Mecca, on or about the 20th day of August, A. D. 570. He sprang from "the noblest race in Mecca and in Arabia [the tribe of Koreish and the family of Hashem]. To his family belonged the hereditary guardianship of the Kaaba and a high place among the aristocracy of his native city. Personally poor, he was raised to a position of importance by his marriage with the rich widow Khadijah, whose mercantile affairs he had previously conducted. In his fortieth year he began to announce himself as an Apostle of God, sent to root out idolatry, and to restore the true faith of the preceding Prophets, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. Slowly and gradually he makes converts in his native city; his good wife Khadijah, his faithful servant Zeyd, are the first to recognize his mission; his young cousin, the noble Ali, the brave and generous and injured model of Arabian chivalry, declares himself his convert and Vizier; the prudent, moderate and bountiful Abu-Bekr acknowledges the pretensions of the daring innovator. Through mockery and persecution the Prophet keeps unflinchingly in his path; no threats, no injuries, hinder him from still preaching to his people the unity and the righteousness of God, and exhorting to a far purer and better morality than had ever been set before them. He claims no temporal power, no spiritual domination; he asks but for simple toleration, for free permission to win men by persuasion into the way of truth. … As yet at least his hands were not stained with blood, nor his inner life with lust."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 2.

After ten years of preaching at Mecca, and of a private circulation and repetition of the successive Suras or chapters of the Koran, as the prophet delivered them, Mahomet had gained but a small following, while the opposition to his doctrines and pretensions had gained strength. But in A. D. 620 (he being then fifty years of age) he gained the ear of a company of pilgrims from Medina and won them to his faith. Returning home, they spread the gospel of Islam among their neighbors, and the disciples at Medina were soon strong enough in numbers to offer protection to their prophet and to his persecuted followers in Mecca. As the result of two pledges, famous in Mahometan history, which were given by the men of Medina to Mahomet, in secret meetings at the hill of Acaba, a general emigration of the adherents of the new faith from Mecca to Medina took place in the spring of the year 622. Mahomet and his closest friend, Abu Bakr, having remained with their families until the last, escaped the rage of the Koreish, or Coreish, only by a secret flight and a concealment for three days in a cave on Mount Thaur, near Mecca. Their departure from the cave of Thaur, according to the most accepted reckoning, was on the 20th of June, A. D. 622. This is the date of the Hegira, or flight, or emigration of Mahomet from Mecca to Medina. The Mahometan Era of the Hegira, "though referring 'par excellence' to the flight of the Prophet, … is also applicable to all his followers who emigrated to Medina prior to the capture of Mecca; and they are hence called Muhâjirîn, i. e., the Emigrants, or Refugees. We have seen that they commenced to emigrate from the beginning of Moharram (the first month of the Hegira era) two months before." The title of the Muhâjirîn, or Refugees, soon became an illustrious one, as did that of the Ansar, or Allies, of Medina, who received and protected them. At Medina Mahomet found himself strongly sustained. Before the year of his flight ended, he opened hostilities against the city which had rejected him, by attacking its Syrian caravans. The attacks were followed up and the traffic of Mecca greatly interfered with, until January, 624, when the famous battle of Bedr, or Badr, was fought, and the first great victory of the sword of Islam achieved. {2068} The 300 warriors of Bedr formed "the peerage of Islam." From this time the ascendancy of Mahomet was rapidly gained, and assumed a political as well as a religious character. His authority was established at Medina and his influence spread among the neighboring tribes. Nor was his cause more than temporarily depressed by a sharp defeat which he sustained, January, 625, in battle with the Koreish at Ohod. Two years later Medina was attacked and besieged by a great force of the Koreish and other tribes of Arabs and Jews, against the latter of whom Mahomet, after vainly courting their adhesion and recognition, had turned with relentless hostility. The siege failed and the retreat of the enemy was hastened by a timely storm. In the next year Mahomet extorted from the Koreish a treaty, known as the Truce of Hodeibia, which suspended hostilities for ten years and permitted the prophet and his followers to visit Mecca for three days in the following year. The pilgrimage to Mecca was made in the holy month, February, 629, and in 630 Mahomet found adherents enough within the city and outside of it to deliver the coveted shrine and capital of Arabia into his hands. Alleging a breach of the treaty of peace, he marched against the city with an army of 10,000 men, and it was surrendered to him by his obstinate opponent, Abu Sofiân, who acknowledged, at last, the divine commission of Mahomet and became a disciple. The idols in the Kaaba were thrown down and the ancient temple dedicated to the worship of the one God. The conquest of Mecca was followed within no long time by the submission of the whole Arabic peninsula. The most obstinate in resisting were the great Bedouin tribe of the Hawazin, in the hill country, southeast of Mecca, with their kindred, the Bani Thackif. These were crushed in the important battle of Honein, and their strong city of Tayif was afterwards taken. Before Mahomet died, on the 8th June, A. D. 632, he was the prince as well as the prophet of Arabia, and his armies, passing the Syrian borders, had already encountered the Romans, though not gloriously, in a battle fought at Muta, not far from the Dead Sea.

Sir W. Muir, Life of Mahomet.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 50.

J. W. H. Stobart, Islam and its Founder, chapters 3-9.

W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, chapters 6-39.

R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Arabs, part 1, chapters 1-3.

See, also, ISLAM, and ERA, MAHOMETAN.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-639. Abu Bekr. Omar. The founding of the Caliphate. Conquest of Syria.

The death of Mahomet left Islam without a head. The Prophet had neither named a successor (Khalif or Caliph), nor had he instituted a mode in which the choice of one should be made. His nephew and son-in-law—"the Bayard of Islam," the lion-hearted Ali—seemed the natural heir of that strangely born sovereignty of the Arab world. But its elders and chiefs were averse to Ali, and the assembly which they convened preferred, instead, the Prophet's faithful friend, the venerable Abu Bekr. This first of the caliphs reigned modestly but two years, and on his death, July, A. D. 634, the stern soldier Omar was raised to the more than royal place. By this time the armies of the crescent were already far advanced beyond the frontiers of Arabia in their fierce career of conquest. No sooner had Abu Bekr, in 632, set his heel on some rebellious movements, which threatened his authority, than he made haste to open fields in which the military spirit and ambitions of his unquiet people might find full exercise. With bold impartiality he challenged, at once, and alike, the two dominant powers of the eastern world, sending armies to invade the soil of Persia, on one hand, and the Syrian provinces of the Roman empire, on the other. The invincible Khaled, or Caled, led the former, at first, but was soon transferred to the more critical field, which the latter proved to be. "One of the fifteen provinces of Syria, the cultivated lands to the eastward of the Jordan, had been decorated by Roman vanity with the name of 'Arabia'; and the first arms of the Saracens were justified by the semblance of a national right." The strong city of Bosra was taken, partly through the treachery of its commander, Romanus, who renounced Christianity and embraced the faith of Islam. From Bosra the Moslems advanced on Damascus, but suspended the siege of the city until they had encountered the army which the Emperor Heraclius sent to its relief. This they did on the field of Aiznadin, in the south of Palestine, July 30, A. D. 634, when 50,000 of the Roman-Greeks and Syrians are said to have perished, while but 470 Arabs fell. Damascus was immediately invested and taken after a protracted siege, which Voltaire has likened to the siege of Troy, on account of the many combats and stratagems—the many incidents of tragedy and romance—which poets and historians have handed down, in some connection with its progress or its end. The ferocity of Khaled was only half restrained by his milder colleague in command, Abu Obeidah, and the wretched inhabitants of Damascus suffered terribly at his hands. The city, itself, was spared and highly favored, becoming the Syrian capital of the Arabs. Heliopolis (Baalbec) was besieged and taken in January, A. D. 636; Emessa surrendered soon after. In November, 636, a great and decisive battle was fought with the forces of Heraclius at Yermuk, or Yermouk, on the borders of Palestine and Arabia. The Christians fought obstinately and well, but they were overwhelmed with fearful slaughter. "After the battle of Yermuk the Roman army no longer appeared in the field; and the Saracens might securely choose, among the fortified towns of Syria, the first object of their attack. They consulted the caliph whether they should march to Cæsarea or Jerusalem; and the advice of Ali determined the immediate siege of the latter. … After Mecca and Medina, it was revered and visited by the devout Moslems as the temple of the Holy Land, which had been sanctified by the revelation of Moses, of Jesus, and of Mahomet himself." The defense of Jerusalem, notwithstanding its great strength, was maintained with less stubbornness than that of Damascus had been. After a siege of four months, in the winter of A. D. 637, the Christian patriarch or bishop of Jerusalem, who seems to have been first in authority, proposed to give up the Holy City, if Omar, the caliph, would come in person from Medina to settle and sign the terms of surrender. Omar deemed the prize worthy of this concession and made the long journey, travelling as simply as the humblest pilgrim and entering Jerusalem on foot. {2069} After this, little remained to make the conquest of all Syria complete. Aleppo was taken, but not easily, after a siege, and Antioch, the splendid seat of eastern luxury and wealth, was abandoned by the emperor and submitted, paying a great ransom for its escape from spoliation and the sword. The year 639 saw Syria at the feet of the Arabs whom it had despised six years before, and the armies of the caliph were ready to advance to new fields, east, northwards, and west.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 51.

ALSO IN: W. Irving, Mahomet and His Successors, volume 2, chapters 3-23.

S. Ockley, History of the Saracens: Abubeker.

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapters 2, 11, 19-21.

See, also, JERUSALEM: A. D. 637; and TYRE: A. D. 638.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651. Conquest of Persia.

During the invasion of Syria, Abu Bekr, the first of the Caliphs, sent an expedition towards the Euphrates, under command of the redoubtable Khaled (633). The first object of its attack was Hira, a city on the western branch of the Euphrates, not far from modern Kufa. Hira was the seat of a small kingdom of Christian Arabs tributary to Persia and under Persian protection and control. Its domain embraced the northern part of that fertile tract between the desert and the Euphrates which the Arab writers call Sawad; the southern part being a Persian province of which the capital, Obolla, was the great emporium of the Indian trade. Hira and Obolla were speedily taken and this whole region subdued. But, Khaled being then transferred to the army in Syria, the Persians regained courage, while the energy of the Moslems was relaxed. In an encounter called the Battle of the Bridge, A. D. 635, the latter experienced a disastrous check; but the next year found them more victorious than ever. The great battle of Cadesia (Kadisiyeh) ended all hope in Persia of doing more than defend the Euphrates as a western frontier. Within two years even that hope disappeared. The new Arab general, Sa'ad Ibn Abi Wakas, having spent the interval in strengthening his forces, and in founding the city of Busrah, or Bassora, below the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris, as well as that of Kufa, which became the Moslem capital, advanced into Mesopotamia, A. D. 637, crossing the river without opposition. The Persian capital, Ctesiphon, was abandoned to him so precipitately that most of its vast treasures fell into his hands. It was not until six months later that the Persians and Arabs met in battle, at Jalula, and the encounter was fatal to the former, 100,000 having perished on the field. "By the close of the year A. D. 637 the banner of the Prophet waved over the whole tract west of Zagros, from Nineveh almost to Susa." Then a brief pause ensued. In 641 the Persian king Isdigerd—last of the Sassanian house—made a great, heroic effort to recover his lost dominions and save what remained. He staked all and lost, in the final battle of Nehavend, which the Arabs called "Fattah-hul-Futtuh," or "Victory of Victories." "The defeat of Nehavend terminated the Sassanian power. Isdigerd indeed, escaping from Rei, and flying continually from place to place, prolonged an inglorious existence for the space of ten more years—from A. D. 641 to A. D. 651; but he had no longer a kingdom. Persia fell to pieces on the occasion of 'the victory of victories,' and made no other united effort against the Arabs. Province after province was occupied by the fierce invaders; and, at length, in A. D. 651, their arms penetrated to Merv, where the last scion of the house of Babek had for some years found a refuge. … The order of conquest seems to have been the following: Media, Northern Persia, Rhagiana, Azerbijan, Gurgan, Tantrist, and Khorassan in A. D. 642; Southern Persia, Kerman, Seistan, Mekran, and Kurdistan in A. D. 643; Merv, Balkh, Herat, and Kharezm in A. D. 650 or 652."

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 26, and foot-notes.

ALSO IN: W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, volume 2, chapters 25-34.

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapters 10-18, 25-26.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 640-646. Conquest of Egypt.

"It was in the nineteenth or twentieth year of the Hegira [A. D. 640 or 641] that Amru, having obtained the hesitating consent of the Caliph, set out from Palestine for Egypt. His army, though joined on its march by bands of Bedouins lured by the hope of plunder, did not at the first exceed 4,000 men. Soon after he had left, Omar, concerned at the smallness of his force, would have recalled him; but finding that he had already gone too far to be stopped, he sent heavy reinforcements, under Zobeir, one of the chief Companions, after him. The army of Amru was thus swelled to an imposing array of from 12,000 to 16,000 men, some of them warriors of renown. Amru entered Egypt by Arish, and overcoming the garrison at Faroma [ancient Pelusium], turned to the left and so passed onward through the desert, reaching thus the easternmost of the seven estuaries of the Nile. Along this branch of the river he marched by Bubastis towards Upper Egypt,"—and, so, to Heliopolis, near to the great ancient city of Misr, or Memphis. Here, and throughout their conquest of Egypt, the Moslem invaders appear to have found some goodwill towards them prevailing among the Christians of the Jacobite sect, who had never become reconciled to the Orthodox Greeks. Heliopolis and Memphis were surrendered to their arms after some hard fighting and a siege of no long duration. "Amru lost no time in marching upon Alexandria so as to reach it before the Greek troops, hastily called in from the outlying garrisons, could rally there for its defence. On the way he put to flight several columns which sought to hinder his advance; and at last presented himself before the walls of the great city, which, offering (as it still does) on the land side a narrow and well-fortified front, was capable of an obstinate resistance. Towards the sea also it was open to succour at the pleasure of the Byzantine Court. But during the siege Heraclius died, and the opportunity of relief was supinely allowed to slip away." In the end Alexandria capitulated and was protected from plunder (see LIBRARIES, ANCIENT: ALEXANDRIA), paying tribute to the conquerors. "Amru, it is said, wished to fix his seat of government at Alexandria, but Omar would not allow him to remain so far away from his camp, with so many branches of the Nile between. So he returned to Upper Egypt. A body of the Arabs crossed the Nile and settled in Ghizeh, on the western bank—a movement which Omar permitted only on condition that a strong fortress was constructed there to prevent the possibility of their being surprised and cut off. {2070} The headquarters of the army were pitched near Memphis. Around them grew up a military station, called from its origin Fostat, or 'the Encampment.' It expanded rapidly into the capital of Egypt, the modern Cairo. … This name 'Cahira,' or City of the Victory, is of later date [see below: A. D. 908-1171]. … Zobeir urged Amru to enforce the right of conquest, and divide the land among his followers. But Amru refused; and the Caliph, as might have been expected, confirmed the judgment. 'Leave the land of Egypt,' was his wise reply, 'in the people's hands to nurse and fructify.' As elsewhere, Omar would not allow the Arabs to become proprietors of a single acre. Even Amru was refused ground whereupon to build a mansion for himself. … So the land of Egypt, left in the hands of its ancestral occupants, became a rich granary for the Hejaz, even as in bygone times it had been the granary of Italy and the Byzantine empire. … Amru, with the restless spirit of his faith, soon pushed his conquests westward beyond the limits of Egypt, established himself in Barca, and reached even to Tripoli. … Early in the Caliphate of Othman [A. D. 646] a desperate attempt was made to regain possession of Alexandria. The Moslems, busy with their conquests elsewhere, had left the city insufficiently protected. The Greek inhabitants conspired with the Court; and a fleet of 300 ships was sent under command of Manuel, who drove out the garrison and took possession of the city. Amru hastened to its rescue. A great battle was fought outside the walls: the Greeks were defeated, and the unhappy town was subjected to the miseries of a second and a longer siege. It was at last taken by storm and given up to plunder. … The city, though still maintaining its commercial import, fell now from its high estate. The pomp and circumstance of the Moslem Court were transferred to Fostat, and Alexandria ceased to be the capital of Egypt."

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapter 24, with foot-note.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 51.

W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, volume 2, chapters 24 and 35.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 644. Assassination of Caliph Omar.

The death of Omar, the second of the Caliphs, was a violent one. "It occurred in November, A. D. 644. One day a slave who worked for his master at the carpenter's bench came to see the Commander of the Faithful, and complained to him of being overworked, and badly treated by the citizen that owned him. Omar listened attentively, but arriving at the conclusion that the charges were false, sternly dismissed the carpenter to his bench. The man retired, vowing to be revenged. The following day was Friday, 'the day of the Assembly.' Omar, as usual, went to lead the prayers of the assembly in the great mosque. He opened his mouth to speak. He had just said 'Allah,' when the keen dagger of the offended slave was thrust into his back, and the Commander of the Faithful fell on the sacred floor, fatally wounded. The people, in a perfect frenzy of horror and rage, fell upon the assassin, but with superhuman strength he threw them off, and rushing about in the madness of despair he killed some and wounded others, and finally turning the point of his dagger to his own breast, fell dead. Omar lingered several days in great agony, but he was brave to the end. His dying words were, 'Give to my successor this parting bequest, that he be kind to the men of this city, Medina, which gave a home to us, and to the Faith. Tell him to make much of their virtues, and to pass lightly over their faults. Bid him also treat well the Arab tribes, for verily they are the backbone of Islam. Moreover, let him faithfully fulfil the covenants made with the Christians and the Jews! O Allah! I have finished my course! To him that cometh after me, I leave the kingdom firmly established and at peace!' Thus perished one of the greatest Princes the Mohammedans were ever to know. Omar was truly a great and good man, of whom any country and any creed might be proud."

J. J. Pool, Studies in Mohammedanism, pages 58-59.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 647-709. Conquest of northern Africa.

"While Egypt was won almost without a blow, Latin Africa [northern Africa beyond Egypt] took sixty years to conquer. It was first invaded under Othman in 647, but Carthage was not subdued till 698, nor was the province fully reduced for eleven years longer. And why? Doubtless because Africa contained two classes of inhabitants, not over-friendly to each other, but both of whom had something to lose by a Saracenic conquest. The citizens of Carthage were Roman in every sense, their language was Latin, their faith was orthodox; they had no wrongs beyond those which always afflict provincials under a despotism; wrongs not likely to be alleviated by exchanging a Christian despot at Constantinople for an infidel one at Medina or Damascus. Beyond them, in the inland provinces, were the native Moors, barbarians, and many of them pagans; they had fought for their rude liberty against the Cæsars, and they had no intention of surrendering it to the Caliphs. Romans and Moors alike long preferred the chances of the sword to either Koran or tribute; but their ultimate fate was different. Latin civilization and Latin Christianity gradually disappeared by the decay and extermination of their votaries. The Moors, a people not unlike the Arabs in their unconverted state, were at last content to embrace their religion, and to share their destinies and their triumphs. Arabs and Moors intermingled went on to further conquests; and the name of the barbarian converts was more familiarly used in Western Europe to denote the united nation than the terrible name of the original compatriots of the Prophet."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 3.

"In their climate and government, their diet and habitation, the wandering Moors resembled the Bedoweens of the desert. With the religion they were proud to adopt the language, name, and origin of Arabs; the blood of the strangers and natives was insensibly mingled; and from the Euphrates to the Atlantic the same nation might seem to be diffused over the sandy plains of Asia and Africa. Yet I will not deny that 50,000 tents of pure Arabians might be transported over the Nile and scattered through the Libyan desert; and I am not ignorant that five of the Moorish tribes still retain their barbarous idiom, with the appellation and character of 'white' Africans."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 51.

"By 647 the Barbary coast was overrun up to the gates of Roman Carthage; but the wild Berber population was more difficult to subdue than the luxurious subjects of the Sasanids of Persia or the Greeks of Syria and Egypt. Kayrawan was founded as the African capital in 670; Carthage fell in 693, and the Arabs pushed their arms as far as the Atlantic. From Tangier they crossed into Spain in 710."

S. Lane-Poole, The Mohammadan Dynasties, page 5.

ALSO IN: W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, volume 2, chapters 35, 44, 54-55.

R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Arabs, part 1, chapters 1-3.

See, also, CARTHAGE: A. D. 698; and MOROCCO.

{2071}

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 661. Accession of the Omeyyads.

Abu Bekr, the immediate successor of Mahomet, reigned but two years, dying August, A. D. 634. By his nomination, Omar was raised to the Caliphate and ruled Islam until 644, when he was murdered by a Persian slave. His successor was Othman, who had been the secretary of the Prophet. The Caliphate of Othman was troubled by many plots and increasing disaffection, which ended in his assassination, A. D. 656. It was not until then that Ali, the nephew and son-in-law of Mahomet, was permitted to take the Prophet's seat. But the dissensions in the Moslem world had grown more bitter as the fields of ambitious rivalry were widened, and the factions opposed to Ali were implacable, "Now begins the tragic tale of the wrongs and martyrdoms of the immediate family of the Prophet. The province of Syria was now ruled by the crafty Moawiyah, whose father was Abu-Sofian, so long the bitterest enemy of Mahomet, and at last a tardy and unwilling proselyte. … Such was the parentage of the man who was to deprive the descendants of the Apostle of their heritage. Moawiyah gave himself out as the avenger of Othman; Ali was represented as his murderer, although his sons, the grandsons of the Prophet, had fought, and one of them received a wound, in the defence of that Caliph. … Ayesha, too, the Mother of the Faithful, Telha and Zobeir, the Prophet's old companions, revolted on their own account, and the whole of the brief reign of Ali was one constant succession of civil war." Syria adhered to Moawiyah. Ayesha, Zobeir and Telha gained possession of Bussorah and made that city their headquarters of rebellion. They were defeated there by Ali in a great battle, A. D. 656, called the Battle of the Camel, because the litter which bore Ayesha on the back of a camel became the center of the fight. But he gained little from the success; nor more from a long, indecisive battle fought with Moawiyah at Siffin, in July, A. D. 657. Amru, the conqueror of Egypt, had now joined Moawiyah, and his influence enlisted that great province in the revolt. At last, in 661, the civil war was ended by the assassination of Ali. His eldest son, Hassan, who seems to have been a spiritless youth, bargained away his claims to Moawiyah, and the latter became undisputed Caliph, founding a dynasty called that of the Ommiades, or Omeyyads (from Ommiah, or Omeyya, the great grandfather of Moawiyah), which occupied the throne for almost a century—not at Medina, but at Damascus, to which city the Caliphate was now transferred. "In thus converting the Caliphate into an hereditary monarchy he utterly changed its character. It soon assumed the character of a common oriental empire. … The Ommiads were masters of slaves instead of leaders of freemen; the public will was no longer consulted, and the public good as little; the Commander of the Faithful sank into an earthly despot, ruling by force, like any Assyrian conqueror of old. The early Caliphs dwelt in the sacred city of Medina, and directed the counsels of the Empire from beside the tomb of the Prophet. Moawiyah transferred his throne to the conquered splendours of Damascus; and Mecca and Medina became tributary cities to the ruler of Syria. At one time a rival Caliph, Abdallah, established himself in Arabia; twice were the holy cities taken by storm, and the Kaaba itself was battered down by the engines of the invaders. … Such a revolution however did not effect itself without considerable opposition. The partizans of the house of Ali continued to form a formidable sect. In their ideas the Vicarship of the Prophet was not to be, like an earthly kingdom, the mere prize of craft or of valour. It was the inalienable heritage of the sacred descendants of the Prophet himself. … This was the origin of the Shiah sect, the assertors of the rights of Ali and his house."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 3.

ALSO IN: Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapters 31-46.

R. D. Osborn, Islam Under the Arabs, part 3.

S. Lane-Poole, The Mohammadan Dynasties, pages 9-11.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 680. The Tragedy at Kerbela.

When Ali, or Aly, the nephew and son-in-law of Mahomet, had been slain, A. D. 661, and the Caliphate had been seized by Moawiyah, the first of the Ommiades, "the followers of 'Aly proclaimed his elder son, Hasan, Khalif; but this poor-spirited youth was contented to sell his pretensions to the throne. … On his death, his brother Hoseyn became the lawful Khalif in the eyes of the partisans of the House of 'Aly, who ignored the general admission of the authority of the 'Ommiades.' … For a time Hoseyn remained quietly at Medina, leading a life of devotion, and declining to push his claims. But at length an opportunity for striking a blow at the rival House presented itself, and Hoseyn did not hesitate to avail himself of it. He was invited to join an insurrection which had broken out at Kufa [A. D. 680], the most mutinous and fickle of all the cities of the empire; and he set out with his family and friends, to the number of 100 souls, and an escort of 500 horsemen, to join the insurgents. As he drew nigh to Kufa, he discovered that the rising had been suppressed by the 'Ommiade' governor of the city, and that the country round him was hostile instead of loyal to him. And now there came out from Kufa an army of 4,000 horse, who surrounded the little body of travellers [on the plain of Kerbela], and cut them off alike from the city and the river. … A series of single combats, in which Hoseyn and his followers displayed heroic courage, ended in the death of the Imam and the men who were with him, and the enslaving of the women and children."

S. Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, chapter 7.

"The scene [of the massacre of Hosein and his band] … is still fresh as yesterday in the mind of every Believer, and is commemorated with wild grief and frenzy as often as the fatal day, the Tenth of the first month of the year [tenth of Moharram—October 10], comes round. … The tragedy of Kerbala decided not only the fate of the Caliphate, but of Mahometan kingdoms long after the Caliphate had waned and disappeared. … The tragedy is yearly represented on the stage as a religious ceremony"—in the "Passion Play" of the Moharram Festival.

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapter 49, with foot-note.

See, also, ISLAM.

{2072}

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 668-675. First repulse from Constantinople.

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 668-675.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 710. Subjugation of the Turks.

"After the fall of the Persian kingdom, the river Oxus divided the territories of the Saracens and of the Turks: This narrow boundary was soon overleaped by the spirit of the Arabs; the governors of Chorassan extended their successive inroads; and one of their triumphs was adorned with the buskin of a Turkish queen, which she dropped in her precipitate flight beyond the hills of Bochara. But the final conquest of Transoxana, as well as of Spain, was reserved for the glorious reign of the inactive Walid; and the name of Catibah, the camel-driver, declares the origin and merit of his successful lieutenant. While one of his colleagues displayed the first Mahometan banner on the banks of the Indus, the spacious regions between the Oxus, the Jaxartes, and the Caspian sea were reduced by the arms of Catibah to the obedience of the prophet and of the caliph. A tribute of two millions of pieces of gold was imposed on the infidels; their idols were burned or broken; the Mussulman chief pronounced a sermon in the new mosch [mosque] of Carizme; after several battles the Turkish hordes were driven back to the desert; and the emperors of China solicited the friendship of the victorious Arabs. To their industry the prosperity of the province, the Sogdiana of the ancients, may in a great measure be ascribed; but the advantages of the soil and climate had been understood and cultivated since the reign of the Macedonian kings. Before the invasion of the Saracens, Carizme, Bochara, and Samarcand were rich and populous under the yoke of the shepherds of the North."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 51.

ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 3.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 711-713. Conquest of Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.

------------------------------------ [Page 2073 and 2074 are placed here to avoid interrupting the next article, "The repulse from Gaul.".]

SEVENTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

A.D. 602. Revolt in Constantinople; fall and death of Maurice; accession of Phocas.

604. Death of Pope Gregory the Great. Death of St. Augustine of Canterbury. [Uncertain date.]

608. Invasion of Asia Minor by Chosroes II., king of Persia.

610. Death of the Eastern Emperor Phocas; accession of Heraclius. Venetia ravaged by the Avars.

614. Invasion of Syria by Chosroes II.; capture of Damascus.

615. Capture of Jerusalem by Chosroes; removal of the supposed True Cross.

616. First expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Advance of the Persians to the Bosphorus.

622. The flight of Mahomet from Mecca (the Hegira). Romans under Heraclius victorious over the Persians.

626. Siege of Constantinople by Persians and Avars.

627. Victory of Heraclius over Chosroes of Persia, at Nineveh. Conversion of Northumbria to Christianity.

628. Recovery of Jerusalem and of the supposed True Cross, from the Persians, by Heraclius.

630. Submission of Mecca to the Prophet.

632. Death of Mahomet; Abu Bekr chosen caliph.

634. Death of Abu Bekr; Omar chosen caliph. Battle of Hieromax or Yermuk; Battle of the Bridge. [Uncertain date.] Defeat of Heraclius. Compilation and arrangement of the Koran. [Uncertain date.]

635. Siege and capture of Damascus by the Mahometans; invasion of Persia; victory at Kadisiyeh. [Uncertain date.] Defeat of the Welsh by the English in the battle of the Heavenfield.

636. Mahometan subjugation of Syria; retreat of the Romans.

637. Siege and conquest of Jerusalem by the Moslems; their victories in Persia.

639. Publication of the Ecthesis of Heraclius.

640. Capture of Cæsarea by the Moslems; invasion of Egypt by Amru.

641. Death of the Eastern Emperor Heraclius; three rival emperors; accession of Constans II. Victory at Nehavend and final conquest of Persia by the Mahometans; end of the Sassanian kingdom; capture of Alexandria, [Uncertain date.] founding of Cairo.

643. Publication of the Lombard Code of Laws.

644. Assassination of Omar; Othman chosen caliph.

646. Alexandria recovered by the Greeks and lost again.

648. Publication by Constans II. of the edict called "The Type."

649. Mahometan invasion of Cyprus.

650. Conquest of Merv, Balkh, and Herat by the Moslems. [Uncertain date.]

652. Conversion of the East Saxons in England.

653. Seizure and banishment of Pope Martin I. by the Emperor Constans II.

656. Murder of Caliph Othman; Ali chosen caliph; rebellion of Moawiyah; civil war; Battle of the Camel.

657. Ali's transfer of the seat of government to Kufa.

658. Syria abandoned to Moawiyah; Egypt in revolt.

661. Assassination of Ali; Moawiyah, first of the Omeyyads, made caliph; Damascus his capital.

663. Visit of the Emperor Constans to Rome.

668. Assassination of Constans at Syracuse; [Uncertain date.] accession of Constantine IV. to the throne of the Eastern Empire. Beginning of the siege of Constantinople by the Saracens.

670. The founding of Kairwan, or Kayrawan. [Uncertain date.]

673. First Council of the Anglo-Saxon Church, at Hereford. Birth of the Venerable Bede [Uncertain date.] (died 735).

677. The raising of the siege of Constantinople; treaty of peace. [Uncertain date.]

680. Sixth General Council of the Church, at Constantinople; condemnation of the Monothelite heresy. Massacre at Kerbela of Hoseyn, son of Ali, and his followers.

685. Death of the Eastern Emperor, Constantine IV., and accession of Justinian II. The Angles of Northumbria, under King Ecgfrith, defeated by the Picts at Nectansmere.

687. Battle of Testri; victory of Pippin of Heristal over the Neustrians.

695. Fall and banishment of Justinian II.

696. Founding of the bishopric of Salzburg.

697. Election of the first Doge of Venice.

698. Conquest and destruction of Carthage by the Moslems. [Uncertain date]

EIGHTH CENTURY.

CONTEMPORANEOUS EVENTS.

A.D. 704. Recovery of the throne by the Eastern Emperor Justinian II.

705. Accession of the Caliph Welid.

709. Accession of Roderick to the Gothic throne in Spain.

711. Invasion of Spain by the Arab-Moors. Moslem conquest of Transoxiana and Sardinia. Final fall and death of the Eastern Emperor Justinian II.

712. Surrender of Toledo to the Moslem invaders of Spain.

717. Elevation of Leo the Isaurian to the throne of the Eastern Empire. Second siege of Constantinople by the Moslems. Great defeat of the Moslems at the Cave of Covadonga in Spain.

718. Victory of Charles Martel at Soissons; his authority acknowledged in both Frankish kingdoms.

719. Mahometan conquest and occupation of Narbonne.

721. Siege of Toulouse; defeat of the Moslems.

725. Mahometan conquests in Septimania.

726. Iconoclastic edicts of Leo the Isaurian; tumult and insurrection in Constantinople.

731. Death of Pope Gregory II.; election of Gregory III.; last confirmation of a Papal election by the Eastern Emperor.

732. Great defeat of the Moslems by the Franks under Charles Martel at Poitiers, or Tours. Council held at Rome by Pope Gregory III.; edict against the Iconoclasts.

733. Practical termination of Byzantine imperial authority.

735. Birth of Alcuin (died 804).

740. Death of Leo the Isaurian, Emperor in the East; accession of Constantine V.

741. Death of Charles Martel. Death of Pope Gregory III.; election of Zacharias.

742. Birth of Charlemagne (died 814).

744. Defeat of the Saxons by Carloman; their forced baptism. Death of Liutprand, king of the Lombards.

747. The Plague in Constantinople. Pippin the Short made Mayor in both kingdoms of the Franks.

750. Fall of the Omeyyad dynasty of caliphs and rise of the Abbassides.

751. Extinction of the Exarchate of Ravenna by the Lombards.

752. End of the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings; assumption of the crown by Pippin the Short. Death of Pope Zacharias; election of Stephen II.

754. First invasion of Italy by Pippin the Short. Rome assailed by the Lombards.

755. Subjugation of the Lombards by Pippin; his donation of temporalities to the Pope. Martyrdom of Saint Boniface in Germany.

756. Founding of the caliphate of Cordova by Abderrahman.

757. Death of Pope Stephen II.; election of Paul I.

758. Accession of Offa, king of Mercia.

759. Loss of Narbonne, the last foothold of the Mahometans north of the Pyrenees.

763. Founding of the capital of the Eastern Caliphs at Bagdad. [Uncertain date.]

767. Death of Pope Paul I.; usurpation of the anti-pope, Constantine.

768. Conquest of Aquitaine by Pippin the Short. Death of Pippin; accession of Charlemagne and Carloman. Deposition of the anti-pope Constantine; election of Pope Stephen III.

771. Death of Carloman, leaving Charlemagne sole king of the Franks.

772. Charlemagne's first wars with the Saxons. Death of Pope Stephen III.; election of Hadrian I.

774. Charlemagne's acquisition of the Lombard kingdom; his enlargement of the donation of temporalities to the Pope. Forgery of the "Donation of Constantine." [Uncertain date.]

775. Death of the Eastern Emperor Constantine V.; accession of Leo IV.

778. Charlemagne's invasion of Spain; the "dolorous rout" of Roncesvalles.

780. Death of the Eastern Emperor Leo IV.; accession of Constantine VI.; regency of Irene.

781. Italy and Aquitaine formed into separate kingdoms by Charlemagne.

785. Great struggle of the Saxons against Charlemagne; submission of Wittikind.

786. Accession of Haroun al Raschid in the eastern caliphate.

787. Seventh General Council of the Church (Second Council of Nicæa). First incursions of the Danes in England.

788. Subjugation of the Bavarians by Charlemagne. Death of Abderrahman.

790. Composition of the Caroline books. [Uncertain date.]

791. Charlemagne's first campaign against the Avars.

794. Accession of Cenwulf, king of Mercia.

795. Death of Pope Hadrian I.; election of Leo III.

797. Deposition and blinding of the Eastern Emperor Constantine VI., by his mother Irene.

800. Imperial coronation of Charlemagne; revival of the Empire. Accession of Ecgberht, king of Wessex, the first king of all the English.

-------------------------------------

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-732. The repulse from Gaul.

"The deeds of Musa [in Africa and Spain] had been performed 'in the evening of his life,' but, to borrow the words of Gibbon, 'his breast was still fired with the ardor of youth, and the possession of Spain was considered as only the first step to the monarchy of Europe. With a powerful armament by sea and land, he was preparing to pass the Pyrenees, to extinguish in Gaul the declining kingdoms of the Franks and Lombards, and to preach the unity of God on the altar of the Vatican. Thence, subduing the barbarians of Germany, he proposed to follow the course of the Danube from its source to the Euxine Sea, to overthrow the Greek or Roman empire of Constantinople, and, returning from Europe to Asia, to unite his new acquisitions with Antioch and the provinces of Syria.' This vast enterprise … was freely revolved by the successors of Musa. In pursuance of it, El Haur, the new lieutenant of the califs, assailed the fugitive Goths in their retreats in Septimania (715-718). El Zamah, who succeeded him, crossed the mountains, and, seizing Narbonne, expelled the inhabitants and settled there a colony of Saracens (719). The following year they passed the Rhone, in order to extend their dominion over Provence, but, repelled by the dukes and the militia of the country, turned their forces toward Toulouse (721). Eudo, Duke of Aquitain, bravely defending his capital, brought on a decisive combat. … El Zamah fell. The carnage among his retreating men then became so great that the Arabs named the passage from Toulouse to Carcassone the Road of Martyrs (Balat al Chouda). Supporting their terrible reverses with the characteristic resignation of their race and faith, the Arabs were still able to retain a hold of Narbonne and of other fortresses of the south, and, after a respite of four years, spent in recruiting their troops from Spain and Africa, to resume their projects of invasion and pillage in Gaul (725). Under the Wali Anbessa, they ascended the Rhone as far as the city of Lyons, devastating the towns and the fields. … When, … at the close of his expeditions, Anbessa perished by the hands of the Infidels, all the fanaticism of the Mussulman heart was aroused into an eager desire for revenge. His successor, Abd-el-Rahman, a tried and experienced general, energetic and heroic as he was just and prudent, … entered into elaborate preparations for the final conquest of Gaul. For two years the ports of Syria, Egypt, and Africa swarmed with departing soldiery, and Spain resounded with the calls and cries to arms (727-729)." The storm broke first on Aquitaine, and its valiant Duke Eudes, or Eudo, rashly meeting the enemy in the open field, in front of Bordeaux, suffered an irretrievable defeat (May, 731). Bordeaux was stormed and sacked, and all Aquitaine was given up to the ravages of the unsparing Moslem host. Eudes fled, a helpless fugitive, to his enemies the Franks, and besought the aid of the great palace-mayor, Karl Martel, practical sovereign of the Frankish kingdoms, and father of the Pippin who would soon become king in name as well as in fact. But, not for Aquitaine, only, but for all Gaul, all Germany,—all Christendom in Europe,—Karl and his Franks were called on to rally and do battle against the sons of the desert, whose fateful march of conquest seemed never to end. "'During all the rest of the summer, the Roman clarions and the German horns sounded and groaned through all the cities of Neustria and Austrasia, through the rustic palaces of the Frankish leudes, and in the woody gaus of western Germany.' … Meanwhile, Abel-el-Rahman, laden with plunder and satiated with blood, had bent his steps toward the southwest, where he concentrated his troops on the banks of the Charente. Enriched and victorious as he was, there was still an object in Gaul which provoked alike the cupidity and the zeal of his followers. This was the Basilica of St. Martin of Tours, the shrine of the Gallic Christians, where the richest treasures of the Church were collected, and in which the profoundest veneration of its members centred. He yearned for the pillage and the overthrow of this illustrious sanctuary, and, taking the road from Poitiers, he encountered the giants of the North in the same valley of the Vienne and Clain where, nearly three hundred years before, the Franks and the Wisigoths had disputed the supremacy of Gaul. There, on those autumn fields, the Koran and the Bible—Islamism and Christianity—Asia and Europe—stood face to face, ready to grapple in a deadly and decisive conflict. … {2075} Trivial skirmishes from time to time kept alive the ardor of both hosts, till at length, at dawn on Saturday, the 11th of October [A. D. 732], the signal for a general onset was given. With one loud shout of Allah-Akbar (God is great), the Arab horsemen charged like a tempest upon their foe, but the deep columns of the Franks did not bend before the blast. 'Like a wall of iron,' says the chronicler, 'like a rampart of ice, the men of the North stood unmoved by the frightful shock.' All day long the charges were renewed." Still the stout Franks held their ground, and still the indomitable warriors of Islam pressed upon them, until late in the afternoon, when the latter were thrown into confusion by an attack on their rear. Then Karl and his men charged on them and their lines were broken—their rout was bloody and complete. When night put an end to the slaughter, the Franks slept upon their arms, expecting that the dreaded Saracens would rally and resume the fight. But they vanished in the darkness. Their leader, the brave Abd-el-Rahman had fallen in the wild melée and no courage was left in their hearts. Abandoning everything but their horses and their arms, they fled to Narbonne. "Europe was rescued, Christianity triumphant, Karl the hero forever of Christian civilization."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapter 14.

The booty found by the Franks in the Moslem camp "was enormous; hard-money, ingots of the precious metals, melted from jewels and shrines; precious vases, rich stuffs, subsistence stores, flocks and herds gathered and parked in the camp. Most of this booty had been taken by the Moslemah from the Aquitanians, who now had the sorrow of seeing it greedily divided among the Franks."

H. Coppée, Conquest of Spain by the! Arab-Moors, book 6, chapter 1 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: E. S. Creasy, Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, chapter 7.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-750. Omeyyads and Abbassides. The dividing of the Caliphate.

The tragic death of Hosein and his companions at Kerbela kindled a passion which time would not extinguish in the hearts of one great party among the Moslems. The first ambitious leader to take advantage of the excitement of it, as a means of overthrowing the Omeyyads, was Abdallah ibn Zobeir, who, posing first as the "Protector of the Holy House" of Ali, soon proclaimed himself Caliph and maintained for thirteen years a rival court at Mecca. In the war which raged during a great part of those years, Medina was taken by storm and given over to pillage, while the holy city of Mecca withstood a siege of forty days, during which the sacred Caaba was destroyed. Zobeir fell, at last, in a final battle fought under the walls of Mecca. Meantime, several changes in the caliphate at Damascus had taken place and the throne was soon afterwards [A. D. 705] occupied by the Caliph Welid, whose reign proved more glorious than that of any other prince of his house. "Elements of disorder still remained, but under the wise and firm sceptre of Welid they were held in check. The arts of peace prevailed; schools were founded, learning cultivated, and poets royally rewarded; public works of every useful kind were promoted, and even hospitals established for the aged, lame, and blind. Such, indeed, at this era, was the glory of the court of Damascus that Weild, of all the Caliphs both before and after, gives the precedence to Welid. It is the fashion for the Arabian historians to abuse the Omeyyads as a dissolute, intemperate, and godless race; but we must not forget that these all wrote more or less under Abbasside inspiration. … After Welid, the Omeyyad dynasty lasted six-and-thirty years. But it began to rest on a precarious basis. For now the agents of the house of Hashim, descendants of the Prophet and of his uncle Abbas, commenced to ply secretly, but with vigour and persistency, their task of canvass and intrigue in distant cities, and especially in the provinces of the East. For a long time, the endeavour of these agitators was directed to the advocacy of the Shiya right; that is to say, it was based upon the Divine claim of Aly, and his descendants in the Prophet's line, to the Imamate or leadership over the empire of Islam. … The discomfiture of the Shiyas paved the way for the designing advocates of the other Hashimite branch, namely, that of the house of Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet. These had all along been plotting in the background, and watching their opportunity. They now vaunted the claims of this line, and were barefaced enough to urge that, being descended from the uncle of Mahomet through male representatives, they took precedence over the direct descendants of the Prophet himself, because these came through Fatima in the female line. About the year 130 of the Hegira, Abul Abbas, of Abasside descent, was put forward in Persia, as the candidate of this party, and his claim was supported by the famous general Abu Muslim. Successful in the East, Abu Muslim turned his arms to the West. A great battle, one of those which decide the fate of empires, was fought on the banks of the Zab [A. D. 750]; and, through the defection of certain Kharejite and Yemen levies, was lost by the Omeyyad army. Merwan II., the last of his dynasty, was driven to Egypt, and there killed in the church of Bussir, whither he had fled for refuge. At the close of the year 132 [August 5, A. D. 750], the black flag, emblem of the Abbassides, floated over the battlements of Damascus. The Omeyyad dynasty, after ruling the vast Moslem empire for a century, now disappeared in cruelty and bloodshed. … So perished the royal house of the Omeyyads. But one escaped. He fled to Spain, which had never favoured the overweening pretensions of the Prophet's family, whether in the line of Aly or Abbas. Accepted by the Arab tribes, whose influence in the West was paramount, Abd al Rahman now laid the foundation of a new Dynasty and perpetuated the Omeyyad name at the magnificent court of Cordova. … Thus, with the rise of the Abbassides, the unity of the Caliphate came to an end. Never after, either in theory or in fact, was there a successor to the Prophet, acknowledged as such over all Islam. Other provinces followed in the wake of Spain. The Aghlabite dynasty in the east of Africa, and, west of it, the Edrisites in Fez, both of Alyite descent; Egypt and Sicily under independent rulers; the Tahirite kings in Persia, their native soil; these and others, breaking away from the central government, established kingdoms of their own. The name of Caliph, however it might survive in the Abbasside lineage, or be assumed by less legitimate pretenders, had now altogether lost its virtue and significance."

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapter 50.

ALSO IN: S. Lane-Poole, The Mohammadan Dynasties, pages 12-14.

R. D. Osborn, Islam Under the Arabs, part 3.

{2076}

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 717-718. Second repulse from Constantinople.

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 717-718.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 752-759. Final expulsion from southern Gaul.

During the year of his coronation (A. D. 752) Pippin, or Pepin the Short—the first of the Carolingians to assume the Frankish crown—having taken measures to reduce Aquitaine to obedience, was diverted, on his march towards that country, into Septimania. The discord prevailing among the Moslems, who had occupied this region of Gaul for more than thirty years, "opened the prospect of an easy conquest. With little fighting, and through the treachery of a Goth named Ansemond, who commanded at Beziers, Agde, Maguelonne, and Nismes, under an Arabian wali, he was enabled to seize those strong-holds, and to leave a part of his troops to besiege Narbonne, as the first step toward future success." Then Pippin was called away by war with the Saxons and in Brittany, and was occupied with other cares and conflicts, until A. D. 759, when he took up and finished the task of expelling the Saracens from Gaul. "His troops left in occupation of Septimania (752) had steadily prosecuted the siege of Narbonne. … Not till after a blockade of seven years was the city surrendered, and then through the treason of the Christians and Goths who were inside the walls, and made secret terms with the beleaguers. They rose upon the Arabs, cut them in pieces, and opened the gates to the Franks. A reduction of Elne, Caucoliberis, and Carcassone followed hard upon that of Narbonne. … In a little while the entire Arab population was driven out of Septimania, after an occupation of forty years; and a large and important province (equivalent nearly to the whole of Languedoc), held during the time of the Merovingians by the Wisigoths, was secured to the possession of the Franks. The Arabs, however, though expelled, left many traces of their long residence on the manners and customs of Southern Gaul."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapter 15.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 756-1031. The Omeyyad caliphs of Cordova.

When the struggle of the house of Abbas with the house of Omeyya, for the throne of the caliphate at Damascus, was ended by the overthrow of the Omeyyads (A. D. 750), the wretched members of the fallen family were hunted down with unsparing ferocity. "A single youth of the doomed race escaped from destruction. After a long series of romantic adventures, he found his way into Spain [A. D. 756]; he there found partizans, by whose aid he was enabled to establish himself as sovereign of the country, and to resist all the attempts of the Abbassides to regain, or rather to obtain, possession of the distant province. From this Abderrahman [or Abdalrahman] the Ommiad proceeded the line of Emirs and Caliphs of Cordova, who reigned in splendour in the West for three centuries after their house had been exterminated in their original possessions. … When the Ommiad Abdalrahman escaped into Spain … the peninsula was in a very disordered state. The authority of the Caliphs of the East was nearly nominal, and governors rose and fell with very little reference to their distant sovereign. … The elevation of Abdalrahman may have been the result, not so much of any blind preference of Ommiads to Abbassides, as of a conviction that nature designed the Iberian peninsula to form an independent state. But at that early period of Mahometan history an independent Mahometan state could hardly be founded, except under the guise of a rival Caliphate. … And undoubtedly nothing is more certain than that the Ommiads of Cordova were in every sense a rival dynasty to the Abbassides of Bagdad. The race of Moawiyah seem to have decidedly improved by their migration westward. The Caliphs of Spain must be allowed one of the highest places among Mahometan dynasties. In the duration of their house and in the abundance of able princes which it produced, they yield only to the Ottoman Sultans, while they rise incomparably above them in every estimable quality. … The most splendid period of the Saracen empire in Spain was during the tenth century. The great Caliph Abdalrahman Annasir Ledinallah raised the magnificence of the Cordovan monarchy to its highest pitch. … The last thirty years of the Ommiad dynasty are a mere wearisome series of usurpations and civil wars. In 1031 the line became extinct, and the Ommiad empire was cut up into numerous petty states. From this moment the Christians advance, no more to retreat, and the cause of Islam is only sustained by repeated African immigrations."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lectures 4-5.

ALSO IN: H. Coppée, Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, book 6, chapter 5; book 7, chapters 1-4; book 8, chapter 1.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 763. The Caliphate transferred to Bagdad.

"The city of Damascus, full as it was of memorials of the pride and greatness of the Ommiade dynasty, was naturally distasteful to the Abbassides. The Caliph Mansur had commenced the building of a new capital in the neighbourhood of Kufa, to be called after the founder of his family, Hashimiyeh. The Kufans, however, were devoted partisans of the descendants of Ali. … The growing jealousy and distrust between the two houses made it inadvisable for the Beni Abbas to plant the seat of their empire in immediate propinquity to the head-quarters of the Ali faction, and Mansur therefore selected another site [about A. D. 763]. This was Bagdad, on the western bank of the Tigris [fifteen miles above Medain, which was the ancient Seleucia and Ctesiphon]. It was well suited by nature for a great capital. The Tigris brought commerce from Diyar Bekr on the north, and through the Persian Gulf from India and China on the east; while the Euphrates, which here approaches the Tigris at the nearest point, and is reached by a good road, communicated directly with Syria and the west. The name Bagdad is a very ancient one, signifying 'given or founded by the deity,' and testifies to the importance of the site. The new city rapidly increased in extent and magnificence, the founder and his next two successors expending fabulous sums upon its embellishment, and the ancient palaces of the Sassanian kings, as well as the other principal cities of Asia, were robbed of their works of art for its adornment."

E. H. Palmer, Haroun Alraschid, Caliph of Bagdad, chapter 2.

"Baghdad, answering to its proud name of 'Dar al Salam,' 'The City of Peace,' became for a time the capital of the world, the centre of luxury, the emporium of commerce, and the scat of learning."

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapter 50.

{2077}

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 815-945. Decline and temporal fall of the Caliphate at Bagdad.

"It was not until nearly the close of the first century after the Hejira that the banners of Islam were carried into the regions beyond the Oxus, and only after a great deal of hard fighting that the oases of Bokhara and Samarkand were annexed to the dominions of the khalif. In these struggles, a large number of Turks—men, women, and children—fell into the power of the Moslems, and were scattered over Asia as slaves. … The khalif Mamoun [son of Haroun Alraschid—A. D. 815-834] was the first sovereign who conceived the idea of basing the royal power on a foundation of regularly drilled Turkish soldiers."

R. D. Osborn, Islam under the Khalifs of Bagdad, part 3, chapter 1.

"The Caliphs from this time leaned for support on great bands of foreign mercenaries, chiefly Turks, and their captains became the real lords of the empire as soon as they realised their own strength. How thoroughly the Abbásid caliphate had been undermined was shown all at once in a shocking manner, when the Caliph Mutawakkil was murdered by his own servants at the command of his son, and the parricide Muntasir set upon the throne in his stead (December 861). The power of the Caliphs was now at an end; they became the mere playthings of their own savage warriors. The remoter, sometimes even the nearer, provinces were practically independent. The princes formally recognised the Caliph as their sovereign, stamped his name upon their coins, and gave it precedence in public prayer, but these were honours without any solid value. Some Caliphs, indeed, recovered a measure of real power, but only as rulers of a much diminished State. Theoretically the fiction of an undivided empire of Islam was maintained, but it had long ceased to be a reality. The names of Caliph, Commander of the Faithful, Imám, continued still to inspire some reverence; the theological doctors of law insisted that the Caliph, in spiritual things at least, must everywhere bear rule, and control all judicial posts; but even theoretically his position was far behind that of a pope, and in practice was not for a moment to be compared to it. The Caliph never was the head of a true hierarchy; Islam in fact knows no priesthood on which such a system could have rested. In the tenth century the Buids, three brothers who had left the hardly converted Gilán (the mountainous district at the southwest angle of the Caspian Sea) as poor adventurers, succeeded in conquering for themselves the sovereign command over wide domains, and over Bagdad itself [establishing what is known as the dynasty of the Buids or Bouides, or Bowides, or Dilemites]. They even proposed to themselves to displace the Abbásids and set descendants of Ali upon the throne, and abandoned the idea only because they feared that a Caliph of the house of Ali might exercise too great an authority over their Shíite soldiers, and so become independent; while, on the other hand, they could make use of these troops for any violence they chose against the Abbásid puppet who sat in Mansúr's seat."

T. Nöldeke, Sketches from Eastern History, chapter 3.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 827-878. Conquest of Sicily.

See SICILY: A. D. 827-878.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 840-890. The Saracens in southern Italy.

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 800-1016.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 908-1171. The Fatimite caliphs.

"Egypt, during the ninth and tenth centuries, was the theatre of several revolutions. Two dynasties of Turkish slaves, the Tolunides and the Ilkshidites, established themselves in that country, which was only reunited to the Caliphate of Bagdad for a brief period between their usurpations. But early in the ninth century a singular power had been growing up on its western border. … A schism arose among the followers of Ali [the shiahs, who recognized no succession to the Prophet, or Imamate—leadership in Islam—except in the line of descent from Ali, nephew of Mahomet and husband of Mahomet's daughter, Fatima], regarding the legitimate succession to the sixth Imam, Jaffer. His eldest son, Ismail or Ishmael, dying before him, Jaffer appointed another son, Moussa or Moses, his heir. But a large body of the sect denied that Jaffer had the right to make a new nomination; they affirmed the Imamate to be strictly hereditary, and formed a new party of Ishmaelians, who seem to have made something very like a deity of their hero. A chief of this sect, Mahomet, surnamed Al Mehdi, or the Leader, a title given by the Shiahs to their Imams, revolted in Africa in 908. He professed himself, though his claims were bitterly derided by his enemies, to be a descendant of Ishmael, and consequently to be the legitimate Imam. Armed with this claim, it was of course his business to acquire, if he could, the temporal power of a Caliph; and as he soon obtained the sovereignty of a considerable portion of Africa, a rival Caliphate was consequently established in that country. This dynasty assumed the name of Fatimites, in honour of their famous ancestress Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet. The fourth in succession, Muezzeddin by name, obtained possession of Egypt about 967. … The Ilkshidites and their nominal sovereigns, the Abbassides, lost Egypt with great rapidity. Al Muezzeddin transferred his residence thither, and founded [at Fostat—see above, A. D. 640-646] the city of Cairo, which he made his capital. Egypt thus, from a tributary province, became again, as in the days of its Pharaohs and Ptolemies, the scat of a powerful kingdom. The claims of the Egyptian Caliphs were diligently preached throughout all Islam, and their temporal power was rapidly extended into the adjoining provinces of Syria and Arabia. Palestine became again … the battle-field for the lords of Egypt and of the East. Jerusalem, the holy city of so many creeds, was conquered and reconquered. … The Egyptian Caliphate … played an important part in the history of the Crusades. At last, in 1171, it was abolished by the famous Saladin. He himself became the founder of a new dynasty; but the formal aspect of the change was that Egypt, so long schismatic, was again restored to the obedience of Bagdad. Saladin was lord of Egypt, but the titles of the Abbasside Caliph, the true Commander of the Faithful, appeared again on the coin and in the public prayers, instead of that of his Fatimite rival."

E. A. Freeman, History and Conquests of the Saracens, lecture 4.

ALSO IN: S. Lane-Poole, The Mohammadan Dynasties, pages 70-73.

W. C. Taylor, History of Mohammedanism and its Sects, chapters 8 and 10.

See, also, JERUSALEM: A. D. 1149-1187.

{2078}

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 962-1187. The Ghaznavide empire.

See INDIA: A. D. 977-1290; and TURKS: A. D. 999-1183.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 964-976. Losses in Syria and Cilicia.

See BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 963-1025; also, ANTIOCH, A. D. 969.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1004-1160. The Seljuk Conquests.

See TURKS: A. D. 1004-1063 to 1092-1160.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1017. Expulsion from Sardinia by the Pisans and Genoese.

See PISA: ORIGIN OF THE CITY.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1031-1086. Fragmentary kingdoms in Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1031-1086.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1060-1090. The loss of Sicily.

See ITALY: A. D. 1000-1090.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1086-1147. The empire of the Almoravides.

See ALMORAVIDES.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1146-1232. The empire of the Almohades.

See ALMOHADES; and SPAIN: A. D. 1146-1232.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1240-1453. Conquests of the Ottoman Turks.

See TURKS: A. D. 1240-1326; 1326-1359; 1360-1389; 1389-1403; 1402-1451; and 1451-1481.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1258. Extinction of the Caliphate of Bagdad by the Mongols.

See BAGDAD: A. D. 1258.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1273-1492. Decay and fall of the last Moorish kingdom in Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1273-1460; and 1476-1492.

MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 1519-1605. The Mogul conquest of India.

See INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605.

----------MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: End----------

MAHOMETAN ERA.

See ERA, MAHOMETAN.

----------MAHRATTAS: Start--------

MAHRATTAS: 17th Century. Origin and growth of power.

See INDIA: A. D. 1662-1748.

MAHRATTAS: A. D. 1759-1761. Disastrous conflict with the Afghans. Great defeat at Panniput.

See INDIA: A. D. 1747-1761.

MAHRATTAS: A. D. 1781-1819. Wars with the English.

See INDIA: A. D. 1780-1783; 1798-1805; and 1816-1819.

----------MAHRATTAS: End--------

MAID OF NORWAY.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1290-1305.

MAID OF ORLEANS, The Mission of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1429-1431.

MAIDA, Battle of (1806).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER).

MAILLOTINS, Insurrection of the,

See PARIS: A. D. 1381.

----------MAINE: Start--------

MAINE: The Name.

"Sullivan in 'History of Maine,' and others, say that the territory was called the Province of Maine, in compliment to Queen Henrietta, who had that province in France for dowry. But Folsom, 'Discourse on Maine' (Maine Historical Collection, volume ii., page 38), says that that province in France did not belong to Henrietta. Maine, like all the rest of the coast, was known as the 'Maine,' the mainland, and it is not unlikely that the word so much used by the early fishers on the coast, may thus have been permanently given to this part of it."

W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, History of the United States, volume 1, page 337; foot-note.

MAINE: Aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ABNAKIS, and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

MAINE: Embraced in the Norumbega of the old geographers.

See NORUMBEGA; also, CANADA: THE NAMES.

MAINE: A. D. 1607-1608. The Popham colony on the Kennebec. Fruitless undertaking of the Plymouth Company.

The company chartered in England by King James, in 1606, for the colonization of the indefinite region called Virginia, was divided into two branches. To one, commonly spoken of as the London Company, but sometimes as the Virginia Company, was assigned a domain in the south, from 34° to 41° North Latitude. To the other, less familiarly known as the Plymouth Company, or the North Virginia Company, was granted a range of territory from 38° to 45° North Latitude.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607.

The first named company founded a state; the Plymouth branch was less fortunate. "Of the Plymouth Company, George Popham, brother of the Chief Justice, and Raleigh Gilbert, son of the earlier navigator and nephew of Sir Walter Raleigh, were original associates. A vessel despatched from Bristol by Sir John Popham made a further survey of the coast of New England, and returned with accounts which infused vigorous life into the undertaking; and it was now prosecuted with eagerness and liberality. But in little more than a year 'all its former hopes were frozen to death.' Three ships sailed from Plymouth with 100 settlers, amply furnished, and taking two of Gorges's Indians [kidnapped on the voyage of Captain Weymouth in 1605] as interpreters and guides. After a prosperous voyage they reached the mouth of the river called Sagadahoc, or Kennebec, in Maine, and on a projecting point proceeded to organize their community. After prayers and a sermon, they listened to a reading of the patent and of the ordinances under which it had been decreed by the authorities at home that they should live. George Popham had been constituted their President, Raleigh Gilbert was Admiral. … The adventurers dug wells, and built huts. More than half of the number became discouraged, and returned with the ships to England. Forty-five remained through the winter, which proved to be very long and severe. … When the President sickened and died, and, presently after, a vessel despatched to them with supplies brought intelligence of the death of Sir John Popham, and of Sir John Gilbert,—the latter event calling for the presence of the Admiral, Gilbert's brother and heir, in England,—they were ready to avail themselves of the excuses thus afforded for retreating from the distasteful enterprise. All yielded to their homesickness, and embarked on board of the returning ship, taking with them a small vessel which they had built, and some furs and other products of the country. Statesmen, merchants, and soldiers had not learned the conditions of a settlement in New England. 'The country was branded by the return of the plantation as being over cold, and in respect of that not habitable by Englishmen.' Still the son of the Chief Justice, 'Sir Francis Popham, could not so give it over, but continued to send thither several years after, in hope of better fortunes, but found it fruitless, and was necessitated at last to sit down with the loss he had already undergone.' Sir Francis Popham's enterprises were merely commercial. Gorges alone [Sir Ferdinando Gorges, who had been among the most active of the original promotors of the Company], 'not doubting but God would effect that which man despaired of,' persevered in cherishing the project of a colony."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the United States, chapter 12, volume 1.

R. K. Sewall, Ancient Dominions of Maine, chapter 3.

{2079}

MAINE: A. D. 1623-1631. Gorges' and Mason's grant and the division of it. First colonies planted.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.

MAINE: A. D. 1629-1631. The Ligonia, or Plow Patent, and other grants.

"The coast from the Piscataqua to the Kennebec was covered by six … patents, issued in the course of three years by the Council for New England, with the consent, doubtless, of Gorges, who was anxious to interest as many persons as possible in the projects of colonization to which he was himself so much devoted. Several of these grants were for small tracts; the most important embraced an extent of 40 miles square, bordering on Casco Bay, and named Ligonia. The establishments hitherto attempted on the eastern coast had been principally for fishing and fur-trading; this was to be an agricultural colony, and became familiarly known as the 'Plow patent.' A company was formed, and some settlers sent out; but they did not like the situation, and removed to Massachusetts. Another of these grants was the Pemaquid patent, a narrow tract on both sides of Pemaquid Point, where already were some settlers. Pemaquid remained an independent community for the next forty years."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 7 (volume 1).

The Plow Patent "first came into notoriety in a territorial dispute in 1643. The main facts of the case are told shortly but clearly by Winthrop. According to him, in July, 1631, ten husbandmen came from England, in a ship named the Plough, with a patent for land at Sagadahock. But as the place did not please them they settled in Massachusetts, and were seemingly dispersed in the religious troubles of 1636. … At a later day the rights of the patentees were bought up, and were made a ground for ousting Gorges from a part of his territory."

J. A. Doyle, The English in America: The Puritan Colonies, volume 1, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: J. W. Thornton, Pemaquid Papers; and Ancient Pemaquid, (Maine Historical Society Collection, volume 5).

MAINE: A. D. 1639. A Palatine principality. The royal charter to Sir Ferdinando Gorges.

"In April 1639 a charter was granted by the King constituting Gorges Lord Proprietor of Maine. The territory was bounded by the Sagadahock or Kennebec on the north and the Piscataqua on the south, and was to extend 120 miles inland. The political privileges of the Proprietor were to be identical with those enjoyed by the Bishop of Durham as Count Palatine. He was to legislate in conjunction with the freeholders of the province, and with the usual reservation in favour of the laws of England. His political rights were to be subject to the control of the Commissioners for Plantations, but his territorial rights were to be independent and complete in themselves. He was also to enjoy a monopoly of the trade of the colony. The only other points specially worth notice were a declaration that the religion of the colony was to be that of the Church of England, a reservation on behalf of all English subjects of the right of fishing with its necessary incidents, and the grant to the Proprietor of authority to create manors and manorial courts. There is something painful in the spectacle of the once vigorous and enterprising soldier amusing his old age by playing at kingship. In no little German court of the last century could the forms of government and the realities of life have been more at variance. To conduct the business of two fishing villages Gorges called into existence a staff of officials which might have sufficed for the affairs of the Byzantine Empire. He even outdid the absurdities which the Proprietors of Carolina perpetrated thirty years later. They at least saw that their elaborate machinery of caciques and landgraves was unfit for practical purposes, and they waived it in favour of a simple system which had sprung up in obedience to natural wants. But Gorges tells complacently and with a deliberate care, which contrasts with his usually hurried and slovenly style, how he parcelled out his territory and nominated his officials. … The task of putting this cumbrous machinery into motion was entrusted by the Proprietor to his son, Thomas Gorges, as Deputy-Governor."

J. A. Doyle, The English in America: The Puritan Colonies, volume 1, chapter 7.

"The Province was divided into two counties, of one of which Agamenticus, or York, was the principal settlement; of the other, Saco. … The greatness of York made it arrogant; and it sent a deputation of aldermen and burgesses to the General Court at Saco, to save its metropolitan rights by a solemn protest. The Proprietary was its friend, and before long exalted it still more by a city charter, authorizing it and its suburbs, constituting a territory of 21 square miles, to be governed, under the name of 'Gorgeana,' by a Mayor, twelve Aldermen, a Common Council of 24 members, and a Recorder, all to be annually chosen by the citizens. Probably as many as two thirds of the adult males were in places of authority. The forms of proceeding in the Recorder's Court were to be copied from those of the British chancery. This grave foolery was acted more than ten years."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: Sir F. Gorges, Brief Narration (Maine Historical Society Collection, volume 2).

MAINE: A. D. 1643-1677. Territorial jurisdiction in dispute. The claims of Massachusetts made good.

"In 1643, the troubles in England between the King and Commons grew violent, and in that year Alexander Rigby bought the old grant called Lygonia or 'Plow Patent,' and appointed George Cleaves his deputy-president. Governor Thomas Gorges about that time returned to England, and left Vines in his place. Between Cleaves and Vines there was of course a conflict of jurisdiction, and Cleaves appealed for aid to Massachusetts; and both parties agreed to leave their claims (1645) to the decision of the Massachusetts Magistrates, who decided—that they could not decide the matter. But the next year the Commissioners for American plantations in England decided in favor of Rigby; and Vines left the country. In 1647, at last, at the age of 74, Sir Ferdinando Gorges died, and with him died all his plans for kingdoms and power in Maine. In 1651, Massachusetts, finding that her patent, which included lands lying three miles north of the head waters of the Merrimack, took in all the lower part of Maine, began to extend her jurisdiction, and as most of the settlers favored her authority, it was pretty well established till the time of the Restoration (1660). {2080} Upon the Restoration of Charles II., the heir of Gorges claimed his rights to Maine. His agent in the province was Edward Godfrey. Those claims were confirmed by the Committee of Parliament, and in 1664 he obtained an order from the King to the Governor of Massachusetts to restore him his province. In 1664 the King's Commissioners came over, and proceeded through the Colonies, and among the rest to Maine; where they appointed various officers without the concurrence of Massachusetts; so that for some years Maine was distracted with parties, and was in confusion. In 1668, Massachusetts sent four Commissioners to York, who resumed and re-established the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, with which the majority of the people were best pleased; and in 1669 the Deputies from Maine again took their seats in the Massachusetts Court. Her jurisdiction was, however, disputed by the heirs of Mason and Gorges, and it was not finally set at rest till the year 1677, by the purchase of their claims from them, by Massachusetts, for £1,250."

C. W. Elliott, The New England History, volume 1, chapter 26.

ALSO IN: R. K. Sewall, Ancient Dominions of Maine, chapters 3-4.

W. D. Williamson, History of Maine, volume 1, chapters 6-21.

MAINE: A. D. 1664. The Pemaquid patent purchased and granted to the Duke of York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.

MAINE: A. D. 1675. Outbreak of the Tarentines.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1675 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

MAINE: A. D. 1689-1697. King William's War. Indian cruelties.

See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690; and 1692-1697.

MAINE: A. D. 1722-1725. Renewed Indian war.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1713-1730.

MAINE: A. D. 1744-1748. King George's War.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744; 1745; and 1745-1748.

MAINE: A. D. 1814. Occupied in large part and held by the English.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814.

MAINE: A. D. 1820. Separation from Massachusetts. Recognition as a distinct commonwealth and admission into the Union.

"Petitions for the separation of the District of Maine were first preferred to the legislature of Massachusetts in 1816, and a convention was appointed to be holden at Brunswick. This convention voted in favor of the step, but the separation was not effected until 1820, at which time Maine was erected into a distinct and independent commonwealth, and was admitted into the American Union."

G. L. Austin, History of Massachusetts, page 408.

"In the division of the property all the real estate in Massachusetts was to be forever hers; all that in Maine to be equally divided between the two, share and share alike. … The admission of Maine and Missouri into the Union were both under discussion in Congress at the same time. The advocates of the latter, wishing to carry it through the Legislature, without any restrictive clause against slavery, put both into a bill together,—determined each should share the same fate. … Several days the subject was debated, and sent from one branch to the other in Congress, till the 1st of March, when, to our joy, they were divorced; and on the 3d of the month [March, 1820] an act was passed by which Maine was declared to be, from and after the 15th of that month, one of the United States."

W. D. Williamson, History of Maine, volume 2, chapter 27.

See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

MAINE: A. D. 1842. Settlement of the northern boundary disputes, by the Ashburton Treaty.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1842.

----------MAINE: End----------

MAIWAND, English disaster at (1880).

See AFGHANISTAN: A. D. 1869-1881.

MAJESTAS, The Law of.

"The law of Majestas or Treason … under the [Roman] empire … was the legal protection thrown round the person of the chief of the state: any attempt against the dignity or safety of the community became an attack on its glorified representative. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that the first legal enactment which received this title, half a century before the foundation of the empire, was actually devised for the protection, not of the state itself, but of a personage dear to the state, namely, the tribune of the people. Treason to the State indeed had long before been known, and defined as Perduellio, the levying of war against the commonwealth. … But the crime of majesty was first specified by the demagogue Apuleius, in an enactment of the year 654 [B. C. 100], for the purpose of guarding or exalting the dignity of the champion of the plebs. … The law of Apuleius was followed by that of another tribune, Varius, conceived in a similar spirit. … [After the constitution of Sulla] the distinction between Majestas and Perduellio henceforth vanishes: the crime of Treason is specifically extended from acts of violence to measures calculated to bring the State into contempt."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 44.

MAJORCA: Conquest by King James of Aragon.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1212-1238.

MAJORIAN, Roman Emperor (Western), A. D. 457-461.

MAJUBA HILL, Battle of (1881).

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.

----------MALAGA: Start--------

MALAGA: A. D. 1036-1055. The seat of a Moorish kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1031-1086.

MALAGA: A. D. 1487. Siege and capture from the Moors by the Christians.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1476-1492.

----------MALAGA: End--------

MALAKHOFF, The storming of the (1855).

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1854-1856.

MALAMOCCO. The second capital of the Venetians.

See VENICE: A. D. 697-810; and 452.

MALATESTA FAMILY, The.

"No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fame at least of the great Malatesta family—the house of the Wrongheads, as they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part in Lombard history. … The story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to the hunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron and Leigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Doré—to all, in fact, who have of art and letters any love. The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment under Otho III. [A. D. 996-1002] as lieutenants for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, down to their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of the Renaissance, is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall a mediæval Italian despotism. {2081} Acquiring an unlawful right over the towns of Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour or their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting the succession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately defying and submitting to the Papal legates in Romagna, serving as condottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, and by their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing in no slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. The Malatesti were a race of strongly marked character: more, perhaps, than any other house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generations those qualities of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thought indispensable to a successful despot. … So far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated in Sigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, the perfidious Pandolfo. … Having begun by defying the Holy See, he was impeached at Rome for heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape, and sacrilege, burned in effigy by Pope Pius II., and finally restored to the bosom of the Church, after suffering the despoliation of almost all his territories, in 1463. The occasion on which this fierce and turbulent despiser of laws human and divine was forced to kneel as a penitent before the Papal legate in the gorgeous temple dedicated to his own pride, in order that the ban of excommunication might be removed from Rimini, was one of those petty triumphs, interesting chiefly for their picturesqueness, by which the Popes confirmed their questionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn of his sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against the Turks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to die at Rimini."

J. A. Symonds, Sketches in Italy and Greece, pages 217-220.

ALSO IN: A. M. F. Robinson, The End of the Middle Ages, pages 274-299.

MALAYAN RACE, The.

Many ethnologists set up as a distinct stock "the '.Malayan' or 'Brown' race, and claim for it an importance not less than any of the darker varieties of the species. It bears, however, the marks of an origin too recent, and presents Asian analogies too clearly, for it to be regarded otherwise than as a branch of the Asian race, descended like it from some ancestral tribe in that great continent. Its dispersion has been extraordinary. Its members are found almost continuously on the land areas from Madagascar to Easter Island, a distance nearly two-thirds of the circumference of the globe; everywhere they speak dialects with such affinities that we must assume for all one parent stem, and their separation must have taken place not so very long ago to have permitted such a monoglottic trait as this. The stock is divided at present into two groups, the western or Malayan peoples, and the eastern or Polynesian peoples. There has been some discussion about the original identity of these, but we may consider it now proved by both physical, linguistic and traditional evidence. The original home of the parent stem has also excited some controversy, but this too may be taken as settled. There is no reasonable doubt but that the Malays came from the southeastern regions of Asia, from the peninsula of Farther India, and thence spread south, east and west over the whole of the island world. Their first occupation of Sumatra and Java has been estimated to have occurred not later than 1000 B. C., and probably was a thousand years earlier, or about the time that the Aryans entered Northern India. The relationship of the Malayic with the other Asian stocks has not yet been made out. Physically they stand near to the Sinitic peoples of small stature and roundish heads of southeastern Asia. The oldest form of their language, however, was not monosyllabic and tonic, but was disyllabic. … The purest type of the true Malays is seen in Malacca, Sumatra and Java. … It has changed slightly by foreign intermixture among the Battaks of Sumatra, the Dayaks of Borneo, the Alfures and the Bugis. But the supposition that these are so remote that they cannot properly be classed with the Malays is an exaggeration of some recent ethnographers, and is not approved by the best authorities. … In character the Malays are energetic, quick of perception, genial in demeanor, but unscrupulous, cruel and revengeful. Veracity is unknown, and the love of gain is far stronger than any other passion or affection. This thirst for gold made the Malay the daring navigator he early became. As merchant, pirate or explorer, and generally as all three in one, he pushed his crafts far and wide over the tropical seas through 12,000 miles of extent. On the extreme west he reached and colonized Madagascar. The Hovas there, undoubtedly of Malay blood, number about 800,000 in a population of five and a half millions, the remainder being Negroids of various degrees of fusion. In spite of this disproportion, the Hovas are the recognized masters of the island. … The Malays probably established various colonies in southern India. The natives at Travancore and the Sinhalese of Ceylon bear a strongly Malayan aspect. … Some ethnographers would make the Polynesians and Micronesians a different race from the Malays; but the farthest that one can go in this direction is to admit that they reveal some strain of another blood. This is evident in their physical appearance. … All the Polynesian languages have some affinities to the Malayan, and the Polynesian traditions unanimously refer to the west for the home of their ancestors. We are able, indeed, by carefully analyzing these traditions, to trace with considerable accuracy both the route they followed to the Oceanic isles, and the respective dates when they settled them. Thus, the first station of their ancestors ou leaving the western group, was the small island of Buru or Boru, between Celebes and New Guinea. Here they encountered the Papuas, some of whom still dwell in the interior, while the coast people are fair. Leaving Boru, they passed to the north of New Guinea, colonizing the Caroline and Solomon islands, but the vanguard pressing forward to take possession of Savai in the Samoan group and Tonga to its south. These two islands formed a second center of distribution over the western Pacific. The Maoris of New Zealand moved from Tonga—'holy Tonga' as they call it in their songs—about 600 years ago. The Society islanders migrated from Savai, and they in turn sent forth the population of the Marquesas, the Sandwich islands and Easter island. The separation of the Polynesians from the western Malays must have taken place about the beginning of our era."

D. G. Brinton, Races and Peoples, lecture 8, section. 2.

ALSO IN: A. R. Wallace, The Malay Archipelago, chapter 40.

R. Brown, The Races of Mankind, volume 2, chapter 7.

{2082}

MALCOLM III., King of Scotland, A. D. 1057-1093.

Malcolm IV., King of Scotland, 1153-1165.

MALDON, Battle of.

Fought, A. D. 991, by the English against an invading army of Norwegians, who proved the victors. The battle, with the heroic death of the English leader, Brihtnoth, became the subject of a famous early-English poem, which is translated in Freeman's "Old English History for Children." The field of battle was on the Blackwater in Essex.

MALEK SHAH, Seljuk Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1073-1092.

MALIANS, The.

One of the early peoples of Greece, who dwelt on the Malian Gulf, in the lower valley of the Sperchæus. They were a warlike people, neighbors and close allies of the Dorians, before the migration of the latter to the Peloponnesus.

C. O. Müller, History and Antiquity of the Doric Race, volume 1, book 1, chapter 2.

MALIGNANTS.

"About this time [A. D. 1643] the word 'malignant' was first born (as to the common use) in England; the deduction thereof being disputable, whether from 'malus ignis,' bad fire, or 'malum lignum,' bad fuel; but this is sure, betwixt both, the name made a combustion all over England. It was fixed as a note of disgrace on those of the king's party."

T. Fuller, Church History of Britain, book 11, section 4 (volume 3).

MALINES: Taken by Marlborough and the Allies (1706).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1706-1707.

MALLUM. MALL. MALLBERG.

"The Franks … constituted one great army, the main body of which was encamped round the abode of their Kyning or commander, and the rest of which was broken up into various detachments. … Every such detachment became ere long a sedentary tribe, and the chief of each was accustomed, as occasion required, to convene the mallum (that is, an assembly of the free inhabitants) of his district, to deliberate with him on all the affairs of his immediate locality. The Kyning also occasionally convened an assembly of the whole of the Frankish chiefs, to deliberate with him at the Champs de Mars on the affairs of the whole confederacy. But neither the mallum nor the Champs de Mars was a legislative convention. Each of them was a council of war or an assembly of warriors."

Sir J. Stephen, Lectures on the History of France, lecture 8.

"The Court was mostly held in a field or on a hill, called 'mallstatt,' or 'mallberg,' that is, the place or hill where the 'mall' or Court assembled, and the judge set up his shield of office, without which he might not hold Court."

J. I. Mombert, History of Charles the Great, book 1, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 10.

See, also. PARLIAMENT OF PARIS.

MALMÖ, Armistice of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

MALO-JOROSLAVETZ, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D.1812 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

MALPLAQUET, Battle of (1709).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709.

----------MALTA: Start--------

MALTA: A. D. 1530-1565. Ceded by the emperor, Charles V., to the Knights of St. John. Their defense of the island against the Turks in the great siege.

See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN: A. D. 1530-1565.

MALTA: A. D. 1551. Unsuccessful attack by the Turks.

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1543-1560.

MALTA: A. D. 1798. Seizure and occupation by Bonaparte.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798 (MAY-AUGUST).

MALTA: A. D. 1800-1802. Surrender to an English fleet. Agreement of restoration to the Knights of St. John.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802.

MALTA: A. D. 1814. Ceded to England.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE).

----------MALTA: End--------

MALTA, Knights of.

During their occupation of the island, the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem were commonly called Knights of Malta, as they had previously been called Knights of Rhodes:

See HOSPITALLERS OF ST. JOHN.

MALVASIA, Battle of (1263).

See GENOA: A. D. 1261-1299.

MALVERN CHASE.

An ancient royal forest in Worcestershire, England, between Malvern Hills and the River Severn. Few remains of it exist.

J. C. Brown, Forests of England.

MALVERN HILL, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).

MAMACONAS.

See YANACONAS.

MAMELUKE, OR SLAVE, DYNASTY OF INDIA.

See INDIA: A. D. 977-1290.

MAMELUKES OF BRAZIL.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1531-1641.

MAMELUKES OF EGYPT; their rise; their sovereignty; their destruction.

See EGYPT: A. D. 1250-1517; and 1803-1811.

MAMELUKES OF GENEVA, The.

See GENEVA: A. D. 1504-1535.

MAMERTINE PRISON, The.

"Near the Basilica Porcia, and at the foot of the Capitoline Hill [in ancient Rome], was the ancient carcer or prison. The original erection of it has been attributed to Ancus Martius, as we learn from Livy, who says 'he made a prison in the middle of the city, overlooking the Forum.' The name by which it is known—Mamertinus—may have been derived from its being built by Ancus Martius. Mamers was the Sabine name of the god Mars, and consequently from the name Mamertius, the Sabine way of spelling Martius, may have been derived Mamertinus. In this prison there are two chambers, one above the other, built of hewn stone. The upper is square, while the lower is semicircular. The style of masonry points to an early date, when the Etruscan style of masonry prevailed in Rome. … To these chambers there was no entrance except by a small aperture in the upper roof, and a similar hole in the upper floor led to the cell below. From a passage in Livy it would appear that Tullianum was the name given to the lower cell of the carcer. … Varro expressly tells us that the lower part of the prison which was underground was called Tullianum because it was added by Servius Tullius."

H. M. Westropp, Early and Imperial Rome, page 93.

{2083}

"The oldest portion of the horror-striking Mamertine Prisons … is the most ancient among all Roman buildings still extant as originally constructed."

C. I. Hemans, Historic and Monumental Rome, chapter 4.

"Here, Jugurtha, king of Mauritania, was starved to death by Marius. Here Julius Cæsar, during his triumph for the conquest of Gaul, caused his gallant enemy Vercingetorix to be put to death. … The spot is more interesting to the Christian world as the prison of SS. Peter and Paul."

A. J. C. Hare, Walks in Rome, chapter 3.

MAMERTINES OF MESSENE, The.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

MAMUN, AL, Caliph, A. D. 813-833.

MAN, Kingdom of.

See MANX KINGDOM, THE.

MANAOS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.

----------MANASSAS: Start--------

MANASSAS: A. D. 1861 (July). First battle (Bull Run).

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY: VIRGINIA).

MANASSAS: A. D. 1862 (March). Confederate evacuation.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861-1862 (DECEMBER-MARCH: VIRGINIA).

MANASSAS: A. D. 1862 (August). Stonewall Jackson's Raid. The Second Battle.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (AUGUST: VIRGINIA); and (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: VIRGINIA).

----------MANASSAS: End--------

----------MANCHESTER: Start--------

MANCHESTER: Origin.

See MANCUNIUM.

MANCHESTER: A. D. 1817-1819. The march of the Blanketeers, and the "Massacre of Peterloo."

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1816-1820.

MANCHESTER: A. D. 1838-1839. Beginning of the Anti-Corn-Law agitation.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (ENGLAND): A. D. 1836-1839.

MANCHESTER: A. D. 1861-1865. The Cotton Famine.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1861-1865.

MANCHESTER: A. D. 1894. Opening of the Ship Canal.

A ship canal, connecting Manchester with Liverpool, and making the former practically a seaport, was opened on the 1st day of January, 1894. The building of the canal was begun in 1887.

----------MANCHESTER: End--------

MANCHU TARTAR DYNASTY OF CHINA, The.

See CHINA: A.D. 1294-1882.

MANCUNIUM.

A Roman town in Britain which occupied the site of the modern city of Manchester.

T. Wright, Celt, Roman and Saxon, chapter 5.

MANDANS, MANDANES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

MANDATA, Roman Imperial.

See CORPUS JURIS CIVILIS.

MANDUBII, The.

A tribe in ancient Gaul, which occupied part of the modern French department of the Côte-d'Or and whose chief town was Alesia, the scene of Cæsar's famous siege.

Napoleon III., History of Cæsar, book 3, chapter 2, footnote (volume 2).

MANETHO, List of.

"Of all the Greek writers who have treated of the history of the Pharaohs, there is only one whose testimony has, since the deciphering of the hieroglyphics, preserved any great value—a value which increases the more it is compared with the original monuments; we speak of Manetho. Once he was treated with contempt; his veracity was disputed, the long series of dynasties he unfolds to our view was regarded as fabulous. Now, all that remains of his work is the first of an authorities for the reconstruction of the ancient history of Egypt. Manetho, a priest of the town of Sebennytus, in the Delta, wrote in Greek, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, a history of Egypt, founded on the official archives preserved in the temples. Like many other books of antiquity, this history has been lost; we possess now a few fragments only, with the list of all the kings placed by Manetho at the end of his work—a list happily preserved in the writings of some chronologers of the Christian epoch. This list divides into dynasties, or royal families, all the kings who reigned successively in Egypt down to the time of Alexander."

F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 3, chapter 1, section 2 (volume 1).

See, also, EGYPT: ITS HISTORICAL ANTIQUITY.

----------MANHATTAN ISLAND: Start--------

MANHATTAN ISLAND: Its aboriginal People and name.

"The earliest notice we have of the island which is now adorned by a beautiful and opulent city is to be found in Hudson's journal. 'Mana-hata' is therein mentioned, in reference to the hostile people whom he encountered on his return from his exploring of the river, and who resided on this island. De Laet … calls those wicked people Manatthans, and names the river Manhattes. … Hartger calls the Indians and the island Mahattan. … In some of the early transactions of the colony, it is spelled Monhattoes, Munhatos, and Manhattoes. Professor Ebeling says, that at the mouth of the river lived the Manhattans or Manathanes (or as the Englishmen commonly called it, Manhados), who kept up violent animosities with their neighbours, and were at first most hostile towards the Dutch, but suffered themselves to be persuaded afterwards to sell them the island, or at least that part of it where New York now stands. Manhattan is now the name, and it was, when correctly adopted, so given by the Dutch, and by them it not only distinguished the Indians, the island and the river, but it was a general name of their plantations. … Mr. Heckewelder observes that hitherto an his labours had been fruitless in inquiring about a nation or tribe of Indians called the 'Manhattos' or 'Manathones'; Indians both of the Mahicanni and Delaware nations assured him that they never had heard of any Indian tribe by that name. He says he is convinced that it was the Delawares or Munseys (which last was a branch of the Delawares) who inhabited that part of the country where New York now is. York Island is called by the Delawares to this day [1824] Manahattani or Manahachtanink. The Delaware word for 'Island' is 'Manátey'; the Monsey word for the same is 'Manáchtey' … Dr. Barton also has given as his belief that the Manhattæ were a branch of the Munsis."

J. V. N. Yates and J. W. Moulton, History of the State of New York, volume 1, pages 223-224.

ALSO IN: Memorial History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 2.

See, also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: DELAWARES, and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

MANHATTAN ISLAND: A. D. 1613. First settlements. Argall's visit.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

----------MANHATTAN ISLAND: End--------

{2084}

MANICHEANS, The.

"A certain Mani (or Manes, as the ecclesiastical writers call him), born in Persia about A. D. 240, grew to manhood under Sapor, exposed to … various religious influences. … With a mind free from prejudice and open to conviction, he studied the various systems of belief which he found established in Western Asia—the Cabalism of the Babylonian Jews, the Dualism of the Magi, the mysterious doctrines of the Christians, and even the Buddhism of India. At first he inclined to Christianity, and is said to have been admitted to priest's orders and to have ministered to a congregation; but after a time he thought that he saw his way to the formation of a new creed, which should combine all that was best in the religious systems which he was acquainted with, and omit what was superfluous or objectionable. He adopted the Dualism of the Zoroastrians, the metempsychosis of India, the angelism and demonism of the Talmud and Trinitarianism of the Gospel of Christ. Christ himself he identified with Mithra, and gave Him his dwelling in the sun. He assumed to be the Paraclete promised by Christ, who should guide men into all truth, and claimed that his 'Ertang,' a sacred book illustrated by pictures of his own painting, should supersede the New Testament. Such pretensions were not likely to be tolerated by the Christian community; and Manes had not put them forward very long when he was expelled from the church and forced to carry his teaching elsewhere. Under these circumstances he is said to have addressed himself to Sapor [the Persian king], who was at first inclined to show him some favour; but when he found out what the doctrines of the new teacher actually were, his feelings underwent a change, and Manes, proscribed, or at any rate threatened with penalties, had to retire into a foreign country. … Though the morality of the Manichees was pure, and though their religion is regarded by some as a sort of Christianity, there were but few points in which it was an improvement on Zoroastrianism."

G. Rawlinson, The Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 4.

First in Persia and, afterwards, throughout Christendom, the Manicheans were subjected to a merciless persecution; but they spread their doctrines, notwithstanding, in the west and in the east, and it was not until several centuries had passed that the heresy became extinct.

J. L. Mosheim, Christianity during the first 325 years, Third Century, lectures 39-55.

See, also, PAULICIANS.

MANIFESTATION, The Aragonese process of.

See CORTES. THE EARLY SPANISH.

MANILIAN LAW, The.

See ROME: B. C. 69-63.

MANIMI, The.

See LYGIANS.

MANIN, Daniel, and the struggle for Venetian independence.

See ITALY: A. D.1848-1849.

MANIOTO, MAYNO, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

MANIPULI.

See LEGION, ROMAN.

MANITOBA.

See CANADA: A. D. 1869-1873.

MANNAHOACS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: POWHATAN CONFEDERACY.

----------MANNHEIM: Start--------

MANNHEIM: A. D. 1622. Capture by Tilly.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

MANNHEIM: A. D. 1689. Destroyed by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690.

MANNHEIM: A. D. 1799. Capture by the Austrians.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).

----------MANNHEIM: End--------

MANOA, The fabled city of.

See EL DORADO.

MANORS.

"The name manor is of Norman origin, but the estate to which it was given existed, in its essential character, long before the Conquest; it received a new name as the shire also did, but neither the one nor the other was created by this change. The local jurisdictions of the thegns who had grants of sac and soc, or who exercised judicial functions amongst their free neighbours, were identical with the manorial jurisdictions of the new owners. … The manor itself was, as Ordericus tells us, nothing more nor less than the ancient township, now held by a lord who possessed certain judicial rights varying according to the terms of the grant by which he was infeoffed. Every manor had a court baron, the ancient gemot of the township, in which by-laws were made and other local business transacted, and a court customary in which the business of the villenage was despatched. Those manors whose lords had under the Anglo-Saxon laws possessed sac and soc, or who since the Conquest had had grants in which those terms were used, had also a court-leet, or criminal jurisdiction, cut out as it were from the criminal jurisdiction of the hundred, and excusing the suitors who attended it from going to the court-leet of the hundred."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 9, section 98, and chapter 11, section 129 (volume 1).

"From the Conquest to the 14th century we find the same agricultural conditions prevailing over the greater part of England. Small gatherings of houses and cots appear as oases in the moorland and forest, more or less frequent according to the early or late settlement of the district, and its freedom from, or exposure to, the ravages of war and the punishment of rebellion. These oases, townships or vills if of some extent, hamlets if of but a few houses, gather round one or more mansions of superior size and importance, the Manor houses, or abodes of the Lords of the respective Manors. Round each township stretch the great ploughed fields, usually three in number, open and uninclosed. Each field is divided into a series of parallel strips a furlong in length, a rod wide, four of which would make an acre, the strips being separated by ridges of turf called balks, while along the head of each series of strips runs a broad band of turf known as a headland, on which the plough is turned, when it does not by custom turn on some fellow-tenant's land, and which serves as a road to the various strips in the fields. These strips are allotted in rotation to a certain number of the dwellers in the township, a very common holding being that known as a virgate or yardland, consisting of about 30 acres. … Mr. Seebohm's exhaustive researches have conclusively connected this system of open fields and rotation of strips with the system of common ploughing, each holder of land providing so many oxen for the common plough, two being the contribution of the holder of a virgate, and eight the normal number drawing the plough, though this would vary with the character of the soil. … At the date of Domesday (1086), the holders of land in the common fields comprise the Lord; the free tenants, socmanni or liberi homines, when there are any; the villani or Saxon geburs, the holders of virgates or half virgates; and the bordarii or cotarii, holders of small plots of 5 acres or so, who have fewer rights and fewer duties. Besides ploughing the common-fields, the villani as part of their tenure have to supply the labour necessary to cultivate the arable land that the Lord of the Manor keeps in his own hands as his domain, dominicum, or demesne."

T. E. Scrutton, Commons and Common Fields, chapter 1.

{2085}

Relative to the origin of the manor and the development of the community from which it rose there are divergent views much discussed at the present day. "The interpretation, current fifteen years ago, was the natural outcome of the Mark theory and was somewhat as follows: The community was a voluntary association, a simple unit within which there were households or families of various degrees of wealth, rank and authority, but in point of status each was the equal of the other. Each was subject only to the customs and usages of the community and to the court of the Mark. The Mark was therefore a judicial and political as well as an agricultural unit, though cultivation of the soil was the primary bond of union. All offices were filled by election, but the incumbent in due time sank back into the general body of 'markgenossen.' He who was afterwards to be the lord of the manor was originally only the first Marksman,' who attained to this preeminence in part by the prestige of election to a position of headship, in part by usurpation, and in part by the prerogatives which protection and assistance to weaker Marksmen brought. Thus the first Marksman became the lord and held the others in a kind of subjection to himself, and received from them, though free, dues and services which grew increasingly more severe. The main difficulty here seems to be in the premise, and it is the evident artificiality of the voluntary association of freemen which has led to such adverse criticism upon the whole theory. … While the free village community was under fire at home as well as abroad, Mr. Seebohm presented a new view of an exactly opposite character, with the formula of the community in villeinage under a lord. Although this view has for the moment divided thinkers on the subject, it has proved no more satisfactory than the other; for while it does explain the origin of the lord of the manor, it leaves wholly untouched the body of free Saxons whom Earle calls the rank and file of the invading army. Other theories have sought to supply the omissions in this vague non-documentary field, all erected with learning and skill, but unfortunately not in harmony with one another. Coote and Finlason have given to the manor an unqualified Roman origin. Lewis holds to a solid British foundation, the Teutonists would make it wholly Saxon, while Gomme is inclined to see an Aryo-British community under Saxon overlordship. Thus there is a wide range from which to select; all cannot be true; no one is an explanation of all conditions, yet most of them have considerable sound evidence to support them. It is this lack of harmony which drives the student to discover some theory which shall be in touch with known tribal conditions and a natural consequence of their development, and which at the same time shall be sufficiently elastic to conform to the facts which confront us in the early historical period. An attempt has been made [in the work here quoted from] to lay down two premises, the first of which is the composite character of the tribal and village community, and the second the diverse ethnological conditions of Britain after the Conquest, conditions which would allow for different results. … Kemble in his chapter on Personal Rank has a remark which is ill in keeping with his peaceful Mark theory. He says: 'There can be no doubt that some kind of military organization preceded the peaceful settlement, and in many respects determined its mode and character.' To this statement Earle has added another equally pregnant: 'Of all principles of military regiment there is none so necessary or so elementary as this, that all men must be under a captain, and such a captain as is able to command prompt and willing obedience. Upon this military principle I conceive the English settlements were originally founded, that each several settlement was under a military leader, and that this military leader was the ancestor of the lord of the manor.' Professor Earle then continues in the endeavor to apply the suggestion contained in the above quotation. He shows that the 'hundreds' represent the first permanent encampment of the invading host, and that the military occupation preceded the civil organization, the latter falling into the mould which the former had prepared. According to this the manorial organization was based upon a composite military foundation, the rank and file composing the one element, the village community; the captain or military leader composing the other, settled with suitable provision by the side of his company; the lord by the side of free owners. In this attempt to give the manor a composite origin, as the only rational means whereby the chief difficulty can be removed, and in the attempt to carry the seignorial element to the very beginning we believe him to be wholly right. But an objection must be raised to the way in which Professor Earle makes up his composite element. It is too artificial, too exclusively military; the occupiers of the village are the members of the 'company,' the occupier of the adjacent seat is the 'captain,' afterwards to become the lord. … We feel certain that the local community, the village, was simply the kindred, the sub-clan group, which had become a local habitation, yet when we attempt to test its presence in Anglo-Saxon Britain we meet with many difficulties."

C. McL. Andrews, The Old English Manor, pages 7-51.

ALSO IN: F. Seebohm, English Village Communities, chapter 2, section 12.

Sir H. Maine, Village Communities, lecture 5.

MANSFIELD, OR SABINE CROSS ROADS, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-MAY: LOUISIANA).

MANSOURAH, Battle of (1250).

See CRUSADES: A. D. 1248-1254.

MANSUR, Al, Caliph, A. D. 754-775.

----------MANTINEA: Start--------

MANTINEA.

"Mantinea was the single city of Arcadia which had dared to pursue an independent line of policy [see SPARTA: B. C. 743-510]. Not until the Persian Wars the community coalesced out of five villages into one fortified city; this being done at the instigation of Argos, which already at this early date entertained thoughts of forming for itself a confederation in its vicinity: Mantinea had endeavored to increase its city and territory by conquest, and after the Peace of Nicias had openly opposed Sparta."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 5, chapter 5 (volume 4).

MANTINEA: B. C. 418. Battle.

See GREECE: B. C. 421-418.

{2086}

MANTINEA: B. C. 385. Destruction by the Spartans.

See GREECE: B. C. 385.

MANTINEA: B. C. 371-362. Restoration of the city. Arcadian union and disunion. The great battle. Victory and death of Epaminondas.

See GREECE: B. C. 371; and 371-362.

MANTINEA: B. C. 222. Change of name.

In the war between Cleomenes of Sparta and the Achæan League, the city of Mantinea was, first, surprised by Aratus, the chief of the League, B. C. 226, and occupied by an Achæan garrison; then recaptured by Cleomenes, and his partisans, B. C. 224, and finally, B. C. 222, stormed by Antigonus, king of Macedonia, acting in the name of the League, and given up to pillage. Its citizens were sold into slavery. "The dispeopled city was placed by the conqueror at the disposal of Argos, which decreed that a colony should be sent to take possession of it under the auspices of Aratus. The occasion enabled him to pay another courtly compliment to the king of Macedonia. On his proposal, the name of the 'lovely Mantinea'—as it was described in the Homeric catalogue—was exchanged for that of Antigonea, a symbol of its ruin and of the humiliation of Greece."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 62 (volume 8).

MANTINEA: B. C. 207. Defeat of the Lacedæmonians.

In the wars of the Achæan League, the Lacedæmonians were defeated under the walls of Mantinea with great slaughter, by the forces of the League, ably marshalled by Philopœmen, and the Lacedaemonian king Machanidas was slain. "It was the third great battle fought on the same, or nearly the same, ground. Here, in the interval between the two parts of the Peloponnesian War, had Agis restored the glory of Sparta after her humiliation at Sphakteria; here Epameinôndas had fallen in the moment of victory; here now [B. C. 207] was to be fought the last great battle of independent Greece."

E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapter 8, section 2.

----------MANTINEA: End----------

MANTUA: 11-12th Centuries. Rise and acquisition of republican independence.

See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.

MANTUA: A. D. 1077-1115. In the dominions of the Countess Matilda.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.

MANTUA: A. D. 1328-1708. The house of Gonzaga.

See GONZAGA.

MANTUA: A. D. 1627-1631. War of France, Spain and the Empire over the disputed succession to the duchy. Siege and capture of the city by the Imperialists. Rights of the Duke de Nevers established.

See ITALY: A. D. 1627-1631.

MANTUA: A. D. 1635. Alliance with France against Spain.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

MANTUA: A. D. 1796-1797. Siege and reduction by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER); and 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

MANTUA: A. D. 1797. Ceded by Austria to the Cisalpine Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1797 (MAY-OCTOBER).

MANTUA: A. D. 1799. Siege and capture by Suwarrow.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).

MANTUA: A. D. 1814. Restoration to Austria.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE).

MANTUA: A. D. 1866.

The Austrians retained Mantua until their final withdrawal from the peninsula, in 1866, when it was absorbed in the new kingdom of Italy.

MANU, Laws of.

"The Indians [of Hindostan] possess a series of books of law, which, like that called after Manu, bear the name of a saint or seer of antiquity, or of a god. One is named after Gautama, another after Vasishtha, a third after Apastamba, a fourth after Yajnavalkya; others after Bandhayana and Vishnu. According to the tradition of the Indians the law of Manu is the oldest and most honourable. … The conclusion is … inevitable that the decisive precepts which we find in the collection must have been put together and written down about the year 600 [B. C.]."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 5, chapter 6.

"The name, 'Laws of Manu,' somewhat resembles a 'pious fraud'; for the 'Laws' are merely the laws or customs of a school or association of Hindus, called the Manavas, who lived in the country rendered holy by the divine river Saraswati. In this district the Hindus first felt themselves a settled people, and in this neighbourhood they established colleges and hermitages, or 'asramas,' from some of which we may suppose Brahmanas, Upanishads, and other religious compositions may have issued; and under such influences we may imagine the Code of Manu to have been composed."

Mrs. Manning, Ancient and Mediæval India, volume 1, page 276.

MANUAL TRAINING.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &C.: A. D. 1865-1886.

MANUEL I. (Comnenus), Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), A. D. 1143-1181.

Manuel II. (Palæologus), Greek Emperor of Constantinople, 1391-1425.

MANX KINGDOM, The.

The Isle of Man in the Irish Sea gets its English name, Man, by an abbreviation of the native name, Mannin, the origin of which is unknown. The language, called Manx (now little used), and the inhabitants, called Manxmen, are both of Gaelic, or Irish derivation. From the sixth to the tenth century the island was successively ruled by the Scots (Irish), the Welsh and the Norwegians, finally becoming a separate petty kingdom, with Norwegian claims upon it. In the thirteenth century the little kingdom was annexed to Scotland. Subsequently, after various vicissitudes, it passed under English control and was granted by Henry IV. to Sir John Stanley. The Stanleys, after some generations, found a dignity which they esteemed higher, in the earldom of Derby, and relinquished the title of King of Man. This was done by the second Earl of Derby, 1505. In 1765 the sovereignty and revenues of the island were purchased by the British government; but its independent form of government has undergone little change. It enjoys "home rule" to perfection. It has its own legislature, called the Court of Tynwald, consisting of a council, or upper chamber, and a representative body called the House of Keys. Acts of the imperial parliament do not apply to the Isle of Man unless it is specifically named in them. It has its own courts, with judges called deemsters (who are the successors of the ancient Druidical priests), and its own governor, appointed by the crown. The divisions of the island, corresponding to English counties, are called sheadings.

S. Walpole, The Land of Home Rule.

ALSO IN: H. I. Jenkinson, Guide to Isle of Man.

Hall Caine, The Little Manx Nation. Our Own Country, volume 5.

See MONAPIA: and NORMANS: 8TH-9TH CENTURIES.

{2087}

MANZIKERT, Battle of (1071).

See TURKS: A. D. 1063-1073.

MAONITES, The.

"We must … regard them as a remnant of the Amorites, which, in later times, … spread to the west of Petra."

H. Ewald, History of Israel, introduction, section 4.

MAORIS. MAORI WAR.

See NEW ZEALAND: THE ABORIGINES: A. D. 1853-1883; also, MALAYAN RACE.

MAPOCHINS, The.

See CHILE: A. D. 1450-1724.

MAQUAHUITL, The.

This was a weapon in use among the Mexicans when the Spaniards found them. It "was a stout stick, three feet and a half long, and about four inches broad, armed on each side with a sort of razors of the stone itztli (obsidian), extraordinarily sharp, fixed and firmly fastened to the stick with gum lack. … The first stroke only was to be feared, for the razors became soon blunt."

F. S. Clavigero, History of Mexico, book 7.

ALSO IN: Sir A. Helps, The Spanish Conquest of America, book 10 (volume 2).

MARACANDA.

The chief city of the ancient Sogdiani, in Central Asia—now Samarcand.

MARAGHA.

See PERSIA: A. D. 1258-1393.

MARAIS, OR PLAIN, The Party of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

MARANHA, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.

MARANGA, Battle of.

One of the battles fought by the Romans with the Persians during the retreat from Julian's fatal expedition beyond the Tigris, A. D. 363. The Persians were repulsed.

G. Rawlinson, Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 10.

MARAPHIANS, The.

One of the tribes of the ancient Persians.

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 8, chapter 3.

MARAT AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790, to 1793 (MARCH-JUNE).

Assassination by Charlotte Corday.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY).

MARATA.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.

MARATHAS.

See MAHRATTAS.

MARATHON, Battle of.

See GREECE: B. C. 490.

MARAVEDIS.

See SPANISH COINS.

MARBURG CONFERENCE, The.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1528-1531.

MARCEL, Etienne, and the States General of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1356-1358.

MARCELLUS II., Pope, A. D. 1555, April to May.

MARCH. MARK.

The frontier or boundary of a territory; a border. Hence came the title of Marquis, which was originally that of an officer charged with the guarding of some March or border district of a kingdom. In Great Britain this title ranks second in the five orders of nobility, only the title of Duke being superior to it. The old English kingdom of Mercia was formed by the Angles who were first called the "Men of the March," having settled on the Welsh border, and that was the origin of its name. The kingdom of Prussia grew out of the "Mark of Brandenburg," which was originally a military border district formed on the skirts of the German empire to resist the Wends. Various other European states had the same origin.

See, also, MARGRAVE.

MARCH CLUB.

See CLUBS: THE OCTOBER AND THE MARCH.

MARCHFELD OR MARSCHFELD, Battle of the (1278).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1246-1282.

(1809) (also called the battle of Aspern-Esslingen, or of Aspern).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1809 (JANUARY-JUNE).

MARCIAN, Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 450-457.

MARCIANAPOLIS.

See GOTHS: A. D. 244-251.

----------MARCOMANNI AND QUADI: Start--------

MARCOMANNI AND QUADI, The.

"The Marcomanni [an ancient German people who dwelt, first, on the Rhine, but afterwards occupied southern Bohemia] stand first in strength and renown, and their very territory, from which the Boii were driven in a former age, was won by valour. Nor are the Narisci [settled in the region of modern Ratisbon] and Quadi [who probably occupied Moravia] inferior to them. This I may call the frontier of Germany, so far as it is completed by the Danube. The Marcomanni and Quadi have, up to our time, been ruled by kings of their own nation, descended from the noble stock of Maroboduus and Tudrus. They now submit even to foreigners; but the strength and power of the monarch depend on Roman influence."

Tacitus, Germany, translated by Church and Brodribb, chapter 42.

"The Marcomanni cannot be demonstrated as a distinct people before Marbod. It is very possible that the word up to that point indicates nothing but what it etymologically signifies—the land or frontier guard."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 7, foot-note.

See, also, AGRI DECUMATES.

MARCOMANNI AND QUADI: War with Tiberius.

See GERMANY: B. C. 8-A. D. 11.

MARCOMANNI AND QUADI: Wars with Marcus Aurelius.

See SARMATIAN AND MARCOMANNIAN WARS OF MARCUS AURELIUS.

----------MARCOMANNI AND QUADI: End--------

MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, Roman Emperor, A. D. 161-180.

MARDIA, Battle of (A. D. 313).

See ROME: A. D. 305-323.

MARDIANS, The.

One of the tribes of the ancient Persians; also called Amardians.

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 8, chapter 3.

See, also, TAPURIANS.

----------MARDYCK: Start--------

MARDYCK: A. D. 1645-1646. Thrice taken and retaken by French and Spaniards.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1645-1646.

MARDYCK: A. D. 1657. Siege and capture by the French. Delivery to the English.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.

----------MARDYCK: End--------

MARENGO, Battle of (1800).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

MARFEE, Battle of (1641).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1641-1642.

MARGARET, Queen of the North: Denmark and Norway, A. D. 1387-1412; Sweden, 1388-1412.

Margaret (called The Maid of Norway), Queen of Scotland, 1286-1290.

Margaret of Anjou, and the Wars of the Roses.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

Margaret of Navarre, or Marguerite d'Angouléme, and the Reformation in France.

See PAPACY: A.D. 1521-1535; and NAVARRE: A.D. 1528-1563.

Margaret of Parma and her Regency in the Netherlands.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1555-1559, and after.

{2088}

MARGHUSH.

See MARGIANA.

MARGIANA.

The ancient name of the valley of the Murghab or Moorghab (called the Margos). It is represented at the present day by the oasis now called Merv; was the Bactrian Mourn and the Marghush of the old Persians. It was inhabited by the Margiani.

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 7, chapter 1.

MARGRAVE. MARQUIS.

"This of Markgrafs (Grafs of the Marches, 'marked' Places, or Boundaries) was a natural invention in that state of circumstances [the circumstances of the Germany of the 10th century, under Henry the Fowler]. It did not quite originate with Henry; but was much perfected by him, he first recognising how essential it was. On all frontiers he had his 'Graf' (Count, 'Reeve,' 'G'reeve,' whom some think to be only 'Grau,' Gray, or 'Senior,' the hardiest, wisest steel-gray man he could discover) stationed on the Marck, strenuously doing watch and ward there: the post of difficulty, of peril, and naturally of honour too, nothing of a sinecure by any means. Which post, like every other, always had a tendency to become hereditary, if the kindred did not fail in fit men. And hence have come the innumerable Margraves, Marquises, and such like, of modern times; titles now become chimerical, and more or less mendacious, as most of our titles are."

T. Carlyle, Frederick the Great, book 2, chapter 1.

"The title derived from the old imperial office of markgrave [margrave], 'comes marchensis,' or count of the marches, had belonged to several foreigners who were brought into relation with England in the twelfth century; the duke of Brabant was marquess of Antwerp, and the count of Maurienne marquess of Italy; but in France the title was not commonly used until the seventeenth century, and it is possible that it came to England direct from Germany. … The fact that, within a century of its introduction into England, it was used in so unmeaning a designation as the marquess of Montague, shows that it had lost all traces of its original application."

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 20, section 751.

See MARCH; also, GRAF.

MARGUS, Treaty of.

A treaty which Attila the Hun extorted from the Eastern Roman Emperor, Theodosius, A. D. 434,—called by Sismondi "the most shameful treaty that ever monarch signed." It gave up to the savage king every fugitive from his vengeance or his jealousy whom he demanded, and even the Roman captives who had escaped from his bonds. It promised, moreover, an annual tribute to him of 700 pounds of gold.

J. C. L. de Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 7 (volume 1).

MARHATTAS.

See MAHRATTAS.

MARIA, Queen of Hungary, A. D. 1399-1437.

Maria, Queen of Sicily, 1377-1402.

Maria I., Queen of Portugal, 1777-1807.

Maria II., Queen of Portugal, 1826-1853.

Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, 1745-1780.

MARIA THERESA, The military order of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1757 (APRIL-JUNE).

MARIANA.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.

MARIANDYNIANS, The.

See BITHYNIANS.

MARIANS, The.

See ROME: B. C. 88-78.

MARICOPAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.

MARIE ANTOINETTE, Imprisonment, trial and execution of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (AUGUST); and 1793 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

Marie Louise of Austria, Napoleon's marriage to.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1810-1812.

Marie de Medicis, The regency and the intrigues of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1610-1619, to 1630-1632.

Marie.

See, also, MARY.

MARIETTA, OHIO: The Settlement and Naming of the town.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1786-1788.

MARIGNANO, OR MELIGNANO, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1515.

MARINUS, Pope.

See MARTIN.

MARIOLATRY, Rise of.

See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.

MARION, Francis, and the partisan warfare in the Carolinas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (AUGUST-DECEMBER), and 1780-1781.

MARIPOSAN F AMIL Y, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MARIPOSAN FAMILY.

MARITIME PROVINCES.

The British American provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, are commonly referred to as the Maritime Provinces.

MARIUS AND SULLA, The civil war of.

See ROME: B. C. 88-78.

MARIZZA, Battle of the (1363).

See TURKS (THE OTTOMANS): A. D. 1360-1389.

MARJ DABIK, Battle of (1516).

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

MARK.

A border.

See MARCH, MARK.

MARK, The.

"The theory of the Mark, or as it is more generally called in its later form, the free village community, has been an accepted hypothesis for the historical and economic world for more than half a century. Elaborated and expanded by the writings of Kemble in England and v. Maurer in Germany, taken up by later English writers and given wide currency through the works of Sir Henry Maine, Green, and Freeman, it has been accepted and extended by scores of historical writers on this side of the Atlantic as well as the other until it has become a commonplace in literature. Firm as has been its hold and important as has been its work, it is almost universally conceded that further modification or entire rejection must be the next step to be taken in the presence of the more thorough and scholarly research which is becoming prominent, and before all questions can be answered which this study brings to light. A change has taken place in the thought upon this subject; a reaction against the idealism of the political thinkers of half a century ago. The history of the hypothesis forms an interesting chapter in the relation between modern thought and the interpretation of past history, and shows that in the formation of an opinion both writer and reader are unconsciously dependent upon the spirit of the age in which they live. The free village community, as it is commonly understood, standing at the dawn of English and German history is discoverable in no historical documents, and for that reason it has been accepted by prudent scholars with caution. {2089} But the causes which have made it a widely acceptable hypothesis and have served to entrench it firmly in the mind of scholar and reader alike, have easily supplied what was wanting in the way of exact material, and have led to conclusions which are now recognized as often too hazy, historically inaccurate, though agreeable to the thought tendencies of the age. … The Mark as defined by Kemble, who felt in this interpretation the influence of the German writers, … was a district large or small with a well-defined boundary, containing certain proportions of heath, forest, fen and pasture. Upon this tract of land were communities of families or households, originally bound by kindred or tribal ties, but who had early lost this blood relationship and were composed of freemen, voluntarily associated for mutual support and tillage of the soil, with commonable rights in the land within the Mark. The Marks were entirely independent, having nothing to do with each other, self-supporting and isolated, until by continual expansion they either federated or coalesced into larger communities. Such communities varying in size covered England, internally differing only in minor details, in all other respects similar. This view of the Mark had been taken already more or less independently by v. Maurer in Germany, and five years after the appearance of Kemble's work, there was published the first of the series of volumes which have rendered Maurer's name famous as the establisher of the theory. As his method was more exact, his results were built upon a more stable foundation than were those of Kemble, but in general the two writers did not greatly differ."

C. McL. Andrews, The Old English Manor, pages 1-6.

ALSO IN: J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England, book 1, chapter 2.

E. A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, chapter 3, section 2.

W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, chapter 3, section 24 (volume 1).

See, also, MANOR.

MARKLAND.

See AMERICA: 10TH-11TH CENTURIES.

MARKS, Spanish.

See SPANISH COINS.

MARLBOROUGH, John Churchill, Duke of; and the fall of the English Whigs.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.

Campaigns.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704, to 17101712; and GERMANY: A. D. 1704.

----------MAROCCO: Start--------

MAROCCO: Ancient.

See MAURETANIA.

MAROCCO: The Arab conquest, and since.

The tide of Mahometan conquest, sweeping across North Africa (see MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 647-709), burst upon Marocco in 698. "Eleven years were required to overcome the stubborn resistance of the Berbers, who, however, when once conquered, submitted with a good grace and embraced the new creed with a facility entirely in accordance with the adaptive nature they still exhibit. Mingled bands of Moors and Arabs passed over into Spain, under Tarik and Moossa, and by the defeat of Roderic at the battle of Guadalete, in 711, the foundation of their Spanish empire was laid [see SPAIN: A. D. 711-713], on which was afterwards raised the magnificent fabric of the Western Khalifate. This is not the place to dwell on the glories of their dominion. … Suffice it to say, that a reflection of this glory extended to Marocco, where the libraries and universities of Fez and Marocco City told of the learning introduced by wise men, Moorish and Christian alike, who pursued their studies without fear of interruption on the score of religious belief. The Moors in the days of their greatness, be it observed, were far more liberal-minded than the Spanish Catholics afterwards showed themselves, and allowed Christians to practise their own religion in their own places of worship—in striking contrast to the fanaticism of their descendants in Marocco at the present day. … The intervals of repose under the rule of powerful and enlightened monarchs, during which the above-mentioned institutions flourished, were nevertheless comparatively rare, and the general history of Marocco during the Moorish dominion in Spain seems to have been one monotonous record of strife between contending tribes and dynasties. Early in the tenth century, the Berbers got the mastery of the Arabs, who never afterwards appear in the history of the country except under the general name of Moors. Various principalities were formed [11-13th centuries—see ALMORAVIDES and ALMOHADES], of which the chief were Fez, Marocco, and Tafilet, though now and again, and especially under the Marin dynasty, in the 13th century, the two former were consolidated into one kingdom. In the 15th century the successes of the Spaniards caused the centre of Moorish power to shift from Spain to Marocco. In the declining days of the Hispano-Moorish empire, and after its final extinction, the Spaniards and Portuguese revenged themselves on their conquerors by attacking the coast-towns of Marocco, many of which they captured. It is not improbable that they would eventually have possessed themselves of the entire country, but for the disastrous defeat of King Sebastian in 1578, at the battle of the Three Kings, on the banks of the Wad El Ma Hassen, near Alcazar [see PORTUGAL: A. D. 1579-1580]. This was the turning-point in Moorish history, and an African Creasy would have to rank the conflict at Alcazar among the decisive battles of the continent. With the rout and slaughter of the Portuguese fled the last chance of civilizing the country, which from that period gradually relapsed into a state of isolated barbarism. … For 250 years the throne has been in the hands of members of the Shereefian family of Fileli, who have remained practically undisputed masters of the whole of the empire. All this time, as in the earlier classical ages, Marocco has been practically shut out from the world. … The chief events of importance in Moorish affairs in the present century were the defeat of the Moors by the French at the battle of Isly [see BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1830-1846], near the Algerian frontier, in 1844, and the subsequent bombardment of Mogador and the coast-towns, and the Spanish war which terminated in 1860 with the peace of Tetuan. These reverses taught the Moors the power of European states, and brought about a great improvement in the position of Christians in the country. The Government of Marocco is in effect a kind of' graduated despotism, where every official, while possessing complete authority over those beneath him, must render absolute submission to his superiors. The supreme power is vested in the Sultan, the head of the State in all things spiritual and temporal. … Of the ultimate dissolution of the Moorish dominion there can be little doubt. … European States have long had their eyes upon it, but the same mutual distrust and jealousy which preserves the decaying fabric of the Turkish Empire has hitherto done the like for Marocco, whose Sultan serves the same purpose on the Straits of Gibraltar as the Turkish Sultan does on the Bosphorus."

H. E. M. Stutfield, El Maghreb, chapter 16.

See, also, BARBARY STATES.

----------MAROCCO: End--------

{2090}

MARONITES, The.

See MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY.

MAROONS.

See JAMAICA: A. D. 1655-1796.

MARQUETTE'S EXPLORATIONS.

See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673.

MARQUIS.

See MARGRAVE.

MARRANA, The.

An ancient ditch running from Alba to Rome,—being part of a channel by which the Vale of Grotta was drained.

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on Ancient Ethnography and Geography., volume 2, page 50.

MARRANOS.

See INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

MARRIAGE, Republican.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793-1794 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

MARRUCINIANS, The.

See SABINES.

MARS' HILL.

See AREOPAGUS.

MARSAGLIA, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (OCTOBER).

MARSCHFELD.

See MARCHFELD.

MARSEILLAISE, The. Origin of the Song. Its introduction into Paris.

In preparation for the insurrection of August 10, 1792, which overthrew the French monarchy, and made the Revolution begun in 1789 complete, the Jacobins had summoned armed bands of their supporters from an parts of France, ostensibly as volunteers to join the army on the frontier, but actually and immediately as a reinforcement for the attack which they had planned to make on the king at the Tuileries.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (JUNE-AUGUST).

Among the "fédérés" who came was a battalion of 500 from Marseilles, which arrived at the capital on the 30th of July. "This battalion has been described by every historian as a collection of the vagabonds who are always to be found in a great seaport town, and particularly in one like Marseilles, where food was cheap and lodging unnecessary. But their character has lately been vindicated, and it has been shown that these Marseillais were picked men from the national guards of Marseilles, like the other fédérés, and contained the most hardy as well as the most revolutionary men of the city. …. They left Marseilles 513 strong, with two guns, on July 2, and had been marching slowly across France, singing the immortal war song to which they gave their name. … The 'Marseillaise' had in itself no very radical history. On April 24, 1792, just after the declaration of war, the mayor of Strasbourg, Dietrich, who was himself no advanced republican, but a constitutionalist, remarked at a great banquet that it was very sad that all the national war songs of France could not be sung by her present defenders, because they all treated of loyalty to the king and not to the nation as well. One of the guests was a young captain of engineers, Rouget de Lisle, who had in 1791 composed a successful 'Hymne à la Liberté,' and Dietrich appealed to him to compose something suitable. The young man was struck by the notion, and during the night he was suddenly inspired with both words and air, and on the following day he sang over to Dietrich's guests the famous song which was to be the war-song of the French Republic. Madame Dietrich arranged the air for the orchestra; Rouget de Lisle dedicated it to Marshal Lückner, as the 'Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin,' and it at once became popular in Strasbourg. Neither Dietrich nor Rouget were advanced republicans. The watchword of the famous song was not 'Sauvons la République,' but' Sauvons la Patrie.' The air was a taking one. From Strasbourg it quickly spread over the south of France, and particularly attracted the patriots of Marseilles. … There are many legends on the origin of the 'Marseillaise'; the account here followed is that given by Amedée Rouget de Lisle, the author's nephew, in his 'La verité sur la paternité de la Marseillaise,' Paris, 1865, which is confirmed by a letter of Madame Dietrich's, written at the time, and first published in 'Souvenirs d' Alsace—Rouget de Lisle à Strasbourg et a Huningue,' by Adolphe Morpain."

H. M. Stephens, History of the French Revolution, volume 2, page 114-115.

A quite different but less trustworthy version of the story may be found in

A. de Lamartine History of the Girondists, book 16, section 26-30 (volume 1).

----------MARSEILLES: Start--------

MARSEILLES: The founding of.

See ASIA MINOR: B. C. 724-539, and PHOCÆANS.

MARSEILLES: B. C. 49. Conquest by Cæsar.

See ROME: B. C. 49.

MARSEILLES: 10th Century. In the kingdom of Aries.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 843-933.

MARSEILLES: 11th Century. The Viscounts of.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1032.

MARSEILLES: 12th Century. Prosperity and freedom.

See PROVENCE: A. D. 1179-1207.

MARSEILLES: A. D. 1524. Unsuccessful siege by the Spaniards and the Constable Bourbon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1523-1525.

MARSEILLES: A. D. 1792. The Marseillais sent to Paris, and their war-song.

See MARSEILLAISE.

MARSEILLES: A. D. 1793. Revolt against the Revolutionary Government at Paris. Fearful vengeance of the Terrorists.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JUNE), (JULY-DECEMBER); and 1793-1794 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

MARSEILLES: A. D. 1795. Reaction against the Reign of Terror. The White Terror.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

----------MARSEILLES: End--------

MARSHAL, The.

See CONSTABLE.

MARSHALL, John, and the Federal Constitution of the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789; and SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES.

MARSI, The.

See SAXONS; also, FRANKS.

MARSIAN WAR, The.

See ROME: B. C. 90-88.

MARSIANS, The.

See SABINES; also, ITALY: ANCIENT.

MARSIGNI, The.

The Marsigni were an ancient German tribe who inhabited "what is now Galatz, Jagerndorf and part of Silesia."

Tacitus, Germany; Oxford translation, foot-note.

MARSTON MOOR, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (JANUARY-JULY).

MARTHA'S VINEYARD: Named by Gosnold.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1602-1605.

MARTIN, King of Aragon, A. D. 1395-1410;

King of Sicily, A. D. 1409-1410.

Martin I., Pope, 649-655.

Martin I., King of Sicily, 1402-1409.

Martin II. (or Marinus I.), Pope, 882-884.

Martin II., King of Sicily, 1409-1410.

Martin III. (or Marinus II.), Pope, 942-946.

Martin IV., Pope, 1281-1285.

Martin V., Pope, 1417-1431 (elected by the Council of Constance).

{2091}

MARTLING MEN.

In February, 1806, when DeWitt Clinton and his political followers were organizing opposition to Governor Lewis, and were forming an alliance to that end with the political friends of Aaron Burr, a meeting of Republicans (afterwards called Democrats) was held at "Martling's Long Room," in New York City. Hence Mr. Clinton's Democratic opponents, "for a long time afterwards, were known in other parts of the state by the name of Martling Men."

J. D. Hammond, History of Political Parties in the State of New York, volume 1, page 230.

MARY (called Mary Tudor), Queen of England, A. D. 1553-1558.

Mary of Burgundy, The Austrian marriage of.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477.

Mary II., Queen of England (with King William III., her consort), 1689-1694.

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, 1542-1567.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1544-1548, to 1561-1568; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1587.

Mary.

See, also, MARIE.

----------MARYLAND: Start--------

MARYLAND: A. D. 1632. The charter granted to Lord Baltimore. An American palatinate.

"Among those who had become interested in the London or Virginia, Company, under its second charter, in 1609, was Sir George Calvert, afterwards the founder of Maryland. … Upon the dissolution of the Virginia Company … he was named by the king one of the royal commissioners to whom the government of that colony was confided. Hitherto he had been a Protestant, but in 1624, having become unsettled in his religious convictions, he renounced the church of England, in which he had been bred, and embraced the faith of the Catholic church. Moved by conscientious scruples, he determined no longer to hold the office of secretary of state [conferred on him in 1619], which would make him, in a manner, the instrument of persecution against those whose faith he had adopted, and tendered his resignation to the king. … The king, … while he accepted his resignation, continued him as a member of his privy council for life, and soon after created him Lord Baltimore, of Baltimore, in Ireland. The spirit of intolerance at that time pervaded England. … The laws against the Catholics in England were particularly severe and cruel, and rendered it impossible for any man to practice his religion in quiet and safety. Sir George Calvert felt this; and although he was assured of protection from the gratitude and affection of the king, he determined to seek another land and to found a new state, where conscience should be free and every man might worship God according to his own heart, in peace and perfect security. … At first he fixed his eyes on New-found-land, in the settlement of which he had been interested before his conversion. … Having purchased a ship, he sailed with his family to that island, in which, a few years before, he had obtained a grant of a province under the name of Avalon. Here he only resided two years [see NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1610-1655], when he found the climate and soil unsuited for the establishment of a flourishing community, and determined to seek a more genial country in the south. Accordingly, in 1628, he sailed to Virginia, with the intention of settling in the limits of that colony, or more probably to explore the uninhabited country on its borders, in order to secure a grant of it from the king. Upon his arrival within the jurisdiction of the colony, the authorities tendered him the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, to which, as then framed, no Catholic could subscribe. Lord Baltimore refused to take them, but prepared a form of an oath of allegiance which he and all his followers were willing to accept. His proposal was rejected, and being compelled to leave their waters, he explored the Chesapeake above the settlements. He was pleased with the beautiful and well wooded country, which surrounded the noble inlets and indentations of the great bay, and determined there to found his principality. … He returned to England to obtain a grant from Charles I, who had succeeded his father, James I, upon the throne. Remembering his services to his father, and perhaps moved by the intercessions of Henrietta Maria, his Catholic queen, who desired to secure an asylum abroad for the persecuted members of her church in England, Charles directed the patent to be issued. It was prepared by Lord Baltimore himself; but before it was finally executed that truly great and good, man died, and the patent was delivered to his son Cecilius, who succeeded as well to his noble designs as to his titles and estates. The charter was issued on the 20th of June, 1632, and the new province, in honor of Queen Henrietta Maria, was named 'Terra Mariæ'—Maryland."

J. McSherry, History of Maryland, introduction.

"The boundaries of Maryland, unlike those of the other colonies, were precisely defined. Its limits were: on the north, the fortieth parallel of north latitude; on the west and southwest, a line running south from this parallel to the farthest source of the Potomac, and thence by the farther or western bank of that river to Chesapeake Bay; on the south by a line running across the bay and peninsula to the Atlantic; and on the east by the ocean and the Delaware Bay and River. It included, therefore, all the present State of Delaware, a large tract of land now forming part of Pennsylvania, and another now occupied and claimed by West Virginia. The charter of Maryland contained the most ample rights and privileges ever conferred by a sovereign of England. It erected Maryland into a palatinate, equivalent to a principality, reserving only the feudal supremacy of the crown. The Proprietary was made absolute lord of the land and water within his boundaries, could erect towns, cities, and ports, make war or peace, call the whole fighting population to arms, and declare martial law, levy tolls and duties, establish courts of justice, appoint judges, magistrates, and other civil officers, execute the laws, and pardon offenders. He could erect manors with courts-baron and courts-leet, and confer titles and dignities, so that they differed from those of England. He could make laws with the assent of the freemen of the province, and, in cases of emergency, ordinances not impairing life, limb, or property, without their assent. He could found churches and chapels, have them consecrated according to the ecclesiastical laws of England, and appoint the incumbents. All this territory, with these royal rights, 'jura regalia,' was to be held of the crown in free socage, by the delivery of two Indian arrows yearly at the palace of Windsor, and the fifth of all gold or silver mined. The colonists and their descendants were to remain English subjects. … {2092} The King furthermore bound himself and his successors to lay no taxes, customs, subsidies, or contributions whatever upon the people of the province. … This charter, by which Maryland was virtually an independent and self-governed community, placed the destinies of the colonists in their own hands. … Though often attacked, and at times held in abeyance, the charter was never revoked."

W. H. Browne, Maryland, chapter 2.

The intention to create a palatine principality in Maryland is distinctly expressed in the fourth section of the charter, which grants to Lord Baltimore, his heirs and assigns, "as ample rights, jurisdictions, privileges, prerogatives, royalties, liberties, immunities, and royal rights … as any bishop of Durham, within the bishoprick or county palatine of Durham, in our kingdom of England, ever heretofore hath had, held, used, or enjoyed, or of right could, or ought to have, held, use, or enjoy."

J. L. Bozman, History of Maryland, volume 2, page. 11.

ALSO IN: H. W. Preston, Documents Illustrative of American History, page 62.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1633-1637. The planting of the colony at St. Mary's.

"Cecil, Lord Baltimore, after receiving his charter for Maryland, in June, 1632, prepared to carry out his father's plans. Terms of settlement were issued to attract colonists, and a body of emigrants was soon collected to begin the foundation of the new province. The leading gentlemen who were induced to take part in the project were Catholics; those whom they took out to till the soil, or ply various trades, were not all or, indeed, mainly Catholics, but they could not have been very strongly Protestant to embark in a venture so absolutely under Catholic control. At Avalon Sir George Calvert, anxious for the religious life of his colonists, had taken over both Catholic and Protestant clergymen, and was ill repaid for his liberal conduct. To avoid a similar ground of reproach, Baron Cecil left each part of his colonists free to take their own clergymen. It is a significant fact that the Protestant portion were so indifferent that they neither took over any minister of religion, nor for several years after Maryland settlements began made any attempt to procure one. On behalf of the Catholic settlers, Lord Baltimore applied to Father Richard Blount, at that time provincial of the Jesuits in England, and wrote to the General of the Society, at Rome, to excite their zeal in behalf of the English Catholics who were about to proceed to Maryland. He could offer the clergy no support. … The Jesuits did not shrink from a mission field where they were to look for no support from the proprietary or their flock, and were to live amid dangers. It was decided that two Fathers were to go as gentlemen adventurers, taking artisans with them, and acquiring lands like others, from which they were to draw their support. … The Maryland pilgrims under Leonard Calvert, brother of the lord proprietary, consisted of his brother George, some 20 other gentlemen, and 200 laboring men well provided. To convey these to the land of Mary, Lord Baltimore had his own pinnace, the Dove, of 50 tons, commanded by Robert Winter, and the Ark, a chartered vessel of 350 tons burthen, Richard Lowe being captain. Leonard Calvert was appointed governor, Jerome Hawley and Thomas Cornwaleys being joined in the commission." After many malicious hindrances and delays, the two vessels sailed from Cowes, November 22, 1633, and made their voyage in safety, though encountering heavy storms. They came to anchor in Chesapeake Bay, near one of the Heron Islands, which they named St. Clement; and on that island they raised a cross and celebrated mass. "Catholicity thus planted her cross and her altar in the heart of the English colonies in America, March 25, 1634. The land was consecrated, and then preparations were made to select a spot for the settlement. Leaving Father White at St. Clement's, the governor, with Father Altham, ran up the river in a pinnace, and at Potomac on the southern shore met Archihau, regent of the powerful tribe that held sway over that part of the land." Having won the goodwill of the savages, "Leonard Calvert sailed back to Saint Clement's. Then the pilgrims entered the Saint Mary's, a bold, broad stream, emptying into the Potomac about 12 miles from its mouth. For the first settlement of the new province, Leonard Calvert, who had landed, selected a spot a short distance above, about a mile from the eastern shore of the river. Here stood an Indian town, whose inhabitants, harassed by the Susquehannas, had already begun to emigrate to the westward. To observe strict justice with the Indian tribes, Calvert purchased from the werowance, or king, Yaocomoco, 30 miles of territory. The Indians gradually gave up some of their houses to the colonists, agreeing to leave the rest also after they had gathered in their harvest. … The new settlement began with Catholic and Protestant dwelling together in harmony, neither attempting to interfere with the religious rights of the other, 'and religious liberty obtained a home, its only home in the wide world, at the humble village which bore the name of St. Mary's' [Bancroft, i, 247]. … The settlers were soon at work. Houses for their use were erected, crops were planted, activity and industry prevailed. St. Mary's chapel was dedicated to the worship of Almighty God, and near it a fort stood, ready to protect the settlers. It was required by the fact that Clayborne [a trading adventurer and a member of the Virginia Council], the fanatical enemy of Lord Baltimore and his Catholic projects, who had already settled on Kent Island, was exciting the Indians against the colonists of Maryland. The little community gave the priests a field too limited for their zeal. … The Indian tribes were to be reached. … Another priest, with a lay brother, came to share their labors before the close of the year 1635; and the next year four priests were reported as the number assigned to the Maryland mission. Of their early labors no record is preserved. … Sickness prevailed in the colony, and the missionaries did not escape. Within two months after his arrival Father Knolles, a talented young priest of much hope, sank a victim to the climate, and Brother Gervase, one of the original band of settlers, also died. … Lord Baltimore's scheme embraced not only religious but legislative freedom, and his charter provided for a colonial assembly. … In less than three years an assembly of the freemen of the little colony was convened and opened its sessions on the 25-26th of January, 1637. All who had taken up lands were summoned to attend in person." Some of the resulting legislation was disapproved by the missionaries, and "the variance of opinion was most unfortunate in its results to the colony, as impairing the harmony which had hitherto prevailed."

J. G. Shea, The Catholic Church in Colonial Days, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: J. L. Bozman, History of Maryland, chapter 1

W. H. Browne, George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert, chapters 3-4.

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MARYLAND: A. D. 1634. Embraced in the palatine grant of New Albion.

See NEW ALBION.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1635-1638. The troubles with Clayborne.

William Clayborne "was the person most aggrieved by the Maryland charter. Under a general license from Charles I. to trade, he had established a lucrative post on Kent Island. The King, as he had unquestioned right to do under the theory of English law, granted to Lord Baltimore a certain tract of wild land, including Kent Island. Clayborne had no legal right there except as the subject of Baltimore; but, since his real injuries coincided with the fancied ones of the Virginians generally, his claim assumed importance. … There was … so strong a feeling in favor of Clayborne in Virginia that he was soon able to send an armed pinnace up the Chesapeake to defend his invaded rights at Kent Island, but the expedition was unfortunate. Governor Calvert, after a sharp encounter, captured Clayborne's pinnace, and proclaimed its owner a rebel. Calvert then demanded that the author of this trouble should be given up by Virginia; but Harvey [the governor], who had been in difficulties himself on account of his lukewarmness toward Clayborne, refused to comply. Clayborne, however, solved the problem in his own way, by going at once to England to attack his enemies in their stronghold. … On his arrival in England he … presented a petition to the King, and by adroitly working on the cupidity of Charles, not only came near recovering Kent Island, but almost obtained a large grant besides. After involving Lord Baltimore in a good deal of litigation, Clayborne was obliged, by an adverse decision of the Lords Commissioners of Plantations, to abandon all hopes in England, and therefore withdrew to Virginia to wait for better times."

H. C. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies in America, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: J. L. Bozman, History of Maryland, volume 2, chapter 1.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1643-1649. Colonial disturbances from the English Civil War. Lord Baltimore and the Puritans.

The struggle of parties incident to the overthrow of the monarchy and the civil war, in England, was attended in Maryland "with a degree of violence disproportionate to its substantial results. It is difficult to fasten the blame of the first attack definitely on either party. In 1643 or 1644 the King gave letters of marque to Leonard Calvert commissioning him to seize upon all ships belonging to the Parliament. It would seem, however, as if the other side had begun to be active, since only three months later we find the Governor issuing a proclamation for the arrest of Richard Ingle, a sea-captain, apparently a Puritan and an ally of Clayborne. … Ingle … landed at St. Mary's [1645], while Clayborne at the same time made a fresh attempt upon Kent Island. Later events showed that under a resolute leader the Maryland Royalists were capable of a determined resistance, but now either no such leader was forthcoming, or the party was taken by surprise. Cornwallis, who seems to have been the most energetic man in the colony, was absent in England, and Leonard Calvert fled into Virginia, apparently without an effort to maintain his authority. Ingle and his followers landed and seized upon St. Mary's, took possession of the government, and plundered Cornwallis's house and goods to the value of £300. Their success was short-lived. Calvert returned, rallied his party, and ejected Clayborne and Ingle. The Parliament made no attempt to back the proceedings of its supporters, and the matter dwindled into a petty dispute between Ingle and Cornwallis, in which the latter obtained at least some redress for his losses. The Isle of Kent held out somewhat longer, but in the course of the next year it was brought back to its allegiance. This event was followed in less than a twelvemonth by the death of the Governor [June 9, 1647]. Baltimore now began to see that in the existing position of parties he must choose between his fidelity to a fallen cause and his position as the Proprietor of Maryland. As early as 1642 we find him warning the Roman Catholic priests in his colony that they must expect no privileges beyond those which they would enjoy in England. He now showed his anxiety to propitiate the rising powers by his choice of a successor to his brother. The new Governor, William Stone, was a Protestant. The Council was also reconstituted and only two Papists appeared among its members. … Furthermore he [Lord Baltimore] exacted from Stone an oath that he would not molest any persons on the ground of their religion, provided they accepted the fundamental dogmas of Christianity. The Roman Catholics were singled out as the special objects of this protection, though we may reasonably suppose that it was also intended to check religious dissensions. So far Baltimore only acted like a prudent, unenthusiastic man, who was willing to make the best of a defeat and save what he could out of it by a seemingly free sacrifice of what was already lost. … The internal condition of the colony had now been substantially changed since the failure of Ingle and Clayborne. The Puritan party there had received an important addition. … A number of Nonconformists had made an attempt to establish themselves on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay. … The toleration which was denied them by the rigid and narrow-minded Anglicanism of Virginia was conceded by the liberality or the indifference of Baltimore. The precise date and manner of their immigration cannot be discovered, but we know that by 1650 their settlement was important enough to be made into a separate county under the name of Ann Arundel, and by 1653 they formed two distinct communities, numbering between them close upon 140 householders. All that was required of them was an oath of fidelity to the Proprietor, and it seems doubtful whether even that was exacted at the outset. They seem, in the unsettled and anarchical condition of the colony, to have been allowed to form a separate and well-nigh independent body, holding political views openly at variance with those of the Proprietor. To what extent the settlers on the Isle of Kent were avowedly hostile to Baltimore's government is doubtful. But it is clear that discontent was rife among them, and that in conjunction with the new-comers they made up a formidable body, prepared to oppose the Proprietor and support the Parliament. Symptoms of internal disaffection were seen in the proceedings of the Assembly of 1649."

J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Virginia, Maryland, &c., chapter 10.

ALSO IN: G. P. Fisher, The Colonial Era, chapter 5.

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MARYLAND: A. D. 1649. The Act of Toleration.

Religious liberty was a vital part of the earliest common-law of the province. At the date of the charter, Toleration existed in the heart of the proprietary. And it appeared in the earliest administration of the affairs of the province. But an oath was soon prepared by him, including a pledge from the governor and the privy counsellors, 'directly or indirectly' to 'trouble, molest, or discountenance' no 'person whatever,' in the province, 'professing to believe in Jesus Christ.' Its date is still an open question—some writers supposing it was imposed in 1637; and others, in 1648. I am inclined to think the oath of the latter was but 'an augmented edition' of the one in the former year. The grant of the charter marks the era of a special Toleration. But the earliest practice of the government presents the first, the official oath the second, the action of the Assembly in 1649 the third, and to advocates of a republican government the most important phasis, in the history of the general Toleration. … To the legislators of 1649 was it given … to take their own rank among the foremost spirits of the age. Near the close of the session, … by a solemn act [the 'Act Concerning Religion'], they endorsed that policy which ever since has shed the brightest lustre upon the legislative annals of the province. … The design was five-fold:—to guard by an express penalty 'the most sacred things of God'; to inculcate the principle of religious decency and order; to establish, upon a firmer basis, the harmony already existing between the colonists; to secure, in the fullest sense, freedom as well as protection to all believers in Christianity; and to protect quiet disbelievers against every sort of reproach or ignominy."

G. L. Davis, The Daystar of American Freedom, chapters 4-7.

"In the wording of this act we see evident marks of a compromise between the differing sentiments in the Assembly. … It was as good a compromise as could be made at the time, and an immense advance upon the principles and practice of the age. In reality, it simply formulated in a statute what had been Baltimore's policy from the first. … From the foundation of the colony no man was molested under Baltimore's rule on account of religion. Whenever the Proprietary's power was overthrown, religious persecution began, and was checked so soon as he was reinstated."

W. H. Browne, Maryland, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: W. H. Browne, George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert, chapter 8.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1650-1675. In Puritan times, and after.

"To whatever causes … toleration was due, it worked well in populating Maryland. There was an influx of immigration, composed in part of the Puritans driven from Virginia by Berkeley. These people, although refusing the oath of fidelity, settled at Providence, near the site of Annapolis. Not merely the Protestant but the Puritan interest was now predominant in Maryland, and in the next Assembly the Puritan faction had control. They elected one of their leaders Speaker, and expelled a Catholic who refused to take an oath requiring secrecy on the part of the Burgesses. … Yet they passed stringent laws against Clayborne, and an act reciting their affection for Lord Baltimore, who had so vivid an idea of their power that he deemed it best to assent to sumptuary laws of a typically Puritan character. The Assembly appears to have acknowledged the supremacy of Parliament, while their proprietary went so far in the same direction that his loyalty was doubted, and Charles II. afterward appointed Sir William Davenant in his place to govern Maryland. This discreet conduct on the part of Lord Baltimore served, however, as a protection neither to the colonists nor to the proprietary rights. To the next Assembly, the Puritans of Providence refused to send delegates, evidently expecting a dissolution of the proprietary government, and the consequent supremacy of their faction. Nor were they deceived. Such had been the prudence of the Assembly and of Lord Baltimore that Maryland was not expressly named in the Parliamentary commission for the 'reducement' of the colonies; but, unfortunately, Clayborne was the ruling spirit among the Parliamentary commissioners, and he was not the man to let any informality of wording in a document stand between him and his revenge. … Clayborne and Richard Bennet, one of the Providence settlers, and also a commissioner, soon gave their undivided attention to Maryland." Stone was displaced from the Governorship, but reinstated after a year, taking sides for a time with the Puritan party. "He endeavored to trim at a time when trimming was impossible. … Stone's second change, however, was a decided one. Although he proclaimed Cromwell as Lord-Protector, he carried on the government exclusively in Baltimore's interest, ejected the Puritans, recalled the Catholic Councillors, and issued a proclamation against the inhabitants of Providence as factious and seditious. A flagrant attempt to convert a young girl to Catholicism added fuel to the flames. Moderation was at an end. Clayborne and Bennet, backed by Virginia, returned and called an Assembly, from which Catholics were to be excluded. In Maryland, as in England, the extreme wing of the Puritan party was now in the ascendant, and exercised its power oppressively and relentlessly. Stone took arms and marched against the Puritans. A battle was fought at Providence, in which the Puritans, who, whatever their other failings, were always ready in a fray, were completely victorious. A few executions and some sequestrations followed, and severe laws against the Catholics were passed. The policy of the Puritans was not toleration, and they certainly never believed in it. Nevertheless, Lord Baltimore kept his patent, and the Puritans did not receive in England the warm sympathy they had expected." In the end (1657) there was a compromise. The proprietary government was re-established, and Fendall, whom Baltimore had appointed Governor in place of Stone, was recognized. "The results of all this turbulence were the right to carry arms, the practical assertion of the right to make laws and lay taxes, relief from the oath of fealty with the obnoxious clauses, and the breakdown of the Catholic interest in Maryland politics. Toleration was wisely restored. The solid advantages were gained by the Puritan minority at the expense of the lord proprietary. {2095} In the interregnum which ensued on the abdication of Richard Cromwell, the Assembly met and claimed supreme authority in the province, and denied their responsibility to anyone but the sovereign in England. Fendall, a weak man of the agitator species, acceded to the claims of the Assembly; but Baltimore removed Fendall, and kept the power which the Assembly had attempted to take away. … Maryland did not suffer by the Restoration, as was the case with her sister colonies, but gained many solid advantages. The factious strife of years was at last allayed, and order, peace, and stability of government supervened. Philip Calvert, an illegitimate son of the first proprietary, was governor for nearly two years, and was then succeeded [1661] by his nephew, Charles, the oldest son of Lord Baltimore, whose administration lasted for fourteen. It would have been difficult to find at that time better governors than these Calverts proved themselves. Moderate and just, they administered the affairs of Maryland sensibly and well. Population increased, and the immigration of Quakers and foreigners, and of the oppressed of all nations, was greatly stimulated by a renewal of the old policy of religious toleration. The prosperity of the colony was marked."

H. C. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: J. Grahame, History of the United States (Colonial), book 3 (volume 1).

D. R. Randall, A Puritan Colony in Maryland. (Johns Hopkins University Studies, 4th series, no. 6).

W. H. Browne, George Calvert and Cecilius Calvert, chapters 8-9.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1664-1682. Claims to Delaware disputed by the Duke of York. Grant of Delaware by the Duke to William Penn.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1682.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1681-1685. The Boundary dispute with William Penn, in its first stages.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1685.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1688-1757. Lord Baltimore deprived of the government. Change of faith and restoration of his son. Intolerance revived.

Lord Baltimore, "though guilty of no maladministration in his government, though a zealous Roman catholic, and firmly attached to the cause of King James II., could not prevent his charter from being questioned in that arbitrary reign, and a suit from being commenced to deprive him of the property and jurisdiction of a province granted by the royal favour, and peopled at such a vast expense of his own. But it was the error of that weak and unfortunate reign, neither to know its friends, nor its enemies; but by a blind precipitate conduct to hurry on everything of whatever consequence with almost equal heat, and to imagine that the sound of the royal authority was sufficient to justify every sort of conduct to every sort of people. But these injuries could not shake the honour and constancy of Lord Baltimore, nor tempt him to desert the cause of his master. Upon the revolution [1688] he had no reason to expect any favour; yet he met with more than king James had intended him; he was deprived indeed of all his jurisdiction [1691], but he was left the profits of his province, which were by no means inconsiderable; and when his descendents had conformed to the church of England, they were restored [1741] to all their rights as fully as the legislature has thought fit that any proprietor should enjoy them. When upon the revolution power changed hands in that province, the new men made but an indifferent requital for the liberties and indulgences they had enjoyed under the old administration. They not only deprived the Roman Catholics of all share in the government, but of all the rights of freemen; they have even adopted the whole body of the penal laws of England against them; they are at this day [1757] meditating new laws in the same spirit, and they would undoubtedly go to the greatest lengths in this respect, if the moderation and good sense of the government in England did not set some bounds to their bigotry."

E. Burke, Account of the European Settlements in America, part 7, chapter 18 (volume 2).

"We may now place side by side the three tolerations of Maryland. The toleration of the Proprietaries lasted fifty years, and under it all believers in Christ were equal before the law, and all support to churches or ministers was voluntary; the Puritan toleration lasted six years, and included all but Papists, Prelatists, and those who held objectionable doctrines; the Anglican toleration lasted eighty years, and had glebes and churches for the Establishment, connivance for Dissenters, the penal laws for Catholics."

W. H. Browne, Maryland, chapter 11.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1690. The first Colonial Congress. King William's War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690; and CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1729-1730. The founding of Baltimore.

"Maryland had never taken kindly to towns, and though in Queen Anne's reign, in conformity with the royal wish, a number were founded, the reluctant Assembly 'erecting' them by batches—42 at once in 1706—scarcely any passed beyond the embryonic stage. … St. Mary's and Annapolis, the one waning as the other waxed, remained the only real towns of the colony for the first 90 years of its existence; Joppa, on the Gunpowder, was the next, and had a fair share of prosperity for 50 years and more, until her young and more vigorous rival, Baltimore, drew off her trade, and she gradually dwindled, peaked, and pined away to a solitary house and a grass-grown grave-yard, wherein slumber the mortal remains of her ancient citizens. Baltimore on the Patapsco was not the first to bear that appellation. At least two Baltimores had a name, if not a local habitation, and perished, if they can be said ever to have rightly existed, before their younger sister saw the light. … In 1729, the planters near the Patapsco, feeling the need of a convenient port, made application to the Assembly, and an act was passed authorising the purchase of the necessary land, whereupon 60 acres bounding on the northwest branch of the river, at the part of the harbor now called the Basin, were bought of Daniel and Charles Carroll at 40 shillings the acre. The streets and lots were laid off in the following January, and purchasers invited. The waterfronts were immediately taken up."

W. H. Browne, Maryland, chapter 12.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1754. The Colonial Congress at Albany, and Franklin's Plan of Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1755-1760. The French and Indian War.

See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760; OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, 1755; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, 1755; and CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

{2096}

MARYLAND: A. D. 1760-1767. Settlement of the boundary dispute with Pennsylvania. Mason and Dixon's line.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1760-1767.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1760-1775. Opening events of the Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775, to 1775; and BOSTON: A. D. 1768, to 1773.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1776. The end of proprietary and royal government. Formation and adoption of a state constitution.

"In Maryland the party in favor of independence encountered peculiar obstacles. Under the proprietary rule the colony enjoyed a large measure of happiness and prosperity. The Governor, Robert Eden, was greatly respected, and to the last was treated with forbearance. … The political power was vested in a Convention which created the Council of Safety and provided for the common defence. This was, however, so much under the control of the proprietary party and timid Whigs that, on the 21st of May [1776], it renewed its former instructions against independence. … The popular leaders determined 'to take the sense of the people.' Charles Carroll of Carrolton, and Samuel Chase, who had just returned from Canada, entered with zeal into the movement on the side of independence and revolution. Meetings were called in the counties. … Anne Arundel County declared that the province, except in questions of domestic policy, was bound by the decisions of Congress. … Charles County followed, pronouncing for independence, confederation, and a new government. … Frederick County (June 17) unanimously resolved: 'That what may be recommended by a majority of the Congress equally delegated by the people of the United Colonies, we will, at the hazard of our lives and fortunes, support and maintain.' … This was immediately printed. 'Read the papers,' Samuel Chase wrote on the 21st to John Adams, 'and be assured Frederick speaks the sense of many counties.' Two days afterward the British man-of-war, Fowey, with a flag of truce at her top-gallant mast, anchored before Annapolis; the next day, Governor Eden was on board; and so closed the series of royal governors on Maryland soil."

R. Frothingham, The Rise of the Republic, pp. 525-527.

"Elections were held throughout the state on the 1st day of August, 1776, for delegates to a new convention to form a constitution and state government. … On the 14th of August this new body assembled. … On the 3d of November the bill of rights was adopted. On the 8th of the same month the constitution of the State was finally agreed to, and elections ordered to carry it into effect."

J. McSherry, History of Maryland, chapter 10.

See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A.D. 1776-1779.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1776-1783. The War of Independence, to the Peace with Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776, to 1783.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1776-1808. Anti-Slavery opinion and the causes of its disappearance.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1776-1808.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1777-1781. Resistance to the western territorial claims of states chartered to the Pacific Ocean. Influence upon land-cessions to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1787-1788. Adoption and ratification of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787; and 1787-1789.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1813. The coast of Chesapeake Bay harried by the British.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1861 (April). Reply of Governor Hicks to President Lincoln's call for troops.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL) PRESIDENT LINCOLN'S CALL TO ARMS.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1861 (April). Secession activity. Baltimore mastered by the rebel mob. Attack on the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL) ACTIVITY OF REBELLION.

MARYLAND: A. D. 1861 (April-May). Attempted "neutrality" and the end of it. General Butler at Annapolis and Baltimore.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL-MAY: MARYLAND).

MARYLAND: A. D. 1862 (September). Lee's first invasion and his cool reception. The battles of South Mountain and Antietam.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER: MARYLAND).

MARYLAND: A. D. 1863. Lee's second invasion. Gettysburg.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: PENNSYLVANIA).

MARYLAND: A. D. 1864. Early's invasion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY: VIRGINIA—MARYLAND).

MARYLAND: A. D. 1867. The founding of Johns Hopkins University.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1867.

----------MARYLAND: End----------

MARZOCCO.

"'Marzocco' was the name given to the Florentine Lion, a stone figure of which was set up in all subject places and the name shouted as a battle-cry by their armies. It is said to be derived from the Hebrew, 'Mare' (form, or appearance, or aspect) and 'Sciahhal,' 'a great Lion.'"

H. E. Napier, Florentine History, volume 4, page 103, foot-note.

MASANIELLO'S REVOLT.

See ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.

MASKOKI FAMILY OF INDIANS.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

MASKOUTENS, MASCONTENS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SACS, &c.

MASNADA,

See CATTANI.

MASON, John, and his grant in New Hampshire.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.

MASON AND DIXON'S LINE.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1760-1767.

MASON AND SLIDELL, The seizure of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (NOVEMBER).

MASORETES, MASSORETES MASORETIC.

When the Hebrew language had ceased to be a living language "the so-called Masoretes, or Jewish scribes, in the sixth century after the Christian era, invented a system of symbols which should represent the pronunciation of the Hebrew of the Old Testament as read, or rather chanted, at the time in the great synagogue of Tiberias in Palestine. It is in accordance with this Masoretic mode of pronunciation that Hebrew is now taught."

A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 3.

"Massora denotes, in general, tradition … ; but more especially it denotes the tradition concerning the text of the Bible. Hence those who made this special tradition their object of study were called Massoretes. … As there was an eastern and western, or Babylonian and Palestinian Talmud, so likewise there developed itself a twofold Massora,—a Babylonian, or eastern, and a Palestinian, or western: the more important is the former. At Tiberias the study of the Massora had been in a flourishing condition for a long time. Here lived the famous Massorete, Aaron ben-Moses ben-Asher, commonly called Ben-Asher, in the beginning of the tenth century, who finally fixed the so-called Massoretic text."

Shaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge.

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MASPIANS, The.

One of the tribes of the ancient Persians.

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 8, chapter 3.

MASSACHUSETTS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

----------MASSACHUSETTS: Start--------

MASSACHUSETTS: The Name.

"The name Massachusetts, so far as I have observed, is first mentioned by Captain Smith in his 'Description of New England,' 1616. He spells the word variously, but he appears to use the term Massachuset and Massachewset to denote the country, while he adds a final's' when he is speaking of the inhabitants. He speaks of Massachusets Mount and Massachusets River, using the word also in its possessive form; while in another place he calls the former 'the high mountain of Massachusit.' To this mountain, on his map, he gives the English name of 'Chevyot Hills.' Hutchinson (i. 460) supposes the Blue Hills of Milton to be intended. He says that a small hill near Squantum, the former seat of a great Indian sachem, was called Massachusetts Hill, or Mount Massachusetts, down to his time. Cotton, in his Indian vocabulary, says the word means 'a hill in the form of an arrow's head.' See, also, Neal's 'New England,' ii. 215, 216. In the Massachusetts charter the name is spelled in three or four different ways, to make sure of a description of the territory."

C. Deane, New England (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 3, page 342, footnote).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1602. The Bay visited by Gosnold.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1602-1605.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1605. The Bay visited by Champlain.

See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620. The Pilgrim Fathers. Whence and why they came to New England.

See INDEPENDENTS OR SEPARATISTS.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620. The voyage of the Mayflower. The landing of the Pilgrims. The founding of Plymouth colony.

The congregation of John Robinson, at Leyden, having, after long efforts, procured from the London Company for Virginia a patent or grant of land which proved useless to them, and having closed a hard bargain with certain merchants of London who supplied to some limited extent the means necessary for their emigration and settlement (see INDEPENDENTS, OR SEPARATISTS: A. D. 1617-1620), were prepared, in the summer of 1620, to send forth the first pilgrims from their community, across the ocean, seeking freedom in the worship of God. "The means at command provided only for sending a portion of the company; and 'those that stayed, being the greater number, required the pastor to stay with them,' while Elder Brewster accompanied, in the pastor's stead, the almost as numerous minority who were to constitute a church by themselves; and in every church, by Robinson's theories, the 'governing elder,' next in rank to the pastor and the teacher, must be 'apt to teach.' A small ship,—the 'Speedwell,'—of some 60 tons burden, was bought and fitted out in Holland, and early in July those who were ready for the formidable voyage, being 'the youngest and strongest part,' left Leyden for embarkation at Delft-Haven, nearly 20 miles to the southward,—sad at the parting, 'but,' says Bradford, 'they knew that they were pilgrims.' About the middle of the second week of the month the vessel sailed for Southampton, England. On the arrival there they found the 'Mayflower,' a ship of about 180 tons burden, which had been hired in London, awaiting them with their fellow passengers,—partly laborers employed by the merchants, partly Englishmen like-minded with themselves, who were disposed to join the colony. Mr. Weston, also, was there, to represent the merchants; but, when discussion arose about the terms of the contract, he went off in anger, leaving the contract unsigned, and the arrangements so incomplete that the Pilgrims were forced to dispose of sixty pounds' worth of their not abundant stock of provisions to meet absolutely necessary charges. The ships, with perhaps 120 passengers, put to sea about August 5/15, with hopes of the colony being well settled before winter; but the 'Speedwell' was soon pronounced too leaky to proceed without being overhauled, and so both ships put in at Dartmouth, after eight days' sail. Repairs were made, and before the end of another week they started again; but when about a hundred leagues beyond Land's End, Reynolds, the master of the' Speedwell,' declared her in imminent danger of sinking, so that both ships again put about. On reaching Plymouth Harbor it was decided to abandon the smaller vessel, and thus to send back those of the company whom such a succession of mishaps had disheartened. … It was not known till later that the alarm over the 'Speedwell's' condition was owing to deception practised by the master and crew. … At length, on Wednesday, September 6/16, the Mayflower left Plymouth, and nine weeks from the following day, on November 9/19, sighted the eastern coast of the flat, but at that time well-wooded shores of Cape Cod. She took from Plymouth 102 passengers, besides the master and crew; on the voyage one man-servant died and one child was born, making 102 (73 males and 29 females) who reached their destination. Of these, the colony proper consisted of 34 adult males, 18 of them accompanied by their wives and 14 by minor children (20 boys and 8 girls); besides these, there were 3 maid-servants and 19 men-servants, sailors, and craftsmen,—5 of them only half-grown boys,—who were hired for temporary service. Of the 34 men who were the nucleus of the colony, more than half are known to have come from Leyden; in fact, but 4 of the 34 are certainly known to be of the Southampton accessions. … And whither were they bound? As we have seen, a patent was secured in 1619 in Mr. Wincob's name; but 'God so disposed as he never went nor they ever made use of this patent,' says Bradford,—not however making it clear when the intention of colonizing under this instrument was abandoned. {2098} The 'merchant adventurers' while negotiating at Leyden seem to have taken out another patent from the Virginia Company, in February, 1620, in the names of John Peirce and of his associates; and this was more probably the authority under which the Mayflower voyage was undertaken. As the Pilgrims had known before leaving Holland of an intended grant of the northern parts of Virginia to a new company,—the Council for New England,—when they found themselves off Cape Cod, 'the patent they had being for Virginia and not for New England, which belonged to another Government, with which the Virginia Company had nothing to do,' they changed the ship's course, with intent, says Bradford, 'to find some place about Hudson's River for their habitation,' and so fulfil the conditions of their patent; but difficulties of navigation and opposition from the master and crew caused the exiles, after half a day's voyage, to retrace their course and seek a resting-place on the nearest shore. … Their radical change of destination exposed the colonists to a new danger. As soon as it was known, some of the hired laborers threatened to break loose (upon landing) from their engagements, and to enjoy full license, as a result of the loss of the authority delegated in the Virginia Company's patent. The necessity of some mode of civil government had been enjoined on the Pilgrims in the farewell letter from their pastor, and was now availed of to restrain these insurgents and to unite visibly the well-affected. A compact, which has often been eulogized as the first written constitution in the world, was drawn up. … Of the 41 signers to this compact, 34 were the adults called above the nucleus of the colony, and seven were servants or hired workmen; the seven remaining adult males of the latter sort were perhaps too ill to sign with the rest (all of them soon died), or the list of signers may be imperfect. This needful preliminary step was taken on Saturday, November 11/21, by which time the Mayflower had rounded the Cape and found shelter in the quiet harbor on which now lies the village of Provincetown; and probably on the same day they 'chose, or rather confirmed,' as Bradford has it, … Mr. John Carver governor for the ensuing year. On the same day an armed delegation visited the neighboring shore, finding no inhabitants. There were no attractions, however, for a permanent settlement, nor even accommodations for a comfortable encampment while such a place was being sought." Some days were spent in exploring Cape Cod Bay, and the harbor since known as Plymouth Bay was chosen for the settlement of the colony. The exploring party landed, as is believed, at the famous Rock, on Monday December 11/21. "Through an unfortunate mistake, originating in the last century, the 22d has been commonly adopted as the true date. … Tradition divides the honor of being the first to step on Plymouth Rock between John Alden and Mary Chilton, but the date of their landing must have been subsequent to December 11 [N. S. 21]." It was not till the end of the week, December 16/26, that the Mayflower was anchored in the chosen haven. "The selection of a site and the preparation of materials, in uncertain weather, delayed till Monday, the 25th [January 4, N. S.] the beginning of 'the first house for common use, to receive them and their goods.' Before the new year, house-lots were assigned to families, and by the middle of January most of the company had left the ship for a home on land."

F. B. Dexter, The Pilgrim Church and Plymouth Colony (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 3, chapter 8, with foot-notes).

"Before the Pilgrims landed, they by a solemn instrument founded the Puritan republic. The tone of this instrument and the success of its authors may afford a lesson to revolutionists who sever the present from the past with the guillotine, fling the illustrious dead out of their tombs, and begin history again with the year one. These men had been wronged as much as the Jacobins. 'In the name of God. Amen. We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the grace of God of Great Britain and Ireland, defender of the faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith, and honour of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic for our better ordering and preservation, and for the furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to exact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances and acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet for the general good of the colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.' And then follows the roll of plebeian names, to which the Roll of Battle Abbey is a poor record of nobility. There are points in history at which the spirit which moves the whole shows itself more clearly through the outward frame. This is one of them. Here we are passing from the feudal age of privilege and force to the age of due submission and obedience, to just and equal offices and laws, for our better ordering and preservation. In this political covenant of the Pilgrim fathers lies the American Declaration of Independence. From the American Declaration of Independence was borrowed the French Declaration of the Rights of Man. France, rushing ill-prepared, though with overweening confidence, on the great problems of the eighteenth century, shattered not her own hopes alone, but nearly at the same moment the Puritan Republic, breaking the last slight link that bound it to feudal Europe, and placing modern society firmly and tranquilly on its new foundation. To the free States of America we owe our best assurance that the oldest, the most famous, the most cherished of human institutions are not the life, nor would their fall be the death, of social man; that all which comes of Charlemagne, and all which comes of Constantine, might go to the tombs of Charlemagne and Constantine, and yet social duty and affection, religion and worship, free obedience to good government, free reverence for just laws, continue as before. They who have achieved this have little need to talk of Bunker's Hill."

Goldwin Smith, On the Foundation of the American Colonies (Lectures on the Study of History).

ALSO IN: W. Bradford, History of Plymouth Plantation (Massachusetts Historical Society Collection, 4th series, volume 3), book 1.

Mourt's Relation, or Journal of the Plantation at Plymouth; edited by H. M. Dexter.

J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 3.

{2099}

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1621. The first year of the Plymouth Colony and its sufferings. The Pierce patent. The naming of Plymouth.

"The labor of providing habitations had scarcely begun, when sickness set in, the consequence of exposure and bad food. Within four months it carried off nearly half their number. Six died in December, eight in January, seventeen in February, and thirteen in March. At one time during the winter, only six or seven had strength enough left to nurse the dying and bury the dead. Destitute of every provision, which the weakness and the daintiness of the invalid require, the sick lay crowded in the unwholesome vessel, or in half-built cabins heaped around with snow-drifts. The rude sailors refused them even a share of those coarse sea-stores which would have given a little variety to their diet, till disease spread among the crew, and the kind ministrations of those whom they had neglected and affronted brought them to a better temper. The dead were interred in a bluff by the water-side, the marks of burial being carefully effaced, lest the natives should discover how the colony had been weakened. … Meantime, courage and fidelity never gave out. The well carried out the dead through the cold and snow, and then hastened back from the burial to wait on the sick; and as the sick began to recover, they took the places of those whose strength had been exhausted." In March, the first intercourse of the colonists with the few natives of the region was opened, through Samoset, a friendly Indian, who had learned from fishermen on the more eastern coast to speak a little English. Soon afterwards, they made a treaty of friendship and alliance with Massasoit, the chief of the nearest tribe, which treaty remained in force for 54 years. On the 5th of April the Mayflower set sail on her homeward voyage, "with scarcely more than half the crew which had navigated her to America, the rest having fallen victims to the epidemic of the winter. … She carried back not one of the emigrants, dispiriting as were the hardships which they had endured, and those they had still in prospect." Soon after the departure of the Mayflower, Carver, the Governor, died. "Bradford was chosen to the vacant office, with Isaac Allerton, at his request, for his Assistant. Forty-six of the colonists of the Mayflower were now dead,—28 out of the 48 adult men. Before the arrival of the second party of emigrants in the autumn, the dead reached the number of 51, and only an equal number survived the first miseries of the enterprise. … Before the winter set in, tidings from England had come, to relieve the long year's lonesomeness; and a welcome addition was made to the sadly diminished number. The Fortune, a vessel of 55 tons' burden, reached Plymouth after a passage of four months, with Cushman and some 30 other emigrants. The men who now arrived outnumbered those of their predecessors who were still living. … Some were old friends of the colonists, at Leyden. Others were persons who added to the moral as well as to the numerical strength of the settlement. But there were not wanting such as became subjects for anxiety and coercion." The Fortune also brought to the colonists a patent from the Council for New England, as it was commonly known—the corporation into which the old Plymouth Company, or North Virginia branch of the Virginia Company, had been transformed (see NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623). "Upon lands of this corporation Bradford and his companions had sat down without leave, and were of course liable to be summarily expelled. Informed of their position by the return of the Mayflower to England in the spring, their friends obtained from the Council a patent which was brought by the Fortune. It was taken out in the name of 'John Pierce, citizen and cloth-worker of London, and his associates,' with the understanding that it should be held in trust for the Adventurers, of whom Pierce was one. It allowed 100 acres of land to every colonist gone and to go to New England, at a yearly rent of two shillings an acre after seven years. It granted 1,500 acres for public uses, and liberty to 'hawk, fish, and fowl'; to 'truck, trade, and traffic with the savages'; to 'establish such laws and ordinances as are for their better government, and the same, by such officer or officers as they shall by most voices elect and choose, to put in execution'; and 'to encounter, expulse, repel, and resist by force of arms' all intruders. … The instrument was signed for the Council by the Duke of Hamilton, the Duke of Lenox, the Earl of Warwick, Lord Sheffield, and Sir Ferdinando Gorges. … The precise time of the adoption of the name which the settlement has borne since its first year is not known. Plymouth is the name recorded on Smith's map as having been given to the spot by Prince Charles. It seems very likely that the emigrants had with them this map, which had been much circulated. … Morton (Memorial, 56) assigns as a reason for adopting it that 'Plymouth in Old England was the last town they left in their native country, and they received many kindnesses from some Christians there.' In Mourt, 'Plymouth' and 'the now well-defended town of New Plymouth' are used as equivalent. Later, the name Plymouth came to be appropriated to the town, and New Plymouth to the Colony."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, chapter 5, and foot-note.

ALSO IN: J. A. Goodwin, The Pilgrim Republic, chapters 9-16.

F. Baylies, Historical Memoir of the Colony of New Plymouth, volume 1, chapters 5-6.

A. Young, Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1622-1628. Weston at Wessagusset, Morton at Merrymount, and other settlements.

"During the years immediately following the voyage of the Mayflower, several attempts at settlement were made about the shores of Massachusetts bay. One of the merchant adventurers, Thomas Weston, took it into his head in 1622 to separate from his partners and send out a colony of seventy men on his own account. These men made a settlement at Wessagusset, some twenty-five miles north of Plymouth. They were a disorderly, thriftless rabble, picked up from the London streets, and soon got into trouble with the Indians; after a year they were glad to get back to England as best they could, and in this the Plymouth settlers willingly aided them. In June of that same year 1622 there arrived on the scene a picturesque but ill understood personage, Thomas Morton, 'of Clifford's Inn, Gent.,' as he tells on the title-page of his quaint and delightful book, the 'New English Canaan.' Bradford disparagingly says that he 'had been a kind of petiefogger of Furnifell's Inn'; but the churchman Samuel Maverick declares that he was a 'gentleman of good qualitie.' {2100} He was an agent of Sir Ferdinando Gorges, and came with some thirty followers, to make the beginnings of a royalist and Episcopal settlement in the Massachusetts bay, He was naturally regarded with ill favour by the Pilgrims as well as by the later Puritan settlers, and their accounts of him will probably bear taking with a grain or two of salt. In 1625 there came one Captain Wollaston, with a gang of indented white servants, and established himself on the site of the present town of Quincy. Finding this system of industry ill suited to northern agriculture, he carried most of his men off to Virginia, where he sold them. Morton took possession of the site of the settlement, which he called Merrymount. There, according to Bradford, he set up a 'schoole of athisme,' and his men did quaff strong waters and comport themselves 'as if they had anew revived and celebrated the feasts of ye Roman Goddes Flora, or the beastly practices of ye madd Bachanalians.' Charges of atheism have been freely hurled about in all ages. In Morton's case the accusation seems to have been based upon the fact that he used the Book of Common Prayer. His men so far maintained the ancient customs of merry England as to plant a Maypole eighty feet high, about which they frolicked with the redskins, while furthermore they taught them the use of firearms and sold them muskets and rum. This was positively dangerous, and in the summer of 1628 the settlers at Merrymount were dispersed by Miles Standish. Morton was sent to England, but returned the next year, and presently again repaired to Merrymount. By this time other settlements were dotted about the coast. There were a few scattered cottages or cabins at Nantasket and at the mouth of the Piscataqua, while Samuel Maverick had fortified himself on Noddle's Island, and William Blackstone already lived upon the Shawmut peninsula, since called Boston. These two gentlemen were no friends to the Puritans; they were churchmen and representatives of Sir Ferdinando Gorges."

J. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: C. F. Adams, Jr., Old Planters about Boston Harbor (Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, June, 1878).

C. F. Adams, Jr., Introduction to Morton's New English Canaan (Prince Society, 1883).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623. Grant to Robert Gorges on the Bay.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629. Plymouth Colony. Land allotments. Buying freedom from the adventurers at London. The new patent.

"In 1623 the Ann and Little James, the former of 140 tons, and the latter of 44 tons, arrived with 60 persons to be added to the colony, and a number of others who had come at their own charge and on their own account. … The passengers in the Ann and Little James completed the list of those who are usually called the first-comers. The Ann returned to England in September, carrying Mr. Winslow to negotiate with the merchants, for needful supplies, and the Little James remained at Plymouth in the service of the company. … Up to that time the company had worked together on the company lands, and, each sharing in the fruits of another's labors, felt little of that personal responsibility which was necessary to secure the largest returns. … 'At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advise of the cheefest amongest them) gave way that they should set corne every man for his owne perticuler, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to goe on in the generall way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcell of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end. … This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious.' … Such is the language of Bradford concerning a measure which was adopted from motives of necessity, but which was, to a certain extent, an infringement of the provisions of the contract with the adventurers. Before the planting season of the next year a more emphatic violation of the contract was committed. 'They (the colony) begane now highly to prise corne as more pretious then silver, and those that had some to spare begane to trade one with another for smale things, by the quarte, potle, & peck &C.: for money they had none, and if any had, corne was prefered before it. That they might therfore encrease their tillage to better advantage, they made suite to the Governor to have some portion of land given them for continuance, and not by yearly lotte. … Which being well considered, their request was granted. And to every person was given only one acre of land, to them and theirs, as nere the towne as might be, and they had no more till the 7 years were expired.' This experience gradually led the colony in the right track, and the growing necessity for some other circulating medium than silver secured abundant harvests." Winslow returned from England in 1624, "bringing, besides a good supply, '3 heifers & a bull the first begining of any catle of that kind in the land.' At that time there were 180 persons in the colony, 'some cattle and goats, but many swine and poultry and thirty-two dwelling houses.' In the latter part of the year Winslow sailed again for England in the Little James and returned in 1625. The news he brought was discouraging to the colonists. The debt due to the adventurers was £1,400, and the creditors had lost confidence in their enterprise." On this intelligence, Capt. Standish was sent to England, followed next year by Mr. Allerton, "to make a composition with the adventurers," and obtain, if possible, a release from the seven years contract under which the colonists were bound. Allerton returned in 1627, having concluded an agreement with the adventurers at London for the purchase of all their rights and interests in the plantation, for the sum of £1,800. The agreement was approved by the colony, and Bradford, Standish, Allerton, Winslow, Brewster, Howland, Alden, and others, assumed the debt of £1,800, the trading privileges of the colony being assigned to them for their security. "In accordance with this agreement these gentlemen at once entered vigorously into the enterprise, and by the use of wampum, as a circulating medium, carried on so extensive a trade with the natives, in the purchase of furs and other articles for export to England as within the prescribed period [six years] to pay off the entire debt and leave the colony in the undisputed possession of their lands. No legal-tender scheme, in these later days, has been bolder in its conception, or more successful in its career, than that of the Pilgrim Fathers, which, with the shells of the shore, relieved their community from debt, and established on a permanent basis the wealth and prosperity of New England. … {2101} After the negotiations with the adventurers had been completed, the colonists were anxious to obtain another patent from the New England Company conferring larger powers and defining their territorial limits. After three visits to England, Allerton was sent a fourth time, in 1629, and secured a patent dated January 13, 1629 (old style), and signed by the Earl of Warwick on behalf of the Council of New England, enlarging the original grant, and establishing the boundaries of what has been since known as the Old Colony. It granted to William Bradford and his associates 'all that part of New England in America, the tract and tracts of land that lie within or between a certain rivolet or rundlett, then commonly caned Coahasset alias Conahasset, towards the north, and the river commonly called Naraganset river towards the south, and the great Western ocean towards the east," and between two lines described as extending, severally, from the mouth of the Naraganset and the mouth of the Coahasset, "up into the mainland westward," "to the utmost limits and bounds of a country or place in New England called Pokernacutt, alias Puckenakick, alias Sawaamset."

W. T. Davis, Ancient Landmarks of Plymouth, chapter 2.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629. The Dorchester Company and the royal Charter to the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay.

"While the people of Plymouth were struggling to establish their colony, some of the English Puritans, restless under the growing despotism of Charles, began to turn their eyes to New England. Under the lead of the Rev. John White, the Dorchester Company was formed for trading and fishing, and a station was established at Cape Ann [A. D. 1623]; but the enterprise did not prosper, the colonists were disorderly, and the Company made an arrangement for Roger Conant and others, driven from Plymouth by the rigid principles of the Separatists, to come to Cape Ann. Still matters did not improve and the Company was dissolved; but White held to his purpose, and Conant and a few others moved to Naumkeag, and determined to settle there. Conant induced his companions to persevere, and matters in England led to a fresh attempt; for discontent grew rapidly as Charles proceeded in his policy. A second Dorchester Company, not this time a small affair for fishing and trading, but one backed by men of wealth and influence, was formed, and a large grant of lands [from three miles north of the Merrimac to three miles south of the Charles, and to extend from the Atlantic to the Western Ocean] was made by the Council for New England to Sir Henry Roswell and five others [March, 1628]. One of the six patentees, John Endicott, went out during the following summer with a small company, assumed the government at Naumkeag, which was now called Salem, and sent out exploring parties. The company thus formed in England was merely a voluntary partnership, but it paved the way for another and much larger scheme. Disaffection had become wide-spread. The Puritans began to fear that religious and political liberty alike were not only in danger but were doomed to destruction, and a large portion of the party resolved to combine for the preservation of all that was dearest to them by removal to the New World. The Dorchester Company was enlarged, and a royal charter was obtained incorporating the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay," March 4, 1629.

H. C. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies in America, chapter 18.

"This [the royal charter named above] is the instrument under which the Colony of Massachusetts continued to conduct its affairs for 55 years. The patentees named in it were Roswell and his five associates, with 20 other persons, of whom White was not one. It gave power forever to the freemen of the Company to elect annually, from their own number, a Governor, Deputy-Governor, and 18 Assistants, on the last Wednesday of Easter term, and to make laws and ordinances not repugnant to the laws of England, for their own benefit and the government of persons inhabiting their territory. Four meetings of the Company were to be held in a year, and others might be convened in a manner prescribed. Meetings of the Governor, Deputy-Governor, and Assistants, were to be held once a month or oftener. The Governor, Deputy-Governor, and any two Assistants, were authorized, but not required, to administer to freemen the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. The Company might transport settlers not 'restrained by special name.' They had authority to admit new associates, and establish the terms of their admission, and elect and constitute such officers as they should see fit for the ordering and managing of their affairs. They were empowered to 'encounter, repulse, repel, and resist by force of arms … all such person and persons as should at any time thereafter attempt or enterprise the destruction, invasion, detriment, or annoyance to the said plantation or inhabitants.' Nothing was said of religious liberty. The government may have relied upon its power to restrain it, and the emigrants on their distance and obscurity to protect it."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, chapter 8.

"In anticipation of a future want the grantees resisted the insertion of any condition which should fix the government of the Company in England. Winthrop explicitly states that the advisers of the Crown had originally imposed such a condition, but that the patentees succeeded, not without difficulty, in freeing themselves from it. That fact is a full answer to those who held that in transferring the government to America the patentees broke faith with the Crown."

J. A. Doyle, The English in America: The Puritan Colonies, volume 1, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: Records of the Government and Company of Massachusetts Bay; edited by N. B. Shurtleff, volume 1 (containing the Charter).

S. F. Haven, Origin of the Company (Archœologia Americana, volume 3).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1629-1630. The immigration of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, with their Royal Charter.

"Several persons, of considerable importance in the English nation, were now enlisted among the adventurers, who, for the unmolested enjoyment of their religion, were resolved to remove into Massachusetts. Foreseeing, however, and dreading the inconvenience of being governed by laws made for them without their own consent, they judged it more reasonable that the colony should be ruled by men residing in the plantation, than by those dwelling at a distance of three thousand miles, and over whom they should have no control. At a meeting of the company on the 28th of July [1629], Matthew Cradock, the governor, proposed that the charter should be transferred to those of the freemen who should become inhabitants of the colony, and the powers conferred by it be executed for the future in New England. {2102} An agreement was accordingly made at Cambridge, in England, on the 26th of August, between Sir Richard Saltonstall, Thomas Dudley, Isaac Johnson, John Winthrop, and a few others, that, on those conditions, they would be ready the ensuing March, with their persons and families, to embark for New England, for the purpose of settling in the country. The governor and company, entirely disposed to promote the measure, called a general court [at which, after a serious debate, adjourned from one day to the next,] … it was decreed that the government and the patent of the plantation should be transferred from London to Massachusetts Bay. An order was drawn up for that purpose, in pursuance of which a court was holden on the 20th of October for a new election of officers, who would be willing to remove with their families; and 'the court having received extraordinary great commendation of Mr. John Winthrop, both for his integrity and sufficiency, as being one very well fitted for the place, with a full consent chose him governor for the year ensuing.' … Preparations were now made for the removal of a large number of colonists, and in the spring of 1630 a fleet of 14 sail was got ready. Mr. Winthrop having by the consent of all been chosen for their leader, immediately set about making preparations for his departure. He converted a fine estate of £600 or £700 per annum into money and in March embarked on board the Arbella, one of the principal ships. Before leaving Yarmouth, an address to their fathers and brethren remaining in England was drawn up, and subscribed on the 7th of April by Governor Winthrop and others, breathing an affectionate farewell to the Church of England and their native land. … In the same ship with Governor Winthrop came Thomas Dudley, who had been chosen deputy governor after the embarkation, and several other gentlemen of wealth and quality; the fleet containing about 840 passengers, of various occupations, some of whom were from the west of England, but most from the neighborhood of London. The fleet sailed early in April; and the Arbella arrived off Cape Ann on Friday, the 11th of June, and on the following day entered the harbor of Salem. A few days after their arrival, the governor, and several of the principal persons of the colony, made an excursion some 20 miles along the bay, for the purpose of selecting a convenient site for a town. They finally pitched down on the north side of Charles river (Charlestown), and took lodgings in the great house built there the preceding year; the rest of the company erected cottages, booths, and tents, for present accommodation, about the town hill. Their place of assembling for divine service was under a spreading tree. On the 8th of July, a day of thanksgiving was kept for the safe arrival of the fleet. On the 30th of the same month, after a day of solemn prayer and fasting, the foundation of a church was laid at Charlestown, afterwards the first church of Boston, and Governor Winthrop, Deputy Governor Dudley, and the Rev. Mr. Wilson, entered into church covenant. The first court of assistants was held at Charlestown, on the 23d of August, and the first question proposed was a suitable provision for the support of the gospel. Towards the close of autumn, Governor Winthrop and most of the assistants removed to the peninsula of Shawmut (Boston), and lived there the first winter, intending in the spring to build a fortified town, but undetermined as to its situation. On the 6th of December they resolved to fortify the isthmus of that peninsula; but, changing their minds before the month expired, they agreed upon a place about three miles above Charlestown, which they called first Newtown, and afterwards Cambridge, where they engaged to build houses the ensuing spring. The rest of the winter they suffered much by the severity of the season, and were obliged to live upon acorns, groundnuts, and shell-fish. … They had appointed the 6th of February for a fast, in consequence of their alarm for the safety of a ship which had been sent to Ireland for provisions; but fortunately the vessel arrived on the 5th, and they ordered a public thanksgiving instead thereof."

J. B. Moore, Lives of the Governors of New Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay; part 2: Winthrop.

ALSO IN: R. C. Winthrop, Life and Letters of John Winthrop, volume 1, chapters 15-19, and volume 2, chapters 1-4.

A. Young, Chronicles of the first Planters of Massachusetts Bay, chapters 14-19.

J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 7.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1630. The founding of Boston.

"The English people who came with Governor Winthrop first located upon the peninsula of Mishawum, which they called Charlestown. … They found here a single white man named Thomas Walford, living very peaceably and contentedly among the Indians. They also discovered that the peninsula of Shawmut had one solitary white inhabitant whose name was William Blackstone. They could see every day the smoke curling above this man's lonely cabin. He, too, was a Puritan clergyman, like many of those who had now come to make a home in the New World, free from the tyranny of the English bishops. Still another Englishman, Samuel Maverick by name, had built a house, and with the help of David Thompson, a fort which mounted four small cannon, truly called 'murtherers,' and was living very comfortably on the island that is now East Boston. And again, by looking across the bay, to the south, the smoke of an English cottage, on Thompson's Island, was probably seen stealing upward to the sky. So that we certainly know these people were the first settlers of Boston. But scarcity of water, and sickness, which soon broke out among them, made the settlers at Charlestown very discontented. They began to scatter. Indeed this peninsula was too small properly to accommodate all of them with their cattle. Therefore good William Blackstone, with true hospitality, came in their distress to tell them there was a fine spring of pure water at Shawmut, and to invite them there. Probably his account induced quite a number to remove at once; while others, wishing to make farms, looked out homes along the shores of the mainland, at Medford, Newtown (Cambridge), Watertown and Roxbury. A separate company of colonists also settled at Mattapan, or Dorchester. The dissatisfaction with Charlestown was so general that at last only a few of the original settlers remained there. … While those in chief authority were still undecided, Isaac Johnson, one of the most influential and honored men among the colonists, began, with others, in earnest, the settlement of Boston. He chose for himself the square of land now enclosed by Tremont, Court, Washington and School Streets. {2103} Unfortunately this gentleman, who was much beloved, died before the removal to Boston became general. … Although the chief men of the colony continued for some time yet to favor the plan of a fortified town farther inland, Boston had now become too firmly rooted, and the people too unwilling, to make a second change of location practicable, or even desirable. So this project was abandoned, though not before high words passed between Winthrop and Dudley about it. The governor then removed the frame of his new house from Cambridge, or Newtown, to Boston, setting it up on the land between Milk Street, Spring Lane, and Washington Street. One of the finest springs being upon his lot, the name Spring Lane is easily traced. The people first located themselves within the space now comprised between Milk, Bromfield, Tremont, and Hanover Streets, and the water, or, in general terms, upon the southeasterly slope of Beacon Hill. Pemberton Hill soon became a favorite locality. The North End, including that portion of the town north of Union Street, was soon built up by the new emigrants coming in, or by removals from the South End, as all the town south of this district was called. In time a third district on the north side of Beacon Hill grew up, and was called the West End. And in the old city these general divisions continue to-day. Shawmut, we remember, was the first name Boston had. Now the settlers at Charlestown, seeing always before them a high hill topped with three little peaks, had already, and very aptly too, we think, named Shawmut Trimountain [the origin of the name Tremont in Boston]. But when they began to remove there they called it Boston, after a place of that name in England, and because they had determined beforehand to give to their chief town this name. So says the second highest person among them, Deputy Governor Thomas Dudley. The settlers built their first church on the ground now covered by Brazer's Building, in State Street. … Directly in front of the meeting-house was the town market-place. Where Quincy Market is was the principal landing-place. The Common was set apart as a pasture-ground and training-field. … A beacon was set up on the summit of Trimountain and a fort upon the southernmost hill of the town. From this time these hills took the names of Windmill, Beacon, and Fort Hills."

S. A. Drake, Around the Hub, chapter 2.

"The order of the Court of Assistants,—Governor Winthrop presiding,—'That Trimontaine shall be called Boston,' was passed on the 7th of September, old style, or, as we now count it, the 17th of September, 1630. The name of Boston was specially dear to the Massachusetts colonists, from its association with the old St. Botolphs' town, or Boston, of Lincolnshire, England, from which the Lady Arbella Johnson and her husband had come, and where John Cotton was still preaching in its noble parish church. But the precise date of the removal of the Governor and Company to the peninsula is nowhere given."

R. C. Winthrop, Boston Founded (Memorial History of Boston; edited by J. Winsor, volume 1), pages 116-117.

ALSO IN: C. F. Adams, Jr., Earliest Exploration and Settlement of Boston Harbor (Mem. History, pages 63-86).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1631-1636. The Puritan Theocracy and its intolerance.

"The charter of the Massachusetts Company had prescribed no condition of investment with its franchise,—or with what under the circumstances which had arisen was the same thing, the prerogatives of citizenship in the plantation,—except the will and vote of those who were already freemen. At the first Cisatlantic General Court for election, 'to the end the body of the commons may be preserved of honest and good men,' it was 'ordered and agreed, that, for the time to come, no man shall be admitted to the freedom of this body politic, but such as are members of some of the churches within the limits of the same." The men who laid this singular foundation for the commonwealth which they were instituting, had been accustomed to feel responsibility, and to act upon well-considered reasons. By charter from the English crown, the land was theirs as against all other civilized people, and they had a right to choose according to their own rules the associates who should help them to occupy and govern it. Exercising this right, they determined that magistracy and citizenship should belong only to Christian men, ascertained to be such by the best test which they knew how to apply. They established a kind of aristocracy hitherto unknown."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, chapter 9.

"The aim of Winthrop and his friends in coming to Massachusetts was the construction of a theocratic state which should be to Christians, under the New Testament dispensation, all that the theocracy of Moses and Joshua and Samuel had been to the Jews in Old Testament days. They should be to all intents and purposes freed from the jurisdiction of the Stuart king, and so far as possible the text of the Holy Scriptures should be their guide both in weighty matters of general legislation and in the shaping of the smallest details of daily life. In such a scheme there was no room for religious liberty as we understand it."

J. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chapter 4.

"The projected religious commonwealth was to be founded and administered by the Bible, the whole Bible, not by the New Testament alone. … They revered and used and treated the Holy Book as one whole. A single sentence from any part of it was an oracle to them: it was as a slice or crumb from any part of a loaf of bread, all of the same consistency. God, as King, had been the Lawgiver of Israel: he should be their Lawgiver too. … The Church should fashion the State and be identical with it. Only experienced and covenanted Christian believers, pledged by their profession to accordance of opinion and purpose with the original proprietors and exiles, should be admitted as freemen, or full citizens of the commonwealth. They would restrain and limit their own liberty of conscience, as well as their own freedom of action, within Bible rules. In fact,—in spirit even more than in the letter,—they did adopt all of the Jewish code which was in any way practicable for them. The leading minister of the colony was formally appointed by the General Court to adapt the Jewish law to their case [1636]; and it was enacted that, till that work was really done, 'Moses, his Judicials,' should be in full force. Mr. Cotton in due time presented the results of his labor in a code of laws illustrated by Scripture texts. This code was not formally adopted by the Court; but the spirit of it, soon rewrought into another body, had full sway. … {2104} That frankly avowed and practically applied purpose of the Fathers, of establishing here a Bible Commonwealth, 'under a due form of government, both civil and ecclesiastical,' furnishes the key to, the explanation of, all dark things and all the bright things in their early history. The young people educated among us ought to read our history by that simple, plain interpretation. The consciences of our Fathers were not free in our sense of that word. They were held under rigid subjection to what they regarded as God's Holy Word, through and through in every sentence of it, just as the consciences of their Fathers were held, under the sway of the Pope and the Roman Church. The Bible was to them supreme. Their church was based on it, modelled by it, governed by it; and they intended their State should be also."

G. E. Ellis, Lowell Institute Lectures on the Early History of Massachusetts, pages 50-55.

"Though communicants were not necessarily voters, no one could be a voter who was not a communicant; therefore the town-meeting was nothing but the church meeting, possibly somewhat attenuated, and called by a different name. By this insidious statute the clergy seized the temporal power, which they held till the charter fell. The minister stood at the head of the congregation and moulded it to suit his purposes and to do his will. … Common men could not have kept this hold upon the inhabitants of New England, but the clergy were learned, resolute, and able, and their strong but narrow minds burned with fanaticism and love of power; with their beliefs and under their temptations persecution seemed to them not only their most potent weapon, but a duty they owed to Christ—and that duty they unflinchingly performed."

B. Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 10.

P. Oliver, The Puritan Commonwealth, chapter 2, part 1.

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, chapter 22 (volume 2).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1633-1635. Hostilities between the Plymouth Colony and the French on the Maine coast.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1634-1637. Threatening movements in England. The Charter demanded.

"That the government of Charles I. should view with a hostile eye the growth of a Puritan state in New England is not at all surprising. The only fit ground for wonder would seem to be that Charles should have been willing at the outset to grant a charter to the able and influential Puritans who organized the Company of Massachusetts Bay. Probably, however, the king thought at first it would relieve him at home if a few dozen of the Puritan leaders could be allowed to concentrate their minds upon a project of colonization in America. It might divert attention for a moment from his own despotic schemes. Very likely the scheme would prove a failure and the Massachusetts colony incur a fate like that of Roanoke Island; and at all events the wealth of the Puritans might better be sunk in a remote and perilous enterprise than employed at home in organizing resistance to the crown. Such, very likely, may have been the king's motive in granting the Massachusetts charter two days after turning his Parliament out of doors. But the events of the last half-dozen years had come to present the case in a new light. The young colony was not languishing. It was full of sturdy life; it had wrought mischief to the schemes of Gorges; and what was more, it had begun to take unheard-of liberties with things ecclesiastical and political. Its example was getting to be a dangerous one. It was evidently worth while to put a strong curb upon Massachusetts. Any promise made to his subjects Charles regarded as a promise made under duress which he was quite justified in breaking whenever it suited his purpose to do so. Enemies of Massachusetts were busy in England. Schismatics from Salem and revellers from Merrymount were ready with their tales of woe, and now Gorges and Mason were vigorously pressing their territorial claims."

J. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chapter 3.

In April, 1634, "the superintendence of the colonies was … removed from the privy council to an arbitrary special commission, of which William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, and the archbishop of York, were the chief. These, with ten of the highest officers of State, were invested with full power to make laws and orders, … to appoint judges and magistrates and establish courts for civil and ecclesiastical affairs, … to revoke all charters and patents which had been surreptitiously obtained, or which conceded liberties prejudicial to the royal prerogative. Cradock, who had been governor of the corporation in England before the transfer of the charter of Massachusetts, was strictly charged to deliver it up; and he wrote to the governor and council to send it home. Upon receipt of his letter, they resolved 'not to return any answer or excuse at that time.' In September, a copy of the commission to Archbishop Laud and his associates was brought to Boston; and it was at the same time rumored that the colonists were to be compelled by force to accept a new governor, the discipline of the church of England, and the laws of the commissioners. The intelligence awakened 'the magistrates and deputies to discover their minds each to other, and to hasten their fortifications,' towards which, poor as was the colony, £600 were raised. In January, 1635, all the ministers assembled at Boston; and they unanimously declared against the reception of a general governor, saying: 'We ought to defend our lawful possessions, if we are able; if not, to avoid and protract.' In the month before this declaration, it is not strange that Laud and his associates should have esteemed the inhabitants of Massachusetts to be men of refractory humors. … Restraints were placed upon emigration; no one above the rank of a serving man might remove to the colony without the special leave of Laud and his associates. … Willingly as these acts were enforced by religious bigotry, they were promoted by another cause. A change had come over the character of the great Plymouth council for the colonization of New England," which now schemed and bargained with the English court to surrender its general charter, on the condition that the vast territory which it had already ceded to the Massachusetts Company and others should be reclaimed by the king and granted anew, in severalty, to its members (see NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1635). "At the Trinity term of the court of king's bench, a quo warranto was brought against the Company of the Massachusetts bay. At the ensuing Michaelmas, several of its members who resided in England made their appearance, and judgment was pronounced against them individually; the rest of the patentees stood outlawed, but no judgment was entered against them. {2105} The unexpected death of Mason, the proprietary of New Hampshire, in December, 1635, removed the chief instigator of these aggressions. In July, 1637, the king, professing 'to redress the mischiefs that had arisen out of the many different humours,' took the government of New England into his own hands, and appointed over it Sir Ferdinando Gorges as governor-general. … But the measure was feeble and ineffectual." Gorges "never left England, and was hardly heard of except by petitions to its government." Troubles had thickened about king Charles and his creature Laud until they no longer had time or disposition to bestow more of their thoughts on Massachusetts. A long-suffering nation was making ready to put an end to their malignant activities, and the Puritans of New England and Old England were alike delivered.

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 1, chapter 17 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: T. Hutchinson, History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, volume 1, pages 51 and 86-89.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1635-1636. The founding of Boston Latin School and Harvard College.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1635; and 1636.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1635-1637. The migration to Connecticut.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1634-1637.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636. The banishment of Roger Williams.

"The intolerance of England had established the New England colonies. The time was at hand when those colonies should in their turn alienate from them their own children, and be the unwilling parents of a fresh state. In 1631, there arrived at Boston a young minister, Roger Williams, 'godly and zealous, having precious gifts.' … His theological doctrines seem to have been those generally received among the Puritans, but in questions of church discipline he went far beyond most of his sect. He was a rigid separatist, and carried the doctrine of toleration, or, as perhaps it might be more properly called, state indifference, to its fullest length. Accordingly it was impossible to employ him as a minister at Boston. He went to Salem, which was then without a preacher, and was appointed to the vacant office. But a message from Winthrop and the assistants compelled the church of Salem to retract its choice, and the young enthusiast withdrew to Plymouth," where he remained two years, until August, 1633, when he returned to Salem. "In 1634, he incurred the displeasure of some of his congregation by putting forward the doctrine that no tenure of land could be valid which had not the sanction of the natives. His doctrine was censured by the court at Boston, but on his satisfying the court of his 'loyalty,' the matter passed over. But before long he put forward doctrines, in the opinion of the government, yet more dangerous. He advocated complete separation from the Church of England, and denounced compulsory worship and a compulsory church establishment. Carrying the doctrine of individual liberty to its fullest extent, he asserted that the magistrate was only the agent of the people, and had no right to protect the people against itself; that his power extends only as far as such cases as disturb the public peace. … On the 8th of August, 1635, Williams was summoned before the general court; his opinions were denounced as 'erroneous and very dangerous,' and notice was given to the church at Salem that, unless it could explain the matter to the satisfaction of the court, Williams must be dismissed. In October, Williams was again brought before the court, and after a 'disputation' with Mr. Hooker, which failed to reduce him from any of his errors, he was sentenced to depart out of the jurisdiction of Massachusetts in six weeks. The church of Salem acquiesced in the condemnation of their pastor. Their own experience might have taught the fathers of New England that the best way to strengthen heresy is to oppose it. The natural result followed; the people were 'much taken with the apprehension of Williams 'godliness,' and a large congregation, including 'many devout women,' gathered round him. Since they had failed to check the evil, the Massachusetts government resolved to exterminate it and to ship Williams for England. The crew of a pinnace was sent to arrest him, but, fortunately for the future of New England, he had escaped. … He had set out [January, 1636] for the territory of Narragansett, and there founded the village of Providence."

A. Doyle, The American Colonies, chapter 2.

"His [Roger Williams'] own statement is, it was 'only for the holy truth of Christ Jesus that he was denied the common air to breathe in, and a civil cohabitation upon the same common earth.' But the facts of the case seem to show that it was because his opinions differed from the opinions of those among whom he lived, and were considered by them as dangerous and seditious, tending to the utter destruction of their community, that he was a sacrifice to honest convictions of truth and duty. … The sentence of banishment, however, was not passed without reluctance. Governor Winthrop remained his friend to the day of his death, and even proposed, in view of his services in the Pequot war, that his sentence should be revoked. Governor Haynes, of Connecticut, who pronounced his sentence, afterwards regretted it. Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, who had no hand in his expulsion, 'put a piece of gold in the hands of his wife,' to relieve his necessities, and though Mr. Cotton hardly clears himself from the charge of having procured his sentence, there was no private feud between them. Cotton Mather concedes that 'many judicious persons judged him to have had the root of the matter in him.' Later writers declare him, 'from the whole course and tenor of his life and conduct, to have been one of the most disinterested men that ever lived, a most pious and heavenly-minded soul.' And the magnanimous exile himself says, 'I did ever from my soul honor and love them, even when their judgment led them to afflict me.'"

J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: J. D. Knowles, Memoir of Roger Williams, chapters 3-5.

E. B. Underhill, introduction to Williams' 'Bloudy Tenent of Persecution' (Hansard Knollys Society).

G. E. Ellis, The Puritan Age and Rule, chapter 8.

See, also, RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636.

{2106}

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636-1638. Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and the Antinomian troubles.

"The agitation and strife connected with the Antinomian controversy, opened by Mrs. Ann Hutchinson, came dangerously near to bringing the fortunes of the young Massachusetts colony to a most disastrous ruin. … The peril overhung at a time when the proprietary colonists had the most reasonable and fearful forebodings of the loss of their charter by the interference of a Privy Council Commission. … Ominously enough, too, Mrs. Hutchinson arrived here, September 18, 1634, in the vessel which brought the copy of that commission. Winthrop describes her as a woman of a 'ready wit and bold spirit.' Strongly gifted herself, she had a gentle and weak husband, who was guided by her. She had at home enjoyed no ministrations so much as those of Cotton, and her brother-in-law, Mr. Wheelwright. She came here to put herself again under the preaching of the former. … She had been here for two years, known as a ready, kindly, and most serviceable woman, especially to her own sex in their straits and sicknesses. But she anticipated the introduction of 'the woman question' among the colonists in a more troublesome form than it has yet assumed for us. Joined by her brother-in-law, who was also admitted to the church, after those two quiet years she soon made her influence felt for trouble, as he did likewise. … The male members of the Boston Church had a weekly meeting, in which they discussed the ministrations of Cotton and Wilson. Mrs. Hutchinson organized and presided over one, held soon twice in a week, for her own sex, attended by nearly a hundred of the principal women on the peninsula and in the neighborhood. It was easy to foresee what would come of it, through one so able and earnest as herself, even if she had no novel or disjointed or disproportioned doctrine to inculcate; which, however, it proved that she had. Antinomian means a denying, or, at least, a weakening, of the obligation to observe the moral law, and to comply with the external duties; to do the works associated with the idea of internal, spiritual righteousness. It was a false or disproportioned construction of St. Paul's great doctrine of justification by faith, without the works of the law. … Mrs. Hutchinson, was understood to teach, that one who was graciously justified by a spiritual assurance, need not be greatly concerned for outward sanctification by works. She judged and approved, or censured and discredited, the preachers whom she heard, according as they favored or repudiated that view. Her admirers accepted her opinions. … Word soon went forth that Mrs. Hutchinson had pronounced in her meetings, that Mr. Cotton and her brother-in-law Wheelwright, alone of all the ministers in the colony, were under 'a covenant of grace,' the rest being 'legalists,' or under 'a covenant of works.' These reports, which soon became more than opinions, were blazing brands that it would be impossible to keep from reaching inflammable material. … As the contention extended it involved all the principal persons of the colony. Cotton and all but five members of the Boston Church—though one of these five was Winthrop, and another was Wilson—proved to be sympathizers with Mrs. Hutchinson; while the ministers and leading people outside in the other hamlets were strongly opposed to her. She had a partisan, moreover, of transcending influence in the young Governor, Sir Henry Vane," who had come over from England the year before, and who had been chosen at the next election for Governor, with Winthrop as deputy. "Though pure and devout, and ardent in zeal, he had not then the practical wisdom for which Milton afterwards praised him in his noble sonnet:—'Vane, young in years, but in sage counsels old.' … With his strong support, and that of two other prominent magistrates, and of so overwhelming a majority of the Boston Church, Mrs. Hutchinson naturally felt emboldened." But in the end her Church and party were overcome by the ministers and their supporters in the other parts of the colony; she was excommunicated and banished (November, 1637, and March, 1638), going forth to perish six years later at the hands of the Indians, while living on the shore of Long Island Sound, at a place now known as Pelham Neck, near New Rochelle. "As the summing up of the strife, 76 persons were disarmed; two were disfranchised and fined; 2 more were fined; 8 more were disfranchised; 3 were banished; and 11 who had asked permission to remove had leave, in the form of a limitation of time within which they must do it. The more estimable and considerable of them apologized and were received back."

G. E. Ellis, Lowell Institute Lectures on the Early History of Massachusetts, pages 95-100.

ALSO IN: B. Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts, chapter 2.

Ecclesiastical History of New England (Massachusetts Historical Society Collection, series 1, volume 9).

G. E. Ellis, Life of Anne Hutchinson (Library of American Biographies, new series, volume 6).

J. Anderson, Memorable Women of Puritan Times, volume 1, pages 185-220.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1637. The Pequot War.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1637. The first Synod of the Churches and its dealings with Heresy.

The election of Sir Harry Vane to be Governor of the colony, in place of John Winthrop, "took place in the open air upon what is now Cambridge Common on the 27th day of May [1637]. Four months later it was followed by the gathering of the first Synod of Massachusetts churches; which again, meeting here in Cambridge, doubtless held its sessions in the original meeting-house standing on what is now called Mount Auburn Street. The Synod sat through twenty-four days, during which it busied itself unearthing heterodox opinions and making the situation uncomfortable for those suspected of heresy, until it had spread upon its record no less than eighty-two such 'opinions, some blasphemous, others erroneous, and all unsafe,' besides 'nine unwholesome expressions,' all alleged to be rife in the infant community. Having performed this feat, it broke up amid general congratulations 'that matters had been carried on so peaceably, and concluded so comfortably in all love.' … As the twig is bent, the tree inclines. The Massachusetts twig was here and then bent; and, as it was bent, it during hard upon two centuries inclined. The question of Religious Toleration was, so far as Massachusetts could decide it, decided in 1637 in the negative. … The turning point in the history of early Massachusetts was the Cambridge Synod of September, 1637, … which succeeded in spreading on its record, as then prevailing in the infant settlement, eighty-two 'opinions, some blasphemous, others erroneous and all unsafe,' besides 'nine unwholesome expressions,' the whole mighty mass of which was then incontinently dismissed, in the language of one of the leading divines who figured in that Assembly, 'to the devil of hell, from whence they came.' {2107} The mere enumeration of this long list of heresies as then somewhere prevailing is strong evidence of intellectual activity in early Massachusetts,—an activity which found ready expression through such men as Roger Williams, John Cotton, John Wheelwright and Sir Henry Vane, to say nothing of Mrs. Hutchinson, while the receptive condition of the mental soil is likewise seen in the hold the new opinions took. It was plainly a period of intellectual quickening,—a dawn of promise. Of this there can no doubt exist. It was freely acknowledged at the time; it has been stated as one of the conditions of that period by all writers on it since. The body of those who listened to him stood by Roger Williams; and the magistrates drove him away for that reason. Anne Hutchinson so held the ear of the whole Boston community that she had 'some of all sorts and quality, in all places to defend and patronize' her opinions; 'some of the magistrates, some gentlemen, some scholars and men of learning, some Burgesses of our General Court, some of our captains and soldiers, some chief men in towns, and some men eminent for religion, parts and wit.' These words of a leader of the clerical faction,—one of those most active in the work of repression,—describe to the life an active-minded, intelligent community quick to receive and ready to assimilate that which is new. Then came the Synod. It was a premonition. It was as if the fresh new sap,—the young budding leaves,— the possible, incipient flowers, had felt the chill of an approaching glacier. And that was exactly what it was;—a theological glacier then slowly settled down upon Massachusetts,—a glacier lasting through a period of nearly one hundred and fifty years."

C. F. Adams, Massachusetts: Its Historians and its History, pages 10-59.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1638-1641. Introduction of Slavery.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1638-1781.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1639. The first printing press set up.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1535-1709.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1640-1644. The end of the Puritan exodus. Numerical growth and political development.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1644.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1641. Jurisdiction extended over New Hampshire.

See NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1641-1679.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1642. The first Public School law.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1642-1732.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1643. The Confederation of the Colonies. The growth of Plymouth.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1643.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1643-1654. Interest in Acadia and temporary conquest of the Province.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1646-1651. The Presbyterian Cabal and the Cambridge Platform.

"There had now come to be many persons in Massachusetts who disapproved of the provision which restricted the suffrage to members of the Independent or Congregational churches of New England, and in 1646 the views of these people were presented in a petition to the General Court. … The leading signers of this menacing petition were William Vassall, Samuel Maverick, and Dr. Robert Child. … Their request would seem at first sight reasonable enough. At a superficial glance it seems conceived in a modern spirit of liberalism. In reality it was nothing of the sort. In England it was just the critical moment of the struggle between Presbyterians and Independents which had come in to complicate the issues of the great civil war. Vassall, Child, and Maverick seem to have been the leading spirits in a cabal for the establishment of Presbyterianism in New England, and in their petition they simply took advantage of the discontent of the disfranchised citizens in Massachusetts in order to put in an entering wedge. This was thoroughly understood by the legislature of Massachusetts, and accordingly the petition was dismissed and the petitioners were roundly fined. Just as Child was about to start for England with his grievances, the magistrates overhauled his papers and discovered a petition to the parliamentary Board of Commissioners, suggesting that Presbyterianism should be established in New England, and that a viceroy or governor-general should be appointed to rule there. To the men of Massachusetts this last suggestion was a crowning horror. It seemed scarcely less than treason. The signers of this petition were the same who had signed the petition to the General Court. They were now fined still more heavily and imprisoned for six months. By and by they found their way, one after another, to London, while the colonists sent Edward Winslow, of Plymouth, as an advocate to thwart their schemes. … The cabal accomplished nothing because of the decisive defeat of Presbyterianism in England. 'Pride's Purge' settled all that. The petition of Vassall and his friends was the occasion for the meeting of a synod of churches at Cambridge, in order to complete the organization of Congregationalism. In 1648 the work of the synod was embodied in the famous Cambridge Platform, which adopted the Westminster Confession as its creed, carefully defined the powers of the clergy, and declared it to be the duty of magistrates to suppress heresy. In 1649 the General Court laid this platform before the congregations; in 1651 it was adopted; and this event may be regarded as completing the theocratic organization of the Puritan commonwealth in Massachusetts. It was immediately preceded and followed by the deaths of the two foremost men in that commonwealth. John Winthrop died in 1649 and John Cotton in 1652."

J. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: C. Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana, book 5, part 2.

B. Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts, chapter 3.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1649-1651. Under Cromwell and the Commonwealth of England.

"Massachusetts had, from the outset, sympathized with Parliament in its contest with the king, and had blended her fortunes with the fortunes of the reformers. She had expressed her willingness to 'rise and fall with them,' and' sent over useful men, others going voluntarily, to their aid, who were of good use, and did acceptable service to the army.' Her loyalty, therefore, procured for her the protection of Parliament. Yet the execution of Charles, which royalists have ever regarded with the utmost abhorrence, was not openly approved here. 'I find,' says Hutchinson, 'scarce any marks of approbation of the tragical scene of which this year they received intelligence.' The few allusions we have discovered are none of them couched in terms of exultation. Virginia pursued a different course, and openly resisted Parliament, refused to submit to its decrees, and adhered to the cause of royalty. … Yet the legislation of the commonwealth was not wholly favorable even to Massachusetts. {2108} The proclamation relative to Virginia asserted, in general terms, the power of appointing governors and commissioners to be placed in all the English colonies, without exception; and by Mr. Winslow, their agent in England, they were informed that it was the pleasure of Parliament the patent of Massachusetts should be returned, and a new one taken out, under which courts were to be held and warrants issued. With this request the people were indisposed to comply; and, too wary to hazard the liberties so dearly purchased, a petition was drawn up, pleading the cause of the colony with great force, setting forth its allegiance, and expressing the hope that, under the new government, things might not go worse with them than under that of the king, and that their charter might not be recalled, as they desired no better. This remonstrance was successful; the measure was dropped, and the charter of Charles continued in force. Parliament was not 'foiled' by the colony. Its request was deemed reasonable; and there was no disposition to invade forcibly its liberties. We have evidence of this in the course of Cromwell. After his success in the 'Emerald Isle,' conceiving the project of introducing Puritanism into Ireland, an invitation was extended to the people of Massachusetts to remove thither and settle. But they were too strongly attached to the land of their adoption, and to its government, 'the happiest and wisest this day in the world,' readily to desert it. Hence the politic proposal of the lord protector was respectfully declined."

J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: J. A. Doyle, The English in America: Puritan Colonies, volume 1, chapter 9.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1651-1660. The absorption of Maine.

See MAINE: A. D. 1643-1677.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1656-1661. The persecution of the Quakers.

"In July, 1656, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin came to Boston from Barbadoes; and shortly after, nine others, men and women, arrived in the ship Speedwell from London. It was at once known, for they did not wish to conceal it, that they were 'Friends,' vulgarly called 'Quakers'; and the Magistrates at once took them in hand, determined that no people holding (as they considered them) such damnable opinions, should come into the Colony. A great crowd collected to hear them questioned, and Boston was stirred up by a few illiterate enthusiasts. They stood up before the Court with their hats on, apparently without fear, and had no hesitation in calling governor Endicott plain 'John.' … The replies which these men and women made were direct and bold, and were considered rude and contemptuous. … They … were committed to prison for their 'Rudeness and Insolence'; there being no law then under which they could be punished for being Quakers." Before the year closed, this defect of law was remedied by severe enactments, "laying a penalty of £100 for bringing any Quaker into the Colony: forty shillings for entertaining them for an hour; Quaker men who came against these prohibitions were, upon first conviction, to lose one ear, upon the second, the other ear; and women were to be whipped. Upon the third conviction, their tongues were to be bored with a hot iron. But these things seemed useless, for the Quakers, knowing their fate, swarmed into Massachusetts; and the Magistrates were fast getting more business than they could attend to. It was then determined to try greater severity, and in October, 1658, a law was passed in Massachusetts (resisted by the Deputies, urged by the Magistrates), punishing Quakers, who had been banished, with death." The first to challenge the dread penalty were a woman, Mary Dyer, and two men, William Robinson and Marmaduke Stevenson, who, after being banished (September, 1659), came defiantly back the next month. "Governor Endicott pronounced sentence of death against them. … On the 27th of October, in the afternoon, a guard of 200 men, attended with a drummer, conducted them to the gallows." Stevenson and Robinson were hanged; but Mary Dyer was reprieved. "Her mind was made up for death, and her reprieve brought her no joy. She was taken away by her son. … Mary Dyer was a 'comely and valiant woman,' and in the next Spring she returned. What now was to be done? The law said she must be hung, and Endicott again pronounced sentence, and she was led out to die a felon's death. Some scoffed and jeered her, but the most pitied; she died bravely, fearing nothing. … There seemed no end; for Quaker after Quaker came; they were tried, they were whipped, and the prison was full. … William Ledra [banished in 1657] came back (September, 1660), and was subject to death. They offered him his life, if he would go away and promise not to return; he said: 'I came here to bear my testimony, and to tell the truth of the Lord, in the ears of this people. I refuse to go.' So he was hanged in the succeeding March (14th). Wenlock Christopherson, or Christison, came, and was tried and condemned to die. … The death of Ledra, and the return of Wenlock Christison, brought confusion among the Magistrates, and some said 'Where will this end?' and declared it was time to stop. Governor Endicott found it difficult to get a Court to agree to sentence Christison to death; but he halted not, and pronounced the sentence. … But a few days afterward the jailor opened the prison doors, and Wenlock (with 27 others) was set at liberty, much to his and their surprise." The friends of the Quakers in England had prevailed upon King Charles II., then lately restored, "to order the persecutions to cease in New England (September 1661). Samuel Shattock, a banished Quaker, was sent from England by Charles, with a letter to Governor Endicott [the subject of Whittier's poem, 'The King's Missive'], commanding that no more Quakers should be hanged or imprisoned in New England, but should be sent to England for trial. This ended the persecutions; for, on the 9th of December, 1661, the Court ordered all Quakers to be set at liberty."

C. W. Elliott, The New England History, volume 1, chapter 36.

"Some of our writers, alike in prose and in poetry, have assumed, and have written on the assumption, that the deliverance of the Quakers was effected by the interposition in their behalf of King Charles II. … The royal letter … had … been substantially anticipated as to its principal demand by the action of the Court [in Massachusetts]. The general jail delivery of 31 Quakers, including the three under the death sentence who had voluntarily agreed to go off, was ordered by the Court in October, 1660. The King's letter was dated at Whitehall a year afterward. Let us claim whatever of relief we can find in reminding ourselves that it was the stern opposition and protest of the majority of the people of the Puritan Colony, and not the King's command, that had opened the gates of mercy."

G. E. Ellis, The Puritan Age and Rule, pp. 477-479.

{2109}

While the Quakers first arrested at Boston were lying in jail, "the Federal Commissioners, then in session at Plymouth, recommended that laws be forthwith enacted to keep these dreaded heretics out of the land. Next year they stooped so far as to seek the aid of Rhode Island, the colony which they had refused to admit into their confederacy. … Roger Williams was then president of Rhode Island, and in full accord with his noble spirit was the reply of the assembly. 'We have no law amongst us whereby to punish any for only declaring by words their minds and understandings concerning the things and ways of God as to salvation and our eternal condition.' As for these Quakers, we find that where they are 'most of all suffered to declare themselves freely and only opposed by arguments in discourse, there they least of all desire to come.' Any breach of the civil law shall be punished, but the 'freedom of different consciences shall be respected.' This reply enraged the confederated colonies, and Massachusetts, as the strongest and most overbearing, threatened to cut off the trade of Rhode Island, which forthwith appealed to Cromwell for protection. … In thus protecting the Quakers, Williams never for a moment concealed his antipathy to their doctrines. … The four confederated colonies all proceeded to pass laws banishing Quakers. … Those of Connecticut … were the mildest."

J. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: B. Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts, chapter 5.

R. P. Hallowell, The Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1657-1662. The Halfway Covenant.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1657-1669.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1660-1665. Under the Restored Monarchy. The first collision with the crown.

"In May, 1660, Charles II. mounted the throne of his ancestors. … In December of this year, intelligence of the accession of a new king had reached Massachusetts; the General Court convened and prepared addresses to his majesty. … In the following May a reply, signed by Mr. Secretary Morrice, together with a mandate for the arrest of Goffe and Whalley, the regicides who had escaped to Massachusetts, was received in Boston. The king's response contained a general expression of good will, which, however, did not quiet the apprehensions of the colonists. The air was filled with rumors, and something seemed to forebode an early collision with the crown. At a special session of the court, held in June, 'a declaration of natural and chartered rights' was approved and published. In this document the people affirmed their right 'to choose their own governor, deputy governor, and representatives; to admit freemen on terms to be prescribed at their own pleasure; to set up all sorts of officers, superior and inferior, and point out their power and places; to exercise, by their annually elected magistrates and deputies, all power and authority, legislative, executive, and judicial; to defend themselves by force of arms against every aggression; and to reject, as an infringement of their rights, any parliamentary or royal imposition, prejudicial to the country, and contrary to any just act of colonial legislation.' More than a year elapsed from the restoration of Charles II. to his public recognition at Boston. … Even the drinking of his health was forbidden, and the event was celebrated only amid the coldest formalities. Meanwhile the colonists not only declared, but openly assumed, their rights; and in consequence complaints were almost daily instituted by those who were hostile to the government. Political opinion was diversified; and while 'a majority were for sustaining, with the charter, an independent government in undiminished force, a minority were willing to make some concessions.' In the midst of the discussions, John Norton, 'a friend to moderate counsels,' and Simon Bradstreet were induced to go to England as agents of the colony. Having been instructed to convince the king of the loyalty of the people of Massachusetts, and to 'engage to nothing prejudicial to their present standing according to their patent, and to endeavor the establishment of the rights and privileges then enjoyed,' the commissioners sailed from Boston on the 10th of February, 1662. In England they were courteously received by king Charles, and from him obtained, in a letter dated June 28, a confirmation of their charter, and an amnesty for all past offences. At the same time the king rebuked them for the irregularities which had been complained of in the government; directed 'a repeal of all laws derogatory to his authority; the taking of the oath of allegiance; the administration of justice in his name; a concession of the elective franchise to all freeholders of competent estate; and as 'the principle of the charter was the freedom of the liberty of conscience,' the allowance of that freedom to those who desired to use 'the booke of common prayer, and perform their devotion in the manner established in England.' These requisitions of the king proved anything but acceptable to the people of Massachusetts. With them the question of obedience became a question of freedom, and gave rise to the parties which continued to divide the colony until the establishment of actual independence. It was not thought best to comply immediately with his majesty's demands; on the other hand, no refusal to do so was promulgated." Presently a rumor reached America "that royal commissioners were to be appointed to regulate the affairs of New England. Precautionary measures were now taken. The patent and a duplicate of the same were delivered to a committee of four, with instructions to hold them in safe keeping. Captain Davenport, at Castle Fort, was ordered to give early announcement of the arrival of his Majesty's ships. Officers and soldiers were forbidden to land from ships, except in small parties. … On the 23d of July, 1664, 'about five or six of the clock at night,' the 'Guinea,' followed by three other ships of the line, arrived in Boston harbor. They were well manned and equipped for the reduction of the Dutch settlements on the Hudson, and brought commissioners hostile to colonial freedom, and who were charged by the king to determine 'all complaints and appeals in all causes and matters, as well military as criminal and civil,' and to 'proceed in all things for the providing for and settling the peace and security of the country, according to their good and sound discretions.' Colonel Richard Nichols and Colonel George Cartwright were the chief members of the commission. {2110} At the earliest possible moment they produced their legal warrant, the king's letter of April 23, and requested the assistance of the colonies in the reduction of the Dutch. Shortly afterwards the fleet set out for New Netherlands. On the 3d of August the General Court convened, and the state of affairs was discussed." As the result of the discussion it was agreed that a force of 200 men should be raised to serve against the Dutch, and that the old law of citizenship should be so far modified as to provide "'that all English subjects, being freeholders, and of a competent estate, and certified by the ministers of the place to be orthodox in faith, and not vicious in their lives, should be made freemen, although not members of the church.' Before the session closed, Massachusetts published an order forbidding the making of complaints to the commissioners," and adopted a spirited address to the king. When, in February, 1665, three of the commissioners returned to Boston, they soon found that they were not to be permitted to take any proceedings which could call in question "the privilege of government within themselves" which the colony claimed. Attempting in May to hold a court for the hearing of charges against a Boston merchant, they were interrupted by a herald from the governor who sounded his trumpet and forbade, in the name of the king, any abetting of their proceedings. On this they wrathfully departed for the north, after sending reports of the contumacy of Massachusetts to the king. The latter now summoned governor Bellingham to England, but the summons was not obeyed. "'We have already furnished our views in writing [said the General Court], so that the ablest persons among us could not declare our case more fully.' … The defiance of Massachusetts was followed by no immediate danger. For a season the contest with the crown ceased. The king himself was too much engaged with his women to bestow his attention upon matters of state; and thus, while England was lamenting the want of a good government, the colonies, true to themselves, their country, and their God, flourished in purity and peace."

G. L. Austin, History of Massachusetts, chapter 4.

Records of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay, volume 4, part 2.

See, also, NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1671-1686. The struggle for the charter and its overthrow.

"Although the colonists were alarmed at their own success, there was nothing to fear. At no time before or since could England have been so safely defied. … The discord between the crown and Parliament paralyzed the nation, and the wastefulness of Charles kept him always poor. By the treaty of Dover in 1670 he became a pensioner of Louis XIV. The Cabal followed, probably the worst ministry England ever saw; and in 1672, at Clifford's suggestion, the exchequer was closed and the debt repudiated to provide funds for the second Dutch war. In March fighting began, and the tremendous battles with De Ruyter kept the navy in the Channel. At length, in 1673, the Cabal fell, and Danby became prime minister. Although during these years of disaster and disgrace Massachusetts was not molested by Great Britain, they were not all years during which the theocracy could tranquilly enjoy its victory. … With the rise of Danby a more regular administration opened, and, as usual, the attention of the government was fixed upon Massachusetts by the clamors of those who demanded redress for injuries alleged to have been received at her hands. In 1674 the heirs of Mason and Gorges, in despair at the reoccupation of Maine, proposed to surrender their claim to the king, reserving one third of the product of the customs for themselves. The London merchants also had become restive under the systematic violation of the Navigation Acts. The breach in the revenue laws had, indeed, been long a subject of complaint, and the commissioners had received instructions relating thereto; but it was not till this year that these questions became serious. … New England was fast getting its share of the carrying trade. London merchants already began to feel the competition of its cheap and untaxed ships, and manufacturers to complain that they were undersold in the American market, by goods brought direct from the Continental ports. A petition, therefore, was presented to the king, to carry the law into effect. … The famous Edward Randolph now appears. The government was still too deeply embarrassed to act with energy. A temporizing policy was therefore adopted; and as the experiment of a commission had failed, Randolph was chosen as a messenger to carry the petitions and opinions to Massachusetts; together with a letter from the king, directing that agents should be sent in answer thereto. After delivering them, he was ordered to devote himself to preparing a report upon the country. He reached Boston June 10, 1676. Although it was a time of terrible suffering from the ravages of the Indian war, the temper of the magistrates was harsher than ever. The repulse of the commissioners had convinced them that Charles was not only lazy and ignorant, but too poor to use force; and they also believed him to be so embroiled with Parliament as to make his overthrow probable. Filled with such feelings, their reception of Randolph was almost brutal. John Leverett was governor, who seems to have taken pains to mark his contempt in every way in his power. Randolph was an able, but an unscrupulous man, and probably it would not have been difficult to have secured his good-will. Far however from bribing, or even flattering him, they so treated him as to make him the bitterest enemy the Puritan Commonwealth ever knew. … The legislature met in August, 1676, and a decision had to be made concerning agents. On the whole, the clergy concluded it would be wiser to obey the crown, 'provided they be, with utmost care & caution, qualified as to their instructions.' Accordingly, after a short adjournment, the General Court chose William Stoughton and Peter Bulkely; and having strictly limited their power to a settlement of the territorial controversy, they sent them on their mission. … The controversy concerning the boundary was referred to the two chief justices, who promptly decided against the Company; and the easy acquiescence of the General Court must raise a doubt as to their faith in the soundness of their claims. And now again the fatality which seemed to pursue the theocracy in all its dealings with England led it to give fresh provocation to the king by secretly buying the title of Gorges for 1,250 pounds. Charles had intended to settle Maine on the Duke of Monmouth. It was a worthless possession, whose revenue never paid for its defence; yet so stubborn was the colony that it made haste to anticipate the crown and thus became 'Lord Proprietary' of a burdensome province at the cost of a slight which was never forgiven. {2111} Almost immediately the Privy Council had begun to open other matters, such as coining and illicit trade; and the attorney-general drew up a list of statutes which, in his opinion, were contrary to the laws of England. … In the spring the law officers gave an opinion that the misdemeanors alleged against Massachusetts were sufficient to avoid her patent; and the Privy Council, in view of the encroachments and injuries which she had continually practised on her neighbors, and her contempt of his majesty's commands, advised that a 'quo warranto' should be brought against the charter. Randolph was appointed collector at Boston. Even Leverett now saw that some concessions must be made, and the General Court ordered the oath of allegiance to be taken; nothing but perversity seems to have caused the long delay. The royal arms were also carved in the courthouse; and this was all, for the clergy were determined upon those matters touching their authority. … Nearly half a century had elapsed since the emigration, and with the growth of wealth and population changes had come. In March, John Leverett, who had long been the head of the high-church party, died, and the election of Simon Bradstreet as his successor was a triumph for the opposition. Great as the clerical influence still was, it had lost much of its old despotic power, and the congregations were no longer united in support of the policy of their pastors. … Boston and the larger towns favored concession, while the country was the ministers' stronghold. The result of this divergence of opinion was that the moderate party, to which Bradstreet and Dudley belonged, predominated in the Board of Assistants, while the deputies remained immovable. The branches of the legislature thus became opposed; no course of action could be agreed on, and the theocracy drifted to its destruction. … Meanwhile Randolph had renewed his attack. He declared that in spite of promises and excuses the revenue laws were not enforced; that his men were beaten, and that he hourly expected to be thrown into prison; whereas in other colonies, he asserted, he was treated with great respect. There can be no doubt ingenuity was used to devise means of annoyance; and certainly the life he was made to lead was hard. In March he sailed for home, and while in London he made a series of reports to the government which seem to have produced the conviction that the moment for action had come. In December he returned, commissioned as deputy-surveyor and auditor-general for all New England, except New Hampshire. … Hitherto the clerical party had procrastinated, buoyed up by the hope that in the fierce struggle with the commons Charles might be overthrown; but this dream ended with the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament, and further inaction became impossible. Joseph Dudley and John Richards were chosen agents, and provided with instructions bearing the peculiar tinge of ecclesiastical statesmanship. … The agents were urged to do what was possible to avert, or at least delay, the stroke; but they were forbidden to consent to appeals, or to alterations in the qualifications required for the admission of freemen. They had previously been directed to pacify the king by a present of 2,000 pounds; and this ill-judged attempt at bribery had covered them with ridicule. Further negotiation would have been futile. Proceedings were begun at once, and Randolph was sent to Boston to serve the writ of 'quo warranto'; he was also charged with a royal declaration promising that, even then, were submission made, the charter should be restored with only such changes as the public welfare demanded. Dudley, who was a man of much political sagacity, had returned and strongly urged moderation. The magistrates were not without the instincts of statesmanship: they saw that a breach with England must destroy all safeguards of the common freedom, and they voted an address to the crown accepting the proffered terms. But the clergy strove against them: the privileges of their order were at stake; they felt that the loss of their importance would be 'destructive to the interest of religion and of Christ's kingdom in the colony,' and they roused their congregations to resist. The deputies did not represent the people, but the church. … The influence which had moulded their minds and guided their actions controlled them still, and they rejected the address. … All that could be resolved on was to retain Robert Humphrys of the Middle Temple to interpose such delays as the law permitted; but no attempt was made at defence upon the merits of their cause, probably because all knew well that no such defence was possible. Meanwhile, for technical reasons, the 'quo warranto' had been abandoned, and a writ of 'scire facias' had been issued out of chancery. On June 18, 1684, the lord keeper ordered the defendant to appear and plead on the first day of the next Michaelmas Term. The time allowed was too short for an answer from America, and judgment was entered by default. … So perished the Puritan Commonwealth. The child of the Reformation, its life sprang from the assertion of the freedom of the mind; but this great and noble principle is fatal to the temporal power of a priesthood, and during the supremacy of the clergy the government was doomed to be both persecuting and repressive. Under no circumstance could the theocracy have endured: it must have fallen by revolt from within if not by attack from without."

Brooks Adams, The Emancipation of Massachusetts, chapter 6.

"December 19, 1686, Sir Edmund Andros arrived at Nantasket, in the Kingfisher, a 50 gun ship, with commissions from King James for the government of New England."

T. Hutchinson, History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, volume 1, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: G. E. Ellis, Puritan Age and Rule in Massachusetts, chapter 13.

C. Deane, The Struggle to Maintain the Charter of Charles I. (Memorial History of Boston, volume 1, pages 329-382).

Records of the Governor and Company Massachusetts Bay, volume 5.

See, also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1686.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1674-1678. King Philip's War.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675; 1675; 1676-1678.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1679. The severance of New Hampshire.

See NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1641-1679.

{2112}

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1686-1689. The tyranny of Andros and its downfall.

"With the charter were swept away representative government, and every right and every political institution reared during half a century of conflict. The rule of Andros was on the model dear to the heart of his royal master—a harsh despotism, but neither strong nor wise; it was wretched misgovernment, and stupid, blundering oppression. And this arbitrary and miserable system Andros undertook to force upon a people of English race, who had been independent and self-governing for fifty years. He laid taxes at his own pleasure, and not even according to previous rates, as he had promised; he denied the Habeas Corpus to John Wise, the intrepid minister of Ipswich, arrested for preaching against taxation without representation, and he awakened a like resistance in all directions. He instituted fees, was believed to pack juries, and made Randolph licenser of the press. Worst of all, he struck at property, demanded the examination of the old titles, declared them worthless, extorted quit-rents for renewal, and issued writs of intrusion against those who resisted; while, not content with attacking political liberty and the rights of property, he excited religious animosity by forbidding civil marriages, seizing the old South church for the Episcopal service, and introducing swearing by the Book in courts of justice. He left nothing undone to enrage the people and prepare for revolution; and when he returned from unsuccessful Indian warfare in the east, the storm was ready to burst. News came of the landing of the Prince of Orange. Andros arrested the bearer of the tidings, and issued a proclamation against the Prince; but the act was vain. Without apparent concert or preparation Boston rose in arms, the signal-fire blazed on Beacon Hill, and the country people poured in, hot for revenge. Some of the old magistrates met at the town-house, and read a 'declaration of the gentlemen, merchants, and inhabitants,' setting forth the misdeeds of Andros, the illegality of the Dudley government by commission, and the wrongful suppression of the charter. Andros and Dudley were arrested and thrown into prison, together with the captain of the Rose frigate, which lay helpless beneath the guns of the fort, and a provisional government was established, with Bradstreet at its head. William and Mary were proclaimed, the revolution was complete, and Andros soon went back a prisoner to England."

H. C. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies, chapter 18.

ALSO IN: J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, book 3, chapters 13-14 (volume 3).

The Andros Tracts; edited by w. H. Whitmore (Prince Society, 1868).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1689-1692. The procuring of the new Charter. The Colonial Republic transformed into a Royal Province. The absorption of Plymouth.

A little more than a month from the overthrow of Andros a ship from England arrived at Boston, with news of the proclamation of William and Mary. This was joyful intelligence to the body of the people. The magistrates were at once relieved from their fears, for the revolution in the old world justified that in the new. Three days later the proclamation was published with unusual ceremony. … A week later the representatives of the several towns, upon a new choice, met at Boston, and proposals were made that charges should be forthwith drawn up against Andros, or that all the prisoners but Andros should be liberated on bail; but both propositions were rejected. The representatives likewise urged the unconditional resumption of the charter, declaring that they could not act in any thing until this was conceded. Many opposed the motion; but it was finally adopted; and it was resolved that all the laws in force May 12, 1686, should be continued until further orders. Yet the magistrates, conscious of the insecurity of the position they occupied, used prudently the powers intrusted to them." Meantime, Increase Mather, who had gone to England before the Revolution took place as agent for the colony, had procured an audience with the new king, William III., and received from him an assurance that he would remove Andros from the government of New England and call him to an account for his administration. "Anxious for the restoration of the old charter and its privileges, under which the colony had prospered so well, the agent applied himself diligently to that object, advising with the wisest statesmen for its accomplishment. It was the concurrent judgment of all that the best course would be to obtain first a reversion of the judgment against the charter by an act of Parliament, and then apply to the king for such additional privileges as were necessary. Accordingly, in the House of Commons, where the whole subject of seizing charters in the reign of Charles II. was up for discussion, the charters of New England were inserted with the rest; and, though enemies opposed the measure, it was voted that their abrogation was a grievance, and that they should be forthwith restored." But before the bill having this most satisfactory effect had been acted on in the House of Lords, the Convention Parliament was prorogued, then dissolved, and the next parliament proved to be less friendly. An order was obtained, however, from the king, continuing the government of the colony under the old charter until a new one was settled, and requiring Andros and his fellow prisoners to be sent to England for trial. On the trial, much court influence seemed to go in favor of Sir Edmund; the proceedings against him were summarily quashed, and he was discharged. Soon afterwards he was made governor of Virginia, while Dudley received appointment to the office of chief justice at New York. Contending against the intrigues of the Andros party, and many other adverse influences, the agents of Massachusetts were reluctantly forced at last to relinquish all hopes of the restoration of the old charter, and "application was made for a new grant, which should confirm the privileges of the old instrument, and such in addition as the experience of the people had taught them would be of benefit. … The king was prevailed upon to refer the affairs of New England to the two lords chief justices and the attorney and solicitor-general, all of whom were supposed to be friendly to the applicants. Mr. Mather was permitted to attend their meetings." Difficulties arose in connection with Plymouth Colony. It was the determination in England that Plymouth should no longer be separately chartered, but should be joined to Massachusetts or New York. In opposing the former more natural union, the Plymouth people very nearly brought about their annexation to New York; but Mather's influence averted that result. "The first draught of a charter was objected to by the agents, because of its limitation of the powers of the governor, who was to be appointed by the king. The second draught was also objected to; whereupon the agents were informed that they 'must not consider themselves as plenipotentiaries from a foreign state, and that if they were unwilling to submit to the pleasure of the king, his majesty would settle the country without them, and they might take what would follow.' {2113} Nothing remained, therefore, but to decide whether they would submit, or continue without a charter, and at the mercy of the king." The two colleagues who had been associated with Mather opposed submission, but the latter yielded, and the charter was signed. "By the terms of this new charter the territories of Massachusetts, Plymouth, and Maine, with a tract farther east, were united into one jurisdiction, whose officers were to consist of a governor, a deputy governor, and a secretary, appointed by the king, and 28 councillors, chosen by the people. A General Court was to be holden annually, on the last Wednesday in May, and at such other times as the governor saw fit; and each town was authorized to choose two deputies to represent them in this court. The choice of these deputies was conceded to all freeholders having an estate of the value of forty pounds sterling, or land yielding an income of at least forty shillings per annum; and every deputy was to take the oath of allegiance prescribed by the crown. All residents of the province and their children were entitled to the liberties of natural born subjects; and liberty of conscience was secured to all but Papists. … To the governor was given a negative upon all laws enacted by the General Court; without his consent in writing none were valid; and all receiving his sanction were to be transmitted to the king for approval, and if rejected at any time within three years were to be of no effect. The governor was empowered to establish courts, levy taxes, convene the militia, carry on war, exercise martial law, with the consent of the council, and erect and furnish an requisite forts. … Such was the province charter of 1692—a far different instrument from the colonial charter of 1629. It effected a thorough revolution in the country. The form of government, the powers of the people, and the entire foundation and objects of the body politic, were placed upon a new basis; and the dependence of the colonies upon the crown was secured. … It was on Saturday, the 14th of May, 1692, that Sir William Phips arrived at Boston as the first governor of the new province."

J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 18.

ALSO IN: W. H. Whitmore, The Inter-Charter Period (Memorial History of Boston, volume 2).

G. P. Fisher, The Colonial Era, chapter 13.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1689-1697. King William's War. Temporary conquest of Acadia. Disastrous expedition against Quebec. Threatened attack by the French.

See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690; and 1692-1697.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1690. The first Colonial Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692. The Salem Witchcraft madness: in its beginning.

"The people of Massachusetts in the 17th century, like all other Christian people at that time,—at least, with extremely rare individual exceptions,—believed in the reality of a hideous crime called 'witchcraft.' … In a few instances witches were believed to have appeared in the earlier years of New England. But the cases had been sporadic. … With three or four exceptions … no person appears to have been punished for witchcraft in Massachusetts, nor convicted of it, for more than sixty years after the settlement, though there had been three or four trials of other persons suspected of the crime. At the time when the question respecting the colonial charter was rapidly approaching an issue, and the public mind was in feverish agitation, the ministers sent out a paper of proposals for collecting facts concerning witchcrafts and other 'strange apparitions.' This brought out a work from President [Increase] Mather entitled 'Illustrious Providences,' in which that influential person related numerous stories of the performances of persons leagued with the Devil. The imagination of his restless young son [Cotton Mather] was stimulated, and circumstances fed the flame." A poor Irish washerwoman, in Boston, accused by some malicious children named Goodwin, who played antics which were supposed to signify that they had been bewitched, was tried, convicted and sent to the gallows (1688) as a witch. "Cotton Mather took the oldest 'afflicted' girl to his house, where she dexterously played upon his self-conceit to stimulate his credulity. She satisfied him that Satan regarded him as his most terrible enemy, and avoided him with especial awe. … Mather's account of these transactions ['Late Memorable Providences relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions'], with a collection of other appropriate matter, was circulated not only in Massachusetts, but widely also in England, where it obtained the warm commendation of Richard Baxter; and it may be supposed to have had an important effect in producing the more disastrous delusion which followed three years after. … Mr. Samuel Parris was minister of a church in a part of Salem which was then called 'Salem Village,' and which now as a separate town bears the name of Danvers. He was a man of talents, and of repute for professional endowments, but avaricious, wrong-headed, and ill-tempered. Among his parishioners, at the time of his installation and afterwards, there had been angry disputes about the election of a minister, which had never been composed. Neighbors and relations were embittered against each other. Elizabeth Parris, the minister's daughter, was now nine years old. A niece of his, eleven years old, lived in his family. His neighbor, Thomas Putnam, the parish clerk, had a daughter named Ann, twelve years of age. These children, with a few other young women, of whom two were as old as twenty years or thereabouts, had become possessed with a wild curiosity about the sorceries of which they had been hearing and reading, and used to hold meetings for study, if it may be so called, and practice. They learned to go through motions similar to those which had lately made the Goodwin children so famous. They forced their limbs into grotesque postures, uttered unnatural outcries, were seized with cramps and spasms, became incapable of speech and of motion. By and by [March, 1692], they interrupted public worship. … The families were distressed. The neighbors were alarmed. The physicians were perplexed and baffled, and at length declared that nothing short of witchery was the trouble. The kinsfolk of the 'afflicted children' assembled for fasting and prayer. Then the neighboring ministers were sent for, and held at Mr. Parris's house a prayer-meeting which lasted through the day. The children performed in their presence, and the result was a confirmation by the ministers of the opinion of the doctors. Of course, the next inquiry was by whom the manifest witchcraft was exercised. {2114} It was presumed that the unhappy girls could give the answer. For a time they refused to do so. But at length, yielding to an importunity which it had become difficult to escape unless by an avowal of their fraud, they pronounced the names of Good, Osborn, and Tituba. Tituba—half Indian, half negro—was a servant of Mr. Parris, brought by him from Barbadoes, where he had formerly been a merchant. Sarah Good was an old woman, miserably poor. Sarah Osborn had been prosperous in early life. She had been married twice, and her second husband was still living, but separated from her. Her reputation was not good, and for some time she had been bedridden, and in a disturbed nervous state. … Tituba, whether in collusion with her young mistress, or, as was afterwards said, in consequence of having been scourged by Mr. Parris, confessed herself to be a witch, and charged Good and Osborn with being her accomplices. The evidence was then thought sufficient, and the three were committed to gaol for trial. Martha Corey and Rebecca Nourse were next cried out against. Both were church-members of excellent character, the latter, seventy years of age. They were examined by the same Magistrates, and sent to prison, and with them a child of Sarah Good, only four or five years old, also charged with diabolical practices."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, book 4, chapter 4 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, part 3 (volume 2).

S. G. Drake, Annals of Witchcraft in New England.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692. The Salem Witchcraft madness: in its culmination.

"Now a new feature of this thing showed itself. The wife of Thomas Putnam joined the children, and 'makes most terrible shrieks' against Goody Nurse—that she was bewitching her, too. On the 3d of April, Minister Parris preached long and strong from the Text, 'Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?' in which he bore down so hard upon the Witches accused that Sarah Cloyse, the sister of Nurse, would not sit still, but 'went out of meeting'; always a wicked thing to do, as they thought, but now a heinous one. At once the children cried out against her, and she was clapt into prison with the rest. Through the months of April and May, Justices Hawthorne and Curwin (or Corwin), with Marshal George Herrick, were busy getting the Witches into jail, and the good people were startled, astounded, and terror-struck, at the numbers who were seized. … Bridget Bishop, only, was then brought to trial, for the new Charter and new Governor (Phips), were expected daily. She was old, and had been accused of witchcraft twenty years before. … So, as there was no doubt about her, she was quickly condemned, and hung on the 10th day of this pleasant June, in the presence of a crowd of sad and frightened people. … The new Governor, Phips, one of Mather's Church, fell in with the prevailing fear, and a new bench of special Judges, composed of Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton, Major Saltonstall, Major Richards, Major Gidney, Mr. Wait Winthrop, Captain Sewall, and Mr. Sargent, were sworn in, and went to work. On the 30th of June, Sarah Good, Rebeka Nurse, Susannah Martin, Elizabeth How, and Sarah Wilder, were brought to trial; all were found guilty, and sentenced to death, except Nurse, who, being a Church member, was acquitted by the jury. At this, the 'afflicted' children fell into fits, and others made great outcries; and the popular dissatisfaction was so great, that the Court sent them back to the jury room, and they returned shortly, with a verdict of Guilty! The Rev. Mr. Noyes, of Salem, then excommunicated Nurse, delivered her to Satan, and they all were led out to die. Minister Noyes told Susannah Martin that she was a witch, and knew it, and she had better confess it; but she refused, and told him that 'he lied,' and that he knew it; and, 'that if he took away her life, God would give him blood to drink;' which curse is now traditionally believed, and that he was choked with blood. They were hanged, protesting their innocence; and there was none to pity them. On the 5th of August, a new batch was haled before the Court. Reverend George Burroughs, John Proctor and his wife, John Willard, George Jacobs, and Martha Carrier. Burroughs was disliked by some of the Clergy, for he was tinctured with Roger Williams's Heresies of Religious Freedom; and he was particularly obnoxious to Mather, for he had spoken slightingly of witchcraft, and had even said there was no such thing as a witch. Willard had been a constable employed in seizing witches, but, becoming sick of the business, had refused to do it any more. The children at once cried out, that he, too, was a witch; he fled for his life, but was caught at Nashua, and brought back. Old Jacobs was accused by his own grand-daughter; and Carrier was convicted upon the testimony of her own children. They were all quickly convicted and sentenced. … All but Mrs. Proctor saw the last of earth on the 19th of August. They were hanged on Gallows Hill. Minister Burroughs made so moving a prayer, closing with the Lord's Prayer, which it was thought no witch could say, that there was fear lest the crowd should hinder the hanging. As soon as he was turned off, Mr. Mather, sitting on his horse, addressed the people, to prove to them that Burroughs was really no Minister, and to show how he must be guilty, notwithstanding his prayer, for the devil could change himself into an angel of light. … Giles Cory, an old man of 80, saw that the accused were prejudged, and refused to plead to the charge against him. What could be done with him? It was found that for this, by some sort of old law, he might be pressed to death. So on the 16th of September, just as the autumn tints were beginning to glorify the earth, he was laid on the ground, bound hand and foot, and stones were piled upon him, till the tongue was pressed out of his mouth; 'the Sheriff with his cane forced it in again when he was dying.' Such cruel things did fear—fear of the Devil—lead these people to do. He was the first and last who died in New England in this way. On the 22d of September, eight of the sentenced were carted up Gallows Hill and done to death. Amid a great concourse of men, women, and children, from the neighboring villages, and from Boston, the victims went crying and singing, dragged through the lines of terror-stricken or pitying people. Some would have rescued them, but they had no leaders, and knew not how to act; so that tragedy was consummated; and the Reverend Mr. Noyes, pointing at them, said, 'What a sad thing it is to see eight fire-brands of hell hanging there!' Sad indeed! {2115} Nineteen had now been hung. One pressed to death. Eight were condemned. A hundred and fifty were in prison; and two hundred more were accused by the 'afflicted.' Some fifty had acknowledged themselves witches, of whom not one was executed. … It was now October, and this mischief seemed to be spreading like fire among the dry grass of the Prairies; and a better quality of persons was beginning to be accused by the bewitched. … But these accusations made people consider, and many began to think that they had been going on too fast. 'The juries changed sooner than the judges, and they sooner than the Clergy.' 'At last,' says one of them, 'it was evidently seen that there must be a stop put, or the generation of the church of God would fall under that condemnation.' In other words, the better class of church members were in danger! At the January session, only three were convicted, and they were reprieved; whereat Chief Justice Stoughton rose in anger, and said, 'The Lord be merciful to this country!' In the spring, Governor Phips, being about to leave the country, pardoned all who were condemned, and the jails were delivered. The excitement subsided as rapidly as it had arisen, but the evil work was done."

C. W. Elliott, The New England History, volume 2, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: S. P. Fowler, editor, Salem Witchcraft (including Calef's "More Wonders of the Invisible World," etc.).

C. S. Osgood and H. M. Batchelder, Historical Sketch of Salem, chapter 2.

J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 2, chapter 2.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692-1693. The Salem Witchcraft madness: its ending, and the reaction.

"On the second Wednesday in October, 1692, about a fortnight after the last hanging of eight at Salem, the representatives of the colony assembled; and the people of Andover, their minister joining with them, appeared with their remonstrance against the doings of the witch tribunals. Of the discussions that ensued no record is preserved; we know only the issue. The general court ordered by bill a convocation of ministers, that the people might be led in the right way as to the witchcraft. … They abrogated the special court, established a tribunal by statute, and delayed its opening till January of the following year. This interval gave the public mind security and freedom; and though Phips still conferred the place of chief judge on Stoughton, yet jurors acted independently. When, in January, 1693, the court met at Salem, six women of Andover, renouncing their confessions, treated the witchcraft but as something so called, the bewildered but as 'seemingly afflicted.' A memorial of like tenor came from the inhabitants of Andover. Of the presentments, the grand jury dismissed more than half; and of the twenty-six against whom bills were found through the testimony on which others had been condemned, verdicts of acquittal followed. … The people of Salem village drove Parris from the place; Noyes regained favor only by a full confession and consecrating the remainder of his life to deeds of mercy. Sewall, one of the judges, by rising in his pew in the Old South meeting-house on a fast-day and reading to the whole congregation a paper in which he bewailed his great offence, recovered public esteem. Stoughton never repented. The diary of Cotton Mather proves that he, who had sought the foundation of faith in tales of wonders, himself 'had temptations to atheism, and to the abandonment of all religion as a mere delusion.'"

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 3, chapter 3 (volume 2).

"It was long before the public mind recovered from its paralysis. No one knew what ought to be said or done, the tragedy had been so awful. The parties who had acted in it were so numerous, and of such standing, including almost all the most eminent and honored leaders of the community from the bench, the bar, the magistracy, the pulpit, the medical faculty, and in fact all classes and descriptions of persons; the mysteries connected with the accusers and confessors; the universal prevalence of the legal, theological, and philosophical theories that had led to the proceedings; the utter impossibility of realizing or measuring the extent of the calamity; and the general shame and horror associated with the subject in all minds; prevented any open movement. … Dr. Bentley describes the condition of the community in some brief and pregnant sentences … : 'As soon as the judges ceased to condemn, the people ceased to accuse. … Terror at the violence and guilt of the proceedings succeeded instantly to the conviction of blind zeal; and what every man had encouraged all professed to abhor. Few dared to blame other men, because few were innocent. The guilt and the shame became the portion of the country, while Salem had the infamy of being the place of the transactions.'"

C. W. Upham, Salem Witchcraft, volume 2, supplement.

"The probability seems to be that those who began in harmless deceit found themselves at length involved so deeply, that dread of shame and punishment drove them to an extremity where their only choice was between sacrificing themselves, or others to save themselves. It is not unlikely that some of the younger girls were so far carried along by imitation or imaginative sympathy as in some degree to 'credit their own lie.' … Parish and boundary feuds had set enmity between neighbors, and the girls, called on to say who troubled them, cried out upon those whom they had been wont to hear called by hard names at home. They probably had no notion what a frightful ending their comedy was to have; but at any rate they were powerless, for the reins had passed out of their hands into the sterner grasp of minister and magistrate. … In one respect, to which Mr. Upham first gives the importance it deserves, the Salem trials were distinguished from all others. Though some of the accused had been terrified into confession, yet not one persevered in it, but all died protesting their innocence, and with unshaken constancy, though an acknowledgment of guilt would have saved the lives of all. This martyr proof of the efficacy of Puritanism in the character and conscience may be allowed to outweigh a great many sneers at Puritan fanaticism."

J. R. Lowell, Witchcraft (Among My Books, series 1).

ALSO IN: G. M. Beard, Psychology of the Salem Witchcraft Excitement.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1703-1711. Queen Anne's War.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710; and CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1704. The first Newspaper.

See PRINTING, &c.: A. D. 1704-1729.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1722-1725. Renewed War with the northeastern Indians.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1713-1730.

{2116}

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1744-1748. King George's War. The taking of Louisbourg and its restoration to France.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744; 1745; and 1745-1748.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1754. The Colonial Congress at Albany and Franklin's plan of Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1755. Expedition against Fort Beau Séjour in Nova Scotia.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1755-1760. The French and Indian War, and conquest of Canada.

See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, 1755; OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, 1755; CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1761. Harsh enforcement of revenue laws. The Writs of Assistance and Otis's speech.

"It was in 1761, immediately after the overthrow of the French in Canada, that attempts were made to enforce the revenue laws more strictly than heretofore; and trouble was at once threatened. Charles Paxton, the principal officer of the custom-house in Boston, applied to the Superior Court to grant him the authority to use 'writs of assistance' in searching for smuggled goods. A writ of assistance was a general search-warrant, empowering the officer armed with it to enter, by force if necessary, any dwelling-house or warehouse where contraband goods were supposed to be stored or hidden. A special search-warrant was one in which the name of the suspected person, and the house which it was proposed to search, were accurately specified, and the goods which it was intended to seize were as far as possible described. In the use of such special warrants there was not much danger of gross injustice or oppression. … But the general search-warrant, or 'writ of assistance,' as it was called because men try to cover up the ugliness of hateful things by giving them innocent names, was quite a different affair. It was a blank form upon which the custom-house officer might fill in the names of persons and descriptions of houses and goods to suit himself. … The writ of assistance was therefore an abominable instrument of tyranny. Such writs had been allowed by a statute of the evil reign of Charles II.; a statute of William III. had clothed custom-house officers in the colonies with like powers to those which they possessed in England; and neither of these statutes had been repealed. There can therefore be little doubt that the issue of such search-warrants was strictly legal, unless the authority of Parliament to make laws for the colonies was to be denied. James Otis then held the crown office of advocate-general, with an ample salary and prospects of high favour from government. When the revenue officers called upon him, in view of his position, to defend their cause, he resigned his office and at once undertook to act as counsel for the merchants of Boston in their protest against the issue of the writs. A large fee was offered him, but he refused it. 'In such a cause,' said he, 'I despise all fees.' The case was tried in the council-chamber at the east end of the old town-hall, or what is now known as the 'Old State-House,' in Boston. Chief-justice Hutchinson presided, and Jeremiah Gridley, one of the greatest lawyers of that day, argued the case for the writs in a very powerful speech. The reply of Otis, which took five hours in the delivery, was one of the greatest speeches of modern times. It went beyond the particular legal question at issue, and took up the whole question of the constitutional relations between the colonies and the mother-country. At the bottom of this, as of all the disputes that led to the Revolution, lay the ultimate question whether Americans were bound to yield obedience to laws which they had no share in making. This question, and the spirit that answered it flatly and doggedly in the negative, were heard like an undertone pervading all the arguments in Otis's wonderful speech, and it was because of this that the young lawyer John Adams, who was present, afterward declared that on that day 'the child Independence was born.' Chief-justice Hutchinson … reserved his decision until advice could be had from the law-officers of the crown in London; and when next term he was instructed by them to grant the writs, this result added fresh impetus to the spirit that Otis's eloquence had aroused. The custom-house officers, armed with their writs, began breaking into warehouses and seizing goods which were said to have been smuggled. In this rough way they confiscated private property to the value of many thousands of pounds; but sometimes the owners of warehouses armed themselves and barricaded their doors and windows, and thus the officers were often successfully defied, for the sheriff was far from prompt in coming to aid them."

J. Fiske, The War of Independence, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: W. Tudor, Life of James Otis, chapters 5-7.

F. Bowen, Life of James Otis (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume 2), chapter 2-3.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1761-1766. The question of taxation by Parliament. The Sugar Act. The Stamp Act and its repeal. The Declaratory Act. The Stamp Act Congress. Non-importation agreements.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775, to 1766.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1768. The Circular Letter to other colonies.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1767-1768.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1768-1770. The quartering of troops in Boston. The "Massacre." Removal of the troops.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1768; and 1770.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1769. The Boston patriots threatened. Virginia roused to their support.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1769.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1770-1773. Repeal of the Townshend duties except on Tea. Committees of Correspondence instituted. The coming of the Tea Ships.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1770; and 1772-1773.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1773. Destruction of Tea at Boston.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1773.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1774. The Boston Port Bill and the Massachusetts Act. Free government destroyed and commerce interdicted. The First Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774 (MARCH-APRIL); and BOSTON: A. D. 1774.

{2117}

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1774. Organization of an independent Provisional Government. The Committee of Safety. Minute-men.

"Governor Gage issued writs, dated September 1, convening the General Court at Salem on the 5th of October, but dissolved it by a proclamation dated September 28, 1774. The members elected to it, pursuant to the course agreed upon, resolved themselves into a Provincial Congress. This body, on the 26th of October, adopted a plan for organizing the militia, maintaining it, and calling it out when circumstances should render it necessary. It provided that one quarter of the number enrolled should be held in readiness to muster at the shortest notice, who were called by the popular name of minute-men. An executive authority—the Committee of Safety—was created, clothed with large discretionary powers; and another called the Committee of Supplies."

R. Frothingham, History of the Siege of Boston, page 41.

Under the Provincial Congress and the energetic Committee of Safety (which consisted at the beginning of Hancock, Warren and Church, of Boston, Richard Devens of Charlestown, Benj. White of Brookline, Joseph Palmer of Braintree, Abraham Watson of Cambridge, Azor Orne of Marblehead, and Norton Quincy, who declined) a complete and effective administration of government, entirely independent of royal authority, was brought into operation. Subsequently, John Pigeon of Newton, William Heath of Roxbury, and Jabez Fisher of Wrentham, were added to the committee.

R. Frothingham, Life and Times of Joseph Warren, page 389.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (APRIL).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1775. The beginning of the War of the American Revolution. Lexington. Concord. The country in arms and Boston under siege. Ticonderoga. Bunker Hill The Second Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1775-1776. Washington in command at Cambridge. British evacuation of Boston.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775-1776.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1776 (April-May). Independence assumed and urged upon the General Congress.

"Massachusetts had for nearly a year acted independently of the officers of the crown. … The General Court, at their session in April [1776], passed a resolve to alter the style of writs and other legal processes—substituting 'the people and government of Massachusetts' for George III.; and, in dating official papers, the particular year of the king was omitted, and only the year of our Lord was mentioned. Early in May, likewise, an order was passed and published, by which the people of the several towns in the province were advised to give instructions to their respective representatives, to be chosen for the following political year, on the subject of independence. It is not contended that this was the first instance in which such a proposition was publicly made; for North Carolina had, two weeks before, authorized her delegates to join with the other colonies in declaring independence; and Rhode Island and Connecticut had indicated their inclination by dispensing with the oath of allegiance to the king, though a month elapsed before the Connecticut Assembly instructed their delegates to vote for independence. The returns from the towns of Massachusetts were highly encouraging, and in nearly every instance the instructions to their representatives were favorable to an explicit declaration of independence."

J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 3, chapter 3.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1776 (July). The Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JULY).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1776-1777. The struggle for New York and the Hudson. The campaigns in New Jersey and on the Delaware. Burgoyne's invasion and surrender.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (AUGUST), to 1777 (JULY-OCTOBER).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1777-1783. The Articles of Confederation. Alliance with France. Treason of Arnold. The war in the south. Surrender of Cornwallis. Peace.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777-1781, to 1783.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1779. Framing and adoption of a State Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1779.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1781. Emancipation of Slaves.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1638-1781.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1785. Western territorial claims and their cession to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1786. Settlement of land claims with New York. The cession of western New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1786-1799.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1786-1787. The Shays Rebellion.

"The Shays Rebellion, which takes its name from the leader of the insurgents, Daniel Shays, lately a captain in the Continental army, had its taproot in the growing spirit of lawlessness. But special causes of discontent were traceable to an unequal distribution of wealth and excessive land taxation in Massachusetts, the sole seat of the outbreak. Governor Bowdoin and his party strove vigorously to reduce the State debt and keep up the public credit at a period of great public depression. But this strained severely the farmers and citizens of moderate means in the inland towns. Private creditors pressed their debtors, while the State pressed all. Attachments were put upon the poor man's cattle and teams, and his little homestead was sacrificed under the sheriff's hammer. It was no sign of prosperity that the dockets of the county courts were crowded, and that lawyers and court officers put in the sickle. There was common complaint of the high salaries of public officials and the wasteful cost attending litigation. One might suppose that a legislature annually chosen would soon remedy this state of things. But the inhabitants of the western counties took the short cut of resisting civil process and openly defying the laws. And herein their error lay. Shays rallied so large a force of malcontents about Worcester in the fall of 1786 that the sheriff and his deputies were powerless against them, and no court could be held. … This first success of the Massachusetts insurgents alarmed the friends of order throughout the Union. … Congress, by this time an adept in stealthy and diplomatic methods, offered secret aid to the authorities of Massachusetts upon the pretext of dispatching troops against the Indians. But the tender was not accepted; for in James Bowdoin the State had an executive equal to the emergency. Availing himself of a temporary loan from patriotic citizens, he raised and equipped a militia force, large enough to overawe the rebels, which, under General Lincoln's command, was promptly marched against them. Shays appears to have had more of the demagogue than warrior about him, and his followers fled as the troops advanced [being finally surprised and routed at Petersham, February 4, 1787]. By midwinter civil order was restored; but the legislature made some concessions not less just than prudent. The vanquished rebels were treated with marked clemency. But Governor Bowdoin's energy lost him a re-election the following spring, and one of the manliest pioneers of Continental reform was remitted to private life for the rest of his days. To him succeeded the veteran Hancock, whose light shone through a horn-lantern of vanity and love of popular applause."

J. Schouler, History of the United States, volume 1, chapter 1, section 1.

ALSO IN: J. B. McMaster, History of the People of the United States, volume 1, chapter 3.

J. G. Holland, History of West Massachusetts, volume 1, chapters 16-18.

M. A. Green, Springfield, 1636-1886, chapter 14.

J. E. A. Smith, History of Pittsfield, 1734-1800, chapters 21-22.

{2118}

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1788. Ratification of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1812-1814. Opposition of Federalists to the war with England.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1814. The Hartford Convention.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1818-1821. The founding of Amherst College.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1820. The district of Maine erected into a distinct State.

See MAINE: A. D. 1820.

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1861 (April). Prompt response to President Lincoln's call for troops. Attack on the Sixth Regiment in Baltimore.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1861 (April-May). The Eighth Regiment making its way to Washington. Butler and Baltimore.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL-MAY: MARYLAND).

MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1889. The founding of Clark University.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1887-1889.

----------MASSACHUSETTS: End----------

MASSACRES. Of Glenco.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1692.

MASSACRES: Of the Mamelukes (1811).

See EGYPT: A. D. 1803-1811.

MASSACRES: Of the Mountain Meadows (1857).

See UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.

MASSACRES: Of St. Bartholomew's Day.

MASSACRES: See FRANCE: A. D. 1572.

MASSACRES: Of St. Brice's Day (1002).

See ENGLAND: A. D. 979-1016.

MASSACRES: Of September, 1792, in the Paris prisons.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

MASSACRES: Of the Shiites.

See TURKS: A. D. 1481-1520.

MASSACRES: The Sicilian Vespers (1282).

See ITALY (SOUTHERN): A. D. 1282-1300.

MASSAGETÆ, The.

See SCYTHIANS.

MASSALIANS, The.

See MYSTICISM.

MASSALIOTS.

The people of Massilia—ancient Marseilles.

MASSENA, Marshal, Campaigns of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL); 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL); 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER) and (AUGUST-DECEMBER); 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY); 1805 (MARCH-DECEMBER); 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER); and SPAIN: A. D. 1810-1812.

MASSILIA.

The ancient name of Marseilles.

See PHOCÆANS.

MASSIMILIANO, Duke of Milan, A. D. 1512-1515.

MASSORETES.

See MASORETES.

MASULIPATAM, English capture of (1759).

See INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761.

MATAGUAYAS, The.

See BOLIVIA: ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

MATELOTAGE.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1639-1700.

MATHER, Cotton, and the Witchcraft excitement.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692.

MATHER, Increase, and the new Massachusetts Charter.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1689-1692.

MATILDA, Donation of the Countess.

See PAPACY: A. D. 1077-1102.

MATRONA, The.

The ancient name of the river Marne.

MATRONALIA, The.

An ancient Roman festival, celebrated on the Calends of March, in memory of the intervention of the Sabine matrons, to make peace between their Sabine kinsmen and their Roman husbands.

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 1, chapter 1 (volume 1).

See ROME: THE RAPE OF THE SABINE WOMEN.

MATTHIAS, Germanic Emperor, A. D. 1612-1619.

Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, 1457-1490.

MATTIACI, The.

The Mattiaci were an ancient German tribe friendly to Rome. They inhabited a region in Nassau, about Wiesbaden.

Church and Brodribb, Geographical Notes to The Germany of Tacitus.

See, also, MOGONTIACUM.

MAUREGATO, King of Leon and the Asturias, or Oviedo, A. D. 783-788.

----------MAURETANIA: Start--------

MAURETANIA. MAURETANIANS. MOORS.

See NUMIDIANS.

MAURETANIA: Under the Romans.

See AFRICA: THE ROMAN PROVINCE.

MAURETANIA: A. D. 374-398.-Revolts of Firmus and Gildo.

See ROME: A. D. 396-398.

MAURETANIA: Conquest by the Vandals. See VANDALS: A. D. 429-439.

MAURETANIA: Mahometan Conquest.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 647-709.

MAURETANIA: Mediæval and Modern History.

See MAROCCO; also, BARBARY STATES.

----------MAURETANIA: End--------

MAURICE, Roman Emperor (Eastern), A. D. 582-602.

Maurice, Prince of Orange and Count of Nassau, Stadtholder of the United Provinces (Netherlands), 1587-1625.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585, to 1621-1633.

Maurice of Saxony, The dishonorable exploits of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552.

MAURIENNE, Counts of.

The earliest title of the princes of the House of Savoy.

See SAVOY: 11-15TH CENTURIES.

MAURITANIANS.

See MAURETANIA.

MAURITIUS, or the Isle of France, English acquisition of the (1810).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE); also, INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

MAURITIUS RIVER.

The name given by the Dutch to the Hudson River.

MAUSOLEUM AT HALICARNASSUS.

See CARIANS.

MAUSOLEUM OF HADRIAN.

See CASTLE ST. ANGELO.

MAVROVALLACHIA.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 12TH CENTURY.

MAXEN, Capitulation of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

MAXIMA CÆSARIENSIS.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 323-337.

MAXIMIAN, Roman Emperor, A. D. 286-305.

{2119}

MAXIMILIAN, Emperor of Mexico.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.

Maximilian I., Archduke of Austria, King of the Romans, A. D. 1486-1493; Germanic Emperor, 1493-1519.

Maximilian II., Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and Germanic Emperor, 1564-1576.

MAXIMIN, Roman Emperor, A. D. 235-238.

MAXIMUS, Revolt of.

See BRITAIN: A. D. 383-388.

MAXYANS, The.

See LIBYANS.

MAY, Cape MEY, Cape: The Name.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

MAY LAWS, The German.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1873-1887.

MAY LAWS, The Russian, of 1882.

See JEWS: 19TH CENTURY.

MAYAS, The, and their early civilization.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MAYAS.

MAYENCE.

See MENTZ.

MAYFLOWER, The Voyage of the.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620.

MAYNOOTH, Siege of.

The castle of Maynooth, held by the Irish in the rebellion of 1535, was besieged by the English, stormed and taken, March 23 of that year, and twenty-six of its defenders hanged. The rebellion soon collapsed.

J. A. Fronde, History of England, chapter 8.

MAYNOOTH GRANT, The.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1844.

MAYO, Lord, The Indian administration and the assassination of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1862-1876.

MAYOR OF THE PALACE.

"The Mayor of the Palace is met with in all the Frankish kingdoms. … The mayors were at first merely the first superintendents, the first administrators of the interior of the palace of the king; the chiefs whom he put at the head of his companions, of his leudes, still united around him. It was their duty to maintain order among the king's men, to administer justice, to look to all the affairs, to all the wants, of that great domestic society. They were the men of the king with the leudes; this was their first character, their first state. Now for the second. After having exercised the power of the king over his leudes, his mayors of the palace usurped it to their own profit. The leudes, by grants of public charges and fiefs, were not long before they became great proprietors. This new situation was superior to that of companions of the king; they detached themselves from him, and united in order to defend their common interests. According as their fortune dictated, the mayors of the palace sometimes resisted them, more often united with them, and, at first servants of the king, they at last became the chiefs of an aristocracy, against whom royalty could do nothing. These are the two principal phases of this institution: it gained more extension and fixedness in Austrasia, in the family of the Pepins, who possessed it almost a century and a half, than anywhere else."

F. Guizot, History of Civilization, volume 2 (France, volume 1), lecture 19.

ALSO IN: W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 5.

See, also, FRANKS: A. D. 511-752.

MAYORUNA, BARBUDO, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

MAYPO, Battle of (1818).

See CHILE: A. D. 1810-1818.

MAZACA.

"Mazaca [the capital city of ancient Cappadocia] was situated at the base of the great volcanic mountain Argaeus (Argish), about 13,000 feet high. … The Roman emperor Tiberius changed the name of Mazaca to Caesareia, and it is now Kaisariyeh on the Kara Su, a small stream which flows into the Halys (Kizil Ermak)."

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 5, chapter 22.

MAZARIN, Ministry of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643, to 1659-1661.

MAZARINE BIBLE, The.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1430-1456.

MAZARQUIVER, Siege of (1563).

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1563-1565.

MAZES.

See LABYRINTHS.

MAZOR.

See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.

MAZZINI, Joseph, and the revolutionary movements in Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1831-1848.

MEADE, General George G.: Command of the Army of the Potomac. Battle of Gettysburg, and after.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: PENNSYLVANIA); and (JULY-NOVEMBER: VIRGINIA).

MEAL-TUB PLOT, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1679 (JUNE).

MEANEE, Battle of (1843).

See SCINDE.

MEAUX, Siege of.

The city of Meaux, on the Marne, in France, was vigorously besieged for seven months by Henry V. of England, but surrendered on the 10th of May, 1422.

Monstrelet, Chronicles, book 1, chapters 249-259.

----------MECCA: Start--------

MECCA: Rise of Mahometanism.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: 609-632.

MECCA: A. D. 692. Siege by the Omeyyads.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-750.

MECCA: A. D. 929. Stormed and Pillaged by the Carmathians.

See CARMATHIANS.

----------MECCA: End--------

MECHANICSVILLE, Engagements at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY: VIRGINIA) THE PENINSULAR CAMPAIGN; and (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).

----------MECHLIN: Start--------

MECHLIN: A. D. 1572. Pillage and massacre by Alva's troops.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1572-1573.

MECHLIN: A. D. 1585. Surrender to the Spaniards.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585.

----------MECHLIN: End--------

MECKLENBURG: The Duchy bestowed on Wallenstein (1628).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1627-1629.

MECKLENBURG DECLARATION, The.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775 (MAY).

MEDAIN.

Medain, "the twin city," combined in one, under this Arabic name, the two contiguous Persian capitals, Seleucia and Ctesiphon. The name Medain signifies "cities," and "it is said to have comprised a cluster of seven towns, but it is ordinarily taken to designate the twin cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon."

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapters 10 and 17.

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----------MEDIA: Start--------

MEDIA AND THE MEDES.

The country of the Medes, in its original extent, coincided very nearly with the northwestern part of modern Persia, between Farsistan and the Elburz mountains. "The boundaries of Media are given somewhat differently by different writers, and no doubt they actually varied at different periods; but the variations were not great, and the natural limits, on three sides at any rate, may be laid down with tolerable precision. Towards the north the boundary was at first the mountain chain closing in on that side the Urumiyeh basin, after which it seems to have been held that the true limit was the Araxes, to its entrance on the low country, and then the mountain chain west and south of the Caspian. Westward, the line of demarcation may be best regarded as, towards the south, running along the centre of the Zagros region; and, above this, as formed by that continuation of the Zagros chain which separates the Urumiyeh from the Van basin. Eastward, the boundary was marked by the spur from the Elburz, across which lay the pass known as the Pylæ Caspiæ, and below this by the great salt desert, whose western limit is nearly in the same longitude. Towards the south there was no marked line or natural boundary. … We may place the southern limit with much probability about the line of the thirty-second parallel, which is nearly the present boundary between Irak and Fars."

G. Rawlinson, Five great Monarchies: Media, chapter 1.

"The nation of the Medes belongs to the group of the Arian tribes, which occupied the table-land of Iran. This has been already proved by the statement of Herodotus that in ancient times the Medians were called Areans by all men, by the religion of the Medes, and by all the Median words and names that have come down to us. According to Herodotus the nation consisted of six tribes: the Arizanti, Busae, Struchates, Budii, Paraetaceni, and Magi. … The Magians we have already found to be a hereditary order of Priests."

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 8, chapter 1.

The Medes, who seem to have been long without any centralizing authority among them, became, at last, united under a monarchy which grew in power, until, in the later part of the seventh century B. C., it combined with Babylonia against the decaying Assyrian kingdom. Nineveh was destroyed by the confederates, and the dominions of Assyria were divided between them. The Median empire which then rose, by the side of the Babylonian, endured little more than half a century. It was the first of the conquests of Cyrus (see PERSIA: B. C. 549-521), or Kyros, the founder of the Persian empire (B. C. 549).

A. H. Sayce, Ancient Empires of the East, appendix 5.

ALSO IN: F. Lenormant and E. Chevallier, Manual of the Ancient History of the East, book 5, chapters 1-4.

MEDIA: The ancient religion.

See ZOROASTRIANS.

----------MEDIA: End----------

MEDIA ATROPATENE.

See ATROPATENE.

MEDIÆVAL, Belonging to the.

See MIDDLE AGES.

----------MEDICAL SCIENCE: Start--------

MEDICAL SCIENCE: Chronology of Development.

Renouard, in his "History of Medicine," arranges the chronology of the development of medical knowledge in three grand divisions or Ages, subdivided into eight periods. "The First Age commences with the infancy of society, as far back as historic tradition carries us, and terminates toward the end of the second century of the Christian era, at the death of Galen, during the reign of Septimus Severus. This lapse of time constitutes, in Medicine, the Foundation Age. The germ of the Healing Art, concealed, at first, in the instincts of men, is gradually developed; the basis of the science is laid, and great principles are discussed. … The Second Age, which may be called the Age of Transition, offers very little material to the history of Medicine. We see no longer the conflicts and discussions between partisans of different doctrines; the medical sects are confounded. The art remains stationary, or imperceptibly retrogrades. I can not better depict this epoch than by comparing it to the life of an insect in the nympha state; though no exterior change appears, an admirable metamorphosis is going on, imperceptibly, within. The eye of man only perceives the wonder after it has been finished. Thus from the 15th century, which is the beginning of the third and last Age of Medicine, or the Age of Renovation, Europe offers us a spectacle of which the most glorious eras of the republics of Greece and Rome only can give us an idea. It would seem as if a new life was infused into the veins of the inhabitants of this part of the world; the sciences, fine arts, industry, religion, social institutions, all are changed. A multitude of schools are open for teaching Medicine. Establishments which had no models among the ancients, are created for the purpose of extending to the poorer classes the benefits of the Healing Art. The ingenious activity of modern Christians explores and is sufficient for everything. These three grand chronological divisions do not suffice to classify, in our minds, the principal phases of the history of Medicine; consequently, I have subdivided each age into a smaller number of sections, easy to be retained, and which I have named Periods. The first Age embraces four periods, the second and third ages, each, two. … The first period, which we name Primitive Period, or that of instinct, ends with the ruin of Troy, about twelve centuries before the Christian era. The second, called the Mystic or Sacred Period, extends from the dissolution of the 'Pythagorean Society' to about the year 500 A. C. The third period, which ends at the foundation of the Alexandrian Library, A. C., 320, we name the Philosophic Period. The fourth, which we designate the Anatomic, extends to the end of the first age, i. e., to the year 200 of the Christian era. The fifth is called the Greek Period; it ends at the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, A. D. 640. The sixth receives the surname of Arabic, and closes with the 14th century. The seventh period, which begins the third age, comprises the 15th and 16th centuries; it is distinguished as the Erudite. Finally, the eighth, or last period, embraces the 17th and 18th centuries [beyond which the writer did not carry his history]. I call it the Reform Period."

P. V. Renouard, History of Medicine, introduction.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: Egyptian.

"Medicine is practised among them [the Egyptians] on a plan of separation; each physician treats a single disorder, and no more: thus the country swarms with medical practitioners, some undertaking to cure diseases of the eye, others of the head, others again of the teeth, others of the intestines, and some those which are not local."

Herodotus, History, translated by Rawlinson, book 2, chapter 84.

{2121}

"Not only was the study of medicine of very early date in Egypt, but medical men there were in such repute that they were sent for at various times from other countries. Their knowledge of medicine is celebrated by Homer (Od. iv. 229), who describes Polydamna, the wife of Thonis, as giving medicinal plants 'to Helen, in Egypt, a country producing an infinite number of drugs … where each physician possesses knowledge above all other men.' 'O virgin daughter of Egypt,' says Jeremiah (lxvi. 11), 'in vain shalt thou use many medicines.' Cyrus and Darius both sent to Egypt for medical men (Her. iii. 1, 132): and Pliny (xix. 5) says post mortem examinations were made in order to discover the nature of maladies. Doctors received their salaries from the treasury; but they were obliged to conform in the treatment of a patient to the rules laid down in their books, his death being a capital crime, if he was found to have been treated in any other way. But deviations from, and approved additions to, the sacred prescriptions were occasionally made; and the prohibition was only to prevent the experiments of young practitioners, whom Pliny considers the only persons privileged to kill a man with impunity. Aristotle indeed says 'the Egyptian physicians were allowed after the third day to alter the treatment prescribed by authority, and even before, taking upon themselves the responsibility' (Polit. iii. 11). Experience gradually taught them many new remedies; and that they had adopted a method (of no very old standing in modern practice) of stopping teeth with gold is proved by some mummies found at Thebes. Besides the protection of society from the pretensions of quacks, the Egyptians provided that doctors should not demand fees on a foreign journey or on military service, when patients were treated free of expense (Diod. i. 82); and we may conclude that they were obliged to treat the poor gratis, on consideration of the allowance paid them as a body by government. … Poor and superstitious people sometimes had recourse to dreams, to wizards, to donations to sacred animals, and to exvotos to the gods. … Charms were also written for the credulous, some of which have been found on small pieces of papyrus, which were rolled up and worn as by the modern Egyptians. Accoucheurs were women; which we learn from Exodus i. 15, and from the sculptures, as in modern Egypt. … The Egyptian doctors were of the sacerdotal order, like the embalmers, who are called (in Genesis l. 2) 'Physicians,' and were' commanded by Joseph to embalm his father.' They were of the class called Pastophori, who, according to Clemens (Strom. lib. 6), being physicians, were expected to know about all things relating to the body, and diseases, and remedies, contained in the six last sacred books of Hermes. Manetho tells us that Athothes, the second king of Egypt, who was a physician, wrote the anatomical books; and his name, translated Hermogenes, may have been the origin of the tradition that ascribed them to Hermes, the Egyptian Thoth. Or the fable may mean that they were the result of intellect personified by Thoth, or Hermes."

Herodotus, History, translated by Rawlinson, Note.

"The ancient Egyptians, though medical science was zealously studied by them, also thought that the efficacy of the treatment was enhanced by magic formulæ. In the Ebers Papyrus, an important and very ancient manual of Egyptian medicine, the prescriptions for various medicaments are accompanied by the forms of exorcism to be used at the same time, and yet many portions of this work give evidence of the advanced knowledge of its authors."

G. Ebers, Egypt, volume 2, pages 61-62.

"Works on medicine abounded in Egypt from the remotest times, and the great medical library of Memphis, which was of immemorial antiquity, was yet in existence in the second century before our era, when Galen visited the Valley of the Nile. … Ateta, third king of the First Dynasty, is the reputed author of a treatise on anatomy. He also covered himself with glory by the invention of an infallible hair-wash, which, like a dutiful son, he is said to have prepared especially for the benefit of his mother. No less than five medical papyri have come down to our time, the finest being the celebrated Ebers papyrus, bought at Thebes by Dr. Ebers in 1874. This papyrus contains one hundred and ten pages, each page consisting of about twenty-two lines of bold hieratic writing. It may be described as an Encyclopædia of Medicine as known and practised by the Egyptians of the Eighteenth Dynasty; and it contains prescriptions for all kinds of diseases—some borrowed from Syrian medical lore, and some of such great antiquity that they are ascribed to the mythologic ages, when the gods yet reigned personally upon earth. Among others, we are given the recipe for an application whereby Osiris cured Ra of the headache. The Egyptians attached great importance to these ancient medical works, which were regarded as final. The physician who faithfully followed their rules of treatment might kill or cure with impunity; but if he ventured to treat the patient according to his own notions, and if that patient died, he paid for the experiment with his life. Seeing, however, what the canonical remedies were, the marvel is that anybody ever recovered from anything. Raw meat; horrible mixtures of nitre, beer, milk, and blood, boiled up and swallowed hot; the bile of certain fishes; and the bones, fat, and skins of all kinds of unsavory creatures, such as vultures, bats, lizards and crocodiles, were among their choicest remedies."

A. B. Edwards, Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers, chapter 6.

"In Egypt … man does not die, but some one or something assassinates him. The murderer often belongs to our world, and can be easily pointed out. … Often, though, it belongs to the invisible world, and only reveals itself by the malignity of its attacks: it is a god, a spirit, the soul of a dead man, that has cunningly entered a living person, or that throws itself upon him with irresistible violence. … Whoever treats a sick person has therefore two equally important duties to perform. He must first discover the nature of the spirit in possession, and, if necessary, its name, and then attack it, drive it out, or even destroy it. He can only succeed by powerful magic, so he must be an expert in reciting incantations, and skilful in making amulets. He must then use medicine to contend with the disorders which the presence of the strange being has produced in the body; this is done by a finely graduated régime and various remedies. The cure-workers are therefore divided into several categories. {2122} Some incline towards sorcery, and have faith in formulas and talismen only; they think they have done enough if they have driven out the spirit. Others extol the use of drugs; they study the qualities of plants and minerals, describe the diseases to which each of the substances provided by nature is suitable, and settle the exact time when they must be procured and applied: certain herbs have no power unless they are gathered during the night at the full moon, others are efficacious in summer only, another acts equally well in winter or summer. The best doctors carefully avoid binding themselves exclusively to either method."

G. Maspéro, Life in Ancient Egypt and Assyria, chapter 7.

"The employment of numerous drugs in Egypt has been mentioned by sacred and profane writers; and the medicinal properties of many herbs which grow in the deserts, particularly between the Nile and Red Sea, are still known to the Arabs, though their application has been but imperfectly recorded and preserved. … Homer, in the Odyssey, describes the many valuable medicines given by Polydamna, the wife of Thonis, to Helen, while in Egypt, 'a country whose fertile soil produces an infinity of drugs, some salutary and some pernicious, where each physician possesses knowledge above all other men'; and Pliny makes frequent mention of the productions of that country, and their use in medicine. He also notices the physicians of Egypt; and as if their number was indicative of the many maladies to which the inhabitants were subject, he observes that it was a country productive of numerous diseases. In this, however, he does not agree with Herodotus, who affirms that, 'after the Libyans, there are no people so healthy as the Egyptians, which may be attributed to the invariable nature of the seasons in their country.' In Pliny's time the introduction of luxurious habits and excess had probably wrought a change in the people; and to the same cause may be attributed the numerous complaints among the Romans, 'unknown to their fathers and ancestors.' The same author tells us that the Egyptians examined the bodies after death, to ascertain the nature of the diseases of which they had died; and we can readily believe that a people so far advanced in civilization and the principles of medicine as to assign each physician his peculiar branch, would have resorted to this effectual method of acquiring knowledge and experience for the benefit of the community. It is evident that the medical skill of the Egyptians was well known even in foreign and distant countries; and we learn from Herodotus, that Cyrus and Darius both sent to Egypt for medical men. … The Egyptians, according to Pliny, claimed the honour of having invented the art of curing diseases."

Sir J. G. Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, chapter 10 (volume 2).

"The Ptolemies, down to the very termination of their dominion over Egypt, appear to have encouraged the curative art, and for the purpose of restoring declining health, surrounded themselves with the most illustrious physicians of the age. … The science of medicine of the period was fully represented at the Museum by distinguished professors, who, according to Athenæus, restored the knowledge of this art to the towns and islands of the Grecian Archipelago. … About the period of the absorption of the Egyptian kingdom into the expanding dominion of the Romans, the schools of Alexandria still continued to be the centre of medical studies; and notwithstanding the apparent dissidence between the demands of a strict science and public affairs, its professors exhibited, equally with their brother philosophers, a taste for diplomacy. Dioscorides and Serapion, two physicians of Alexandria, were the envoys of the elder Ptolemy to Rome, and at a later date were bearers of dispatches from Cæsar to one of his officers in Egypt."

G. F. Fort, Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, chapter 3.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: Babylonian.

The Babylonians "have no physicians, but when a man is ill, they lay him in the public square, and the passers-by come up to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves or have known anyone who has suffered from it, they give him advice, recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case, or in the case known to them. And no one is allowed to pass the sick man in silence without asking him what his ailment is."

Herodotus, History, translated by G. Rawlinson, book 1, chapter 197 (volume 1).

"The incantations against diseases describe a great variety of cases. … But the most numerous are those which aim at the cure of the plague, fever, and 'disease of the head;' this latter, judging from the indications which are given of its symptoms and its effects, appears to have been a sort of erysipelas, or cutaneous disease. … These are the principal passages of a long incantation against 'the disease of the head:' the tablet on which we find it bears six other long formulæ against the same evil. 'The disease of the head exists on man. The disease of the head, the ulceration of the forehead exists on man. The disease of the head marks like a tiara, the disease of the head from sunrise to sunset. In the sea and the vast earth a very small tiara is become the tiara, the very large tiara, his tiara. The diseases of the head pierce like a bull, the diseases of the head shoot like the palpitation of the heart. … The diseases of the head, like doves to their dove-cotes, like grasshoppers into the sky, like birds into space may they fly away. May the invalid be replaced in the protecting hands of his god!' This specimen will give the reader an idea of the uniform composition of these incantations against diseases, which filled the second book of the work under consideration. They all follow the same plan throughout, beginning with the definition of the disease and its symptoms, which occupies the greater part of the formula; and ending with a desire for deliverance from it, and the order for it to depart. Sometimes, however, the incantation of the magician assumes a dramatic form at the end. … We must add … the use of certain enchanted drinks, which, doubtless, really contained medicinal drugs, as a cure for diseases, and also of magic knots, the efficacy of which was so firmly believed in, even up to the middle ages. Here is a remedy which one of the formulæ supposes to have been prescribed by Hea against a disease of the head: 'Knot on the right and arrange flat in regular bands, on the left a woman's diadem; divide it twice in seven little bands; … gird the head of the invalid with it; gird the forehead of the invalid with it; gird the seat of life with it; gird his hands and his feet: seat him on his bed; pour on him enchanted waters. Let the disease of his head be carried away into the heavens like a violent wind; … may the earth swallow it up like passing waters!' Still more powerful than the incantations were conjurations wrought by the power of numbers."

F. Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, chapters 1 and 3.

{2123}

MEDICAL SCIENCE: Finnish.

"The Finnish incantations for exorcising the demons of diseases were composed in exactly the same spirit, and founded upon the same data, as the Accadian incantations destined for the like purpose. They were formulæ belonging to the same family, and they often showed a remarkable similarity of language; the Egyptian incantations, on the contrary, having been composed by people with very different ideas about the supernatural world, assumed quite another form. This is an incantation from one of the songs of the Kalevala: 'O malady, disappear into the heavens; pain, rise up to the clouds; inflamed vapour, fly into the air, in order that the wind may take thee away, that the tempest may chase thee to distant regions, where neither sun nor moon give their light, where the warm wind does not inflame the flesh. O pain, mount upon the winged steed of stone, and fly to the mountains covered with iron. For he is too robust to be devoured by disease, to be consumed by pains. Go, O diseases, to where the virgin of pains has her hearth, where the daughter of Wäinämöinen cooks pains, go to the hill of pains. There are the white dogs, who formerly howled in torments, who groaned in their sufferings.'"

F. Lenormant, Chaldean Magic, chapter 17.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: Hindu.

"There is reason to … conclude, from the imperfect opportunities of investigation we possess, that in medicine, as in astronomy and metaphysics, the Hindus once kept pace with the most enlightened nations of the world; and that they attained as thorough a proficiency in medicine and surgery as any people whose acquisitions are recorded, and as indeed was practicable, before anatomy was made known to us by the discoveries of modern enquirers. It might easily be supposed that their patient attention and natural shrewdness would render the Hindus excellent observers; whilst the extent and fertility of their native country would furnish them with many valuable drugs and medicaments. Their Nidana or Diagnosis, accordingly, appears to define and distinguish symptoms with great accuracy, and their Dravyabhidhana, or Materia Medica, is sufficiently voluminous. They have also paid great attention to regimen and diet, and have a number of works on the food and general treatment, suited to the complaint, or favourable to the operation of the medicine administered. This branch they entitle Pathyapathya. To these subjects are to be added the Chikitsa, or medical treatment of diseases—on which subject they have a variety of compositions, containing much absurdity, with much that is of value; and the Rasavidya, or Pharmacy, in which they are most deficient. All these works, however, are of little avail to the present generation, as they are very rarely studied, and still more rarely understood, by any of the practising empirics. The divisions of the science thus noticed, as existing in books, exclude two important branches, without which the whole system must be defective—Anatomy and Surgery. We can easily imagine, that these were not likely to have been much cultivated in Hindustan. … The Ayur Veda, as the medical writings of highest antiquity and authority are collectively called, is considered to be a portion of the fourth or Atharva Veda, and is consequently the work of Brahma—by him it was communicated to Daksha, the Prajapati, and by him the two Aswins, or sons of Surya, the Sun, were instructed in it, and they then became the medical attendants of the gods—a genealogy that cannot fail recalling to us the two sons of Esculapius, and their descent from Apollo. Now what were the duties of the Aswins, according to Hindu authorities?—the gods, enjoying eternal youth and health, stood in no need of physicians, and consequently they held no such sinecure station. The wars between the gods and demons, however, and the conflicts amongst the gods themselves, in which wounds might be suffered, although death might not be inflicted, required chirurgical aid—and it was this, accordingly, which the two Aswins rendered. … The meaning of these legendary absurdities is clear enough, and is conformable to the tenor of all history. Man, in the semi-barbarous state, if not more subject to external injuries than internal disease, was at least more likely to seek remedies for the former, which were obvious to his senses, than to imagine the means of relieving the latter, whose nature he could so little comprehend. Surgical, therefore, preceded medicinal skill; as Celsus has asserted, when commenting on Homer's account of Podalirius and Machaon, who were not consulted, he says, during the plague in the Grecian camp, although regularly employed to extract darts and heal wounds. … We may be satisfied that Surgery was once extensively cultivated, and highly esteemed by the Hindus. Its rational principles and scientific practice are, however, now, it may be admitted, wholly unknown to them. … It would be an enquiry of some interest to trace the period and causes of the disappearance of Surgery from amongst the Hindus: it is evidently of comparatively modern occurrence, as operative and instrumental practice forms so principal a part of those writings, which are undeniably most ancient; and which, being regarded as the composition of inspired writers, are held of the highest authority."

H. H. Wilson, Essays on Sanskrit Literature, pages 269-276, and 391.

"The number of medical works and authors is extraordinarily large. The former are either systems embracing the whole domain of the science, or highly special investigations of single topics, or, lastly, vast compilations prepared in modern times under the patronage of kings and princes. The sum of knowledge embodied in their contents appears really to be most respectable. Many of the statements on dietetics and on the origin and diagnosis of diseases bespeak a very keen observation. In surgery, too, the Indians seem to have attained a special proficiency, and in this department European surgeons might perhaps even at the present day still learn something from them, as indeed they have already borrowed from them the operation of rhinoplasty. The information, again, regarding the medicinal properties of minerals (especially precious stones and metals), of plants, and animal substances, and the chemical analysis and decomposition of these, covers certainly much that is valuable. Indeed, the branch of Materia Medica generally appears to be handled with great predilection, and this makes up to us in some measure at least for the absence of investigations in the field of natural science. On the diseases, &c., of horses and elephants also there exist very special monographs. {2124} For the rest, during the last few centuries medical science has suffered great detriment from the increasing prevalence of the notion, in itself a very ancient one, that diseases are but the result of transgressions and sins committed, and from the consequent very general substitution of fastings, alms, and gifts to the Brahmans, for real remedies. … The influence … of Hindu medicine upon the Arabs in the first centuries of the Hijra was one of the very highest significance; and the Khalifs of Bagdad caused a considerable number of works upon the subject to be translated. Now, as Arabian medicine constituted the chief authority and guiding principle of European physicians down to the seventeenth century, it directly follows—just as in the case of astronomy—that the Indians must have been held in high esteem by these latter; and indeed Charaka is repeatedly mentioned in the Latin translations of Avicenna (Ibn Sina), Rhazes (Al Rasi), and Serapion (Ibn Serabi)."

A. Weber, History of Indian Literature, pages 269-271.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: Jewish.

"If we are to judge from the frequent mention of physicians (Exodus xv. 26; Isaiah iii. 7; Jeremiah viii. 22; Sirach x. 11, xxxviii. 1 ff.; Matthew ix. 12; Mark v. 26; Luke iv. 23, etc.), the Israelites must have given much attention to medicine from ancient times. The physicians must have understood how to heal wounds and external injuries with bandaging, mollifying with oil (Isaiah i. 6; Luke x. 34), balsam (Jeremiah xlvi. 11, li. 8), plasters (2 Kings xx. 7), and salves prepared from herbs (Sirach xxxviii. 8; Exodus xxi. 19; 2 Kings viii. 29; Ezekiel xxx. 21). The ordinances respecting leprosy also show that the lawgiver was well acquainted with the various kinds of skin eruptions (comp. section 114). And not only Moses, but other Israelites also may have acquired much practical knowledge of medicine in Egypt, where the healing art was cultivated from high antiquity. But as to how far the Israelitish physicians advanced in this art, we have not more exact information. From the few scattered hints in the Old and New Testaments, so much only is clear, that internal diseases were also treated (2 Chronicles xvi. 12; Luke viii. 43), and that the medicinal springs which Palestine possesses were much used by invalids. It by no means follows from the fact that the superintendence of lepers and the pronouncing of them clean are assigned by the law to the priests, that these occupied themselves chiefly with medicine. The task which the law laid on them has nothing to do with the healing of leprosy. Of the application of charms, there is not a single instance in Scripture."

C. F. Keil, Manual of Biblical Archæology, volume 2, pages 276-277.

The surgery of the Talmud includes a knowledge of dislocations of the thigh, contusions of the head, perforation of the lungs and other organs, injuries of the spinal cord and trachea, and fractures of the ribs. Polypus of the nose was considered to be a punishment for past sins. In sciatica the patient is advised to rub the hip sixty times with meat-broth. Bleeding was performed by mechanics or barbers. The pathology of the Talmud ascribes diseases to a constitutional vice, to evil influences acting on the body from without, or to the effect of magic. Jaundice is recognized as arising from retention of the bile, dropsy from suppression of the urine. The Talmudists divided dropsy into anasarca, ascites, and tympanites. Rupture and atrophy of the kidneys were held to be always fatal. Hydatids of the liver were more favourably considered. Suppuration of the spinal cord, induration of the lungs, etc., are incurable. Dr. Baas says that these are 'views which may have been based on the dissection of (dead) animals, and may be considered the germs of pathological anatomy.' Some critical symptoms are sweating, sneezing, defecation, and dreams, which promise a favourable termination of the disease. Natural remedies, both external and internal, were employed. Magic was also Talmudic. Dispensations were given by the Rabbis to permit sick persons to eat prohibited food. Onions were prescribed for worms; wine and pepper for stomach disorders; goat's milk for difficulty of breathing; emetics in nausea; a mixture of gum and alum for menorrhagia (not a bad prescription); a dog's liver was ordered for the bite of a mad dog. Many drugs, such a assafœtida, are evidently adopted from Greek medicine. The dissection of the bodies of animals provided the Talmudists with their anatomy. It is, however, recorded that Rabbi Ishmael, at the close of the first century, made a skeleton by boiling the body of a prostitute. We find that dissection in the interests of science was permitted by the Talmud. The Rabbis counted 252 bones in the human skeleton."

E. Berdoe, The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, book 2, chapter 2.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: Greek.

"It is well known that the oldest documents which we possess relative to the practice of Medicine, are the various treatises contained in the Collection which bears the name of Hippocrates. Their great excellence has been acknowledged in all ages, and it has always been a question which has naturally excited literary curiosity, by what steps the art had attained to such perfection at so early a period. … It is clearly established that, long before the birth of philosophy, medicine had been zealously and successfully cultivated by the Asclepiadæ, an order of priest-physicians that traced its origin to a mythical personage bearing the distinguished name of Æsculapius. Two of his sons, Podalirius and Machaon, figure in the Homeric poems, not however as priests, but as warriors possessed of surgical skill in the treatment of wounds, for which they are highly complimented by the poet. It was probably some generations after this time (if one may venture a conjecture on a matter partaking very much of the legendary character) that Æsculapius was deified, and that Temples of Health, called 'Asclepia,' presided over by the Asclepiadæ, were erected in various parts of Greece, as receptacles for the sick, to which invalids resorted in those days for the cure of diseases, under the same circumstances as they go to hospitals and spas at the present time. What remedial measures were adopted in these temples we have no means of ascertaining so fully as could be wished, but the following facts, collected from a variety of sources, may be pretty confidently relied upon for their accuracy. In the first place, then, it is well ascertained that a large proportion of these temples were built in the vicinity of thermæ, or medicinal springs, the virtues of which would no doubt contribute greatly to the cure of the sick. At his entrance into the temple, the devotee was subjected to purifications, and made to go through a regular course of bathing, accompanied with methodical frictions, resembling the oriental system now well known by the name of shampooing. {2125} Fomentations with decoctions of odoriferous herbs were also not forgotten. A total abstinence from food was at first prescribed, but afterwards the patient would no doubt be permitted to partake of the flesh of the animals which were brought to the temples as sacrifices. Every means that could be thought of was used for working upon the imagination of the sick, such as religious ceremonies of an imposing nature, accompanied by music, and whatever else could arouse their senses, conciliate their confidence, and, in certain cases, contribute to their amusement. … It is also well known that the Asclepiadæ noted down with great care the symptoms and issue of every case, and that, from such observations, they became in time great adepts in the art of prognosis. … The office of priesthood was hereditary in certain families, so that information thus acquired would be transmitted from father to son, and go on accumulating from one generation to another. Whether the Asclepiadæ availed themselves of the great opportunities which they must undoubtedly have had of cultivating human and comparative anatomy, has been much disputed in modern times. … It is worthy of remark, that Galen holds Hippocrates to have been a very successful cultivator of anatomy. … Of the 'Asclepia' we have mentioned above, it will naturally be supposed that some were in much higher repute than others, either from being possessed of peculiar advantages, or from the prevalence of fashion. In the beginning of the fifth century before the Christian era the temples of Rhodes, Cnidos, and Cos were held in especial favour, and on the extinction of the first of these, another rose up in Italy in its stead. But the temple of Cos was destined to throw the reputation of all the others into the background, by producing among the priests of Æsculapius the individual who, in all after ages, has been distinguished by the name of the Great Hippocrates. … That Hippocrates was lineally descended from Æsculapius was generally admitted by his countrymen, and a genealogical table, professing to give a list of the names of his forefathers, up to Æsculapius, has been transmitted to us from remote antiquity. … Of the circumstances connected with the life of Hippocrates little is known for certain. … Aulus Gellius, … in an elaborate disquisition on Greek and Roman chronology, states decidedly that Socrates was contemporary with Hippocrates, but younger than he. Now it is well ascertained that the death of Socrates took place about the year 400 A. C., and as he was then nearly seventy years old, his birth must be dated as happening about the year 470 A. C. … It will readily occur to the reader, then, that our author flourished at one of the most memorable epochs in the intellectual development of the human race. … From his forefathers he inherited a distinguished situation in one of the most eminent hospitals, or Temples of Health, then in existence, where he must have enjoyed free access to all the treasures of observations collected during many generations, and at the same time would have an opportunity of assisting his own father in the management of the sick. Thus from his youth he must have been familiar with the principles of medicine, both in the abstract and in the concrete. … Initiated in the theory and first principles of medicine, as now described, Hippocrates no doubt commenced the practice of his art in the Asclepion of Cos, as his forefathers had done before him. Why he afterwards left the place of his nativity, and visited distant regions of the earth, whither the duties of his profession and the calls of humanity invited him, cannot now be satisfactorily determined. … According to all the accounts which have come down to us of his life, he spent the latter part of it in Thessaly, and died at Larissa, when far advanced in years. … As a medical author the name of Hippocrates stands pre-eminently illustrious. … Looking upon the animal system as one whole, every part of which conspires and sympathises with all the other parts, he would appear to have regarded disease also as one, and to have referred all its modifications to peculiarities of situation. Whatever may now be thought of his general views on Pathology, all must admit that his mode of prosecuting the cultivation of medicine is in the true spirit of the Inductive Philosophy; all his descriptions of disease are evidently derived from patient observation of its phenomena, and all his rules of practice are clearly based on experience. Of the fallaciousness of experience by itself he was well aware, however. … Above all others Hippocrates was strictly the physician of experience and common sense. In short, the basis of his system was a rational experience, and not a blind empiricism, so that the Empirics in after ages had no good grounds for claiming him as belonging to their sect. What he appears to have studied with particular attention is the natural history of diseases, that is to say, their tendencies to a favorable or fatal issue. … One of the most distinguishing characteristics, then, of the Hippocratic system of medicine, is the importance attached in it to prognosis, under which was comprehended a complete acquaintance with the previous and present condition of the patient and the tendency of the disease. … In the practice of surgery he was a bold operator. He fearlessly, and as we would now think, in some cases unnecessarily, perforated the skull with the trepan and the trephine in injuries of the head. He opened the chest also in empyema and hydrothorax. His extensive practice, and no doubt his great familiarity with the accidents occurring at the public games of his country, must have furnished him with ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with dislocations and fractures of all kinds; and how well he had profited by the opportunities which he thus enjoyed, every page of his treatises 'On Fractures,' and 'On the Articulations,' abundantly testifies."

F. Adams, Preliminary Discourse (Genuine Works of Hippocrates), section 1.

"The school of the Asclepiadæ has been responsible for certain theories which have been more or less prominent during the earlier historical days. One of these which prevailed throughout the Hippocratic works is that of Coction and Crisis. By the former term is meant thickening or elaboration of humors in the body, which was supposed to be necessary for their elimination in some tangible form. Disease was regarded as an association of phenomena resulting from efforts made by the conservative principles of life to effect a coction, i. e., a combination, of the morbific matter in the economy, it being held that the latter could not be properly expelled until thus united and prepared so as to form excrementious material. {2126} This elaboration was supposed to be brought about by the vital principles which some called nature (Phusis), some spirit (Psyche), some breath (Pneuma), and some heat (Thermon). The gradual climax of morbid phenomena has, since the days of Hippocrates, been commonly known as Crisis. All this was regarded as the announcement of the completion of this union by coction. The day on which it was accomplished was termed 'critical,' as were also the signs which preceded or accompanied it, and for the crisis the physician anxiously watched. Coction having been effected and crisis occurring, it only remained to evacuate the morbific material, which nature sometimes spontaneously accomplished by the critical sweat, urination, or stools; or sometimes the physician had to come to her relief by the administration of diuretics, purgatives, et cetera. The term 'critical period' was given to the number of days necessary for coction, which in its perfection was supposed to be four, the so-called quaternary, while the septenary was also held in high consideration. … This doctrine of crisis in disease left an impress upon the medical mind not yet fully eliminated."

Roswell Park, Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.).

"Making no pretension … to describe the regular medical practice among the Greeks, I shall here, nevertheless, introduce some few particulars more or less connected with it, which may be regarded as characteristic of the age and people. Great were the virtues which they ascribed to the herb alysson, (biscutella didyma,) which, being pounded and eaten with meat cured hydrophobia. Nay, more, being suspended in the house, it promoted the health of its inhabitants; it protected likewise both man and cattle from enchantment; and, bound in a piece of scarlet flannel round the necks of the latter, it preserved them from all diseases. Coriander-seed, eaten in too great quantity, produced, they thought, a derangement of the intellect. Ointment of saffron had an opposite effect, for the nostrils and heads of lunatics being rubbed therewith they were supposed to receive considerable relief. Melampos the goatherd was reported to have cured the daughters of Prætos of their madness by large doses of black hellebore, which thereafter received from him the name of Melampodion. Sea-onions suspended over the doors preserved from enchantment, as did likewise a branch of rhamnus over doors or windows. A decoction of rosemary and of the leaves and stems of the anemone was administered to nurses to promote the secretion of milk, and a like potion prepared from the leaves of the Cretan dittany was given to women in labour. This herb, in order to preserve its virtues unimpaired, and that it might be the more easily transported to all parts of the country, was preserved in a joint of a ferula or reed. A plaster of incense, Cimolian earth, and oil of roses, was applied to reduce the swelling of the breasts. A medicine prepared from mule's fern, was believed to produce sterility, as were likewise the waters of a certain fountain near Pyrrha, while to those about Thespiæ a contrary effect was attributed, as well as to the wine of Heraclea in Arcadia. The inhabitants of this primitive region drank milk as an aperient in the Spring, because of the medicinal herbs on which the cattle were then supposed to feed. Medicines of laxative properties were prepared from the juice of the wild cucumber, which were said to retain their virtues for two hundred years, though simples in general were thought to lose their medicinal qualities in less than four. The oriental gum called kankamon was administered in water or honeyed vinegar to fat persons to diminish their obesity, and also as a remedy for the toothache. For this latter purpose the gum of the Ethiopian olive was put into the hollow tooth, though more efficacy perhaps was attributed to the root of dittander which they suspended as a charm about the neck. A plaster of the root of the white thorn or iris roots prepared with flour of copper, honey, and great centaury, drew out thorns and arrow heads without pain. An unguent procured from fern was sold to rustics for curing the necks of their cattle galled by the yoke. A decoction of marsh-mallow leaves and wine or honeyed vinegar was administered to persons who had been stung by bees or wasps or other insects; bites and burns were healed by an external application of the leaf smeared with oil, and the powdered roots cast into water caused it to freeze if placed out during the night in the open air; an unguent was prepared with oil from reeds, green or dry, which protected those who anointed themselves with it from the stings of venomous reptiles. Cinnamon unguent, or terebinth and myrtle-berries, boiled in wine, were supposed to be a preservative against the bite of the tarantula or scorpion, as was the pistachio nut against that of serpents. Some persons ate a roasted scorpion to cure its own bite; a powder, moreover, was prepared from sea-crabs supposed to be fatal to this reptile. Vipers were made to contribute their part to the materia medica; for, being caught alive, they were enclosed with salt and dried figs in a vase which was then put into a furnace till its contents were reduced to charcoal, which they esteemed a valuable medicine. A. considerable quantity of viper's flesh was in the last century imported from Egypt into Venice, to be used in the composition of medicinal treacle. From the flowers of the sneezewort, a sort of snuff appears to have been manufactured, though probably used only in medicines. The ashes of old leather cured burns, galls, and blistered feet. The common remedy when persons had eaten poisonous mushrooms was a dose of nitre exhibited in vinegar and water; with water it was esteemed a cure for the sting of a burncow, and with benzoin it operated as an antidote against the poison of bulls' blood."

J. A. St. John, The Hellenes, book 6, chapter 6 (volume 3).

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MEDICAL SCIENCE: The Hippocratic Oath.

"Medical societies or schools seem to have been as ancient as Hippocrates. The Hippocratic oath, as it is called, has been preserved, and is one of the greatest curiosities we have received from antiquity:

'I swear by Apollo the physician, by Æsculapius, by Hygeia, by Panacea, and by all gods and goddesses, that I will fulfil religiously, according to the best of my power and judgment, the solemn vow which I now make.

I will honour as my father the master who taught me the art of medicine; his children I will consider as my brothers, and teach them my profession without fee or reward.

I will admit to my lectures and discourses my own sons, my master's sons, and those pupils who have taken the medical oath; but no one else.

I will prescribe such medicines as may be best suited to the cases of my patients, according to the best of my judgment; and no temptation shall ever induce me to administer poison.

I will religiously maintain the purity of my character and the honour of my art.

I will not perform the operation of lithotomy, but leave it to those to whose calling it belongs.

Into whatever house I enter, I will enter it with the sole view of relieving the sick, and conduct myself with propriety towards the women of the family.

If during my attendance I happen to hear of anything that should not be revealed, I will keep it a profound secret.

If I observe this oath, may I have success in this life, and may I obtain general esteem after it; if I break it, may the contrary be my lot.'"

Ancient Physic and Physicians (Dublin University Magazine, April, 1856).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 1st Century. Greek physicians in Rome. Pliny's Picture.

Pliny's account of the Greek physicians in Rome in his time (first century) is not flattering to the profession. He says: "For the cure of King Antiochus—to give our first illustration of the profits realized by the medical art—Erasistratus received from his son, King Ptolemæus, the sum of one hundred talents. … I pass over in silence many physicians of the very highest celebrity, the Cassii, for instance, the Calpetani, the Arruntii, and the Rubrii, men who received fees yearly from the great, amounting to no less than 250,000 sesterces. As for Q. Stertinius, he thought that he conferred an obligation upon the emperors in being content with 500,000 sesterces per annum; and indeed he proved, by an enumeration of the several houses, that a city practice would bring him in a yearly income of not less than 600,000 sesterces. Fully equal to this was the sum lavished upon his brother by Claudius Cæsar; and the two brothers, although they had drawn largely upon their fortunes in beautifying the public buildings at Neapolis, left to their heirs no less than 30,000,000 of sesterces! such an estate as no physician but Arruntius had till then possessed. Next in succession arose Vettius Valens, rendered so notorious by his adulterous connection with Messalina, the wife of Claudius Cæsar, and equally celebrated as a professor of eloquence. When established in public favour, he became the founder of a new sect. It was in the same age, too, during the reign of the Emperor Nero, that the destinies of the medical art passed into the hands of Thessalus, a man who swept away all the precepts of his predecessors, and declaimed with a sort of frenzy against the physicians of every age; but with what discretion and in what spirit, we may abundantly conclude from a single trait presented by his character—upon his tomb, which is still to be seen on the Appian Way, he had his name inscribed as the 'Iatronices'—the 'Conqueror of the Physicians.' No stage-player, no driver of a three-horse chariot, had a greater throng attending him when he appeared in public: but he was at last eclipsed in credit by Crinas, a native of Massilia, who, to wear an appearance of greater discreetness and more devoutness, united in himself the pursuit of two sciences, and prescribed diets to his patients in accordance with the movements of the heavenly bodies, as indicated by the almanacks of the mathematicians, taking observations himself of the various times and seasons. It was but recently that he died, leaving 10,000,000 of sesterces, after having expended hardly a less sum upon building the walls of his native place and of other towns. It was while these men were ruling our destinies, that all at once, Charmis, a native also of Massilia, took the City by surprise. Not content with condemning the practice of preceding physicians, he proscribed the use of warm baths as well, and persuaded people, in the very depth of winter even, to immerse themselves in cold water. His patients he used to plunge into large vessels filled with cold water, and it was a common thing to see aged men of consular rank make it a matter of parade to freeze themselves; a method of treatment, in favour of which Annæus Seneca gives his personal testimony, in writings still extant. There can be no doubt whatever, that all these men, in the pursuit of celebrity by the introduction of some novelty or other, made purchase of it at the downright expense of human life. Hence those woeful discussions, those consultations at the bedside of the patient, where no one thinks fit to be of the same opinion as another, lest he may have the appearance of being subordinate to another; hence, too, that ominous inscription to be read upon a tomb, 'It was the multitude of physicians that killed me.' The medical art, so often modified and renewed as it has been, is still on the change from day to day, and still are we impelled onwards by the puffs which emanate from the ingenuity of the Greeks. … Cassius Hemina, one of our most ancient writers, says that the first physician that visited Rome was Archagathus, the son of Lysanias, who came over from Peloponnesus, in the year of the City 535, L. Æmilius and M. Livius being consuls. He states also, that the right of free citizenship was granted him, and that he had a shop provided for his practice at the public expense in the Acilian Cross-way; that from his practice he received the name of 'Vulnerarius'; that on his arrival he was greatly welcomed at first, but that soon afterwards, from the cruelty displayed by him in cutting and searing his patients, he acquired the new name of 'Carnifex,' and brought his art and physicians in general into considerable disrepute. That such was the fact, we may readily understand from the words of M. Cato, a man whose authority stands so high of itself, that but little weight is added to it by the triumph which he gained, and the Censorship which he held. I shall, therefore, give his own words in reference to this subject. 'Concerning those Greeks, son Marcus, I will speak to you more at length on the befitting occasion. I will show you the results of my own experience at Athens, and that, while it is a good plan to dip into their literature, it is not worth while to make a thorough acquaintance with it. They are a most iniquitous and intractable race, and you may take my word as the word of a prophet, when I tell you, that whenever that nation shall bestow its literature upon Rome it will mar everything; and that all the sooner, if it sends its physicians among us. They have conspired among themselves to murder all barbarians with their medicine; a profession which they exercise for lucre, in order that they may win our confidence, and dispatch us all the more easily. They are in the common habit, too, of calling us barbarians, and stigmatize us beyond all other nations, by giving us the abominable appellation of Opici. {2128} I forbid you to have anything to do with physicians.' Cato, who wrote to this effect, died in his eighty-fifth year, in the year of the City 605; so that no one is to suppose that he had not sufficient time to form his experience, either with reference to the duration of the republic, or the length of his own life. Well then—are we to conclude that he has stamped with condemnation a thing that in itself is most useful? Far from it, by Hercules! … Medicine is the only one of the arts of Greece, that, lucrative as it is, the Roman gravity has hitherto refused to cultivate. It is but very few of our fellow-citizens that have even attempted it."

Pliny, Natural History (Bohn's translation), book 29, chapters 3-8 (volume 5).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 2d Century. Galen and the development of Anatomy and Pathology.

"In the earliest conceptions which men entertained of their power of moving their own members, they probably had no thought of any mechanism or organization by which this was effected. The foot and the hand, no less than the head, were seen to be endowed with life; and this pervading life seemed sufficiently to explain the power of motion in each part of the frame, without its being held necessary to seek out a special seat of the will, or instruments by which its impulses were made effective. But the slightest inspection of dissected animals showed that their limbs were formed of a curious and complex collection of cordage, and communications of various kinds, running along and connecting the bones of the skeleton. These cords and communications we now distinguish as muscles, nerves, veins, arteries, &c.; and among these, we assign to the muscles the office of moving the parts to which they are attached, as cords move the parts of a machine. Though this action of the muscles on the bones may now appear very obvious, it was, probably, not at first discerned. It is observed that Homer, who describes the wounds which are inflicted in his battles with so much apparent anatomical precision, nowhere employs the word muscle. And even Hippocrates of Cos, the most celebrated physician of antiquity, is held to have had no distinct conception of such an organ. … Nor do we find much more distinctness on this subject even in Aristotle, a generation or two later. … He is held to have really had the merit of discovering the nerves of sensation, which he calls the 'canals of the brain' … , but the analysis of the mechanism of motion is left by him almost untouched. … His immediate predecessors were far from remedying the deficiencies of his doctrines. Those who professed to study physiology and medicine were, for the most part, studious only to frame some general system of abstract principles, which might give an appearance of connexion and profundity to their tenets. In this manner the successors of Hippocrates became a medical school, of great note in its day, designated as the Dogmatic school; in opposition to which arose an Empiric sect, who professed to deduce their modes of cure, not from theoretical dogmas, but from experience. These rival parties prevailed principally in Asia Minor and Egypt, during the time of Alexander's successors,—a period rich in names, but poor in discoveries; and we find no clear evidence of any decided advance in anatomy. … The victories of Lucullus and Pompeius, in Greece and Asia, made the Romans acquainted with the Greek philosophy; and the consequence soon was, that shoals of philosophers, rhetoricians, poets, and physicians streamed from Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt, to Rome and Italy, to traffic their knowledge and their arts for Roman wealth. Among these was one person whose name makes a great figure in the history of medicine, Asclepiades of Prusa in Bithynia. This man appears to have been a quack, with the usual endowments of his class. … He would not, on such accounts, deserve a place in the history of science, but that he became the founder of a new school, the Methodic, which professed to hold itself separate both from the Dogmatics and the Empirics. I have noticed these schools of medicine, because, though I am not able to state distinctly their respective merits in the cultivation of anatomy, a great progress in that science was undoubtedly made during their domination, of which the praise must, I conceive, be in some way divided among them. The amount of this progress we are able to estimate, when we come to the works of Galen, who flourished under the Antonines, and died about A. D. 203. The following passage from his works will show that this progress in knowledge was not made without the usual condition of laborious and careful experiment, while it implies the curious fact of such experiment being conducted by means of family tradition and instruction, so as to give rise to a caste of dissectors. In the opening of his Second Book on Anatomical Manipulations, he speaks thus of his predecessors: 'I do not blame the ancients, who did not write books on anatomical manipulation; though I praise Marinus, who did. For it was superfluous for them to compose such records for themselves or others, while they were, from their childhood, exercised by their parents in dissecting, just as familiarly as in writing and reading; so that there was no more fear of their forgetting their anatomy, than of forgetting their alphabet. But when grown men, as well as children, were taught, this thorough discipline fell off; and, the art being carried out of the family of the Asclepiads, and declining by repeated transmission, books became necessary for the student.' That the general structure of the animal frame, as composed of bones and muscles, was known with great accuracy before the time of Galen, is manifest from the nature of the mistakes and deficiencies of his predecessors which he finds it necessary to notice. … Galen was from the first highly esteemed as an anatomist. He was originally of Pergamus; and after receiving the instructions of many medical and philosophical professors, and especially of those of Alexandria, which was then the metropolis of the learned and scientific world, he came to Rome, where his reputation was soon so great as to excite the envy and hatred of the Roman physicians. The emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus would have retained him near them; but he preferred pursuing his travels, directed principally by curiosity. When he died, he left behind him numerous works, an of them of great value for the light they throw on the history of anatomy and medicine; and these were for a long period the storehouse of all the most important anatomical knowledge which the world possessed. In the time of intellectual barrenness and servility, among the Arabians and the Europeans of the dark ages, the writings of Galen had almost unquestioned authority; and it was only by an uncommon effort of independent thinking that Abdollatif ventured to assert, that even Galen's assertions must give way to the evidence of the senses. In more modern times, when Vesalius, in the sixteenth century, accused Galen of mistakes, he drew upon himself the hostility of the whole body of physicians."

W. Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, book 17, chapter 1, section 1 (volume 2).

{2129}

"Galen strongly denied being attached to any of the sects of his day, and regarded as slaves those who took the title of Hippocratists, Praxagoreaus, or Herophilists, and so on. Nevertheless his predilection in favor of the Hippocratic writings is well marked, for he explains, comments upon them, and amplifies them at length, refutes the objections of their adversaries and gives them the highest place. He says, 'No one before me has given the true method of treating disease; Hippocrates, I confess, has heretofore shown the path, but as he was the first to enter it he was not able to go as far as he wished. … He has not made all the necessary distinction, and is often obscure, as is usually the case with ancients when they attempt to be concise. He says very little of complicated diseases; in a word, he has only sketched what another was to complete; he has opened the path, but has left it for a successor to enlarge and make it plain.' This implies how he regarded himself as the successor of Hippocrates, and how little weight he attached to the labors of others. He held that there were three sorts of principles in man—spirits, humors, and solids. Throughout his metaphysical speculations Galen reproduces and amplifies the Hippocratic dogmatism. Between perfect health and disease there were, he thought, eight kinds of temperaments or imperfect mixtures compatible with the exercise of the functions of life. With Plato and Aristotle he thought the human soul to be composed of three faculties or parts, the vegetive, residing in the liver; the irascible, having its seat in the heart, and the rational, which resided in the brain. He divided diseases of the solids of the body into what he called distempers; he distinguished between the continued and intermittent fevers, regarding the quotidian as being caused by phlegm, the tertian as due to yellow bile, and the quartan due to atrabile. In the doctrine of coction, crises, and critical days, he agreed with Hippocrates; with him he also agreed in the positive statement that diseases are cured by their contraries."

Roswell Park, Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 7-11th Centuries. Medical Art of the Arabs.

"It probably sounds paradoxical (though it is not) to affirm that, throughout the first half of the Middle Ages, science made its home chiefly with the Semites and Græco-Romans (its founders), while, in opposition to the original relations, faith and its outgrowths alone were fostered by the Germans. In the sterile wastes of the desert the Arabians constructed a verdant oasis of science, in lands to-day the home once more of absolute or partial barbarism. A genuine meteor of civilization were these Arabians. … The Arabians built their medicine upon the principles and theories of the Greeks (whose medical writings were studied and copied mostly in translations only), and especially upon those of Galen, in such a way, that, on the whole, they added to it very little matter of their own, save numerous subtle definitions and amplifications. But Indian medical views and works, as well as those of other earlier Asiatic peoples (e. g., the Chaldeans), exercised demonstrably, but in a subordinate degree, an influence upon Arabian medicine. The Arabians interwove too into their medical views various philosophical theorems, especially those of Aristotle, already corrupted by the Alexandrians and still further falsified by themselves with portions of the Neo-Platonic philosophy; and finally they added thereto a goodly share of the absurdities of astrology and alchemy. Indeed it is nowadays considered proven that they even made use of ancient Egyptian medical works, e. g., the papyrus Ebers. Thus the medicine of the Arabians, like Grecian medicine its parent, did not greatly surpass the grade of development of mere medical philosophy, and, so far as regards its intrinsic worth, it stands entirely upon Grecian foundations. … Yet they constantly advanced novelties in the sciences subsidiary to medicine, materia medica and pharmacy, from the latter of which chemistry, pharmacies and the profession of the apothecary were developed. … The mode of transfer of Greek medicine to the Arabians was probably as follows: The inhabitants of the neighboring parts of Asia, including both the Persians and Arabians, as the result of multifarious business connexions with Alexandria, came, even at an early date, in contact with Grecian science, and by degrees a permanent alliance was formed with it. In a more evident way the same result was accomplished by the Jewish schools in Asia, the great majority of which owed their foundation to Alexandria. Such schools were established at Nisibis, at Nahardea in Mesopotamia, at Mathæ-Mechasja on the Euphrates, at Sura, &c., and their period of prime falls in the 5th century. The influence of the Nestorian universities was especially favorable and permanent, particularly the school under Greek management founded at Edessa, in Mesopotamia, where Stephen of Edessa, the reputed father of Alexander of Tralles, taught (A. D. 530). …. Still more influential in the transfer of Grecian science to the Arabians was the banishment of the 'heathen' philosophers of the last so-called Platonic school of Athens, by the 'Christian' despot Justinian I. (529). These philosophers were well received at the court of the infidel Chosroës, and in return manifested their gratitude by the propagation of Grecian science. … From all these causes it resulted that, even as early as the time of Mohammed (571-632), physicians educated in the Grecian doctrines lived among the Arabians. … Arabian culture (and of course Arabian medicine) reached its zenith at the period of the greatest power and greatest wealth of the Caliphate in the 9th and 10th centuries. At that time intellectual life was rooted in the schools of the mosques, i. e., the Arabian universities, which the great caliphs were zealous in founding. Such Arabian universities arose and existed in the progress of time (even as late as the 14th century) at Bagdad, Bassora, Cufa, Samarcand, Ispahan, Damascus, Bokhara, Firuzabad and Khurdistan, and under the scholastic Fatimides (909-1171) in Alexandria. Under the Ommyiades (755-1031), after the settlement of the Arabians in Spain in the beginning of the 8th century, were founded the famous universities of Cordova (possessing in the 10th century a library of 250,000 volumes), Seville, Toledo, Almeria and Murcia under the three caliphs named Abderrahman and Al Hakem. {2130} Less important were the universities of Granada and Valencia, and least important of all, those founded by the Edrisi dynasty (800-986) in the provinces of Tunis, Fez and Morocco. In spite of all these institutions the Arabians possessed no talent for productive research; still less, like the ancient Semites, did they create any arts, save poesy and architecture. Their whole civilization bore the stamp of its foreign origin. … 'The Prince of Physicians' (el Sheik el Reis—he was also a poet) was the title given by the Arabians to Abu Ali el Hossein ebn Abdallah ebn Sina (Ebn Sina, Avicenna), 980-1037, in recognition of his great erudition, of which the chief evidences are stored in his 'Canon.' This work, though it contains substantially merely the conclusions of the Greeks, was the text-book and law of the healing art, even as late as the first century of modern times."

J. H. Baas, Outlines of the History of Medicine, pages 216-229.

"The Saracens commenced the application of chemistry, both to the theory and practice of medicine, in the explanation of the functions of the human body and in the cure of its diseases. Nor was their surgery behind their medicine. Albucasis, of Cordova, shrinks not from the performance of the most formidable operations in his own and in the obstetrical art; the actual cautery and the knife are used without hesitation. He has left us ample descriptions of the surgical instruments then employed; and from him we learn that, in operations on females in which considerations of delicacy intervened, the services of properly instructed women were secured. How different was all this from the state of things in Europe: the Christian peasant, fever-stricken or overtaken by accident, hied to the nearest saint-shrine and expected a miracle; the Spanish Moor relied on the prescription or lancet of his physician, or the bandage and knife of his surgeon."

J. W. Draper, History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, volume 2, chapter 2.

"The accession of Gehwer to the throne of Mussulman Spain, early in the eleventh century, was marked by the promulgation of regulations so judiciously planned, touching medical science and its practice, that he deserves the highest commendation for the unwavering zeal with which he supervised this important branch of learning taught in the metropolis. Those evils which the provinces had suffered previous to his rule, through the practice of medicine by debased empirics, were quickly removed by this sagacious Caliph. Upon the publication of his rescripts, such medical charlatans or ambulatory physicians as boldly announced themselves to be medici, without a knowledge of the science, were ignominiously expelled from the provincial towns. He decreed that a college of skilled surgeons should be forthwith organized, for the single specified function of rigidly examining into the assumed qualifications of applicants for licenses to exercise the curative art in municipal or rural departments, or sought professional employment as physicians in the numerous hospitals upon the Mahometan domains."

G. F. Fort, Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, chapter 17.

"Anatomy and physiology, far from making any conquests under Arabian rule, followed on the contrary a retrograde movement. As those physicians never devoted themselves to dissections, they were under the necessity of conforming entirely to the accounts of Galen. … Pathology was enriched in the Arabian writings by some new observations. … The physicians of this nation were the first … who began to distinguish eruptive fevers by the exterior characters of the eruption, while the Greeks paid but little attention to these signs. Therapeutics made also some interesting acquisitions under the Arab physicians. It owes to them, among other things, the introduction of mild purgatives, such as cassia, senna, and manna, which replaced advantageously, in many cases, the drastics employed by the ancients; it is indebted to them, also, for several chemical and pharmaceutical improvements, as the confection of syrups, tinctures, and distilled waters, which are very frequently and usefully employed. Finally, external therapeutics, or surgery, received some minor additions, such as pomades, plasters, and new ointments; but these additions were very far from compensating for the considerable losses which it suffered by their abandoning a multitude of operations in use among the Greeks."

P. V. Renouard, History of Medicine, page 267.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 12-17th Centuries. Mediæval Medicine.

"The difficulties under which medical science laboured may be estimated from the fact that dissection was forbidden by the clergy of the Middle Ages, on the ground that it was impious to mutilate a form made in the image of God. We do not find this pious objection interfering with such mutilation when effected by means of the rack and the wheel and such other clerical rather than medical instruments. But in the reign of Philip the Second of Spain a famous Spanish doctor was actually condemned by the Inquisition to be burnt for having performed a surgical operation, and it was only by royal favour that he was permitted instead to expiate his crime by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he died in poverty and exile. This being the attitude of the all-powerful Church towards medical progress, it is not surprising that medical science should have stagnated, and that Galen and Dioscorides were permitted to lay down the law in the sixteenth century as they had done since the beginning of the Christian era. Some light is thrown upon the state of things here from resulting by a work translated from the German in the year 1561, and entitled 'A most excellent and perfecte homish apothecarye or physicke booke, for all the grefes and diseases of the bodye.' The first chapter is 'Concerning the Head and his partes.' 'Galen sayth, the head is divided into foure partes: in the fore part hath blood the dominion; Colera in the ryght syde, Melancholy in the left syde, and Flegma beareth rule in the hindermost part. If the head doth ake so sore by reason of a runninge that he cannot snoffe hys nose, bath hys fete in a depe tub untill the knees and give him this medicine … which riseth into hys head and dryeth hys moyst braynes. Galen sayth He that hath payne in the hindermost part of hys head, the same must be let blood under the chynne, specially on the right side; also were it good ofte to burn the heyre of a man before hys nose. The braynes are greved many wayes; many there are whom the head whyrleth so sore that he thinketh the earth turneth upsydedoune: Cummin refraineth the whyrling, comforteth the braynes and maketh them to growe agayne: or he may take the braynes of a hogge, rost the same upon a grede yron and cut slices thereof and lay to the greved parts.' {2131} This doctrine of like helping like was of universal application, and in medical works of the Middle Ages we meet constantly with such prescriptions as these:—'Take the right eye of a Frogg, lap it in a peece of russet cloth and hang it about the neck: it cureth the light eye if it bee en flamed or bleared. And if the left eye be greved, do the like by the left eye of the said Frogg." Again—'The skin of a Raven's heel is good against the gout, but the right heel skin must be laid upon the right foot if that be gouty, and the left upon the left. … If you would have a man become bold or impudent let him carry about him the skin or eyes of a Lion or a Cock, and he will be fearless of his enemies, nay, he will be very terrible unto them. If you would have him talkative, give him tongues, and seek out those of water frogs and ducks and such creatures notorious for their continuall noise making.' On the same principle we find it prescribed as a cure for the quartane ague to lay the fourth book of Homer's Iliad under the patient's head; a remedy which had at least the negative merit of not being nauseous. … For weak eyes the patient is to 'take the tounge of a foxe, and hange the same about his necke, and so long it hangeth there his sight shall not wax feeble, as sayth Pliny.' The hanging of such amulets round the neck was very frequently prescribed, and the efficacy of them is a thing curiously well attested. Elias Ashmole in his diary for 1681 has entered the following—'I tooke this morning a good dose of elixir, and hung three spiders about my neck, and they drove my ague away. Deo gratias!' A baked toad hung in a silk bag about the neck was also held in high esteem, as was a toad, either alive or dried, laid upon the back of the neck as a means of stopping a bleeding at the nose: and again, 'either frogg or toade, the nails whereof have been clipped, hanged about one that is sick of quartane ague, riddeth away the disease forever, as sayth Pliny.' We have even a striking instance of the benefit derived from an amulet by a horse, who could not be suspected of having helped forward the cure by the strength of his faith in it. 'The root of cut Malowe hanged about the neck driveth away blemishes of the eyen, whether it be in a man or a horse, as I Jerome of Brunsweig, have seene myselfe. I have myselfe done it to a blind horse that I bought for X crounes, and was sold again of XL crounes'—a trick distinctly worth knowing."

E. A. King, Mediæval Medicine (Nineteenth Century, July 1893).

"If we survey the social and political state of Europe from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, in its relation to the development of medical art, our attention is at once arrested by Italy, which at this period was far ahead of the rest of the world. Taking the number of universities as an index of civilization, we find that, before the year 1500, there were sixteen in Italy,—while in France there were but six: in Germany, including Hungary, Bohemia, Bavaria, &c., there were eight: and in Britain, two; making sixteen in all,—the exact number which existed in Italy alone. The Italian Universities were, likewise, no less superior in number than in fame to those of the north. … In many of the Italian republics, during the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the power was chiefly in the hands of the middle classes; and it is probable that the physicians occupied a high and influential position among them. Galvanis Flamma describes Milan in 1288, as having a population of 200,000, among whom were 600 notaries, 200 physicians, 80 schoolmasters, and fifty transcribers of manuscripts or books. Milan was about this period at a pitch of glory which has not been equalled since the Greek republics."

J. R. Russell, History and Heroes of the Art of Medicine, chapter 5.

"Three schools, as early as 1158, had a reputation which extended throughout the whole of Europe: Paris for theological studies, Bologna for Roman or civil law, and Salerno as the chief medical school of the west."

G. F. Fort, Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, chapter 24.

"In 1215 Pope Innocent III. fulminated an anathema specially directed against surgery, by ordaining, that as the church abhorred all cruel or sanguinary practices, no priest should be permitted to follow surgery, or to perform any operations in which either instruments of steel or fire were employed: and that they should refuse their benediction to all those who professed and pursued it. … The saints have proved sad enemies to the doctors. Miraculous cures are attested by monks, abbots, bishops, popes, and consecrated saints. … Pilgrimages and visits to holy shrines have usurped the place of medicine, and, as in many cases at our own watering places, by air and exercise, have unquestionably effected what the employment of regular professional aid had been unable to accomplish. St. Dominic, St. Bellinus, and St. Vitus have been greatly renowned in the cure of diseases in general; the latter particularly, who takes both poisons and madness of all kinds under his special protection. Melton says 'the saints of the Romanists have usurped the place of the zodiacal constellations in their governance of the parts of man's body, and that "for every limbe they have a saint." Thus St. Otilia keepes the head instead of Aries; St. Blasius is appointed to governe the necke instead of Taurus; St. Lawrence keepes the backe and shoulders instead of Gemini, Cancer, and Leo: St. Erasmus rules the belly with the entrayles, in the place of Libra and Scorpius; in the stead of Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces, the holy church of Rome hath elected St. Burgarde, St. Rochus. St. Quirinus, St. John, and many others, which governe the thighes, feet, shinnes, and knees.' This supposed influence of the Romish saints is more minutely exhibited, according to Hone, in two very old prints, from engravings on wood, in the collection of the British Museum. Right hand: the top joint of the thumb is dedicated to God, the second joint to the Virgin; the top joint of the fore-finger to St. Barnabas, the second joint to St. John, the third to St. Paul: the top joint of the second finger to Simon Cleophas, the second joint to Tathideo, the third to Joseph; the top joint of the third finger to Zaccheus, the second to Stephen, the third to the evangelist Luke; the top joint of the little finger to Leatus, the second to Mark, the third to Nicodemus. Left hand: the top joint of the thumb is dedicated to Christ, the second joint to the Virgin: the top joint of the fore-finger to St. James, the second to St. John the Evangelist, the third to St. Peter; the first joint of the second finger to St. Simon, the second joint to St. Matthew, the third to St. James the Great; the top joint of the third finger to St. Jude, the second joint to St. Bartholomew, the third to St. Andrew; the top joint of the little finger to St. Matthias, the second to St. Thomas, the third joint to St. Philip. … {2132} "The credulity of mankind has never been more strongly displayed than in the general belief afforded to the authenticity of remarkable cures of diseases said to have been effected by the imposition of royal hands. The practice seems to have originated in an opinion that there is something sacred or divine attaching either to the sovereign or his functions. … The practice appears to be one of English growth, commencing with Edward the Confessor, and descending only to foreign potentates who could show an alliance with the royal family of England. The kings of France, however, claimed the right to dispense the Gift of Healing, and it was certainly exercised by Philip the First; but the French historians say that he was deprived of the power on account of the irregularity of his life. Laurentius, first physician to Henry IV, of France, who is indignant at the attempt made to derive its origin from Edward the Confessor, asserts the power to have commenced with Clovis I, A. D. 481, and says that Louis I, A. D. 814, added to the ceremonial of touching, the sign of the cross. Mezeray also says, that St. Louis, through humility, first added the sign of the cross in touching for the king's evil. … If credit is to be given to a statement … by William of Malmesbury, with respect to Edward the Confessor, we must admit that in England, for a period of nearly 700 years, the practice of the royal touch was exercised in a greater or lesser degree, as it extended to the reign of Queen Anne. It must not however be supposed that historical documents are extant to prove a regular continuance of the practice during this time. No accounts whatever of the first four Norman kings attempting to cure the complaint are to be found. In the reign of William III, it was not on any occasion exercised. He manifested more sense than his predecessors, for he withheld from employing the royal touch for the cure of scrofula; and Rapin says, that he was so persuaded he should do no injury to persons afflicted with this distemper by not touching them, that he refrained from it all his reign. Queen Elizabeth was also averse to the practice, yet she extensively performed it. It flourished most in the time of Charles II, particularly after his restoration, and a public register of cases was kept at Whitehall, the principal scene of its operation."

T. J. Pettigrew, Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery, pages 34-37, and 117-121.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 16th Century. Paracelsus.

Paracelsus, of whose many names this one stands alone in history to represent him, was an extraordinary person, born in Switzerland, in 1493. He died in 1541. "His character has been very variously estimated. The obstructives of his own age and many hasty judges since have pronounced him a quack. This is simply ridiculous. As a chemist, he is considered to have been the discoverer of zinc, and perhaps of bismuth. He was acquainted with hydrogen, muriatic, and sulphurous gases. He distinguished alum from the vitriols; remarking that the former contained an earth, and the latter metals. He perceived the part played by the atmosphere in combustion, and recognized the analogy between combustion and respiration. He saw that in the organic system chemical processes are constantly going on. Thus, to him is due the fundamental idea from which have sprung the chemico-physiological researches of Liebig, Mulder, Boussingault, and others. By using in medicine, not crude vegetables, but their active principles, he opened the way to the discovery of the proximate principles of vegetables, organic alkalis, and the like. But perhaps the greatest service he rendered to chemistry, was by declaring it an essential part of medical education, and by showing that its true practical application lay not in gold-making, but in pharmacy and the industrial arts. In medicine he scouted the fearfully complex electuaries and mixtures of the Galenists and the Arabian polypharmacists, recommending simpler and more active preparations. He showed that the idea of poison is merely relative, and knew that poisons in suitable doses may be employed in medicine. He prescribed tin as a remedy for intestinal worms, mercury as an anti-syphilitic, and lead in the diseases of the skin. He also used preparations of antimony, arsenic, and iron. He employed sulphuric acid in the treatment of saturnine affections. The astonishing cures which he undoubtedly performed were, however, due not so much to his peculiar medicines, as to his eminent sagacity and insight. He showed the importance of a chemical examination of urine for the diagnosis of disease."

J. W. Slater, Paracelsus (Imperial Dict. of Univ. Biog.).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 16th Century. The first English College of Physicians.

"The modern doctor dates only from the reign of Henry VIII., when the College of Physicians in England was founded as a body corporate by letters patent in the tenth year of the reign. This grant was in response to a petition from a few of the most notable members of the profession resident in London, who were perhaps moved by both a laudable zeal in the interests of science, and a compassion for the sufferings of the subjects of astrological and toxicological experiments. The charter thus obtained, though probably drafted by the promoters themselves, was found to be so inadequately worded and expressed, that it became necessary to obtain powers to amend it by Act of Parliament. Among these early members were Linacre, Wotton, and others, famous scholars beyond doubt, though possibly but indifferent practitioners. In fact, we are constantly struck throughout the early history of the profession by the frequent occurrence of names associated with almost every other branch of study than that strictly appertaining to the art of medicine. We have naturalists, magneticians, astronomers, mathematicians, logicians, and classical scholars, but scarce one who accomplished anything worthy to be recorded in the annals of medical science. Indeed it is difficult to conceive any useful object that could have been attained by the existence of the College as a professional licensing body, other than the pecuniary interests of the orthodox. … It is most significant as to the social degradation of the science of medicine, that most of the notorious empirics of the latter half of the sixteenth century were both highly recommended and strenuously supported in their resistance to the proctors of orthodoxy by some of the greatest names of the age. These self-deluded victims of quackery were not indeed adverse in theory to the pretensions of more regular members of the profession. {2133} They would patronize the Court physicians, or, if favorites of the Crown, they might even submit to the Sovereign's recommendation in that behalf; but none the less their family doctor was in far too many cases some outlandish professor of occult arts, retained in learned state on the premises, who undertook the speedy, not to say miraculous, cure of his patron's particular disease by all the charms of the Cabala."

H. Hall, The Early Medicus (Merry England; also in Eclectic Magazine, June, 1884).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 16th Century. The System of Van Helmont.

John Baptist van Helmont "was born at Brussels in the year 1577. … His parents were noble, and he was heir to great possessions. He pursued in Louvain the usual course of scholastic philosophy. … Becoming accidentally acquainted with the writings of Thomas à Kempis and John Tauler, he from that day adopted what goes by the vague term of mysticism. That is, thoroughly convinced that there was a spiritual world in intimate and eternal union with the spirit of man; that this spiritual world was revealed to that human soul which submitted to receive it in humility; and that the doctrines of Christianity were not to be looked upon as a system of philosophy; but as a rule of life, he resolved to follow them to the letter. The consequence of this resolution was, that he devoted himself to the art of medicine, in imitation of the Great Healer of the body as well as of the soul; and as the prejudices of his time and country made his rank and wealth an obstacle to his entrance into the medical profession, he made over all his property, with its honours, to his sister; that, 'laying aside every weight, he might run the race that was set before him.' He entered on his new studies with all the zeal of his character, and very soon had so completely mastered the writings of Hippocrates and Galen, as to excite the surprise of his contemporaries. But although styled a dreamer, and having a mind easily moved to belief in spiritual manifestation, he was not of a credulous nature in regard to matters belonging to the senses. And as he believed that Christianity was to be practised, and to be found true by the test of experiment, so he believed that the doctrines of Hippocrates and of Galen were to be subjected to a similar trial. An opportunity soon occurred to himself. He caught the itch and turned to Galen for its cure. Galen attributes this disease to overheated bile and sour phlegm, and says that it is to be cured by purgatives. Van Helmont, with the implicit faith of his simple nature, procured the prescribed medicines, and took them as ordered by Galen. Alas, no cure of the itch followed, but great exhaustion of his whole body: so Galen was not to be trusted. This was a serious discovery; for if he could not trust Galen, by whom the whole medical world swore, to whom was he to turn? … Van Helmont resolved to work out for himself a solution of the great problem to which he had devoted his life. Van Helmont's system may be called spiritual vitalism. The primary cause of all organization was Archæus. By Archæus, a man is much more nearly allied, he says, to the world of spirits and the Father of spirits than to the external world. Archæus is the creative spirit which, working upon the raw material of water or fluidity, by means of 'a ferment' excites all the endless actions which result in the growth and nourishment of the body. Thus, digestion is neither a chemical nor a mechanical operation; nor is it, as was then supposed, the effects of heat, for it is arrested instead of aided by fever, and goes on in perfection in fishes and cold-blooded animals; but, on the command of Archæus, an acid is generated in the stomach, which dissolves the food. This is the first digestion. The second consists in the neutralization of this acid by the bile out of the gall bladder. The third takes place in the vessels of the mesentery. The fourth goes on in the heart, by the action of the vital spirits. The fifth consists in the conversion of the arterial blood into vital spirits, chiefly in the brain. The sixth consists of the preparation of nourishment in the laboratory of each organ, during which operation Archæus, present everywhere, is itself regenerated, and superintends the momentary regeneration of the whole frame. If for digestion we substitute the word nutrition, we cannot fail to be struck by the near approach to accuracy in this description of the succession of processes by which it is brought about. Van Helmont's pathology was quite consistent with his physiology. As life and all vital action depended upon Archæus, so the perturbation of Archæus gave rise to fevers, and derangements of the blood and secretions. Thus, gout was a disease not confined to the part in which it showed itself, but was the result of Archæus. It will be seen that by this theory the entire system of Galen was non-suited. There is no place for the elements and the humours."

J. R. Russell, History and Heroes of the Art of Medicine, chapter 8.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century. Harvey and the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood.

William Harvey, "physician and discoverer of the circulation of the blood, was born at Folkestone, Kent, 1 April 1578, in a house which was in later times the posthouse of the town and which still belongs to Caius College, Cambridge, to which Harvey bequeathed it. His father was Thomas Harvey, a Kentish yeoman. … In 1588 William was sent to the King's School, Canterbury. Thence he went to Cambridge, where he was admitted a pensioner in Gonville and Caius College, 31 May 1593. … He graduated B. A. 1597, and, determining to study medicine, travelled through France and Germany to Padua, the most famous school of physic of that time. … He returned to England, graduated M. D. at Cambridge 1602, and soon after took a house in the parish of St. Martin-extra-Ludgate in London. … On 4 August 1615 he was elected Lumleian lecturer at the College of Physicians, … and in the following April, on the 16th, 17th, and 18th, he delivered at the college in Knightrider Street, near St. Paul's Cathedral, the lectures in which he made the first public statement of his thoughts on the circulation of the blood. The notes from which he delivered these lectures exist in their original manuscript and binding at the British Museum. … In 1628, twelve years after his first statement of it in his lectures, he published at Frankfurt, through William Fitzer, his discovery of the circulation of the blood. The book is a small quarto, entitled 'Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus,' and contains seventy-two pages and two plates of diagrams. The printers evidently had difficulty in reading the author's handwriting, and there are many misprints. … {2134} He begins by modestly stating how the difficulties of the subject had gradually become clear to him, and by expressing with a quotation from the 'Andria' of Terence, the hope that his discovery might help others to still further knowledge. He then describes the motions of arteries, of the ventricles of the heart, and of its auricles, as seen in living animals, and the use of these movements. He shows that the blood coming into the right auricle from the vena cava, and passing then to the right ventricle, is pumped out to the lungs through the pulmonary artery, passes through the parenchyma of the lungs, and comes thence by the pulmonary veins to the left ventricle. This same blood, he shows, is then pumped out to the body. It is carried out by arteries and comes back by veins, performing a complete circulation. He shows that, in a live snake, when the great veins are tied some way from the heart, the piece of vein between the ligature and the heart is empty, and further, that blood coming from the heart is checked in an artery by a ligature, so that there is blood between the heart and the ligature and no blood beyond the ligature. He then shows how the blood comes back to the heart by the veins, and demonstrates their valves. These had before been described by Hieronymus Fabricius of Aquapendente, but before Harvey no exact explanation of their function had been given. He gives diagrams showing the results of obstructing the veins, and that these valves may thus be seen to prevent the flow of blood in the veins in any direction except towards the heart. After a summary of a few lines in the fourteenth chapter he further illustrates the perpetual circuit of the blood, and points out how morbid materials are carried from the heart all over the body. The last chapter gives a masterly account of the structure of the heart in men and animals, and points out that the right ventricle is thinner than the left because it has only to send the blood a short way into the lungs, while the left ventricle has to pump it all over the body. This great and original book at once attracted attention and excited discussion. In the College of Physicians of London, where Harvey had mentioned the discovery in his lectures every year since 1616, the Exercitatio received all the honour it deserved. On the continent of Europe it was received with less favour, but neither in England nor abroad did anyone suggest that the discovery was to be found in other writers. … Before his death the great discovery of Harvey was accepted throughout the medical world. The modern controversy … as to whether the discovery was taken from some previous author is sufficiently refuted by the opinion of the opponents of his views in his own time, who agreed in denouncing the doctrine as new; by the laborious method of gradual demonstration obvious in his book and lectures; and, lastly, by the complete absence of lucid demonstration of the action of the heart and course of the blood in Cæsalpinus, Servetus, and all others who have been suggested as possible originals of the discovery. It remains to this day the greatest of the discoveries of physiology, and its whole honour belongs to Harvey."

N. Moore, Harvey (Dict. of National Biog., volume 25).

ALSO IN: R. Willis, William Harvey: A history of the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century. Discovery of the Lymphatic Circulation.

"The discovery of the lymphatic vessels and their purpose was scarcely less remarkable than that of the circulation of the blood. It has about it less of eclat, because it was not the work of one man, but was a matter of slow development. Herophilus and Erasistratus had seen white vessels connected with the lymph nodes in the mesentery of certain animals, and had supposed them to be arteries full of air. Galen disputed this, and believed the intestinal chyle to be carried by the veins of the mesentery into the liver. In 1563 Eustachius had described the thoracic duct in the horse; in 1622 Aselli, professor of anatomy at Milan, discovered the lacteal vessels in a dog which had been killed immediately after eating. Having pricked one of these by mistake, he saw a white fluid issue from it. Repeating the same experiment at other times he became certain that the white threads were vessels which drew the chyle from the intestines. He observed the valves with which they are supplied, and supposed these vessels to all meet in the pancreas and to be continued into the liver. In 1647 Pecquet, who was still a student at Montpelier, discovered the lymph reservoir, or receptaculum chyli, and the canal which leads from it, i. e., the thoracic duct, which he followed to its termination in the left subclavian vein. Having ligated it he saw it swell below, and empty itself above the ligature. He studied the courses of the lacteals, and convinced himself that they all entered into the common reservoir. His discovery gave the last blow to the ancient theory, which attributed to the liver the function of blood making, and it confirmed the doctrine of Harvey, while, like it, it had been very strongly opposed. Strangely enough, Harvey in this instance united with his great opponent, Riolan, in making common cause against the discovery of Pecquet and its significance. From that time the lymphatic vessels and glands became objects of common interest and were investigated by many anatomists, especially Bartholin, Ruysch, the Hunters, Hewson, and above all by Mascagni. He was the first to give a graphic description of the whole lymphatic apparatus."

Roswell Park, Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century. Descartes and the dawn of modern Physiological science.

"The essence of modern, as contrasted with ancient, physiological science appears to me to lie in its antagonism to animistic hypotheses and animistic phraseology. It offers physical explanations of vital phenomena, or frankly confesses that it has none to offer. And, so far as I know, the first person who gave expression to this modern view of physiology, who was bold enough to enunciate the proposition that vital phenomena, like all the other phenomena of the physical world, are, in ultimate analysis, resolvable into matter and motion was René Descartes. The fifty-four years of life of this most original and powerful thinker are widely overlapped, on both sides, by the eighty of Harvey, who survived his younger contemporary by seven years, and takes pleasure in acknowledging the French philosopher's appreciation of his great discovery. {2135} In fact, Descartes accepted the doctrine of the circulation as propounded by 'Harvæus médecin d'Angleterre,' and gave a full account of it in his first work, the famous 'Discours de la Méthode,' which was published in 1637, only nine years after the exercitation 'De motu cordis;' and, though differing from Harvey on some important points (in which it may be noted, in passing, Descartes was wrong and Harvey right), he always speaks of him with great respect. And so important does the subject seem to Descartes that he returns to it in the 'Traité des Passions' and in the 'Traité de l'Homme.' It is easy to see that Harvey's work must have had a peculiar significance for the subtle thinker, to whom we owe both the spiritualistic and the materialistic philosophies of modern times. It was in the very year of its publication, 1628, that Descartes withdrew into that life of solitary investigation and meditation of which his philosophy was the fruit. … Descartes uses 'thought' as the equivalent of our modern term 'consciousness.' Thought is the function of the soul, and its only function. Our natural heat and all the movements of the body, says he, do not depend on the soul. Death does not take place from any fault of the soul, but only because some of the principal parts of the body become corrupted. … Descartes' 'Treatise on Man' is a sketch of human physiology, in which a bold attempt is made to explain all the phenomena of life, except those of consciousness, by physical reasonings. To a mind turned in this direction, Harvey's exposition of the heart and vessels as a hydraulic mechanism must have been supremely welcome. Descartes was not a mere philosophical theorist, but a hardworking dissector and experimenter, and he held the strongest opinion respecting the practical value of the new conception which he was introducing. … 'It is true,' says he, 'that as medicine is now practised, it contains little that is very useful; but without any desire to depreciate, I am sure that there is no one, even among professional men, who will not declare that all we know is very little as compared with that which remains to be known; and that we might escape an infinity of diseases of the mind, no less than of the body, and even perhaps from the weakness of old age, if we had sufficient knowledge of their causes and of all the remedies with which nature has provided us.' So strongly impressed was Descartes with this, that he resolved to spend the rest of his life in trying to acquire such a knowledge of nature as would lead to the construction of a better medical doctrine. The anti-Cartesians found material for cheap ridicule in these aspirations of the philosopher; and it is almost needless to say that, in the thirteen years which elapsed between the publication of the 'Discours' and the death of Descartes, he did not contribute much to their realisation. But, for the next century, all progress in physiology took place along the lines which Descartes laid down. The greatest physiological and pathological work of the seventeenth century, Borelli's treatise 'De Motu Animalium,' is, to all intents and purposes, a development of Descartes' fundamental conception; and the same may be said of the physiology and pathology of Boerhaave, whose authority dominated in the medical world of the first half of the eighteenth century. With the origin of modern chemistry, and of electrical science, in the latter half of the eighteenth century, aids in the analysis of the phenomena of life, of which Descartes could not have dreamed, were offered to the physiologist. And the greater part of the gigantic progress which has been made in the present century is a justification of the prevision of Descartes. For it consists, essentially, in a more and more complete resolution of the grosser organs of the living body into physico-chemical mechanisms. 'I shall try to explain our whole bodily machinery in such a way, that it will be no more necessary for us to suppose that the soul produces such movements as are not voluntary, than it is to think that there is in a clock a soul which causes it to show the hours.' These words of Descartes might be appropriately taken as a motto by the author of any modern treatise on physiology."

T. H. Huxley, Connection of the Biological Sciences with Medicine (Science and Culture, etc., lecture 13).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century. Introduction of Peruvian Bark.

"The aborigines of South America appear, except perhaps in one locality, to have been ignorant of the virtues of Peruvian bark. This sovereign remedy is absent in the wallets of itinerant doctors, whose materia medica has been handed down from father to son, since the days of the Yncas. It is mentioned neither by the Ynca Garcilasso de la Vega, nor by Acosta, in their lists of Indian medicines. It seems probable, nevertheless, that the Indians were aware of the virtues of Peruvian bark in the neighborhood of Loxa, 230 miles south of Quito, where its use was first made known to Europeans; and the local name for the tree quina-quina, 'bark of bark,' indicates that it was believed to possess some special medicinal properties. … In 1638 the wife of Don Luis Geronimo Fernandez de Cabrera Bobadilla y Mendoza, fourth Count of Chinchon, and Viceroy of Peru, lay sick of an intermittent fever in the palace of Lima. … The news of her illness at Lima reached Don Francisco Lopez de Canizares, the Corregidor of Loxa, who had become acquainted with the febrifuge virtues of the bark. He sent a parcel of it to the Vice-Queen, and the new remedy, administered by her physician, Dr. Don Juan de Vega, effected a rapid and complete cure. … The Countess of Chinchon returned to Spain in the spring of 1640, bringing with her a supply of that precious quina bark which had worked so wonderful a cure upon herself, and the healing virtues of which she intended to distribute amongst the sick on her husband's estates. It thus gradually became known in Europe, and was most appropriately called Countess's powder (Pulvis Comitissæ). By this name it was long known to druggists and in commerce. … In memory of the great service to humanity performed by the Countess of Chinchon, Linnæus named the genus which yields Peruvian bark, Chinchona. Unfortunately the great botanist was misinformed as to the name of her whom he desired to honour. This is to be accounted for by his having received his knowledge of the Countess through a foreign and not a Spanish source. Thus misled, Linnæus spelt the word Cinchona … and Cinhona, … omitting one or two letters. … After the cure of the Countess of Chinchon the Jesuits were the great promoters of the introduction of bark into Europe. In 1670 these fathers sent parcels of the powdered bark to Rome, whence it was distributed to members of the fraternity throughout Europe, by Cardinal de Lugo, and used for the cure of agues with great success. Hence the name of 'Jesuits' bark,' and 'Cardinal's bark;' and it was a ludicrous result of its patronage by the Jesuits that its use should have been for a long time opposed by Protestants, and favoured by Roman Catholics. In 1679 Louis XIV. bought the secret of preparing quinquina from Sir Robert Talbor, an English doctor, for 2,000 louis-d'or, a large pension, and a title. From that time Peruvian bark seems to have been recognised as the most efficacious remedy for intermittent fevers."

C. R. Markham, Peruvian Bark, chapters 2-4.

{2136}

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century. Sydenham, the Father of Rational Medicine.

"Sydenham [Thomas Sydenham, 1624-1689], the prince of practical physicians, whose character is as beautiful and as genuinely English as his name, did for his art what Locke did for the philosophy of mind—he made it, in the main, observational; he made knowledge a means, not an end. It would not be easy to over-estimate our obligations as a nation to these two men, in regard to all that is involved in the promotion of health of body and soundness of mind. They were among the first in their respective regions to show their faith in the inductive method, by their works. They both professed to be more of guides than critics, and were the interpreters and servants of Nature, not her diviners and tormentors." Of Sydenham, "we must remember in the midst of what a mass of errors and prejudices, of theories actively mischievous, he was placed, at a time when the mania of hypothesis was at its height, and when the practical part of his art was overrun and stultified by vile and silly nostrums. We must have all this in our mind, or we shall fail in estimating the amount of independent thought, of courage and uprightness, and of all that deserves to be called magnanimity and virtue, which was involved in his thinking and writing and acting as he did. 'The improvement of physic [he wrote] in my opinion, depends, 1st, Upon collecting as genuine and natural a description or history of diseases as can be procured; and, 2d, Upon laying down a fixed and complete method of cure. With regard to the history of diseases, whoever considers the undertaking deliberately will perceive that a few such particulars must be attended to: 1st, All diseases should be described as objects of natural history, with the same exactness as is done by botanists, for there are many diseases that come under the same genus, and bear the same name, that, being specifically different, require a different treatment. The word carduus or thistle, is applied to several herbs, and yet a botanist would be inaccurate and imperfect who would content himself with a generic description. Furthermore, when this distribution of distempers into genera has been attempted, it has been to fit into some hypothesis, and hence this distribution is made to suit the bent of the author rather than the real nature of the disorder. How much this has obstructed the improvement of physic any man may know. In writing, therefore, such a natural history of diseases, every merely philosophical hypothesis should be set aside, and the manifest and natural phenomena, however minute, should be noted with the utmost exactness. The usefulness of this procedure cannot be easily overrated, as compared with the subtle inquiries and trifling notions of modern writers. … If only one person in every age had accurately described, and consistently cured, but a single disease, and made known his secret, physic would not be where it now is; but we have long since forsook the ancient method of cure, founded upon the knowledge of conjunct causes, insomuch that the art, as at this day practised, is rather the art of talking about diseases than of curing them.' … His friend Locke could not have stated the case more clearly or sensibly. It is this doctrine of 'conjunct causes,' this necessity for watching the action of compound and often opposing forces, and the having to do all this not in a machine, of which if you have seen one, you have seen all, but where each organism has often much that is different from, as well as common with, all others. … It is this which takes medicine out of the category of exact sciences, and puts it into that which includes politics, ethics, navigation and practical engineering, in all of which, though there are principles, and those principles quite within the scope of human reason, yet the application of these principles must, in the main, be left to each man's skill, presence of mind, and judgment, as to the case in hand. … It would not be easy to over-estimate the permanent impression for good, which the writings, the character, and the practice of Sydenham have made on the art of healing in England, and on the Continent generally. In the writings of Boerhaave, Stahl, Gaubius, Pinel, Bordeu, Haller, and many others, he is spoken of as the father of rational medicine; as the first man who applied to his profession the Baconian principles of interpreting and serving nature, and who never forgot the master's rule, 'Non fingendum aut excogitandum, sed inveniendum, quid natura aut faciat aut ferat.' … Like all men of a large practical nature, he could not have been what he was, or done what he did, without possessing and often exercising the true philosophizing faculty. He was a man of the same quality of mind in this respect with Watt, Franklin, and John Hunter, in whom speculation was not the less genuine that it was with them a means rather than an end."

Dr. John Brown, Locke and Sydenham and other Papers, pages 54-90.

ALSO IN: T. Sydenham, Works; translated by R. G, Latham.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17th Century. Closing period of the Humoral Pathology. The Doctrines of Hoffmann, Stahl and Boerhaave.

"If we take a general survey of medical opinions, we shall find that they are all either subordinate to, or coincident with, two grand theories. The one of these considers the solid constituents of the animal economy as the elementary vehicle of life, and consequently places in them the primary seat of disease. The other, on the contrary, sees in the humors the original realization of vitality; and these, as they determine the existence and quality of the secondary parts, or solids, contain, therefore, within themselves, the ultimate principle of the morbid affection. By relation to these theories, the history of medicine is divided into three great periods. During the first, the two theories, still crude, are not yet disentangled from each other; this period extends from the origin of medicine to the time of Galen. The second comprehends the reign of Humoral Pathology—the interval between Galen and Frederic Hoffmann. In the last the doctrine of the Living Solid is predominant; from Hoffmann it reaches to the present day. … By Galen, Humorism was first formally expounded, and reduced to a regular code of doctrine. {2137} Four elementary fluids, their relations and changes, sufficed to explain the varieties of natural temperament, and the causes of disease; while the genius, eloquence, and unbounded learning with which he illustrated this theory, mainly bestowed on it the ascendency, which, without essential alteration, it retained from the conclusion of the second to the beginning of the eighteenth century. Galenism and Humorism are, in fact, convertible expressions. Not that this hypothesis during that long interval encountered no opposition. It met, certainly, with some partial contradiction among the Greek and Arabian physicians. After the restoration of learning Fernelius and Brissot, Argenterius and Joubert, attacked it in different ways. … Until the epoch we have stated, the prevalence of the Humoral Pathology was, however, all but universal. Nor was this doctrine merely an erroneous speculation; it exerted the most decisive, the most pernicious influence on practice.—The various diseased affections were denominated in accommodation to the theory. In place of saying that a malady affected the liver, the peritonæum, or the organs of circulation, its seat was assumed in the blood, the bile, or the lymph. The morbific causes acted exclusively on the fluids; the food digested in the stomach, and converted into chyle, determined the qualities of the blood; and poisons operated through the corruption they thus effected in the vital humors. All symptoms were interpreted in blind subservience to the hypothesis; and those only attracted attention which the hypothesis seemed calculated to explain. The color and consistence of the blood, mucus, feces, urine, and pus, were carefully studied. On the other hand the phenomena of the solids, if not wholly overlooked, as mere accidents, were slumped together under some collective name, and attached to the theory through a subsidiary hypothesis. By supposed changes in the humors, they explained the association and consecution of symptoms. Under the terms, crudity, coction, and evacuation, were designated the three principal periods of diseases, as dependent on an alteration of the morbific matter. In the first, this matter, in all its deleterious energy, had not yet undergone any change on the part of the organs; it was still crude. In the second, nature gradually resumed the ascendant; coction took place. In the third, the peccant matter, now rendered mobile, was evacuated by urine, perspiration, dejection, &c., and æquilibrium restored. When no critical discharge was apparent, the morbific matter, it was supposed, had, after a suitable elaboration, been assimilated to the humors, and its deleterious character neutralized. Coction might be perfect or imperfect; and the transformation of one disease into another was lightly solved by the transport or emigration of the noxious humor. … Examinations of the dead body confirmed them in their notions. In the redness and tumefaction of inflamed parts, they beheld only a congestion of blood; and in dropsies, merely the dissolution of that fluid; tubercles were simply coagula of lymph; and other organic alterations, in general, naught but obstructions from an increased viscosity of the humors. The plan of cure was in unison with the rest of the hypothesis. Venesection was copiously employed to renew the blood, to attenuate its consistency, or to remove a part of the morbific matter with which it was impregnated; and cathartics, sudorifics, diuretics, were largely administered, with a similar intent. In a word, as plethora or cacochymia were the two great causes of disease, their whole therapeutic was directed to change the quantity or quality of the fluids. Nor was this murderous treatment limited to the actual period of disease. Seven or eight annual bloodings, and as many purgations—such was the common regimen the theory prescribed to insure continuance of health; and the twofold depletion, still customary, at spring and fall, among the peasantry of many European countries, is a remnant of the once universal practice. In Spain, every village has even now its Sangrador, whose only cast of surgery is blood-letting; and he is rarely idle. The medical treatment of Lewis XIII, may be quoted as a specimen of the humoral therapeutic, Within a single year this theory inflicted on that unfortunate monarch above a hundred cathartics, and more than forty bloodings.—During the fifteen centuries of Humorism, how many millions of lives did medicine cost mankind? The establishment of a system founded on the correcter doctrine of Solidism, and purified from the crudities of the Iatro-mathematical and Iatro-chemical hypotheses was reserved for three celebrated physicians toward the commencement of the eighteenth century—Frederic Hoffmann—George Ernest Stahl—and Hermann Boerhaave. The first and second of this triumvirate were born in the same year, were both pupils of Wedelius of Jena, and both professors, and rival professors, in the University of Halle; the third was eight years younger than his contemporaries, and long an ornament of the University of Leyden."

Sir W. Hamilton, Discussions on Philosophy and Literature, pages 246-249.

"The great and permanent merits of Hoffmann [1660-1742] as a medical philosopher, undoubtedly consisted in his having perceived and pointed out more clearly than any of his predecessors, the extensive and powerful influence of the Nervous System, in modifying and regulating at least, if not in producing, all the phenomena of the organic as well as of the animal functions in the human economy, and more particularly in his application of this doctrine to the explanation of diseases. … It was reserved for Hoffmann … to take a comprehensive view of the Nervous System, not only as the organ of sense and motion, but also as the common centre by which all the different parts of the animal economy are connected together, and through which they mutually influence each other. He was, accordingly, led to regard all those alterations in the structure and functions of this economy, which constitute the state of disease, as having their primary origin in affections of the nervous system, and as depending, therefore, upon a deranged state of the imperceptible and contractile motions in the solids, rather than upon changes induced in the chemical composition of the fluid parts of the body."

J. Thomson, Account of the Life, Lectures and Writings of William Cullen, pages 195-196.

{2138}

"George Ernest Stahl (1660-1734), chemist, was professor of medicine at Halle (1694) and physician to the King of Prussia (1716). He opposed materialism, and substituted 'animism,' explaining the symptoms of disease as efforts of the soul to get rid of morbid influences. Stahl's 'anima' corresponds to Sydenham's 'nature' in a measure, and has some relationship to the Archeus of Paracelsus and Van Helmont. Stahl was the author of the 'phlogiston' theory in chemistry, which in its time has had important influence on medicine. Phlogiston was a substance which he supposed to exist in all combustible matters, and the escape of this principle from any compound was held to account for the phenomenon of fire. According to Stahl, diseases arise from the direct action of noxious powers upon the body; and from the reaction of the system itself endeavouring to oppose and counteract the effects of the noxious powers, and so preserve and repair itself. He did not consider diseases, therefore, pernicious in themselves, though he admitted that they might become so from mistakes made by the soul in the choice, or proportion of the motions excited to remove them, or the time when these efforts are made. Death, according to this theory, is due to the indolence of the soul, leading it to desist from its vital motions, and refusing to continue longer the struggle against the derangements of the body. Here we have the 'expectant treatment' so much in vogue with many medical men. 'Trusting to the constant attention and wisdom of nature,' they administered inert medicines as placebos, while they left to nature the cure of the disease. But they neglected the use of invaluable remedies such as opium and Peruvian bark, for which error it must be admitted they atoned by discountenancing bleeding, vomiting, etc. Stahl's remedies were chiefly of the class known as 'Antiphlogistic,' or anti-febrile."

E. Berdoe, The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, book 5, chapter 7.

"The influence of Boerhaave [1668-1738] was immense while it lasted—it was world-wide; but it was like a ripple on the ocean—it had no depth. He knew everything and did everything better than any of his contemporaries, except those who made one thing, not everything, their study. He was familiar with the researches of the great anatomists, of the chemists, of the botanists, of historians, of men of learning, but he was not a great anatomist, chemist, or historian. As to his practice, we cannot pronounce a very decided opinion, except that he was a man of judgment and independence. Here his reputation made his success: a prescription of his would no doubt effect many a cure, although the patient had taken the remedy he prescribed fifty times without any benefit. His greatness depended upon his inexhaustible activity. He had the energy of a dozen ordinary men, and so he was twelve times as powerful as one. He mentions quite incidentally how he was in the habit of frequently spending whole nights in botanical excursions on foot; and we know he had no time to sleep in the day. He took an interest in everything, was always on the alert, had a prodigious memory, and indefatigable industry. On these great homely qualities, added to a kind disposition and an unaffected piety, his popularity was founded. It was all fairly won and nobly worn. It is startling, however, to find that a man whose name one hundred years ago was familiar to the ear as household words, and of whom historians predicted that he would always be regarded as one of the greatest as well as best of men, an example to his race, should be already almost forgotten. An example is of no use unless it is known; Boerhaave is now unknown. The reason is plain;—he was not the founder of any system, nor did he make any discovery. He simply used with supreme success the thoughts and discoveries of others; as soon as he ceased to live, his influence began therefore to decline; and before his generation had passed away, his star had waned before the genius of Cullen, who succeeded in fixing the attention of Europe, and who, in his turn, was soon to be displaced by others."

J. R. Russell, History and Heroes of the Art of Medicine, pages 297-298.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17-18th Centuries. Introduction of the Microscope in Medicine. First glimmerings of the Germ Theory of Disease.

"Since Athanasius Kircher [1601-1680] mistook blood and pus corpuscles for small worms, and built up on his mistake a new theory of disease and putrefaction, and since Christian Lange, the Professor of Pathological Anatomy in Leipzig, in the preface to Kircher's book (1671) expressed his opinion that the purpura of lying-in-women, measles, and other fevers were the result of putrefaction caused by worms or animalculæ, a 'Pathologia Animata' has, from time to time, been put forward to explain the causation of disease. … Remarkable as were Kircher's observations, still more wonderful were those of Anthony van Leeuwenhoek, a native of Delft in Holland, who in his youth had learned the art of polishing lenses, and who was able, ultimately, to produce the first really good microscope that had yet been constructed. Not only did Leeuwenhoek make his microscope, but he used it to such good purpose that he was able to place before the Royal Society of London a series of most interesting and valuable letters giving the result of his researches on minute specks of living protoplasm. … The world that Leeuwenhoek … opened up so thoroughly was rapidly invaded by other observers and theorists. The thoughtful physicians of the time believed that at last they had found the 'fons et origo mali,' and Nicolas Andry, reviewing Kircher's' Contagium Animatum,' replaced his worms by these newly-described animalculæ or germs, and pushing the theory to its legitimate and logical conclusion, he also evolved a germ theory of putrefaction and fermentation. He maintained that air, water, vinegar, fermenting wine, old beer, and sour milk were all full of germs; that the blood and pustules of smallpox also contained them, and that other diseases, very rife about this period, were the result of the activity of these organisms. Such headway did he make, and such conviction did his arguments carry with them, that the mercurial treatment much in vogue at that time was actually based on the supposition that these organisms, the 'causæ causantes' of disease, were killed by the action of mercury and mercurial salts. With a kind of prophetic instinct, and certainly as the result of keen observation, Varro and Lancisi ascribed the dangerous character of marsh or swamp air to the action of invisible animalculæ; in fact the theory was so freely and forcibly propagated that even where no micro-organisms could be found their presence was inferred with the inevitable result, as Löffler points out, that these 'inconceivable' worms became the legitimate butts for the shafts of ridicule; and in 1726 there appeared in Paris a satirical work, in which these small organisms received the name of 'fainter,' 'body-pincher,' 'ulcerator,' 'weeping fistula,' 'sensualist'; the whole system was thus laughingly held up to satire, and the germ theory of disease completely discredited. {2139} Linnæus [1707-1778], however, with his wonderful powers of observation and deduction, considered that it was possible that there might be rescued from this 'chaos' small living beings which were as yet insufficiently separated and examined, but in which he firmly believed might lie not only the actual contagium of certain eruptive diseases, and of acute fevers, but also the exciting causes of both fermentation and putrefaction. The man, however, who of all workers earliest recognized the importance of Linnæus' observations was a Viennese doctor, Marcus Antonius Plenciz. … He it was who, at this time, insisted upon the specific character of the infective agent in every case of disease; for scarlet fever there was a scarlet fever seed or germ—a seed which could never give rise to smallpox. He showed that it was possible for this organism to become disseminated through the air, and for it to multiply in the body; and he explained the incubation stage of a febrile disease as dependent on the growth of a germ within the body during the period after its introduction, when its presence had not yet been made manifest. … As regards putrefaction, having corroborated Linnæus' observations and found countless animalculæ in putrefying matter, he came to the conclusion that this process was the result of the development, multiplication, and carrying on of the functions of nutrition and excretion by these germs; the products of fermentation being the volatile salts set free by the organisms, which, multiplying rapidly by forming seeds or eggs, rendered the fluid in which they developed thick, turbid, and foul. This theory, admirable as it was, and accurate as it has since been proved to be, could not then be based on any very extensive or detailed observation, and we find that some of the most prominent and brilliant men of the period did not feel justified in accepting the explanation that Plenciz had offered as to the causes of disease and fermentation processes."

G. S. Woodhead, Bacteria and their Products, chapter 3.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17-18th Centuries. Hahnemann and the origin of the System of Homœopathy.

Samuel Hahnemann, originator of the system of medicine called "Homœopathy," was born in 1755, at Meissen, in Saxony. He studied medicine at Leipsic, and afterwards at Vienna. In 1784 he settled in Dresden, but returned to Leipsic in 1789. "In the following year, while translating Cullen's Materia Medica out of English into German, his attention was arrested by the insufficient explanation's advanced in that work of the cure of ague by cinchona bark. By way of experiment, he took a large dose of that substance to ascertain its action on the healthy body. In the course of a few days he experienced the symptoms of ague; and it thus occurred to him that perhaps the reason why cinchona cures ague is because it has the power to produce symptoms in a healthy person similar to those of ague. To ascertain the truth of this conjecture, he ransacked the records of medicine for well-attested cures effected by single remedies; and finding sufficient evidences of this fact, he advanced a step further, and proposed, in an article published in Hufeland's Journal, in the year 1797, to apply this new principle to the discovery of proper medicines for every form of disease. Soon afterwards he published a case to illustrate his method. It was one of a severe kind of colic cured by a strong dose of veratrum album. Before this substance gave relief to the patient it excited a severe aggravation of his symptoms. This induced Hahnemann, instead of drops or grains, to give the fraction of a drop or grain, and he thus introduced infinitesimal doses. Some years later he applied his new principle in the treatment of scarlet fever; and finding that belladonna cured the peculiar type of that disease, which then prevailed in Germany, he proposed to give this medicine as a prophylactic, or preventive against scarlet fever; from that time it has been extensively employed for this purpose. In the year 1810 he published his great work, entitled Organon of Medicine, which has been translated into all the European languages, as well as into Arabic. In this book he fully expounded his new system, which he called Homœopathy. His next publication was a Materia Medica, consisting of a description of the effects of medicines upon persons in health. These works were published between the years 1810 and 1821, at Leipsic, where he founded a school, and was surrounded by disciples. As his system involved the administration of medicines, each separately by itself, and in doses infinitely minute, there was no longer any need of the apothecaries' intervention between their physician and the patient. In consequence of this the Apothecaries Company brought to bear upon Hahnemann an act forbidding physicians to dispense their own medicines, and with such effect that he was obliged to leave Leipsic. The Grand Duke of Anhalt Köthen, appointed him his physician, and invited him to live at Köthen. Thither, accordingly, he removed in the year 1821, and there he prepared various new editions of his Organon, and new volumes of his Materia Medica for publication. In 1835 he married a second time; his wife was a French lady of considerable position; and in the same year he left Köthen, and settled in Paris, where he enjoyed a great reputation till his death, which took place in the year 1843."

W. Bayes, Origin and Present Status of Homœopathy (Translation of the Homœopathic Medical Society of the State of New York, 1869, article 21).

ALSO IN: W. Aneke, History of Homœopathy.

J. C. Burnett, Ecce Medicus; or Hahnemann as a man and as a physician.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. The work of John Hunter in surgery and anatomy.

"John Hunter [born 1728, died 1793] was not only one of the most profound anatomists of the age in which he lived, but he is by the common consent of his successors allowed to be one of the greatest men that ever practised surgery. One of the most striking discoveries in this part of his profession— indeed one of the most brilliant in surgery of his century—was the operation for the cure of popliteal aneurism by tying the femoral artery above the tumour in the ham, and without interfering with it. He improved the treatment of the rupture of the tendo achillis, in consequence of having experienced the accident himself when dancing. He invented the method of curing fistula lacrymalis by perforating the os unguis, and curing hydrocele radically by injection. His anatomical discoveries were numerous and important—amongst others the distribution of the blood-vessels of the uterus, which he traced till their disappearance in the placenta. {2140} He was the first who demonstrated the existence of lymphatic vessels in birds; described the distribution of the branches of the olfactory nerve, as well as those of the fifth pair; and to him we owe the best and most faithful account of the descent of the testicle in the human subject, from the abdomen into the scrotum. Physiology is also indebted to him for many new views and ingenious suggestions. … 'Before his time surgery had been little more than a mechanical art, somewhat dignified by the material on which it was employed. Hunter first made it a science; and by pointing out its peculiar excellence as affording visible examples of the effects and progress of disease, induced men of far higher attainments than those who had before practised it to make it their study.' The best monument of his genius and talents, however, is the splendid museum which he formed by his sole efforts, and which he made, too, when labouring under every disadvantage of deficient education and limited means. It shows that as an anatomist and physiologist he had no superior."

W. Baird, Hunter (The Imperial dictionary of universal biography).

ALSO IN: S. D. Gross, John Hunter and his Pupils.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. Preventive Inoculation against Smallpox.

"One of the most notable events of the 18th century, or for that matter, in the history of medicine, was the introduction of the systematic practice of preventive inoculation against small-pox. We are so generally taught that this is entirely due to the efforts of Jenner, or rather we are so often allowed to think it without being necessarily taught otherwise, that the measure deserves a historical sketch. The communication of the natural disease to the healthy in order to protect them from the same natural disease, in other words, the communication of small-pox to prevent the same, reaches back into antiquity. It is mentioned in the Sanskrit Vedas as then performed, always by Brahmins, who employed pus procured from small-pox vesicles a year before. They rubbed the place selected for operation until the skin was red, then scratched with a sharp instrument, and laid upon the place cotton soaked in the variolous pus, moistened with water from the sacred Ganges. Along with this measure they insisted upon most hygienic regulations, to which in a large measure their good results were due. Among the Chinese was practised what was known as 'Pock-sowing,' and as long ago as 1000 years before Christ they introduced into the nasal cavities of young children pledgets of cotton saturated with variolous pus. The Arabians inoculated the same disease with needles, and so did the Circassians, while in the states of north Africa incisions were made between the fingers, and among some of the negroes inoculation was performed in or upon the nose. In Constantinople, under the Greeks, the custom had long been naturalized and was practised by old women instructed in the art, who regarded it as a revelation of St. Mary. The first accounts of this practice were given to the Royal Society by Timoni, a physician of Constantinople, in 1714. The actual introduction of the practice into the West, however, was due to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who died in 1762, and who was wife of the English ambassador to the Porte in 1717. She had her son inoculated in Constantinople by her surgeon Maitland, and after her return to London, in 1721, it was also performed upon her daughter. During the same years experiments were undertaken by Maitland upon criminals; and as these turned out favorably, the Prince of Wales and his sisters were inoculated by Mead. The practice was then more or less speedily adopted on this side of the ocean as well as on that, but suffered occasional severe blows because of unfortunate cases here and there, such as never can be avoided. The clergy, especially, using the Bible, as designing men always can use it, to back up any view or practice, became warm opponents of vaccination, and stigmatized it as a very atrocious invasion of the Divine prerogative of punishment. But in 1746 the Bishop of Worcester recommended it from the pulpit, and established houses for inoculation, and thus made it again popular. In Germany the operation was generally favored, and in France and Italy a little later came into vogue."

Roswell Park, Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. Jenner and the discovery of Vaccination.

Many before the English physician, Dr. Jenner, "had witnessed the cow-pox, and had heard of the report current among the milkmaids in Gloucestershire, that whoever had taken that disease was secure against smallpox. It was a trifling, vulgar rumor, supposed to have no significance whatever; and no one had thought it worthy of investigation, until it was accidentally brought under the notice of Jenner. He was a youth, pursuing his studies at Sodbury, when his attention was arrested by the casual observation made by a country girl who came to his master's shop for advice. The smallpox was mentioned, when the girl said, 'I can't take that disease, for I have had cow-pox.' The observation immediately riveted Jenner's attention, and he forthwith set about inquiring and making observations on the subject. His professional friends, to whom he mentioned his views as to the prophylactic virtues of cow-pox, laughed at him, and even threatened to expel him from their society, if he persisted in harassing them with the subject. In London he was so fortunate as to study under John Hunter [1770-1773] to whom he communicated his views. The advice of the great anatomist was thoroughly characteristic: 'Don't think, but try; be patient, be accurate.' Jenner's courage was greatly supported by the advice, which conveyed to him the true art of philosophical investigation. He went back to the country to practise his profession, and carefully to make observations and experiments, which he continued to pursue for a period of twenty years. His faith in his discovery was so implicit that he vaccinated his own son on three several occasions. At length he published his views in a quarto of about seventy pages, in which he gave the details of twenty-three cases of successful vaccination of individuals, to whom it was found afterwards impossible to communicate the smallpox either by contagion or inoculation. It was in 1798 that this treatise was published; though he had been working out his ideas as long before as 1775, when they began to assume a definite form. How was the discovery received? First with indifference, then with active hostility. He proceeded to London to exhibit to the profession the process of vaccination and its successful results; but not a single doctor could be got to make a trial of it, and after fruitlessly waiting for nearly three months, Jenner returned to his native village. {2141} He was even caricatured and abused for his attempt to 'bestialize' his species by the introduction into their systems of diseased matter from the cow's udder. Cobbett was one of his most furious assailants. Vaccination was denounced from the pulpit as 'diabolical.' It was averred that vaccinated children became 'ox-faced,' that abscesses broke out to 'indicate sprouting horns,' and that the countenance was gradually 'transmuted into the visage of a cow, the voice into the bellowing of bulls.' Vaccination, however, was a truth, and notwithstanding the violence of the opposition belief in it spread slowly. In one village where a gentleman tried to introduce the practice, the first persons who permitted themselves to be vaccinated were absolutely pelted, and were driven into their houses if they appeared out of doors. Two ladies of title,—Lady Ducie and the Countess of Berkeley,—to their honor be it remembered,—had the courage to vaccinate their own children; and the prejudices of the day were at once broken through. The medical profession gradually came round, and there were several who even sought to rob Dr. Jenner of the merit of the discovery, when its vast importance came to be recognized. Jenner's cause at last triumphed, and he was publicly honored and rewarded. In his prosperity he was as modest as he had been in his obscurity. He was invited to settle in London, and told that he might command a practice of £10,000 a year. But his answer was, 'No! In the morning of my days I have sought the sequestered and lowly paths of life,—the valley, and not the mountain,—and now, in the evening of my days, it is not meet for me to hold myself up as an object for fortune and for fame.' In Jenner's own lifetime the practice of vaccination had been adopted all over the civilized world; and when he died, his title as Benefactor of his kind was recognized far and wide. Cuvier has said, 'If vaccine were the only discovery of the epoch, it would serve to render it illustrious forever."

S. Smiles, Self-help, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: J. Barron, Life of Edward Jenner.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. The Brunonian System of Stimulation.

"John Brown, born of obscure parents in a village of Berwick, in Scotland, was remarkable, from his early youth, for an extraordinary aptitude for acquiring languages, a decided inclination for scholastic dispute, a pedantic tone and manner, and somewhat irregular conduct. Having abandoned theology for medicine, he fixed his residence in Edinburgh. … He was particularly entertained and countenanced by Cullen, who even took him into his family in the character of preceptor of his children. This agreeable relation subsisted during twelve consecutive years between these two men, whose characters and minds were so different. … But some trifling matters of mutual discontent grew at length into coldness, and changed the old friendship which had united them into an irreconcilable hatred. Their rupture broke out about the year 1778, and in a short time after, Brown published his Elements of Medicine. … Brown employed some of the ideas of his master to develop a doctrine much more simple in appearance, but founded entirely on abstract considerations; a doctrine in which every provision seems to be made for discussion, but none for practice. Cullen had said that the nervous system receives the first impression of excitants, and transmits it afterwards to the other organs endowed with motion and vitality. Brown explains thus, the same thought: 'Life is only sustained by incitation. It is only the result of the action of incitants on the incitability of organs.' Cullen regarded the atony of the small vessels as the proximate cause of fever. Brown, improving on this hypothesis, admits, with hardly any exceptions, only hyposthenic diseases. … The Scotch physiologist distinguished only two pathological states—one consisting in an excess of incitability, which he names the sthenic diathesis; the other, constituted by a want, more or less notable, of the same faculty, which he designates as the asthenic diathesis. Besides, Brown considers these two states as affecting the entire economy, rather than any organ in particular. … After having reduced all diseases to two genera, and withdrawn from pathology the study of local lesions, Brown arrives, by a subtile argumentation, to consider the affections of the sthenic order as prevailing in a very small number of instances, so that the diseases of the asthenic type comprehend nearly the totality of affections. According to this theory, a physician is rarely ever mistaken if he orders in all his cases, remedies of an exciting nature. … Never since the days of Thessalus (of charlatan memory) had anyone simplified to such a point the study and practice of medicine. We may even say that in this respect the Scotch pathologist left far in the rear the physician of Nero. To this attraction, well calculated to tempt students and practitioners, the doctrine of Brown joined the advantage of being presented in an energetic and captivating style, full of imagery, which suffices to explain its rapid progress. But this doctrine, so seductive in its exposition, so easy in its application, is one of the most disastrous that man has been able to imagine, for it tends to propagate the abuse of diffusible stimulants, of which spirituous liquors make a part, an abuse excessively injurious to health in general, and the intellectual faculties in particular—an abuse to which man is too much inclined, naturally, and which the sophisms of Brown may have contributed to spread in all classes of English society. … Notwithstanding its defects, the system of Brown made rapid progress, principally in Germany and Italy."

P. V. Renouard, History of Medicine, pages 555-560.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th Century. The System of Haller.

"About the time when we seniors commenced the study of medicine, it was still under the influence of the important discoveries which Albrecht von Haller [1708-1777] had made on the excitability of nerves; and which he had placed in connection with the vitalistic theory of the nature of life. Haller had observed the excitability in the nerves and muscles of amputated members. The most surprising thing to him was, that the most varied external actions, mechanical, chemical, thermal, to which electrical ones were subsequently added, had always the same result; namely, that they produced muscular contraction. They were only quantitatively distinguished as regards their action on the organism, that is, only by the strength of the excitation; he designated them by the common name of stimulus; he called the altered condition of the nerve the excitation, and its capacity of responding to a stimulus the excitability, which was lost at death. {2142} This entire condition of things, which physically speaking asserts no more than the nerves, as concerns the changes which take place in them after excitation, are in an exceedingly unstable state of equilibrium; this was looked upon as the fundamental property of animal life, and was unhesitatingly transferred to the other organs and tissues of the body, for which there was no similar justification. It was believed that none of them were active of themselves, but must receive an impulse by a stimulus from without; air and nourishment were considered to be the normal stimuli. The kind of activity seemed, on the contrary, to be conditioned by the specific energy of the organ, under the influence of the vital force. Increase or diminution of the excitability was the category under which the whole of the acute diseases were referred, and from which indications were taken as to whether the treatment should be lowering or stimulating. The rigid one-sidedness and the unrelenting logic with which … [John] Brown had once worked out the system was broken, but it always furnished the leading points of view."

H. Helmholtz, On Thought in Medicine (Popular Lectures, series 2, lecture 5).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18th. Century. Physiological Views of Bichat.

Marie Francis Xavier Bichat, was born in 1771 and died in 1802, accomplishing his extraordinary work as an anatomist and physician within a lifetime of thirty-one years. "The peculiar physiological views of Bichat are to be found stated more or less distinctly in all his works; and it is a merit of his that he has always kept in sight the necessary connexion of this part of the science of medicine with every other, and, so far as he has developed his ideas upon the subjects of pathology, materia medica, and therapeutics, they seem all to have been founded upon and connected with the principles of physiology, which he had adopted. … Everything around living bodies, according to Bichat, tends constantly to their destruction. And to this influence they would necessarily yield, were they not gifted with some permanent principle of reaction. This principle is their life, and a living system is therefore necessarily always engaged in the performance of functions, whose object is to resist death. Life, however, does not consist in a single principle, as has been taught by some celebrated writers, by Stahl, Van Helmont, and Barthez, &c. We are to study the phenomena of life, as we do those of other matter, and refer the operations performed in living systems to such ultimate principles as we can trace them to, in the same way that we do the operations taking place among inorganic substances. … His essential doctrine … is that there is no one single, individual, presiding principle of vitality, which animates the body, but that it is a collection of matter gifted for a time with certain powers of action, combined into organs which are thus enabled to act, and that the result is a series of functions, the connected performance of which constitutes it a living thing. This is his view of life, considered in the most general and simple way. But in carrying the examination farther, he points out two remarkable modifications of life, as considered in different relations, one common both to vegetables and animals, the other peculiar to animals. … Those which we have in common with the vegetable, which are necessary merely to our individual, bodily existence, are called the functions of organic life, because they are common to all organized matter. Those, on the other hand, which are peculiar to animals, which in them are superadded to the possession of the organic functions, are called the functions of animal life. Physiologically speaking, then, we have two lives, the concurrence of which enables us to live and move and have our being; both equally necessary to the relations we maintain as human beings, but not equally necessary to the simple existence of a living thing. … The two lives differ, in some important respects, as to the organs by which their functions are performed. Those of the animal life present a symmetry of external form, strongly contrasted with the irregularity, which is a prominent characteristic of those of organic life. In the animal life, every function IS either performed by a pair of organs, perfectly similar in structure and size, situated one upon each side of the median dividing line of the body, or else by a single organ divided into two similar and perfectly symmetrical halves by that line. … The organs of the organic life, on the contrary, present a picture totally different; they are irregularly formed, and irregularly arranged. … This symmetry of the form is accompanied by a corresponding harmony in the functions of the organs of the animal life. … The functions of the organic life are constantly going on; they admit of no interruption, no repose. … In those of the animal life, the case is widely different. They have intervals of entire repose. The organs of this life are incapable of constant activity, they become fatigued by exercise and require rest. This rest, with regard to any particular organ, is the sleep of that organ. … Upon this principle, Bichat founds his theory of sleep. General sleep is the combination of the sleep of particular organs. Sleep then is not any definite state, but is more or less complete rest of the whole system in proportion to the number of organs which require repose. … The two lives differ also in regard to habit; the animal being much under its control, the organic but slightly. … But the principal and most important feature in the physiological system of Bichat, is the complete, and entire, and exclusive explanation of all the phenomena of the living system upon the principles of vitality alone. Former physiologists have not always kept this distinctly in view. … The human body has been regarded, too often, as a mass of matter, organized to be sure, but yet under the direction of physical laws, and the performance of its functions has been ascribed to the powers of inorganic matter. Hence, physiology has generally been somewhat tinctured by the favorite science of the age, with some of its notions. … With Bichat the properties of life were all in all. The phenomena of the system, whether in health or disease, were all ascribed to their influence and operation."

J. Ware, Life and Writings of Bichat (North American Review, July, 1822).

{2143}

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 18-19th Centuries. Pinel and the Reform in treatment of the Insane.

Philippe Pinel, "who had attained some distinction as an alienist, was appointed, 1792, to fill the post of superintendent of the Bicêtre, which then contained upwards of 200 male patients, believed not only to be incurable, but entirely uncontrollable. The previous experience of the physician, here stood him in good stead. He had been a diligent student of the authorities of his own and foreign countries on diseases of the mind, and in his earlier years had been appointed by the French government to report on the condition of the asylums at Paris and Charenton. On assuming the oversight of the Bicêtre, he found 53 men languishing in chains, some of whom had been bound for a great number of years. These were regarded by the authorities as dangerous and even desperate characters; but the sight of men grown gray and decrepit as the result of prolonged torture, made a very different impression on the mind of Pinel. He addressed appeal after appeal to the Commune, craving power to release, without delay, the unhappy beings under his charge. The authorities tardily and unwillingly yielded to the importunity of the physician. An official, who was deputed by the Commune to accompany the superintendent and watch his experiment, no sooner caught sight of the chained maniacs than he excitedly exclaimed: 'Ah, ça! citoyen, es-tu fou toi-même de vouloir déchaîner de pareils animaux?' The physician was not to be deterred, however, from carrying out his benevolent project, and did not rest satisfied until all of the 53 men had been gradually liberated from their chains. Singular as it may appear, the man who had been regarded as the most dangerous, and who had survived forty years of this severe treatment, was afterwards known as the faithful and devoted servant of Pinel. The reforms of Pinel were not confined to the Bicêtre, an establishment exclusively for men, but extended to the Salpêtrière, an institution for women. There is, perhaps, no more touching event in history than that of this kind-hearted and wise physician removing the bands and chains from the ill-fated inmates of this place of horrors. The monstrous fallacy of cruel treatment once fully exposed, the insane came to be looked upon as unfortunate human beings, stricken with a terrible disease, and, like other sick persons, requiring every aid which science and benevolent sympathy could provide with a view to cure. Governmental inquiries were instituted with a view to the attainment of better treatment, and in different countries, almost simultaneously, the provision of suitable and adequate accommodation for the insane was declared to be a State necessity."

W. P. Letchworth, The Insane in Foreign Countries, chapter 1.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19th Century. The Discovery of Anæsthetics.

"In 1798, Mr. Humphry Davy, an apprentice to Mr. Borlase a surgeon at Bodmin, had so distinguished himself by zeal and power in the study of chemistry and natural philosophy, that he was invited by Dr. Beddoes of Bristol, to become the 'superintendent of the Pneumatic Institution which had been established at Clifton for the purpose of trying the medicinal effects of different gases.' He obtained release from his apprenticeship, accepted the appointment, and devoted himself to the study of gases, not only in their medicinal effects, but much more in all their chemical and physical relations. After two years' work he published his 'Researches, Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide.' … He wrote, near the end of his essay: 'As nitrous oxide in its extensive operation appears capable of destroying physical pain, it may probably be used with advantage during surgical operations in which no great effusion of blood takes place.' It seems strange that no one caught at a suggestion such as this. … The nitrous oxide might have been of as little general interest as the carbonic or any other, had it not been for the strange and various excitements produced by its inhalation. These made it a favourite subject with chemical lecturers, and year after year, in nearly every chemical theatre, it was fun to inhale it after the lecture on the gaseous compounds of nitrogen; and among those who inhaled it there must have been many who, in their intoxication, received sharp and heavy blows, but, at the time, felt no pain. And this went on for more than forty years, exciting nothing worthy to be called thought or observation, till, in December 1844, Mr. Colton, a popular itinerant lecturer on chemistry, delivered a lecture on 'laughing gas' in Hartford, Connecticut. Among his auditors was Mr. Horace Wells, an enterprising dentist in that town, a man of some power in mechanical invention. After the lecture came the usual amusement of inhaling the gas, and Wells, in whom long wishing had bred a kind of belief that something might be found to make tooth-drawing painless, observed that one of the men excited by the gas was not conscious of hurting himself when he fell on the benches and bruised and cut his knees. Even when he became calm and clear-headed the man was sure that he did not feel pain at the time of his fall. Wells was at once convinced—more easily convinced than a man of more scientific mind would have been—that, during similar insensibility, in a state of intense nervous excitement, teeth might be drawn without pain, and he determined that himself and one of his own largest teeth should be the first for trial. Next morning Colton gave him the gas, and his friend Dr. Riggs extracted his tooth. He remained unconscious for a few moments, and then exclaimed, 'A new era in tooth-pulling! It did not hurt me more than the prick of a pin. It is the greatest discovery ever made.' In the next three weeks Wells extracted teeth from some twelve or fifteen persons under the influence of the nitrous oxide, and gave pain to only two or three. Dr. Riggs, also, used it with the same success, and the practice was well known and talked of in Hartford. Encouraged by his success Wells went to Boston, wishing to enlarge the reputation of his discovery and to have an opportunity of giving the gas to some one undergoing a surgical operation. Dr. J. C. Warren, the senior Surgeon of the Massachusetts General Hospital, to whom he applied for this purpose, asked him to show first its effects on some one from whom he would draw a tooth. He undertook to do this in the theatre of the medical college before a large class of students, to whom he had, on a previous day, explained his plan. Unluckily, the bag of gas from which the patient was inhaling was taken a way too soon; he cried out when his tooth was drawn; the students hissed and hooted; and the discovery was denounced as an imposture. Wells left Boston disappointed and disheartened; he fell ill, and was for many months unable to practise his profession. Soon afterwards he gave up dentistry, and neglected the use and study of the nitrous oxide, till he was recalled to it by a discovery even more important than his own. The thread of the history of nitrous oxide may be broken here. {2144} The inhalation of sulphuric ether was often, even in the last century, used for the relief of spasmodic asthma, phthisis, and some other diseases of the chest. … As the sulphuric ether would 'produce effects very similar to those occasioned by nitrous oxide,' and was much the more easy to procure, it came to be often inhaled, for amusement, by chemist's lads and by pupils in the dispensaries of surgeons. It was often thus used by young people in many places in the United States. They had what they called 'ether frolics.' … Among those who had joined in these ether-frolics was Dr. Wilhite of Anderson, South Carolina. In one of them, in 1839," a negro boy was unconscious so long that he was supposed for some time to be dead. "The fright at having, it was supposed, so nearly killed the boy, put an end to the ether-frolics in that neighbourhood; but in 1842, Wilhite had become a pupil of Dr. Crauford Long, practising at that time at Jefferson (Jackson County, Georgia). Here he and Dr. Long and three fellow-pupils often amused themselves with the ether-inhalation, and Dr. Long observed that when he became furiously excited, as he often did, he was unconscious of the blows which he, by chance, received as he rushed or tumbled about. He observed the same in his pupils; and thinking over this, and emboldened by what Mr. Wilhite told him of the negro-boy recovering after an hour's insensibility, he determined to try whether the ether-inhalation would make any one insensible of the pain of an operation. So, in March, 1842, nearly three years before Wells's observations with the nitrous oxide, he induced a Mr. Venable, who had been very fond of inhaling ether, to inhale it till he was quite insensible. Then he dissected a tumour from his neck; no pain was felt, and no harm followed. Three months later, he similarly removed another tumour from him; and again, in 1842 and in 1845, he operated on other three patients, and none felt pain. His operations were known and talked of in his neighbourhood; but the neighbourhood was only that of an obscure little town; and he did not publish any of his observations. … He waited to test the ether more thoroughly in some greater operation than those in which he had yet tried it; and then he would have published his account of it. While he was waiting, others began to stir more actively in busier places, where his work was quite unknown, not even heard of. Among those with whom, in his unlucky visit to Boston, Wells talked of his use of the nitrous oxide, and of the great discovery which he believed that he had made, were Dr. Morton and Dr. Charles Jackson. … Morton was a restless energetic dentist, a rough man, resolute to get practice and make his fortune. Jackson was a quiet scientific gentleman, unpractical and unselfish, in good repute as a chemist, geologist, and mineralogist. At the time of Wells's visit, Morton, who had been his pupil in 1842, and for a short time, in 1843, his partner, was studying medicine and anatomy at the Massachusetts Medical College, and was living in Jackson's house. Neither Morton nor Jackson put much if any faith in Wells's story, and Morton witnessed his failure in the medical theatre. Still, Morton had it in his head that tooth-drawing might somehow be made painless. … Jackson had long known, as many others did, of sulphuric ether being inhaled for amusement and of its producing effects like those of nitrous oxide; he knew also of its employment as a remedy for the irritation caused by inhaling chlorine. He had himself used it for this purpose, and once, in 1842, while using it, he became completely insensible. He had thus been led to think that the pure ether might be used for the prevention of pain in surgical operations; he spoke of it with some scientific friends, and sometimes advised a trial of it; but he did not urge it or take any active steps to promote even the trial. One evening, Morton, who was now in practice as a dentist, called on him, full of some scheme which he did not divulge, and urgent for success in painless tooth-drawing. Jackson advised him to use the ether, and taught him how to use it. On that same evening, the 30th of September, 1846, Morton inhaled the ether, put himself to sleep, and, when he awoke, found that he had been asleep for eight minutes. Instantly, as he tells, he looked for an opportunity of giving it to a patient; and one just then coming in, a stout healthy man, he induced him to inhale, made him quite insensible, and drew his tooth without his having the least consciousness of what was done. But the great step had yet to be made. … Could it be right to incur the risk of insensibility long enough and deep enough for a large surgical operation? It was generally believed that in such insensibility there was serious danger to life. Was it really so? Jackson advised Morton to ask Dr. J. C. Warren to let him try, and Warren dared to let him. It is hard, now, to think how bold the enterprise must have seemed to those who were capable of thinking accurately on the facts then known. The first trial was made on the 16th of October, 1846. Morton gave the ether to a patient in the Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Warren removed a tumour from his neck. The result was not complete success; the patient hardly felt the pain of the cutting, but he was aware that the operation was being performed. On the next day, in a severer operation by Dr. Hayward, the success was perfect; the patient felt nothing, and in long insensibility there was no appearance of danger to life. The discovery might already be deemed complete; for the trials of the next following days had the same success, and thence onwards the use of the ether extended over constantly widening fields. … It might almost be said that in every place, at least in Europe, where the discovery was promoted more quickly than in America, the month might be named before which all operative surgery was agonising, and after which it was painless."

Sir J. Paget, Escape from Pain (Nineteenth Century, December 1879).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19th Century. The Study of Fermentation and its results.

"It was some time ago the current belief that epidemic diseases generally were propagated by a kind of malaria, which consisted of organic matter in a state of motor-decay; that when such matter was taken into the body through the lungs, skin, or stomach, it had the power of spreading there the destroying process by which itself had been assailed. Such a power was visibly exerted in the case of yeast. A little leaven was seen to leaven the whole lump—a mere speck of matter, in this supposed state of decomposition, being apparently competent to propagate indefinitely its own decay. Why should not a bit of rotten malaria act in a similar manner within the human frame? In 1836 a very wonderful reply was given to this question. In that year Cagniard de la Tour discovered the yeast-plant—a living organism, which when placed in a proper medium feeds, grows, and reproduces itself, and in this way carries on the process which we name fermentation. By this striking discovery fermentation was connected with organic growth. Schwann, of Berlin, discovered the yeast-plant independently about the same time."

J. Tyndall, Fragments of Science, volume 1, chapter 5.

{2145}

The question of fermentation "had come to present an entirely new aspect through the discovery of Cagniard de la Tour that yeast is really a plant belonging to one of the lowest types of fungi, which grows and reproduces itself in the fermentable fluid, and whose vegetative action is presumably the cause of that fermentation, just as the development of mould in a jam-pot occasions a like change in the upper stratum of the jam, on whose surface, and at whose expense, it lives and reproduces itself. Chemists generally—especially Liebig, who had a fermentation theory of his own—pooh-poohed this idea altogether; maintaining the presence of the yeast-plant to be a mere concomitant, and refusing to believe that it had any real share in the process. But in 1843, Professor Helmholtz, then a young undistinguished man, devised a method of stopping the passage of organic germs from a fermenting into a fermentable liquid, without checking the passage of fluids; and as no fermentation was then set up, he drew the inference that the 'particulate' organic germs, not the soluble material of the yeast, furnish the primum mobile of this change,—a doctrine which, though now universally accepted, had to fight its way for some time against the whole force of chemical authority. A little before Cagniard de la Tour's discovery, a set of investigations had been made by Schulze and Schwann, to determine whether the exclusion of air was absolutely necessary to prevent the appearance of living organisms in decomposing fluids, or whether these fluids might be kept free from animal or vegetable life, by such means as would presumably destroy any germs which the air admitted to them might bring in from without, such as passing it through a red-hot tube or strong sulphuric acid. These experiments, it should be said, had reference rather to the question of 'spontaneous generation,' or 'abiogenesis,' than to the cause of fermentation and decomposition; its object being to determine whether the living things found by the microscope in a decomposing liquid exposed to the air, spring from germs brought by the atmosphere, or are generated 'de novo' in the act of decay—the latter doctrine having then many upholders. But the discovery of the real nature of yeast, and the recognition of the part it plays in alcoholic fermentation, gave an entirely new value to Schulze's and Schwann's results; suggesting that putrefactive and other kinds of decomposition may be really due, not (as formerly supposed) to the action of atmospheric oxygen upon unstable organic compounds, but to a new arrangement of elements brought about by the development of germinal particles deposited from the atmosphere. It was at this point that Pasteur took up the inquiry; and for its subsequent complete working-out, science is mainly indebted to him: for although other investigators—notably Professor Tyndall—have confirmed and extended his conclusions by ingenious variations on his mode of research, they would be the first to acknowledge that all those main positions which have now gained universal acceptance—save on the part of a few obstinate 'irreconcilables'—have been established by Pasteur's own labours. … The first application of these doctrines to the study of disease in the living animal was made in a very important investigation, committed to Pasteur by his old master in chemistry (the eminent and eloquent Dumas), into the nature of the 'pébrine,' which was threatening to extinguish the whole silk culture of France and Italy. … Though it concerned only a humble worm, it laid the foundation of an entirely new system and method of research into the nature and causes of a large class of diseases in man and the higher animals, of which we are now only beginning to see the important issues. Among the most immediately productive of its results, may be accounted the 'antiseptic surgery' of Professor Lister; of which the principle is the careful exclusion of living bacteria and other germs, alike from the natural internal cavities of the body, and from such as are formed by disease, whenever these may be laid open by accident, or may have to be opened surgically. This exclusion is effected by the judicious use of carbolic acid, which kills the germs without doing any mischief to the patient; and the saving of lives, of limbs, and of severe suffering, already brought about by this method, constitutes in itself a glorious triumph alike to the scientific elaborator of the germ-doctrine, and to the scientific surgeon by whom it has been thus applied. A far wider range of study, however, soon opened itself. The revival by Dr. Farr of the doctrine of 'zymosis' (fermentation),—long ago suggested by the sagacity of Robert Boyle, and practically taken up in the middle of the last century by Sir John Pringle (the most scientific physician of his time),—as the expression of the effect produced in the blood by the introduction of a specific poison (such as that of small-pox, measles, scarlatina, cholera, typhus, &c.), had naturally directed the attention of thoughtful men to the question (often previously raised speculatively), whether these specific poisons are not really organic germs, each kind of which, a real 'contagium vivum,' when sown in the circulating fluid, produces a definite 'zymosis' of its own, in the course of which the poison is reproduced with large increase, exactly after the manner of yeast in a fermenting wort. Pasteur's success brought this question to the front, as one not to talk about, but to work at."

W. B. Carpenter, Disease-Germs (Nineteenth Century, October, 1881).

ALSO IN: L. Pasteur, Studies in Fermentation.

Dr. Duclaux, Fermentation.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19th Century. Virchow and Cellular Pathology.

"That really gifted scholar and paragon of industry and attainment, Rudolph Virchow, announced in 1858 a theory known as Modern Vitalism which was borrowed from natural scientific medicine and is distinguished from the vitalism of the previous century in this, that it breaks up the old vital force, which was supposed to be either distributed throughout the entire body, or located in a few organs, into an indefinite number of associate vital forces working harmoniously, and assigns to them all the final elementary principles without microscopic seat. 'Every animal principle has a sum of vital unities, each of which bears all the characteristics of life. {2146} The characteristics and unity of life cannot be found in any determinate point of a higher organism, e. g., in the brain, but only in the definite, ever recurring arrangements of each element present. Hence it results that the composition of a large body amounts to a kind of social arrangement, in which each one of the movements of individual existence is dependent upon the others, but in such a way that each element has a special activity of its own, and that each, although it receives the impulse to its own activity from other parts, still itself performs its own functions.' This it will be seen is nothing but another way of expressing the cell doctrine to which most medical men are now committed, which means that our bodies are built up with cells, and that each cell has a unity and a purpose of its own. Sir Robert Hooke in 1677 discovered plant cells. Schwann discovered animal cells, and Robert Brown discovered cell nuclei, but it remained for Virchow, using the microscope, to supply the gap which had risen between anatomical knowledge and medical theory, that is, to supply a 'cellular pathology,' since which time the cell has assumed the role which the fibre occupied in the theories of the 17th and 18th centuries. Time alone can decide as to the ultimate validity of these views. This theory was from its announcement most enthusiastically received, and so far has responded to nearly all the requirements which have been made of it. Even its author was almost startled with its success. … As a result of Virchow's labors there has arisen in Germany what has been called the medical school of natural sciences of which Virchow is the intellectual father. This school seeks mainly by means of pathological anatomy and microscopy, experimental physiology and pathology, and the other applied sciences, or rather by their methods, to make medicine also an exact science."

Roswell Park, Lectures on the History of Medicine (in MS.).

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19th Century. The development of Bacteriology.

"The traditional expression contagium vivum received a more precise meaning in 1840 from Henle, who in his 'Pathologischen Untersuchungen,' showed clearly and distinctly that the contagia till then invisible must be regarded as living organisms, and gave his reasons for this view. … If we are forced to recognise the characteristic qualities of living beings in these contagia, there is no good reason why we should not regard them as real living beings, parasites. For the only general distinction between their mode of appearance and operation and that of parasites is, that the parasites with which we are acquainted have been seen and the contagia have not. That this may be due to imperfect observation is shown by the experiments on the itch in 1840, in which the contagium, the itch-mite, though almost visible without magnifying power, was long at least misunderstood. It was only a short time before that the microscopic Fungus, Achorion, which causes favus, was unexpectedly discovered, as well as the Fungus which gives rise to the infectious disease in the caterpillar of the silkworm known as muscardine. Other and similar cases occurred at a later time, and among them that of the discovery of the Trichinae between 1850 and 1860, a very remarkable instance of a contagious parasite long overlooked. Henle repeated his statements in 1853 in his 'Rationelle Pathologie,' but for reasons which it is not our business to examine, his views on animal pathology met with little attention or approval. It was in connection with plant-pathology that Henle's views were first destined to further development, and obtained a firmer footing. It is true that the botanists who occupied themselves with the diseases of plants knew nothing of Henle's pathological writings, but made independent efforts to carry on some first attempts which had been made with distinguished success in the beginning of the century. But they did in fact strike upon the path indicated by Henle, and the constant advance made after, about the year 1850, resulted not only in the tracing back of all infectious diseases in plants to parasites as their exciting cause, but in proving that most of the diseases of plants are due to parasitic infection. It may now certainly be admitted that the task was comparatively easy in the vegetable kingdom, partly because the structure of plants makes them more accessible to research, partly because most of the parasites which infect them are true Fungi, and considerably larger than most of the contagia of animal bodies. From this time observers in the domain of animal pathology, partly influenced, more or less, by these discoveries in botany, and partly in consequence of the revival of the vitalistic theory of fermentation by Pasteur about the year 1860, returned to Henle's vitalistic theory of contagion. Henle himself, in the exposition of his views, had already indicated the points of comparison between his own theory and the theory of fermentation founded at that time by Cagniard-Latour and Schwann. Under the influence, as he expressly says, of Pasteur's writings, Davaine recalled to mind the little rods first seen by his teacher, Rayer, in the blood of an animal suffering from anthrax, and actually discovered in them the exciting cause of the disease, which may be taken as a type of an infectious disease both contagious and miasmatic also, in so far as it originates, as has been said, in anthrax-districts. This was, in 1863, a very important confirmation of Henle's theory, inasmuch as a very small parasite, not very easy of observation at that time, was recognised as a contagium. It was some time before much further advance was made. … The latest advance to be recorded begins with the participation of Robert Koch in the work of research since 1876."

A. De Bary, Lectures on Bacteria, pages 145-148.

"M. Pasteur is no ordinary man; he is one of the rare individuals who must be described by the term 'genius.' Having commenced his scientific career and attained great distinction as a chemist, M. Pasteur was led by his study of the chemical process of fermentations to give his attention to the phenomena of disease in living bodies resembling fermentations. Owing to a singular and fortunate mental characteristic, he has been able, not simply to pursue a rigid path of investigation dictated by the logical or natural connection of the phenomena investigated, but deliberately to select for inquiry matters of the most profound importance to the community, and to bring his inquiries to a successful practical issue in a large number of instances. {2147} Thus he has saved the silkworm industry of France and Italy from destruction, he has taught the French wine-makers to quickly mature their wine, he has effected an enormous improvement and economy in the manufacture of beer, he has rescued the sheep and cattle of Europe from the fatal disease 'anthrax,' and it is probable—he would not himself assert that it is at present more than probable—that he has rendered hydrophobia a thing of the past. The discoveries made by this remarkable man would have rendered him, had he patented their application and disposed of them according to commercial principles, the richest man in the world. They represent a gain of some millions sterling annually to the community. … M. Pasteur's first experiment in relation to hydrophobia was made in December 1880, when he inoculated two rabbits with the mucus from the mouth of a child which had died of that disease. As his inquiries extended he found that it was necessary to establish by means of experiment even the most elementary facts with regard to the disease, for the existing knowledge on the subject was extremely small, and much of what passed for knowledge was only ill-founded tradition."

E. R. Lankester, The Advancement of Science, pages 121-123.

"The development of our knowledge relating to the bacteria, stimulated by the controversy relating to spontaneous generation and by the demonstration that various processes of fermentation and putrefaction are due to microörganisms of this class, has depended largely upon improvements in methods of research. Among the most important points in the development of bacteriological technique we may mention first, the use of a cotton air filter (Schröder and Von Dusch, 1854); second, the sterilization of culture fluids by heat (methods perfected by Pasteur, Koch, and others); third, the use of the aniline dyes as staining agents (first recommended by Weigert in 1877); fourth, the introduction of solid culture media and the 'plate method' for obtaining pure cultures, by Koch in 1881. The various improvements in methods of research, and especially the introduction of solid culture media and Koch's 'plate method' for isolating bacteria from mixed 'cultures, have placed bacteriology upon a scientific basis. … It was a distinguished French physician, Davaine, who first demonstrated the etiological relation of a microörganism of this class to a specific infectious disease. The anthrax bacillus had been seen in the blood of animals dying from this disease by Pollender in 1849, and by Davaine in 1850, but it was several years later (1863) before the last-named observer claimed to have demonstrated by inoculation experiments the causal relation of the bacillus to the disease in question. The experiments of Davaine were not generally accepted as conclusive, because in inoculating an animal with blood containing the bacillus, from an infected animal which had succumbed to the disease, the living microörganism was associated with material from the body of the diseased animal. This objection was subsequently removed by the experiments of Pasteur, Koch, and many others, with pure cultures of the bacillus, which were shown to have the same pathogenic effects as had been obtained in inoculation experiments with the blood of an infected animal."

G. M. Sternberg, Manual of Bacteriology, page 6.

"In 1876 the eminent microscopist, Professor Cohn, of Breslau, was in London, and he then handed me a number of his 'Beiträge,' containing a memoir by Dr. Koch on Splenic Fever (Milzbrand, Charbon, Malignant Pustule), which seemed to me to mark an epoch in the history of this formidable disease. With admirable patience, skill, and penetration Koch followed up the life-history of bacillus anthracis, the contagium of this fever. At the time here referred to he was a young physician holding a small appointment in the neighbourhood of Breslau, and it was easy to predict, and indeed I predicted at the time, that he would soon find himself in a higher position. When I next heard of him he was head of the Imperial Sanitary Institute of Berlin. … Koch was not the discoverer of the parasite of splenic fever. Davaine and Rayer, in 1850, had observed the little microscopic rods in the blood of animals which had died of splenic fever. But they were quite unconscious of the significance of their observation, and for thirteen years, as M. Radot informs us, strangely let the matter drop. In 1863 Davaine's attention was again directed to the subject by the researches of Pasteur, and he then pronounced the parasite to be the cause of the fever. He was opposed by some of his fellow-countrymen; long discussions followed, and a second period of thirteen years, ending with the publication of Koch's paper, elapsed before M. Pasteur took up the question. I always, indeed, assumed that from the paper of the learned German came the impulse towards a line of inquiry in which M. Pasteur has achieved such splendid results."

J. Tyndall, New Fragments, pages 190-191.

"On the 24th of March, 1882, an address of very serious public import was delivered by Dr. Koch before the Physiological Society of Berlin. … The address … is entitled 'The Etiology of Tubercular Disease.' Koch first made himself known, and famous, by the penetration, skill, and thoroughness of his researches on the contagium of anthrax, or splenic fever. … Koch's last inquiry deals with a disease which, in point of mortality, stands at the head of them all. 'If,' he says, 'the seriousness of a malady be measured by the number of its victims, then the most dreaded pests which have hitherto ravaged the world—plague and cholera included—must stand far behind the one now under consideration.' Then follows the startling statement that one-seventh of the deaths of the human race are due to tubercular disease. Prior to Koch it had been placed beyond doubt that the disease was communicable; and the aim of the Berlin physician has been to determine the precise character of the contagium which previous experiments on inoculation and inhalation had proved to be capable of indefinite transfer and reproduction. He subjected the diseased organs of a great number of men and animals to microscopic examination, and found, in all cases, the tubercles infested by a minute, rod-shaped parasite, which by means of a special dye, he differentiated from the surrounding tissue. 'It was,' he says, 'in the highest degree impressive to observe in the centre of the tubercle-cell the minute organism which had created it.' Transferring directly, by inoculation, the tuberculous matter from diseased animals to healthy ones, he in every instance reproduced the disease. To meet the objection that it was not the parasite itself, but some virus in which it was imbedded in the diseased organ, that was the real contagium, he cultivated his bacilli artificially for long periods of time and through many successive generations. {2148} With a speck of matter, for example, from a tuberculous human lung, he infected a substance prepared, after much trial, by himself, with the view of affording nutriment to the parasite. In this medium he permitted it to grow and multiply: From the new generation he took a minute sample, and infected therewith fresh nutritive matter, thus producing another brood. Generation after generation of bacilli were developed in this way, without the intervention of disease. At the end of the process, which sometimes embraced successive cultivations extending over half a year, the purified bacilli were introduced into the circulation of healthy animals of various kinds. In every case inoculation was followed by the reproduction and spread of the parasite, and the generation of the original disease. … The moral of these experiments is obvious. In no other conceivable way than that pursued by Koch could the true character of the most destructive malady by which humanity is now assailed be determined. And however noisy the fanaticism of the moment may be, the common-sense of Englishmen will not, in the long run, permit it to enact cruelty in the name of tenderness, or to debar us from the light and leading of such investigations as that which is here so imperfectly described."

J. Tyndall, New Fragments, pages 423-428.

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19th Century. The Theory of Germ Diseases.

"An account of the innumerable questions and investigations in this department of modern pathogenesis, of the various views on certain questions, etc., does not fall within the compass of our brief sketch. Nor are we able to furnish a consistent theory, simply because such an one does not [1889] exist. One fact alone is agreed upon, to wit, that certain of the lower fungi, as parasites within or upon the body, excite diseases (infectious diseases). As regards the modus operandi of these parasites two main theories are held. According to one theory, these parasites, by their development, deprive the body of its nutriment and endanger life particularly when, thronging in the blood, they deprive this of the oxygen necessary for existence. According to the other theory, they threaten life by occasioning decompositions which engender putrid poisons (ptomaines). These latter poisons were first isolated by P. L. Panum in 1856, and have been recently specially studied by Brieger (Ueber Ptomaine, Berlin, 1885-86). They act differently upon bodies according to the variety of the alkaloidal poison. Metschnikoff regards the white blood-corpuscles as antagonists of these parasites (thus explaining the cases of recovery from parasitic diseases), and in this point of view calls them 'phagocytes.' On the other hand E. Salmon and Theodore Smith ('Transactions of the Washington Biological Society, February 22d, 1886) were the first to demonstrate that sterilized nutritive solutions or germ-free products of change of matter of the virulent exciters of disease, when injected, afford protection. A. Chauveau as early as 1880 had brought forward evidence of the probability of this fact, and Hans Buchner in 1879 admitted the possibility of depriving bacteria of their virulence. Pasteur, however, believes he has demonstrated that by continued cultures (also a sort of bacillary Isopathy) 'debilitated' germs act as prophylactics against the corresponding parasitic diseases, and he even thinks he has confirmed this by his inoculations against hydrophobia—a view, at all events, still open to doubt. … The chief diseases regarded as of parasitic origin at present are: anthrax (Davaine, 1850); relapsing fever (Obermeier, 1873); gonorrhœa and blenorrhœa neonatorum (Neisser, 1879); glanders (Struck, 1882, Loeffler and Schütz); syphilis (Sigm. Lustgarten, 1884); diphtheria (Oertel, Letzerich, Klebs); typhus (Eberle, Klebs); tuberculosis (Koch, 1882); cholera (Koch, 1884); lepra (Armauer-Hansen); actinomycosis (Bollinger in cattle, 1877; Israel in man, 1884); septicæmia (Klebs); erysipelas (Fehleisen); pneumonia (Friedländer); malarial fever (Klebs, Tommasi-Crudeli, Marchiafava); malignant œdema (Koch); tetanus (Carle and Rattone, Nicolaier, Roeschlaub assumed a tetania occasioned by bacilli); cancer (Scheuerlen; priority contested by Dr. G. Rappia and Prof. Domingo Freire of Rio Janeiro); yellow fever (microbe claimed to have been discovered by Freire); dysentery (bacillary diphtheritis of the large intestine); cholera nostras (Finkler and Prior); scarlet fever (Coze and Feltz, '72); variola and vaccina (Keber, Zülzer, Weigert, Klebs); acute yellow atrophy of the liver (Klebs, Waldeyer, Eppinger); endocarditis (Ziegler); hæmophilia neonatorum (Klebs, Eppinger); trachoma (Sattler); keratitis (Leber—aspergillus); ulcus rodens corneæ (Sattler); gonorrhœal rheumatism (Petrone, Kammerer). If the bacterial theory of infection, constantly threatening life by such numerous pathogenic varieties of infecting organisms, must be looked upon as a gloomy one, the anti-bacterial Phagocyte Theory of Metschnikoff, professor of zoology in Odessa, is adapted to make one feel more comfortable, inasmuch as it brings into view the possibility of an antagonism to these infecting organisms, and explains the method of nature's cures. Metschnikoff observed that the wandering cells—the white blood corpuscles—after the manner of amœbæ, surround, hold fast, digest ('devour,' hence 'phagocytes'), and thus render harmless the bacteria which have entered the body. … The prophylactic effects of inoculation are explained on the theory that by means of this operation the wandering cells are prepared, as it were, for subsequent accidental irruptions of similar pathogenic bacteria, are habituated or compelled thereby to at once devour such organisms when they enter the body spontaneously, and thus to render them harmless. Inoculation would thus be a sort of training or education of the phagocytes. The immunity of many persons from infectious diseases, so far as it is not effected by inoculations, would by analogy be explained on the theory that with such individuals the phagocytes are from the outset so constituted that they at once render harmless any stray bacteria which come within their domain by immediately devouring them. … When … in spite of the phagocytes, the patients die of infectious diseases, the fact is to be explained by the excessive number of the bacteria present, which is so great that the phagocytes are unequal to the task of 'devouring' them all."

J. H. Baas, Outlines of the History of Medicine, pages 1007-1009.

{2149}

MEDICAL SCIENCE: 19th Century. Sanitary Science and Legislation.

"Together with the growth of our knowledge of the causes of disease there has been … slowly growing up also a new kind of warfare against disease. It is this science of hygiene which is now promising to transform all the old traditional ways of dealing with disease, and which now makes possible the organisation of the conditions of health. And this science of hygiene, it must be repeated, rests on the exact knowledge of the causes of disease which we are now obtaining. … At the beginning of the eighteenth century Mead, a famous physician of that day, whose reputation still lives, had proposed the formation of a central board of health to organise common measures for the public safety. It was not, however, until more than a hundred years later, in 1831, under the influence of the terror of cholera, that this first step was taken; so that, as it has been well said and often since proved, 'panic is the parent of sanitation.' In 1842 Sir Edwin Chadwick issued his report on 'The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain.' This report produced marked effect, and may truly be said to have inaugurated the new era of collective action, embodying itself in legislation directed to the preservation of national health, an era which is thus just half a century old. Chadwick's report led to a Royal Commission, which was the first step in the elevation of public health to a State interest; and a few years later (1847) Liverpool, and immediately afterwards London, appointed the first medical officers of health in Great Britain. In 1848 another epidemic of cholera appeared, and a General Board of Health was established. During this epidemic Dr. Snow began those inquiries which led to the discovery that the spread of the disease was due to the contamination of drinking-water by the intestinal discharges of patients. That discovery marked the first great stage in the new movement. Henceforth the objects to be striven for in the evolution of sanitation became ever more clear and precise, and a succession of notable discoveries in connection with various epidemics enlarged the sphere of sanitation, and revealed new possibilities in the prevention of human misery."

H. Ellis, The Nationalisation of Health, pages 21-24.

"Of all countries of the civilized world, none has a sanitary code so complete and so precise as England. In addition, English legislation is distinguished from that of other countries, by the fact that the principal regulations emanate from Parliament instead of being simple administrative orders. Thus the legislation is the work of the nation, which has recognised its necessity in its own interest. Consequently the laws are respected, and, as a rule, religiously observed, without objection or murmur. In the whole country, the marvellous results which have been produced can be seen. Thanks to these laws, the rate of mortality has been lowered, the mean duration of life increased, the amount of sickness decreased. They have greatly alleviated the misery in the houses of the poor, who, thanks to sanitary measures, have a better prospect of recovering their health and the means of providing for their subsistence and that of their families. … The sanitary administration of England is, in accordance with the Public Health Act of 1875, in the hands of a central authority, the Local Government Board; and local authorities, the Local Boards of Health. The Local Government Board consists of a president, nominated by the Queen, and the following ex-officio members:—the Lord President of the Privy Council, all the principal Secretaries of State for the time being, the Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Parliamentary Secretary, and a permanent Secretary. The President and Secretaries are, properly speaking, the directors of the Local Government Board, the other members being only consulted on matters of prime importance. Nine special departments are controlled by the Local Government Board:

1. Poor-law administration. 2. Legal questions. 3. Sanitary regulations respecting buildings. 4. Sanitary regulations respecting sewers, streets, etc. 5. Medical and hygienic matters. 6. Vaccination. 7. The Hygiene of factories. 8. The water supply of London. 9. Statistics.

Medical and sanitary matters are under the direction of a Medical Officer, and an Assistant Medical Officer."

A. Palmberg, Treatise on Public Health: England, chapter 1.

"The United States have no uniform legislation for the organization of public hygiene to the present day. Each State organizes this service as it chooses. … That which characterizes the sanitary organization of the States is the fact that, in a large number of States, the right is granted to the sanitary administrations to carry before the justices the infractions of the regulations on this subject. It is a similar organization to that of Great Britain, with a little less independence, and it is the logical result of the general system of administration which exists in the American Union. … Without doubt the day will come when the National Board of Health will be by act of Congress, with the consent of all the States, the real superior council of public hygiene of the American Union."

E. Sève, On the General Organization of Public Hygiene (Proceedings, International Sanitary Conference, 1881).

"The General Government [of the United States] can do little in the way of compulsory legislation, which might interfere with the action of the several States to control their own sanitary affairs. It is possible that upon the ground of power to legislate with regard to commerce, it might establish some general system of quarantine and do something toward the prevention of the pollution of navigable streams; but it could probably only do this with such restrictions and exceptions as would make its action of little practical value, unless, indeed, it should resort to its right of eminent domain, and become liable for all damages, individual or municipal, which its action might cause. … No one would deny that the General Government can properly create an organization for the purpose of collecting and diffusing information on sanitary matters; but comparatively few understand how much real power and influence such an organization might acquire without having the slightest legal authority to enforce any of its recommendations. The passing of sanitary laws, and the granting to a certain department the power to enforce these laws, will not ensure good public health unless the public at large supports those laws intelligently, and it can only do this through State and municipal sanitary organizations. The General Government might do much to promote the formation of such organizations, and to assist them in various ways. … By the 'act to prevent the introduction of infectious or contagious diseases into the United States, and to establish a national board of health,' approved March 3, 1879, the first step has been taken in the direction above indicated. {2150} The act provides for a national board of health, to consist of seven members, appointed by the President, and of four officers detailed from the Medical Department of the Army, Medical Department of the Navy, and the Marine Hospital Service, and the Department of Justice respectively. No definite term of Office is prescribed, the Board being essentially provisional in character. The duties of the board are 'to obtain information upon all matters affecting the public health, to advise the several departments of the government, the executives of the several States, and the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, on all questions submitted by them, or whenever in the opinion of the board such advice may tend to the preservation and improvement of the public health.' The board is also directed to prepare a plan for a national public health organization in conjunction with the National Academy of Sciences."

J. S. Billings, Introduction to "A Treatise on Hygiene and Public Health," edited by A. IL Buck.

ALSO IN: Sir J. Simon, English Sanitary Institutions

Sir J. Simon, Public Health: Reports of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council and Local Government Board.

United States National Board of Health, Annual Reports.

Massachusetts Board of Health, Annual Reports.

----------MEDICAL SCIENCE: End----------

MEDICI, The.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1378-1427, and after.

----------MEDINA: Start--------

MEDINA: the City of the Prophet.

By Mahomet's Hegira or flight from Mecca to Yethrib, A. D. 622, the latter city became the seat of Islam and was henceforward known as Medina—Medinet-en-Neby—"the City of the Prophet."

S. Lane-Poole, Studies in a Mosque, chapter 2.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

MEDINA: A. D. 661. The Caliphate transferred.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 661.

MEDINA: A. D. 683. Stormed and sacked.

In the civil war which followed the accession of Yezid, the second of the Omeyyad caliphs, Medina was besieged and stormed by Yezid's army and given up for three days to every imaginable brutality on the part of the soldiery. The inhabitants who survived were made slaves.

Sir W. Muir, Annals of the Early Caliphate, chapter 50.

ALSO IN: W. Irving, Mahomet and his Successors, volume 2, chapter 47.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-750.

----------MEDINA: End----------

MEDINA DEL RIO SECO, Battle of.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).

MEDIOLANUM.

Modern Milan. Taken by the Romans in 222 B. C. from the Insubrian Gauls.

See ROME: B. C. 295-191.

MEDIOMATRICI.

The original form of the name of the city of Metz, which had been called Divodurum by the Gauls at an earlier day.

MEDISM. MEDIZED GREEKS.

During the wars of the Persians against the Greeks, the former had many friends and allies, both secret and open, among the latter. These were commonly called Medized Greeks, and their treason went by the name of Medism.

MEDITERRANEAN FUND.

A special fund provided by the United States Congress, in 1803, for the War with Tripoli.

H. Adams, History of the United States, volume 2, chapter 7.

MEDITERRANEAN SEA: When named.

"For this sea … the Greeks had no distinctive name, because it had so long been practically the only one known to them; and Strabo can only distinguish it as 'the Inner' or 'Our' Sea. … The now familiar appellation of Mediterranean is in like manner first used by Solinus [third century], only as a convenient designation, not as a strictly geographical term. … The first extant author who employs it distinctly as a proper name is Isidorus, who wrote in the seventh century."

E: H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography, chapter 21, section 1, chapter 23, section 2, foot-note, chapter 31 (volume 2).

MEERUT, The Sepoy mutiny at.

See INDIA: A. D. 1857 (MAY).

MEGALESIA, The.

See LUDI.

----------MEGALOPOLIS: Start--------

MEGALOPOLIS: B. C. 371. The founding of the city.

See GREECE: B. C. 371.

MEGALOPOLIS: B. C. 317. Defense against Polysperchon.

See GREECE: B. C. 321-312.

MEGALOPOLIS: B. C. 222. Destruction and restoration.

The last exploit of Cleomenes of Sparta, in his struggle with the Achæan League and its ally, the king of Macedonia, before the fatal field of Sellasia, was the capture of Megalopolis, B. C. 222. Most of the citizens escaped. He offered to restore their town to them, if they would forsake the League. They refused, and he destroyed it, so utterly that its restoration was believed to be impossible. But in the following year the inhabitants were brought back and Megalopolis existed again, though never with its former importance.

Polybius, Histories, book 2, chapter 55 and after (volume 1).

MEGALOPOLIS: B. C. 194-183. In the Achaian League.

"The city of Megalopolis held at this time [B. C. 194-183] the same sort of position in the Achaian League which the State of Virginia held in the first days of the American Union. Without any sort of legal preëminence, without at all assuming the character of a capital, Megalopolis was clearly the first city of the League, the city which gave the nation the largest proportion of its leading statesmen. Megalopolis, like Virginia, was 'the Mother of Presidents,' and that too of Presidents of different political parties. As Virginia produced both Washington and Jefferson, so Megalopolis, if she produced Philopoimen and Lykortas, produced also Aristainos and Diophanes."

E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapter 9, section 2.

----------MEGALOPOLIS: End--------

----------MEGARA: Start--------

MEGARA.

Megara, the ancient Greek city and state whose territory lay between Attica and Corinth, forming part of the Corinthian isthmus, "is affirmed to have been originally settled by the Dorians of Corinth, and to have remained for some time a dependency of that city. It is farther said to have been at first merely one of five separate villages—Megara, Heræa, Peiræa, Kynosura, Tripodiskus—inhabited by a kindred population, and generally on friendly terms, yet sometimes distracted by quarrels. …

See CORINTH: B. C. 745-725.

Whatever may be the truth respecting this alleged early subjection of Megara, we know it in the historical age, and that too as early as the 14th Olympiad, only as an independent Dorian city, maintaining the integrity of its territory under its leader Orsippus, the famous Olympic runner, against some powerful enemies, probably the Corinthians. It was of no mean consideration, possessing a territory which extended across Mount Geraneia to the Corinthian Gulf, on which the fortified town and port of Pêgæ, belonging to the Megarians, was situated. It was mother of early and distant colonies,—and competent, during the time of Solon, to carry on a protracted contest with the Athenians, for the possession of Salamis; wherein, although the latter were at last victorious, it was not without an intermediate period of ill-success and despair."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 9.

See, also, GREECE: THE MIGRATIONS.

{2151}

MEGARA: B. C. 610-600. Struggle with Athens for Salamis. Spartan arbitration favorable to the Athenians.

See ATHENS: B. C. 610-586.

MEGARA: B. C. 458-456. Alliance with Athens in war with Corinth and Ægina.

See GREECE: B. C. 458-456.

MEGARA: B. C. 446-445. Rising against Athens.

See GREECE: B. C. 449-445.

MEGARA: B. C. 431-424. Athenian invasions and ravages.

See ATHENS: B. C. 431.

MEGARA: B. C. 339-338. Resistance to Philip of Macedon.

See GREECE: B. C. 357-336.

----------MEGARA: End--------

MEGARA OF CARTHAGE, The.

See CARTHAGE: DIVISIONS.

MEGIDDO.

The valley of Megiddo, forming the western part of the great Plain of Esdraelon, in northern Palestine—stretching from the valley of the Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, along the course of the river Kishon—was the field of many important battles in ancient times. Thothmes III. of the eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, whose reign is placed about 1600 B. C., met there, near the city of Megiddo, and defeated a confederacy of Syrian and Canaanite princes who attempted to throw off his yoke. A remarkable account of his victory and of the spoils he took is preserved in inscriptions on the walls of the temple at Karnak.

H. Brugsch, History of Egypt, chapter 13 (volume 1).

It was at Megiddo, also, that Sisera, commanding the forces of the Canaanites, was beaten and driven to flight by the Israelites under Barak. Gideon's' assault on the Midianites was from the slope of Mount Gilboa, which rises out of the same valley. The latter battle has been called by historians the Battle of Jezreel, and Jezreel is one of the forms of the name of the valley of Esdraelon. It was there that the Philistines were arrayed when Saul fought his last battle with them, and on the slopes of Gilboa he fell on his sword and died. On the same historic plain, near the city of Megiddo, Josiah, king of Judah, fought against Necho, the Pharaoh of Egypt, B. C. 609, and was defeated and mortally wounded. The plain of Megiddo was so often, in fact, the meeting place of ancient armies that it seems to have come to be looked upon as the typical battle-ground, and apparently the name Armageddon in Revelations is an allusion to it in that sense. The ancient city of Megiddo has been identified in site with the present town of Ledjûn, which is the Legio of the Romans—the station of a Roman legion.

MEGISTANES, The.

"The king [of the Parthian monarchy] was permanently advised by two councils, consisting of persons not of his own nomination, whom rights, conferred by birth or office, entitled to their seats. One of these was a family conclave, … or assembly of the full-grown males of the Royal House; the other was a senate comprising both the spiritual and the temporal chiefs of the nation, the Sophi, or 'Wise Men,' and the Magi, or 'Priests.' Together these two bodies constituted the Megistanes, the 'Nobles' or 'Great Men'—the privileged class which to a considerable extent checked and controlled the monarch. The monarchy was elective; but only in the house of the Arsacidæ."

G. Rawlinson, Sixth Great Oriental Monarchy, chapter 6.

MEHDI, AL.

See MAHDI, AL.

MEHEMET ALI AND THE INDEPENDENT PASHALIK OF EGYPT.

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840; and EGYPT: A. D. 1840-1869.

MEHERRINS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH

MEIGS, Fort, Sieges of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813 HARRISON'S NORTHWESTERN CAMPAIGN.

MELBOURNE MINISTRIES, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1834-1837; and 1841-1842.

MELCHITES.

A name applied in the religious controversies of the 6th century, by the heretical Jacobites, to the adherents of the orthodox church. It signified that they were imperialists, or royalists, taking their doctrines from the sovereign power.

H. F. Tozer, The Church and the Eastern Empire, chapter 5.

MELDÆ, The.

A tribe in ancient Gaul which was established in the north of the modern French department of the Seine-et-Marne and in a small part of the department of the Oise.

Napoleon III., History of Cæsar, book 3, chapter 2, footnote (volume 2).

MELIAN FAMINE.

See GREECE: B. C. 416.

MELIGNANO, MARIGNANO, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1515.

MELISCEET INDIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

MELORIA, Battles of (1241 and 1284).

See PISA: A. D. 1063-1293.

MELOS: Siege, conquest and massacre by the Athenians:

See GREECE: B. C. 416.

MELUN, Siege of.

One of the important sieges in the second campaign of the English king Henry V. in France, A. D. 1420.

Monstrelet, Chronicles, book 1, chapters 226-230 (volume 1).

MEMLUKS.

See MAMELUKES.

----------MEMPHIS, Egypt: Start--------

MEMPHIS, Egypt.

The foundation of Memphis is the first event in Egyptian history, the one large historical incident in the reign of the first king, who emerges a real man from the shadow land which the Egyptians called the reign of the gods. … Menes, the founder of Memphis and Egyptian history, came from the south. Civilisation descended the Nile. His native place was Thinis, or This, in Upper Egypt, a still older town, where his shadowy predecessors ruled. … A great engineering work was the first act of the builder. He chose his site … but the stream was on the wrong side, flowing below the Libyan chain, flowing over where the city should be, offering no water-bulwark against the invader from the eastern border. So he raised, a few miles to the south, a mighty dyke, and turned the river into the present course, founding the city on the west bank, with the desert behind and the Nile before. … The new city received a name which reflects the satisfaction of the ancient founder: he called it Mennufre, 'the Good' or 'Perfect Mansion.' This was the civil name. … The civil name is the parent of the Greek Memphis and the Hebrew Moph, also found in the form Noph."

R. S. Poole, Cities of Egypt, chapter 2.

See, also, EGYPT: THE OLD EMPIRE AND THE MIDDLE EMPIRE.

{2152}

MEMPHIS: A. D. 640-641. Surrender to the Moslems.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 640-646.

----------MEMPHIS, Egypt: End--------

----------MEMPHIS, Tennessee: Start--------

MEMPHIS, Tennessee: A. D. 1739-1740. A French fort on the site.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1719-1750.

MEMPHIS, Tennessee: A. D. 1862. Naval fight in the river. Surrender of the city to the Union forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

----------MEMPHIS, Tennessee: End--------

MENAPII, The.

See BELGÆ; also, IRELAND: TRIBES OF EARLY CELTIC INHABITANTS.

MENDICANT ORDERS. Franciscans. Dominicans.

"This period [12-13th centuries], so prolific in institutions of every sort, also gave birth to the Mendicant orders, a species of spiritual chivalry still more generous and heroic than that which we have just treated [the military-religious orders], and unique in history. … Many causes combined to call them into existence. In proportion as the Church grew wealthy her discipline relaxed, and dangers menaced her on every side. … The problem thus presented to the Church was taken up at the opening of the 13th century, and thrown into practical shape by two men equally eminent in intellectual endowments and spiritual gifts. While each solved it in his own way, they were both attached to each other by the closest friendship. Dominic, a member of the powerful house of Guzman, was born in the year 1170, at Callaruega (Calahorra, in Old Castile), a village in the diocese of Osma. While pursuing his studies in the university of Valencia, he was distinguished by a spirit of charity and self-sacrifice. … Diego, Bishop of Osma, … a man of severe character, and ardently devoted to the good of the Church, found in Dominic one after his own heart. He took the young priest with him on a mission which he made to the south of France." Dominic was finally left in charge of the mission. "His peaceful disposition, his spirit of prayer, his charity, forbearance, and patient temper formed a consoling contrast to the bloody crusade which had recently been set on foot against the Albigenses. After spending ten years in this toilsome and thankless mission, labouring only for love of God and the profit of souls, he set out for Rome, in 1215, with his plans fully matured, and submitted to Pope Innocent III. the project of giving to the Church a new method of defence, in an order which should combine the contemplative life of the monk with the active career of a secular priest. … Innocent gave his sanction to Dominic's project, provided he would manage to bring it under some of the existing Rules. Dominic accordingly selected the Rule of St. Augustine, introducing a few changes, with a view to greater severity, taken from the Rule of the Premonstratensians. That the members of the new order might be free to devote themselves entirely to their spiritual labours, they were forbidden to accept any property requiring their active administration, but were permitted to receive the incomes of such as was administered by others. Property, therefore, might be held by the Order as a body, but not administered by its members. Pope Honorius III. confirmed the action of his illustrious predecessor, and approved the Order in the following year, giving it, from its object, the name of the 'Order of Friars Preachers' ('Ordo Prædicatorum, Fratres Prædicatores'). … Dominic founded, in the year 1206, an Order of Dominican nuns. … The dress of the Dominicans is a white garment and scapular, resembling in form that of the Augustinians, with a black cloak and a pointed cap. Francis of Assisi, the son of a wealthy merchant named Bernardini, was born in the year 1182, in Assisi, in Umbria. His baptismal name was John, but from his habit of reading the romances of the Troubadours in his youth, he gradually acquired the name of Il Francesco, or the Little Frenchman. … When about twenty-four years of age, he fell dangerously ill, and, while suffering from this attack, gave himself up to a train of religious thought which led him to consider the emptiness and uselessness of his past life. … He … conceived the idea of founding a society whose members should go about through the whole world, after the manner of the apostles, preaching and exhorting to penance. … His zeal gradually excited emulation, and prompted others to aspire after the same perfection. His first associates were his townsmen, Bernard Quintavalle and Peter Cattano, and others soon followed. Their habit consisted of a long brown tunic of coarse woolen cloth, surmounted by a hood of the same material, and confined about the waist with a hempen cord. This simple but ennobling dress was selected because it was that of the poor peasants of the surrounding country. … He sent his companions, two-and-two, in all directions, saying to them in taking leave: 'Go; always travel two-and-two. Pray until the third hour; then only may you speak. Let your speech be simple and humble.' … With St. Francis, absolute poverty was not only a practice, it was the essential principle on which he based his Order. Not only were the individual members forbidden to have any personal property whatever, but neither could they hold any as an Order, and were entirely dependent for their support upon alms. … Hence the chief difference between mendicant and other monastic orders consists in this, that, in the former, begging takes the place of the ordinary vow of personal poverty. … In 1223, Pope Honorius III. approved the Order of Franciscans (Fratres Minores), to which … Innocent III. had given a verbal sanction in 1210."

J. Alzog, Manual of Universal Church History, section 247 (volume 2).

"They were" called 'Friars' because, out of humility, their founders would not have them called 'Father' and 'Dominus,' like the monks, but simply 'Brother' ('Frater,' 'Frère,' Friar). … Dominic gave to his order the name of Preaching Friars; more commonly they were styled Dominicans, or, from the colour of their habits, Black Friars. … The Franciscans were styled by their founder 'Fratri Minori'—lesser brothers, Friars Minors; they were more usually called Grey Friars, from the colour of their habits, or Cordeliers, from the knotted cord which formed their characteristic girdle."

E. L. Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, chapter 5.

{2153}

"People talk of 'Monks and Friars' as if these were convertible terms. The truth is that the difference between the Monks and the Friars was almost one of kind. The Monk was supposed never to leave his cloister. The Friar in St. Francis' first intention had no cloister to leave."

A. Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, 1.

ALSO IN: Mrs. Oliphant, Life of St. Francis of Assisi.

H. L. Lacordaire, Life of St. Dominic.

R. Pauli, Pictures of Old England, chapter 2.

E. F. Henderson, Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages, book 3, number 8.

P. Sabatier, Life of St. Francis of Assisi.

MENENDEZ'S MASSACRE OF FLORIDA HUGUENOTS.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1565.

MENHIR.

Meaning literally "long-stone." The name is usually given to single, upright stones, sometimes very large, which are found in the British islands, France and elsewhere, and which are supposed to be the rude sepulchral monuments of some of the earlier races, Celtic and pre-Celtic.

Sir J. Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, chapter 5.

MENOMINEES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

MENTANA, Battle of (1867).

See ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870.

----------MENTZ: Start--------

MENTZ: Origin.

See MOGONTIACUM.

MENTZ: A. D. 406. Destruction by the Germans.

See GAUL: A. D. 406-409.

MENTZ: 12th Century. Origin of the electorate.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1125-1152.

MENTZ: A. D. 1455-1456. Appearance of the first printed book.

See PRINTING: A. D. 1430-1456.

MENTZ: A. D. 1631. Occupied by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.

MENTZ: A. D. 1792. Occupation by the French Revolutionary army. Incorporation with the French Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1792 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER).

MENTZ: A. D. 1793. Recovery by the Germans.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER).

MENTZ: A. D. 1801-1803. Extinction of the electorate.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

----------MENTZ: End--------

MENTZ, Treaty of (1621).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

MENZEL PAPERS, The.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1755-1756, and 1756.

MERCED, The order of La.

"Jayme [king of Aragon, called El Conquistador], when a captive in the hands of Simon de Montfort [see SPAIN: A. D. 1212-1238], had—mere baby as he was—made a vow that, when he should be a man and a king, he would endeavour to do something for the redemption of captives. So, before he was a man in age, he instituted another religious order of knighthood, called La Merced, which added to their other duties that of collecting alms and using them for the ransoming of captives to the Moors."

C. M. Yonge, The Story of the Christians and Moors of Spain, page 184.

MERCENARIES, Revolt of the.

See CARTHAGE: B. C. 241-238.

MERCHANT ADVENTURERS.

"The original Company of the Merchant Adventurers carried on trade chiefly with the Netherlands. Their principal mart was at first Bruges, whence it was removed to Antwerp early in the fifteenth century. In distinction from the staplers, who dealt in certain raw materials, the Merchant Adventurers had the monopoly of exporting certain manufactured articles, especially cloths. Though of national importance, they constituted a strictly private company, and not, like the staplers, an administrative organ of the British government. The former were all subjects of the English crown; the staplers were made up of aliens as well as Englishmen. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries frequent dissensions broke out between these two bodies regarding the exportation of cloth. To carry on foreign trade freely in wool as well as in cloth, a merchant had to join both companies. Much obscurity hangs over the early history of the Merchant Adventurers. They claimed' that John, Duke of Brabant, founded their society in 1216 or 1248, and that it originally bore the name of the Brotherhood of St. Thomas à Becket. But it could scarcely have existed in its later form before the reign of Edward III., when the cloth industry began to flourish in England. The earliest charter granted to it as an organized association dates from the year 1407. Their powers were greatly increased by Henry VII. The soul of this society, and perhaps its original nucleus, was the Mercers' Company of London. … Though the most influential Merchant Adventurers resided in London, there were many in other English towns. … The contrast between the old Gild Merchant and the Company of Merchant Adventurers is striking. The one had to do wholly with foreign trade, and its members were forbidden to exercise a manual occupation or even to be retail shopkeepers; the other consisted mainly of small shopkeepers and artisans. The line of demarkation between merchants and manual craftsmen was sharply drawn by the second half of the sixteenth century, the term 'merchant' having already acquired its modern signification as a dealer on an extensive scale. Besides the Company of Merchant Adventurers trading to the Low Countries—which during the eighteenth century was called the Hamburg Company—various new Companies of Merchant Adventurers trading to other lands arose in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially during the reigns of Elizabeth and her immediate successors. Among them were the Russian or Muscovy Company, the Turkey or Levant Company, the Guinea Company, the Morocco Company, the Eastland Company, the Spanish Company, and the East India Company, the last-mentioned being the most powerful of them all."

C. Gross, The Gild Merchant, pages 148-156.

MERCHANT GUILD.

See GUILDS, MEDIÆVAL.

MERCHANT TAYLORS' SCHOOL.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES—ENGLAND.

MERCIA, The Kingdom of.

A kingdom formed at the close of the 6th century by the West Angles, on the Welsh border, or March. The people who formed it had acquired the name of Men of the March, from which they came to be called Mercians, and their kingdom Mercia. In the next century, under King Penda, its territory and its power were greatly extended, at the expense of Northumbria.

J. R. Green, The Making of England.

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 547-633.

{2154}

MERCY FOR THE REDEMPTION OF CHRISTIAN CAPTIVES, The Order of.

"For the institution of this godlike order, the Christian world was indebted to Pope Innocent III., at the close of the 12th century. … The exertions of the order were soon crowned with success. One third of its revenues was appropriated to the objects of its foundation, and thousands groaning in slavery were restored to their country. … The order … met with so much encouragement that, in the time of Alberic, the monk (who wrote about forty years after its institution), the number of monastic houses amounted to 600, most of which were situated in France, Lombardy and Spain."

S. A. Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, book 3, section 3, chapter 4 (volume 4).

MERGENTHEIM, Battle of (1645).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1640-1645.

----------MERIDA: Start--------

MERIDA, Origin of.

See EMERITA AUGUSTA.

MERIDA: A. D. 712. Siege and capture by the Arab-Moors.

See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713.

----------MERIDA: End--------

MERIDIAN, Mississippi, Sherman's Raid to.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-APRIL: TENNESSEE-MISSISSIPPI).

MERMNADÆ, The. The third dynasty of the kings of Lydia, beginning with Gyges and ending with Crœsus.

M. Duncker, History of Antiquity, book 4, chapter 17 (volume 3).

MEROË, The Kingdom of.

See ETHIOPIA.

MEROM, Battle of.

The final great victory won by Joshua in the conquest of Canaan, over the Canaanite and Amorite kings, under Jabin, king of Hazor, who seems to have been a kind of over-king or chieftain among them.

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 12 (volume 1).

MEROVINGIANS, The.

See FRANKS: A. D. 448-456; and 511-752.

MERRIMAC AND MONITOR, Battle of the.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH).

MERRYMOUNT.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1622-1628.

MERTÆ, The.

See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES.

MERTON, Statutes of.

A body of laws enacted at a Great Council held at Merton, in England, under Henry III., A. D. 1236, which marks an important advance made in the development of constitutional legislation.

G. W. Prothero, Simon de Montfort.

MERU.

See MERV.

----------MERV: Start--------

MERV, OR MERU: A. D. 1221. Destruction by Jingis Khan.

In the merciless march through Central Asia of the awful Mongol horde set in motion by Jingis Khan, the great city of Meru (modern Merv) was reached in the autumn of A. D. 1220. This was "Meru Shahjan, i. e., Meru the king of the world, one of the four chief cities of Khorassan, and one of the oldest cities of the world. It had been the capital of the great Seljuk Sultans Melikshah and Sanjar, and was very rich and populous. It was situated on the banks of the Meri el rond, also called the Murjab. … The siege commenced on the 25th of February, 1221. The governor of the town … sent a venerable imam as an envoy to the Mongol camp. He returned with such fair promises that the governor himself repaired to the camp, and was loaded with presents; he was asked to send for his chief relations and friends; when these were fairly in his power, Tulni [one of the sons of Jingis Khan] ordered them all, including the governor, to be killed. The Mongols then entered the town, the inhabitants were ordered to evacuate it with their treasures; the mournful procession, we are told, took four days to defile out. … A general and frightful massacre ensued; only 400 artisans and a certain number of young people were reserved as slaves. The author of the 'Jhankushai' says that the Seyid Yzz-ud-din, a man renowned for his virtues and piety, assisted by many people, were thirteen days in counting the corpses, which numbered 1,300,000. Ibn al Ethir says that 700,000 corpses were counted. The town was sacked, the mausolemn of the Sultan Sanjar was rifled and then burnt, and the walls and citadel of Meru levelled with the ground."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, volume 1, page 87.

See, also, KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221.

MERV, OR MERU: A. D. 1884. Russian occupation.

See RUSSIA. A. D. 1869-1881.

----------MERV: End--------

MERWAN I., Caliph, A. D. 683-684.

Merwan II., Caliph, 744-750.

MERWING.

One of the forms given to the name of the royal family of the Franks, established in power by Clovis, and more commonly known as the Merovingian Family.

MÉRY, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

MESCHIANZA, MISCHIANZA, The.

See PHILADELPHIA: A. D. 1777-1778.

MESOPOTAMIA.

"Between the outer limits of the Syro-Arabian desert and the foot of the great mountain-range of Kurdistan and Luristan intervenes a territory long famous in the world's history, and the chief site of three out of the five empires of whose history, geography, and antiquities it is proposed to treat in the present volumes. Known to the Jews as Aram-Naharaim, or 'Syria of the two rivers'; to the Greeks and Romans as Mesopotamia, or 'the between-river country'; to the Arabs as Al-Jezireh, or, 'the island,' this district has always taken its name from the streams [the Tigris and Euphrates] which constitute its most striking feature."

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Chaldœa, chapter 1.

MESSALINA, The infamies of.

See ROME: A. D. 47-54.

MESSANA.

See MESSENE.

MESSAPIANS, The.

See ŒNOTRIANS.

----------MESSENE: Start--------

MESSENE, in Peloponnesus: B. C. 369. The founding of the city. Restoration of the enslaved Messenians.

See MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD; also, GREECE: B. C. 371-362.

MESSENE: B. C. 338. Territories restored by Philip of Macedon.

See GREECE; B. C. 357-336.

MESSENE: B. C. 184. Revolt from the Achæan League.

A faction in Messene which was hostile to the Achæan League having gained the ascendancy, B. C. 184, declared its secession from the League. Philopœmen, the chief of the League, proceeded at once with a small force to reduce the Messenians to obedience, but was taken prisoner and was foully executed by his enemies. Bishop Thirlwall pronounced him "the last great man whom Greece produced." The death of Philopœmen was speedily avenged on those who caused it and Messene was recovered to the League.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 65.

ALSO IN: Plutarch, Philopœmen.

{2155}

MESSENE (MODERN MESSINA), in Sicily. The founding of the city.

"Zancle was originally colonised by pirates who came from Cyme the Chalcidian city in Opicia. … Zancle was the original name of the place, a name given by the Sicels because the site was in shape like a sickle, for which the Sicel word is Zanclon. These earlier settlers were afterwards driven out by the Samians and other Ionians, who when they fled from the Persians found their way to Sicily. Not long afterwards Anaxilas, the tyrant of Rhegium, drove out these Samians. He then repeopled their city with a mixed multitude, and called the place Messene, after his native country."

Thucydides, History, translated by Jowett, book 6, section 4.

MESSENE: B. C. 396. Destruction by the Carthaginians.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 397-396.

MESSENE: B. C. 264. The Mamertines.

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

MESSINA: A. D. 1849. Bombardment and capture by King Ferdinand.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

----------MESSENIAN WARS: Start--------

MESSENIAN WARS, The First and Second.

The Spartans were engaged in two successive wars with their neighbors of Messenia, whose territory, adjoining their own in the southwestern extremity of Peloponnesus, was rich, prosperous and covetable. "It was unavoidable that the Spartans should look down with envy from their bare rocky ridges into the prosperous land of their neighbours and the terraces close by, descending to the river, with their well-cultivated plantations of oil and wine. Besides, the Dorians who had immigrated into Messenia had, under the influence of the native population and of a life of comfortable ease, lost their primitive character. Messenia seemed like a piece of Arcadia, with which it was most intimately connected. … Hence this was no war of Dorians against Dorians; it rather seemed to be Sparta's mission to make good the failure of the Dorization of Messenia which had sunk back into Pelasgic conditions of life, and to unite with herself the remains of the Dorian people still surviving there. In short, a variety of motives contributed to provoke a forcible extension of Spartan military power on this particular side."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

The First Messenian War was commenced B. C. 745 and lasted twenty years, ending in the complete subjugation of the Messenians, who were reduced to a state of servitude like that of the Helots of Sparta. After enduring the oppression for thirty-nine years, the Messenians rose in revolt against their Spartan masters, B. C. 685. The leader and great hero of this Second Messenian War was Aristomenes, whose renown became so great in the despairing struggle that the latter was called among the ancients the Aristomnean War. But all the valor and self-sacrifice of the unhappy Messenians availed nothing. They gave up the contest, B. C. 668; large numbers of them escaped to other lands and those who remained were reduced to a more wretched condition than before.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 9.

See, also, SPARTA: B. C. 743-510.

MESSENIAN WARS: The Third.

"The whole of Laconia [E. C. 464] was shaken by an earthquake, which opened great chasms in the ground, and rolled down huge masses from the highest peaks of Taygetus: Sparta itself became a heap of ruins, in which not more than five houses are said to have been left standing. More than 20,000 persons were believed to have been destroyed by the shock, and the flower of the Spartan youth was overwhelmed by the fall of the buildings in which they were exercising themselves at the time."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 17.

The Helots of Sparta, especially those who were descended from the enslaved Messenians, took advantage of the confusion produced by the earthquake, to rise in revolt. Having secured possession of Ithome, they fortified themselves in the town and withstood there a siege of ten years,—sometimes called the Third Messenian War. The Spartans invited the Athenians to aid them in the siege, but soon grew jealous of their allies and dismissed them with some rudeness. This was one of the prime causes of the animosity between Athens and Sparta which afterward flamed out in the Peloponnesian War. In the end, the Messenians at Ithome capitulated and were allowed to quit the country; whereupon the Athenians settled them at Naupactus, on the Corinthian gulf, and so gained an ardent ally, in an important situation.

Thucydides, History, book 1, sections 101-103.

Nearly one hundred years later (B. C. 369) when Thebes, under Epaminondas, rose to power in Greece and Sparta was humiliated, it was one of the measures of the Theban statesman to found at Ithome an important city which he named Messene, into which the long oppressed Messenians were gathered, from slavery and from exile, and were organized in a state once more, free and independent.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 39.

ALSO IN: G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 78.

----------MESSENIAN WARS: End----------

MESSIDOR, The month,

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (OCTOBER) THE NEW REPUBLICAN CALENDAR.

MESTIZO. MULATTO.

A half-breed person in Peru, born of a white father and an Indian mother, is called a Mestizo. One born of a white father and a negro mother is called a mulatto.

J. J. Von Tschudi, Travels in Peru, chapter 5.

METAPONTIUM.

See SIRIS.

METAURUS, Battle of the.

See PUNIC WAR, THE SECOND.

METAURUS, Defeat of the Alemanni.

See ALEMANNI: A. D. 270.

MÉTAYERS.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789.

METEMNEH, Battle of(1885).

See EGYPT: A. D. 1884-1885.

METHODISTS: Origin of the Religious Denomination.

"The term Methodist was a college nickname bestowed upon a small society of students at Oxford who met together between 1729 and 1735 for the purpose of mutual improvement. They were accustomed to communicate every week, to fast regularly on Wednesdays and Fridays, and on most days during Lent; to read and discuss the Bible in common, to abstain from most forms of amusement and luxury, and to visit sick persons and prisoners in the gaol. John Wesley, the master-spirit of this society, and the future leader of the religious revival of the eighteenth century, was born in 1703, and was the second surviving son of Samuel Wesley, the Rector of Epworth, in Lincolnshire. … The society hardly numbered more than fifteen members, and was the object of much ridicule at the university; but it included some men who afterwards played considerable parts in the world. {2156} Among them was Charles, the younger brother of John Wesley, whose hymns became the favourite poetry of the sect, and whose gentler, more submissive, and more amiable character, though less fitted than that of his brother for the great conflicts of public life, was very useful in moderating the movement, and in drawing converts to it by personal influence. Charles Wesley appears to have been the first to originate the society at Oxford; he brought Whitefield into its pale, and besides being the most popular poet he was one of the most persuasive preachers of the movement. There, too, was James Hervey, who became one of the earliest links connecting Methodism with general literature."

W. E. H. Lecky, History of England in the 18th Century, chapter 9 (volume 2).

METHUEN, Rout of.

The first Scotch army assembled by Robert Bruce after he had been crowned king of Scotland, was surprised and routed by Aymer de Valence, June 26, 1306.

C. H. Pearson, History of England during the Early and Middle Ages, volume 2, chapter 14.

METHUEN TREATY, The.

See PORTUGAL: A. D. 1703; and SPAIN: A. D. 1703-1704.

METÖACS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

METŒCI.

"Resident aliens, or Metœci, are non-citizens possessed of personal freedom, and settled in Attica. Their number, in the flourishing periods of the State, might amount to 45,000, and therefore was about half that of the citizens."

G. F. Schömann, Antiquity of Greece: The State, part 3, chapter 3, section 2.

METON, The year of.

"Hitherto [before the age of Pericles] the Athenians had only had the Octaëteris, i. e., the period of eight years, of which three were composed of thirteen months, in order thus to make the lunar years correspond to the solar. But as eight such solar years still amount to something short of 99 lunar months, this cycle was insufficient for its purpose. … Meton and his associates calculated that a more correct adjustment might be obtained within a cycle of 6,940 days. These made up 235 months, which formed a cycle of 19 years; and this was the so-called 'Great Year,' or 'Year of Meton.'"

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2).

METRETES, The.

See EPHAH.

METROPOLITANS.

See PRIMATES.

METROPOTAMIA, The proposed State of.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1784.

METTERNICH, The governing system of.

See HOLY ALLIANCE.

----------METZ: Start--------

METZ: Original names.

The Gallic town of Divodurum acquired later the name of Mediomatrici, which modern tongues have changed to Metz.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 34, foot-note.

METZ: A. D. 451. Destruction by the Huns.

See HUNS: A. D. 451.

METZ: A. D. 511-752. The Austrasian capital.

See FRANKS: A. D. 511-752.

METZ: A. D. 1552-1559. Treacherous occupation by the French. Siege by Charles V. Cession to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

METZ: A. D. 1648. Ceded to France in the Peace of Westphalia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

METZ: A. D. 1679-1680. The Chamber of Reannexation.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1679-1681.

METZ: A. D. 1870. The French army of Bazaine enclosed and besieged. The surrender.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (JULY-AUGUST), to (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

METZ: A. D. 1871. Cession to Germany.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1871 (JANUARY-MAY).

----------METZ: End--------

MEXICAN PICTURE-WRITING.

See AZTEC AND MAYA PICTURE-WRITING.

----------MEXICO: Start--------

MEXICO. Ancient: The Maya and Nahua peoples and their civilization.

"Notwithstanding evident marks of similarity in nearly all the manifestations of the progressional spirit in aboriginal America, in art, thought, and religion, there is much reason for and convenience in referring all the native civilization to two branches, the Maya and the Nahua, the former the more ancient, the latter the more recent and wide-spread. … It is only, however, in a very general sense that this classification can be accepted, and then only for practical convenience in elucidating the subject; since there are several nations that must be ranked among our civilized peoples, which, particularly in the matter of language, show no Maya nor Nahua affinities. Nor is too much importance to be attached to the names Maya and Nahua, by which I designate these parallel civilizations. The former is adopted for the reason that the Maya people and tongue are commonly regarded as among the most ancient in all the Central American region, a region where formerly flourished the civilization that left such wonderful remains at Palenque, Uxmal, and Copan; the latter as being an older designation than either Aztec or Toltec, both of which stocks the race Nahua includes. The civilization of what is now the Mexican Republic, north of Tehuantepec, belonged to the Nahua branch, both at the time of the conquest and throughout the historic period preceding. Very few traces of the Maya element occur north of Chiapas, and these are chiefly linguistic, appearing in two or three nations dwelling along the shores of the Mexican gulf. In published works upon the subject the Aztecs are the representatives of the Nahua element; indeed, what is known of the Aztecs has furnished material for nine tenths of all that has been written on the American civilized nations in general. The truth of the matter is that the Aztecs were only the most powerful of a league or confederation of three nations, which in the 16th century, from their capitals in the valley, ruled central Mexico."

H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2, chapter 2.

"The evidence … has pointed—with varying force, but with great uniformity of direction—towards the Central or Usumacinta region [Central America], not necessarily as the original cradle of American civilization, but as the most ancient home to which it can be traced by traditional, monumental, and linguistic records. … {2157} Throughout several centuries preceding the Christian era, and perhaps one or two centuries following, there flourished in Central America the great Maya empire of the Chanes, Culhuas, or Serpents, known to its foes as Xibalba, with its centre in Chiapas at or near Palenque, and with several allied capitals in the surrounding region. Its first establishment at a remote period was attributed by the people to a being called Votan, who was afterwards worshipped as a god. … From its centre in the Usumacinta region the Votanic power was gradually extended north-westward towards Anáhuac, where its subjects vaguely appear in tradition as Quinames, or giants. It also penetrated northeastward into Yucatan, where Zamná was its reputed founder, and the Cocomes and Itzas probably its subjects. … The Maya empire seems to have been in the height of its prosperity when the rival Nahua power came into prominence, perhaps two or three centuries before Christ. The origin of the new people and of the new institutions is as deeply shrouded in mystery as is that of their predecessors. … The Plumed Serpent, known in different tongues as Quetzalcoatl, Gucumatz, and Cukulcan, was the being who traditionally founded the new order of things. The Nahua power grew up side by side with its Xibalban predecessor, having its capital Tulan apparently in Chiapas. Like the Maya power, it was not confined to its original home, but was borne … towards Anáhuac. … The struggle on the part of the Xibalbans seems to have been that of an old effete monarchy against a young and progressive people. Whatever its cause, the result of the conquest was the overthrow of the Votanic monarchs at a date which may be approximately fixed within a century before or after the beginning of our era. From that time the ancient empire disappears from traditional history. … Respecting the ensuing period of Nahua greatness in Central America nothing is recorded save that it ended in revolt, disaster, and a general scattering of the tribes at some period probably preceding the 5th century. The national names that appear in connection with the closing struggles are the Toltecs, Chichimecs, Quichés, Nonohualcas, and Tutul Xius, none of them apparently identical with the Xibalbans. … Of the tribes that were successively defeated and forced to seek new homes, those that spoke the Maya dialects, although considering themselves Nahuas, seem to have settled chiefly in the south and east. Some of them afterwards rose to great prominence in Guatemala and Yucatan. … The Nahua-speaking tribes as a rule established themselves in Anáhuac and in the western and north-western parts of Mexico. … The valley of Mexico and the country immediately adjoining soon became the centre of the Nahuas in Mexico."

H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 5, chapter 3.

See, also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MAYAS; and AZTEC AND MAYA PICTURE-WRITING.

MEXICO: Ancient: The Toltec empire and civilization. Are they mythical?

"The old-time story, how the Toltecs in the 6th century appeared on the Mexican table-land, how they were driven out and scattered in the 11th century, how after a brief interval the Chichimecs followed their footsteps, and how these last were succeeded by the Aztecs who were found in possession,—the last two, and probably the first, migrating in immense hordes from the far north-west,—all this is sufficiently familiar to readers of Mexican history, and is furthermore fully set forth in the 5th volume of this work. It is probable, however, that this account, accurate to a certain degree, has been by many writers too literally construed; since the once popular theory of wholesale national migrations of American peoples within historic times, and particularly of such migrations from the northwest, may now be regarded as practically unfounded. The 6th century is the most remote period to which we are carried in the annals of Anáhuac by traditions sufficiently definite to be considered in any proper sense as historic records. … At the opening … of the historic times, we find the Toltecs in possession of Anáhuac and the surrounding country. Though the civilization was old, the name was new, derived probably, although not so regarded by all, from Tollan, a capital city of the empire, but afterward becoming synonymous with all that is excellent in art and high culture. Tradition imputes to the Toltecs a higher civilization than that found among the Aztecs, who had degenerated with the growth of the warlike spirit, and especially by the introduction of more cruel and sanguinary religious rites. But this superiority, in some respects not improbable, rests on no very strong evidence, since this people left no relics of that artistic skill which gave them so great traditional fame; there is, however, much reason to ascribe the construction of the pyramids at Teotihuacan and Cholula to the Toltec or a still earlier period. Among the civilized peoples of the 16th century, however, and among their descendants down to the present day, nearly every ancient relic of architecture or sculpture is accredited to the Toltecs, from whom all claim descent. … So confusing has been the effect of this universal reference of all traditional events to a Toltec source, that, while we can not doubt the actual existence of this great empire, the details of its history, into which the supernatural so largely enters, must be regarded as to a great extent mythical. There are no data for fixing accurately the bounds of the Toltec domain, particularly in the south. There is very little, however, to indicate that it was more extensive in this direction than that of the Aztecs in later times, although it seems to have extended somewhat farther northward. On the west there is some evidence that it included the territory of Michoacan, never subdued by the Aztecs; and it probably stretched eastward to the Atlantic. … During the most flourishing period of its traditional five centuries of duration, the Toltec empire was ruled by a confederacy, similar in some respects to the alliance of later date between Mexico, Tezcuco and Tlacopan. The capitals were Culhuacan, Otompan, and Tollan, the two former corresponding somewhat in territory with Mexico and Tezcuco, while the latter was just beyond the limits of the valley toward the north-west. Each of these capital cities became in turn the leading power in the confederacy. Tollan reached the highest eminence in culture, splendor, and fame, and Culhuacan was the only one of the three to survive by name the bloody convulsions by which the empire was at last overthrown, and retain anything of her former greatness. Long-continued civil wars, arising chiefly from dissensions between rival religious factions, … gradually undermine the imperial thrones. … So the kings of Tollan, Culhuacan, and Otompan, lose, year by year, their prestige, and finally, in the middle of the 11th century, are completely overthrown, leaving the Mexican tableland to be ruled by new combinations of rising powers."

H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2, chapter 2.

{2158}

"Long before the Aztecs, a Toltec tribe called the Acolhuas, or Culhuas, had settled in the valley of Mexico. The name is more ancient than that of Toltec, and the Mexican civilization might perhaps as appropriately be called Culhua as Nahua. The name is interpreted 'crooked' from coloa, bend; also 'grandfather' from colli. Colhuacan might therefore signify Land of Our Ancestors."

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 4, page 23, foot-note.

"The most venerable traditions of the Maya race claimed for them a migration from 'Tollan in Zuyva.' … This Tollan is certainly none other than the abode of Quetzalcoatl. … The cities which selected him as their tutelary deity were named for that which he was supposed to have ruled over. Thus we have Tollan and Tollantzinco ('behind Tollan') in the Valley of Mexico, and the pyramid Cholula was called 'Tollan-Cholollan,' as well as many other Tollans and Tulas among the Nahuatl colonies. The natives of the city of Tula were called, from its name, Tolteca, which simply means 'those who dwell in Tollan.' And who, let us ask, were these Toltecs? They have hovered about the dawn of American history long enough. To them have been attributed not only the primitive culture of Central America and Mexico, but of lands far to the north, and even the earthworks of the Ohio Valley. It is time they were assigned their proper place, and that is among the purely fabulous creations of the imagination, among the giants and fairies, the gnomes and sylphs, and other such fancied beings which in all ages and nations the popular mind has loved to create. Toltec, Toltecatl, which in later days came to mean a skilled craftsman or artificer, signifies, as I have said, an inhabitant of Tollan—of the City of the Sun—in other words, a Child of Light. … In some, and these I consider the original versions of the myth, they do not constitute a nation at all, but are merely the disciples or servants of Quetzalcoatl. They have all the traits of beings of supernatural powers."

D. G. Brinton, American Hero-Myths, chapter 3, section 3.

ALSO IN: D. G. Brinton, Essays of an Americanist, pages 83-100.

A recent totally contrary view, in which the Toltecs are fully accepted and modernized, is presented by M. Charnay.

D. Charnay, Ancient Cities of the New World.

MEXICO: A. D. 1325-1502. The Aztec period. The so called empire of Montezuma.

"The new era succeeding the Toltec rule is that of the Chichimec empire, which endured with some variations down to the coming of Cortes. The ordinary version of the early annals has it, that the Chichimecs, a wild tribe living far in the north-west, learning that the fertile regions of Central Mexico had been abandoned by the Toltecs, came down in immense hordes to occupy the land. … The name Chichimec at the time of the Spanish conquest, and subsequently, was used with two significations, first, as applied to the line of kings that reigned at Tezcuco, and second, to all the wild hunting tribes, particularly in the broad and little-known regions of the north. Traditionally or historically, the name has been applied to nearly every people mentioned in the ancient history of America. This has caused the greatest confusion among writers on the subject, a confusion which I believe can only be cleared up by the supposition that the name Chichimec, like that of Toltec, never was applied as a tribal or national designation proper to any people, while such people were living. It seems probable that among the Nahua peoples that occupied the country from the 6th to the 11th centuries, a few of the leading powers appropriated to themselves the title Toltecs, which had been at first employed by the inhabitants of Tollan, whose artistic excellence soon rendered it a designation of honor. To the other Nahua peoples, by whom these leading powers were surrounded, whose institutions were identical, but whose polish and elegance of manner were deemed by these self-constituted aristocrats somewhat inferior, the term Chichimecs, barbarians, etymologically 'dogs,' was applied. After the convulsions that overthrew Tollan, and reversed the condition of the Nahua nations, the 'dogs' in their turn assumed an air of superiority and retained their designation, Chichimecs, as a title of honor and nobility."

H. H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2, chapter 2.

"We may suppose the 'Toltec period' in Mexican tradition to have been simply the period when the pueblo-town of Tollan was flourishing, and domineered most likely over neighbouring pueblos. One might thus speak it as one would speak of the 'Theban period' in Greek history. After the 'Toltec period,' with perhaps an intervening 'Chichimec period' of confusion, came the 'Aztec period;' or, in other words, some time after Tollan lost its importance, the city of Mexico came to the front. Such, I suspect, is the slender historical residuum underlying the legend of a 'Toltec empire.' The Codex Ramirez assigns the year 1168 as the date of the abandonment of the Serpent Hill by the people of Tollan. We begin to leave this twilight of legend when we meet the Aztecs already encamped in the Valley of Mexico. Finding the most obviously eligible sites preoccupied, they were sagacious enough to detect the advantages of a certain marshy spot through which the outlets of lakes Chalco and Xochimilco, besides sundry rivulets, flowed northward and eastward into Lake Tezcuco. Here in the year 1325 they began to build their pueblo, which they called Tenochtitlan,—a name whereby hangs a tale. When the Aztecs, hard pressed by foes, took refuge among these marshes, they came upon a sacrificial stone which they recognized as one upon which some years before one of their priests had immolated a captive chief. From a crevice in this stone, where a little earth was imbedded, there grew a cactus, upon which sat an eagle holding in its beak a serpent. A priest ingeniously interpreted this symbolism as a prophecy of signal and long-continued victory, and forthwith diving into the lake he had an interview with Tlaloc, the god of waters, who told him that upon that very spot the people were to build their town. The place was therefore called Tenochtitlan, or 'place of the cactus-rock,' but the name under which it afterward came to be best known was taken from Mexitl, one of the names of the war-god Huitzilopochtli. The device of the rock and cactus, with the eagle and serpent, formed a tribal totem for the Aztecs, and has been adopted as the coat-of-arms of the present Republic of Mexico.

{2159}

The pueblo of Tenochtitlan was surrounded by salt marshes; which by dint of dikes and causeways the Aztecs gradually converted into a large artificial lake, and thus made their pueblo by far the most defensible stronghold in Anahuac,— impregnable, indeed, so far as Indian modes of attack were concerned. The advantages of this commanding position were slowly but surely realized. A dangerous neighbour upon the western shore of the lake was the tribe of Tecpanecas, whose principal pueblo was Azcaputzalco. The Aztecs succeeded in making an alliance with these Tecpanecas, but it was upon unfavourable terms and involved the payment of tribute to Azcaputzalco. It gave the Aztecs, however, some time to develop their strength. Their military organization was gradually perfected, and in 1375 they elected their first tlacatecuhtli, or 'chief-of-men,' whom European writers, in the loose phraseology formerly current, called 'founder of the Mexican empire.' The name of this official was Acamapichtli, or 'Handful-of-Reeds.' During the eight-and-twenty years of his chieftancy the pueblo houses in Tenochtitlan began to be built very solidly of stone, and the irregular water-courses flowing between them were improved into canals. Some months after his death in 1403 his son Huitzilihuitl, or 'Humming-bird,' was chosen to succeed him. This Huitzilihuitl was succeeded in 1414 by his brother Chimalpopoca, or 'Smoking Shield,' under whom temporary calamity visited the Aztec town. The alliance with Azcaputzalco was broken, and that pueblo joined its forces to those of Tezcuco on the eastern shore of the lake. United they attacked the Aztecs, defeated them, and captured their chief-of-men, who died a prisoner in 1427. He was succeeded by Izcoatzin, or 'Obsidian Snake,' an aged chieftain who died in 1436. During these nine years a complete change came over the scene. Quarrels arose between Azcaputzalco and Tezcuco; the latter pueblo entered into alliance with Tenochtitlan, and together they overwhelmed and destroyed Azcaputzalco, and butchered most of its people. What was left of the conquered pueblo was made a slave mart for the Aztecs, and the remnant of the people were removed to the neighbouring pueblo of Tlacopan, which was made tributary to Mexico. By this great victory the Aztecs also acquired secure control of the springs upon Chepultepec, or 'Grasshopper Hill,' which furnished a steady supply of fresh water to their island pueblo. The next step was the formation of a partnership between the three pueblo towns, Tenochtitlan, Tezcuco, and Tlacopan, for the organized and systematic plunder of other pueblos. All the tribute or spoils extorted was to be divided into five parts, of which two parts each were for Tezcuco and Tenochtitlan, and one part for Tlacopan. The Aztec chief-of-men became military commander of the confederacy, which now' began to extend operations to a distance. The next four chiefs-of-men were Montezuma, or 'Angry Chief,' the First, from 1436 to 1464; Axayacatl, or 'Face-in-the-Water,' from 1464 to 1477; Tizoc, or 'Wounded Leg,' from 1477 to 1486; and Ahuizotl, or 'Water-Rat,' from 1486 to 1502. Under these chiefs the great temple of Mexico was completed, and the aqueduct from Chepultepec was increased in capacity until it not only supplied water for ordinary uses, but could also be made to maintain the level of the canals and the lake. In the driest seasons, therefore, Tenochtitlan remained safe from attack. Forth from this well-protected lair the Aztec warriors went on their errands of blood. Thirty or more pueblo towns, mostly between Tenochtitlan and the Gulf coast, scattered over an area about the size of Massachusetts, were made tributary to the Confederacy; and as all these communities spoke the Nahua language, this process of conquest, if it had not been cut short by the Spaniards, might in course of time have ended in the formation of a primitive kind of state. This tributary area formed but a very small portion of the country which we call Mexico. If the reader will just look at a map of the Republic of Mexico in a modern atlas, and observe that the states of Queretaro, Guanaxuato, Michoacan, Guerrero, and a good part of La Puebla, lie outside the region sometimes absurdly styled 'Montezuma's Empire,' and surround three sides of it, he will begin to put himself into the proper state of mind for appreciating the history of Cortes and his companions. Into the outlying region just mentioned, occupied by tribes for the most part akin to the Nahuas in blood and speech, the warriors of the Confederacy sometimes ventured, with varying fortunes. They levied occasional tribute among the pueblos in these regions, but hardly made any of them regularly tributary. The longest range of their arms seems to have been to the eastward, where they sent their tax-gatherers along the coast into the isthmus of Tehuantepec, and came into conflict with the warlike Mayas and Quiches. … Such was, in general outline, what we may call the political situation in the time of the son of Axayacatl, the second Montezuma, who was elected chief-of-men in 1502, being then thirty-four years of age."

J. Fiske, The Discovery of America, chapter 8 (volume 2).

MEXICO: A. D. 1517-1518. First found by the Spaniards.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1517-1518.

MEXICO: A. D. 1519 (February-April). The coming of Cortes and the Spaniards.

Some time in the latter part of the year 1517, the Spaniards in Cuba had acquired definite knowledge of a much civilized people who inhabited "terra firma" to the west of them, by the return of Hernandez de Cordova from his involuntary voyage to Yucatan (see AMERICA: A. D. 1157-1518). In the spring of 1518 the Cuban governor, Velasquez, had enlarged that knowledge by sending an expedition under Grijalva to the Mexican coast, and, even before Grijalva returned, he had begun preparations for a more serious undertaking of conquest and occupation in the rich country newly found. For the command of this second armament he selected Hernando Cortes, one of the boldest and most ambitious of the adventurers who had helped to subdue and settle the island of Cuba. Before the fleet sailed, however, a jealous distrust of his lieutenant had become excited by some cause in the governor's mind, and he attempted to supersede him in the command, Cortes slipped out of port, half prepared as he was for the voyage, defied the orders of his superior, and made his way (February, 1519) to the scene of his future conquests, actually as a rebel against the authority which commissioned him. "The squadron of Cortés was composed of eleven small vessels. {2160} There were 110 sailors, 553 soldiers, of which 13 were armed with muskets, and 32 with arquebuses, the others with swords and pikes only. There were 10 little field-pieces, and 16 horses. Such were the forces with which the bold adventurer set forth to conquer a vast empire, defended by large armies, not without courage, according to the report of Grijalva. But the companions of Cortes were unfamiliar with fear. Cortés followed the same route as Grijalva. … At the Tabasco River, which the Spanish called Rio de Grijalva, because that explorer had discovered it, they had a fight with some natives who resisted their approach. These natives fought bravely, but the fire-arms, and above all the horses, which they conceived to be of one piece with their riders, caused them extreme terror, and the rout was complete. … The native prince, overcome, sent gifts to the conqueror, and, without much knowing the extent of his agreement, acknowledged himself as vassal of the king of Spain, the most powerful monarch of the world." Meantime, tidings of a fresh appearance of the same strange race which had briefly visited the shores of the empire the year before were conveyed to Montezuma, and the king, who had sent envoys to the strangers before, but not quickly enough to find them, resolved to do so again. "The presents prepared for Grijalva, which had reached the shore too late, were, alas! all ready. To these were now added the ornaments used in the decoration of the image of Quetzalcoatl, on days of solemnity, regarded as the most sacred among all the possessions of the royal house of Mexico. Cortés accepted the rôle of Quetzalcoatl and allowed himself to be decorated with the ornaments belonging to that god without hesitation. The populace were convinced that it was their deity really returned to them. A feast was served to the envoys, with the accompaniment of some European wine which they found delicious. … During the feast native painters were busy depicting every thing they saw to be shown to their royal master. … Cortes sent to Montezuma a gilt helmet with the message that he hoped to see it back again filled with gold. … The bearer of this gift and communication, returning swiftly to the court, reported to the monarch that the intention of the stranger was to come at once to the capital of the empire. Montezuma at once assembled a new council of all his great vassals, some of whom urged the reception of Cortés, others his immediate dismissal. The latter view prevailed, and the monarch sent, with more presents to the unknown invader, benevolent but peremptory commands that he should go away immediately. … Meanwhile the Spanish camp was feasting and reposing in huts of cane, with fresh provisions, in great joy after the weariness of their voyage. They accepted with enthusiasm the presents of the emperor, but the treasures which were sent had an entirely different effect from that hoped for by Montezuma; they only inflamed the desire of the Spaniard to have all within his grasp, of which this was but a specimen. It was now that the great mistake in policy was apparent, by which the Aztec chieftain had for years been making enemies all over the country, invading surrounding states, and carrying off prisoners for a horrible death by sacrifice. These welcomed the strangers and encouraged their presence."

S. Hale, The Story of Mexico, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Memoirs, chapter 2-39 (volume 1).

J. Fiske, The Discovery of America, chapter 8 (volume 2).

MEXICO: A. D. 1519 (June-October). The advance of Cortés to Tlascala.

"Meanwhile Cortés, by his craft, quieted a rising faction of the party of Velasquez which demanded to be led back to Cuba. He did this by seeming to acquiesce in the demand of his followers in laying the foundations of a town and constituting its people a municipality competent to choose a representative of the royal authority. This done, Cortés resigned his commission from Velasquez, and was at once invested with supreme power by the new municipality. The scheme which Velasquez had suspected was thus brought to fruition. Whoever resisted the new captain was conquered by force, persuasion, tact, or magnetism; and Cortés became as popular as he was irresistible. At this point messengers presented themselves from tribes not far off who were unwilling subjects of the Aztec power. The presence of possible allies was a propitious circumstance, and Cortés proceeded to cultivate the friendship of these tribes. He moved his camp day by day along the shore, inuring his men to marches, while the fleet sailed in company. They reached a large city [Cempoalla, or Zempoalla, the site of which has not been determined], and were regaled. Each chief told of the tyranny of Montezuma, and the eyes of Cortés glistened. The Spaniards went on to another town, slaves being provided to bear their burdens. Here they found tax-gatherers of Montezuma collecting tribute. Emboldened by Cortés' glance, his hosts seized the Aztec emissaries and delivered them to the Spaniards. Cortés now played a double game. He propitiated the servants of Montezuma by secretly releasing them, and added to his allies by enjoining every tribe he could reach to resist the Aztec collectors of tribute. The wandering municipality, as represented in this piratical army, at last stopped at a harbor where a town (La Villa Rica de Vera Cruz) sprang up, and became the base of future operations." At this point in his movements the adventurer despatched a vessel to Spain, with letters to the king, and with dazzling gifts of gold and Aztec fabrics. "Now came the famous resolve of Cortés. He would band his heterogeneous folk together— adherents of Cortés and of Velasquez—in one common cause and danger. So he adroitly led them to be partners in the deed which he stealthily planned. Hulk after hulk of the apparently worm-eaten vessels of the fleet sank in the harbor, until there was no flotilla left upon which any could desert him. The march to Mexico was now assured. The force with which to accomplish this consisted of about 450 Spaniards, six or seven light guns, fifteen horses, and a swarm of Indian slaves and attendants. A body of the Totonacs accompanied them. Two or three days brought them into the higher plain and its enlivening vegetation. When they reached the dependencies of Montezuma, they found orders had been given to extend to them every courtesy. They soon reached the Anahuac plateau, which reminded them not a little of Spain itself. They passed from cacique to cacique, some of whom groaned under the yoke of the Aztec; but not one dared do more than orders from Montezuma dictated. {2161} Then the invaders approached the territory of an independent people, those of Tlascala, who had walled their country against neighboring enemies. A fight took place at the frontiers, in which the Spaniards lost two horses. They forced passes against great odds, but again lost a horse or two,— which was a perceptible diminution of their power to terrify. The accounts speak of immense hordes of the Tlascalans, which historians now take with allowances, great or small. Cortés spread what alarm he could by burning villages and capturing the country people. His greatest obstacle soon appeared in the compacted army of Tlascalans arrayed in his front. The conflict which ensued was for a while doubtful. Every horse was hurt, and 60 Spaniards were wounded; but the result was the retreat of the Tlascalans. Divining that the Spanish power was derived from the sun, the enemy planned a night attack; but Cortés suspected it, and assaulted them in their own ambush. Cortés now had an opportunity to display his double-facedness and his wiles. He received embassies both from Montezuma and from the senate of the Tlascalans. He cajoled each, and played off his friendship for the one in cementing an alliance with the other. But to Tlascala and Mexico he would go, so he told them. The Tlascalans were not averse, for they thought it boded no good to the Aztecs, if he could be bound to themselves. Montezuma dreaded the contact, and tried to intimidate the strangers by tales of the horrible difficulties of the journey. Presently the army took up its march for Tlascala, where they were royally received, and wives in abundance were bestowed upon the leaders. Next they passed to Cholula, which was subject to the Aztecs."

J. Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 2, chapter 6.

MEXICO: A. D. 1519 (October). The Massacre at Cholula. The march to Mexico.

"The distance from Tlascala to Chololan [or Cholula] is but from 15 to 20 miles. It was a kind of holy place, venerated far and wide in Anahuac; pilgrimages were made thither, as the Mahometans go to Mecca, and Christians to Jerusalem or Rome. The city was consecrated to the worship of Quetzalcoatl, who had there the noblest temple in all Mexico, built, like all the temples in the country, on the summit of a truncated pyramid. The traveller of the present day beholds this pyramid on the horizon as he approaches Puebla, on his route from Vera Cruz to Mexico. But the worship of the beneficent Quetzalcoatl had been perverted by the sombre genius of the Aztecs. To this essentially good deity 6,000 human victims were annually immolated in his temple at Chololan. … The Spaniards found at Chololan an eager and, to all appearance at least, a perfectly cordial welcome." But this hospitality masked, it is said, a great plot for their destruction, which Montezuma had inspired and to aid which he had sent into the neighborhood of the city a powerful Mexican army. The plot was revealed to Cortez—so the Spanish historians relate—and "he took his resolution with his accustomed energy and foresight. He made his dispositions for the very next day. He acquainted the caciques of Chololan that he should evacuate the city at break of dawn, and required them to furnish 2,000 porters or 'tamanes,' for the baggage. The caciques then organized their attack for the morrow morning, not without a promise of the men required, whom, in fact, they brought at dawn to the great court in which the foreigners were domiciled. The conflict soon began. The Spaniards, who were perfectly prepared, commenced by massacring the caciques. The mass of Chololans that attempted to invade their quarters were crushed under the fire of their artillery and musketry, and the charges of their cavalry. Hearing the reports, the Tlascalans, who had been left at the entrance of the city, rushed on to the rescue. … They could now glut their hatred and vengeance; they slaughtered as long as they could, and then set to work at plunder. The Spaniards, too, after having killed all that resisted, betook themselves to pillage. The unfortunate city of Chololan was thus inundated with blood and sacked. Cortez, however, enjoined that the women and children should be spared, and we are assured that in that he was obeyed, even by his cruel auxiliaries from Tlascala. … To the praise of Cortez it must be said that, after the victory, he once more showed himself tolerant: he left the inhabitants at liberty to follow their old religion on condition that they should no longer immolate human victims. After this signal blow, all the threats, all the intrigues, of Montezuma, had no possible effect, and the Aztec emperor could be under no illusion as to the inflexible intention of Cortez. The latter, as soon as he had installed new chiefs at Chololan, and effaced the more hideous traces of the massacre and pillage that had desolated the city, set out with his own troops and his Indian auxiliaries from Tlascala for the capital of the Aztec empire, the magnificent city of Tenochtitlan."

M. Chevalier, Mexico, Ancient and Modern, part 2, chapter 4 (volume 1).

MEXICO: The Capital of Montezuma as described by Cortés and Bernal Diaz.

"This Province is in the form of a circle, surrounded on all sides by lofty and rugged mountains; its level surface comprises an area of about 70 leagues in circumference, including two lakes, that overspread nearly the whole valley, being navigated by boats more than 50 leagues round. One of these lakes contains fresh, and the other, which is the larger of the two, salt water. On one side of the lakes, in the middle of the valley, a range of highlands divides them from one another, with the exception of a narrow strait which lies between the highlands and the lofty Sierras. This strait is a bow-shot wide, and connects the two lakes; and by this means a trade is carried on between the cities and other settlements on the lakes in canoes without the necessity of travelling by land. As the salt lake rises and falls with its tides like the sea, during the time of high water it pours into the other lake with the rapidity of a powerful stream; and on the other hand, when the tide has ebbed, the water runs from the fresh into the salt lake. This great city of Temixtitan [Tenochtitlan—Mexico] is situated in this salt lake, and from the main land to the denser parts of it, by whichever route one chooses to enter, the distance is two leagues. There are four avenues or entrances to the city, all of which are formed by artificial causeways, two spears' length in width. The city is as large as Seville or Cordova; its streets, I speak of the principal ones, are very wide and straight; some of these, and all the inferior ones, are half land and half water, and are navigated by canoes. {2162} All the streets at intervals have openings, through which the water flows, crossing from one street to another; and at these openings, some of which are very wide, there are also very wide bridges, composed of large pieces of timber, of great strength and well put together; on many of these bridges ten horses can go abreast. … This city has many public squares, in which are situated the markets and other places for buying and selling. There is one square twice as large as that of the city of Salamanca, surrounded by porticoes, where are daily assembled more than 60,000 souls, engaged in buying and selling; and where are found all kinds of merchandise that the world affords, embracing the necessaries of life, as for instance articles of food, as well as jewels of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper, tin, precious stones, bones, shells, snails, and feathers. … Every kind of merchandise is sold in a particular street or quarter assigned to it exclusively, and thus the best order is preserved. They sell everything by number or measure; at least so far we have not observed them to sell any thing by weight. There is a building in the great square that is used as an audience house, where ten or twelve persons, who are magistrates, sit and decide all controversies that arise in the market, and order delinquents to be punished. … This great city contains a large number of temples, or houses for their idols, very handsome edifices, which are situated in the different districts and the suburbs. … Among these temples there is one which far surpasses all the rest, whose grandeur of architectural details no human tongue is able to describe; for within its precincts, surrounded by a lofty wall, there is room enough for a town of 500 families. Around the interior of this enclosure there are handsome edifices, containing large halls and corridors, in which the religious persons attached to the temple reside. There are full 40 towers, which are lofty and well built, the largest of which has 50 steps leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principal church at Seville. The stone and wood of which they are constructed are so well wrought in every part that nothing could be better done. … This noble city contains many fine and magnificent houses; which may be accounted for from the fact that all the nobility of the country, who are the vassals of Muteczuma, have houses in the city, in which they reside a certain part of the year; and, besides, there are numerous wealthy citizens who also possess fine houses."

H. Cortés, Despatches [Letters] (translated by G. Folsom), letter 2, chapter 5.

"We had already been four days in the city of Mexico, and neither our commander nor any of us had, during that time, left our quarters, excepting to visit the gardens and buildings adjoining the palace. Cortes now, therefore, determined to view the city, and visit the great market, and the chief temple of Huitzilopochtli. … The moment we arrived in this immense market, we were perfectly astonished at the vast numbers of people, the profusion of merchandise which was there exposed for sale, and at the good police and order that reigned throughout. … Every species of goods which New Spain produces were here to be found; and everything put me in mind of my native town Medina del Campo during fair time, where every merchandise has a separate street assigned for its sale. … On quitting the market, we entered the spacious yards which surround the chief temple. … Motecusuma, who was sacrificing on the top to his idols, sent six papas and two of his principal officers to conduct Cortes up the steps. There were 114 steps to the summit. …Indeed, this infernal temple, from its great height, commanded a view of the whole surrounding neighbourhood. From this place we could likewise see the three causeways which led into Mexico. … We also observed the aqueduct which ran from Chapultepec, and provided the whole town with sweet water. We could also distinctly see the bridges across the openings, by which these causeways were intersected, and through which the waters of the lake ebbed and flowed. The lake itself was crowded with canoes, which were bringing provisions, manufactures and other merchandise to the city. From here we also discovered that the only communication of the houses in this city, and of all the other towns built in the lake, was by means of drawbridges or canoes. In all these towns the beautiful white plastered temples rose above the smaller ones, like so many towers and castles in our Spanish towns, and this, it may be imagined, was a splendid sight."

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Memoirs (translated by Lockhart), chapter 92 (volume 1).

MEXICO: The same as viewed in the light of modern historical criticism.

"In the West India Islands the Spanish discoverers found small Indian tribes under the government of chiefs; but on the continent, in the Valley of Mexico, they found a confederacy of three Indian tribes under a more advanced but similar government. In the midst of the valley was a large pueblo, the largest in America, surrounded with water, approached by causeways; in fine, a water-girt fortress impregnable to Indian assault. This pueblo presented to the Spanish adventurers the extraordinary spectacle of an Indian society lying two ethnical periods back of European society, but with a government and plan of life at once intelligent, orderly, and complete. … The Spanish adventurers who captured the pueblo of Mexico saw a king in Montezuma, lords in Aztec chiefs, and a palace in the large joint-tenement house occupied, Indian fashion, by Montezuma and his fellow-householders. It was, perhaps, an unavoidable self-deception at the time, because they knew nothing of the Aztec social system. Unfortunately it inaugurated American aboriginal history upon a misconception of Indian life which has remained substantially unquestioned until recently. The first eye-witnesses gave the keynote to this history by introducing Montezuma as a king, occupying a palace of great extent crowded with retainers, and situated in the midst of a grand and populous city, over which, and much besides, he was reputed master. But king and kingdom were in time found too common to express all the glory and splendor the imagination was beginning to conceive of Aztec society; and emperor and empire gradually superseded the more humble conception of the conquerors. … To every author, from Cortes and Bernal Diaz to Brasseur de Bourbourg and Hubert H. Bancroft, Indian society was an unfathomable mystery, and their works have left it a mystery still. Ignorant of its structure and principles, and unable to comprehend its peculiarities, they invoked the imagination to supply whatever was necessary to fill out the picture. … {2163} Thus, in this case, we have a grand historical romance, strung upon the conquest of Mexico as upon a thread; the acts of the Spaniards, the pueblo of Mexico, and its capture, are historical, while the descriptions of Indian society and government are imaginary and delusive. … There is a strong probability, from what is known of Indian life and society, that the house in which Montezuma lived, was a joint-tenement house of the aboriginal American model, owned by a large number of related families, and occupied by them in common as joint proprietors; that the dinner [of Montezuma, in his palace, as described by Cortes and Bernal Diaz] … was the usual single daily meal of a communal household, prepared in a common cookhouse from common stores, and divided, Indian fashion, from the kettle; and that all the Spaniards found in Mexico was a simple confederacy of three Indian tribes, the counterpart of which was found in all parts of America. It may be premised further that the Spanish adventurers who thronged to the new world after its discovery found the same race of Red Indians in the West India Islands, in Central and South America, in Florida, and in Mexico. In their mode of life and means of subsistence, in their weapons, arts, usages, and customs, in their institutions, and in their mental and physical characteristics, they were the same people in different stages of advancement. No distinction of race was observed, and none in fact existed. … Not a vestige of the ancient pueblo of Mexico (Tenochtitlan) remains to assist us to a knowledge of its architecture. Its structures, which were useless to a people of European habits, were speedily destroyed to make room for a city adapted to the wants of a civilized race. We must seek for its characteristics in contemporary Indian houses which still remain in ruins, and in such of the early descriptions as have come down to us, and then leave the subject with but little accurate knowledge. Its situation, partly on dry land and partly in the waters of a shallow artificial pond formed by causeways and dikes, led to the formation of streets and squares, which were unusual in Indian pueblos, and gave to it a remarkable appearance. … Many of the houses were large, far beyond the supposable wants of a single Indian family. They were constructed of adobe brick, and of stone, and plastered over in both cases with gypsum, which made them a brilliant white; and some were constructed of a red porous stone. In cutting and dressing this stone flint implements were used. The fact that the houses were plastered externally leads us to infer that they had not learned to dress stone and lay them in courses. It is not certainly established that they had learned the use of a mortar of lime and sand. In the final attack and capture, it is said that Cortes, in the course of seventeen days, destroyed and levelled three-quarters of the pueblo, which demonstrates the flimsy character of the masonry. … It is doubtful whether there was a single pueblo in North America, with the exception of Tlascala, Cholula, Tezcuco, and Mexico, which contained 10,000 inhabitants. There is no occasion to apply the term 'city' to any of them. None of the Spanish descriptions enable us to realize the exact form and structure of these houses, or their relations to each other in forming a pueblo. … It is evident from the citations made that the largest of these joint-tenement houses would accommodate from 500 to 1,000 or more people, living in the fashion of Indians; and that the courts were probably quadrangles, formed by constructing the building on three sides of an inclosed space, as in the New Mexican pueblos, or upon the four sides, as in the House of the Nuns, at Uxmal."

L. H. Morgan, Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines (United States Geographical and Geological Survey of Rocky Mountain Region: Contribution to North American Ethnology, volume 4), chapter 10.

MEXICO: A. D. 1519-1520. Captivity of Montezuma, Cortés ruling in his name. The discomfiture of Narvaez. The revolt of the capital.

When Cortés had time to survey and to realize his position in the Mexican capital, he saw that it was full of extreme danger. To be isolated with so small a force in the midst of any hostile, populous city would be perilous; but in Mexico that peril was immeasurably increased by the peculiar situation and construction of the island-city—Venice-like in its insulation, and connected with the mainland by long and narrow, causeways and bridges, easily broken and difficult to secure for retreat. With characteristic audacity, the Spanish leader mastered the danger of the situation, so to speak, by taking Montezuma himself in pledge for the peace and good behavior of his subjects. Commanded by Cortés to quit his palace, and to take up his residence with the Spaniards in their quarters, the Mexican monarch remonstrated but obeyed, and became from that day the shadow of a king. "During, six months that Cortes remained in Mexico [from November, 1519, until May, 1520], the monarch continued in the Spanish quarters, with an appearance of as entire satisfaction and tranquillity as if he had resided there, not from constraint, but through choice. His ministers and officers attended him as usual. He took cognizance of all affairs; every order was issued in his name. … Such was the dread which both Montezuma and his subjects had of the Spaniards, or such the veneration in which they held them, that no attempt was made to deliver their sovereign from confinement, and though Cortes, relying on this ascendant which he had acquired over their minds, permitted him not only to visit his temples, but to make hunting excursions beyond the lake, a guard of a few Spaniards carried with it such a terrour as to intimidate the multitude, and secure the captive monarch. Thus, by the fortunate temerity of Cortes in seizing Montezuma, the Spaniards at once secured to themselves more extensive authority in the Mexican empire than it was possible to have acquired in a long course of time by open force; and they exercised more absolute sway in the name of another than they could have done in their own. … Cortes availed himself to the utmost of the powers which he possessed by being able to act in the name of Montezuma. He sent some Spaniards, whom he judged best qualified for such commissions, into different parts of the empire, accompanied by persons of distinction, whom Montezuma appointed to attend them both as guides and protectors. They visited most of the provinces, viewed their soil and productions, surveyed with particular care the districts which yielded gold or silver, pitched upon several places as proper stations for future colonies, and endeavoured to prepare the minds of the people for submitting to the Spanish yoke." At the same time, Cortes strengthened his footing in the capital by building and launching two brigantines on the lake, with an equipment and armament which his royal prisoner caused to be brought up for him from Vera Cruz. {2164} He also persuaded Montezuma to acknowledge himself a vassal of the King of Castile, and to subject his kingdom to the payment of an annual tribute. But, while his cunning conquest of an empire was advancing thus prosperously, the astute Spanish captain allowed his prudence to be overridden by his religious zeal. Becoming impatient at the obstinacy with which Montezuma clung to his false gods, Cortes made a rash attempt, with his soldiers, to cast down the idols in the great temple of the city, and to set the image of the Virgin in their place. The sacrilegious outrage roused the Mexicans from their tame submission and fired them with an inextinguishable rage. At this most unfortunate juncture, news came from Vera Cruz which demanded the personal presence of Cortes on the coast. Velasquez, the hostile governor of Cuba, to whom the adventurer in Mexico was a rebel, had sent, at last, an expedition, to put a stop to his unauthorized proceedings and to arrest his person. Cortes faced the new menace as boldly as he had faced all others. Leaving 150 men in the angry Mexican capital, under Pedro de Alvarado, he set out with the small remainder of his force to attack the Spanish intruders. Even after picking up some detachments outside and joining the garrison at Vera Cruz, he could muster but 250 men; while Narvaez, who commanded the expedition from Cuba, had brought 800 foot soldiers and 80 horse, with twelve pieces of cannon. The latter had taken possession of the city of Zempoalla and was strongly posted in one of its temples. There Cortes surprised him, in a night attack, took him prisoner, in a wounded state, and compelled his troops to lay down their arms. Nearly the whole of the latter were soon captivated by the commanding genius of the man they had been sent to arrest, and enlisted in his service. He found himself now at the head of a thousand well armed men; and he found in the same moment that he needed them all. For news came from Mexico that Alvarado, thinking to anticipate and crush a suspected intention of the Mexicans to rise against him, had provoked the revolt and made it desperate by a most perfidious, brutal massacre of several hundred of the chief persons of the empire, committed while they were celebrating one of the festivals of their religion, in the temple. The Spaniards at Mexico were now beleaguered, as the consequence, in their quarters, and their only hope was the hope that Cortes would make haste to their rescue,—which he did.

W. Robertson, History of America, book 5 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 4, chapters 17-23.

MEXICO: A. D. 1520 (JUNE-JULY). The return of Cortes to the Mexican Capital. The battle in the city. The death of Montezuma. The disastrous Retreat of the Spaniards.

The alarming intelligence which came to him from the Mexican capital called out in Cortés the whole energy of his nature. Hastily summoning back the various expeditions he had already sent out, and gathering all his forces together, he "reviewed his men, and found that they amounted to 1,300 soldiers, among whom were 96 horsemen, 80 cross-bowmen, and about 80 musketeers. Cortez marched with great strides to Mexico, and entered the city at the head of this formidable force on the 24th of June, 1520, the day of John the Baptist. Very different was the reception of Cortez on this occasion from that on his first entry into Mexico, when Montezuma had gone forth with all pomp to meet him. Now, the Indians stood silently in the doorways of their houses, and the bridges between the houses were taken up. Even when he arrived at his own quarters he found the gates barred, so strict had been the siege, and he had to demand an entry." The Mexicans, strangely enough, made no attempt to oppose his entrance into the city and his junction with Alvarado; yet the day after his return their attack upon the Spanish quarters, now so strongly reinforced, was renewed. "Cortez, who was not at all given to exaggeration, says that neither the streets nor the terraced roofs ('azoteas') were visible, being entirely obscured by the people who were upon them; that the multitude of stones was so great that it seemed as if it rained stones; and that the arrows came so thickly that the walls and the courts were full of them, rendering it difficult to move about. Cortez made two or three desperate sallies, and was wounded. The Mexicans succeeded in setting fire to the fortress, which was with difficulty subdued, and they would have scaled the walls at the point where the fire had done most damage but for a large force of cross-bowmen, musketeers, and artillery, which Cortez threw forward to meet the danger. The Mexicans at last drew back, leaving no fewer than 80 Spaniards wounded in this first encounter. The ensuing morning, as soon as it was daylight, the attack was renewed. … Again, and with considerable success, Cortez made sallies from the fortress in the course of the day; but at the end of it there were about 60 more of his men to be added to the list of wounded, already large, from the injuries received on the preceding day. The third day was devoted by the ingenious Cortez to making three movable fortresses, called 'mantas,' which, he thought, would enable his men, with less danger, to contend against the Mexicans upon their terraced roofs. … It was on this day that the unfortunate Montezuma, either at the request of Cortez, or of his own accord, came out upon a battlement and addressed the people." He was interrupted by a shower of stones and arrows and received wounds from which he died soon after. The fighting on this day was more desperate than it had been before. The Spaniards undertook to dislodge a body of the Indians who had posted themselves on the summit of the great temple, which was dangerously near at hand. Again and again they were driven back, until Cortez bound his shield to his wounded arm and led the assault. Then, after three hours of fighting, from terrace to terrace, they gained the upper platform and put every Mexican to the sword. But 40 Spaniards perished in the struggle. "This fight in the temple gave a momentary brightness to the arms of the Spaniards and afforded Cortez an opportunity to resume negotiations. But the determination of the Mexicans was fixed and complete. … They would all perish, if that were needful, to gain their point of destroying the Spaniards. They bade Cortez look at the streets, the squares, and the terraces, covered with people; and then, in a business-like and calculating manner, they told him that if 25,000 of them were to die for each Spaniard, still the Spaniards would perish first. … {2165} It generally requires at least as much courage to retreat as to advance. Indeed, few men have the courage and the ready wisdom to retreat in time. But Cortez, once convinced that his position in Mexico was no longer tenable, wasted no time or energy in parleying with danger. Terror had lost its influence with the Mexicans, and superior strategy was of little avail against such overpowering numbers. … Cortez resolved to quit the city that night [July 1, 1520]. … A little before midnight the stealthy march began. The Spaniards succeeded in laying down the pontoon over the first bridge-way, and the vanguard with Sandoval passed over; but, while the rest were passing, the Mexicans gave the alarm with loud shouts and blowing of horns. … Almost immediately upon this alarm the lake was covered with canoes. It rained, and the misfortunes of the night commenced by two horses slipping from the pontoon into the water. Then the Mexicans attacked the pontoon-bearers so furiously that it was impossible for them to raise it up again." After that, all seems to have been a confused struggle in the darkness, where even Cortez could do little for the unfortunate rear-guard of his troops. "This memorable night has ever been celebrated in American history as 'la noche triste.' In this flight from Mexico all the artillery was lost, and there perished 450 Spaniards, … 4,000 of the Indian allies, 46 horses, and most of the Mexican prisoners, including one son and two daughters of Montezuma, and his nephew the King of Tezcuco. A loss which posterity will ever regret was that of the books and accounts, memorials and writings, of which there were some, it is said, that contained a narrative of all that had happened since Cortez left Cuba. … In the annals of retreats there has seldom been one recorded which proved more entirely disastrous."

Sir A. Helps, Spanish Conquest in America, book 10, chapters 7-8 (volume 2).

MEXICO: A. D. 1520-1521. The retreat to Tlascala. Reinforcements and recovery. Cortes in the field again. Preparations to attack Mexico.

"After the disasters and fatigues of the 'noche triste,' the melancholy and broken band of Cortez rested for a day at Tacuba, whilst the Mexicans returned to their capital, probably to bury the dead and purify their city. It is singular, yet it is certain, that they did not follow up their successes by a death blow at the disarmed Spaniards. But this momentary paralysis of their efforts was not to be trusted, and accordingly Cortez began to retreat eastwardly, under the guidance of the Tlascalans, by a circuitous route around the northern limits of lake Zumpango. The flying forces and their auxiliaries were soon in a famishing condition, subsisting alone on corn or on wild cherries gathered in the forest, with occasional refreshment and support from the carcase of a horse that perished by the way. For six days these fragments of the Spanish army continued their weary pilgrimage, and, on the seventh, reached Otumba." At Otumba their progress was barred by a vast army of the Aztecs, which had marched by a shorter road to intercept them; but after a desperate battle the natives fled and the Spaniards were troubled no more until they reached the friendly shelter of Tlascala. The Tlascalans held faithfully to their alliance and received the flying strangers with helpful hands and encouraging words. But many of Cortez' men demanded permission to continue their retreat to Vera Cruz. "Just at this moment, too, Cuitlahua, who mounted the throne of Mexico on the death of Montezuma, despatched a mission to the Tlascalans, proposing to bury the hatchet, and to unite in sweeping the Spaniards from the realm." A hot discussion ensued in the council of the Tlascalan chiefs, which resulted in the rejection of the Mexican proposal, and the confidence of Cortez was restored. He succeeded in pacifying his men, and gave them employment by expeditions against tribes and towns within reach which adhered to the Mexican king. After some time he obtained reinforcements, by an arrival of vessels at Vera Cruz bringing men and supplies, and he began to make serious preparations for the reconquest of the Aztec capital. He "constructed new arms and caused old ones to be repaired; made powder with sulphur obtained from the volcano of Popocatopetl; and, under the direction of his builder, Lopez, prepared the timber for brigantines, which he designed to carry, in pieces, and launch on the lake at the town of Tezcoco. At that port, he resolved to prepare himself fully for the final attack, and, this time, he determined to assault the enemy's capital by water as well as by land." The last day of December found him once more on the shores of the Mexican lake, encamped at Tezcoco, with a Spanish force restored to 600 men in strength, having 40 horses, 80 arquebuses and nine small cannon. Of Indian allies he is said to have had many thousands. Meantime, Cuitlahua had died of smallpox—which came to the country with the Spaniards—and had been succeeded by Guatemozin, his nephew, a vigorous young man of twenty-five. "At Tezcoco, Cortéz was firmly planted on the eastern edge of the valley of Mexico, in full sight of the capital which lay across the lake, near its western shore, at the distance of about twelve miles. Behind him, towards the sea-coast, he commanded the country, … while, by passes through lower spurs of the mountains, he might easily communicate with the valleys of which the Tlascalans and Cholulans were masters." One by one he reduced and destroyed or occupied the neighboring towns, and overran the surrounding country, in expeditions which made the complete circle of the valley and gave him a complete knowledge of it, while they re-established the prestige of the Spaniards and the terror of their arms. On the 28th of April the newly built brigantines, 12 in number, were launched upon the lake, and all was in readiness for an attack upon the city, with forces now increased by fresh arrivals to 87 horse and 818 Spanish infantry, with three iron field pieces and 15 brass falconets.

B. Mayer, Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, book 1, chapters 6-8 (volume 1).

MEXICO: A. D. 1521 (May-July). The siege of the Aztec capital begun.

"The observations which Cortes had made in his late tour of reconnaissance had determined him to begin the siege by distributing his forces into three separate camps, which he proposed to establish at the extremities of the principal causeways," under three of his captains, Alvarado, Olid and Sandoval. The movement of forces from Tezcuco began on the 10th of May, 1521. {2166} Alvarado and Olid occupied Tacuba, cut the aqueduct which conveyed water from Chapoltepec to the capital, and made an unsuccessful attempt to get possession of the fatal causeway of "the noche triste." Holding Tacuba, however, Alvarado commanded that important passage, while Sandoval, seizing the city of Iztapalapan, at the southern extremity of the lake, and Olid, establishing himself near the latter, at Cojohuacan, were planted at the two outlets, it would seem, of another of the causeways, which branched to attain the shore at those two points. When so much had been accomplished, Cortés, in person, set sail with his fleet of brigantines and speedily cleared the lake of all the swarm of light canoes and little vessels with which the unfortunate Mexicans tried vainly though valorously to dispute it with him. "This victory, more complete than even the sanguine temper of Cortés had prognosticated, proved the superiority of the Spaniards, and left them, henceforth, undisputed masters of the Aztec sea. It was nearly dusk when the squadron, coasting along the great southern causeway, anchored off the point of junction, called Xoloc, where the branch from Cojohuacan meets the principal dike. The avenue widened at this point, so as to afford room for two towers, or turreted temples, built of stone, and surrounded by walls of the same material, which presented altogether a position of some strength, and, at the present moment, was garrisoned by a body of Aztecs. They were not numerous; and Cortés, landing with his soldiers, succeeded without much difficulty in dislodging the enemy, and in getting possession of the works." Here, in a most advantageous position on the great causeway, the Spanish commander fortified himself and established his headquarters, summoning Olid with half of his force to join him and transferring Sandoval to Olid's post at Cojohuacan. "The two principal avenues to Mexico, those on the south and the west, were now occupied by the Christians. There still remained a third, the great dike of Tepejacac, on the north, which, indeed, taking up the principal street, that passed in a direct line through the heart of the city, might be regarded as a continuation of the dike of Iztapalapan. By this northern route a means of escape was still left open to the besieged, and they availed themselves of it, at present, to maintain their communications with the country, and to supply themselves with provisions. Alvarado, who observed this from his station at Tacuba, advised his commander of it, and the latter instructed Sandoval to take up his position on the causeway. That officer, though suffering at the time from a severe wound, … hastened to obey; and thus, by shutting up its only communication with the surrounding country, completed the blockade of the capital. But Cortés was not content to wait patiently the effects of a dilatory blockade." He arranged with his subordinate captains the plan of a simultaneous advance along each of the causeways toward the city. From his own post he pushed forward with great success, assisted by the brigantines which sailed along side, and which, by the flanking fire of their artillery, drove the Aztecs from one barricade after another, which they had erected at every dismantled bridge. Fighting their way steadily, the Spaniards traversed the whole length of the dike and entered the city; penetrated to the great square; saw once more their old quarters; scaled again the sides of the pyramid-temple, to slay the bloody priests and to strip the idols of their jewels and gold. But the Aztecs were frenzied by this sacrilege, as they had been frenzied by the same deed before, and renewed the battle with so much fury that the Spaniards were driven back in thorough panic and disarray. "All seemed to be lost;—when suddenly sounds were heard in an adjoining street, like the distant tramp of horses galloping rapidly over the pavement. They drew nearer and nearer, and a body of cavalry soon emerged on the great square. Though but a handful in number, they plunged boldly into the thick of the enemy," who speedily broke and fled, enabling Cortés to withdraw his troops in safety. Neither Alvarado nor Sandoval, who had greater difficulties to overcome, and who had no help from the brigantines, reached the suburbs of the city; but their assault had been vigorously made, and had been of great help to that of Cortés. The success of the demonstration spread consternation among the Mexicans and their vassals, and brought a number of the latter over to the Spanish side. Among these latter was the prince of Tezcuco, who joined Cortés, with a large force, in the next assault which the latter made presently upon the city. Again penetrating to the great square, the Spaniards on this occasion destroyed the palaces there by fire. But the spirit of the Mexicans remained unbroken, and they were found in every encounter opposing as obstinate a resistance as ever. They contrived, too, for a remarkable length of time, to run the blockade of the brigantines on the lake and to bring supplies into the city by their canoes. But, at length, when most of the great towns of the neighborhood had deserted their cause, the supplies failed and starvation began to do its work in the fated city. At the same time, the Spaniards were amply provisioned, and their new allies built barracks and huts for their shelter. Cortés "would gladly have spared the town and its inhabitants. … He intimated more than once, by means of the prisoners whom he released, his willingness to grant them fair terms of capitulation. Day after day, he fully expected his proffers would be accepted. But day after day he was disappointed. He had yet to learn how tenacious was the memory of the Aztecs."

W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, book 6, chapters 4-5.

MEXICO: A. D. 1521 (July). Disastrous repulse of the Spaniards.

"The impatience of the soldiers grew to a great height, and was supported in an official quarter—by no less a person than Alderete, the king's treasurer. Cortez gave way, against his own judgment, to their importunities" and another general attack was ordered. "On the appointed day Cortez moved from his camp, supported by seven brigantines, and by more than 3,000 canoes filled with his Indian allies. When his soldiers reached the entrance of the city, he divided them in the following manner. There were three streets which led to the market-place from the position which the Spaniards had already gained. Along, the principal street, the king's treasurer, with 70 Spaniards and 15,000 or 20,000 allies, was to make his way. His rear was to be protected by a small guard of horsemen. The other two streets were smaller, and led from the street of Tlacuba to the market-place. {2167} Along the broader of these two streets Cortez sent two of his principal captains, with 80 Spaniards and 10,000 Indians; he himself, with eight horsemen, 75 foot-soldiers, 25 musketeers, and an 'infinite number' of allies, was to enter the narrower street. At the entrance to the street of Tlacuba he left two large cannon, with eight horsemen to guard them, and at the entrance of his own street he also left eight horsemen to protect the rear. … The Spaniards and their allies made their entrance into the city with even more success and less embarrassment than on previous occasions. Bridges and barricades were gained, and the three main bodies of the army moved forward into the heart of the city." But in the excitement of their advance they left unrepaired behind them a great breach in the causeway, ten or twelve paces wide, although Cortez had repeatedly enjoined upon his captains that no such dangerous death-trap should be left to catch them in the event of a retreat. The neglect in this case was most disastrous. Being presently repulsed and driven back, the division which had allowed this chasm to yawn behind it was engulfed. Cortez, whose distrust had been excited in some way, discovered the danger, but too late. He made his way to the spot, only to find "the whole aperture so full of Spaniards and Indians that, as he says, there was not room for a straw to float upon the surface of the water. The peril was so imminent that Cortez not only thought that the Conquest of Mexico was gone, but that the term of his life as well as of his victories had come, and he resolved to die there fighting. All that he could do at first was to help his men out of the water; and, meanwhile, the Mexicans charged upon them in such numbers that he and his little party were entirely surrounded. The enemy seized upon his person, and would have carried him off but for the resolute bravery of some of his guard, one of whom lost his life there in succouring his master. … At last he and a few of his men succeeded in fighting their way to the broad street of Tlacuba, where, like a brave captain, instead of continuing his flight, he and the few horsemen who were with him turned round and formed a rear guard to protect his retreating troops. He also sent immediate orders to the king's treasurer and the other commanders to make good their retreat."

Sir A. Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, book 11, book 1 (volume 2).

"As we were thus retreating, we continually heard the large drum beating from the summit of the chief temple of the city. Its tone was mournful indeed, and sounded like the very instrument of Satan. This drum was so vast in its dimensions that it could be heard from eight to twelve miles distance. Every time we heard its mournful sound, the Mexicans, as we subsequently learnt, offered to their idols the bleeding hearts of our unfortunate countrymen. … After we had at last, with excessive toil, crossed a deep opening, and had arrived at our encampment, … the large drum of Huitzilopochtli again resounded from the summit of the temple, accompanied by all the hellish music of shell trumpets, horns, and other instruments. … We could plainly see the platform, with the chapel in which those cursed idols stood; how the Mexicans had adorned the heads of the Spaniards with feathers, and compelled their victims to dance round the god Huitzilopochtli; we saw how they stretched them out at full length on a large stone, ripped open their breasts with flint knives, tore out the palpitating heart and offered it to their idols. Alas! we were forced to be spectators of all this, and how they then seized hold of the dead bodies by the legs and threw them headlong down the steps of the temple, at the bottom of which other executioners stood ready to receive them, who severed the arms, legs, and heads from the bodies, drew the skin off the faces, which were tanned with the beards still adhering to them, and produced as spectacles of mockery and derision at their feasts; the legs, arms, and other parts of the body being cut up and devoured. … On that terrible day the loss of the three divisions amounted to 60 men and 7 horses."

Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Memoirs, chapter 152 (volume 2).

MEXICO: A. D. 1521 (August). The last days of the Siege. The taking of the ruined city. The end of the Aztec dominion.

"Guatemozin's victory diffused immense enthusiasm among the Aztecs and those who remained united to them. The priests proclaimed that the gods, satiated by the sacrifice of the Spanish prisoners, had promised to rid the country of the foreigners, and that the promise would be fulfilled within eight days. This intelligence spread alarm among the allies of the Spaniards. They deserted in great numbers—not to go over to the Aztecs, whose anger they dreaded, but to return to their homes. Cortez had good watch kept in the camp. The sorties of the besieged were repulsed; the eight days passed without the Spaniards having lost more than a few marauders. The allies, seeing that the oracle was wrong, came back to their former friends. The aggressive ardour of the besieged grew cooler, and they soon found themselves assailed by the plagues that ordinarily attack troops massed in a city—not only famine, but epidemic diseases, the result of want and overcrowding. … Famine pinched them more cruelly day after day. Lizards and such rats as they could find were their richest nourishment; reptiles and insects were eagerly looked for, trees stripped of their bark, and roots stealthily sought after by night. Meanwhile, Cortez, seeing that there was no other means of bringing them to submission, pursued the work of destruction he had resolved on with so much regret. … Heaps of bodies were found in every street that was won from them; this people, so punctilious in their customs of sepulture, had ceased to bury their dead. … Soon there was left to the besieged but one quarter, and that the most incommodious of all, forming barely an eighth of the city, where there were not houses enough to give them shelter. … The 13th August, 1521, had now arrived, and that was to be the last day of this once flourishing empire. Before making a final assault, Cortez once more invited the emperor to his presence. His envoys came back with the 'cihuacoatl,' a magistrate of the first rank, who declared, with an air of consternation, that Guatemozin knew how to die, but that he would not come to treat. Then, turning towards Cortez, he added: 'Do now whatever you please.' 'Be it so,' replied Cortez; 'go and tell your friends to prepare; they are going to die.' In fact, the troops advanced; there was a last mêlée, a last carnage, on land and on the lake. … {2168} Guatemozin, driven to the shore of the lake, threw himself into a canoe with a few warriors, and endeavoured to escape by dint of rowing; but he was pursued by a brigantine of the Spanish fleet, taken and brought to Cortez, who received him with the respect due to a crowned head. … The Aztec empire had ceased to exist; Spanish sway was established in Mexico. The Cross was triumphant in that fine country, and there was no sharer in its reign. The number of persons that perished in the siege has been differently estimated. The most moderate calculation puts it at 120,000 on the side of the Aztecs. Very many Indians fell on the side of the besiegers. The historian Ixtlixochitl says there were 30,000 dead of the warriors of Tezcuco alone. All that were left alive of the Aztecs were, at the request of Guatemozin, allowed to leave the city in freedom, on the morning after it was taken. … They dispersed in all directions, everywhere spreading a terror of the Spaniards, and the feeling that to resist them was impossible. That conviction must have been established speedily and firmly, for there was no further attempt at resistance, unless it were at one point, in the territory of Panuco, near the Atlantic Ocean."

M. Chevalier, Mexico, Ancient and Modern, part 2, chapters 8-9 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: H. Cortes, Despatches [Letters] MEXICO, translated by G. Folsom, letter 3, chapter 5.

MEXICO: A. D. 1521-1524. The rebuilding of the capital. The completion and settlement of the Conquest.

"The first ebullition of triumph was succeeded in the army by very different feelings, as they beheld the scanty spoil gleaned from the conquered city;" and Cortés was driven, by the clamors and suspicions of his soldiers, to subject his heroic captive, Guatemozin, to torture, in the hope of wringing from him a disclosure of some concealment of his imagined treasures. Its only result was to add another infamy to the name and memory of the conquerors. "The commander-in-chief, with his little band of Spaniards, now daily recruited by reinforcements from the Islands, still occupied the quarters of Cojohuacan, which they had taken up at the termination of the siege. Cortés did not immediately decide in what quarter of the Valley to establish the new capital which was to take the place of the ancient Tenochtitlan. … At length he decided on retaining the site of the ancient city, … and he made preparations for the reconstruction of the capital on a scale of magnificence which should, in his own language, 'raise her to the rank of Queen of the surrounding provinces, in the same manner as she had been of yore.' The labor was to be performed by the Indian population, drawn from all quarters of the Valley, and including the Mexicans themselves, great numbers of whom still lingered in the neighborhood of their ancient residence. … In less than four years from the destruction of Mexico, a new city had risen on its ruins, which, if inferior to the ancient capital in extent, surpassed it in magnificence and strength. It occupied so exactly the same site as its predecessor that the 'plaza mayor,' or great square, was the same spot which had been covered by the huge 'teocalli' and the palace of Montezuma; while the principal streets took their departure as before from this central point, and, passing through the whole length of the city, terminated at the principal causeways. Great alterations, however, took place in the fashion of the architecture." Meantime, Cortés had been brought into much danger at the Spanish court, by the machinations of his enemies, encouraged by Bishop Fonseca, the same minister who pursued Columbus with hostility. His friends in Spain rallied, however, to his support, and the result of an investigation, undertaken by a board to which the Emperor Charles V. referred all the charges against him, was the confirmation of his acts in Mexico to their full extent. "He was constituted Governor, Captain-General, and Chief Justice of New Spain, with power to appoint to all offices, civil and military, and to order any person to leave the country whose residence there he might deem prejudicial to the interests of the Crown. This judgment of the council was ratified by Charles V., and the commission investing Cortés with these ample powers was signed by the emperor at Valladolid, October 15th, 1522. … The attention of Cortés was not confined to the capital. He was careful to establish settlements in every part of the country which afforded a favourable position for them. … While thus occupied with the internal economy of the country, Cortés was still bent on his great schemes of discovery and conquest." He fitted out a fleet to explore the shores of the Pacific, and another in the Gulf of Mexico—the prime object of both being the discovery of some strait that would open one ocean to the other. He also sent Olid in command of an expedition by sea to occupy and colonize Honduras, and Alvarado, by land, at the head of a large force, to subdue Guatemala. The former, having partly accomplished his mission, attempted to establish for himself an independent jurisdiction, and his conduct induced Cortés to proceed to Honduras in person. It was in the course of this expedition that Guatemozin, the dethroned Mexican chief, who had been forced to accompany his conqueror, was accused of a plot against the Spaniards and was hung to a tree. 'We have the testimony of Bernal Diaz, one of the Spaniards on the spot, that the execution "was most unjust, and was thought wrong by all of us." "Within three short years after the Conquest [Cortés] had reduced under the dominion of Castile an extent of country more than 400 leagues in length, as he affirms, on the Atlantic coast, and more than 500 on the Pacific; and, with the exception of a few interior provinces of no great importance, had brought them to a condition of entire tranquillity."

W. H. Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, book 7, chapters 1-3.

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 5 (Mexico, volume 2), chapters 1-8.

MEXICO: A. D. 1535-1540. Introduction of Printing.

See PRINTING, &C: A. D. 1535—1709.

MEXICO: A. D. 1535-1822. Under the Spanish viceroys.

"Antonio de Mendoza, Conde de Tendilla, was the first viceroy sent by Charles V. to New Spain. He arrived in the autumn of 1535. … He had a well-balanced and moderate character, and governed the country with justice and generosity combined. He … set himself to reform the abuses which had already appeared, protected the Indians from the humiliations which the newly arrived Spaniards were disposed to put upon them; he stimulated all branches of agriculture, and finding the natives were already well informed in the cultivation of land, he encouraged them in this pursuit by all possible efforts. … {2169} To the religious orders in Mexico is due in great measure the firm base upon which the government of Spain was established there. The new viceroy fully recognized this, and encouraged the foundations of colleges and schools already undertaken by them. In every way he promoted the prosperity and growth of the country, and had the satisfaction in the course of his government, which lasted 15 years, to see everything bear the marks of his judgment and enterprise. It was he who founded two cities [Guadalajara and Valladolid] which have reached great importance. … Cortés was away when the Viceroy Mendoza arrived in Mexico. He still retained his title as governor, with the same powers always conferred upon him; but his long absences from the capital made it necessary, as he fully recognized, that some other strong authority should be established there. Nevertheless, he never got on very well with such other authorities, and on his return soon became at odds with Mendoza, who, in his opinion, interfered with his prerogatives. It was then that Cortés bade farewell to his family, and taking with him his eldest son and heir, Don Martin, then eight years old, he embarked for Spain, leaving Mendoza undisturbed in the execution of his office. … In 1536 was issued the first book printed in Mexico, on a press imported by Mendoza, and put into the hands of one Juan Pablos. … In 1550 this good ruler [Mendoza] sailed away from Mexico. … He passed on to take charge of the government of Peru, by a practice which came to be quite common—a sort of diplomatic succession by which the viceroys of New Spain were promoted to the post at Peru. Don Luis de Velasco, second viceroy of New Spain, made his entrance into the capital with great pomp, at the end of the year 1550. He, like his predecessor, had been selected with care by the orders of Charles V. … His first decree was one liberating 150 Indians from slavery, who were working chiefly in the mines. … He established in Mexico, for the security of travellers upon the highway, the tribunal of the Holy Brotherhood, instituted in Spain for the same purpose in the time of Isabella. He founded the Royal University of Mexico, and the Royal Hospital for the exclusive use of the natives. … The good Viceroy Velasco died in 1564, having governed the country for 14 years. … During the government of this ruler and his predecessor all the administration of New Spain, political, civil, and religious was established upon so firm a foundation that it could go on in daily action like a well regulated machine." In the meantime, Charles V. had resigned the burden of his great sovereignty, transferring all his crowns to his narrow-souled son, Philip II., who cared nothing for the New World except as a source of gold and silver supply and a field for religious bigotry. Under Philip "the character of the viceroys was lowered from the high standard adhered to when Charles the Emperor selected them himself. To follow the long list of them would be most tedious and useless, as they passed in rotation, governing according to the best of their lights for several years in Mexico, and then passing on, either by death or by promotion to Peru. In 1571 the Inquisition was fully established … and the next year the Jesuits arrived. … The first 'auto-da-fé' was celebrated in the year 1574, when, as its chronicler mentions cheerfully, 'there perished 21 pestilent Lutherans.' From this time such ceremonies were of frequent occurrence, but the Inquisition never reached the point it did in Old Spain. … The viceroys of New Spain under Philip III. [1578-1621] were, for the most part, men of judgment and moderation. While the government at home, in the hands of profligate favorites, was growing weaker and weaker, that of Mexico was becoming more firmly established." It was not shaken nor disturbed by the War of the Spanish Succession, during the early years of the eighteenth century; but the Revolution in France, which convulsed Europe before that century closed, wrought changes which were lasting in the New World as well as the Old. "There were in all 64 viceroys, beginning with Don Antonio de Mendoza, 1535, and ending with Juan O'Donoju in 1822."

S. Hale, The Story of Mexico, chapters 20-22.

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volumes 5-6 (Mexico, volumes 2-3).

MEXICO: A. D. 1539-1586. Expeditions of Niza, Coronado, and others to the North. Search for the Seven Cities of Cibola.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.

MEXICO: A. D. 1810-1819. The first Revolutionary movement. Hidalgo. Allende. Morelos.

"The causes of the coming revolution were not hidden. The law that excluded Spaniards born in America from equal rights with those who were immigrants was a natural, not to say necessary, source of discontent among people whose good-will was much needed by any viceroy. There was inevitably not a little mutual repugnance between the Mexican and Spanish stocks, and the home government did nothing to mollify such asperities. There were commercial monopolies militant against public interests. The clergy were alienated, and since they were not thus so serviceable as formerly in the part of mediators in enforcing governmental aims, it was found necessary to use force where the people were not accustomed to it. The Viceroy Jose de Iturrigaray practised a seeming condescension that deceived no one, and he pursued his exactions partly by reason of self-interest, and partly in order to supply Madrid with means to meet the financial troubles that the Napoleonic era was creating. After some years of these conditions in New Spain, a conspiracy, resulting from a reaction, sent the viceroy back to Spain a prisoner. This gave strength to revolutionary sentiments, and a few trials for treason increased the discontent. The men who were now put successively in the vice-regal place had few qualities for the times, and a certain timidity of policy was not conducive to strength of government. … The outbreak, when it came, brought to the front a curate of Dolores, a native priest, Miguel Hidalgo, who commanded the confidence of the disaffected, and was relied upon to guide the priesthood. Ignacio de Allende had some of the soldierly qualities needed for a generalissimo. The purpose of these men and their allies, before they should openly proclaim a revolt, was to seize some of the leading Spaniards; but their plot being discovered, they hastily assembled at Dolores and raised the standard of revolt (1810). Thus banded together, but badly organized and poorly armed, a body of 5,000 insurgents marched from Dolores, headed by Hidalgo and Allende, and approached Guanajuato, where the intendente Riaña had intrenched himself in a fortified alhondiga, or granary. {2170} The attack of the rebels was headlong and bloody. The gates were fired with flaming rubbish, and through the glowing way the mad throng rushed, and after a hand-to-hand conflict (September 28, 1810) the fortress fell. The royalist leader had been killed, and scenes of pillage and riot followed. Meanwhile the viceroy in Mexico prepared to receive the insurgents, and his ally, the church, excommunicated their leaders. The military force of the royalists was inconsiderable, and what there was, it was feared, might prove not as loyal as was desirable. As Hidalgo marched towards the capital, he tried to seduce to his side a young lieutenant, Augustin Iturbide, who was in command of a small outlying force. The future emperor declined the offer, and, making his way to the city, was at once sent to join Trujillo, who commanded a corps of observation which confronted the insurgents, and who finally ran the chances of a battle at Las Cruces. … The insurgents soon surrounded him, and he was only able to reach the city by breaking with a part of his force through the enveloping line. Hidalgo had lost 2,000 men, but he had gained the day. He soon intercepted a despatch and learned from it that General Calleja had been put in motion from San Luis Potosi, and it seemed more prudent to Hidalgo that, instead of approaching Mexico, he should retreat to be nearer his recruiting ground. The retrograde movement brought the usual result to an undisciplined force, and he was already weakened by desertions when Calleja struck his line of march at Aculco. Hidalgo felt it important for the revolution to have time enough to spread into other parts of the province, and so he merely fought Calleja to cover his further retreat. The rebel leader soon gathered his forces at Celaya, while Allende, his colleague, posted himself at Guanajuato. Here the latter was attacked by Calleja and routed, and the royal forces made bloody work in the town. Hidalgo, moving to Valladolid, reorganized his army, and then, proceeding to Guadalajara, he set up a form of government, with Ignacio Lopez Rayon as Secretary-general. At this time the insurgents held completely the provinces of Nueva Galicia, Zacatecas, and San Luis Potosi, a belt of country stretching from sea to sea in the latitude of Tampico. … In January, 1811, the signs were not very propitious for the royalists. … At this juncture … Hidalgo moved out from Guadalajara with his entire force, which was large enough, consisting of 60,000 foot, 20,000 horse, and 100 cannon; but it was poorly armed, and without effective discipline; while Calleja commanded a well-equipped and well-organized force, but in extent it only counted 3,000 foot, with as many horse, and ten guns. At the bridge of Calderon, 10 or 11 leagues from the city, Hidalgo prepared to stand. Here Calleja attacked him," and won the day, entering Guadalajara as a victor on the 21st of January, 1811. "Hidalgo fled with his broken army, and soon resigned the command to Allende. This general had scarcely 4,000 or 5,000 men left when he reached Saltillo, where he joined Jimenes. The disheartenment of defeat was spreading through the country. Town after town was heard from as yielding to the victors. The leaders, counselling together at Saltillo, resolved to escape to the United States; but, as they were marching,—about 2,000 in all, with 24 guns and a money-chest,—they fell into an ambush planned in the interest of a counter-revolution by one Elizondo, and, with nothing more than a show of resistance, the party was captured, one and all. The judgment of death upon Hidalgo, Allende, and Jimenes soon followed. The main force of the insurgents had thus disappeared, but a small body still remained in arms under the lead of Jose Maria Morelos." Morelos was uneducated, but capable and energetic, and he kept life in the rebellion for two years. He captured Orizaba in October, 1812, Oajaca in the following month, and Acapulco in the spring of 1813. In November of that year he appeared before Valladolid, the capital of Michoacan, but was attacked there by Iturbide and routed. "In January, 1814, Morelos made a final stand at Puruaran, but Iturbide still drove him on. Disaster followed upon disaster, till finally Morelos was deposed by his own congress. This body had adherents enough to make it necessary for Calleja to appeal to the home government for a reinforcement of 8,000 troops. … Morelos, meanwhile, commanding an escort which was protecting the migratory congress, was intercepted and captured by a force of royalists, and, after the forms of a trial, he was executed December 22, 1815. The campaign of 1816 was sustained by the insurgents against a force of 80,000 men which Calleja had collected. … Neither side had much success, and the war was simply tedious. At last, in August, a new viceroy, Juan Riaz de Apodaca, succeeded to Calleja, and uniting a more humane policy with vigor in disposing his forces, the leading rebel officers … surrendered in January, 1817. … A certain quixotic interest is lent to the closing months of the revolution by the adventurous exploits of Espoz y Mina. He had fitted out a small expedition in the United States, which, landing on the Gulf coast, for a while swept victoriously inland. … But Mina was finally surprised and executed. Other vagrant rebel leaders fell one by one into the hands of the royalists; but Guadalupe Victoria held out, and concealed himself in the wilds for two years."

J. Winsor, Spanish North America (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 8, chapter 4).

ALSO IN: W. D. Robinson, Memoirs of the Mexican Revolution.

MEXICO: A. D. 1819. Texas occupied as a province.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1819-1835.

MEXICO: A. D. 1820-1826. Independence of Spain. The brief empire of Iturbide and its fall. Constitution of the Republic of the United Mexican States.

"The establishment of a constitutional government in Spain, in 1820, produced upon Mexico an effect very different from what was anticipated. As the constitution provided for a more liberal administration of government in Mexico than had prevailed since 1812, the increased freedom of the elections again threw the minds of the people into a ferment, and the spirit of independence, which had been only smothered, broke forth anew. Moreover, divisions were created among the old Spaniards themselves; some being in favor of the old system, while others were sincerely attached to the constitution. Some formidable inroads on the property and prerogatives of the church alienated the clergy from the new government, and induced them to desire a return to the old system. {2171} The Viceroy, Apodaca, encouraged by the hopes held out by the Royalists in Spain, although he had at first taken the oath to support the constitution, secretly favored the party opposed to it, and arranged his plans for its overthrow. Don Augustin Iturbide, the person selected by the Viceroy to make the first open demonstration against the existing government, was offered the command of a body of troops on the western coast, at the head of which he was to proclaim the re-establishment of the absolute authority of the king. Iturbide, accepting the commission, departed from the capital to take command of the troops, but with intentions very different from those which the Viceroy supposed him to entertain. Reflecting upon the state of the country, and convinced of the facility with which the authority of Spain might be shaken off,—by bringing the Creole troops to act in concert with the old insurgents, —Iturbide resolved to proclaim Mexico wholly independent of the Spanish nation. Having his head quarters at the little town of Iguala, on the road to Acapulco, Iturbide, on the 24th of February, 1821, there proclaimed his project, known as the 'Plan of Iguala,' and induced his soldiers to take an oath to support it. This 'Plan' declared that Mexico should be an independent nation, its religion Catholic, and its government a constitutional monarchy. The crown was offered to Ferdinand VII, of Spain, provided he would consent to occupy the throne in person; and, in case of his refusal, to his infant brothers, Don Carlos and Don Francisco. A constitution was to be formed by a Mexican Congress; … all distinctions of caste were to be abolished. … The Viceroy, astonished by this unexpected movement of Iturbide, and remaining irresolute and inactive at the capital, was deposed, and Don Francisco Novello, a military officer, was placed at the head of the government; but his authority was not generally recognized, and Iturbide was left to pursue his plans in the interior without interruption. Being joined by Generals Guerrero and Victoria as soon as they knew that the independence of their country was the object of Iturbide, not only all the survivors of the first insurgents, but whole detachments of Creole troops flocked to his standard, and his success was soon rendered certain. The clergy and the people were equally decided in favor of independence; … and, before the month of July, the whole country recognized the authority of Iturbide, with the exception of the capital, in which Novello had shut himself up with the European troops. Iturbide had already reached Queretaro with his troops, on his road to Mexico, when he was informed of the arrival, at Vera Cruz, of a new Viceroy. … At Cordova, whither the Viceroy had been allowed to proceed, for the purpose of an interview with Iturbide, the latter induced him to accept by treaty the Plan of Iguala, as the only means of securing the lives and property of the Spaniards then in Mexico, and of establishing the right to the throne in the house of Bourbon. By this agreement, called the 'Treaty of Cordova,' the Viceroy, in the name of the king, his master, recognized the independence of Mexico, and gave up the capital to the army of the insurgents, which took possession of it, without effusion of blood, on the 27th of September, 1821. All opposition being ended, and the capital occupied, in accordance with a provision of the Plan of Iguala a provisional junta was established, the principal business of which was to call a congress for the formation of a constitution suitable to the country. At the same time a regency, consisting of five individuals, was elected, at the head of which was placed Iturbide. … When the congress assembled [February 24, 1822], three distinct parties were found amongst the members. The Bourbonists, adhering to the Plan of Iguala altogether, wished a constitutional monarchy, with a prince of the house of Bourbon at its head; the Republican, setting aside the Plan of Iguala, desired a federal republic; while a third party, the Iturbidists, adopting the Plan of Iguala with the exception of the article in favor of the Bourbons, wished to place Iturbide himself upon the throne. As it was soon learned that the Spanish government had declared the treaty of Cordova null and void, the Bourbonists ceased to exist as a party, and the struggle was confined to the Iturbidists and the Republicans." By the aid of a mob demonstration in the city of Mexico, on the night of May 18, 1822, the former triumphed, and Iturbide was declared emperor, under the title of Augustin the First. "The choice was ratified by the provinces without opposition, and Iturbide found himself in peaceable possession of a throne to which his own abilities and a concurrence of favorable circumstances had raised him. Had the monarch elect been guided by counsels of prudence, and allowed his authority to be confined within constitutional limits, he might perhaps have continued to maintain a modified authority; but forgetting the unstable foundation of his throne, he began his reign with all the airs of hereditary royalty. On his accession a struggle for power immediately commenced between him and the congress." After arbitrarily imprisoning the most distinguished members of that body, Iturbide, at last, proclaimed its dissolution and substituted a junta of his own nomination. "Before the end of November an insurrection broke out in the northern provinces, but this was speedily quelled by the imperial troops." It was followed in December by a more formidable revolt, led off by Santa Anna (or Santana), a young general who had supported Iturbide, but who had been haughtily dismissed from the government of Vera Cruz. Santa Anna was joined by Victoria and other old Republican leaders, and the power of Iturbide crumbled so rapidly that he resigned his crown on the 19th of March, 1823, promising to quit the country, on being assured a yearly allowance of $25,000 for his support. "With his family and suite he embarked for Leghorn on the 11th of May. … From Italy he proceeded to London, and made preparations for returning to Mexico; in consequence of which, congress, on the 28th of April, 1824, passed a decree of outlawry against him. He landed in disguise at Soto la Marina, July 14th, 1824; was arrested by General Garza, and shot at Padillo by order of the provincial congress of Tamaulipas, on the 19th of that month. … On the departure of Iturbide, a temporary executive was appointed, consisting of Generals Victoria, Bravo, and Negrete, by whom the government was administered until the meeting of a new congress, which assembled at the capital in August, 1823. {2172} This body immediately entered on the duties of preparing a new constitution, which was submitted on the 31st of January, 1824, and definitively sanctioned on the 4th of October following. By this instrument, modeled somewhat after the constitution of the United States, the absolute independence of the country was declared, and the several Mexican Provinces were united in a Federal Republic. The legislative power was vested in a Congress, consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. … The supreme executive authority was vested in one individual, styled the 'President of the United Mexican States.' … The third article in the constitution declared that 'The Religion of the Mexican Nation is, and will be perpetually, the Roman Catholic Apostolic. The nation will protect it by wise and just laws, and prohibit the exercise of any other whatever.' … On the 1st of January, 1825, the first congress under the federal constitution assembled in the city of Mexico; and, at the same time, General Guadalupe Victoria was installed as president of the republic, and General Nicholas Bravo as vice-president. The years 1825 and 1826 passed with few disturbances; the administration of Victoria was generally popular; and the country enjoyed a higher degree of prosperity than at any former or subsequent period."

M. Willson, American History, book 3, part 2, chapters 4-5.

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 7 (Mexico, volume 3), chapters 29-33, and volume 8, chapters 1-2.

MEXICO: A. D. 1822-1828. Free-Masonry in politics. The rival branches of the order. The Escocés and the Yorkinos.

For some years a furious contest raged between two political societies, "known as the 'Escocés' and 'Yorkinos'—or, as we should call them, Scotch Free-Masons and York Free-Masons—whose secret organizations were employed for political purposes by two rival political parties. At the time of the restoration of the Constitutional Government of Spain in 1820, Free-Masonry was introduced into Mexico; and as it was derived from the Scotch branch of that order, it was called, after the name of the people of Scotland, 'Escocés.' Into this institution were initiated many of the old Spaniards still remaining in the country, the Creole aristocracy, and the privileged classes—parties that could ill endure the elevation of a Creole colonel, Iturbide, to the Imperial throne. When Mr. Poinsett was sent out as Embassador to Mexico [1822], he carried with him the charter for a Grand Lodge from the American, or York order of Free-Masons in the United States. Into this new order the leaders of the Democratic party were initiated. The bitter rivalry that sprung up between these two branches of the Masonic body kept the country in a ferment for ten years, and resulted finally in the formation of a party whose motto was opposition to all secret societies, and who derived their name of Anti-Masons from the party of the same name then flourishing in the United States. When the Escocés had so far lost ground in popular favor as to be in the greatest apprehension from their prosperous but imbittered rivals, the Yorkinos, as a last resort, to save themselves, and to ruin the hated organization, they pronounced against all secret societies. … 'General Bravo,' Vice-President of Mexico, and leader of the Escocés, having issued his proclamation declaring that, as a last resort, he appealed to arms to rid the republic of that pest, secret societies, and that he would not give up the contest until he had rooted them out, root and branch, took up his position at Tulansingo—a village about 30 miles north of the City of Mexico. Here, at about daylight on the morning of the 7th January, 1828, he was assailed by General Guerrero, the leader of the Yorkinos, and commander of the forces of government.' After a slight skirmish, in which eight men were killed and six wounded, General Bravo and his party were made prisoners; and thus perished forever the party of the Escocés. This victory was so complete as to prove a real disaster to the Yorkinos. The want of outside pressure led to internal dissensions; so that when two of its own members, Guerrero and Pedraza, became rival candidates for the presidency, the election was determined by a resort to arms."

R. A. Wilson, Mexico: its Peasants and its Priests, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 8 (Mexico, volume 5), chapter 2.

MEXICO: A. D. 1828-1844. The rise of Santa Anna. Dissolution of the Federal System. The Unitary Republic established. Recognition by Spain. The Pastry War. Retrogradation and decline.

"After the death of Iturbide, by far the most powerful person in the nation was the Creole general Santa Anna, who, at the age of 24, had already destroyed the military empire of his chief. Santa Anna at first interested himself in the visionary project of Bolivar for framing a general confederation of the new nations of South America.

See COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1826.

This project … failed completely; and for several years he settled down as governor of Vera Cruz, reconciled himself to the Federal Republic, and took no part in public life. In 1828, however, the Presidential election led to a civil war in which Santa Anna and his favourite Veracrusanos first found out their capabilities; and they had an opportunity of testing them again in the next year, when the feeble force of Barrados, the last military attempt made by Spain to reduce Mexico, was cut to pieces at Tampico. From that movement Santa Anna became the sole controller of the destinies of the country: and in 1833 he was elected President. Forty years ago all Europe knew the picture of Santa Anna, with his tall spare figure, sunburnt face, and black hair curling over his forehead; how he lived on his hacienda of Manga de Clavo, cockfighting, gambling, and horse-racing, occasionally putting himself at the head of his bronzed troops, and either making a dash at an insurrection, or making a pronunciamento on his own account. Mexican histories tell how gallantly he defended Vera Cruz in 1839, against the French invasion under Prince de Joinville [called 'the Pastry War,' because consequent on the non-payment of French claims, among which there was prominence given to a certain pastry-cook's claim for goods destroyed in the riot of a revolution at the capital in 1828]; how his leg, having been shattered by a ball, was buried with a solemn service and a funeral oration in the cemetery of Santa Paula in Mexico; and how, in a few years, when Santa Anna was in disgrace with the people, they destroyed the tomb, and kicked Santa Anna's limb about the streets with every mark of hatred and contempt. … {2173} The manifold difficulties of government in Mexico sufficiently attested the weakness of the Federal constitution; and in 1835, after a trial of eleven years, the state governments were dissolved, and the Republic, one and indivisible, set up for a time in their place. There was now to be a President, elected by an indirect vote for eight years, a Senate, and a House of Deputies, both elected by a direct popular vote, and an elective Supreme Court. Santa Anna, who was identified with the Unitary principle, was re-elected three times; so that with some intermission he governed Mexico for 20 years. The dissolution of the Federal government naturally strengthened the hands of Santa Anna; and in 1836 Mexico was for the first time recognized by Spain. But the unitary republic was a time of disaster and disgrace; and from the point of view of progress it was a period of reaction. … Europe looked forward, almost without jealousy, to the time when the great nation of North America would absorb this people of half-civilized Indians mixed with degenerate Spaniards. Events which now happened greatly strengthened this impression."

E. J. Payne, History of European Colonies, chapter 20, sections 6-7.

MEXICO: A. D. 1829-1837. The Abolition of Slavery.

"The general affairs of the country in the second half of 1829 were in a chaotic state. Disorganization fettered every branch of the government. … And yet, amidst its constant struggle, Guerrero's administration decreed several progressive measures, the most important of which was the abolition of slavery. African slavery had indeed been reduced to narrow limits. The Dominican provincial of Chiapas, Father Matias Cordoba, gave freedom to the slaves on the estates of his order. On the 16th of September, 1825, President Victoria had liberated in the country's name the slaves purchased with a certain fund collected for that purpose, as well as those given up by their owners to the patriotic junta. The general abolition, however, was not actually carried out for some time, certain difficulties having arisen; and several states, among which was Zacatecas, had decreed the freedom of slaves before the general government arrived at a final conclusion on the subject. As a matter of fact, the few remaining slaves were in domestic service, and treated more like members of families than as actual chattels. At last Deputy Tornel, taking advantage of the time when Guerrero was invested with extraordinary powers, drew up and laid before him a decree for total abolition. It was signed September 15, 1829, and proclaimed the next day, the national anniversary. The law met with no demur save from Coahuila and Texas, in which state were about 1,000 slaves, whose manumission would cost heavily, as the owners held them at a high valuation. It seems that the law was not fully enforced; for on the 5th of April, 1837, another was promulgated, declaring slavery abolished without exception and with compensation to the owners."

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 8 (Mexico, volume 5), chapter 4.

MEXICO: A. D. 1845. The Annexation of Texas to the United States.

See TEXAS: A. D. 1836-1845.

MEXICO: A. D. 1846. The American aggression which precipitated war.

"Texas had claimed the Rio Grande as her western limit, though she had never exercised actual control over either New Mexico or the country lying between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. The groundless character of the claims of Texas to the Rio Grande as its western boundary was even admitted by some friends of the measure. … Silas Wright, … referring to the boundaries of Texas, declared that 'they embraced a country to which Texas had no claims, over which she had never asserted jurisdiction, and which she had no right to cede.' Mr. Benton denounced the treaty [of annexation and cession of territory] as an attempt to seize 2,000 square miles of Mexican territory by the incorporation of the left bank of the Rio del Norte, which would be an act of direct aggression. … In ordering, therefore, General Taylor to pass a portion of his forces westward of the river Nueces, which was done before annexation was accomplished, President Polk put in peril the peace and the good name of the country. In his Annual Message of December of that year [1845] he stated that American troops were in position on the Nueces, 'to defend our own and the rights of Texas.' But, not content with occupying ground on and westward of the Nueces, he issued, on the 13th of January, 1846, the fatal order to General Taylor to advance and 'occupy positions on or near the left bank of the Rio del Norte.' That movement of the army from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, a distance of more than 100 miles, was an invasion of Mexican territory,—an act of war for which the President was and must ever be held responsible by the general judgment of mankind."

H. Wilson, History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America, volume 2, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: T. H. Benton, Thirty Years' View, volume 2, chapter 149.

MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847. The American conquest of California.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847.

MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847. War with the United States. The first movements of American invasion. Palo Alto. Resaca de la Palma. Monterey. Buena Vista. Fremont in California.

"The annexation of Texas accomplished [see TEXAS: A. D. 1824-1836, and 1836-1845], General Taylor, the United States commander in the Southwest, received orders to advance to the Rio Grande. Such was the impoverished and distracted condition of Mexico that she apparently contemplated no retaliation for the injury she had sustained, and, had the American army remained at the Nueces, a conflict might perhaps have been avoided. But, on Taylor's approaching the Rio Grande, a combat ensued [May 8, 1846] at Palo Alto with Arista, the Mexican commander, who crossed over that stream. It ended in the defeat of the Mexicans, and the next day another engagement took place at Resaca de la Palma, with the same result. These actions eventually assumed considerable political importance. They were among the causes of General Taylor's subsequent elevation to the Presidency. As soon as intelligence of what had occurred reached Washington, President Polk, forgetting that the author of a war is not he who begins it, but he who has made it necessary, addressed a special message to Congress announcing that the Mexicans 'had at last invaded our territory, and shed the blood of our fellow-citizens on our own soil.' Congress at once (May 13th, 1846) passed an act providing money and men. {2174} Its preamble stated, 'Whereas, by the act of the Republic of Mexico, a state of war exists between that country and the United States, be it enacted,' etc. As long previously as 1843, Mr. Bocanegra, the Mexican Minister of Foreign Relations, had formally notified the American government that the annexation of Texas would inevitably lead to war. General Almonte, the Mexican minister at Washington, in a note to Mr. Upshur, the Secretary of State, said that, 'in the name of his nation, and now for them, he protests, in the most solemn manner, against such an aggression; and he moreover declares, by express order of his government, that, on sanction being given by the executive of the Union to the incorporation of Texas into the United States, he will consider his mission ended, seeing that, as the Secretary of State will have learned, the Mexican government is resolved to declare war as soon as it receives intimation of such an act.' War being thus provoked by the American government, General Scott received orders (November 18th, 1846) to take command of the expedition intended for the invasion of Mexico."

J. W. Draper, History of the American Civil War, chapter 23 (volume 1).

After his defeat at Resaca de la Palma, the Mexican general Arista "retreated in the direction of San Luis Potosi, and was superseded by General Pedro Ampudia. General Taylor marched his forces across the Rio Grande on the 17th of May and the invasion of Mexico was begun in earnest. From the 21st to the 24th of September, he was engaged with 7,000 men in the attack upon Monterey, the capital of Nueva Leon, garrisoned by a force of 9,000. He met with the same success which had attended his former engagements. General Ampudia was also forced to retire to San Luis Potosi. The brilliant features of this attack were the assault upon Obispado Viejo by General Worth on the first day of the fight, and the storming of the heights above on the following day. … Upon the defeat of Ampudia, Santa Anna, having then just attained to the chief magistracy of Mexico [the American blockading squadron at Vera Cruz had permitted him to return to the country, expecting that his presence would be advantageous to the invaders], and left it in the hands of his Vice-President, Gomez Farias, took the command of the Mexican forces and set out to check the advance of General Taylor. On the 23d of February, 1847, the bloody battle of Angostura, as it is called by the Mexicans (known to the Americans as the battle of Buena Vista), was fought, and lost by the Mexican army. Santa Anna returned to San Luis Potosi, whence he was called to the capital to head off the insurrection against Gomez Farias, by the party called derisively the Polkos, because their insurrection at that time was clearly favorable to the movements of the American army, and because James K. Polk was then the President of the United States and head of the American party favorable to the war. It was at this time that the army of Taylor was reduced to about 5,000 men in order to supply General Winfield Scott with forces to carry out his military operations, and the field of war was transferred to the region between Vera Cruz and the capital. While these events were in progress an expedition under General John C. Fremont had been made over-land through New Mexico and into California [see CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847; and NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1846], and under the directions of the United States government the Mexicans of California had been incited to revolt."

A. H. Noll, Short History of Mexico, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: H. Von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the U. S., volume 3, chapters 4-9.

H. O. Ladd, History of the War with Mexico, chapters 4-8.

E. D. Mansfield, History of the Mexican War, chapters 2-4 and 8.

O. O. Howard, General Taylor, chapters 8-19.

MEXICO: A. D. 1847 (March-September). General Scott's campaign. From Vera Cruz to the capital. Cerro Gordo. Contreras. Churubusco. Molino del Rey. Chapultepec. The conquest complete.

"General Winfield Scott was ordered to Mexico, to take chief command and conduct the war according to his own plan. This was, in brief, to carry an expedition against Vera Cruz, reduce its defences, and then march on the city of Mexico by the shortest route. … On the 7th of March [1847], the fleet with Scott's army came to anchor a few miles south of Vera Cruz, and two days later he landed his whole force—nearly 12,000 men—by means of surf-boats. Vera Cruz was a city of 7,000 inhabitants, strongly fortified. … On the 22d the investment was complete. A summons to surrender being refused, the batteries opened, and the bombardment was kept up for four days, the small war vessels joining in it. The Mexican batteries and the castle [of San Juan de Ulloa, on a reef in the harbor] replied with spirit, and with some little effect; but the city and castle were surrendered on the 27th. The want of draught animals and wagons delayed till the middle of April the march upon the capital of the country, 200 miles distant. The first obstacle was found at Cerro Gordo, 50 miles northwest of Vera Cruz, where the Mexicans had taken position on the heights around a rugged mountain pass, with a battery commanding every turn of the road. A way was found to flank the position on the extreme left, and on the morning of April 18th the Americans attacked in three columns. … The divisions of Twiggs and Worth … attacked the height of Cerro Gordo, where the Mexicans were most strongly intrenched, and where Santa Anna commanded in person. This being carried by storm, its guns were turned first upon the retreating Mexicans, and then upon the advanced position that Pillow was assaulting in front. The Mexicans, finding themselves surrounded, soon surrendered. Santa Anna, with the remainder of his troops, fled toward Jalapa, where Scott followed him and took the place."

W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, Popular History of the United States, volume 4, chapter 14.

"Less than a month later [after the battle of Cerro Gordo] the American army occupied the city of Puebla. Scott remained at Puebla during June and July, awaiting reinforcements and drilling them as they arrived. On the 7th of August he set out for the capital, which was now defended by about 30,000 troops. A series of encounters took place on the 19th, and on the next day three battles were fought, at Contreras, Churubusco, and San Antonio. They were in reality parts of one general engagement. The troops on both sides fought with stubbornness and bravery, but in the end the Mexicans were completely routed, and the pursuit of the flying enemy reached almost to the gates of the capital. A commissioner, Nicholas P. Trist, having been previously appointed to negotiate with the Mexicans, an armistice was now agreed upon, to begin on the 23d of August. {2175} The armistice, from a strategic point of view, was a mistake, the advantage of the overwhelming victories of the 19th and 20th was in great part lost, and the Mexicans were enabled to recover from the demoralization which had followed their defeat. The position of the American army, in the heart of the enemy's country, where it might be cut off from reinforcements and supplies, was full of danger, and the fortifications which barred the way to the capital, Molino del Rey, Casa Mata, and Chapultepec, were exceedingly formidable. On the 7th of September the armistice came to an end. The negotiations had failed, and General Scott prepared to move on the remaining works. A reconnoisance was made on that day, and on the 8th Scott attacked the enemy. The army of Santa Anna was drawn up with its right resting on Casa Mata and its left on Molino del Rey. Both these positions were carried by assault, and the Mexicans, after severe loss, were defeated and driven off the field. The next two days were occupied in preparing for the final assault upon Chapultepec. A careful disposition was made of the troops, batteries were planted within range, and on the 12th they opened a destructive fire. On the 13th a simultaneous assault was made from both sides, the troops storming the fortress with great bravery and dash, and the works were carried, the enemy flying in confusion. The army followed them along the two causeways of Belen and San Cosmé, fighting its way to the gates of the city. Here a struggle continued till after nightfall, the enemy making a desperate defence. Early the next morning, a deputation of the city council waited upon General Scott, asking for terms of capitulation. These were refused, and the divisions of Worth and Quitman entered the capital. Street fighting was kept up for two days longer, but by the 16th the Americans had secured possession of the city. Negotiations were now renewed, and the occupation of the territory, meanwhile, continued. The principal towns were garrisoned, and taxes and duties collected by the United States. Occasional encounters took place at various points, but the warfare was chiefly of a guerrilla character. Towards the close of the war General Scott was superseded by General Butler. But the work had been already completed."

J. R. Soley, The Wars of the United States, 1789-1850 (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 7, chapter 6).

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 8 (Mexico, volume 5), chapters 17-20.

General W. Scott, Memoirs, by himself, chapters 27-32 (volume 2.)

President's Message and Documents, December 7, 1847 (Senate Ex. Doc., No. 1, 30th Cong., 1st Session).

MEXICO: A. D. 1848. The Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. Territory ceded to the United States.

"The Mexican people had now succumbed to the victorious armies of the 'barbarians of the North.' The Mexican Government was favorable to the settlement of the questions which had caused this unhappy war. A new administration was in power. General Anaya on the 11th of November was elected President of the Mexican Republic until the 8th of January, 1848, when the constitutional term of office would expire. … National pride … bowed to the necessities of the republic, and the deputies assembled in the Mexican Congress favored the organization of a commission for the purpose of reopening negotiations with Mr. Trist, who still remained in Mexico, and was determined to assume the responsibility of acting still as agent of the United States [although his powers had been withdrawn]. The lack of coöperation by the adherents of Santa Anna prevented immediate action on the part of these commissioners. On the 8th of January, 1848, General Herrera was elected Constitutional President of the Mexican Republic. … Under the new administration negotiations were easily opened with a spirit of harmony and concession which indicated a happy issue. Mexico gave up her claim to the Nueces as the boundary-line of her territory, and the United States did not longer insist upon the cession of Lower California and the right of way across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The previous offer of money by the United States for the cession of New Mexico and Upper California was also continued. … On the 2d of February a treaty of peace was unanimously adopted and signed by the commissioners at the city of Guadaloupe Hidalgo. … The ratifications of the Mexican Congress and of the United States Senate were exchanged May 30th, 1848. The United States, by the terms of this treaty, paid to Mexico $15,000,000 for the territory added to its boundaries. They moreover freed the Mexican Republic from all claims of citizens of the United States against Mexico for damages, which the United States agreed to pay to the amount of $3,250,000. The boundary-line was also fixed between the two republics. It began in the Gulf of Mexico three miles from the mouth of the Rio Grande del Norte, running up the centre of that river to the point where it strikes the southern boundary of New Mexico; then westward along that southern boundary which runs north of Elpaso, to its western termination; thence northward along the western line of New Mexico until it intersects the first branch of the river Gila, thence down the middle of the Gila until it empties into the Rio Colorado, following the division line between Upper and Lower California to the Pacific Ocean, one marine league south of the port of San Diego. On the 12th of June, the last of the United States troops left the capital of Mexico. … The partisan supporters of President Polk's administration did not hesitate to avow that the war with Mexico was waged for conquest of territory. … The demands of indemnity from Mexico first made by the United States were equal, exclusive of Texas, to half of the domain of Mexico, embracing a territory upward of 800,000 square miles. … The area of New Mexico, as actually ceded by treaty to the United States, was 526,078 square miles. The disputed ground of Texas, which rightfully belonged to Mexico, and which was also yielded in the treaty of peace, contained no less than 125,520 square miles. The acquisition of the total amount of 651,591 square miles of territory was one of the direct results of this war, in which President Polk was ever pretending 'to conquer a peace.' To this must be added the undisputed region of Texas, which was 325,520 square miles more, in order adequately to represent the acquisition of territory to the United States, amounting to 851,590 square miles. This has been computed to be seventeen times the extent of the State of New York. … The territory thus acquired included ten degrees of latitude on the Pacific coast, and extended east to the Rio Grande, a distance of 1,000 miles, … Five thousand miles of sea-coast were added to the possessions of the United States. … The mineral resources of the conquered territory, including California, New Mexico, Arizona, Western Colorado, Utah, and Nevada, have been developed to such an extent that their value is beyond computation."

H. O. Ladd, History of the War with Mexico, chapters 30-31.

ALSO IN: Treaties and Conventions between the United States and other Countries (edition of 1889), pages 681-694.

{2176}

MEXICO: A. D. 1848-1861. The succession of Revolutions and the War of the Reform. The new Constitution. The government of Juarez and the Nationalization of Church property.

"For a brief period, after the withdrawal of the American army, the Mexican people drew the breath of peace, disturbed only by outbreaks headed by the turbulent Paredes. … In June, 1848, Señor Herrera (who had been in power at the opening of the war with the United States) took possession of the presidential chair. For the first time within the memory of men then living, the supreme power changed hands without disturbance or opposition. … The army … was greatly reduced, arrangements were made with creditors abroad, and for the faithful discharge of internal affairs. General Mariano Arista, formerly minister of war, assumed peaceful possession of power, in January, 1851, and continued the wise and economical administration of his predecessor. But Mexico could not long remain at peace, even with herself; she was quiet merely because utterly prostrated, and in December, 1852, some military officers, thirsting for power, rebelled against the government. They commenced again the old system of 'pronunciamientos'; usually begun by some man in a province distant from the seat of government, and gradually gaining such strength that when finally met by the lawful forces they were beyond control. Rather than plunge his country anew into the horrors of a civil war, General Arista resigned his office and sailed for Europe, where he died in poverty a few years later. It may astonish anyone except the close student of Mexican history to learn the name of the man next placed in power by the revolutionists, for it was no one else than General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna! Recalled by the successful rebels from his exile in Cuba and South America, Santa Anna hastened to the scene of conflict. … He commenced at once to extend indefinitely the army, and to intrench himself in a position of despotic power, and, in December, 1853, he issued a decree which, in substance, declared him perpetual dictator. This aroused opposition all over the country, and the Liberals, who were opposed to an arbitrary centralized government, rose in rebellion. The most successful leaders were Generals Alvarez and Comonfort, who, after repeated victories, drove the arch conspirator from the capital, on the 9th of August, 1855. Santa Anna secretly left the city of Mexico, and a few days later embarked at Vera Cruz for Havana. During several years he resided in Cuba, St. Thomas, Nassau, and the United States, constantly intriguing for a return to power in Mexico."

F. A. Ober, Young Folks' History of Mexico, chapter 33.

"Upon the flight of Santa Anna, anarchy was imminent in the capital. The most prominent promoters of the revolution assembled quickly, and elected General Romulo Diaz de la Vega acting-president, and he succeeded in establishing order. … By a representative assembly General Martin Carrera was elected acting-president, and he was installed on the 15th of August, 1855, but resigned on the 11th of the following month, when the presidency devolved a second time upon General Romulo Diaz de la Vega. The revolution of Alvarez and Comonfort, known as the Plan de Ayotla, was entirely successful, and under the wise and just administration of Diaz de la Vega, the country was brought to the wholly abnormal state of quiet and order. Representatives of the triumphant party assembled in Cuernavaca and elected General Juan Alvarez president ad interim, and upon the formation of his cabinet he named Comonfort his Minister of War. Returning to the capital, he transferred the presidency to his Minister of War, and on the 12th of December, 1855, General Ignacio Comonfort entered upon the discharge of his duties as acting-president. He was made actual president by a large majority in the popular election held two years later, and was reinstalled on the 1st of December, 1857. He proved to be one of the most remarkable rulers of Mexico, and his administration marks the beginning of a new era in Mexican history. Scarcely had Comonfort begun his rule as the substitute of Alvarez, when revolutions again broke out and assumed formidable proportions. Puebla was occupied by 5,000 insurgents. Federal troops sent against them joined their cause. Comonfort succeeded in raising an army of 16,000 men, well equipped, and at its head marched to Puebla and suppressed the revolution before the end of March. But in October another rebellion broke out in Puebla, headed by Colonel Miguel Miramon. The government succeeded in suppressing this, as well as one which broke out in San Luis Potosi, and another, under the leadership of General Tomas Mejia, in Queretaro. It was by Comonfort that the war between the Church and the government, so long threatened, was precipitated. In June, 1856, he issued a decree ordering the sale of all the unimproved real estate held by the Church, at its assessed value. The Church was to receive the proceeds, but the land was to become thereby freed from all ecclesiastical control." Upon information of a conspiracy centering in one of the monasteries of the city of Mexico, the president sent troops to take possession of the place, and finally ordered it to be suppressed. These measures provoked an implacable hostility on the part of the supporters of the Church. "On the 5th of February, 1857, the present Constitution of Mexico was adopted by Congress. Comonfort, as Provisional President, subscribed it, and it was under its provisions that he was elected actual president. But ten days after his inauguration in December, 1857, and his taking the oath to support the new Constitution, the President, supposing that he could gain the full support of the Liberals, and claiming that he had found the operation of the Constitution impracticable, dissolved Congress and set the Constitution aside. He threw his legal successor, Benito Juarez, the President of the Supreme Court of Justice, and one of the supporters of the new Constitution, into prison." Revolution upon revolution now followed in quick succession. Comonfort fled the country. Zuloaga, Pezuela, Pavon, Miramon, were seated in turn in the presidential chair for brief terms of a half recognized government. {2177} "Constitutionally (if we may ever use that word seriously in connection with Mexican affairs), upon the abandonment of the presidency by Comonfort, the office devolved upon the President of the Supreme Court of Justice. That office was held at the time by Don Benito Juarez, who thereupon became president de jure of Mexico. … The most curious specimen of the nomenclature adopted in Mexican history is that which gives to the struggle between the Church party and its allies and the Constitutional government the name of the War of the Reform. … What was thereby reformed it would be difficult to say, … further than the suppression of the outreaching power, wealth, and influence of the Church, and the assertion of the supremacy of the State. … But the 'War of the Reform' had all the bitterness of a religious war. … Juarez, who is thus made to appear as a reformer, was the most remarkable man Mexico has ever produced. He was born in 1806 in the mountains of Oaxaca. … He belonged to the Zapoteca tribe of Indians. Not a drop of Spanish blood flowed in his veins. … Upon the flight of Comonfort, Juarez was utterly without support or means to establish his government. Being driven out of the capital by Zuloaga he went to Guadalajara, and then by way of the Pacific coast, Panama, and New Orleans, to Vera Cruz. There he succeeded in setting up the Constitutional government, supporting it out of the customs duties collected at the ports of entry on the Gulf coast. It was war to the knife between the President in Vera Cruz and the Anti-Presidents in the capital. … On the 12th of July, 1859, Juarez made a long stride in advance of Comonfort by issuing his famous decree, 'nationalizing'—that is, sequestrating, or more properly confiscating—the property of the Church. It was enforced in Vera Cruz at once. … The armies of the two rival governments met in conflict on many occasions. It was at Calpulalpam, in a battle lasting from the 21st to the 24th of December, 1860, that Miramon was defeated and forced to leave the country. General Ortega, in command of the forces of Juarez, advanced to the capital and held it for the return of his chief. When the army of Juarez entered the capital, on the 27th of December, the decree of sequestration began to be executed there with brutal severity. … Monasteries were closed forthwith, and the members of the various religious orders were expelled [from] the country. … It is said that from the 'nationalized' church property the government secured $20,000,000, without, as subsequent events showed, deriving any permanent benefit from it. It helped to precipitate another war, in which it was all dissipated, and the country was poorer than ever. … The decree issued by Juarez from Vera Cruz in 1859, nationalizing the property of the Church, was quickly followed up by a decree suspending for two years payment on all foreign debts. The national debt at that time amounted to about $100,000,000, according to some statements, and was divided up between England, Spain, and France. England's share was about $80,000,000. France's claim was comparatively insignificant. They were all said to have been founded upon usurious or fraudulent contracts, and the French claim was especially dubious. … Upon the issuing of the decree suspending payment on these foreign debts, the three creditor nations' at once broke off diplomatic relations with Mexico, and Napoleon III., of France, proceeded to carry out a plan which had for some time occupied his mind."

A. H. Noll, Short History of Mexico, chapters 10-11.

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 8 (Mexico, volume 5), chapters 20-30, and volume 9 (6), chapter 1.

See CONSTITUTION OF MEXICO.

MEXICO: A. D. 1853. Sale of Arizona to the United States. The Gadsden Treaty.

See ARIZONA: A. D. 1853.

MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867. The French intervention. Maximilian's ill-starred empire and its fate.

The expedition against Mexico "was in the beginning a joint undertaking of England, France, and Spain. Its professed object, as set forth in a convention signed in London on October 31st, 1861, was 'to demand from the Mexican authorities more efficacious protection for the persons and properties of their (the Allied Sovereigns') subjects, as well as a fulfilment of the obligations contracted toward their Majesties by the Republic of Mexico.' … Lord Russell, who had acted with great forbearance towards Mexico up to this time, now agreed to co-operate with France and Spain in exacting reparation from Juarez. But he defined clearly the extent to which the intervention of England would go. England would join in an expedition for the purpose, if necessary, of seizing on Mexican custom-houses, and thus making good the foreign claims. But she would not go a step further. She would have nothing to do with upsetting the Government of Mexico, or imposing any European system on the Mexican people. Accordingly, the Second Article of the Convention pledged the contracting parties not to seek for themselves any acquisition of territory or any special advantage, and not to exercise in the internal affairs of Mexico any influence of a nature to prejudice the right of the Mexican nation to choose and to constitute freely the form of its government. The Emperor of the French, however, had already made up his mind that he would establish a sort of feudatory monarchy in Mexico. He had long had various schemes and ambitions floating in his mind concerning those parts of America on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, which were once the possessions of France. … At the very time when he signed the convention with the pledge contained in its second article, he had already been making arrangements to found a monarchy in Mexico. If he could have ventured to set up a monarchy with a French prince at its head, he would probably have done so; but this would have been too bold a venture. He, therefore, persuaded the Archduke Maximilian, brother of the Emperor of Austria, to accept the crown of the monarchy he proposed to set up in Mexico. The Archduke was a man of pure and noble character, but evidently wanting in strength of mind, and he agreed, after some hesitation, to accept the offer. Meanwhile the joint expedition sailed. We [the English] sent only a line-of-battle ship, two frigates, and 700 marines. France sent in the first instance about 2,500 men, whom she largely reinforced immediately after. Spain had about 6,000 men, under the command of the late Marshal Prim. The Allies soon began to find that their purposes were incompatible. There was much suspicion about the designs of France. … Some of the claims set up by France disgusted the other Allies. The Jecker claims were for a long time after as familiar a subject of ridicule as our own Pacifico claims had been. {2178} A Swiss house of Jecker & Company had lent the former Government of Mexico $750,000, and got bonds from that Government, which was on its very last legs, for $15,000,000. The Government was immediately afterwards upset, and Juarez came into power. M. Jecker modestly put in his claim for $15,000,000. Juarez refused to comply with the demand. He offered to pay the $750,000 lent and five per cent. interest, but he declined to pay exactly twenty times the amount of the sum advanced. M. Jecker had by this time become somehow a subject of France, and the French Government took up his claim. It was clear that the Emperor of the French had resolved that there should be war. At last the designs of the French Government became evident to the English and Spanish Plenipotentiaries, and England and Spain withdrew from the Convention. … The Emperor of the French 'walked his own wild road, whither that led him.' He overran a certain portion of Mexico with his troops. He captured Puebla after a long and desperate resistance [and after suffering a defeat on the 5th of May, 1862, in the battle of Cinco de Mayo]; he occupied the capital, and he set up the Mexican Empire, with Maximilian as Emperor. French troops remained to protect the new Empire. Against all this the United States Government protested from time to time. … However, the Emperor Napoleon cared nothing just then about the Monroe doctrine, complacently satisfied that the United States were going to pieces, and that the Southern Confederacy would be his friend and ally. He received the protests of the American Government with unveiled indifference. At last the tide in American affairs turned. The Confederacy crumbled away; Richmond was taken; Lee surrendered; Jefferson Davis was a prisoner. Then the United States returned to the Mexican Question, and the American Government informed Louis Napoleon that it would be inconvenient, gravely inconvenient, if he were not to withdraw his soldiers from Mexico. A significant movement of American troops under a renowned General, then flushed with success, was made in the direction of the Mexican frontier. There was nothing for Louis Napoleon but to withdraw [March, 1867]. … The Mexican Empire lasted two months and a week after the last of the French troops had been withdrawn. Maximilian endeavoured to raise an army of his own, and to defend himself against the daily increasing strength of Juarez. He showed all the courage which might have been expected from his race, and from his own previous history. But in an evil hour for himself, and yielding, it is stated, to the persuasion of a French officer, he had issued a decree that all who resisted his authority in arms should be shot. By virtue of this monstrous ordinance, Mexican officers of the regular army, taken prisoners while resisting, as they were bound to do, the invasion of a European prince, were shot like brigands. The Mexican general, Ortega, was one of those thus shamefully done to death. When Juarez conquered, and Maximilian, in his turn, was made a prisoner, he was tried by court-martial, condemned and shot. … The French Empire never recovered the shock of this Mexican failure."

J. McCarthy, History of Our Own Times, chapter 44.

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 9 (Mexico, volume 6), chapters 1-14.

H. M. Flint, Mexico under Maximilian.

F. Salm-Balm, My Diary in Mexico (1867).

S. Schroeder, The Fall of Maximilian's Empire.

Count E. de Keratry, The Rise and Fall of the Emperor Maximilian.

J. M. Taylor, Maximilian and Carlotta.

U. R. Burke, Life of Benito Juarez.

MEXICO: A. D. 1867-1892. The restored Republic.

"On the 15th of July [1867] Juarez made a solemn entry into the capital. Many good citizens of Mexico, who had watched gloomily the whole episode of the French intervention, now emerged to light and rejoiced conspicuously in the return of their legitimate chief. … He was received with genuine acclamations by the populace, while high society remained within doors, curtains close-drawn, except that the women took pride in showing their deep mourning for the death of the Emperor. … Peace now came back to the country. A general election established Juarez as President, and order and progress once more consented to test the good resolutions of the Republic." Santa Anna made one feeble and futile attempt to disturb the quiet of his country, but was arrested without difficulty and sent into exile again. But Juarez had many opponents and enemies to contend with. "As the period of election approached, in 1871, party lines became sharply divided, and the question of his return to power was warmly contested. A large body still advocated the re-election of Juarez, as of the greatest importance to the consolidation of the Constitution and reform, but the admirers of military glory claimed the honors of President for General Diaz, who had done so much, at the head of the army, to restore the Republic. A third party represented the interests of Lerdo, minister of Juarez all through the epoch of the intervention, a man of great strength of character and capacity for government. … The campaign was vigorous throughout the country. … The election took place; the Juaristas were triumphant. Their party had a fair majority and Juarez was re-elected. But the Mexicans not yet had learned to accept the ballot, and a rebellion followed. The two defeated parties combined, and civil war began again. Government defended itself with vigor and resolution, and, in spite of the popularity of General Diaz as a commander, held its own during a campaign of more than a year. Its opponents were still undaunted, and the struggle might have long continued but for the sudden death of Juarez, on the 19th of July, 1872. … Don Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, then President of the Supreme Court, assumed the government, was elected President, and the late agitation of parties was at an end. For three years peace reigned in Mexico, and then began another revolution. Towards the end of 1875, rumors of dissatisfaction were afloat. … Early in the next year, a 'Plan' was started, one of those fatal propositions for change which have always spread like wildfire through the Mexican community. By midsummer, the Republic was once more plunged in civil war. Although he had apparently no hand in the 'Plan' of Tuxtepec, General Porfirio Diaz appeared at the head of the army of the revolutionists. … During the summer there was fighting and much confusion, in the midst of which the election took place for the choice of President for another term of four years. {2179} The result was in favor of Lerdo de Tejada, but he was so unpopular that he was obliged soon after to leave the capital, on the 20th of November, accompanied by his ministers and a few other persons. The other Lerdistas hid themselves, Congress dissolved, and the opposition triumphed. Thus ended the government of the Lerdistas, but a few days before the expiration of its legal term. On the 24th of November, General Porfirio Diaz made his solemn entry into the capital, and was proclaimed Provisional President. After a good deal of fighting all over the country, Congress declared him, in May, 1877, to be Constitutional President for a term to last until November 30, 1880. … President Diaz was able to consolidate his power, and to retain his seat without civil war, although this has been imminent at times, especially towards the end of his term. In 1880, General Manuel Gonsalez was elected, and on the 1st of December of that year, for the second time only in the history of the Republic, the retiring President gave over his office to his legally elected successor. … The administration of Gonsalez passed through its four years without any important outbreak. … At the end of that term General Diaz was re-elected and became President December 1, 1884. The treasury of the country was empty, the Republic without credit, yet he has [1888] … succeeded in placing his government upon a tolerably stable financial basis, and done much to restore the foreign credit of the Republic."

S. Hale, The Story of Mexico, chapter 41-42.

"At the close of Maximilian's empire Mexico had but one railroad, with 260 miles of track. To-day she has them running in all directions, with an [aggregate] of 10,025 kilometers (about 6,300 miles), and is building more. Of telegraph lines in 1867 she had but a few short connections, under 3,000 kilometers; now she has telephone and telegraph lines which aggregate between 60,000 and 70,000 kilometers. … In his … message to Congress (1891) President Diaz said: 'It is gratifying to me to be able to inform Congress that the financial situation of the republic continues to improve. … Without increasing the tariff, the custom-houses now collect $9,000,000 more than they did four years ago.' … The revenues of the republic have more than doubled in the past twenty years. In 1870 they were $16,000,000; they are estimated now at over $36,000,000." The third term of President Diaz, "now [1892] drawing to a close, has been one of great prosperity. … As we write popular demonstrations are being made in favor of another term."

W. Butler, Mexico in Transition, pages 284-287.

President Diaz was re-elected for a fourth term, which began December 1, 1892, and will expire in 1896.

ALSO IN: H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 9 (Mexico volume 6), chapter 19.

----------MEXICO: End----------

MIAMIS, The. See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, ILLINOIS, and SACS, &c.

MICESLAUS I., King of Poland, A. D. 964-1000.

Miceslaus II., King of Poland, 1025-1037.

Miceslaus III., Duke of Poland, 1173-1177.

MICHAEL The first of the Romanoffs, Czar of Russia, A. D. 1613-1645.

Michael I., Emperor in the East (Byzantine, or Greek), 811-813.

Michael II. (called the Armorian), Emperor in the East, 820-829.

Michael III., Emperor in the East, 842-867.

Michael IV., Emperor in the East, 1034-1041.

Michael V., Emperor in the East, 1041-1042.

Michael VI., Emperor in the East, 1056-1057.

Michael VII., Emperor in the East, 1071-1078.

Michael VIII. (Palæologus), Greek Emperor of Nicæa, 1260-1261; Greek Emperor of Constantinople, 1261-1282.

Michael Wiecnowiecki, King of Poland, 1670-1674.

----------MICHIGAN: Start----------

MICHIGAN: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS, and OJIBWAYS.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1680. Traversed by La Salle.

See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1686-1701. The founding of the French post at Detroit.

See DETROIT: A. D. 1686-1701.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1760. The surrender to the English.

See CANADA: A. D. 1760.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1763. Cession to Great Britain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1763. The King's proclamation excluding settlers.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1763.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1763-1764. Pontiac's War.

See PONTIAC'S WAR.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1774. Embraced in the Province of Quebec.

See CANADA: A. D. 1763-1774.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1775-1783. Held by the British throughout the War of Independence.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779, CLARK'S CONQUESTS.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1784. Included in the proposed states of Cherronesus and Sylvania.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1784.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1785-1786. Partially covered by the western land claims of Massachusetts and Connecticut, ceded to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1787. The Ordinance for the government of the Northwest Territory. Perpetual exclusion of Slavery.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1787.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1805. Detached from Indiana Territory and distinctly named and organized.

See INDIANA: A. D. 1800-1818.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1811. Tecumseh and his League. Battle of Tippecanoe.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1811.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1812. The surrender of Detroit and the whole territory to the British arms by General Hull.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-OCTOBER).

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1813. Recovery by the Americans.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812-1813, HARRISON'S NORTHWESTERN CAMPAIGN.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1817. The founding of the University of Michigan.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1837.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1818-1836. Extension of Territorial limits to the Mississippi, and then beyond.

See WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1837. Admission into the Union as a State. Settlement of Boundaries.

A conflict between the terms of the constitution under which the state of Ohio was admitted into the Union in 1803 and the Act of Congress which, in 1805, erected the Territory of Michigan, gave rise to a serious boundary dispute between the two. The Michigan claim rested not only upon the Act of 1805, but primarily upon the great Ordinance of 1787. {2180} It involved the possession of a wedge-shaped strip of territory, which "averaged six miles in width, across Ohio, embraced some 468 square miles, and included the lake-port of Toledo and the mouth of the Maumee river." In 1834, Michigan began to urge her claims to statehood. "Without waiting for an enabling act, a convention held at Detroit in May and June, 1835, adopted a state constitution for submission to congress, demanding entry into the Union, 'in conformity to the fifth article of the ordinance' of 1787—of course the boundaries sought being those established by the article in question. That summer, there were popular disturbances in the disputed territory, and some gunpowder harmlessly wasted. In December, President Jackson laid the matter before congress in a special message. Congress quietly determined to 'arbitrate' the quarrel by giving to Ohio the disputed tract, and offering Michigan, by way of partial recompense, the whole of what is to-day her upper peninsula. Michigan did not want the supposedly barren and worthless country to her northwest, protested long and loud against what she deemed to be an outrage, declared that she had no community of interest with the north peninsula, and was separated from it by insurmountable natural barriers for one-half of the year, while it rightfully belonged to the fifth state, to be formed out of the Northwest Territory. But congress persisted in making this settlement of the quarrel one of the conditions precedent to the admission of Michigan into the Union. In September, 1836, a state convention, called for the sole purpose of deciding the question, rejected the proposition on the ground that congress had no right to annex such a condition, according to the terms of the ordinance; a second convention, however, approved of it on the 15th of December following, and congress at once accepted this decision as final. Thus Michigan came into the sisterhood of states, January 26, 1837, with the territorial limits which she possesses to-day."

R. G. Thwaites, The Boundaries of Wisconsin (Wisconsin Historical Society Collections, volume 11, pages 456-460).

ALSO IN: B. A. Hinsdale, The Old Northwest, chapter 17.

MICHIGAN: A. D. 1854. Early organization and victory of the Republican Party.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854-1855.

----------MICHIGAN: End----------

----------MICHIGAN, Lake: Start----------

MICHIGAN, Lake: The Discovery.

See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673.

MICHIGAN, Lake: Navigated by La Salle.

See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

----------MICHIGAN, Lake: End----------

MICHIGANIA, The proposed State of.

See NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1784.

MICHILLIMACKINAC.

See MACKINAW.

MICHMASH, War of.

One of Saul's campaigns against the Philistines received this name from Jonathan's exploit in scaling the height of Michmash and driving the garrison in panic from their stronghold.

I. Samuel XIV.

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 21 (volume 2).

MICKLEGARTH.

"Constantine had transplanted the Roman name, the centre of Roman power, and much of what was Roman in ideas and habits, to Byzantium, the New Rome.

See CONSTANTINOPLE: A. D. 330.

The result was that remarkable empire [see BYZANTINE EMPIRE] which, though since its fall it has become a by-word, was, when it was standing, the wonder and the envy of the barbarian world, the mysterious 'Micklegarth,' 'the Great City, the Town of towns,' of the northern legends."

R. W. Church, The Beginning of the Middle Ages, chapter 6.

MICMACS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

MICROSCOPE IN MEDICINE, The.

See MEDICAL SCIENCE: 17-18TH CENTURIES, and after.

MIDDLE AGES.

"The term Middle Ages is applied to the time which elapsed between the fall of the Roman Empire and the formation of the great modern monarchies, between the first permanent invasion of the Germans, at the beginning of the 5th century of our era [see GAUL: A. D. 406-409], and the last invasion, made by the Turks, ten centuries later, in 1453."

V. Duruy, History of the Middle Ages, author's preface.

"It is not possible to fix accurate limits to the Middle Ages; … though the ten centuries from the 5th to the 15th seem, in a general point of view, to constitute that period."

H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, preface to first edition.

"We commonly say that ancient history closed with the year 476 A. D. The great fact which marks the close of that age and the beginning of a new one is the conquest of the Western Roman Empire by the German tribes, a process which occupied the whole of the fifth century and more. But if we are to select any special date to mark the change, the year 476 is the best for the purpose. … When we turn to the close of medieval history we find no such general agreement as to the specific date which shall be selected to stand for that fact. For one author it is 1453, the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire through the capture of Constantinople by the Turks; for another, 1492, the discovery of America; for another, 1520, the full opening of the Reformation. This variety of date is in itself very significant. It unconsciously marks the extremely important fact that the middle ages come to an end at different dates in the different lines of advance—manifestly earlier in politics and economics than upon the intellectual side. … It is a transition age. Lying, as it does, between two ages, in each of which there is an especially rapid advance of civilization, it is not itself primarily an age of progress. As compared with either ancient or modern history, the additions which were made during the middle ages to the common stock of civilization are few and unimportant. Absolutely, perhaps, they are not so. … But the most important of them fall within the last part of the period, and they are really indications that the age is drawing to a close, and a new and different one coming on. Progress, however much there may have been, is not its distinctive characteristic. There is a popular recognition of this fact in the general opinion that the medieval is a very barren and uninteresting period of history—the 'dark ages'—so confused and without evident plan that its facts are a mere disorganized jumble, impossible to reduce to system or to hold in mind. This must be emphatically true for every one, unless there can be found running through all its confusion some single line of evolution which will give it meaning and organization. … Most certainly there must be some such general meaning of the age. {2181} The orderly and regular progress of history makes it impossible that it should be otherwise. Whether that meaning can be correctly stated or not is much more uncertain. It is the difficulty of doing this which makes medieval history seem so comparatively barren a period. The most evident general meaning of the age is … assimilation. The greatest work which had to be done was to bring the German barbarian, who had taken possession of the ancient world and become everywhere the ruling race, up to such a level of attainment and understanding that he would be able to take up the work of civilization where antiquity had been forced to suspend it and go on with it from that point. … Here, then, is the work of the middle ages. To the results of ancient history were to be added the ideas and institutions of the Germans; to the enfeebled Roman race was to be added the youthful energy and vigor of the German. Under the conditions which existed this union could not be made—a harmonious and homogeneous Christendom could not be formed, except through centuries of time, through anarchy, and ignorance, and superstition."

G. B. Adams, Civilization During the Middle Ages, introduction.

"We speak, sometimes, of the 'Dark Ages,' and in matters of the exact sciences perhaps they were dark enough. Yet we must deduct something from our youthful ideas of their obscurity when we find that our truest lovers of beauty fix the building age of the world between the years 500 and 1500 of our era. Architecture, more than any other art, is an index to the happiness and freedom of the people; and during this period of 1,000 years, 'an architecture, pure in its principles, reasonable in its practice, and beautiful to the eyes of all men, even the simplest,' covered Europe with beautiful buildings from Constantinople to the north of Britain. In presence of this manifestation of free and productive intelligence, unmatched even in ancient Greece and Rome, and utterly unmatchable to-day, we may usefully reflect upon the expressive and constructive force of the spirit of Christendom, even in its darkest hours. The more closely we examine the question, the less ground we shall find for the conception of the Middle Ages as a long sleep followed by a sudden awakening. Rather we should consider that ancient Greece was the root, and ancient Rome the stem and branches of our life; that the Dark Ages, as we call them, represent its flower, and the modern world of science and political freedom the slowly-matured fruit. If we consider carefully that the Christian humanistic spirit held itself as charged from the first with the destinies of the illiterate and half-heathen masses of the European peoples, whereas, neither in Greece nor in the Roman Empire was civilisation intended for more than a third or a fourth part of the inhabitants of their territories, we shall not be surprised at an apparent fall of intellectual level, which really meant the beginning of a universal rise hitherto unknown in the history of the world. Ideas of this kind may help us to understand what must remain after all a paradox, that we have been taught to apply the term 'Dark Ages' to the period of what were in some respects the greatest achievements of the human mind, for example, the Cathedral of Florence and the writings of Dante. … It is perfectly obvious now to all who look carefully at these questions, that the instinct of our physical science and naturalistic art, of our evolutionist philosophy and democratic politics, is not antagonistic to, but is essentially one with the instinct which, in the Middle Ages, regarded all beauty and truth and power as the working of the Divine reason in the mind of man and in nature. What a genuine though grotesque anticipation of Charles Darwin is there in Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds!"

B. Bosanquet, The Civilization of Christendom, chapter 3.

"'I know nothing of those ages which knew nothing.' I really forget to which of two eminent wits this saying belongs; but I have often thought that I should have liked to ask him how he came to know so curious and important a fact respecting ages of which he knew nothing. Was it merely by hearsay? Everybody allows, however, that they were dark ages. Certainly; but what do we mean by darkness? Is not the term, as it is generally used, comparative? Suppose I were to say that I am writing 'in a little dark room,' would you understand me to mean that I could not see the paper before me? Or if I should say that I was writing 'on a dark day,' would you think I meant that the sun had not risen by noon? Well, then, let me beg you to remember this, when you and I use the term, dark ages. … Many causes … have concurred to render those ages very dark to us; but, for the present, I feel it sufficient to remind the reader, that darkness is quite a different thing from shutting the eyes: and that we have no right to complain that we can see but little until we have used due diligence to see what we can. As to the other point—that is, as to the degree of darkness in which those ages were really involved, and as to the mode and degree in which it affected those who lived in them, I must express my belief, that it has been a good deal exaggerated. There is no doubt that those who lived in what are generally called the 'middle' or the 'dark' ages, knew nothing of many things which are familiar to us, and which we deem essential to our comfort, and almost to our existence; but still I doubt whether, even in this point of view, they were so entirely dark as some would have us suppose."

S. R. Maitland, The Dark Ages, introduction.

"In the Middle Ages both sides of human consciousness—that which was turned within as that which was turned without—lay dreaming or half-awake beneath a common veil. The veil was woven of faith, illusion, and childish prepossession, through which the world and history were seen clad in strange hues. Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation—only through some general category. In Italy this veil first melted into air; an objective treatment and consideration of the state and of all the things of this world became possible. The subjective side at the same time asserted itself with corresponding emphasis; man became a spiritual individual, and recognised himself as such."

J. Burckhardt, The Renaissance in Italy, part 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

See, also, EUROPE (page 1010-1048): EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL; LIBRARIES, MEDIÆVAL; MEDICAL SCIENCE, MEDIÆVAL; MONEY AND BANKING, MEDIÆVAL.

MIDDLEBURG: Taken by the Gueux of Holland (1574).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574.

MIDDLESEX, Origin of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 477-527.

{2182}

MIDDLESEX ELECTIONS, John Wilkes and the.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1768-1774.

MIDIANITES, The.

"The name of Midian, though sometimes given peculiarly to the tribe on the south-east shores of the Gulf of Akaba, was extended to all Arabian tribes on the east of the Jordan,—'the Amalekites, and all the children of the East.'"

Dean Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, lecture 15 (volume 1).

MIGDOL.

See JEWS: THE ROUTE OF THE EXODUS.

MIGHTY HOST, Knights of the.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (OCTOBER).

MIGNONS OF HENRY III., The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1573-1576.

MIKADO.

"Though this is the name by which the whole outer world knows the sovereign of Japan, it is not that now used in Japan itself, except in poetry and on great occasions. The Japanese have got into the habit of calling their sovereign by such alien Chinese titles as Tenshi, 'the Son of Heaven'; Ten-o, or Tenno, 'the Heavenly Emperor'; Shujo, 'the Supreme Master.' His designation in the official translations of modern public documents into English is 'Emperor.' … The etymology of the word Mikado is not quite clear. Some—and theirs is the current opinion—trace it to 'mi,' 'august,' and 'kado,' a 'gate,' reminding one of the 'Sublime Porte' of Turkey. … The word Mikado is often employed to denote the monarch's Court as well as the monarch himself."

B. H. Chamberlain, Things Japanese, page 229.

MIKASUKIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

MILAN, King, Abdication of.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1879-1889.

----------MILAN: Start--------

MILAN: B. C. 223-222. The capital of the Insubrian Gauls (Mediolanum). Taken by the Romans.

See ROME: B. C. 295-191.

MILAN: A. D. 268. Aureolus besieged.

During the miserable and calamitous reign of the Roman emperor Gallienus, the army on the Upper Danube invested their leader, Aureolus, with the imperial purple, and crossed the Alps to place him on the throne. Defeated by Gallienus in a battle fought near Milan, Aureolus and his army took refuge in that city and were there besieged. During the progress of the siege a conspiracy against Gallienus was formed in his own camp, and he was assassinated. The crown was then offered to the soldier Claudius—afterwards called Claudius Gothicus—and he accepted it. The siege of Milan was continued by Claudius, the city was forced to surrender and Aureolus was put to death.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 11.

MILAN: A. D. 286. The Roman imperial court.

"Diocletian and Maximian were the first Roman princes who fixed, in time of peace, their ordinary residence in the provinces. … The court of the emperor of the west [Maximian] was, for the most part, established at Milan, whose situation, at the foot of the Alps, appeared far more convenient than that of Rome, for the important purpose of watching the motions of the barbarians of Germany. Milan soon assumed the splendour of an imperial city. The houses are described as numerous and well-built; the manners of the people as polished and liberal."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 13.

MILAN: A. D. 313. Constantine's Edict of Toleration.

See ROME: A. D. 313.

MILAN: A. D. 374-397. The Ambrosian Church.

The greatness of the Milanese, in later times, "was chiefly originated and promoted by the prerogatives of their Archbishop, amongst which that of crowning, and so in a manner constituting, the King of Italy, raised him in wealth and splendour above every other prelate of the Roman Church, and his city above every other city of Lombardy in power and pride. … It is said that the Church of Milan was founded by St. Barnabas; it is certain that it owed its chief aggrandisement, and the splendour which distinguished it from all other churches, to St. Ambrose [Archbishop from 374 to 397], who, having come to Milan in the time of Valentinian as a magistrate, was by the people made Bishop also, and as such was able to exalt it by the ordination of many inferior dignitaries, and by obtaining supremacy for it over all the Bishops of Lombardy. … This church received from St. Ambrose a peculiar liturgy, which was always much loved and venerated by the Milanese, and continued longer in use than any of those which anciently prevailed in other churches of the West. To the singing in divine service, which was then artless and rude, St. Ambrose, taking for models the ancient melodies still current in his time, the last echoes of the civilisation of distant ages, imparted a more regular rhythm [known as 'the Ambrosian Chant']; which, when reduced by St. Gregory to the grave simplicity of tone that best accords with the majesty of worship, obtained the name of 'Canto fermo'; and afterwards becoming richer, more elaborate, and easier to learn through the many ingenious inventions of Guido d' Arezzo, … was brought by degrees to the perfection of modern counterpoint. … St. Ambrose also composed prayers for his church, and hymns; amongst others, according to popular belief, that most sublime and majestic one, the Te Deum, which is now familiar and dear to the whole of Western Christendom. It is said that his clergy were not forbidden to marry. Hence an opinion prevailed that this church, according to the ancient statutes, ought not to be entirely subject to that of Rome."

G. B. Testa, History of the War of Frederick I. against the Communes of Lombardy, pages 23-24.

MILAN: A. D. 404. Removal of the Imperial Court.

See ROME: A. D.404-408.

MILAN: A. D. 452. Capture by the Huns.

See HUNS: A. D. 452.

MILAN: A. D. 539. Destroyed by the Goths.

When Belisarius, in his first campaign for the recovery of Italy from the Goths, had secured possession of Rome, A. D. 538, he sent a small force northward to Milan, and that city, hating its Gothic rulers, was gladly surrendered to him. It was occupied by a small Roman garrison and unwisely left to the attacks upon it that were inevitable. Very soon the Goths appeared before its walls, and with them 10,000 Burgundians who had crossed the Alps to their assistance. Belisarius despatched an army to the relief of the city, but the generals in command of it were cowardly and did nothing. After stoutly resisting for six months, suffering the last extremes of starvation and misery, Milan fell, and a terrible vengeance was wreaked upon it. "All the men were slain, and these, if the information given to Procopius was correct, amounted to 300,000. The women were made slaves, and handed over by the Goths to their Burgundian allies in payment of their services. The city itself was rased to the ground: not the only time that signal destruction has overtaken the fair capital of Lombardy."

T. Hodgkin, Italy and her Invaders, book 5, chapter 11.

See, also, ROME: A. D. 535-553.

{2183}

"The Goths, in their last moments, were revenged by the destruction of a city second only to Rome in size and opulence."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 41.

MILAN: 11th Century. Acquisition of Republican independence.

See ITALY: A. D. 1056-1152.

MILAN: A. D. 1162. Total destruction by Frederick Barbarossa.

See ITALY: A. D. 1154-1162.

MILAN: A. D. 1167. The rebuilding of the city.

See ITALY: A. D. 1166-1167.

MILAN: A. D. 1277-1447. The rise and the reign of the Visconti. Extension of their Tyranny over Lombardy. The downfall of their House.

"The power of the Visconti in Milan was founded upon that of the Della Torre family, who preceded them as Captains General of the people at the end of the 13th century. Otho, Archbishop of Milan, first laid a substantial basis for the dominion of his house by imprisoning Napoleone Della Torre and five of his relatives in three iron cages in 1277, and by causing his nephew Matteo Visconti to be nominated both by the Emperor and by the people of Milan as imperial Vicar. Matteo, who headed the Ghibelline party in Lombardy, was the model of a prudent Italian despot. From the date 1311, when he finally succeeded in his attempts upon the sovereignty of Milan [see ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313], to 1322, when he abdicated in favour of his son Galeazzo, he ruled his states by force of character, craft, and insight, more than by violence or cruelty. Excellent as a general, he was still better as a diplomatist, winning more cities by money than by the sword. All through his life, as became a Ghibelline chief at that time, he persisted in fierce enmity against the Church. … Galeazzo, his son, was less fortunate than Matteo, surnamed Il Grande by the Lombards. The Emperor Louis of Bavaria threw him into prison on the occasion of his visit to Milan in 1327 [see ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330], and only released him at the intercession of his friend Castruccio Castracane. To such an extent was the growing tyranny of the Visconti still dependent upon their office delegated from the Empire. … Azzo [the son of Galeazzo] bought the city, together with the title of Imperial Vicar, from the same Louis who had imprisoned his father. When he was thus seated in the tyranny of his grandfather, he proceeded to fortify it further by the addition of ten Lombard towns, which he reduced beneath the supremacy of Milan. At the same time he consolidated his own power by the murder of his uncle Marco in 1329, who had grown too mighty as a general. … Azzo died in 1339, and was succeeded by his uncle Lucchino," who was poisoned by his wife in 1349. "Lucchino was potent as a general and governor. He bought Parma from Obizzo d' Este, and made the town of Pisa dependent upon Milan. … Lucchino left sons, but none of proved legitimacy. Consequently he was succeeded by his brother Giovanni, son of old Matteo il Grande and Archbishop of Milan. This man, the friend of Petrarch, was one of the most notable characters of the 14th century. Finding himself at the head of 16 cities, he added Bologna to the tyranny of the Visconti, in 1350, and made himself strong enough to defy the Pope. … In 1353 Giovanni annexed Genoa to the Milanese principality, and died in 1354, having established the rule of the Visconti over the whole of the north of Italy, with the exception of Piedmont, Verona, Mantua, Ferrara, and Venice. The reign of the Archbishop Giovanni marks a new epoch in the despotism of the Visconti. They are now no longer the successful rivals of the Della Torre family, or dependents on imperial caprice, but self-made sovereigns, with a well-established power in Milan and a wide extent of subject territory. Their dynasty, though based on force and maintained by violence, has come to be acknowledged; and we shall soon see them allying themselves with the royal houses of Europe. After the death of Giovanni, Matteo's sons were extinct. But Stefano, the last of his family, had left three children, who now succeeded to the lands and cities of the house. They were named Matteo, Bernabo, and Galeazzo. Between these three princes a partition of the heritage of Giovanni Visconti was effected. … Milan and Genoa were to be ruled by the three in common." Matteo was put out of the way by his two brothers in 1355. Bernabo reigned brutally at Milan, and Galeazzo with great splendor at Pavia. The latter married his daughter to the Duke of Clarence, son of Edward III. of England, and his son to Princess Isabella, of France. "Galeazzo died in 1378, and was succeeded in his own portion of the Visconti domain by his son Gian Galeazzo," who was able, seven years afterwards, by singular refinements of treachery, to put his uncle to death and take possession of his territories. "The reign of Gian Galeazzo, which began with this coup-de-main (1385-1402), forms a very important chapter in Italian history. … At the time of his accession the Visconti had already rooted out the Correggi and Rossi of Parma, the Scotti of Piacenza, the Pelavicini of San Donnino, the Tornielli of Novara, the Ponzoni and Cavalcabò of Cremona, the Beccaria and Languschi of Pavia, the Fisiraghi of Lodi, the Brusati of Brescia. … But the Carrara family still ruled at Padua, the Gonzaga at Mantua, the Este at Ferrara, while the great house of Scala was in possession of Verona. Gian Galeazzo's schemes were at first directed against the Scala dynasty. Founded, like that of the Visconti, upon the imperial authority, it rose to its greatest height under the Ghibelline general Can Grande and his nephew Mastino in the first half of the 14th century (1312-1351). Mastino had himself cherished the project of an Italian Kingdom; but he died before approaching its accomplishment. The degeneracy of his house began with his three sons. The two younger killed the eldest; of the survivors the stronger slew the weaker and then died in 1374, leaving his domains to two of his bastards. One of these, named Antonio, killed the other in 1381, and afterwards fell a prey to the Visconti in 1387. In his subjugation of Verona Gian Galeazzo contrived to make use of the Carrara family, although these princes were allied by marriage to the Scaligers, and had everything to lose by their downfall. {2184} He next proceeded to attack Padua, and gained the co-operation of Venice. In 1388 Francesco da Carrara had to cede his territory to Visconti's generals, who in the same year possessed themselves for him of the Trevisan Marches. It was then that the Venetians saw too late the error they had committed in suffering Verona and Padua to be annexed by the Visconti. … Having now made himself master of the north of Italy with the exception of Mantua, Ferrara, and Bologna, Gian Galeazzo turned his attention to these cities." By intrigues of devilish subtlety and malignity, he drew the Marquis of Ferrara and the Marquis of Mantua into crimes which were their ruin, and made his conquest of those cities easy. "The whole of Lombardy was now prostrate before the Milanese viper. His next move was to set foot in Tuscany. For this purpose Pisa had to be acquired; and here again he resorted to his devilish policy of inciting other men to crimes by which he alone would profit in the long run. Pisa was ruled at that time by the Gambacorta family, with an old merchant named Pietro at their head." Gian Galeazzo caused Pietro to be assassinated, and then bought the city from the assassins (1399). "In 1399 the Duke laid hands on Siena; and in the next two years the plague came to his assistance by enfeebling the ruling families of Lucca and Bologna, the Guinizzi and the Bentivogli, so that he was now able to take possession of those cities. There remained no power in Italy, except the Republic of Florence and the exiled but invincible Francesco da Carrara, to withstand his further progress. Florence [see FLORENCE: A. D. 1390-1402] delayed his conquests in Tuscany. Francesco managed to return to Padua. Still the peril which threatened the whole of Italy was imminent. … At last, when all other hope of independence for Italy had failed, the plague broke out with fury in Lombardy," and Gian Galeazzo died of it in 1402, aged 55. "At his death his two sons were still mere boys. … The generals refused to act with them, and each seized upon such portions of the Visconti inheritance as he could most easily acquire. The vast tyranny of the first Duke of Milan fell to pieces in a day." The dominion which his elder son lost (see ITALY: A. D. 1402-1406) and which his younger son regained (see ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447) slipped from the family on the death of the last of them, in 1447.

J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: The Age of the Despots, chapter 2.

"At the end of the fourteenth century their [the Visconti's] informal lordship passed by a royal grant [from the Emperor Wenceslaus to Gian-Galeazzo; A. D. 1395] into an acknowledged duchy of the Empire. The dominion which they had gradually gained, and which was thus in a manner legalized, took in all the great cities of Lombardy, those especially which had formed the Lombard League against the Swabian Emperors. Pavia indeed, the ancient rival of Milan, kept a kind of separate being, and was formed into a distinct county. But the duchy granted by Wenceslaus to Gian-Galeazzo stretched far on both sides of the lake of Garda."

E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe, chapter 8, section 3.

ALSO IN: J. C. L. de Sismondi, History of the Italian Republics, chapter 4.

G. Procter (G. Perceval, pseudonym), History of Italy, chapters 4-5 (volume 1).

T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 4, chapters 4-6 (volume 2).

MILAN: A. D. 1360-1391. Wars with Florence and with the Pope. Dealings with the Free Companies.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1393.

MILAN: A. D. 1422. The sovereignty of Genoa surrendered to the Duke.

See GENOA: A. D. 1381-1422.

MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454. Competitors for the ducal succession to the Visconti. The prize carried off by Francesco Sforza. War of Milan and Florence with Venice, Naples, Savoy, and other states.

John Galeazzo Visconti had married (as stated above) a daughter of King John of France. "Valentine Visconti, one of the children of this marriage, married her cousin, Louis, duke of Orleans, the only brother of Charles VI. In their marriage contract, which the pope confirmed, it was stipulated that, upon failure of heirs male in the family of Visconti; the duchy of Milan should descend to the posterity of Valentine and the duke of Orleans. That event took place. In the year 1447, Philip Maria, the last prince of the ducal family of Visconti, died. Various competitors claimed the succession. Charles, duke of Orleans, pleaded his right to it, founded on the marriage contract of his mother, Valentine Visconti. Alfonso, king of Naples, claimed it in consequence of a will made by Philip Maria in his favor. The emperor contended that, upon the extinction of male issue in the family of Visconti, the fief returned to the superior lord, and ought to be re-annexed to the empire. The people of Milan, smitten with the love of liberty which in that age prevailed among the Italian states, declared against the dominion of any master, and established a republican form of government. But during the struggle among so many competitors, the prize for which they contended was seized by one from whom none of them apprehended any danger. Francis Sforza, the natural son of Jacomuzzo Sforza, whom his courage and abilities had elevated from the rank of a peasant to be one of the most eminent and powerful of the Italian condottieri, having succeeded his father in the command of the adventurers who followed his standard, had married a natural daughter of the last duke of Milan [see ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447]. Upon this shadow of a title Francis founded his pretensions to the duchy, which he supported with such talents and valor as placed him at last on the ducal throne."

W. Robertson, History of Charles the Fifth: View of the Progress of Society, section 3.

"Francesco Sforza possessed himself of the supreme power by treachery and force of arms, but he saved for half a century the independence of a State which, after 170 years of tyranny, was no longer capable of life as a commonwealth, and furthered its prosperity, while he powerfully contributed to the formation of a political system which, however great its weakness, was the most reasonable under existing circumstances. Without the aid of Florence and Cosimo de' Medici, he would not have attained his ends. Cosimo had recognised his ability in the war with Visconti, and made a close alliance with him. … It was necessary to choose between Sforza and Venice, for there was only one alternative: either the condottiere would make himself Duke of Milan, or the Republic of San Marco would extend its rule over all Lombardy. In Florence several voices declared in favour of the old ally on the Adriatic. … Cosimo de' Medici gave the casting-vote in Sforza's favour. … {2185} Without Florentine money; Sforza would never have been able to maintain the double contest—on the one side against Milan, which he blockaded and starved out; and on the other against the Venetians, who sought to relieve it, and whom he repulsed. And when, on March 25, 1450, he made his entry into the city which proclaimed him ruler, he was obliged to maintain himself with Florentine money till he had established his position and re-organised the State. … Common animosity to Florence and Sforza drew Venice and the king [Alfonso, of Naples] nearer to one another, and at the end of 1451 an alliance, offensive and defensive, was concluded against them, which Siena, Savoy, and Montferrat joined. … On May 16, 1452, the Republic, and, four weeks later, King Alfonso, declared war, which the Emperor Frederick III., then in Italy, and Pope Nicholas V., successor to Eugenius IV. since 1447, in vain endeavoured to prevent." The next year "a foreign event contributed more than all to terminate this miserable war. … On May 29, 1453, Mohammed II. stormed Constantinople. The West was threatened, more especially Venice, which had such great and wealthy possessions in the Levant, and Naples. This time the excellent Pope Nicholas V. did not exert himself in vain. On April 9, 1454, Venice concluded a tolerably favourable peace with Francesco Sforza at Lodi, in which King Alfonso, Florence, Savoy, Montferrat, Mantua, and Siena, were to be included. The king, who had made considerable preparations for war, did not ratify the compact till January 26 of the following year. The States of Northern and Central Italy then joined in an alliance, and a succession of peaceful years followed."

A. von Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, book 1, chapter 7 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: W. P. Urquhart, Life and Times of Francesco Sforza.

A. M. F. Robinson, The End of the Middle Ages: Valentine Visconti.

The French Claim to Milan.

MILAN: A. D. 1464. Renewed surrender of Genoa to the Duke.

See GENOA: A. D. 1458-1464.

MILAN: A. D. 1492-1496. The usurpation of Ludovico, the Moor. His invitation to Charles VIII. of France. The French invasion of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494; and 1494-1496.

MILAN: A. D. 1499-1500. Conquest by Louis XII. of France. His claim by right of Valentine Visconti.

See ITALY: A. D. 1499-1500.

MILAN: A. D. 1501. Treaty for the investiture of Louis XII. as Duke, by the Emperor Maximilian.

See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.

MILAN: A. D. 1512. Expulsion of the French and restoration of the Sforzas.

Notwithstanding the success of the French at Ravenna, in their struggle with the Holy League formed against them by Pope Julius II. (see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513), they could not hold their ground in Italy. "Cremona shook off the yoke of France, and city after city followed her example. Nor did it seem possible longer to hold Milan in subjection. That versatile state, after twice bending the neck to Louis, a second time grew weary of his government; and greedily listened to the proposal of the Pope to set upon the throne Massimiliano Sforza, son of their late Duke Ludovico. Full of this project the people of Milan rose simultaneously to avenge the cruelties of the French; the soldiers and merchants remaining in the city were plundered, and about 1,500 put to the sword. The retreating army was harassed by the Lombards, and severely galled by the Swiss; and after encountering the greatest difficulties, the French crossed the Alps, having preserved none of their conquests in Lombardy except the citadel of Milan, and a few other fortresses. … At the close of the year, Massimiliano Sforza made his triumphal entry into Milan, with the most extravagant ebullitions of delight on the part of the people."

Sir R. Comyn, History of the Western Empire, chapter 37 (volume 2).

MILAN: A. D. 1515. French reconquest by Francis I. Final overthrow of the Sforzas.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1515; and 1515-1518.

MILAN: A. D. 1517. Abortive attempt of the Emperor Maximilian against the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1516-1517.

MILAN: A. D. 1521-1522. The French again expelled.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1520-1523.

MILAN: A. D. 1524-1525. Recaptured and lost again by Francis I. of France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1523-1525.

MILAN: A. D. 1527-1529. Renewed attack of the French king. Its disastrous end. Renunciation of the French claim.

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

MILAN: A. D. 1544. Repeated renunciation of the claims of Francis I. The duchy becomes a dependency of the Spanish crown.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.

MILAN: A. D. 1635-1638. Invasion of the duchy by French and Italian armies.

See ITALY: A. D. 1635-1659.

MILAN: A. D. 1713. Cession of the duchy to Austria.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

MILAN: A. D. 1745. Occupied by the Spaniards and French.

See ITALY: A. D. 1745.

MILAN: A. D. 1746. Recovered by the Austrians.

See ITALY: A. D. 1746-1747.

MILAN: A. D. 1749-1792. Under Austrian rule after the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle.

See ITALY: A. D. 1749-1792.

MILAN: A. D. 1796. Occupation by the French. Bonaparte's pillage of the Art-galleries and Churches.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

MILAN: A. D. 1799. Evacuation by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER).

MILAN: A. D. 1800. Recovery by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

MILAN: A. D. 1805. Coronation of Napoleon as king of Italy.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805.

MILAN: A. D. 1807-1808. Napoleon's adornment of the city and its cathedral.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1807-1808 (NOVEMBER-FEBRUARY).

MILAN: A. D. 1814-1815. Restored to Austria.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE); and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

MILAN: A. D. 1848-1849. Insurrection. Expulsion of the Austrians. Failure of the struggle.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

MILAN: A. D. 1859. Liberation from the Austrians.

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.

----------MILAN: End----------

MILAN DECREE, The.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810; also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.

MILANESE, MILANESS, The.

The district or duchy of Milan.

MILESIANS, Irish.

In Irish legendary history, the followers of Miled, who came from the north of Spain and were the last of the four races which colonized Ireland.

T. Wright, History of Ireland, book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).

See IRELAND: THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS.

----------MILETUS: Start----------

{2186}

MILETUS.

Miletus, on the coast of Asia Minor, near its southwestern extremity, "with her four harbours, had been the earliest anchorage on the entire coast. Phœnicians, Cretans, and Carians, had inaugurated her world-wide importance, and Attic families, endowed with eminent energy, had founded the city anew.

See ASIA MINOR: THE GREEK COLONIES.

True, Miletus also had a rich territory of her own in her rear, viz., the broad valley of the Mæander, where among other rural pursuits particularly the breeding of sheep flourished. Miletus became the principal market for the finer sorts of wool; and the manufacture of this article into variegated tapestry and coloured stuffs for clothing employed a large multitude of human beings. But this industry also continued in an increasing measure to demand importation from without of all kinds of materials of art, articles of food, and slaves.

See ASIA MINOR: B. C. 724-539.

In no city was agriculture made a consideration so secondary to industry and trade as here. At Miletus, the maritime trade even came to form a particular party among the citizens, the so-called 'Aeinautæ,' the 'men never off the water.'"

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book. 2, chapter 3 (volume 1).

Miletus took an early leading part in the great Ionian enterprises of colonization and trade, particularly in the Pontus, or Black Sea, where the Milesians succeeded the Phœnicians, establishing important commercial settlements at Sinope, Cyzicus and elsewhere. They were among the last of the Asiatic Ionians to succumb to the Lydian monarchy, and they were the first to revolt against the Persian domination, when that had taken the place of the Lydian. The great revolt failed and Miletus was practically destroyed.

See PERSIA: B. C. 521-493.

Recovering some importance it was destroyed again by Alexander. Once more rising under the Roman empire, it was destroyed finally by the Turks and its very ruins have not been identified with certainty;

MILETUS: B. C. 412. Revolt from Athens.

See GREECE: B. C. 413-412.

----------MILETUS: End----------

MILITARY-RELIGIOUS ORDERS.

See HOSPITALLERS; TEMPLARS; TEUTONIC KNIGHTS; and ST. LAZARUS. KNIGHTS OF.

MILL SPRING, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE).

MILLENIAL YEAR, The.

"It has often been stated that in the tenth century there was a universal belief that the end of the world was to happen in the year 1000 A. D. This representation has recently been subjected to a critical scrutiny by Eiken, Le Roy, and Orsi, and found to be an unwarrantable exaggeration. It would be still less applicable to any century earlier or later than the tenth. A conviction of the impending destruction of the world, however, was not uncommon at almost any period of the middle age. It is frequently found expressed in the writings of Gregory of Tours, Fredegar, Lambert of Hersfeld, Ekkehard of Aurach, and Otto of Freisingen."

R. Flint, History of the Philosophy of History: France, etc., pages 101-102.

MILOSCH OBRENOVITCH, The career of.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14-19TH CENTURIES (SERVIA).

MILTIADES: Victory at Marathon. Condemnation and death.

See GREECE: B. C. 490; also, ATHENS: B. C. 501-490, and B. C. 489-480.

MILVIAN BRIDGE, Battle of the (B. C. 78).

See ROME: B. C. 78-68.

MIMS, Fort, The massacre at.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).

MINA.

See TALENT; also, SHEKEL.

MINCIO, Battle of the.

See ITALY: A. D. 1814.

MINDEN, Battle of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1759 (APRIL-AUGUST).

MINE RUN MOVEMENT, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY-NOVEMBER: VIRGINIA).

MING DYNASTY, The.

See CHINA: THE ORIGIN OF THE PEOPLE, &c.; and 1294-1882.

MINGELSHEIM, Battle of (1622).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623.

MINGOES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MINGOES.

MINIMS.

"Of the orders which arose in the 15th century, the most remarkable was that of Eremites [Hermits] of St. Francis, or Minims, founded … by St. Francis of Paola, and approved by Sixtus IV. in 1474." St. Francis, a Minorite friar of Calabria, was one of the devotees whom Louis XI. of France gathered about himself during his last days, in the hope that their intercessions might prolong his life. To propitiate him, Louis "founded convents at Plessis and at Amboise for the new religious society, the members of which, not content with the name of Minorites, desired to signify their profession of utter insignificance by styling themselves Minims."

J. C. Robertson, History of the Christian Church, volume 8, pages 369 and 224.

MINISTRY. MINISTERIAL GOVERNMENT, The English.

See CABINET, THE ENGLISH.

MINNE.

See GUILDS OF FLANDERS.

----------MINNESOTA: Start--------

MINNESOTA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

MINNESOTA: A. D. 1803. Part of the state, west of the Mississippi, acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

MINNESOTA: A. D. 1834-1838. Joined to Michigan Territory; then to Wisconsin; then to Iowa.

See WISCONSIN: A. D. 1805-1848.

MINNESOTA: A. D. 1849-1858. Territorial and State organizations.

Minnesota was organized as a Territory in 1849, and admitted to the Union as a State in 1858.

----------MINNESOTA: End--------

MINNETAREES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HIDATSA, and SIOUAN FAMILY.

----------MINORCA: Start----------

MINORCA: 13th Century. Conquest by King James of Aragon.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1212-1238.

{2187}

MINORCA: A. D. 1708. Acquisition by England.

In 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Port Mahon, and the whole island of Minorca, were taken by an English expedition from Barcelona, under General Stanhope, who afterwards received a title from his conquest, becoming Viscount Stanhope of Mahon. Port Mahon was then considered the best harbor in the Mediterranean and its importance to England was rated above that of Gibraltar.

Earl Stanhope, History of England: Reign of Queen Anne, chapter 10.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1707-1710.

At the Peace of Utrecht Minorca was ceded to Great Britain and remained under the British flag during the greater part of the 18th century.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

MINORCA: A. D. 1756. Taken by the French.

At the outbreak of the Seven Years War, in 1756, there was great dread in England of an immediate French invasion; and "the Government so thoroughly lost heart as to request the King to garrison England with Hanoverian troops. This dread was kept alive by a simulated collection of French troops in the north. But, under cover of this threat, a fleet was being collected at Toulon, with the real design of capturing Minorca. The ministry were at last roused to this danger, and Byng was despatched with ten sail of the line to prevent it. Three days after he set sail the Duke de Richelieu, with 16,000 men, slipped across into the island, and compelled General Blakeney, who was somewhat old and infirm, to withdraw into the castle of St. Philip, which was at once besieged. On the 19th of May—much too late to prevent the landing of Richelieu—Byng arrived within view of St. Philip, which was still in the possession of the English. The French Admiral, La Galissonnière, sailed out to cover the siege, and Byng, who apparently felt himself unequally matched—although West, his second in command, behaved with gallantry and success—called a council of war, and withdrew. Blakeney, who had defended his position with great bravery, had to surrender. The failure of Byng, and the general weakness and incapacity of the ministry, roused the temper of the people to rage; and Newcastle, trembling for himself, threw all the blame upon the Admiral, hoping by this means to satisfy the popular cry. … A court martial held upon that officer had been bound by strict instructions, and had found itself obliged to bring in a verdict of guilty, though without casting any imputation on the personal courage of the Admiral. On his accession to power Pitt was courageous enough, although he rested on the popular favour, to do his best to get Byng pardoned, and urged on the King that the House of Commons seemed to wish the sentence to be mitigated. The King is said to have answered in words that fairly describe Pitt's position, 'Sir, you have taught me to look for the sense of my subjects in another place than the House of Commons.' The sentence was carried out, and Byng was shot on the quarter-deck of the 'Monarque' at Portsmouth (March 14, 1757)."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 3, pages 1021-1022.

MINORCA: A. D. 1763. Restored to England by the Treaty of Paris.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.

MINORCA: A. D. 1782. Captured by the Spaniards.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1780-1782.

MINORCA: A. D. 1802. Ceded to Spain by the Treaty of Amiens.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802.

----------MINORCA: End----------

MINORITES, The.

The Franciscan friars, called by their founder "Fratri Minori," bore very commonly the name of the Minorites.

See MENDICANT ORDERS.

MINQUAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and SUSQUEHANNAS.

MINSIS, MUNSEES, MINISINKS.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and DELAWARES; and, also, MANHATTAN ISLAND.

MINTO, Lord, The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

MINUTE-MEN.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1774.

MINYI, The.

"The race [among the Greeks] which … first issues forth with a history of its own from the dark background of the Pelasgian people is that of the Minyi. The cycle of their heroes includes Iason and Euneus, his son, who trades with Phœnicians and with Greeks. … The myths of the Argo were developed in the greatest completeness on the Pagasæan gulf, in the seats of the Minyi; and they are the first with whom a perceptible movement of the Pelasgean tribes beyond the sea—in other words, a Greek history in Europe—begins. The Minyi spread both by land and sea. They migrated southwards into the fertile fields of Bœotia, and settled on the southern side of the Copæic valley by the sea. … After leaving the low southern coast they founded a new city at the western extremity of the Bœotian valley. There a long mountain ridge juts out from the direction of Parnassus, and round its farthest projection flows in a semicircle the Cephissus. At the lower edge of the height lies the village of Skripu. Ascending from its huts, one passes over primitive lines of wall to the peak of the mountain, only approachable by a rocky staircase of a hundred steps, and forming the summit of a castle. This is the second city of the Minyi in Bœotia, called Orchomenus: like the first, the most ancient walled royal seat which can be proved to have existed in Hellas, occupying a proud and commanding position over the valley by the sea. Only a little above the dirty huts of clay rises out of the depths of the soil the mighty block of marble, more than twenty feet high, which covered the entrance of a round building. The ancients called it the treasury of Minyas, in the vaults of which the ancient kings were believed to have hoarded the superfluity of their treasures of gold and silver, and in these remains endeavoured to recall to themselves the glory of Orchomenus sung by Homer."

E. Curtius, History of Greece, book 1, chapter 3 (volume 1).

See, also, BŒOTIA; and GREECE: THE MIGRATIONS.

MIR, The Russian.

"The 'mir' is a commune, whose bond is unity of autonomy and of possession of land. Sometimes the mir is a single village. In this case the economic administration adapts itself exactly to the civil. Again, it may happen that a large village is divided into many rural communes. Then each commune has its special economic administration, whilst the civil and police administration is common to all. Sometimes, lastly, a number of villages only have one mir. Thus the size of the mir may vary from 20 or 30 to some thousands of 'dvors.' … The 'dvor,' or court, is the economic unit: it contains one or several houses, and one or several married couples lodge in it. The 'dvor' has only one hedge and one gate in common for its inmates. … With the Great Russians the mir regulates even the ground that the houses stand on; the mir has the right to shift about the 'dvors.' … {2188} Besides land, the communes have property of another kind: fish-lakes, communal mills, a communal herd for the improvement of oxen and horses; finally, storehouses, intended for the distribution to the peasants of seeds for their fields or food for their families. The enjoyment of all these various things must be distributed among the members of the commune, must be distributed regularly, equally, equitably. Thus, a fair distribution today will not be fair five or six years hence, because in some families the number of members will have increased, in others diminished. A new distribution, therefore, will be necessary to make the shares equal. For a long time this equalization can be brought about by partial sharings-up, by exchange of lots of ground between the private persons concerned, without upsetting everybody by a general redistribution. … The Russian mir is not an elementary unit. It is made up of several primordial cells—of small circles that form in perfect freedom. The mir only asks that the circles (osmaks) are equal as to labour-power. This condition fulfilled, I am free to choose my companions in accordance with my friendships or my interests. When the village has any work to do, any property to distribute, the administration or the assembly of the commune generally does not concern itself with individuals, but with the 'osmak' … Each village has an administration; it is represented by a mayor (selskï starosta), chosen by the mir. But this administration has to do only with affairs determined upon in principle by the communal assembly. The starosta has no right of initiating any measures of importance. Such questions (partition of the land, new taxes, leases of communal property, etc.) are only adjudicated and decided by the assembly of the mir. All the peasants living in the village come to the assembly, even the women. If, for example, the wife, by the death of her husband, is the head of the family, at the assembly she has the right to vote. … The peasants meet very frequently. … The assemblies are very lively, … courageous, independent."

L. Tikhomirov, Russia, Political and Social, book 3, chapter 2, with foot-note, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: D. M. Wallace, Russia, volume 1, chapter 8.

W. T. Stead, The Truth about Russia, book 4, chapter 2.

A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars, part 1, book 8.

MIRABEAU, and the French Revolution.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (MAY). to 1790-1791.

MIRACULOUS VICTORY, The.

See THUNDERING LEGION.

MIRAFLORES, Battle of (1881).

See CHILE: A. D. 1833-1884.

MIRANDA, Revolutionary undertakings of.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800; and COLOMBIAN STATES: A. D. 1810-1819.

MIRANHA, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.

MIRISZLO, Battle of (1600).

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: 14TH-18TH CENTURIES.

MISCHIANZA, The.

See PHILADELPHIA: A. D. 1777-1778.

MISCHNA, The.

Rabbi Jehuda, the Patriarch at Tiberius, was the author (about A. D. 194) of "a new constitution to the Jewish people. He embodied in the celebrated Mischna, or Code of Traditional Law, all the authorized interpretations of the Mosaic Law, the traditions, the decisions of the learned, and the precedents of the courts or schools. … The sources from which the Mischna was derived may give a fair view of the nature of the Rabbinical authority, and the manner in which it had superseded the original Mosaic Constitution. The Mischna was grounded, 1. On the Written Law of Moses. 2. On the Oral Law, received by Moses on Mount Sinai, and handed down, it was said, by uninterrupted tradition. 3. The decisions or maxims of the Wise Men. 4. Opinions of particular individuals, on which the schools were divided, and which still remained open. 5. Ancient usages and customs.

The distribution of the Mischna affords a curious exemplification of the intimate manner in which the religious and civil duties of the Jews were interwoven, and of the authority assumed by the Law over every transaction of life. The Mischna commenced with rules for prayer, thanksgiving, ablutions; it is impossible to conceive the minuteness or subtlety of these rules, and the fine distinctions drawn by the Rabbins. It was a question whether a man who ate figs, grapes, and pomegranates, was to say one or three graces; … whether he should sweep the house and then wash his hands, or wash his hands and then sweep the house. But there are nobler words."

H. H. Milman, History of the Jews, book 19.

See, also, TALMUD.

MISE OF AMIENS, The.

See OXFORD, PROVISIONS OF.

MISE OF LEWES, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.

MISENUM, Treaty of.

The arrangement by which Sextus Pompeius was virtually admitted (B. C. 40) for a time into partnership with the triumvirate of Antony, Octavius and Lepidus, was so called.

See ROME: B. C. 44-42.

MISR.

See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.

MISSI DOMINICI.

"Nothing was more novel or peculiar in the legislation of Karl [Charlemagne] than his institution of imperial deputies, called Missi Dominici, who were regularly sent forth from the palace to oversee and inspect the various local administrations. Consisting of a body of two or three officers each, one of whom was always a prelate, they visited the counties every three months, and held there the local assizes, or 'placita minores.' … Even religion and morals were not exempted from this scrutiny."

P. Godwin, History of France: Ancient Gaul, chapter 17.

See, also, PALATINE, COUNTS.

MISSIONARY RIDGE: Its position, and the battle fought on it.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: TENNESSEE); and (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER: TENNESSEE).

----------MISSISSIPPI: Start--------

MISSISSIPPI: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY, and CHEROKEES.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1629. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Sir Robert Heath.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1629.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1663. Embraced in the Carolina grant to Monk, Chesterfield, and others.

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1663-1670.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1732. Mostly embraced in the new province of Georgia.

See GEORGIA: A. D. 1732-1739.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1763. Partly embraced in West Florida, ceded to Great Britain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES; FLORIDA: A. D. 1763; and NORTHWEST TERRITORY: A. D. 1763.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1779-1781. Reconquest of West Florida by the Spaniards.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.

{2189}

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1783. Mostly covered by the English cession to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1783-1787. Partly in dispute with Spain.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1798-1804. The Territory constituted and organized.

"The territory heretofore surrendered by the Spanish authorities, and lying north of the 31st degree of latitude, with the consent and approbation of the State of Georgia, was erected into a territory of the United States by act of Congress, approved April 7th, 1798, entitled 'an act for the amicable settlement of limits with the State of Georgia, and authorizing the establishment of a government in the Mississippi Territory. The territory comprised in the new organization, or the original Mississippi Territory, embraced that portion of country between the Spanish line of demarkation and a line drawn due east from the mouth of the Yazoo to the Chattahoochy River. The Mississippi River was its western limit and the Chattahoochy its eastern. The organization of a territorial government by the United States was in no wise to impair the rights of Georgia to the soil, which was left open for future negotiation between the State of Georgia and the United States." In 1802 the State of Georgia ceded to the United States all her claim to lands south of the State of Tennessee, stipulating to receive $1,250,000" out of the first nett proceeds of lands lying in said ceded territory." In 1804 "the whole of the extensive territory ceded by Georgia, lying north of the Mississippi Territory, and south of Tennessee, was … annexed to the Mississippi Territory, and was subsequently included within its limits and jurisdiction. The boundaries of the Mississippi Territory, consequently, were the 31st degree on the south, and the 35th degree on the north, extending from the Mississippi River to the western limits of Georgia, and comprised the whole territory now embraced in the States of Alabama and Mississippi, excepting the small Florida District between the Pearl and Perdido Rivers. Four fifths of this extensive territory were in the possession of the four great southern Indian confederacies, the Choctâs, the Chickasâs, the Creeks, and the Cherokees, comprising an aggregate of about 75,000 souls, and at least 10,000 warriors. The only portions of this territory to which the Indian title had been extinguished was a narrow strip from 15 to 50 miles in width, on the east side of the Mississippi, and about 70 miles in length, and a small district on the Tombigby."

J. W. Monette, Discovery and Settlement of the Valley of the Mississippi, book 5, chapter 13 (volume 2).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1803. Portion acquired by the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1812-1813. Spanish West Florida annexed to Mississippi Territory and possession taken.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1813-1814. The Creek War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813-1814 (AUGUST-APRIL).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1817. Constitution as a State and admission into the Union.

The sixth and seventh of the new States added to the original Union of thirteen were Indiana and Mississippi. "These last almost simultaneously found representation in the Fifteenth Congress; and of them Indiana, not without an internal struggle, held steadfastly to the fundamental Ordinance of 1787 under which it was settled, having adopted its free State constitution in June, 1816; Mississippi, which followed on the slave side, agreeing upon a constitution, in August, 1817, which the new Congress, at its earliest opportunity [December 10, 1817] after assembling, pronounced republican in form, and satisfactory."

J. Schouler, History of the United States, volume 3, page 100.

At the same time, the part of Mississippi Territory which forms the present State of Alabama was detached and erected into the Territory of Alabama.

See ALABAMA: A. D. 1817-1819.

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1861 (January). Secession from the Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1862 (April-May). The taking of Corinth by the Union forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL-MAY: TENNESSEE-MISSISSIPPI).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1862 (May-July). First Union attempts against Vicksburg.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1862 (September-October). The battles of Iuka and Corinth.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: MISSISSIPPI).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1863 (April-May). Grierson's raid.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-MAY: MISSISSIPPI).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1863 (April-July). Federal siege and capture of Vicksburg.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (APRIL-JULY).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1863 (July). Capture and destruction of Jackson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: MISSISSIPPI).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1864 (February). Sherman's raid to Meridian.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863-1864 (DECEMBER-APRIL: TENNESSEE—MISSISSIPPI).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1865 (March-April). Wilson's raid. The end of the Rebellion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1865 (June). Provisional government set up under President Johnson's plan of Reconstruction.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY).

MISSISSIPPI: A. D. 1865-1870. State reconstruction.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (MAY-JULY), to 1868-1870.

----------MISSISSIPPI: End--------

----------MISSISSIPPI RIVER: Start--------

MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1519. Discovery of the mouth by Pineda, for Garay.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1525.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1528-1542. Crossed by Cabeça de Vaca, and by Hernando de Soto. Descended by the survivors of De Soto's company.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1673. Discovery by Joliet and Marquette.

See CANADA: A. D. 1634-1673.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1682. Exploration to the mouth by La Salle. See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1712. Called the River St. Louis by the French.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1783-1803. The question of the Right of Navigation disputed between Spain and the United States.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1783-1787; and LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800, and 1798-1803.

MISSISSIPPI RIVER: A. D. 1861-1863. Battles and Sieges of the Civil War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER: ON THE MISSISSIPPI), Belmont; 1862 (MARCH-APRIL), NEW

Madrid and Island No. 10; 1862 (APRIL), New Orleans; 1862 (MAY-JULY), First Vicksburg attack; 1862 (JUNE), Memphis; 1862 (DECEMBER), Second Vicksburg attack; 1863 (JANUARY-APRIL), and (APRIL-JULY),

Siege and capture of Vicksburg; 1863 (MAY-JULY), Port Hudson and the clear opening of the River.

----------MISSISSIPPI RIVER: End--------

{2190}

MISSISSIPPI SCHEME, John Law's.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1717-1720; and LOUISIANA: A. D. 1717-1718.

----------MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: Start--------

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: A. D. 1763. Cession of the eastern side of the river to Great Britain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.

MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: A. D. 1803. Purchase of the western side by the United States.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

----------MISSISSIPPI VALLEY: End--------

MISSOLONGHI, Siege and capture of (1825-1826).

See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.

----------MISSOURI: Start--------

MISSOURI: A. D. 1719-1732. First development of lead mines by the French.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1719-1750.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1763-1765. French withdrawal to the West of the Mississippi. The founding of St. Louis.

See ILLINOIS: A. D. 1765.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1803. Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1804-1812. Upper Louisiana organized as the Territory of Louisiana. The changing of its name to Missouri.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1804-1812.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1819. Arkansas detached.

See ARKANSAS: A. D. 1819-1836.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1821. Admission to the Union. The Compromise concerning Slavery.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1854-1859. The Kansas Struggle.

See KANSAS: A. D. 1854-1859.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (February-July). The baffling of the Secessionists. Blair, Lyon and the Home Guards of St. Louis. The capture of Camp Jackson. Battle of Boonville. A loyal State Government organized.

The seizure of arsenals and arms by the secessionists of the Atlantic and Gulf States "naturally, directed the attention of the leaders of the different political parties in Missouri to the arsenal in St. Louis, and set them to work planning how they might get control of the 40,000 muskets and other munitions of war which it was known to contain. … Satisfied that movements were on foot among irresponsible parties, Unionist as well as Secessionist, to take possession of this post, General D. M. Frost, of the Missouri state militia, a graduate of West Point and a thorough soldier, is said to have called Governor Jackson's attention to the necessity of 'looking after' it. … Jackson, however, needed no prompting. … He did not hesitate to give Frost authority to seize the arsenal, whenever in his judgment it might become necessary to do so. Meanwhile he was to assist in protecting it against mob violence of any kind or from any source. … Frost, however, was not the only person in St. Louis who had his eyes fixed upon the arsenal and its contents. Frank Blair was looking longingly in the same direction, and was already busily engaged in organizing the bands which, supplied with guns from this very storehouse, enabled him, some four months later, to lay such a heavy hand upon Missouri. Just then, it is true, he could not arm them, … but he did not permit this to interfere with the work of recruiting and drilling. That went on steadily, and as a consequence, when the moment came for action, Blair was able to appear at the decisive point with a well-armed force, ten times as numerous as that which his opponents could bring against him. In the mean time, whilst these two, or rather three, parties (for Frost can hardly be termed a secessionist, though as an officer in the service of the State he was willing to obey the orders of his commander) were watching each other, the federal government awoke from its lethargy, and began to concentrate troops in St. Louis for the protection of its property. … By the 18th of February, the day of the election of delegates to the convention which pronounced so decidedly against secession, there were between four and five hundred men behind the arsenal walls. … General Harney, who was in command of the department and presumably familiar with its condition, under date of February 19, notified the authorities at Washington that there was no danger of an attack, and never had been. … Such was not the opinion of Captain Nathaniel Lyon, who had arrived at the arsenal on the 6th of February, and who was destined, in the short space of the coming six months, to write his name indelibly in the history of the State. … Under the stimulating influence of two such spirits as Blair and … [Lyon] the work of preparation went bravely on. By the middle of April, four regiments had been enlisted, and Lyon, who was now in command of the arsenal, though not of the department, proceeded to arm them in accordance with an order which Blair had procured from Washington. Backed by this force, Blair felt strong enough to set up an opposition to the state government, and accordingly, when Jackson refused to furnish the quota of troops assigned to Missouri under President Lincoln's call of April 15, 1861 [see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL)], he telegraphed to Washington that if an order to muster the men into the service was sent to Captain Lyon 'the requisition would be filled in two days.' The order was duly forwarded, and five regiments having been sworn in instead of four, as called for, Blair was offered the command. This he declined, and, on his recommendation, Lyon was elected in his place. On the 7th and 8th of May another brigade was organized. … This made ten regiments of volunteers, besides several companies of regulars and a battery of artillery, that were now ready for service; and as General Harney, whose relatives and associates were suspected of disloyalty, had been ordered to Washington to explain his position, Lyon was virtually in command of the department. … Jackson, … though possessed of but little actual power, was unwilling to give up the contest without an effort. He did not accept the decision of the February election as final. … Repairing to St. Louis, as soon as the adjournment of the General Assembly had left him free, he began at once, in conjunction with certain leading secessionists, to concert measures for arming the militia of the State. … {2191} To this end, the seizure of the arsenal was held to be a prerequisite, and General Frost was preparing a memorial showing how this could best be done, when the surrender of Fort Sumter and the President's consequent call for troops hurried Jackson into a position of antagonism to the federal government. … He sent messengers to the Confederate authorities at Montgomery, Alabama, asking them to supply him with the guns that were needed for the proposed attack on the arsenal; and he summoned the General Assembly to meet at Jefferson City on the 2d of May, to deliberate upon such measures as might be deemed necessary for placing the State in a position to defend herself. He also ordered, as he was authorized to do under the law, the commanders of the several military districts to hold the regular yearly encampments for the purpose of instructing their men in drill and discipline. … Practically its effect was limited to the first or Frost's brigade, as that was the only one that had been organized under the law. On the 3d of May, this little band, numbering less than 700 men, pitched their tents in a wooded valley in the outskirts of the city of St. Louis, and named it Camp Jackson, in honor of the governor. It is described as being surrounded on all sides, at short range, by commanding hills; it was, moreover, open to a charge of cavalry in any and every direction, and the men were supplied with but five rounds of ammunition each, hardly enough for guard purposes. In a word, it was defenseless, and this fact is believed to be conclusive in regard to the peaceful character of the camp as it was organized. … Lyon … announced his intention of seizing the entire force at the camp, without any ceremony other than a demand for its surrender. … Putting his troops in motion early in the morning of the 10th of May; he surrounded Camp Jackson and demanded its surrender. As Frost could make no defense against the overwhelming odds brought against him, he was of course obliged to comply; and his men, having been disarmed, were marched to the arsenal, where they were paroled. … After the surrender, and whilst the prisoners were standing in line, waiting for the order to march, a crowd of men, women and children collected and began to abuse the home guards, attacking them with stones and other missiles. It is even said that several shots were fired at them, but this lacks confirmation. According to Frost, who was at the head of the column of prisoners, the first intimation of firing was given by a single shot, followed almost immediately by volley firing, which is said to have been executed with precision considering the rawness of the troops. When the fusillade was checked, it was found that 28 persons had been killed or mortally wounded, among whom were three of the prisoners, two women, and one child. … Judging this action by the reasons assigned for it, and by its effect throughout the State, it must be pronounced a blunder. So far from intimidating the secessionists, it served only to exasperate them; and it drove not a few Union men, among them General Sterling Price, into the ranks of the opposition and ultimately into the Confederate army."

L. Carr, Missouri, chapter 14.

When news of the capture of Camp Jackson reached Jefferson City, where the legislature was in session, Governor Jackson at once ordered a bridge on the railroad from St. Louis to be destroyed, and the legislature made haste to pass several bills in the interest of the rebellion, including one which placed the whole military power of the State in the hands of the Governor. Armed with this authority, Jackson proceeded to organize the Militia of Missouri as a secession army. Meantime Captain Lyon had been superseded in command by the arrival at St. Louis of General Harney, and the latter introduced a total change of policy at once. He was trapped into an agreement with Governor Jackson and Sterling Price, now general-in-chief of the Missouri forces, which tied his hands, while the cunning rebel leaders were rapidly placing the State in active insurrection. But the eyes of the authorities at Washington were opened by Blair; Harney was soon displaced and Lyon restored to command. This occurred May 30th. On the 15th of June Lyon took possession of the capital of the State, Jefferson City, the Governor and other State officers taking flight to Boonville, where their forces were being gathered. Lyon promptly followed, routing and dispersing them at Boonville on the 17th. The State Convention which had taken a recess in March was now called together by a committee that had been empowered to do so before the convention separated, and a provisional State government was organized (July 31) with a loyal governor, Hamilton R. Gamble, at its head.

J. G. Nicolay, The Outbreak of the Rebellion, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: T. L. Snead, The Fight for Missouri.

J. Peckham, General Nathaniel Lyon and Missouri in 1861.

MISSOURI: A. D. 1861 (July-September). Sigel's retreat from Carthage. Death of Lyon at Wilson's Creek. Siege of Lexington. Fremont in command.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI).

A. D. 1861 (August-October). Fremont in command. His premature proclamation of freedom to the Slaves of rebels. His quarrel with Frank P. Blair. The change in command.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: MISSOURI).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (January-March). Price and the Rebel forces driven into Arkansas. Battle of Pea Ridge.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-MARCH: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (July-September). Organization of the loyal Militia of the state. Warfare with Rebel guerrillas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1862 (September-December). Social effects of the Civil War. The Battle of Prairie Grove.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1863 (August). Quantrell's guerrilla raid to Lawrence, Kansas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST: MISSOURI-KANSAS).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1863 (October). Cabell's invasion.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (AUGUST-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

MISSOURI: A. D. 1864 (September-October). Price's raid.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

----------MISSOURI: End--------

MISSOURI COMPROMISE, The. Its Repeal, and the decision of the Supreme Court against it.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1818-1821; 1854; and 1857.

{2192}

MISSOURI RIVER: Called the River St. Philip by the French (1712).

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

MISSOURIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SIOUAN FAMILY.

MITCHELL, General Ormsby M.: Expedition into Alabama.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862(APRIL-MAY: ALABAMA); and (JUNE-OCTOBER: TENNESSEE-KENTUCKY).

MITHRIDATIC WARS, The.

A somewhat vaguely defined part of eastern Asia Minor, between Armenia, Phrygia, Cilicia and the Euxine, was called Cappadocia in times anterior to 363 B. C. Like its neighbors, it had fallen under the rule of the Persians and formed a province of their empire, ruled by hereditary satraps. In the year above named, the then reigning satrap, Ariobarzanes, rebelled and made himself king of the northern coast district of Cappadocia, while the southern and inland part was retained under Persian rule. The kingdom founded by Ariobarzanes took the name of Pontus, from the sea on which it bordered. It was reduced to submission by Alexander the Great, but regained independence during the wars between Alexander's successors (see MACEDONIA: B. C. 310-301; and SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 281-224), and extended its limits towards the west and south. The kingdom of Pontus, however, only rose to importance in history under the powerful sovereignty of Mithridates V. who took the title of Eupator and is often called Mithridates the Great. He ascended the throne while a child, B. C. 120, but received, notwithstanding, a wonderful education and training. At the age of twenty (B. C. 112) he entered upon a career of conquest, which was intended to strengthen his power for the struggle with Rome, which he saw to be inevitable. Within a period of about seven years he extended his dominions around the nearly complete circuit of the Euxine, through Armenia, Colchis, and along the northern coasts westward to the Crimea and the Dniester; while at the same time he formed alliances with the barbarous tribes on the Danube, with which he hoped to threaten Italy.

G. Rawlinson, Manual of Ancient History, book 4, period 3, part 4.

"He [Mithridates] rivalled Hannibal in his unquenchable hatred to Rome. This hatred had its origin in the revocation of a district of Phrygia which the Senate had granted to his father. … To his banner clustered a quarter of a million of the fierce warriors of the Caucasus and the Scythian steppes and of his own Hellenized Pontic soldiers; Greek captains, in whom he had a confidence unshaken by disaster—Archelaus, Neoptolemus, Dorilaus—gave tactical strength to his forces. He was allied, too, with the Armenian king, Tigranes; and he now turned his thoughts to Numidia, Syria, and Egypt with the intention of forming a coalition against his foe on the Tiber. A coin has been found which commemorated an alliance proposed between the Pontic king and the Italian rebels. … The imperious folly of M'. Aquillius, the Roman envoy in the East, precipitated the intentions of the king; instead of contending for the princedom of Bithynia and Cappadocia, he suddenly appealed to the disaffected in the Roman province. The fierce white fire of Asiatic hate shot out simultaneously through the length and breadth of the country [B. C. 88]; and the awful news came to distracted Rome that 80,000 Italians had fallen victims to the vengeance of the provincials. Terror-stricken publicani were chased from Adramyttium and Ephesus into the sea, their only refuge, and there cut down by their pursuers; the Mæander was rolling along the corpses of the Italians of Tralles; in Caria the refined cruelty of the oppressed people was butchering the children before the eyes of father and mother, then the mother before the eyes of her husband, and giving to the man death as the crown and the relief of his torture. … Asia was lost to Rome; only Rhodes, which had retained her independence, remained faithful to her great ally. The Pontic fleet, under Archelaus, appeared at Delos, and carried thence 2,000 talents to Athens, offering to that imperial city the government of her ancient tributary. This politic measure awaked hopes of independence in Greece. Aristion, an Epicurean philosopher, seized the reins of power in Athens, and Archelaus repaired the crumbling battlements of the Piræus. The wave of eastern conquest was rolling on towards Italy itself. The proconsul Sulla marched to Brundisium, and, undeterred by the ominous news that his consular colleague, Q. Rufus, had been murdered in Picenum, or by the sinister attitude of the new consul Cinna, he crossed over to Greece with five legions to stem the advancing wave. History knows no more magnificent illustration of cool, self-restrained determination than the action of Sulla during these three years." He left Rome to his enemies, the fierce faction of Marius, who were prompt to seize the city and to fill it with "wailing for the dead, or with the more terrible silence which followed a complete massacre" [see ROME: B. C. 88-78]. "The news of this carnival of democracy reached the camp of Sulla along with innumerable noble fugitives who had escaped the Marian terror. The proconsul was unmoved; with unexampled self-confidence he began to assume that he and his constituted Rome, while the Forum and Curia were filled with lawless anarchists, who would soon have to be dealt with. He carried Athens by assault, and slew the whole population, with their tyrant Aristion [see ATHENS: B. C. 87-86], but he counted it among the favours of the goddess of Fortune that he, man of culture as he was, was able to save the immemorial buildings of the city from the fate of Syracuse or Corinth. Archelaus, in Piræus, offered the most heroic resistance. … With the spring Sulla heard of the approach of the main army from Pontus, under the command of Taxiles. 120,000 men, and ninety scythed chariots, were pouring over Mount Œta to overwhelm him. With wonderful rapidity he marched northwards through friendly Thebes, and drew up his little army on a slope near Chæronea, digging trenches on his left and right to save his flank from being turned. He showed himself every inch a general, he compelled the enemy to meet him on this ground of his own choice, and the day did not close before 110,000 of the enemy were captured or slain, and the camp of Archelaus, who had hastened from Athens to take the command, was carried by assault. We have before us still, in the pages of Plutarch, Sulla's own memoirs. If we may believe him, he lost only fifteen men in the battle. By this brilliant engagement he had restored Greece to her allegiance, and, what was even better, the disaster aroused an the savagery of Mithradates, the Greek vanished in the oriental despot. {2193} Suspicious and ruthless, he ordered his nearest friends to be assassinated; he transported all the population of Chios to the mainland, and by his violence and exaction stirred Ephesus, Sardes, Tralles, and many other cities, to renounce his control, and to return to the Roman government. Still, he did not suspect Archelaus, but appointed him, together with Dorilaus, to lead a new army into Greece. The new army appeared in Bœotia, and encamped by the Copaic Lake, near Orchomenos. Before the raw levies could become familiar with the sight of the legions, Sulla assaulted the camp [B. C. 85], and rallied his wavering men by leading them in person with the cry, 'Go, tell them in Rome that you left your general in the trenches of Orchomenos;' the self-consciousness was sublime, for nothing would have pleased the people in Rome better; his victory was complete, and Archelaus escaped alone in a boat to Calchis. As the conqueror returned from the battle-field to reorganize Greece, he learnt that the Senate had deposed him from command, declared him an outlaw, and appointed as his successor the consul L. Valerius Flaccus. The disorganization of the republic seemed to have reached a climax. Flaccus conducted his army straight to the Bosphorus without venturing to approach the rebel proconsul Sulla; while Mithradates, who began to wish for peace, preferred to negotiate with his conqueror rather than with the consul of the republic. To complete this complication of anarchy, Flaccus was murdered, and superseded in the command by his own legate, C. Flavius Fimbria; this choice of their general by the legions themselves might seem significant if anything could be significant or connected in such a chaos. But Sulla now crossed into Asia, and concluded peace with Mithradates on these conditions: The king was to relinquish all his conquests, surrender deserters, restore the people of Chios, pay 2,000 talents, and give up seventy of his ships. Fimbria … remained to be dealt with. It was not a difficult matter: the two Roman armies confronted one another at Thyatira, and the Fimbrians streamed over to Sulla. After all, the legionaries, who had long ceased to be citizens, were soldiers first and politicians after; they worshipped the felicity of the great general; and the democratic general had not yet appeared who could bind his men to him by a spell stronger than Sulla's. Fimbria persuaded a slave to thrust him through with his sword. His enemies were vanquished in Asia, but in Rome Cinna was again consul (85 B. C.), and his colleague, Cn. Papirius Carbo, out-Cinnaed Cinna. Yet Sulla was in no hurry. He spent more than a year in reorganizing the disordered province. … He even allowed Cinna and Carbo, who began to prepare for war with him (84 B. C.), to be re-elected to the consulship; but when the more cautious party in the Senate entered into negotiations with him, and offered him a safe conduct to Italy, he showed in a word what he took to be the nature of the situation by saying that he was not in need of their safe conduct, but he was coming to secure them."

R. F. Horton, History of the Romans, chapter 26.

Plutarch, Sulla.

After a second and a third war with Rome (see ROME: B. C. 78-68, and 69-63), Mithridates was finally (B. C. 65) driven from his old dominions into the Crimean kingdom of Bosporus, where he ended his life in despair two years later. The kingdom of Pontus was absorbed in the Roman empire. The southern part of Cappadocia held some rank as an independent kingdom until A. D. 17, when it was likewise reduced to the state of a Roman province.

MITLA, The Ruins of.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.

----------MITYLENE: Start--------

MITYLENE.

The chief city in ancient times of the island of Lesbos, to which it ultimately gave its name.

See LESBOS.

MITYLENE: B. C. 428-427. Revolt from Athenian rule. Siege and surrender. The tender mercies of Athens.

See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.

MITYLENE: B. C. 406. Blockade of the Athenian fleet. Battle of Arginusæ.

See GREECE: B. C. 406.

----------MITYLENE: End--------

MIXES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.

MIXTECS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ZAPOTECS, ETC.

MIZRAIM.

See EGYPT: ITS NAMES.

MOABITES, The. The Moabite Stone.

As related in the Bible (Genesis xix. 37), Moab was the son of Lot's eldest daughter and the ancient people called Moabites were descended from him. They occupied at an early time the rich tableland or highlands on the east side of the Dead Sea; but the Amorites drove them out of the richer northern part of this territory into its southern half, where they occupied a very narrow domain, but one easily defended. This occurred shortly before the coming of the Israelites into Canaan. Between the Moabites and the Israelites, after the settlement of the latter, there was frequent war, but sometimes relations both peaceful and friendly. David finally subjugated their nation, in a war of peculiar atrocity. After the division of the kingdoms, Moab was subject to Israel, but revolted on the death of Ahab and was nearly destroyed in the horrible war which followed. The Biblical account of this war is given in 2 Kings III. It is strangely supplemented and filled out by a Moabite record—the famous Moabite Stone—found and deciphered within quite recent times, under the following circumstance. Dr. Klein, a German missionary, travelling in 1869 in what was formerly the "Land of Moab," discovered a stone of black basalt bearing a long inscription in Phœnician characters. He copied a small part of it and made his discovery known. The Prussian government opened negotiations for the purchase of the stone, and M. Clermont-Ganneau, of the French consulate at Jerusalem, made efforts likewise to secure it for his own country. Meantime, very fortunately, the latter sent men to take impressions—squeezes, as they are called—of the inscription, which was imperfectly done. But these imperfect squeezes proved invaluable; for the Arabs, finding the stone to be a covetable thing, and fearing that it was to be taken from them, crumbled it into fragments with the aid of fire and water. Most of the pieces were subsequently recovered, and were put together by the help of M. Clermont-Ganneau's squeezes, so that an important part of the inscription was deciphered in the end. It was found to be a record by Mesha, king of Moab, of the war with Israel referred to above.

A. H. Sayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, chapter 4.

{2194}

The Moabites appear to have recovered from the blow, but not much of their subsequent history is known.

G. Grove, Dictionary of the Bible.

ALSO IN: J. King, Moab's Patriarchal Stone.

See, also, JEWS: THE EARLY HEBREW HISTORY, and JEWS: UNDER THE JUDGES.

MOAWIYAH, Caliph (founder of the Omeyyad dynasty), A. D. 661-679.

Moawiyah II., Caliph, A. D. 683.

----------MOBILE: Start--------

MOBILE: A. D. 1702-1711. The founding of the city by the French.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1698-1712.

MOBILE: A. D. 1763. Surrendered to the English.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1763 (JULY).

MOBILE: A. D. 1781. Retaken by the Spaniards.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1779-1781.

MOBILE: A. D. 1813. Possession taken from the Spaniards by the United States.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1810-1813.

MOBILE: A. D. 1864. The Battle in the Bay. Farragut's naval victory.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (AUGUST: ALABAMA).

MOBILE: A. D. 1865 (March-April). Siege and capture by the National forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1865 (APRIL-MAY).

----------MOBILE: End--------

MOBILIANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

MOCOVIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAMPAS TRIBES.

----------MODENA: Start--------

MODENA, Founding of.

See MUTINA.

MODENA: A. D. 1288-1453. Acquired by the Marquess of Este. Created a Duchy.

See ESTE, THE HOUSE OF.

MODENA: A. D. 1767. Expulsion of the Jesuits.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.

MODENA: A. D. 1796. Dethronement of the Duke by Bonaparte. Formation of the Cispadane Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

MODENA: A. D. 1801. Annexation to the Cisalpine Republic.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

MODENA: A. D. 1803. The duchy acquired by the House of Austria.

See ESTE, HOUSE OF.

MODENA: A. D. 1815. Given to an Austrian Prince.

See VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

MODENA: A. D. 1831. Revolt and expulsion of the Duke. His restoration by Austrian troops.

See ITALY: A. D. 1830-1832.

MODENA: A. D. 1848-1849. Abortive revolution.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

MODENA: A. D. 1859-1861. End of the dukedom. Absorption in the new Kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.

----------MODENA: End--------

MODIUS, The.

See AMPHORA.

MODOCS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MODOCS.

MOERIS, Lake.

"On the west of Egypt there is an oasis of cultivable land, the Fayum, buried in the midst of the desert, and attached by a sort of isthmus to the country watered by the Nile. In the centre of this oasis is a large plateau about the same level as the valley of the Nile; to the west, however, a considerable depression of the land produces a valley occupied by a natural lake more than ten leagues in length, the 'Birket Kerun.' In the centre of this plateau Amenemhe [twelfth dynasty] undertook the formation of an artificial lake with an area of ten millions of square metres. If the rise of the Nile was insufficient, the water was led into the lake and stored up for use, not only in the Fayum, but over the whole of the left bank of the Nile as far as the sea. If too large an inundation threatened the dykes, the vast reservoir of the artificial lake remained open, and when the lake itself overflowed, the surplus waters were led by a canal into the Birket Kerun. The two names given in Egypt to this admirable work of Amenemhe III. deserve to be recorded. Of one, Meri, that is 'the Lake,' par excellence, the Greeks have made Moeris, a name erroneously applied by them to a king; whilst the other, P-iom, 'the Sea,' has become, in the mouth of the Arabs, the name of the entire province, Fayum."

M. Mariette, quoted in Lenormant's Manual of Ancient History of the East, book 3, chapter 2.

MŒSIA, MÆSIA.

"After the Danube had received the waters of the Teyss [Theiss] and the Save, it acquired, at least among the Greeks, the name of Ister. It formerly divided Mœsia and Dacia, the latter of which, as we have already seen, was a conquest of Trajan, and the only province beyond the river. … On the right hand of the Danube, Mœsia, … during the middle ages, was broken into the barbarian kingdoms of Servia and Bulgaria."

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 1.

Mœsia was occupied by the Goths in the 4th century.

See GOTHS: A. D. 341-381; and 376.

MOESKIRCH, Battle of (1800).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

MŒSO-GOTHIC.

See GOTHS: A. D. 341-381.

MOGONTIACUM.

"The two headquarters of the [Roman] army of the Rhine were always Vetera, near Wesel, and Mogontiacum, the modern Mentz. … Mogontiacum or Mentz, [was] from the time of Drusus down to the end of Rome the stronghold out of which the Romans sallied to attack Germany from Gaul, as it is at the present day the true barrier of Germany against France. Here the Romans, even after they had abandoned their rule in the region of the upper Rhine generally, retained not merely the tête-de-pont on the other bank, the 'castellum Mogontiacense' (Castel), but also that plain of the Main itself, in their possession; and in this region a Roman civilisation might establish itself. The land originally belonged to the Chatti, and a Chattan tribe, the Mattiaci, remained settled here even under Roman rule."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 8, chapter 4 (The Provinces, volume 1).

MOGUL EMPIRE. THE GREAT MOGUL.

See INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605.

MOHACS, Battle of (1526).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1487-1526.

MOHACS, Second Battle of (1687).

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1683-1699.

MOHAMMED, The Prophet of Islam.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE.

Mohammed, Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1104-1116.

Mohammed I., Turkish Sultan, 1413-1421.

Mohammed II., Turkish Sultan, 1451-1481.

Mohammed III., Turkish Sultan, 1595-1603.

Mohammed IV., Turkish Sultan, 1649-1687.

Mohammed Mirza, Shah of Persia, 1577-1582.

Mohammed Shah, sovereign of Persia, 1834-1848.

MOHARRAM FESTIVAL, The.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 680.

MOHAVES, MOJAVES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: APACHE GROUP.

{2195}

MOHAWKS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

MOHAWKS, The, of Boston and New York.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1773; and NEW YORK: A. D. 1773-1774.

MOHAWKS, MOHOCKS, of London.

See MOHOCKS. [Third item below.]

MOHEGANS, MAHICANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, HORIKANS, and STOCKBRIDGE INDIANS; also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637.

MOHILEF, Battle of.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

MOHOCKS, The.

"This nocturnal fraternity met in the days of Queen Anne: [1707] but it had been for many previous years the favourite amusement of dissolute young men to form themselves into Clubs and Associations for committing all sorts of excesses in the public streets, and alike attacking orderly pedestrians, and even defenceless women. These Clubs took various slang designations. At the Restoration they were 'Mums,' and 'Tityre-tus.' They were succeeded by the 'Hectors' and 'Scourers,' when, says Shadwell, 'a man could not go from the Rose Tavern to the Piazza once, but he must venture his life twice.' Then came the 'Nickers,' whose delight it was to smash windows with showers of halfpence; next were the 'Hawkabites'; and lastly the 'Mohocks.' These last are described in the 'Spectator,' No. 324, as a set of men who have borrowed their name from a sort of cannibals, in India, who subsist by plundering and devouring all the nations about them. … Their avowed design was mischief, and upon this foundation all their rules and orders were framed. They took care to drink themselves to a pitch beyond reason or humanity, and then made a general sally, and attacked all who were in the streets. Some were knocked down, others stabbed, and others cut and carbonadoed. … They had special barbarities which they executed upon their prisoners. 'Tipping the lion' was squeezing the nose flat to the face and boring out the eyes with their fingers. 'Dancing-masters' were those who taught their scholars to cut capers by running swords through their legs. The 'Tumblers' set women on their heads. The 'Sweaters' worked in parties of half-a-dozen, surrounding their victims with the points of their swords. … Another savage diversion of the Mohocks was their thrusting women into barrels, and rolling them down Snow or Ludgate Hill. … At length the villanies of the Mohocks were attempted to be put down by a Royal proclamation, issued on the 18th of March, 1712: this, however, had very little effect, for we soon find Swift exclaiming: 'They go on still and cut people's faces every night!' … The Mohocks held together until nearly the end of the reign of George I." [1727]

J. Timbs, Clubs and Club Life in London, pages 33-38.

MOIRA, Lord (Marquis of Hastings), The Indian administration of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

MOJOS, MOXOS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS; also, BOLIVIA: ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

MÖKERN, Battle of (1813).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813.

MOLAI, Jacques de, and the fall of the Templars.

See TEMPLARS: A. D. 1307-1314; and FRANCE: A. D. 1285-1314.

MOLASSES ACT, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.

MOLDAVIA. MOLDO-WALLACHIA.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.

MOLEMES, The Abbey of.

See CISTERCIAN ORDER.

MOLINISTS, The.

See MYSTICISM.

MOLINO DEL REY, Battle of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1847 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

MOLINOS DEL REY, Battle of (1808).

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (DECEMBER-MARCH).

MOLLWITZ, Battle of (1741).

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.

MOLOSSIANS, The.

See HELLAS; and EPIRUS.

MOLTKE'S CAMPAIGNS.

See TURKS: A. D. 1831-1840; GERMANY: A. D. 1866; FRANCE: A. D. 1870, and 1870-1871.

MOLUCCAS: Secured by Spain (1524).

See AMERICA: A. D. 1519-1524.

MONA.

The ancient name of the island of Anglesea. It was the final seat of the Druidical religion in Britain. Taken by the Romans under Suetonius, A. D. 61, the priests were slain, the sacred groves destroyed and Druidism practically exterminated.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 51.

See MONAPIA.

MONACANS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: POWHATAN CONFEDERACY, and IROQUOIS TRIBES OF THE SOUTH.

MONAPIA.

"The name of Monapia first occurs in Pliny, and must be unquestionably identified with the Isle of Man; though the name of the latter would dispose us at first to consider it as representing Mona. But the Mona of the Romans, which was attacked by Suetonius Paulinus and Agricola, was certainly Anglesea."

E. H. Bunbury, History of Ancient Geography., chapter 24, section 2, foot-note.

MONASTERY. MONASTICISM. CONVENT. ABBEY. PRIORY.

"Monasticism was not the product of Christianity; it was the inheritance of the Church, not its invention; not the offspring, but the adopted child. The old antagonism between mind and matter, flesh and spirit, self and the world has asserted itself in all ages, especially among the nations of the East. The Essenes, the Therapeutæ, and other Oriental mystics, were as truly the precursors of Christian asceticism in the desert or in the cloister, as Elijah and St. John the Baptist. The Neoplatonism of Alexandria, extolling the passionless man above him who regulates his passions, sanctioned and systematized this craving after a life of utter abstraction from external things, this abhorrence of all contact with what is material as a defilement. Doubtless the cherished remembrance of the martyrs and confessors, who in the preceding centuries of the Christian era had triumphed over many a sanguinary persecution, gave a fresh impulse in the fourth century to this propensity to asceticism, stimulating the devout to vie with their forefathers in the faith by their voluntary endurance of self-inflicted austerities. … The terms monastery, originally the cell or eave of a solitary, laura, an irregular cluster of cells, and cœnobium, an association of monks, few or many, under one roof and under one control, mark the three earliest stages in the development of monasticism. {2196} In Syria and Palestine each monk originally had a separate cell; in Lower Egypt two were together in one cell, whence the term 'syncellita,' or sharer of the cell, came to express this sort of comradeship; in the Thebaid, under Pachomius of Tabenna, each cell contained three monks. At a later period the monks arrogated to themselves by general consent the title of 'the religious,' and admission into a monastery was termed 'conversion' to God. … The history of monasticism, like the history of states and institutions in general, divides itself broadly into three great periods, of growth, of glory, and of decay. … From the beginning of the fourth century to the close of the fifth, from Antony the hermit to Benedict of Monte Casino, is the age of undisciplined impulse of enthusiasm not as yet regulated by experience. … Everything is on a scale of illogical exaggeration, is wanting in balance, in proportion, in symmetry. Because purity, unworldliness, charity, are virtues, therefore a woman is to be regarded as a venomous reptile, gold as a worthless pebble; the deadliest foe and the dearest friend are to be esteemed just alike. Because it is right to be humble, therefore the monk cuts off hand, ear, or tongue, to avoid being made bishop, and feigns idiocy, in order not to be accounted wise. Because it is well to teach people to be patient, therefore a sick monk never speaks a kind word for years to the brother monk who nursed him. Because it is right to keep the lips from idle words, therefore a monk holds a large stone in his mouth for three years. Every precept is to be taken literally, and obeyed unreasoningly. Therefore monks who have been plundered by a robber run after him to give him a something which has escaped his notice. Self-denial is enjoined in the gospel. Therefore the austerities of asceticism are to be simply endless. One ascetic makes his dwelling in a hollow tree, another in a cave, another in a tomb, another on the top of a pillar, another has so lost the very appearance of a man, that he is shot at by shepherds, who mistake him for a wolf. The natural instincts, instead of being trained and cultivated, are to be killed outright, in this abhorrence of things material. … The period which follows, from the first Benedict to Charlemagne, exhibits monasticism in a more mature stage of activity. The social intercourse of the monastery, duly harmonized by a traditional routine, with its subordination of rank and offices, its division of duties, its mutual dependence of all on each other, and on their head, civilized the monastic life; and, as the monk himself became subject to the refining influences of civilization, he went forth into the world to civilize others. … Had it not been for monks and monasteries, the barbarian deluge might have swept away utterly the traces of Roman civilization. The Benedictine monk was the pioneer of civilization and Christianity in England, Germany, Poland, Bohemia, Sweden, Denmark. The schools attached to the Lerinensian monasteries were the precursors of the Benedictine seminaries in France and of the professional chairs filled by learned Benedictines in the universities of mediæval Christendom. With the incessant din of arms around him, it was the monk in his cloister, even in regions beyond the immediate sphere of Benedict's legislation, even in the remote fastnesses, for instance of Mount Athos, who, by preserving and transcribing ancient manuscripts, both Christian and pagan, as well as by recording his observations of contemporaneous events, was handing down the torch of knowledge unquenched to future generations, and hoarding up stores of erudition for the researches of a more enlightened age. The first musicians, painters, farmers, statesmen, in Europe, after the downfall of Imperial Rome under the onslaught of the barbarians, were monks."

I. Gregory Smith, Christian Monasticism, introduction.

"The monastic stream, which had been born in the deserts of Egypt, divided itself into two great arms. The one spread in the East, at first inundated everything, then concentrated and lost itself there. The other escaped into the West, and spread itself by a thousand channels over an entire world which had to be covered and fertilised." Athanasius, who was driven twice by persecution to take refuge among the hermits in the Thebaid, Egypt, and who was three times exiled by an imperial order to the West, "became thus the natural link between the Fathers of the desert and those vast regions which their successors were to conquer and transform. … It was in 340 that he came for the first time to Rome, in order to escape the violence of the Arians, and invoke the protection of Pope Julius. … He spread in Rome the first report of the life led by the monks in the Thebaid, of the marvellous exploits of Anthony, who was still alive, of the immense foundations which Pacome was at that time forming upon the banks of the higher Nile. He had brought with him two of the most austere of these monks. … The narratives of Athanasius … roused the hearts and imaginations of the Romans, and especially of the Roman women. The name of monk, to which popular prejudice seems already to have attached a kind of ignominy, became immediately an honoured and envied title. The impression produced at first by the exhortations of the illustrious exile, was extended and strengthened during the two other visits which he made to the Eternal City. Some time afterwards, on the death of St. Anthony, Athanasius, at the request of his disciples, wrote the life of the patriarch of the Thebaid; and this biography, circulating through all the West, immediately acquired there the popularity of a legend, and the authority of a confession of faith. … Under this narrative form, says St. Gregory of Nazianzus, he promulgated the laws of monastic life. The town and environs of Rome were soon full of monasteries, rapidly occupied by men distinguished alike by birth, fortune and knowledge, who lived there in charity, sanctity, and freedom. From Rome the new institution, already distinguished by the name of religion, or religious life, par excellence, extended itself over all Italy. It was planted at the foot of the Alps by the influence of a great bishop, Eusebius of Vercelli. … From the continent the new institution rapidly gained the isles of the Mediterranean, and even the rugged rocks of the Gargon and of Capraja, where the monks, voluntarily exiled from the world, went to take the place of the criminals and political victims whom the emperors had been accustomed to banish thither. … Most of the great leaders of the cenobitical institution had, since St. Pacome, made out, under the name of Rule, instructions and constitutions for the use of their immediate disciples; but none of these works had acquired an extensive or lasting sway. In the East, it is true, the rule of St. Basil had prevailed in a multitude of monasteries, yet notwithstanding Cassianus, in visiting Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia, found there almost as many different rules as there were monasteries. {2197} In the West the diversity was still more strange. Each man made for himself his own rule and discipline, taking his authority from the writings or example of the Eastern Fathers. The Gauls especially exclaimed against the extreme rigour of the fasts and abstinences, which might be suitable under a fervid sky like that of Egypt or Syria, but which could not be endured by what they already called Gallican weakness; and even in the initial fervour of the monasteries of the Jura, they had succeeded in imposing a necessary medium upon their chiefs. Here it was the changing will of an abbot; there a written rule; elsewhere, the traditions of the elders, which determined the order of conventual life. In some houses various rules were practised at the same time, according to the inclination of the inhabitants of each cell, and were changed according to the times and places. They passed thus from excessive austerity to laxness, and conversely, according to the liking of each. Uncertainty and instability were everywhere. … A general arrangement was precisely what was most wanting in monastic life. There were an immense number of monks; there had been among them saints and illustrious men; but to speak truly, the monastic order had still no existence. Even where the rule of St. Basil had acquired the necessary degree of establishment and authority—that is to say, in a considerable portion of the East—the gift of fertility was denied to it. … In the West also, towards the end of the fifth century, the cenobitical institution seemed to have fallen into the torpor and sterility of the East. After St. Jerome, who died in 420, and St. Augustine, who died in 430, after the Fathers of Lerins, whose splendour paled towards 450, there was a kind of eclipse. … Except in Ireland and Gaul, where, in most of the provinces, some new foundations rose, a general interruption was observable in the extension of the institution. … If this eclipse had lasted, the history of the monks of the West would only have been, like that of the Eastern monks, a sublime but brief passage in the annals of the Church, instead of being their longest and best-filled page. This was not to be: but to keep the promises which the monastic order had made to the Church and to the new-born Christendom, it needed, at the beginning of the sixth century, a new and energetic impulse, such as would concentrate and discipline so many scattered, irregular, and intermittent forces; a uniform and universally accepted rule; a legislator inspired by the fertile and glorious past, to establish and govern the future. God provided for that necessity by sending St. Benedict into the world."

Count de Montalembert, The Monks of the West, volume 1, pages 381-387 and 512-515.

"The very word monastery is a misnomer: the word is a Greek word, and means the dwelling-place of a solitary person, living in seclusion. … In the 13th century … a monastery meant what we now understand it to mean—viz., the abode of a society of men or women who lived together in common—who were supposed to partake of common meals; to sleep together in one common dormitory; to attend certain services together in their common church; to transact certain business or pursue certain employments in the sight and hearing of each other in the common cloister; and, when the end came, to be laid side by side in the common graveyard, where in theory none but members of the order could find a resting-place for their bones. When I say 'societies of men and women' I am again reminded that the other term, 'convent,' has somehow got to be used commonly in a mistaken sense. People use the word as if it signified a religious house tenanted exclusively by women. The truth is that a convent is nothing more than a Latin name for an association of persons who have come together with a view to live for a common object and to submit to certain rules in the ordering of their daily lives. The monastery was the common dwelling-place; the convent was the society of persons inhabiting it; and the ordinary formula used when a body of monks or nuns execute any corporate act—such as buying or selling land—by any legal instrument is, 'The Prior and Convent of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Norwich;' 'the Abbot and Convent of the Monastery of St. Peter's, Westminster;' 'the Abbess and Convent of the Monastery of St. Mary and St. Bernard at Lacock,' and so on. … A monastery in theory then was, as it was called, a Religious House. It was supposed to be the home of people whose lives were passed in the worship of God, and in taking care of their own souls, and making themselves fit for a better world than this hereafter. … The church of a monastery was the heart of the place. It was not that the church was built for the monastery, but the monastery existed for the church. … Almost as essential to the idea of a monastery as the church was the cloister or great quadrangle, inclosed on all sides by the high walls of the monastic buildings. … All round this quadrangle ran a covered arcade, whose roof, leaning against the high walls, was supported on the inner side by an open trellis work in stone—often exhibiting great beauty of design and workmanship—through which light and air was admitted into the arcade. … The cloister was really the living place of the monks. Here they pursued their daily avocations, here they taught their school. … 'But surely a monk always lived in a cell, didn't he?' The sooner we get rid of that delusion the better. Be it understood that until Henry II. founded the Carthusian Abbey of Witham, in 1178, there was no such thing known in England as a monk's cell, as we understand the term. It was a peculiarity of the Carthusian order, and when it was first introduced it was regarded as a startling novelty for any privacy or anything approaching solitude to be tolerated in a monastery. The Carthusian system never found much favour in England. … At the time of the Norman Conquest it may be said that all English monks were professedly under one and the same Rule—the famous Benedictine Rule. The Rule of a monastery was the constitution or code of laws, which regulated the discipline of the house, and the Rule of St. Benedict dates back as far as the 6th century, though it was not introduced into England for more than 100 years after it had been adopted elsewhere. … About 150 years before the Conquest, a great reformation had been attempted of the French monasteries, … the reformers breaking away from the old Benedictines and subjecting themselves to a new and improved Rule. {2198} These first reformers were called Cluniac monks, from the great Abbey of Clugni, in Burgundy, in which the new order of things had begun. The first English house of reformed or Cluniac monks was founded at Lewes, in Sussex, 11 years after the Conquest. … The constitution of every convent, great or small, was monarchical. The head of the house was almost an absolute sovereign, and was called the Abbot. His dominions often extended, even in England, over a very wide tract of country, and sometimes over several minor monasteries which were called Cells. … The heads of these cells or subject houses were called Priors. An Abbey was a monastery which was independent. A priory was a monastery which in theory or in fact was subject to an abbey. All the Cluniac monasteries in England were thus said to be alien priories, because they were mere cells of the great Abbey of Clugni in France, to which each priory paid heavy tribute."

A. Jessopp, The Coming of the Friars, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: E. L. Cutts, Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages, chapter 6.

J. Bingham, Antiquity of the Christ. Ch., book 7, chapter 3, sections 11-14.

I. G. Smith, Christian Monasticism, 4-9th Centuries.

See, also, CŒNOBIUM; LAURAS; MENDICANT ORDERS; BENEDICTINE; CISTERCIAN; CARMELITE, and AUSTIN CANONS.

MONASTERIES, The English, Suppression of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1535-1539.

MONASTIC LIBRARIES.

See LIBRARIES, MEDIÆVAL.

MONASTIC ORDERS.

See AUSTIN CANONS; BENEDICTINE ORDERS; CAPUCHINS; CARMELITE FRIARS; CARTHUSIAN; CISTERCIAN; CLAIRVAUX; CLUGNY; MENDICANT ORDERS; RECOLLECTS; SERVITES; THEATINES; TRAPPISTS.

MONÇON, MONZON, Treaty of (1626).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

MONCONTOUR, Battle of (1569).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

----------MONEY AND BANKING: Start--------

MONEY AND BANKING: Nature and Origin of Money.

"When the division of labour has been once thoroughly established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants which the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's labour us he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows to be what is properly a commercial society. But when the division of labour first began to take place, this power of exchanging must frequently have been very much clogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man, we shall suppose, has more of a certain commodity than he himself has occasion for, while another has less. The former consequently would be glad to dispose of, and the latter to purchase, a part of this superfluity. But if this latter should chance to have nothing that the former stands in need of, no exchange can be made between them. The butcher has more meat in his shop than he himself can consume, and the brewer and the baker would each of them be willing to purchase a part of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the different productions of their respective trades, and the butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which he has immediate occasion for. No exchange can, in this case, be made between them. … In order to avoid the inconveniency of such situations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the division of labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs in such a manner, as to have at all times by him, besides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their industry. Many different commodities, it is probable, were successively both thought of and employed for this purpose. In the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been the common instrument of commerce; and, though they must have been a most inconvenient one, yet in old times we find things were frequently valued according to the number of cattle which had been given in exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, says Homer, cost only nine oxen; but that of Glaucus cost an hundred oxen. Salt is said to be the common instrument of commerce and exchange in Abyssinia; a species of shells in some parts of the coasts of India; dried cod at Newfoundland; tobacco in Virginia; sugar in some of our West India colonies; hides or dressed leather in some other countries; and there is at this day [1775] a village in Scotland where it is not uncommon, I am told, for a workman to carry nails instead of money to the baker's shop or the alehouse. In all countries, however, men seem at last to have been determined by irresistible reasons to give the preference, for this employment, to metals above every other commodity."

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, chapter 4, book 1 (volume 1).

"There is … no machine which has saved as much labor as money. … The invention of money has been rightly compared to the invention of writing with letters. We may, however, call the introduction of money as the universal medium of exchange … one of the greatest and most beneficent of advances ever made by the race. … Very different kinds of commodities have, according to circumstances, been used as money; but uniformly only such as possess a universally recognized economic value. On the whole, people in a low stage of civilization are wont to employ, mainly, only ordinary commodities, such as are calculated to satisfy a vulgar and urgent want, as an instrument of exchange. As they advance in civilization, they, at each step, choose a more and more costly object, for this purpose, and one which ministers to the more elevated wants. Races of hunters, at least in non-tropical countries, usually use skins as money; that is the almost exclusive product of their labor, one which can be preserved for a long period of time, which constitutes their principal article of clothing and their principal export in the more highly developed regions. Nomadic races and the lower agricultural races, pass, by a natural gradation, to the use of cattle as money; which supposes rich pasturages at the disposal of all. {2199} If it were otherwise, there would be a great many to whom payments of this kind had been made, who would not know what to do with the cattle given them, on account of the charges for their maintenance. … That metals were used for the purpose of money much later than the commodities above mentioned, and the precious metals in turn later than the non-precious metals, cannot by any means be shown to be universally true. Rather is gold in some countries to be obtained by the exercise of so little skill, and both gold and silver satisfy a want so live and general, and one so early felt, that they are to be met with as an instrument of exchange in very early times. In the case of isolated races, much depends on the nature of the metals with which the geologic constitution of the country has furnished them. In general, however, the above law is found to prevail here. The higher the development of a people becomes, the more frequent is the occurrence of large payments; and to effect these, the more costly a metal is, the better, of course, it is adapted to effect such payments. Besides, only rich nations are able to possess the costly metals in a quantity absolutely great. Among the Jews, gold as money dates only from the time of David. King Pheidon, of Argos, it is said, introduced silver money into Greece, about the middle of the eighth century before Christ. Gold came into use at a much later period. The Romans struck silver money, for the first time, in 209 before Christ, and, in 207, the first gold coins. Among modern nations, Venice (1285) and Florence seem to have been the first to have coined gold in any quantity."

W. Roscher, Principles of Political Economy, book 2, chapter 3, sections 117-119 (volume 1).

MONEY AND BANKING: Ancient Egypt and Babylonia.

"Money seems to us now so obvious a convenience, and so much a necessity of commerce, that it appears almost inconceivable that a people who created the Sphinx and the Pyramids, the temples of Ipsamboul and Karnac, should have been entirely ignorant of coins. Yet it appears from the statements of Herodotus, and the evidence of the monuments themselves, that this was really the case. As regards the commercial and banking systems of ancient Egypt, we are almost entirely without information. Their standard of value seems to have been the 'outen' or 'ten' of copper (94-96 grammes), which circulated like the æs rude of the Romans by weight, and in the form of bricks, being measured by the balance. It was obtained from the mines of Mount Sinai, which were worked as early as the fourth dynasty. Gold and silver appear to have been also used, though less frequently. Like copper, they were sometimes in the form of bricks, but generally in rings, resembling the ring money of the ancient Celts, which is said to have been employed in Ireland down to the 12th century, and still holds its own in the interior of Africa. This approximated very nearly to the possession of money, but it wanted what the Roman lawyers called 'the law' and 'the form.' Neither the weight nor the pureness was guaranteed by any public authority. Such a state of things seems to us very inconvenient, but after all It is not very different from that which prevails in China even at the present day. The first money struck in Egypt, and that for the use rather of the Greek and Phœnician merchants than of the natives, was by the Satrap Aryandes. In ancient Babylonia and Assyria, as in Egypt, the precious metals, and especially silver, circulated as uncoined ingots. They were readily taken indeed, but taken by weight and verified by the balance like any other merchandise. The excavations in Assyria and Babylon, which have thrown so much light upon ancient history, have afforded us some interesting information as to the commercial arrangements of these countries, and we now possess a considerable number of receipts, contracts, and other records relating to loans of silver on personal securities at fixed rates of interest; loans on landed or house property; sales of land, in one case with a plan; sales of slaves, &c. These were engraved on tablets of clay, which were then burnt. M. Lenormant divides these most interesting documents into five principal types:

1. Simple obligations. 2. Obligations with a penal clause in case of non-fulfilment. One he gives which had 79 days to run. 3. Obligations with the guarantee of a third party. 4. Obligations payable to a third person. 5. Drafts drawn upon one place, payable in another. …

These Assyrian drafts were negotiable, but from the nature of things could not pass by endorsement, because, when the clay was once baked, nothing new could be added, and under these circumstances the name of the payee was frequently omitted. It seems to follow that they must have been regularly advised. It is certainly remarkable that such instruments, and especially letters of credit, should have preceded the use of coins. The earliest banking firm of which we have any account is said to be that of Egibi and Company, for our knowledge of whom we are indebted to Mr. Boscawen, Mr. Pinches, and Mr. Hilton Price. Several documents and records belonging to this family are in the British Museum. They are on clay tablets, and were discovered in an earthenware jar found in the neighbourhood of Hillah, a few miles from Babylon. The house is said to have acted as a sort of national bank of Babylon: the founder of the house, Egibi, probably lived in the reign of Sennacherib, about 700 B. C. This family has been traced during a century and a half, and through five generations, down to the reign of Darius. At the same time, the tablets hitherto translated scarcely seem to me to prove that the firm acted as bankers, in our sense of the word."

Sir J. Lubbock, The History of Money (Nineteenth Century, November, 1879).

"We have an enormous number of the documents of this firm, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar the Great, and going on for some five generations or so to the time of Darius. The tablets are dated month after month and year after year, and thus they afford us a sure method of fixing the chronology of that very uncertain period of history. There is a small contract tablet in the Museum at Zürich, discovered by Dr. Oppert, dated in the 5th year of Pacorus, king of Persia, who reigned about the time of Domitian. There is a little doubt about the reading of one of the characters in the name, but if it is correct, it will prove that the use of cuneiform did not fall into disuse until after the Christian Era. … Some have tried to show that Egibi is the Babylonian form of Jacob, which would lead one to suspect the family to have been Jews; but this is not certain at present."

E. A. W. Budge, Babylonian Life and History, page 115.

{2200}

"It is in the development of trade, and especially of banking, rather than in manufactures, that Babylonia and Chaldæa were in advance of all the rest of the world. The most cautious Assyriologists are the least confident in their renderings of the numerous contract tablets from which, if they were accurately interpreted, we should certainly be able to reconstruct the laws and usages of the world's first great market place. … The following account of Babylonian usages is derived from the text of M. Revillout's work. … It is confirmed in essentials by the later work of Meissner, who has translated over one hundred deeds of the age of Hammurabi and his successors. In Chaldæa every kind of commodity, from land to money, circulated with a freedom that is unknown to modern commerce; every value was negotiable, and there was no limit to the number and variety of the agreements that might be entered into. … Brick tablets did not lend themselves readily to 'bookkeeping,' as no further entry could be made after baking, while the first entry was not secure unless baked at once. Each brick recorded one transaction, and was kept by the party interested till the contract was completed, and the destruction of the tablet was equivalent to a receipt. Babylonian law allowed debts to be paid by assigning another person's debt to the creditor; a debt was property, and could be assigned without reference to the debtor, so that any formal acknowledgment of indebtedness could be treated like a negotiable bill—a fact which speaks volumes for the commercial honesty of the people. A separate tablet was, of course, required to record the original debt, or rather to say that So-and-so's debt to Such-an-one has been by him sold to a third party. Such third party could again either assign his claim to a bank for a consideration, or if the last debtor had a credit at the bank, the creditor could be paid out of that, a sort of forecast of the modern clearing-house system. The debtor who pays before the term agreed on has to receive a formal surrender of the creditor's claim, or a transfer of it to himself. The Babylonian regarded money and credit as synonymous, and the phrase, 'Money of Such-an-one upon So-and-so,' is used as equivalent to A's credit with B. … In ancient Babylonia, as in modern China, the normal effect of a loan was supposed to be beneficial to the borrower. In Egypt, judging from the form of the deeds, the idea was that the creditor asserted a claim upon the debtor, or the debtor acknowledged a liability to the man from whom he had borrowed. In Babylonia the personal question is scarcely considered; one person owes money to another—that is the commonest thing in the world—such loans are in a chronic state of being incurred and paid off; one man's debt is another man's credit, and credit being the soul of commerce, the loan is considered rather as a part of the floating negotiable capital of the country than as a burden on the shoulders of one particular debtor."

E. J. Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, volume 1, pages 320-322.

MONEY AND BANKING: China.

"Not only did the Chinese possess coins at a very early period, but they were also the inventors of bank notes. Some writers regard bank notes as having originated about 119 B. C., in the reign of the Emperor Ou-ti. At this time the Court was in want of money, and to raise it Klaproth tells us that the prime minister hit upon the following device. When any princess or courtiers entered the imperial presence, it was customary to cover the face with a piece of skin. It was first decreed then, that for this purpose the skin of certain white deer kept in one of the royal parks should alone be permitted, and then these pieces of skin were sold for a high price. But although they appear to have passed from one noble to another, they do not seem ever to have entered into general circulation. It was therefore very different from the Russian skin money. In this case the notes were 'used instead of the skins from which they were cut, the skins themselves being too bulky and heavy to be constantly carried backward and forward. Only a little piece was cut off to figure as a token of possession of the whole skin. The ownership was proved when the piece fitted in the hole.' True bank notes are said to have been invented about 800 A. D., in the reign of Hiantsoung, of the dynasty of Thang, and were called 'feytsien,' or flying money. It is curious, however, though not surprising, to find that the temptation to over-issue led to the same results in China as in the West. The value of the notes fell, until at length it took 11,000 min, or £3,000, to buy a cake of rice, and the use of notes appears to have been abandoned. Subsequently the issue was revived, and Tchang-yang (960-990 A. D.) seems to have been the first private person who issued notes. Somewhat later, under the Emperor 'Tching-tsong (997-1022), this invention was largely extended. Sixteen of the richest firms united to form a bank of issue which emitted paper money in series, some payable every three years. The earliest mention, in European literature, of paper, or rather cotton, money appears to be by Rubruquis, a monk, who was sent by St. Louis, in the year 1252, to the Court of the Mongol Prince Mangu-Khan, but he merely mentions the fact of its existence. Marco Polo, who resided from 1275 to 1284 at the court of Kublai-Khan, … gives us a longer and interesting account of the note system, which he greatly admired, and he concludes by saying, 'Now you have heard the ways and means whereby the great Khan may have, and, in fact, has, more treasure than all the kings in the world. You know all about it, and the reason why.' But this apparent facility of creating money led, in the East, as it has elsewhere, to great abuses. Sir John Mandeville, who was in Tartary shortly afterwards, in 1322, tells us that the 'Emperour may dispenden als moehe as he wile with outen estymacioum. For he despendeth not, ne maketh no money, but of lether emprented, or of papyre. … For there and beyonde hem thei make no money, nouther of gold nor of sylver. And therefore he may despende ynow and outrageously.' The great Khan seems to have been himself of the same opinion. He appears to have 'despent outrageously,' and the value of the paper money again fell to a very small fraction of its nominal amount, causing great discontent and misery, until about the middle of the sixteenth century, under the Mandchu dynasty, it was abolished, and appears to have been so completely forgotten, that the Jesuit father, Gabriel de Magaillans, who resided at Pekin about 1668, observes that there is no recollection of paper money having ever existed in the manner described by Marco Polo; though two centuries later it was again in use. It must be observed, however, that these Chinese bank notes differed from ours in one essential—namely, they were not payable at sight. {2201} Western notes, even when not payable at all, have generally purported to be exchangeable at the will of the holder, but this principle the Chinese did not adopt, and their notes were only payable at certain specified periods."

Sir J. Lubbock, The History of Money (Nineteenth Century, November, 1879).

ALSO IN: W. Vissering, On Chinese Currency.

MONEY AND BANKING: Coinage in its Beginnings.

"Many centuries before the invention of the art of coining, gold and silver in the East, and bronze in the West, in bullion form, had already supplanted barter, the most primitive of all methods of buying and selling, when among pastoral peoples the ox and the sheep were the ordinary mediums of exchange. The very word 'pecunia' is an evidence of this practice in Italy at a period which is probably recent in comparison with the time when values were estimated in cattle in Greece and the East. 'So far as we have any knowledge,' says Herodotus, 'the Lydians were the first nation to introduce the use of gold and silver coin.' This statement of the father of history must not, however, be accepted as finally settling the vexed question as to who were the inventors of coined money, for Strabo, Aelian, and the Parian Chronicle, all agree in adopting the more commonly received tradition, that Pheidon, King of Argos, first struck silver coins in the island of Aegina. These two apparently contradictory assertions modern research tends to reconcile with one another. The one embodies the Asiatic, the other the European tradition; and the truth of the matter is that gold was first coined by the Lydians in Asia Minor, in the seventh century before our era; and that silver was first struck in European Greece about the same time. The earliest coins are simply bullets of metal, oval or bean-shaped, bearing on one side the signet of the state or of the community responsible for the purity of the metal and the exactness of the weight. Coins were at first stamped on one side only, the reverse showing merely the impress of the square-headed spike or anvil on which, after being weighed, the bullet of hot metal was placed with a pair of tongs and there held while a second workman adjusted upon it the engraved die. This done, a third man with a heavy hammer would come down upon it with all his might, and the coin would be produced, bearing on its face or obverse the seal of the issuer, and on the reverse only the mark of the anvil spike, an incuse square. This simple process was after a time improved upon by adding a second engraved die beneath the metal bullet, so that a single blow of the sledge-hammer would provide the coin with a type, as it is called, in relief on both sides. The presence of the unengraved incuse square may therefore be accepted as an indication of high antiquity, and nearly all Greek coins which are later than the age of the Persian wars bear a type on both sides. … Greek coin-types may be divided into two distinct classes:

(a) Mythological or religious representations, and (b) portraits of historical persons.

From the earliest times down to the age of Alexander the Great the types of Greek coins are almost exclusively religious. However strange this may seem at first, it is not difficult to explain. It must be borne in mind that when the enterprising and commercial Lydians first lighted upon the happy idea of stamping metal for general circulation, a guarantee of just weight and purity of metal would be the one condition required. … What more binding guarantee could be found than the invocation of one or other of those divinities most honoured and most dreaded in the district in which the coin was intended to circulate. There is even good reason to think that the earliest coins were actually struck within the precincts of the temples, and under the direct auspices of the priests; for in times of general insecurity by sea and land, the temples alone remained sacred and inviolate."

B. V. Head, Greek Coins Coins and Medals, edited by S. Lane-Poole, chapter 2.

MONEY AND BANKING: Early Banking.

"The banker's calling is both new and old. As a distinct branch of commerce, and a separate agent in the advancement of civilisation, its history hardly extends over 300 years; but, in a rude and undeveloped sort of way, it has existed during some dozens of centuries. It began almost with the beginning of society. No sooner had men learnt to adopt a portable and artificial equivalent for their commodities, and thus to buy and sell and get gain more easily, than the more careful of them began to gather up their money in little heaps, or in great heaps, if they were fortunate enough. These heaps were, by the Romans, called montes—mounds, or banks,—and henceforth every money-maker was a primitive banker. The prudent farmers and shopkeepers in the out-of-the-way villages, who now lock up their savings in strong boxes, or conceal them in places where they are least likely to be found by thieves, show us how the richest and most enterprising men of far-off times, whether in Anglo-Saxon or mediæval Britain, ancient Greece and Rome, China or Judæa, made banks for themselves before the great advantages of joint-stock heaping up of money were discovered. When and in what precise way that discovery was made antiquarians have yet to decide. … Perhaps Jews and Greeks set the example to the modern world. Every rich Athenian had his treasurer or money-keeper, and whenever any particular treasurer proved himself a good accountant and safe banker, it is easy to understand how, from having one master, he came to have several, until he was able to change his condition of slavery for the humble rank of a freedman, and then to use his freedom to such good purpose that he became an influential member of the community. Having many people's money, entrusted to his care, he received good payment for his responsible duty, and he quickly learned to increase his wealth by lending out his own savings, if not his employers' capital, at the highest rate of interest that he could obtain. The Greek bankers were chiefly famous as money-lenders, and interest at thirty-six per cent. per annum was not considered unusually exorbitant among them. For their charges they were often blamed by spendthrifts, satirists, and others. 'It is said,' complains Plutarch, 'that hares bring forth and nourish their young at the same time that they conceive again; but the debts of these scoundrels and savages bring forth before they conceive, for they give and immediately demand again; they take away their money at the same time as they put it out; they place at interest what they receive as interest. The Messenians have a proverb: "There is a Pylos before Pylos, and yet another Pylos still." {2202} So of the usurers it may be said, "There is a profit before profit, and yet another profit still;" and then, forsooth, they laugh at philosophers, who say that nothing can come out of nothing!' The Greek bankers and money-lenders, those of Delos and Delphi especially, are reported to have used the temples as treasure-houses, and to have taken the priests into partnership in their money-making. Some arrangement of that sort seems to have existed among the Jews, and to have aroused the anger of Jesus when he went into the Temple of Jerusalem, 'and overthrew the tables of the money-changers, and said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.' Bankers' or money-changers' tables were famous institutions all over the civilised world of the ancients. Livy tells how, in 308 B. C., if not before, they were to be found in the Roman Forum, and later Latin authors make frequent allusions to banking transactions of all sorts. They talk of deposits and securities, bills of exchange and drafts to order, cheques and bankers' books, as glibly as a modern merchant. But these things were nearly forgotten during the dark ages, until the Jews, true to the money-making propensities that characterised them while they still had a country of their own, set the fashion of money-making and of banking in all the countries of Europe through which they were dispersed."

H. R. Fox Bourne, Romance of Trade, chapter 4.

MONEY AND BANKING: Ancient Greece.

"Oriental contact first stirred the 'auri sacra fames' in the Greek mind. That this was so the Greek language itself tells plainly. For 'chrusos,' gold, is a Semitic loan-word, closely related to the Hebrew 'charuz,' but taken immediately, there can be no reasonable doubt, from the Phœnician. The restless treasure-seekers from Tyre were, indeed, as the Græco-Semitic term metal intimates, the original subterranean explorers of the Balkan peninsula. As early, probably, as the 15th century B. C. they 'digged out ribs of gold' on the islands of Thasos and Siphnos, and on the Thracian mainland at Mount Pangæum; and the fables of the Golden Fleece, and of Arimaspian wars with gold-guarding griffins, prove the hold won by the 'precious bane' over the popular imagination. Asia Minor was, however, the chief source of prehistoric supply, the native mines lying long neglected after the Phœnicians had been driven from the scene. Midas was a typical king in a land where the mountains were gold-granulated, and the rivers ran over sands of gold. And it was in fact from Phrygia that Pelops was traditionally reported to have brought the treasures which made Mycenæ the golden city of the Achæan world. The Epic affluence in gold was not wholly fictitious. From the sepulchres of Mycenæ alone about one hundred pounds Troy weight of the metal have been disinterred; freely at command even in the lowest stratum of the successive habitations at Hissarlik, it was lavishly stored, and highly wrought in the picturesquely-named 'treasure of Priam'; and has been found, in plates and pearls, beneath twenty metres of volcanic debris, in the Cyclatic islands Thera and Therapia. This plentifulness contrasts strangely with the extreme scarcity of gold in historic Greece. It persisted, however, mainly owing to the vicinity of the auriferous Ural Mountains, in the Milesian colony of Panticapæum, near Kertch, where graves have been opened containing corpses shining 'like images' in a complete clothing of gold-leaf, and equipped with ample supplies of golden vessels and ornaments. Silver was, at the outset, a still rarer substance than gold. Not that there is really less of it. … But it occurs less obviously, and is less easy to obtain pure. Accordingly, in some very early Egyptian inscriptions, silver, by heading the list of metals, claims a supremacy over them which proved short-lived. It terminated for ever with the scarcity that had produced it, when the Phœnicians began to pour the flood of Spanish silver into the markets and treasure-chambers of the East. Armenia constituted another tolerably copious source of supply; and it was in this quarter that Homer located the 'birth-place of silver.'"

A. M. Clerke, Familiar Studies in Homer, chapter 10.

"Taken as a whole the Greek money is excellent; pure in metal and exact in weight, its real corresponding to its nominal value. Nothing better has been done in this way among the most civilized and best governed nations of modern times. There is, indeed, always a certain recognized limit, which keeps the actual weight of the money slightly below its theoretical weight; and this fact recurs with such regularity that it may be regarded as a rule. We must conclude, therefore, that it was under this form that Greek civilization allowed to the coiner of money the right of seigniorage, or the benefit legitimately due to him to cover the expenses of the coinage, and in exchange for the service rendered by him to the public in providing them with money, by which they were saved the trouble of perpetual weighing. This allowance, however, is always kept within very narrow limits, and is never more than the excess of the natural value of the coined money over that of the metal in ingots. … Of course, the general and predominant fact of the excellence of the Greek money in the time of Hellenic independence is subject, like all human things, to some exceptions. There were a few cities which yielded to the delusive bait of an unlawful advantage, debasing the quality of their coins without foreseeing that the consequences of this unfair operation would react against themselves. But these exceptions are very rare."

F. Lenormant, Money in Ancient Greece and Rome (Contemporary Review, February; 1879).

"The quantity, particularly of gold, … was, in the earlier historical periods, according to unexceptionable testimony, extremely small. In the time of Crœsus, according to Theopompus, gold was not to be found for sale in any of the Greek States. The Spartans, needing some for a votive offering, wished to purchase a quantity from Crœsus; manifestly because he was the nearest person from whom it could be obtained. … Even during the period from the seventieth to the eightieth Olympiads, (B. C. 500-460,) pure gold was a rarity. When Hiero of Syracuse wished to send a tripod and a statue of the Goddess of Victory, made of pure gold, to the Delphian Apollo, he could not procure the requisite quantity of metal until his agents applied to the Corinthian Architiles, who, as was related by the above-mentioned Theopompus and Phanias of Eresus, had long been in the practice of purchasing gold in small quantities, and hoarding it. Greece proper itself did not possess many mines of precious metals. The most important of the few which it possessed were the Attic silver mines of Laurion. {2203} These were at first very productive. … Asia and Africa furnished incomparably a larger quantity of the precious metals than was procured in Greece and the other European countries. … Colchis, Lydia, and Phrygia, were distinguished for their abundance of gold. Some derive the tradition of the golden fleece from the gold washings in Colchis. Who has not heard of the riches of Midas, and Gyges, and Crœsus, the gold mines of the mountains Tmolus and Sipylus, the gold-sand of the Pactolus? … From the very productive gold mines of India, together with its rivers flowing with gold, among which in particular the Ganges may be classed, arose the fable of the gold-digging ants. From these annual revenues the royal treasure was formed. By this a great quantity of precious metal was kept from circulation. It was manifestly their principle to coin only as much gold and silver as was necessary for the purposes of trade, and for the expenditures of the State. In Greece, also, great quantities were kept from circulation, and accumulated in treasuries. There were locked up in the citadel of Athens 9,700 talents of coined silver, besides the gold and silver vessels and utensils. The Delphian god possessed a great number of the most valuable articles. … The magnificent expenditures of Pericles upon public edifices and structures, for works of the plastic arts, for theatrical exhibitions, and in carrying on wars, distributed what Athens had collected, into many hands. The temple-robbing Phocians coined from the treasures at Delphi ten thousand talents in gold and silver; and this large sum was consumed by war. Philip of Macedonia, in fine, carried on his wars as much with gold as with arms. Thus a large amount of money came into circulation in the period between the commencement of the Persian wars and the age of Demosthenes. The precious metals, therefore, must of necessity have depreciated in value, as they did at a later period, when Constantine the Great caused money to be coined from the precious articles found in the heathen temples. But what a quantity of gold and silver flowed through Alexander's conquest of Asia into the western countries! Allowing that his historians exaggerate, the main point, however, remains certain. … Alexander's successors not only collected immense sums, but by their wars again put them into circulation. … The enormous taxes which were raised in the Macedonian kingdoms, the revelry and extravagant liberality of the kings, which passed all bounds, indicate the existence of an immense amount of ready money."

A. Boeckh, The Public Economy of the Athenians, book 1, chapter 3.

MONEY AND BANKING: Phœnicia.

"Nearly all the silver in common use for trade throughout the East was brought into the market by the Phœnicians. The silver mines were few and distant; the trade was thus a monopoly, worth keeping so by the most savage treatment of suspected rivals, and, as a monopoly, so lucrative that, but for the long and costly voyage between Spain and Syria, the merchant would have seemed to get his profit for nothing. … The use of silver money, though it did not originate with the Phœnicians, was no doubt promoted by their widespread dealings. The coins were always of known weight, and standing in a well-known relation to the bars used for large transactions."

E. J. Simcox, Primitive Civilizations, volume 1, page 400.

"It is a curious fact that coinage in Phoenicia, one of the most commercial of ancient countries, should have been late in origin, and apparently not very plentiful. There are, in fact, no coins of earlier period than the third century which we can with certainty attribute to the great cities of Tyre and Sidon. Some modern writers, however, consider that many of the coins generally classed under Persia—notably those bearing the types of a chariot, a galley, and an owl respectively— were issued by those cities in the 5th and 4th centuries B. C. But it is certain, in any case, that the Phoenicians were far behind the Greeks in the art of moneying. With the invasion of Persia by Alexander the Great came a great change; and all the ancient landmarks of Asiatic government and order were swept away. During the life of Alexander the Great the coins bearing his name and his types circulated throughout Asia; and after his death the same range of currency was attained by the money of the early Seleucid Kings of Syria—Seleucis I., Antiochus I., and Antiochus II., who virtually succeeded to the dominions of the Persian Kings, and tried in many respects to carry on their policy. Of these monarchs we possess a splendid series of coins."

S. Lane-Poole, Coins and Medals, chapter 6.

MONEY AND BANKING: The Jews.

"It would seem that, until the middle of the second century B. C., the Jews either weighed out gold and silver for the 'Price of goods, or else used the money usually current in Syria, that of Persia, Phoenicia, Athens, and the Seleucidae. Simon the Maccabee was the first to issue the Jewish shekel as a coin, and we learn from the Book of Maccabees that the privilege of striking was expressly granted him by King Antiochus VII. of Syria. We possess shekels of years 1-5 of the deliverance of Zion; the types are a chalice and a triple flower. The kings who succeeded Simon, down to Antigonus, confined themselves to the issue of copper money, with Hebrew legends and with types calculated not to shock the susceptible feelings of their people, to whom the representation of a living thing was abominable—such types as a lily, a palm, a star, or an anchor. When the Herodian family came in, several violations of this rule appear."

S. Lane-Poole, Coins and Medals, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: G. C. Williamson, The Money of the Bible.

MONEY AND BANKING: Rome.

"In Rome the generic terms for money seem to have been successively, pecunia, As, nummns, and moneta. … Moneta … is derived from the name of the temple in which, or in a building to or next to which the money of Rome was coined after the defeat of Pyrrhus, B. a. 275, more probably after the capture of Tarentum by the Romans, B. C. 272. It probably did not come into use until after the era of Scipio, and then was only used occasionally until the period of the Empire, when it and its derivatives became more common. Nummus, nevertheless, continued to hold its ground until towards the decline of the Empire, when it went entirely out of use, and moneta and its derivatives usurped its place, which it has continued to hold ever since. Moneta is therefore substantially a term of the Dark Ages. … The idea associated with moneta is coins, whose value was derived mainly from that of the material of which they were composed; whilst the idea associated with nummus is a system of symbols whose value was derived from legal limitation. {2204} From the fact that our language sprang from the Dark Ages, we have no generic word for money other than moneta, which only relates to one kind of money. For a similar reason, the comparative newness of the English tongue, we have no word for a piece of money except coin, which, properly speaking, only relates to one kind of piece, namely, that which is struck by the cuneus."

A. Del Mar, History of Money in Ancient Countries, chapter 28.

The extent and energy of the Roman traffic, in the great age of the Republic, during the third and second centuries before Christ, "may be traced most distinctly by means of coins and monetary relations. The Roman denarius kept pace with the Roman legions. … The Sicilian mints—last of all that of Syracuse in 542—were closed or at any rate restricted to small money in consequence of the Roman conquest, and … in Sicily and Sardinia the denarius obtained legal circulation at least side by side with the older silver currency and probably very soon became the exclusive legal tender. With equal if not greater rapidity the Roman silver coinage penetrated into Spain, where the great silver-mines existed and there was virtually no earlier national coinage; at a very early period the Spanish towns even began to coin after the Roman standard. On the whole, as Carthage coined only to a very limited extent, there existed not a single important mint in addition to that of Rome in the region of the western Mediterranean, with the exception of the mint of Massilia and perhaps also of those of the Illyrian Greeks at Apollonia and Epidamnus. Accordingly, when the Romans began to establish themselves in the region of the Po, these mints were about 225 subjected to the Roman standard in such a way, that, while they retained the right of coining silver, they uniformly—and the Massiliots in particular—were led to adjust their drachma to the weight of the Roman three-quarter denarius, which the Roman government on its part began to coin, primarily for the use of upper Italy, under the name of the 'piece of Victory' (victoriatus). This new system, based on the Roman, prevailed throughout the Massiliot, Upper Italian, and Illyrian territories; and these coins even penetrated into the barbarian lands on the north, those of Massilia, for instance, into the Alpine districts along the whole basin of the Rhone, and those of Illyria as far as the modern Transylvania. The eastern half of the Mediterranean was not yet reached by the Roman money, as it had not yet fallen under the direct sovereignty of Rome; but its place was filled by gold, the true and natural medium for international and transmarine commerce. It is true that the Roman government, in conformity with its strictly conservative character, adhered—with the exception of a temporary coinage of gold occasioned by the financial embarrassment during the Hannibalic war—steadfastly to the rule of coining silver only in addition to the national-Italian copper; but commerce had already assumed such dimensions, that it was able in the absence of money to conduct its transactions with gold by weight. Of the sum in cash, which lay in the Roman treasury in 597, scarcely a sixth was coined or uncoined silver, five-sixths consisted of gold in bars, and beyond doubt the precious metals were found in all the chests of the larger Roman capitalists in substantially similar proportions. Already therefore gold held the first place in great transactions; and, as may be inferred from this fact, the preponderance of traffic was maintained with foreign lands, and particularly with the East, which since the times of Philip and Alexander the Great had adopted a gold currency. The whole gain from these immense transactions of the Roman capitalists flowed in the long run to Rome. … The moneyed superiority of Rome as compared with the rest of the civilized world was, accordingly, quite as decided as its political and military ascendancy. Rome in this respect stood towards other countries somewhat as the England of the present day stands towards the continent."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 3, chapter 12 (volume 2).

In the later years of the Roman Republic the coinage became debased and uncertain. "Cæsar restored the public credit by issuing good money, such as had not been seen in Rome for a length of time, money of pure metal and exact weight; with scarcely any admixture of plated pieces, money which could circulate for its real value, and this measure became one of the principal sources of his popularity. Augustus followed his example, but at the same time took away from the Senate the right of coining gold and silver, reserving this exclusively to the imperial authority, which was to exercise it absolutely without control. From this time we find the theory that the value of money is arbitrary, and depends solely on the will of the sovereign who issues it, more and more widely and tenaciously held. … The faith placed in the official impress fostered the temptation to abuse it. … In less than a century the change of the money of the State into imperial money, and the theory that its value arose from its bearing the effigy of the sovereign, produced a system of adulteration of specie, which went on growing to the very close of the Empire, and which the successors of Augustus utilized largely for the indulgence of their passions and their prodigality."

F. Lenormant, Money in Ancient Greece and Rome (Contemporary Review, February, 1879).

MONEY AND BANKING: Mediæval Money and Banking.

As regards the monetary system of the Middle Ages, the precious metals, when uncoined, were weighed by the pound and half pound or mark, for which different standards were in use, the most generally recognised being those of Troyes and Cologne. Of coined money there existed a perplexing variety, which made it almost impossible to ascertain the relative value, not only of different coins, but of the same coin of different issues. This resulted from the emperor or king conferring the right of coinage upon various lords spiritual and temporal, from whom it was ultimately acquired by individual towns. The management was in most cases entrusted to a company, temporary or permanent, inspected by an official, the coin-tester, originally appointed by the sovereign, but afterwards by the company, and confirmed by the king or bishop. The house where the process of coining was performed was called the mint, and the company who held the rights of coinage in fee was known as the Mint House Company, or simply the House Company. Very generally the office was held by the Corporation of Goldsmiths. The want of perfect supervision led to great debasement of the currency, especially in Germany and France; but in England and Italy the standard was tolerably well maintained. {2205} Payments in silver were much more common than in gold. Before the Crusades the only gold coins known in Europe were the Byzantine solides, the Italian tari, and Moorish maurabotini. The solidi, which were originally of 23 to 23½ carat gold, but subsequently very much deteriorated, were reckoned as equal to twelve silver denars. They passed current in Southern and Eastern Europe, Hungary, Germany, Poland, and Prussia. … Solde, sol, and sou are only repeated transformations of the name of the coin, which have been accompanied by still greater changes in its value. The tari or tarentini derived its name from the Italian town where it was originally struck. It was less generally known than the solides, and was equal to one-fourth the latter in value. The maurabotini or sarazens were only of 15 carats gold. The name survives in the Spanish maravedi, which, however, like the sou, is now made of copper instead of gold. In the thirteenth century augustals, florentines, and ducats, or zecchins (sequins), were coined in Italy. The first-mentioned, the weight of which was half an ounce, were named in honour of Frederick II., who was Roman Cæsar and Augustus in 1252. The florentines, also known as gigliati, or lilies, from the arms of Florence, which they bore on one side, with the effigy of John the Baptist on the reverse, were of fine gold and lighter than the solidi, about 64 being reckoned equal to the mark. The ducats or zecchins were of Venetian origin, receiving their first name from the Duca or Doge, and the other from the Zecca or Mint House. They were somewhat less in value than the florentines, 66 or 67 being counted to the fine mark. Nearly equivalent in value to these Italian coins were the gold guilders coined in the fourteenth century in Hungary and the Rhine regions. The Rhenish guilder was of 22½ or 23 carats fine, and in weight 1/66; of a mark of Cologne. The silver guilder was of later production, and the name is now used as equivalent to florin. … In silver payments, the metal being usually nearly pure, it was common to compute by weight, coins and uncoined bullion being alike put into the scale, as is still the case in some Eastern countries. Hence the origin of the pound, livre, or mark. The most widely diffused silver coin was the denarius, which was, as in ancient Roman times, the 11/240 of a pound. The name pending or pennig, by which the denarius was known among the old Teutonic nations, seems to be connected with pendere, to weigh out or pay; as the other ancient Teutonic coin, the sceat, was with sceoton, to pay, a word which is preserved in the modern phrases 'scot free,' 'pay your scot.' … Half-pennies and farthings were not known in the earliest times, but the penny was deeply indented by two cross lines, which enabled it to be broken into quarters or farthings (feordings or fourthings). From the indented cross the denarius was known in Germany as the kreutzer. … With such a diversity of coinage, it was necessary to settle any mercantile transaction in the currency of the place. Not only would sellers have refused to accept money whose value was unknown to them, but in many places they were forbidden to do so by law. Merchants attending foreign markets therefore brought with them a quantity of fine silver and gold in bars, which they exchanged on the spot for the current coin of the place, to be used in settling their transactions; the balance remaining on hand they re-exchanged for bullion before leaving. The business of money-changing, which thus arose, was a very lucrative one, and was originally mostly in the hands of Italian merchants, chiefly Lombards and Florentines. In Italy the money-changers formed a guild, members of which settled in the Netherlands, England, Cologne, and the Mediterranean ports. In these different towns and countries they kept up a close connection with each other and with Italy, and at an early period (before the thirteenth century) commenced the practice of assignments, i. e., receiving money in one place, to be paid by an order upon their correspondents in another, thus saving the merchant who travelled from country to country the expense and risk of transporting specie. In the thirteenth century this branch of business was in extensive use at Barcelona, and in 1307 the tribute of 'Peter's pence' was sent from England to the Pope through the Lombard exchangers. From 5 to 6 per cent., or more, was charged upon the transaction, and the profitable nature of the business soon led many wealthy and even noble Italian families to employ their money in this way. They established a member of their firm in each of the great centres of trade to receive and pay on their account. In Florence alone (about 1350) there are said to have been eighty such houses. Among these the Frescobaldi, Bardi, and Peruzzi are well-known names; but the chief place was taken by the famous Florentine house of the Medici, who had banking houses established in sixteen of the chief cities of Europe and the Levant. In the north of Europe, before long, similar arrangements were established by the merchants of the Hanseatic League. … Assignments of this kind were drawn out in the form of letters, requesting the person by whom the money was due to pay it over to another party, named in the bill, on account of the writer, specifying also the time within which and the form in which the payment was to be made. They were thus known as letters, billets, or bills of exchange, and appear in Italy as early as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Among the earliest examples in existence are a letter of exchange, dated at Milan in 1325, payable within five months at Lucca; one dated at Bruges, 1304, and payable at Barcelona; and another, dated at Bologna, 1381, payable in Venice. … 'The first writers who treat of bills are Italians: the Italian language furnishes the technical terms for drafts, remittances, currency, sight, usance, and discount, used in most of the languages of Europe.' … Of other branches of banking the germs also appeared in the Middle Ages. Venice seems to have been the first city to possess something answering to a deposit bank. The merchants here united in forming a common treasury, where they deposited sums of money, upon which they gave assignments or orders for payment to their creditors, and to which similar assignments due to themselves were paid and added on to the amount at their credit. The taula di cambi (exchange counter) of Barcelona was a similar institution, as also the bank of St. George, at Genoa."

J. Yeats, Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, appendix F.

The name "Lombards" was frequently given, during the Middle Ages, to all the Italian merchants and money-lenders—from Florence, Venice, Genoa, and elsewhere—who were engaged throughout Europe in banking and trade.

{2206}

MONEY AND BANKING: Florentine Banking.

"The business of money-changing seemed thoroughly at home here, and it is not surprising that the invention of bills of exchange, which we first meet with in 1199 in the relations between England and Italy, should be ascribed to Florence. The money trade seems to have flourished as early as the twelfth century, towards the end of which a Marquis of Ferrara raised money on his lands from the Florentines. In 1204 we find the money-changers as one of the corporations. In 1228, and probably from the beginning of the century, several Florentines were settled in London as changers to King Henry III.; and here, as in France, they conducted the money transactions of the Papal chair in conjunction with the Sienese. Their oldest known statute, which established rules for the whole conduct of trade (Statuto dell' Università della Mercatanzia) drawn up by a commission consisting of five members of the great guilds, is dated 1280. Their guild-hall was in the Via Calimaruzza, opposite that of the Calimala, and was litter included in the buildings of the post-office, on the site of which, after the post-office had been removed to what was formerly the mint, a building was lately erected, similar in architecture to the Palazzo of the Signoria, which stands opposite. Their coat of arms displayed gold coins laid one beside another on a red field. At the end of the thirteenth century their activity, especially in France and England, was extraordinarily great. But if wealth surpassing all previous conception was attained, it not seldom involved loss of repute, and those who pursued the calling ran the risk of immense losses from fiscal measures to the carrying out of which they themselves contributed, as well as those which were caused by insolvency or dishonesty. … The names of Tuscans and Lombards, and that of Cahorsiens in France, no longer indicated the origin, but the trade of the money-changers, who drew down the ancient hatred upon themselves. … France possessed at this time the greatest attraction for the Florentine money-makers, although they were sometimes severely oppressed, which is sufficient proof that their winnings were still greater than their occasional losses. … The Florentine money market suffered the severest blow from England. At the end of the twelfth century there were already Florentine houses of exchange in London, and if Pisans, Genoese, and Venetians managed the trade by sea in the times of the Crusades, it was the Florentines mostly who looked after financial affairs in connection with the Papal chair, as we have seen. Numerous banks appeared about the middle of the thirteenth century, among which the Frescobaldi, a family of ancient nobility, and as such attainted by the prosecutions against it, took the lead, and were referred to the custom-house of the country for re-imbursement of the loans made to the kings Edward I. and II. Later, the two great trading companies of the Bardi and Peruzzi came into notice, and with their money Edward III. began the French war against Philip of Valois. But even in the first year of this war, which began with an unsuccessful attack upon Flanders, the king suspended the payments to the creditors of the State by a decree of May 6, 1339. The advances made by the Bardi amounted to 180,000 marks sterling, those of the Peruzzi to above 135,000, according to Giovanni Villani, who knew only too well about these things, since he was ruined by them himself to the extent of 'a sum of more than 1,355,000 gold florins, equivalent to the value of a kingdom.' Bonifazio Peruzzi, the head of the house, hastened to London, where he died of grief in the following year. The blow fell on the whole city. … Both houses began at once to liquidate, and the prevailing disturbance contributed not a little to the early success of the ambitious plans of the Duke of Athens. The real bankruptcy ensued, however, in January 1346, when new losses had occurred in Sicily. … The banks of the Acciaiuoli, Bonuccorsi, Cocchi, Antellesi, Corsini, da Uzzano, Perendoli, and many smaller ones, as well as numerous private persons, were involved in the ruin. 'The immense loans to foreign sovereigns,' adds Villani, 'drew down ruin upon our city, the like of which it had never known.' There was a complete lack of cash. Estates in the city found no purchasers at a third of their former value. … The famine and pestilence of 1347 and 1348, the oppressions of the mercenary bands and the heavy expenses caused by them, the cost of the war against Pope Gregory XI., and finally the tumult of the Ciompi, left Florence no peace for a long time. … At the beginning of the fifteenth century industry was again flourishing in all its branches in Florence, financial operations were extended, and foreign countries filled with Florentine banks and mercantile houses. … In London the most important firms had their representatives, Bruges was the chief place for Flanders, and we shall see how these connections lasted to the time of the greatest splendour of the Medici. France is frequently mentioned. The official representatives of the Florentine nation resided in the capital, while numerous houses established themselves in Lyons, in Avignon (since the removal of the Papal chair to this town), in Nismes, Narbonne, Carcassonne, Marseilles, &c. … The house of the Peruzzi alone had sixteen counting-houses in the fourteenth century, from London to Cyprus."

A. van Reumont, Lorenzo de' Medici, book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).

"The three principal branches of industry which enriched the Florentines were—banking, the manufacture of cloth, and the dyeing of it, and the manufacture of silk. The three most important guilds of the seven 'arti maggiori' were those which represented these three industries. Perhaps the most important in the amount of its gains, as well as that which first rose to a high degree of importance, was the 'Arte del Cambio,' or banking. The earliest banking operations seem to have arisen from the need of the Roman court to find some means of causing the dues to which it laid claim in distant parts of Europe to be collected and transmitted to Rome. When the Papal Court was removed to Avignon, its residence there occasioned a greatly increased sending backwards and forwards of money between Italy and that city. And of all this banking business, the largest and most profitable portion was in the hands of Florentine citizens, whether resident in Florence or in the various commercial cities of Europe. We find Florentines engaged in lending money at interest to sovereign princes as early as the first quarter of the twelfth century."

T. A. Trollope, History of the Commonwealth of Florence, book 4, chapter 1 (volume 2).

{2207}

MONEY AND BANKING: Genoa. The Bank of St. George.

"The Bank of St. George, its constitution, its building, and its history, forms one of the most interesting relies of mediæval commercial activity. Those old grey walls, as seen still in Genoa, begrimed with dirt and fast falling into decay, are the cradle of modern commerce, modern banking schemes, and modern wealth. … This Bank of St. George is indeed a most singular political phenomenon. Elsewhere than in Genoa we search in vain for a parallel for the existence of a body of citizens distinct from the government—with their own laws, magistrates, and independent authority—a state within a state, a republic within a republic. All dealings with the government were voluntary on the part of the bank. … But, far from working without harmony, we always find the greatest unanimity of feeling between these two forms of republics within the same city walls. The government of Genoa always respected the liberties of the bank, and the bank always did its best to assist the government when in pecuniary distress. … To define an exact origin for the bank is difficult; it owed its existence to the natural development of commercial enterprise rather than to the genius of anyone man, or the shrewdness of any particular period in Genoese history. The Crusades, and the necessary preparation of galleys, brought into Genoa the idea of advancing capital for a term of years as a loan to the government on the security of the taxes and public revenues; but in those cases the profits were quickly realized, and the debts soon cancelled by the monarchs who incurred them. However, the expeditions against the Saracens and the Moors were otherwise, and were undertaken at some risk to Genoa herself. … Now large sums of money were advanced, the profits on which were not spontaneous; it was more an investment of capital for a longer term of years, which was secured by the public revenues, but the profits of which depended on the success of the expedition. In 1148 was the first formal debt incurred by the government, and to meet the occasion the same system was adopted which continued in vogue, subject only to regulations and improvements which were found necessary as time went on, until the days of the French Revolution. The creditors nominated from amongst themselves a council of administration to watch over the common interests, and to them the government conceded a certain number of the custom duties for a term of years until the debt should be extinguished. This council of administration elected their own consuls, after the fashion of the Republic governors. Every hundred francs was termed a share (luogo) and every creditor a shareholder (luogatorio). … Each separate loan was termed a 'compera,' and these loans were collectively known as the 'compere of St. George,' which in later years became the celebrated bank. Each loan generally took the name of the object for which it was raised, or the name of the saint on whose day the contract was signed; and when an advance of money was required, it was done by public auction in the streets, when the auctioneer sold the investment to the ever ready merchants, who collected outside the 'loggia,' or other prominent position chosen for the sale. In a loud voice was proclaimed the name and object of the loan, and the tax which was to be handed over to the purchasers to secure its repayment. So numerous did these loans become by 1252, that it was found necessary to unite them under one head, with a chancellor and other minor officials to watch over them. And as time went on, so great was the credit of Genoa, and so easy was this system found for raising money, that the people began to grow alarmed at the extent of the liabilities. So, in 1302, commissioners were appointed at a great assembly, two hundred and seventy-one articles and regulations were drown up to give additional security to investors, and henceforth no future loan could be effected without the sanction of the consuls and the confirmation of the greater council of the shareholders. … During the days of the first doge, Simone Boccanegra, great changes were to be effected in the working system of the 'compere of St. George.' To this date many have assigned the origin of the Bank of St. George, but it will be seen only to be a further consolidation of the same system, which had already been at work two centuries. … In 1339, … at the popular revolution, all the old books were burnt, and a new commission appointed to regulate the 'compere.' … Instead … of being the origin of the bank, it was only another step in the growing wish for consolidation, which the expanding tendency of the 'compere' rendered necessary; which consolidation took final effect in 1407, when the Bank was thoroughly organized on the same footing which lasted till the end. Every year and every event tended towards this system of blending the loans together, to which fact is due the extensive power which the directors of the bank eventually wielded, when all interests and all petty disputes were merged together in one. … As time went on, and the French governor, Boucicault, weighed on the treasury the burden of fresh fortifications, and an expensive war; when Corsican troubles, and the Turks in the East, caused the advance of money to be frequent, an assembly of all the shareholders in all the loans decided that an entire reorganization of the public debts should take place. Nine men were elected to draw up a new scheme, in 1407, and by their instrumentality all the shares were united; the interest for all was to be seven per cent., and fresh officials were appointed to superintend the now thoroughly constituted and re-named 'Bank of St. George.' And at length we behold this celebrated bank. Its credit never failed, and no anxiety was ever felt by any shareholder about his annual income, until the days of the French Revolution. … This Bank of St. George was essentially one of the times, and not one which could have existed on modern ideas of credit; for it was a bank which would only issue paper for the coin in its actual possession, and would hardly suit the dictates of modern commerce. It was not a bank for borrowers but for capitalists, who required enormous security for immense sums until they could employ them themselves. … One of the most interesting features in connection with the dealings of the bank with the Genoese government, and a conclusive proof of the perfect accord which existed between them, was the cession from time to time of various colonies and provinces to the directors of the bank when the government felt itself too weak and too poor to maintain them. In this manner were the colonies in the Black Sea made over to the bank when the Turkish difficulties arose. {2208} Corsica and Cyprus, also towns on the Riviera, such as Sarzana, Ventimiglia, Levanto, found themselves at various times under the direct sovereignty of the bank. … It is melancholy to have to draw a veil over the career of this illustrious bank with the Revolution of 1798. The new order of things which Genoa had learnt from France deemed it inconsistent with liberty that the taxes, the property of the Republic, should remain in the hands of the directors of St. George; it was voted a tyranny on a small scale, and the directors were compelled to surrender them; and inasmuch as the taxes represented the sole source from which their income was derived, they soon discovered that their bank notes were useless, and the building was closed shortly afterwards. In 1804 and 1814 attempts were made to resuscitate the fallen fortunes of St. George, but without avail; and so this bank, the origin of which was shrouded in the mysteries of bygone centuries, fell under the sweeping scythe of the French Revolution."

J. T. Bent, Genoa, chapter 11.

See, also, GENOA: A. D. 1407-1448.

MONEY AND BANKING: 16-17th Centuries. Monetary effects of the Discovery of America.

"From 1492, the year of the discovery of the New World, to 1500, it is doubtful whether [the mines of Mexico and Peru] … yielded on an average a prey of more than 1,500,000 francs (£60,000) a year. From 1500 to 1545, if we add to the treasure produced from the mines the amount of plunder found in the capital of the Montezumas, Ténochtitlan (now the city of Mexico), as well as in the temples and palaces of the kingdom of the Incas, the gold and silver drawn from America did not exceed an average of sixteen million francs (£640,000) a year. From 1545, the scene changes. In one of the gloomiest deserts on the face of the globe, in the midst of the rugged and inhospitable mountain scenery of Upper Peru, chance revealed to a poor Indian, who was guarding a flock of llamas, a mine of silver of incomparable richness. A crowd of miners was instantly attracted by the report of the rich deposits of ore spread over the sides of this mountain of Potocchi—a name which for euphony the European nations have since changed to Potosi. The exportation of the precious metals from America to Europe now rose rapidly to an amount which equalled, weight for weight, sixty millions of francs (£2,400,000) of our day, and it afterwards rose even to upwards of eighty millions. At that time such a mass of gold and silver represented a far greater amount of riches than at present. Under the influence of so extraordinary a supply, the value of these precious metals declined in Europe, in comparison with every other production of human industry, just as would be the case with iron or lead, if mines were discovered which yielded those metals in superabundance, as compared with their present consumption, and at a much less cost of labour than previously, just in fact as occurs in the case of manufactures of every kind, whenever, by improved processes, or from natural causes of a novel kind, they can be produced in unusual quantities, and at a great reduction of cost. This fall in the value of gold and silver, in comparison with all other productions, revealed itself by the increased quantity of coined metal which it was necessary to give in exchange for the generality of other articles. And it was thus that the working of the mines of America had necessarily for effect a general rise of prices, in other words, it made all other commodities dearer. The fall in the value of the precious metals, or that which means the same thing, the general rise of prices, does not appear to have been very great, out of Spain, till after the middle of the 16th century. Shortly after the commencement of the 17th century, the effects of the productiveness of the new mines and of the diminished cost of working them were realised in all parts of Europe. For the silver, which had been extracted in greater proportion than the gold, and on more favourable terms, the fall in value had been in the proportion of 1 to 3. In transactions where previously one pound of silver, or a coin containing a given quantity of this metal, had sufficed, henceforth three were required. … After having been arrested for awhile in this downward course, and even after having witnessed for a time a tendency to an upward movement, the fall in the value of the precious metals, and the corresponding rise in prices, resumed their course, under the influence of the same causes, until towards the end of the 18th century, without however manifesting their influence so widely or intensely as had been witnessed after the first development of the great American mines. We find, as the result, that during the first half of the 19th century, the value of silver fell to about the sixth of what it was before the discovery of America, when compared with the price of corn."

M. Chevalier, On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold (translated by Cobden), section 1, chapter 1.

MONEY AND BANKING: 17th Century. The Bank of Amsterdam.

"In 1609, the great Bank of Amsterdam was founded, and its foundation not only testifies to the wealth of the republic, but marks an epoch in the commercial history of Northern Europe. Long before this period, banks had been established in the Italian cities, but, until late in the history of the Bank of England, which was not founded until nearly a century later, nothing was known on such a scale as this. It was established to meet the inconvenience arising from the circulation of currency from all quarters of the globe, and to accommodate merchants in their dealings. Anyone making a deposit of gold or silver received notes for the amount, less a small commission, and these notes commanded a premium in all countries. Before the end of the century its deposits of this character amounted to one hundred and eighty million dollars, an amount of treasure which bewildered financiers in every other part of Europe."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, volume 2, pages 323-324.

MONEY AND BANKING: 17th Century. Indian Money used in the American Colonies.

Sea shells, strung or embroidered on belts and garments, formed the "wampum" which was the money of the North American Indians (see WAMPUM). "Tradition gives to the Narragansetts the honor of inventing these valued articles, valuable both for use and exchange. This tribe was one of the most powerful, and it is asserted that their commercial use of wampum gave them their best opportunities of wealth. The Long Island Indians manufactured the beads in large quantities and then were forced to pay them away in tribute to the Mohawks and the fiercer tribes of the interior. {2209} Furs were readily exchanged for these trinkets, which carried a permanent value, through the constancy of the Indian desire for them. The holder of wampum always compelled trade to come to him. After the use of wampum was established in colonial life, contracts were made payable at will in wampum, beaver, or silver. … The use began in New England in 1627. It was a legal tender until 1661, and for more than three quarters of a century the wampum was current in small transactions. For more than a century, indeed; this currency entered into the intercourse of Indian and colonist. … Labor is a chief factor in civilized society and the labor of the Indian was made available through wampum. As Winthrop shows, 10,000 beaver skins annually came to the Dutch from the Great Lake. The chase was the primitive form of Indian industry and furs were the most conspicuous feature of foreign trade, as gold is to-day, but wampum played a much larger part in the vital trade of the time. Wampum, or the things it represented, carried deer meat and Indian corn to the New England men. Corn and pork went for fish; fish went for West India rum, molasses, and the silver which Europe coveted. West India products, or the direct exchange of fish with the Catholic countries of Europe, brought back the goods needed to replenish and extend colonial industries and trade. … As long as the natives were active and furs were plenty, there appears to have been no difficulty in passing any quantity of wampum in common with other currencies. The Bay annulled its statutes, making the beads a legal tender in 1661. Rhode Island and Connecticut followed this example soon after. … New York continued the beads in circulation longer than the regular use prevailed in New England. In 1693 they were recognized in the definite rates of the Brooklyn ferry. They continued to be circulated in the more remote districts of New England through the century, and even into the beginning of the eighteenth."

W. B. Weeden, Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization, pages 5-30.

MONEY AND BANKING: 17th Century. Colonial Coinage in America.

"The earliest coinage for America is said to have been executed in 1612, when the Virginia Company was endeavoring to establish a Colony on the Summer Islands (the Bermudas). This coin was of the denomination of a shilling, and was struck in brass." The "pine-tree" money of Massachusetts" was instituted by the Colonial Assembly in 1652, after the fall of Charles I. … This coinage was not discontinued until 1686; yet they appear to have continued the use of the same date, the shillings, sixpences, and threepences all bearing the date 1652, while the twopenny pieces are all dated 1662. … After the suppression of their mint, the Colony of Massachusetts issued no more coins until after the establishment of the Confederacy. … The silver coins of Lord Baltimore, Lord Proprietor of Maryland, were the shilling, sixpence, and fourpence, or groat."

J. R. Snowden, Description of Ancient and Modern Coins, pages 85-87.

See PINE TREE MONEY.

MONEY AND BANKING: 17-18th Centuries. Banking in Great Britain. Origin and influence of the Bank of England.

"In the reign of William old men were still living who could remember the days when there was not a single banking house in the city of London. So late as the time of the Restoration every trader had his own strong box in his own house, and, when an acceptance was presented to him, told down the crowns and Caroluses on his own counter. But the increase of wealth had produced its natural effect, the subdivision of labour. Before the end of the reign of Charles II. a new mode of paying and receiving money had come into fashion among the merchants of the capital. A class of agents arose, whose office was to keep the cash of the commercial houses. This new branch of business naturally fell into the hands of the goldsmiths, who were accustomed to traffic largely in the precious metals, and who had vaults in which great masses of bullion could lie secure from fire and from robbers. It was at the shops of the goldsmiths of Lombard Street that all the payments in coin were made. Other traders gave and received nothing but paper. This great change did not take place without much opposition and clamour. … No sooner had banking become a separate and important trade, than men began to discuss with earnestness the question whether it would be expedient to erect a national bank. … Two public banks had long been renowned throughout Europe, the Bank of Saint George at Genoa, and the Bank of Amsterdam. … Why should not the Bank of London be as great and as durable as the Banks of Genoa and Amsterdam? Before the end of the reign of Charles II. several plans were proposed, examined, attacked and defended. Some pamphleteers maintained that a national bank ought to be under the direction of the King. Others thought that the management ought to be entrusted to the Lord Mayor, Alderman and Common Council of the capital. After the Revolution the subject was discussed with an animation before unknown. … A crowd of plans, some of which resemble the fancies of a child or the dreams of a man in a fever, were pressed on the government. Pre-eminently conspicuous among the political mountebanks, whose busy faces were seen every day in the lobby of the House of Commons, were John Briscoe and Hugh Chamberlayne, two projectors worthy to have been members of that Academy which Gulliver found at Lagado. These men affirmed that the one cure for every distemper of the State was a Land Bank. A Land Bank would work for England miracles such as had never been wrought for Israel. … These blessed effects the Land Bank was to produce simply by issuing enormous quantities of notes on landed security. The doctrine of the projectors was that every person who had real property ought to have, besides that property, paper money to the full value of that property. Thus, if his estate was worth two thousand pounds, he ought to have his estate and two thousand pounds in paper money. Both Briscoe and Chamberlayne treated with the greatest contempt the notion that there could be an over-issue of paper as long as there was, for every ten pound note, a piece of land in the country worth ten pounds. … All the projectors of this busy time, however, were not so absurd as Chamberlayne. One among them, William Paterson, was an ingenious, though not always a judicious speculator. Of his early life little is known except that he was a native of Scotland, and that he had been in the West Indies. … This man submitted to the government, in 1691, a plan of a national bank; and his plan was favourably received both by statesmen and by merchants. {2210} But years passed away; and nothing was done, till, in the spring of 1694, it became absolutely necessary to find some new mode of defraying the charges of the war. Then at length the scheme devised by the poor and obscure Scottish adventurer was taken up in earnest by Montague [Charles Montague, then one of the lords of the treasury and subsequently Chancellor of the Exchequer]. With Montague was closely allied Michael Godfrey. … Michael was one of the ablest, most upright and most opulent of the merchant princes of London. … By these two distinguished men Paterson's scheme was fathered. Montague undertook to manage the House of Commons, Godfrey to manage the City. An approving vote was obtained from the Committee of Ways and Means; and a bill, the title of which gave occasion to many sarcasms, was laid on the table. It was indeed not easy to guess that a bill, which purported only to impose a new duty on tonnage for the benefit of such persons as should advance money towards carrying on the war, was really a bill creating the greatest commercial institution that the world had ever seen. The plan was that £1,200,000 should be borrowed by the government on what was then considered as the moderate interest of eight per cent. In order to induce capitalists to advance the money promptly on terms so favourable to the public, the subscribers were to be incorporated by the name of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. The corporation was to have no exclusive privilege, and was to be restricted from trading in any thing but bills of exchange, bullion and forfeited pledges. As soon as the plan became generally known, a paper war broke out. … All the goldsmiths and pawnbrokers set up a howl of rage. Some discontented Tories predicted ruin to the monarchy. … Some discontented Whigs, on the other hand, predicted ruin to our liberties. … The power of the purse, the one great security for all the rights of Englishmen, will be transferred from the House of Commons to the Governor and Directors of the new Company. This last consideration was really of some weight, and was allowed to be so by the authors of the bill. A clause was therefore most properly inserted which inhibited the Bank from advancing money to the Crown without authority from Parliament. Every infraction of this salutary rule was to be punished by forfeiture of three times the sum advanced; and it was provided that the King should not have power to remit any part of the penalty. The plan, thus amended, received the sanction of the Commons more easily than might have been expected from the violence of the adverse clamour. In truth, the Parliament was under duress. Money must be had, and could in no other way be had so easily. … The bill, however, was not safe when it had reached the Upper House," but it was passed, and received the royal assent. "In the City the success of Montague's plan was complete. It was then at least as difficult to raise a million at eight per cent. as it would now be to raise forty millions at four per cent. It had been supposed that contributions would drop in very slowly: and a considerable time had therefore been allowed by the Act. This indulgence was not needed. So popular was the new investment that on the day on which the books were opened £300,000 were subscribed; 300,000 more were subscribed during the next 48 hours; and, in ten days, to the delight of all the friends of the government, it was announced that the list was full. The whole sum which the Corporation was bound to lend to the State was paid into the Exchequer before the first instalment was due. Somers gladly put the Great Seal to a charter framed in conformity with the terms prescribed by Parliament; and the Bank of England commenced its operations in the house of the Company of Grocers. … It soon appeared that Montague had, by skilfully availing himself of the financial difficulties of the country, rendered an inestimable service to his party. During several generations the Bank of England was emphatically a Whig body. It was Whig, not accidentally, but necessarily. It must have instantly stopped payment if it had ceased to receive the interest on the sum which it had advanced to the government; and of that, interest James would not have paid one farthing."

Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 20.

"For a long time the Bank of England was the focus of London Liberalism, and in that capacity rendered to the State inestimable services. In return for these substantial benefits the Bank of England received from the Government, either at first or afterwards, three most important privileges. First. The Bank of England had the exclusive possession of the Government balances. In its first period … the Bank gave credit to the Government, but afterwards it derived credit from the Government. There is a natural tendency in men to follow the example of the Government under which they live. The Government is the largest, most important, and most conspicuous entity with which the mass of any people are acquainted; its range of knowledge must always lie infinitely greater than the average of their knowledge, and therefore, unless there is a conspicuous warning to the contrary, most men are inclined to think their Government right, and, when they can, to do what it does. Especially in money matters a man might fairly reason—'If the Government is right in trusting the Bank of England with the great balance of the nation, I cannot be wrong in trusting it with my little balance.' Second, The Bank of England had, till lately, the monopoly of limited liability in England. The common law of England knows nothing of any such principle. It is only possible by Royal Charter or Statute Law. And by neither of these was any real bank … permitted with limited liability in England till within these few years. … Thirdly. The Bank of England had the privilege of being the sole joint stock company permitted to issue bank notes in England. Private London bankers did indeed issue notes down to the middle of the last century, but no joint stock company could do so. The explanatory clause of the Act of 1742 sounds most curiously to our modern ears. … 'It is the true intent and meaning of the said Act that no other bank shall be created, established, or allowed by Parliament, and that it shall not be lawful for any body politic or corporate whatsoever created or to be created, or for any other persons whatsoever united or to be united in covenants or partnership exceeding the number of six persons in that part of Great Britain called England, to borrow, owe, or take up any sum or sums of money on their bills or notes payable on demand or at any less time than six months from the borrowing thereof during the continuance of such said privilege to the said governor and company, who are hereby declared to be and remain a corporation with the privilege of exclusive banking, as before recited.' {2211} To our modern ears these words seem to mean more than they did. The term banking was then applied only to the issue of notes and the taking up of money on bills on demand. Our present system of deposit banking, in which no bills or promissory notes are issued, was not then known on a great scale, and was not called banking. But its effect was very important. It in time gave the Bank of England the monopoly of the note issue of the Metropolis. It had at that time no branches, and so it did not compete for the country circulation. But in the Metropolis, where it did compete, it was completely victorious. No company but the Bank of England could issue notes, and unincorporated individuals gradually gave way, and ceased to do so. Up to 1844 London private bankers might have issued notes if they pleased, but almost a hundred years ago they were forced out of the field. The Bank of England had so long had a practical monopoly of the circulation, that it is commonly believed always to have had a legal monopoly. And the practical effect of the clause went further: it was believed to make the Bank of England the only joint stock company that could receive deposits, as well as the only company that could issue notes. The gift of 'exclusive banking' to the Bank of England was read in its most natural modern sense: it was thought to prohibit any other banking company from carrying on our present system of banking. After joint stock banking was permitted in the country, people began to inquire why it should not exist in the Metropolis too? And then it was seen that the words I have quoted only forbid the issue of negotiable instruments, and not the receiving of money when no such instrument is given. Upon this construction, the London and Westminster Bank and all our older joint stock banks were founded. But till they began, the Bank of England had among companies not only the exclusive privilege of note issue, but that of deposit banking too. It was in every sense the only banking company in London. With so many advantages over all competitors, it is quite natural that the Bank of England should have far outstripped them all. … All the other bankers grouped themselves round it, and lodged their reserve with it. Thus our one-reserve system of banking was not deliberately founded upon definite reasons; it was the gradual consequence of many singular events, and of an accumulation of legal privileges on a single bank which has now been altered, and which no one would now defend. … For more than a century after its creation (notwithstanding occasional errors) the Bank of England, in the main, acted with judgment and with caution. Its business was but small as we should now reckon, but for the most part it conducted that business with prudence and discretion. In 1696, it had been involved in the most serious difficulties, and had been obliged to refuse to pay some of its notes. For a long period it was in wholesome dread of public opinion, and the necessity of retaining public confidence made it cautious. But the English Government removed that necessity. In 1797, Mr. Pitt feared that he might not be able to obtain sufficient specie for foreign payments, in consequence of the low state of the Bank reserve, and he therefore required the Bank not to pay in cash. He removed the preservative apprehension which is the best security of all Banks. For this reason the period under which the Bank of England did not pay gold for its notes—the period from 1797 to 1819—is always called the period of the Bank 'restriction.' As the Bank during that period did not perform, and was not compelled by law to perform, its contract of paying its notes in cash, it might apparently have been well called the period of Bank license. But the word 'restriction' was quite right, and was the only proper word as a description of the policy of 1797. Mr. Pitt did not say that the Bank of England need not pay its notes in specie; he 'restricted' them from doing so; he said that they must not. In consequence, from 1797 to 1844 (when a new era begins), there never was a proper caution on the part of the Bank directors. At heart they considered that the Bank of England had a kind of charmed life, and that it was above the ordinary banking anxiety to pay its way. And this feeling was very natural."

W. Bagehot, Lombard Street, chapters 3-4.

ALSO IN: J. W. Gilbart, History and Principles of Banking.

H. May, The Bank of England (Fortnightly Review, March, 1885).

MONEY AND BANKING: 17-18th Centuries. Early Paper issues and Banks in the American Colonies.

"Previous to the Revolutionary War paper money was issued to a greater or less extent by each one of the thirteen colonies. The first issue was by Massachusetts in 1690, to aid in fitting out the expedition against Canada. Similar issues had been made by New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, previous to the year 1711. South Carolina began to emit bills in 1712, Pennsylvania in 1723, Maryland in 1734, Delaware in 1739, Virginia in 1755, and Georgia in 1760. Originally the issues were authorized to meet the necessities of the colonial treasuries. In Massachusetts, in 1715, as a remedy for the prevailing embarrassment of trade, a land bank was proposed with the right to issue circulating notes secured by land. … The plan for the land bank was defeated, but the issue of paper money by the treasury was authorized to the extent of £50,000, to be loaned on good mortgages in sums of not more than £500, nor less than £50, to one person. The rate of interest was five per cent., payable with one-fifth of the principal annually. … In 1733 an issue of bills to the amount of £110,000 was made by the merchants of Boston, which were to be redeemed at the end of ten years, in silver, at the rate of 19 shillings per ounce. In 1739, the commercial and financial embarrassment still continuing, another land bank was started in Massachusetts. … A specie bank was also formed in 1739, by Edward Hutchinson and others, which issued bills to the amount of £120,000, redeemable in fifteen years in silver, at 20 shillings per ounce, or gold pro rata. The payment of these notes was guaranteed by wealthy and responsible merchants. These notes, and those of a similar issue in 1733, were largely hoarded and did not pass generally into circulation. In 1740 Parliament passed a bill to extend the act of 1720, known as the bubble act, to the American colonies, with the intention of breaking up all companies formed for the purpose of issuing paper money. {2212} Under this act both the land bank and the specie bank were forced to liquidate their affairs, though not without some resistance on the part of the former. … The paper money of the colonies, whether issued by them or by the loan banks, depreciated almost without exception as the amounts in circulation increased. … The emission of bills by the colonies and the banks was not regarded with favor by the mother country, and the provincial governors were as a general thing opposed to these issues. They were consequently frequently embroiled with their legislatures."

J. J. Knox, United States Notes, pages 1-5.

MONEY AND BANKING: 17-19th Centuries. Creation of the principal European Banks.

"The Bank of Vienna was founded as a bank of deposit in 1703, and as a bank of issue in 1793; the Banks of Berlin and Breslau in 1765 with state sanction; the Austrian National Bank in 1816. In St. Petersburg three banks were set up; the Loan Bank in 1772, advancing loans on deposits of bullion and jewels; the Assignation Bank in 1768 (and in Moscow, 1770), issuing government paper money; the Aid Bank in 1797, to relieve estates from mortgage and advance money for improvements. The Commercial Bank of Russia was founded in 1818. The Bank of Stockholm was founded in 1688. The Bank of France was founded first in 1803 and reorganised in 1806, when its capital was raised to 90,000,000 francs, held in 90,000 shares of 1,000 francs. It is the only authorised source of paper money in France, and is intimately associated with the government."

H. de B. Gibbins, History of Commerce in Europe, book 3, chapter 4.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1775-1780. The Continental Currency of the American Revolution.

"The colonies … went into the Revolutionary War, many of them with paper already in circulation, all of them making issues for the expenses of military preparations. The Continental Congress, having no power to tax, and its members being accustomed to paper issues as the ordinary form of public finance, began to issue bills on the faith of the 'Continent,' Franklin earnestly approving. The first issue was for 300,000 Spanish dollars, redeemable in gold or silver, in three years, ordered in May and issued in August, 1775. Paper for nine million dollars was issued before any depreciation began. The issues of the separate colonies must have affected it, but the popular enthusiasm went for something. Pelatiah Webster, almost alone as it seems, insisted on taxation, but a member of Congress indignantly asked if he was to help tax the people when they could go to the printing-office and get a cartload of money. In 1776, when the depreciation began, Congress took harsh measures to try to sustain the bills. Committees of safety also took measures to punish those who 'forestalled' or 'engrossed,' these being the terms for speculators who bought up for a rise."

W. G. Sumner, History of American Currency, pages 43-44.

"During the summer of 1780 this wretched 'Continental' currency fell into contempt. As Washington said, it took a wagon-load of money to buy a wagon-load of provisions. At the end of the year 1778, the paper dollar was worth sixteen cents in the northern states and twelve cents in the south. Early in 1780 its value had fallen to two cents, and before the end of the year it took ten paper dollars to make a cent. In October, Indian corn sold wholesale in Boston for $150 a bushel, butter was $12 a pound, tea $90, sugar $10, beef $8, coffee $12, and a barrel of flour cost $1,575. Samuel Adams paid $2,000 for a hat and suit of clothes. The money soon ceased to circulate, debts could not be collected, and there was a general prostration of credit. To say that a thing was 'worth a Continental' became the strongest possible expression of contempt."

J. Fiske, The American Revolution, chapter 13 (volume 2).

Before the close of the year 1780, the Continental Currency had ceased to circulate. Attempts were subsequently made to have it funded or redeemed, but without success.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (JANUARY-APRIL).

ALSO IN: H. Phillips, Jr., Historical Sketches of American Paper Currency, 2d Series.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1780-1784. The Pennsylvania Bank and the Bank of North America.

"The Pennsylvania Bank, which was organized in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War, was founded for the purpose of facilitating the operations of the Government in transporting supplies for the army. It began its useful work in 1780, and continued in existence until after the close of the war; finally closing its affairs toward the end of the year 1784. But the need was felt of a national bank which should not only aid the Government on a large scale by its money and credit, but should extend facilities to individuals, and thereby benefit the community as well as the state. Through the influence and exertion of Robert Morris, then Superintendent of Finance for the United States, the Bank of North America, at Philadelphia, was organized with a capital of $400,000. It was incorporated by Congress in December, 1781, and by the State of Pennsylvania a few months afterward. Its success was immediate and complete. It not only rendered valuable and timely aid to the United States Government and to the State of Pennsylvania, but it greatly assisted in restoring confidence and credit to the commercial community, and afforded facilities to private enterprise that were especially welcome. … The success of the Bank of North America, and the advantages which the citizens of Philadelphia enjoyed from the facilities it offered them, naturally suggested the founding of a similar enterprise in the city of New York." The Bank of New York was accordingly founded in 1784.

H. W. Domett, History of the Bank of New York, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: W. G. Sumner, The Financier and the Finances of the American Revolution, chapter 17 (volume 2).

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1789-1796. The Assignats of the French Revolution.

"The financial embarrassments of the government in 1789 were extreme. Many taxes had ceased to be productive; the confiscated estates not only yielded no revenue but caused a large expense, and, as a measure of resource, the finance committee of the Assembly reported in favor of issues based upon the confiscated lands. But the bitter experience of France through the Mississippi schemes of John Law, 1719-21, made the Assembly and the nation hesitate. … Necker, the Minister, stood firm in his opposition to the issue of paper money, even as a measure of resource; but the steady pressure of fiscal exigencies, together with the influence of the fervid orators of the Assembly, gained a continually increasing support to the proposition of the committee. … {2213} The leaders of the Assembly were secretly actuated by a political purpose, viz., by widely distributing the titles to the confiscated lands (for such the paper money in effect was) to commit the thrifty middle class of France to the principles and measures of the revolution. … Oratory, the force of fiscal necessities, the half-confessed political design, prevailed at last over the warnings of experience; and a decree passed the Assembly authorizing an issue of notes to the value of four hundred million francs, on the security of the public lands. To emphasize this security the title of 'assignats' was applied to the paper. … The issue was made; the assignats went into circulation; and soon came the inevitable demand for more. … The decree for a further issue of eight hundred millions passed, September, 1790. Though the opponents of the issue had lost heart and voice, they still polled 423 votes against 508. To conciliate a minority still so large, contraction was provided for by requiring that the paper when paid into the Treasury should be burned, and the decree contained a solemn declaration that in no case should the amount exceed twelve hundred millions. June 19, 1791, the Assembly, against feeble resistance, violated this pledge and authorized a further issue of six hundred millions. Under the operation of Gresham's Law, specie now began to disappear from circulation. … And now came the collapse of French industry. … 'Everything that tariffs and custom-houses could do was done. Still the great manufactories of Normandy were closed; those of the rest of the kingdom speedily followed, and vast numbers of workmen, in all parts of the country, were thrown out of employment. … In the spring of 1791 no one knew whether a piece of paper money, representing 100 francs, would, a month later, have a purchasing power of 100 francs, or 90 francs, or 80, or 60. The result was that capitalists declined to embark their means in business. Enterprise received a mortal blow. Demand for labor was still further diminished. The business of France dwindled into a mere living from hand to mouth.' … Towards the end of 1794 there had been issued 7,000 millions in assignats; by May, 1795, 10,000 millions; by the end of July, 16,000 millions; by the beginning of 1796, 45,000 millions, of which 36,000 millions were in actual circulation. M. Bresson gives the following table of depreciation: 24 livres in coin were worth in assignats April 1, 1795, 238; May 1, 299; June 1, 439; July 1, 808; Aug. 1, 807; Sept. 1, 1,101; Oct. 1, 1,205; Nov. 1, 2,588; Dec. 1, 3,575; Jan. 1, 1796, 4,658; Feb. 1, 5,337.

At the last 'an assignat professing to be worth 100 francs was commonly exchanged for 5 sous 6 deniers: in other words, a paper note professing to be worth £4 sterling passed current for less than 3d. in money.' The downward course of the assignats had unquestionably been accelerated by the extensive counterfeiting of the paper in Belgium, Switzerland, and England. … Now appears that last resort of finance under a depreciating paper: an issue under new names and new devices. … Territorial Mandates were ordered to be issued for assignats at 30:1, the mandates to be directly exchangeable for land, at the will of the holder, on demand. … For a brief time after the first limited emission, the mandates rose as high as 80 per cent. of their nominal value; but soon additional issues sent them down even more rapidly than the assignats had fallen."

F. A. Walker, Money, part 2, chapter 16.

ALSO IN: Andrew D. White, Paper-money Inflation in France.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1791-1816. The First Bank of the United States.

On the organization of the government of the United States, under its federal constitution, in 1789 and 1790, the lead in constructive statesmanship was taken, as is well known, by Alexander Hamilton. His plan "included a financial institution to develop the national resources, strengthen the public credit, aid the Treasury Department in its administration, and provide a secure and sound circulating medium for the people. On December 13, 1790, he sent into Congress a report on the subject of a national bank. The Republican party, then in the minority, opposed the plan as unconstitutional, on the ground that the power of creating banks or any corporate body had not been expressly delegated to Congress, and was therefore not possessed by it. Washington's cabinet was divided; Jefferson opposing the measure as not within the implied powers, because it was an expediency and not a paramount necessity. Later he used stronger language, and denounced the institution as 'one of the most deadly hostility existing against the principles and form of our Constitution,' nor did he ever abandon these views. There is the authority of Mr. Gallatin for saying that Jefferson 'died a decided enemy to our banking system generally, and specially to a bank of the United States.' But Hamilton's views prevailed. Washington, who in the weary years of war had seen the imperative necessity of some national organization of the finances, after mature deliberation approved the plan, and on February 25, 1791, the Bank of the United States was incorporated. The capital stock was limited to twenty-five thousand shares of four hundred dollars each, or ten millions of dollars, payable one fourth in gold and silver, and three fourths in public securities bearing an interest of six and three per cent. The stock was immediately subscribed for, the government taking five thousand shares, two millions of dollars, under the right reserved in the charter. The subscription of the United States was paid in ten equal annual instalments. A large proportion of the stock was held abroad, and the shares soon rose above par. … Authority was given the bank to establish offices of discount and deposit within the United States. The chief bank was placed in Philadelphia and branches were established in eight cities, with capitals in proportion to their commercial importance. In 1809 the stockholders of the Bank of the United States memorialized the government for a renewal of their charter, which would expire on March 4, 1811; and on March 9, 1809, Mr. Gallatin sent in a report in which he reviewed the operations of the bank from its organization. Of the government shares, five million dollars at par, two thousand four hundred and ninety-three shares were sold in 1796 and 1797 at an advance of 25 per cent., two hundred and eighty-seven in 1797 at an advance of twenty per cent., and the remaining 2,220 shares in 1802, at an advance of 45 per cent., making together, exclusive of the dividends, a profit of $671,680 to the United States. Eighteen thousand shares of the bank stock were held abroad, and seven thousand shares, or a little more than one fourth part of the capital, in the United States. {2214} A table of all the dividends made by the bank showed that they had on the average been at the rate of 8 3/8 (precisely 8 13/34) per cent. a year, which proved that the bank had not in any considerable degree used the public deposits for the purpose of extending its discounts. From a general view of the debits and credits, as presented, it appeared that the affairs of the Bank of the United States, considered as a moneyed institution, had been wisely and skilfully managed. The advantages derived by the government Mr. Gallatin stated to be, 1, safe-keeping of the public moneys; 2, transmission of the public moneys; 3, collection of the revenue; 4, loans. The strongest objection to the renewal of the charter lay in the great portion of the bank stock held by foreigners. Not on account of any influence over the institution, since they had no vote; but because of the high rate of interest payable by America to foreign countries. … Congress refused to prolong its existence and the institution was dissolved. Fortunately for the country, it wound up its affairs with such deliberation and prudence as to allow of the interposition of other bank credits in lieu of those withdrawn, and thus prevented a serious shock to the interests of the community. In the twenty years of its existence from 1791 to 1811 its management was irreproachable. The immediate effect of the refusal of Congress to recharter the Bank of the United States was to bring the Treasury to the verge of bankruptcy. The interference of Parish, Girard, and Astor alone saved the credit of the government. … Another immediate effect of the dissolution of the bank was the withdrawal from the country of the foreign capital invested in the bank, more than seven millions of dollars. This amount was remitted, in the twelve months preceding the war, in specie. Specie was at that time a product foreign to the United States, and by no means easy to obtain. … The notes of the Bank of the United States, payable on demand in gold and silver at the counters of the bank, or any of its branches, were, by its charter, receivable in all payments to the United States; but this quality was also stripped from them on March 19, 1812, by a repeal of the act according it. To these disturbances of the financial equilibrium of the country was added the necessary withdrawal of fifteen millions of bank credit and its transfer to other institutions. This gave an extraordinary impulse to the establishment of local banks, each eager for a share of the profits. The capital of the country, instead of being concentrated, was dissipated. Between January 1, 1811, and 1815, one hundred and twenty new banks were chartered, and forty millions of dollars were added to the banking capital. To realize profits, the issues of paper were pushed to the extreme of possible circulation. Meanwhile New England kept aloof from the nation. The specie in the vaults of the banks of Massachusetts rose from $1,706,000 on June 1, 1811, to $7,326,000 on June 1, 1814. … The suspension of the banks was precipitated by the capture of Washington. It began in Baltimore, which was threatened by the British, and was at once followed in Philadelphia and New York. Before the end of September all the banks south and west of New England had suspended specie payment. … The depression of the local currencies ranged from seven to twenty-five per cent. … In November the Treasury Department found itself involved in the common disaster. The refusal of the banks, in which the public moneys were deposited, to pay their notes or the drafts upon them in specie deprived the government of its gold and silver; and their refusal, likewise, of credit and circulation to the issues of banks in other States deprived the government also of the only means it possessed for transferring its funds to pay the dividends on the debt and discharge the treasury notes. … On October 14, 1814, Alexander J. Dallas, Mr. Gallatin's old friend, who had been appointed Secretary of the Treasury on the 6th of the same month, in a report of a plan to support the public credit, proposed the incorporation of a national bank. A bill was passed by Congress, but returned to it by Madison with his veto on January 15, 1815. … Mr. Dallas again, as a last resort, insisted on a bank as the only means by which the currency of the country could be restored to a sound condition. In December, 1815, Dallas reported to the Committee of the House of Representatives on the national currency, of which John C. Calhoun was chairman, a plan for a national bank, and on March 3, 1816, the second Bank of the United States was chartered by Congress. The capital was thirty-five millions, of which the government held seven millions in seventy thousand shares of one hundred dollars each. Mr. Madison approved the bill. … The second national bank of the United States was located at Philadelphia, and chartered for twenty years."

J. A. Stevens, Albert Gallatin, chapter 6.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1817-1833. The Second Bank of the United States and the war upon it.

"On the 1st of January, 1817, the bank opened for business, with the country on the brink of a great monetary crisis, but 'too late to prevent the crash which followed.' The management of the bank during the first two years of its existence was far from satisfactory. It aggravated the troubles of the financial situation instead of relieving them. Specie payments were nominally resumed in 1817, but the insidious canker of inflation had eaten its way into the arteries of business, and in the crisis of 1819 came another suspension that lasted for two years. … It was only by a desperate effort that the bank finally weathered the storm brought on by its own mismanagement and that of the State Banks. After the recovery, a period of several years of prosperity followed, and the management of the bank was thoroughly reorganized and sound. From this time on until the great 'Bank War' its affairs seem to have been conducted with a view to performing its duty to the government as well as to its individual stockholders, and it rendered such aid to the public, directly, and indirectly, as entitled it to respect and fair treatment on the part of the servants of the people. … But the bank controversy was not yet over. It was about to be revived, and to become a prominent issue in a period of our national politics more distinguished for the bitterness of its personal animosities than perhaps any other in our annals. … As already said, the ten years following the revulsion of 1819-25 were years of almost unbroken prosperity. … The question of the continuance of the bank was not under discussion. In fact, scarcely any mention of the subject was made until President Jackson referred to it in his message of December, 1829. {2215} In this message he reopened the question of the constitutionality of the bank, but the committee to which this portion of the message was referred in the House of Representatives made a report favorable to the institution. There seems no reason to doubt the honesty of Jackson's opinion that the bank was unconstitutional, and at first he probably had no feeling in the matter except that which sprang from his convictions on this point. Certain events, however, increased his hostility to the bank, and strengthened his resolution to destroy it. … When President Jackson first attacked the bank, the weapon he chiefly relied on was the alleged unconstitutionality of the charter."

D. Kinley, The Independent Treasury of the United States, chapter 1.

The question of the rechartering of the Bank was made an issue in the presidential campaign of 1832, by Henry Clay. "Its disinterested friends in both parties strongly dissuaded Biddle [president of the Bank] from allowing the question of recharter to be brought into the campaign. Clay's advisers tried to dissuade him. The bank, however, could not oppose the public man on whom it depended most, and the party leaders deferred at last to their chief. Jackson never was more dictatorial and obstinate than Clay was at this juncture." Pending the election, a bill to renew the charter of the Bank was passed through both houses of Congress. The President promptly vetoed it. "The national republican convention met at Baltimore, December 12, 1831. It … issued an address, in which the bank question was put forward. It was declared that the President 'is fully and three times over pledged to the people to negative any bill that may be passed for rechartering the bank, and there is little doubt that the additional influence which he would acquire by a reelection would be employed to carry through Congress the extraordinary substitute which he has repeatedly proposed.' The appeal, therefore, was to defeat Jackson in order to save the bank. … Such a challenge as that could have but one effect on Jackson. It called every faculty he possessed into activity to compass the destruction of the bank. Instead of retiring from the position he had taken, the moment there was a fight to be fought, he did what he did at New Orleans. He moved his lines up to the last point he could command on the side towards the enemy. … The proceedings seemed to prove just what the anti-bank men had asserted: that the bank was a great monster, which aimed to control elections, and to set up and put down Presidents. The campaign of 1832 was a struggle between the popularity of the bank and the popularity of Jackson."

W. G. Sumner, Andrew Jackson, chapter 11.

Jackson was overwhelmingly elected, and feeling convinced that his war upon the Bank had received the approval of the people, he determined to remove the public deposits from its keeping on his own responsibility. "With this view he removed (in the spring of 1833) the Secretary of the Treasury, who would not consent to remove the deposits, and appointed William J. Duane, of Pennsylvania, in his place. He proved to be no more compliant than his predecessor. After many attempts to persuade him, the President announced to the Cabinet his final decision that the deposits must be removed. The Reasons given were that the law gave the Secretary, not Congress, control of the deposits, that it was improper to leave them longer in a bank whose charter would so soon expire, that the Bank's funds had been largely used for political purposes, that its inability to pay all its depositors had been shown by its efforts to procure an extension of time from its creditors in Europe, and that its four government directors had been systematically kept from knowledge of its management. Secretary Duane refused either to remove the deposits or to resign his office, and pronounced the proposed removal unnecessary, unwise, vindictive, arbitrary, and unjust. He was at once removed from office, and Roger B. Taney, of Maryland, appointed in his place. The necessary Orders for Removal were given by Secretary Taney. It was not strictly a removal, for all previous deposits were left in the Bank, to be drawn upon until exhausted. It was rather a cessation. The deposits were afterwards made in various State banks, and the Bank of the United States was compelled to call in its loans. The commercial distress which followed in consequence probably strengthened the President in the end by giving a convincing proof of the Bank's power as an antagonist to the Government."

A. Johnston, History of American Politics, chapter 13.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1837-1841. The Wild Cat Banks of Michigan.

"Michigan became a State in January, 1837. Almost the first act of her State legislature was the passage of a general banking law under which any ten or more freeholders of any county might organize themselves into a corporation for the transaction of banking business. Of the nominal capital of a bank only ten per cent. in specie was required to be paid when subscriptions to the stock were made, and twenty per cent. additional in specie when the bank began business. For the further security of the notes which were to be issued as currency, the stockholders were to give first mortgages upon real estate, to be estimated at its cash value by at least three county officers, the mortgages to be filed with the auditor-general of the State. A bank commissioner was appointed to superintend the organization of the banks, and to attest the legality of their proceedings to the auditor-general, who, upon receiving such attestation, was to deliver to the banks circulating notes amounting to two and a half times the capital certified to as having been paid in. This law was passed in obedience to a popular cry that the banking business had become an 'odious monopoly' that ought to be broken up. Its design was to 'introduce free competition into what was considered a profitable branch of business heretofore monopolized by a few favored corporations.' Anybody was to be given fair opportunities for entering the business on equal terms with everybody else. The act was passed in March, 1837, and the legislature adjourned till November 9 following. Before the latter date arrived, in fact before any banks had been organized under the law, a financial panic seized the whole country. An era of wild speculation reached a climax, the banks in all the principal cities of the country suspended specie payments, and State legislatures were called together to devise remedies to meet the situation. That of Michigan was convened in special session in June, and its remedy for the case of Michigan was to leave the general banking law in force, and to add to it full authority for banks organized under it to begin the business of issuing bills in a state of suspension—that is, to flood the State with an irredeemable currency, based upon thirty per cent. of specie and seventy per cent. of land mortgage bonds."

Cheap-Money Experiments (from the Century Magazine), pages 75-77.

{2216}

"Wild lands that had been recently bought of the government at one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre were now valued at ten or twenty times that amount, and lots in villages that still existed only on paper had a worth for banking purposes only limited by the conscience of the officer who was to take the securities. Any ten freeholders of a county must be poor indeed if they could not give sufficient security to answer the purpose of the general banking law. The requirement of the payment of thirty per cent. of the capital stock in specie was more difficult to be complied with. But as the payment was to be made to the bank itself, the difficulty was gotten over in various ingenious ways, which the author of the general banking law could hardly have anticipated. In some cases, stock notes in terms payable in specie, or the certificates of individuals which stated—untruly—that the maker held a specified sum of specie for the bank, were counted as specie itself; in others, a small sum of specie was paid in and taken out, and the process repeated over and over until the aggregate of payments equaled the sum required; in still others, the specie with which one bank was organized was passed from town to town and made to answer the purposes of several. By the first day of January, 1838, articles of association for twenty-one banks had been filed, making, with the banks before in existence, an average of one to less than five thousand people. Some of them were absolutely without capital, and some were organized by scheming men in New York and elsewhere, who took the bills away with them to circulate abroad, putting out none at home. For some, locations as inaccessible as possible were selected, that the bills might not come back to plague the managers. The bank commissioners say in their report for 1838, of their journey for inspection: 'The singular spectacle was presented of the officers of the State seeking for banks in situations the most inaccessible and remote from trade, and finding at every step an increase of labor by the discovery of new and unknown organizations. Before they could be arrested the mischief was done: large issues were in circulation and no adequate remedy for the evil.' One bank was found housed in a saw-mill, and it was said with pardonable exaggeration in one of the public papers. 'Every village plat with a house, or even without a house, if it had a hollow stump to serve as a vault, was the site of a bank.' … The governor, when he delivered his annual message in January, 1838, still had confidence in the general banking law, which he said 'offered to all persons the privilege of banking under certain guards and restrictions,' and he declared that 'the principles upon which this law is based are certainly correct, destroying as they do the odious feature of a banking monopoly, and giving equal rights to all classes of the community.' … The aggregate amount of private indebtedness had by this time become enormous, and the pressure for payment was serious and disquieting. … The people must have relief; and what relief could be so certain or so speedy as more banks and more money? More banks therefore continued to be organized, and the paper current flowed out among the people in increasing volume. … At the beginning of 1839 the bank commissioners estimated that there were a million dollars of bills of insolvent banks in the hands of individuals and unavailable. Yet the governor, in his annual message delivered in January, found it a 'source of unfeigned gratification to be able to congratulate [the legislature] on the prosperous condition to which our rising commonwealth has attained.' … Then came stay laws, and laws to compel creditors to take lands at a valuation. They were doubtful in point of utility, and more than doubtful in point of morality and constitutionality. The federal bankrupt act of 1841 first brought substantial relief: it brought almost no dividends to creditors, but it relieved debtors from their crushing burdens and permitted them, sobered and in their right minds, to enter once more the fields of industry and activity. The extraordinary history of the attempt to break up an 'odious monopoly' in banking by making everybody a banker, and to create prosperity by unlimited issues of paper currency, was brought at length to a fit conclusion."

T. M. Cooley, Michigan, chapter 13.

See WILD CAT BANKS.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1838. Free Banking Law of New York.

"On April 18th, 1838, the monopoly of banking under special charters, was brought to a close in the State of New York, by the passage of the act 'to authorize the business of Banking.' Under this law Associations for Banking purposes and Individual Bankers, were authorized to carry on the business of Banking, by establishing offices of deposit, discount and circulation. Subsequently a separate Department was organized at Albany, called 'The Bank Department,' with a Superintendent, who was charged with the supervision of all the banks in the State. Under this law institutions could be organized simply as banks of 'discount and deposit,' and might also add the issuing of a paper currency to circulate as money. At first the law provided that State and United States stocks for one-half, and bonds and mortgages for the other half, might be deposited as security for the circulating notes to be issued by Banks and individual Bankers. Upon a fair trial, however, it was found that when a bank failed, and the Bank Department was called upon to redeem the circulating notes of such bank, the mortgages could not be made available in time to meet the demand. … By an amendment of the law the receiving of mortgages as security for circulating notes was discontinued."

E. G. Spaulding, One Hundred Years of Progress in the Business of Banking, page 48.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1844. The English Bank Charter Act.

"By an act of parliament passed in 1838, conferring certain privileges on the Bank of England, it was provided that the charter granted to that body should expire in 1855, but the power was reserved to the legislature, on giving six months' notice, to revise the charter ten years earlier. Availing themselves of this option, the government proposed a measure for regulating the entire monetary system of the country."

W. C. Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel, volume 3, chapter 7.

{2217}

"The growth of commerce, and in particular the establishment of numerous joint-stock banks had given a dangerous impulse to issues of paper money, which were not then restricted by law. Even the Bank of England did not observe any fixed proportion between the amount of notes which it issued and the amount of bullion which it kept in reserve. When introducing this subject to the House of Commons, Peel remarked that within the last twenty years there had been four periods when a contraction of issues had been necessary in order to maintain the convertibility of paper, and that in none of these had the Bank of England acted with vigour equal to the emergency. In the latest of these periods, from June of 1838 to June of 1839, the amount of bullion in the Bank had fallen to little more than £4,000,000, whilst the total of paper in circulation had risen to little less than £30,000,000. … Peel was not the first to devise the methods which he adopted. Mr. Jones Loyd, afterwards Lord Overstone, who impressed the learned with his tracts and the vulgar with his riches, had advised the principal changes in the law relating to the issue of paper money which Peel effected by the Bank Charter Act. These changes were three in number. The first was to separate totally the two departments of the Bank of England, the banking department and the issue department. The banking department was left to be managed as best the wisdom of the directors could devise for the profit of the shareholders. The issue department was placed under regulations which deprived the Bank of any discretion in its management, and may almost be said to have made it a department of the State. The second innovation was to limit the issue of paper by the Bank of England to an amount proportioned to the value of its assets. The Bank was allowed to issue notes to the amount of £14,000,000 against Government securities in its possession. The Government owed the Bank a debt of £11,000,000, besides which the Bank held Exchequer Bills. But the amount over £14,000,000 which the Bank could issue was not, henceforwards, to be more than the equivalent of the bullion in its possession. By this means it was made certain that the Bank would be able to give coin for any of its notes which might be presented to it. The third innovation was to limit the issues of the country banks. The power of issuing notes was denied to any private or joint-stock banks founded after the date of the Act. It was recognized in those banks which already possessed it, but limited to a total sum of £8,500,000, the average quantity of such notes which had been in circulation during the years immediately preceding. It was provided that if any of the banks which retained this privilege should cease to exist or to issue notes, the Bank of England should be entitled to increase its note circulation by a sum equal to two-thirds of the amount of the former issues of the bank which ceased to issue paper. The Bank of England was required in this contingency to augment the reserve fund. By Acts passed in the succeeding year, the principles of the English Bank Charter Act were applied to Scotland and Ireland, with such modifications as the peculiar circumstances of those kingdoms required. The Bank Charter Act has ever since been the subject of voluminous and contradictory criticism, both by political economists and by men of business."

F. C. Montague, Life of Sir Robert Peel, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: Bonamy Price, The Bank Charter Act of 1844 (Fraser's Magazine, June, 1865).

W. C. Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Robert Peel, volume 3, chapter 7.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1848-1893. Production of the Precious Metals in the last half-century. The Silver Question in the United States.

"The total (estimated) stock of gold in the world in 1848, was £560,000,000. As for the annual production, it had varied considerably since the beginning of the century [from £3,000,000 to £8,000,000]. Such was the state of things immediately preceding 1848. In that year the Californian discoveries took place, and these were followed by the discoveries in Australia in 1851.

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1848-1849; and AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1839-1855.

For these three years the annual average production is set down by the Economist at £9,000,000, but from this date the production suddenly rose to, for 1852, £27,000.000, and continued to rise till 1856, when it attained its maximum of £32,250,000. At this stage a decline in the returns occurred, the lowest point reached being in 1860, when they fell to £18,683,000, but from this they rose again, and for the last ten years [before 1873] have maintained an average of about £20,500,000; the returns for the year 1871 being £20,811,000. The total amount of gold added to the world's stock by this twenty years' production has been about £500,000,000, an amount nearly equal to that existing in the world at the date of the discoveries: in other words, the stock of gold in the world has been nearly doubled since that time."

J. E. Cairnes, Essays in Political Economy, pages 160-161.

"The yearly average of gold production in the twenty-five years from 1851-75 was $127,000,000. The yearly average product of silver for the same period was $51,000,000. The average annual product of gold for the fifteen years from 1876 to 1890 declined to $108,000,000; a minus of 15 per cent. The average annual product of silver for the same period increased to $116,000,000; a plus of 127 per cent. There is the whole silver question."

L. R. Ehrich, The Question of Silver, page 21.

"From 1793—the date of the first issue of silver coin by the United States—to 1834 the silver and the gold dollar were alike authorized to be received as legal tender in payment of debt, but silver alone circulated. Subsequently, however, silver was not used, except in fractional payments, or, since 1853, as a subsidiary coin. The silver coin, as a coin of circulation, had become obsolete. The reason why, prior to 1834, payments were made exclusively in silver, and subsequently to that date in gold, is found in the fact that prior to the legislation of 1834 … the standard silver coins were relatively the cheaper, and consequently circulated to the exclusion of the gold; while during the later period the standard gold coins were the cheaper, circulating to the exclusion of the silver. The Coinage Act of 1873, by which the coinage of the silver dollar was discontinued, became a law on February 12th of that year. The act of February 28, 1878, which passed Congress by a two-thirds vote over the veto of President Hayes, again provided for the coinage of a silver dollar of 412.5 grains, the silver bullion to be purchased at the market price by the Government, and the amount so purchased and coined not to be less than two millions of dollars per month. During the debate on this bill the charge was repeatedly made, in and out of Congress, that the previous act of 1873, discontinuing the free coinage of the silver dollar, was passed surreptitiously. {2218} This statement has no foundation in fact. The report of the writer, who was then Deputy Comptroller of the Currency, transmitted to Congress in 1870 by the Secretary, three times distinctly stated that the bill accompanying it proposed to discontinue the issue of the silver dollar-piece. Various experts, to whom it had been submitted, approved this feature of the bill, and their opinions were printed by order of Congress."

J. J. Knox, United States Notes, chapter 10.

"The bill of 1878, generally spoken of as the 'Bland' bill, directed the secretary of the treasury to purchase not less than two million nor more than four million dollars' worth of silver bullion per month, to coin it into silver dollars, said silver dollars to be full legal tender at 'their nominal value.' Also, that the holder of ten or more of these silver dollars could exchange them for silver certificates, said certificates being 'receivable for customs, taxes, and all public dues.' The bill was pushed and passed by the efforts, principally, of the greenback inflationists and the representatives of the silver States. … Since 1878 [to 1891], 405,000,000 silver dollars have been coined. Of these 348,000,000 are still lying in the treasury vaults. No comment is needed. The Bland-Allison act did not hold up silver. In 1870 it was worth $1.12 an ounce, in 1880 $1.14, '81 $1.13, '82 $1.13, '83 $1.11, '86 99 cents, until in '89 it reached 93½ cents an ounce. That is, in 1880 the commercial ratio was 22:1 and the coin value of the Bland-Allison silver dollar was 72 cents. In March, 1800, a bill was reported to the House by the committee of 'coinage, weights and measures,' based on a plan proposed by Secretary Windom. … The bill passed the House. The Senate passed it with an amendment making provision for free and unlimited coinage. It finally went to a conference committee which reported the bill that became a law, July 14, 1890. This bill directs the secretary of the treasury to purchase four and one-half million ounces of silver a month at the market price, to give legal tender treasury notes therefor, said notes being redeemable in gold or silver coin at the option of the government, 'it being the established policy of the United States to maintain the two metals on a parity with each other upon the present legal ratio.' It was believed that this bill would raise the price of silver. … To-day [December 8, 1891] the silver in our dollar is actually worth 73 cents."

L. R. Ehrich, The Question of Silver, pages 21-25.

See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1873, 1878, and 1890-1893.

In the summer of 1893, a financial crisis, produced in the judgment of the best informed by the operation of the silver-purchase law of 1890 (known commonly as the Sherman Act) became so serious that President Cleveland called a special session of Congress to deal with it. In his Message to Congress, at the opening of its session, the President said: "With plenteous crops, with abundant promise of remunerative production and manufacture, with unusual invitation to safe investment, and with satisfactory assurance to business enterprise, suddenly financial fear and distrust have sprung up on every side. Numerous moneyed institutions have suspended because abundant assets were not immediately available to meet the demands of the frightened depositors. Surviving corporations and individuals are content to keep in hand the money they are usually anxious to loan, and those engaged in legitimate business are surprised to find that the securities they offer for loans, though heretofore satisfactory, are no longer accepted. Values supposed to be fixed are fast becoming conjectural, and loss and failure have involved every branch of business. I believe these things are principally chargeable to congressional legislation touching the purchase and coinage of silver by the General Government. This legislation is embodied in a statute passed on the 14th day of July, 1890, which was the culmination of much agitation on the subject involved, and which may be considered a truce, after a long struggle between the advocates of free silver coinage and those intending to be more conservative." A bill to repeal the act of July 14, 1890 (the Sherman law, so called), was passed by both houses and received the President's signature, Nov. 1, 1893.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1853-1874. The Latin Union and the Silver Question.

"The gold discoveries of California and Australia were directly the cause of the Latin Union. … In 1853, when the subsidiary silver of the United States had disappeared before the cheapened gold, we reduced the quantity of silver in the small coins sufficiently to keep them dollar for dollar below the value of gold. Switzerland followed this example of the United States in her law of January 31, 1860; but, instead of distinctly reducing the weight of pure silver in her small coins, she accomplished the same end by lowering the fineness of standard for these coins to 800 thousandths fine. … Meanwhile France and Italy had a higher standard for their coins than Switzerland, and as the neighboring states, which had the franc system of coinage in common, found each other's coins in circulation within their own limits, it was clear that the cheaper Swiss coins, according to Gresham's law, must drive out the dearer French and Italian coins, which contained more pure silver, but which passed current at the same nominal value. The Swiss coins of 800 thousandths fine began to pass the French frontier and to displace the French coins of a similar denomination; and the French coins were exported, melted, and recoined in Switzerland at a profit. This, of course, brought forth a decree in France (April 14, 1864), which prohibited the receipt of these Swiss coins at the public offices of France, the customs-offices, etc., and they were consequently refused in common trade among individuals. Belgium also, as well as Switzerland, began to think it necessary to deal with the questions affecting her silver small coins, which were leaving that country for the same reason that they were leaving Switzerland. Belgium then undertook to make overtures to France, in order that some concerted action might be undertaken by the four countries using the franc system—Italy, Belgium, France, and Switzerland—to remedy the evil to which all were exposed by the disappearance of their silver coin needed in every-day transactions. The discoveries of gold had forced a reconsideration of their coinage systems. In consequence of these overtures, a conference of delegates representing the Latin states just mentioned assembled in Paris, November 20, 1865. … The Conference, fully realizing the effects of the fall of gold in driving out their silver coins, agreed to establish a uniform coinage in the four countries, on the essential principles adopted by the United States in 1853. {2219} They lowered the silver pieces of two francs, one franc, fifty centimes, and twenty centimes from a standard of 900 thousandths fine to a uniform fineness of 835 thousandths, reducing these coins to the position of a subsidiary currency. They retained for the countries of the Latin Union, however, the system of bimetallism. Gold pieces of one hundred, fifty, twenty, ten, and five francs were to be coined, together with five-franc pieces of silver, and all at a standard of 900 thousandths fine. Free coinage at a ratio of 15½:1, was thereby granted to any holder of either gold or silver bullion who wanted silver coins of five francs, or gold coins from five francs and upward. … The subsidiary silver coins (below five francs) were made a legal tender between individuals of the state which coined them to the amount of fifty francs. … The treaty was ratified, and went into effect August 1, 1866, to continue until January 1, 1880, or about fifteen years. … The downward tendency of silver in 1873 led the Latin Union to fear that the demonetized silver of Germany would flood their own mints if they continued the free coinage of five-franc silver pieces at a legal ratio of 15½:1. … This condition of things led to the meeting of delegates from the countries of the Latin Union at Paris, January 30, 1874, who there agreed to a treaty supplementary to that originally formed in 1865, and determined on withdrawing from individuals the full power of free coinage by limiting to a moderate sum the amount of silver five-franc pieces which should be coined by each state of the Union during the year 1874. The date of this suspension of coinage by the Latin Union is regarded by all authorities as of great import in regard to the value of silver."

J. L. Laughlin, The History of Bimetallism in the United States, pages 146-155.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1861-1878. The Legal-tender notes, or Greenbacks, the National Bank System, of the American Civil War.

"In January, 1861, the paper currency of the United States was furnished by 1,600 private corporations, organized under thirty-four different State laws. The circulation of the banks amounted to $202,000,000, of which only about $50,000,000 were issued in the States which in April, 1861, undertook to set up an independent government. About $150,000,000 were in circulation in the loyal States, including West Virginia. When Congress met in extraordinary session on the 4th of July, the three-months volunteers, who had hastened to the defence of the capital, were confronting the rebel army on the line of the Potomac, and the first great battle at Bull Run was impending. President Lincoln called upon Congress to provide for the enlistment of 400,000 men, and Secretary Chase submitted estimates for probable expenditures amounting to $318,000,000. The treasury was empty, and the expenses of the government were rapidly approaching a million dollars a day. The ordinary expenses of the government, during the year ending on the 30th of June, 1861, had been $62,000,000, and even this sum had not been supplied by the revenue, which amounted to only $41,000,000. The rest had been borrowed. It was now necessary to provide for an expenditure increased fivefold, and amounting to eight times the income of the country, Secretary Chase advised that $80,000,000 be provided by taxation, and $240,000,000 by loans; and that, in anticipation of revenue, provision be made for the issue of $50,000,000 of treasury notes, redeemable on demand in coin. 'The greatest care will, however, be requisite,' he said, 'to prevent the degradation of such issues into an irredeemable paper currency, than which no more certainly fatal expedient for impoverishing the masses and discrediting the government of any country can well be devised.' The desired authority was granted by Congress. The Secretary was authorized to borrow, on the credit of the United States, not exceeding $250,000,000, and, 'as a part of the above loan,' to issue an exchange for coin, or pay for salaries or other dues from the United States, not over $50,000,000 of treasury notes, bearing no interest, but payable on demand at Philadelphia, New York, or Boston. The act does not say, 'payable in coin,' for nobody had then imagined that any other form of payment was possible. Congress adjourned on the 6th of August, after passing an act to provide an increased revenue from imports, and laying a direct tax of $20,000,000 upon the States, and a tax of 3 per cent. upon the excess of all private incomes above $800. The Secretary immediately invited the banks of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston to assist in the negotiation of the proposed loans, and they loyally responded. On the 19th of August they took $50,000,000 of three years 7-30 bonds at par; on the 1st of October, $50,000,000 more of the same securities at par; and on the 16th of November, $50,000,000 of twenty years 6 per cents., at a rate making the interest equivalent to 7 per cent. These advances relieved the temporary necessities of the treasury, and, when Congress reassembled in December, Secretary Chase was prepared to recommend a permanent financial policy. The solid basis of this policy was to be taxation. … It was estimated, a revenue of $90,000,000 would be needed; and to secure that sum, the Secretary advised that the duties on tea, coffee, and sugar be increased; that a direct tax of $20,000,000 be assessed on the States; that the income tax be modified so as to produce $10,000,000, and that duties be laid on liquors, tobacco, carriages, legacies, bank-notes, bills payable, and conveyances. For the extraordinary expenses of the war it was necessary to depend upon loans, and the authority to be granted for this purpose the Secretary left 'to the better judgment of Congress,' only suggesting that the rate of interest should be regulated by law, and that the time had come when the government might properly claim a part, at least, of the advantage of the paper circulation, then constituting a loan without interest from the people to the banks. There were two ways, Secretary Chase said, in which this advantage might be secured: 1. By increasing the issue of United States notes, and taxing the bank-notes out of existence. 2. By providing a national currency, to be issued by the banks but secured by the pledge of United States bonds. The former plan the Secretary did not recommend, regarding the hazard of a depreciating and finally worthless currency as far outweighing the probable benefits of the measure. … Congress had hardly begun to consider these recommendations, when the situation was completely changed by the suspension of specie payments, on the 28th of December, by the banks of New York, followed by the suspension of the other banks in the country, and compelling the treasury also to suspend. {2220} This suspension was the result of a panic occasioned by the shadow of war with England. … To provide for the pressing wants of the treasury, Congress, on the 12th of February, 1862, authorized the issue of $10,000,000 more of demand notes. Before the end of the session further issues were provided for, making the aggregate of United States notes $300,000,000, besides fractional currency. There was a long debate upon the propriety of making these notes a legal tender for private debts, and it seemed for a time that the measure would be defeated by this dispute. [The bill authorizing the issue of legal tender notes known afterwards as 'Greenbacks' was prepared by the Hon. E. G. Spaulding, who subsequently wrote the history of the measure.] Secretary Chase finally advised the concession of this point; nevertheless, 55 votes in the House of Representatives … were recorded against the provision making the notes a tender for private debts. Congress also empowered the Secretary to borrow $500,000,000 on 5-20 year 6 per cent. bonds, besides a temporary loan of $100,000,000, and provided that the interest on the bonds should be paid in coin, and that the customs should be collected in coin for that purpose. Nothing was said about the principal, for it was taken for granted that specie payments would be resumed before the payment of the principal of the debt would be undertaken. … Congress had thus adopted the plan which the Secretary of the Treasury did not recommend, and neglected the proposition which he preferred. … When Congress met in December, 1862, the magnitude of the war had become fully apparent. … The enormous demands upon the treasury … had exhausted the resources provided by Congress. The disbursements in November amounted to $59,847,077—two millions a day. Unpaid requisitions had accumulated amounting to $46,000,000. The total receipts for the year then current, ending June 30, 1863, were estimated at $511,000,000; the expenditures at $788,000,000; leaving $277,000,000 to be provided for. There were only two ways to obtain this sum—by a fresh issue of United States notes, or by new interest-bearing loans. But the gold premium had advanced in October to 34; the notes were already at a discount of 25 per cent. The consequences of an addition of $277,000,000 to the volume of currency, the Secretary said, would be 'inflation of prices, increase of expenditures, augmentation of debt, and, ultimately, disastrous defeat of the very purposes sought to be obtained by it.' He therefore recommended an increase in the amount authorized to be borrowed on the 5-20 bonds. … In order to create a market for the bonds, he again recommended the creation of banking associations under a national law requiring them to secure their circulation by a deposit of government bonds. The suggestion thus renewed was not received with favor by Congress. … On the 7th of January Mr. Hooper offered again his bill to provide a national currency, secured by a pledge of United States bonds, but the next day Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, submitted the bill with an adverse report from the committee on ways and means. On the 14th of January Mr. Stevens reported a resolution authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to issue $100,000,000 more of United States notes for the immediate payment of the army and navy. The resolution passed the House at once, and the Senate the next day. … On the 19th of January President Lincoln sent a special message to the House, announcing that he had signed the joint resolution authorizing a new issue of United States notes, but adding that he considered it his duty to express his sincere regret that it had been found necessary to add such a sum to an already redundant currency, while the suspended banks were still left free to increase their circulation at will. He warned Congress that such a policy must soon produce disastrous consequences, and the warning was effective. On the 25th of January Senator Sherman offered a bill to provide a national currency, differing in some respects from Mr. Hooper's in the House. The bill passed the Senate on the 12th of February, 23 to 21, and the House on the 20th, 78 to 64. … It was signed by the President on the 25th of February, 1863."

H. W. Richardson, The National Banks, chapter 2.

"One immediate effect of the Legal Tender Act was to destroy our credit abroad. Stocks were sent home for sale, and, as Bagebot shows, Lombard Street was closed to a nation which had adopted legal tender paper money. … By August all specie had disappeared from circulation, and postage-stamps and private note-issues took its place. In July a bill was passed for issuing stamps as fractional currency, but in March 1863, another act was passed providing for an issue of 50,000,000 in notes for fractional parts of a dollar—not legal tender. For many years the actual issue was only 30,000,000, the amount of silver fractional coins in circulation in the North, east of the Rocky Mountains, when the war broke out. … Gold rose to 200-220 or above, making the paper worth 45 or 50 cts., at which point the 5 per cent. ten-forties floated. The amount sold up to October 31st, 1865, was $172,770,100. Mr. Spaulding reckons up the paper issues which acted more or less as currency, on January 30th, 1864, at $1,125,877,034; 812,000,000 bore no interest."

W. G. Sumner, History of American Currency, pages 204-208.

The paper-money issues of the Civil War were not brought to parity of value with gold until near the close of the year 1878. The 1st day of January, 1879, had been fixed for resumption by an act passed in 1875; but that date was generally anticipated in practical business by a few months.

A. S. Bolles, Financial History of the United States, 1861-1885, book 1, chapters 4, 5, 8, and 11, and book 2, chapter 2.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1871-1873. Adoption of the Gold Standard by Germany.

"At the close of the Franco-Prussian war the new German Empire found the opportunity … for the establishment of a uniform coinage throughout its numerous small states, and was essentially aided in its plan at this time by the receipt of the enormous war-indemnity from France, of which $54,600,000 was paid to Germany in French gold coin. Besides this, Germany received from France bills of exchange in payment of the indemnity which gave Germany the title to gold in places, such as London, on which the bills were drawn. Gold in this way left London for Berlin. With a large stock of gold on hand, Germany began a series of measures to change her circulation from silver to gold. {2221} Her circulation in 1870, before the change was made, was composed substantially of silver and paper money, with no more than 4 per cent of the whole circulation in gold. … The substitution of gold instead of silver in a country like Germany which had a single silver medium was carried out by a path which led first to temporary bimetallism and later to gold monometallism. And for this purpose the preparatory measures were passed December 4, 1871. … This law of 1871 created new gold coins, current equally with existing silver coins, at rates of exchange which were based on a ratio between the gold and silver coins of 1:15½. The silver coins were not demonetized by this law; their coinage was for the present only discontinued; but there was no doubt as to the intention of the Government in the future. … The next and decisive step toward a single gold standard was taken by the act of July 9, 1873. … By this measure gold was established as the monetary standard of the country, with the 'mark' as the unit, and silver was used, as in the United States in 1853, in a subsidiary service. … Under the terms of this legislation Germany began to withdraw her old silver coinage, and to sell as bullion whatever silver was not recoined into the new subsidiary currency."

J. L. Laughlin, History of Bimetallism in the United States, pages 136-140.

MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1893. Stoppage of the free Coinage of Silver in India.

The free coinage of silver in India was stopped by the Government in June, 1893, thus taking the first step toward the establishment of the gold standard in that country.

----------MONEY AND BANKING: End----------

----------MONGOLS: Start--------

MONGOLS: Origin and earliest history.

"The name Mongol (according to Schmidt) is derived from the word Mong, meaning brave, daring, bold, an etymology which is acquiesced in by Dr. Schott. Ssanang Setzen says it was first given to the race in the time of Jingis Khan, but it is of much older date than his time, as we know from the Chinese accounts. … They point further, as the statements of Raschid do, to the Mongols having at first been merely one tribe of a great confederacy, whose name was probably extended to the whole when the prowess of the Imperial House which governed it gained the supremacy. We learn lastly from them that the generic name by which the race was known in early times to the Chinese was Shi wei, the Mongols having, in fact, been a tribe of the Shi wei. … The Shi wei were known to the Chinese from the 7th century; they then consisted of various detached hordes, subject to the Thu kiu, or Turks. … After the fall of the Yuan-Yuan, the Turks, by whom they were overthrown, acquired the supreme control of Eastern Asia. They had, under the name of Hiong nu, been masters of the Mongolian desert and its border land from a very early period, and under their new name of Turks they merely reconquered a position from which they had been driven some centuries before. Everywhere in Mongol history we find evidence of their presence, the titles Khakan, Khan, Bigui or Beg, Terkhan, &c., are common to both races, while the same names occur among Mongol and Turkish chiefs. … This fact of the former predominance of Turkish influence in further Asia supports the traditions collected by Raschid, Abulghazi, &c., … which trace the race of Mongol Khans up to the old royal race of the Turks."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, volume 1, pages 27-32.

"Here [in the eastern portion of Asia known as the desert of Gobi], from time immemorial, the Mongols, a people nearly akin to the Turks in language and physiognomy, had made their home, leading a miserable nomadic life in the midst of a wild and barren country, unrecognised by their neighbours, and their very name unknown centuries after their kinsmen, the Turks, had been exercising an all-powerful influence over the destinies of Western Asia."

A. Vámbéry, History of Bokhara, chapter 8.

A. Vámbéry, Travels in Central Asia www.gutenberg.org #41751

See also, TARTARS.

MONGOLS: A. D. 1153-1227. Conquests of Jingiz Khan.

"Jingiz-Khan [or Genghis, or Zingis], whose original name was Tamujin, the son of a Tatar chief, was born in the year 1153 A. D. In 1202, at the age of 49, he had defeated or propitiated all his enemies, and in 1205 was proclaimed, by a great assembly, Khakan or Emperor of Tartary. His capital, a vast assemblage of tents, was at Kara-Korum, in a distant part of Chinese Tartary; and from thence he sent forth mighty armies to conquer the world. This extraordinary man, who could neither read nor write, established laws for the regulation of social life and for the chase; and adopted a religion of pure Theism. His army was divided into Tumans of 10,000 men, Hazarehs of 1,000, Sedehs of 100, and Dehehs of 10, each under a Tatar officer, and they were armed with bows and arrows, swords, and iron maces. Having brought the whole of Tartary under his sway, he conquered China, while his sons, Oktai and Jagatai, were sent [A. D. 1218] with a vast army against Khuwarizm [whose prince had provoked the attack by murdering a large number of merchants who were under the protection of Jingiz]. The country was conquered, though bravely defended by the king's son, Jalalu-'d-Din; 100,000 people were put to the sword, the rest sold as slaves. … The sons of Jingiz-Khan then returned in triumph to their father; but the brave young prince, Jalalu-'d-Din, still held out against the conquerors of his country. This opposition roused Jingiz-Khan to fury; Balk was attacked for having harboured the fugitive prince in 1221, and, having surrendered, the people were all put to death. Nishapur shared the same fate, and a horrible massacre of all the inhabitants took place." Jalalu-'d-Din, pursued to the banks of the Indus and defeated in a desperate battle fought there, swam the liver on horseback, in the face of the enemy, and escaped into India. "The Mongol hordes then overran Kandahar and Multan, Azerbaijan and 'Irak; Fars was only saved by the submission of its Ata-beg, and two Mongol generals marched round the Caspian Sea. Jingiz-Khan returned to Tartary in A. D. 1222, but in these terrible campaigns he lost no less than 200,000 men. As soon as the great conqueror had retired out of Persia, the indefatigable Jalalu-'d-Din recrossed the Indus with 4,000 followers, and passing through Shiraz and Isfaham drove the Mongols out of Tubriz. But he was defeated by them in 1226; and though he kept up the war in Azerbaijan for a short time longer, he was at length utterly routed, and flying into Kurdistan was killed in the house of a friend there, four years afterwards. … Jingiz-Khan died in the year 1227."

C. R. Markham, History of Persia, chapter 7.

{2222}

In 1224 Jingiz "divided his gigantic empire amongst his sons as follows: China and Mongolia were given to Oktai, whom he nominated as his successor; Tchaghatai received a part of the Uiguric passes as far as Khahrezm, including Turkestan and Transoxania; Djudi had died in the meantime, so Batu was made lord of Kharezm, Desht i-Kiptchak of the pass of Derbend and Tuli was placed over Khorasan, Persia, and India."

A. Vámbéry, History of Bokhara, chapter 8.

"Popularly he [Jingis-Khan] is mentioned with Attila and with Timur as one of the 'Scourges of God.' … But he was far more than a conqueror. … In every detail of social and political economy he was a creator; his laws and his administrative rules are equally admirable and astounding to the student. … He may fairly claim to have conquered the greatest area of the world's surface that was ever subdued by one hand. … Jingis organised a system of intelligence and espionage by which he generally knew well the internal condition of the country he was about to attack. He intrigued with the discontented and seduced them by fair promises. … The Mongols ravaged and laid waste the country all round the bigger towns, and they generally tried to entice a portion of the garrison into an ambuscade. They built regular siege-works armed with catapults; the captives and peasants were forced to take part in the assault; the attack never ceased night or day; relief of troops keeping the garrison in perpetual terror. They employed Chinese and Persians to make their war engines. … They rarely abandoned the siege of a place altogether, and would sometimes continue a blockade for years. They were bound by no oath, and however solemn their promise to the inhabitants who would surrender, it was broken, and a general massacre ensued. It was their policy to leave behind them no body of people, however submissive, who might inconvenience their communications. … His [Jingis'] creed was to sweep away all cities, as the haunts of slaves and of luxury; that his herds might freely feed upon grass whose green was free from dusty feet. It does make one hide one's face in terror to read that from 1211 to 1223, 18,470,000 human beings perished in China and Tangut alone, at the hands of Jingis and his followers."

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, volume 1, pages 49, 108-113.

"He [Jingiz-Khan] was … a military genius of the very first order, and it may be questioned whether either Cæsar or Napoleon can, as commanders, be placed on a par with him. The manner in which he moved large bodies of men over vast distances without an apparent effort, the judgment he showed in the conduct of several wars in countries far apart from each other, his strategy in unknown regions, always on the alert yet never allowing hesitation or over-caution to interfere with his enterprises, the sieges which he brought to a successful termination, his brilliant victories … —all combined, make up the picture of a career to which Europe can offer nothing that will surpass, if indeed she has anything to bear comparison with it."

D. C. Boulger, History of China, volume 1, chapter 21.

See, also, CHINA: A. D. 1205-1234; KHORASSAN; BOKHARA: A. D. 1219; SAMARKAND; MERV; BALKH; KHUAREZM,

MONGOLS: A. D. 1202. Overthrow of the Keraït, or the kingdom of Prester John.

See PRESTER JOHN, THE KINGDOM OF.

MONGOLS: A. D. 1229-1294. Conquests of the successors of Jingiz Khan.

"Okkodai [or Ogotai or Oktai], the son and successor of Chinghiz, followed up the subjugation of China, extinguished the Kin finally in 1234 and consolidated with his empire all the provinces north of the Great Kiang. … After establishing his power over so much of China as we have said, Okkodai raised a vast army and set it in motion towards the west. One portion was directed against Armenia, Georgia, and Asia Minor, whilst another great host under Batu, the nephew of the Great Khan, conquered the countries north of Caucasus, overran Russia making it tributary, and still continued to carry fire and slaughter westward. One great detachment under a lieutenant of Batu's entered Poland, burned Cracow, found Breslaw in ashes and abandoned by its people, and defeated with great slaughter at Wahlstadt near Lignitz (April 12th, 1241) the troops of Poland, Moravia and Silesia, who had gathered under Duke Henry of the latter province to make head against this astounding flood of heathen. Batu himself with the main body of his army was ravaging Hungary. …

See HUNGARY: A. D. 1114-1301].

Pesth was now taken and burnt and all its people put to the sword. The rumours of the Tartars and their frightful devastations had scattered fear through Europe, which the defeat at Lignitz raised to a climax. Indeed weak and disunited Christendom seemed to lie at the foot of the barbarians. The Pope to be sure proclaimed crusade, and wrote circular letters, but the enmity between him and the Emperor Frederic II. was allowed to prevent any co-operation, and neither of them responded by anything better than words to the earnest calls for help which came from the King of Hungary. No human aid merited thanks when Europe was relieved by hearing that the Tartar host had suddenly retreated eastward. The Great Khan Okkodai was dead [A. D. 1241] in the depths of Asia, and a courier had come to recall the army from Europe. In 1255 a new wave of conquest rolled westward from Mongolia, this time directed against the Ismaelians or 'Assassins' on the south of the Caspian, and then successively against the Khalif of Baghdad and Syria. The conclusion of this expedition under Hulagu may be considered to mark the climax of the Mongol power. Mangu Khan, the emperor then reigning, and who died on a campaign in China in 1259, was the last who exercised a sovereignty so nearly universal. His successor Kublai extended indeed largely the frontiers of the Mongol power in China [see CHINA: A. D. 1259-1294], which he brought entirely under the yoke, besides gaining conquests rather nominal than real on its southern and southeastern borders, but he ruled effectively only in the eastern regions of the great empire, which had now broken up into four. (1) The immediate Empire of the Great Khan, seated eventually at Khanbalik or Peking, embraced China, Corea, Mongolia, and Manchuria, Tibet, and claims at least over Tunking and countries on the Ava frontier; (2), the Chagatai Khanate, or Middle Empire of the Tartars, with its capital at Almalik, included the modern Dsungaria, part of Chinese Turkestan, Transoxiana, and Afghanistan; (3), the Empire of Kipchak, or the Northern Tartars, founded on the conquests of Batu, and with its chief seat at Sarai, on the Wolga, covered a large part of Russia, the country north of Caucasus, Khwarizm, and a part of the modern Siberia; (4), Persia, with its capital eventually at Tabriz, embraced Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and part of Asia Minor, all Persia, Arabian Irak, and Khorasan."

H. Yule, Cathay and the way Thither: Preliminary Essay, sections 92-94 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, chapters 4-5.

{2223}

{2224}

MONGOLS: A. D. 1238-1391. The Kipchak empire. The Golden Horde.

"It was under Toushi [or Juchi], son of Tschingis, that the great migration of the Moguls effected an abiding settlement in Russia. … Toushi, with half a million of Moguls, entered Europe close by the Sea of Azof. On the banks of the river Kalka he encountered the united forces of the Russian princes. The death of Toushi for awhile arrested the progress of the Tatar arms. But in 1236, Batu, the son of Toushi, took the command, and all the principalities and cities of Russia, with the exception of Novogorod, were desolated by fire and sword and occupied by the enemy. For two centuries Russia was held cabined, cribbed, confined by this encampment or horde. The Golden Horde of the Deshti Kipzak, or Steppe of the Hollow Tree. Between the Volga and the Don, and beyond the Volga, spreads this limitless region the Deshti Kipzak. It was occupied in the first instance, most probably, by Hun-Turks, who first attracted and then were absorbed by fresh immigrants. From this region an empire took its name. By the river Akhtuba, a branch of the lower Volga, at Great Serai, Batu erected his golden tent; and here it was he received the Russian princes whom he had reduced to vassalage. Here he entertained a king of Armenia; and here, too, he received the ambassadors of S. Louis. … With the exception of Novogorod, which had joined the Hanseatic League in 1276, and rose rapidly in commercial prosperity, all Russia continued to endure, till the extinction of the house of Batu, a degrading and hopeless bondage. When the direct race came to an end, the collateral branches became involved in very serious conflicts; and in 1380, Temnik-Mami was overthrown near the river Don by Demetrius IV., who, with the victory, won a title of honour, Donski, which outlasted the benefits of the victory; although it is from this conflict that Russian writers date the commencement of their freedom. … After an existence of more than 250 years the Golden Horde was finally dissolved in 1480. Already, in 1468, the khanate of Kusan [or Kazan] was conquered and absorbed by the Grand Duke Ivan; and, after the extinction of the horde, Europeans for the first time exacted tribute of the Tatar, and ambassadors found their way unobstructed to Moscow. But the breaking up of the Golden Horde did not carry with it the collapse of all Tatar power in Russia. Rather the effect was to create a concentration of all their residuary resources in the Crimea."

C. I. Black, The Proselytes of Ishmael, part 3, chapter 4.

"The Mongol word yurt meant originally the domestic fireplace, and, according to Van Hammer, the word is identical with the German herde and the English hearth, and thence came in a secondary sense to mean house or home, the chief's house being known as Ulugh Yurt or the Great House. An assemblage of several yurts formed an ordu or orda, equivalent to the German hort and the English horde, which really means a camp. The chief camp where the ruler of the nation lived was called the Sir Orda, i. e., the Golden Horde. … It came about that eventually the whole nation was known as the Golden Horde." The power of the Golden Horde was broken by the conquests of Timour (A. D. 1389-1391). It was finally broken into several fragments, the chief of which, the Khanates of Kazan, of Astrakhan, and of Krim, or the Crimea, maintained a long struggle with Russia, and were successively overpowered and absorbed in the empire of the Muscovite.

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, part 2, pages 1 and x.

See, also, above: A. D. 1229-1294;

KIPCHAKS; and RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.

MONGOLS: A. D. 1257-1258. Khulagu's overthrow of the Caliphate.

See BAGDAD: A. D. 1258.

MONGOLS: A. D. 1258-1393. The empire of the Ilkhans.

See PERSIA: A. D. 1258-1393.

MONGOLS: A. D. 1371-1405. The conquests of Timour.

See TIMOUR.

MONGOLS: A. D. 1526-1605. Founding of the Mogul (Mongol) empire in India.

See INDIA.: A. D. 1399-1605.

----------MONGOLS: End----------

MONITOR AND MERRIMAC, Battle of the.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH).

MONKS.

See AUSTIN CANONS; BENEDICTINE ORDERS; CAPUCHINS; CARMELITE FRIARS; CARTHUSIAN ORDER; CISTERCIAN ORDER; CLAIRVAUX; CLUGNY; MENDICANT ORDERS; RECOLLECTS; SERVITES; THEATINES; TRAPPISTS.

MONMOUTH, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JUNE).

MONMOUTH'S REBELLION.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1685 (MAY-JULY).

MONOCACY, Battle of the.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY: VIRGINIA-MARYLAND).

MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.

See NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY; also, JACOBITE CHURCH.

MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY, The.

"The Council of Chalcedon having decided that our Lord possessed two natures, united but not confused, the Eutychian error condemned by it is supposed to have been virtually reproduced by the Monothelites, who maintained that the two natures were so united as to have but one will. This heresy is ascribed to Heraclius the Greek emperor, who adopted it as a political project for reconciling and reclaiming the Monophysites to the Church, and thus to the empire. The Armenians as a body had held, for a long time, the Monophysite (a form of the Eutychian) heresy, and were then in danger of breaking their allegiance to the emperor, as they had done to the Church; and it was chiefly to prevent the threatened rupture that Heraclius made a secret compromise with some of their principal men. … Neither … the strenuous efforts of the Greek emperors Heraclius and Constans, nor the concession of Honorius the Roman pontiff to the soundness of the Monothelite doctrine, could introduce it into the Church. Heraclius published in A. D. 639 an Ecthesis, or a formula, in which Monotheism was covertly introduced. The sixth general council, held in Constantinople A. D. 680, condemned both the heresy and Honorius, the Roman pontiff who had countenanced it. {2225} 'The doctrine of the Monothelites, thus condemned and exploded by the Council of Constantinople, found a place of refuge among the Mardaites, a people who inhabited the mountains of Libanus and Anti-Libanus, and who, about the conclusion of this century, received the name of Maronites from John Maro, their first bishop-a name which they still retain.' … In the time of the Crusaders, the Maronites united with them in their wars against the Saracens, and subsequently (A. D. 1182) in their faith. After the evacuation of Syria by the Crusaders, the Maronites, as their former allies, had to bear the vengeance of the Saracenic kings; and for a long time they defended themselves as they could, sometimes inflicting serious injury on the Moslem army, and at others suffering the revengeful fury of their enemies. They ultimately submitted to the rule of their Mohammedan masters, and are now good subjects of the sultan. … The Maronites now … are entirely free from the Monothelite heresy, which they doubtless followed in their earlier history; nor, indeed, does there appear a single vestige of it in their histories, theological books, or liturgies. Their faith in the person of Christ and in all the articles of religion is now, as it has been for a long time past, in exact uniformity with the doctrines of the Roman Church."

J. Wortabet, Researches into the Religions of Syria, pages 103-111; with foot-note.

ALSO IN: H. F. Tozer, The Church and the Eastern Empire, chapter 5.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 47.

P. Schaff, History of the Christian Church, volume 4, chapter 11, sections 109-111.

MONROE, James, Opposition to the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.

Presidential election and administration.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1816, to 1825.

MONROE DOCTRINE, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1823.

MONROVIA.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1816-1847.

----------MONS: Start--------

MONS: A. D. 1572. Capture by Louis of Nassau, recovery by the Spaniards, and massacre.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1572-1573.

MONS: A. D. 1691. Siege and surrender to Louis XIV.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691.

MONS: A. D. 1697. Restored to Spain.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.

MONS: A. D. 1709. Siege and reduction by Marlborough and Prince Eugene.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709.

MONS: A. D. 1713. Transferred to Holland.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

MONS: A. D 1746-1748. Taken by the French and restored to Austria.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1747; and AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, THE CONGRESS.

----------MONS: End--------

MONS GRAMPIUS, Battle of.

See GRAMPIANS.

MONS SACER, Secession of the Roman Plebeians to.

See ROME: B. C. 494-492.

MONS TARPEIUS.

See CAPITOLINE HILL.

MONSIEUR.

Under the old regime, in France, this was the special designation of the elder among the king's brothers.

MONT ST. JEAN, Battle of.

The battle of Waterloo— is sometimes so called by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JUNE).

MONTAGNAIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, and ATHAPASCAN FAMILY.

MONTAGNARDS, OR THE MOUNTAIN.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (OCTOBER); 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER); and after, to 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

MONTAGNE NOIRE, Battle of (1794).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY).

----------MONTANA: Start--------

MONTANA: A. D. 1803, Partly or wholly embraced in the Louisiana Purchase. The question.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

MONTANA: A. D. 1864-1889. Organization as a Territory and admission as a State.

Montana received its Territorial organization in 1864, and was admitted to the Union as a State in 1889.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1889-1890.

----------MONTANA: End--------

MONTANISTS.

A name given to the followers of Montanus, who appeared in the 2d century, among the Christians of Phrygia, claiming that the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, "had, by divine appointment, descended upon him for the purpose of foretelling things of the greatest moment that were about to happen, and promulgating a better and more perfect discipline of life and morals. … This sect continued to flourish down to the 5th century."

J. L. von Mosheim, Historical Commentaries, 2d Century, section. 66.

MONTAPERTI, Battle of (1260).

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1248-1278.

MONTAUBAN, Siege of (1621).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.

MONTAUKS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

MONTBÉLIARD, Battle of (1871).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1870-1871.

MONTCALM, and the defense of Canada.

See CANADA: A. D. 1756, to 1759.

MONTE CASEROS, Battle of (1852).

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1819-1874.

MONTE CASINO, The Monastery of.

See BENEDICTINE ORDERS.

MONTE ROTUNDO, Battle of (1867).

See ITALY: A. D. 1867-1870.

MONTE SAN GIOVANNI, Battle and massacre (1495).

See ITALY: A. D. 1494-1496.

MONTEBELLO, Battle of (1800).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY).

Battle of (1859.)

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859.

MONTECATINI, Battle of (1315).

See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.

MONTENEGRO.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES.

MONTENOTTE, Battles at (1796).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

MONTEREAU, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

MONTEREAU, The Bridge of (1419).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1415-1419.

MONTEREY, California: Possession taken by the American fleet (1846).

See CALIFORNIA: A. D. 1846-1847.

MONTEREY, Mexico: Siege by the Americans (1846).

See MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847.

MONTEREY, Pennsylvania, The Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JUNE-JULY: PENNSYLVANIA).

MONTEVIDEO: Founding of the city.

See ARGENTINE REPUBLIC: A. D. 1580-1777.

{2226}

MONTEZUMA, The so-called Empire of.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1325-1502.

MONTFORT, Simon de (the elder), The Crusade of.

See CRUSADES: A. D.1201-1203.

MONTFORT, Simon de (the younger), The English Parliament and the Barons' war.

See PARLIAMENT, THE ENGLISH: EARLY STAGES IN ITS EVOLUTION; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1216-1274.

MONTGOMERY, General Richard, and his expedition against Quebec.

See CANADA: A. D. 1775-1776.

MONTGOMERY CONSTITUTION and Government.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (FEBRUARY).

MONTI OF SIENA, The.

See SIENA.

MONTLEHERY, Battle of (1465).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1461-1468.

----------MONTMÉDY: Start--------

MONTMÉDY: A. D. 1657. Siege and capture by the French and English.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.

MONTMÉDY: A. D. 1659. Cession to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

----------MONTMÉDY: End--------

MONTMIRAIL, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

MONTPELIER, Treaty of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.

MONTPELIER, Second Treaty of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

MONTPENSIER, Mademoiselle, and the Fronde.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1651-1653.

----------MONTREAL: Start--------

MONTREAL: A. D. 1535. The Naming of the Island.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1534-1535.

MONTREAL: A. D. 1611. The founding of the City by Champlain.

See CANADA: A. D. 1611-1616.

MONTREAL: A. D. 1641-1657. Settlement under the seigniory of the Sulpicians.

See CANADA: A.D. 1637-1657.

MONTREAL: A. D. 1689. Destructive attack by the Iroquois.

See CANADA: A. D. 1640-1700.

MONTREAL: A. D. 1690. Threatened by the English Colonists.

See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690.

MONTREAL: A. D. 1760. The surrender of the city and of all Canada to the English.

See CANADA: A. D. 1760.

MONTREAL: A. D. 1775-1776. Taken by the Americans and recovered by the British.

See CANADA: A. D. 1775-1776.

MONTREAL: A. D. 1813. Abortive expedition of American forces against the city.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER).

----------MONTREAL: End--------

MONTROSE, and the Covenanters.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1638-1640; and 1644-1645.

MONZA, Battle of (1412).

See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.

MONZON, MONÇON, Treaty of (1626).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1624-1626.

MOODKEE, Battle of (1845).

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

MOOKERHYDE, Battle of (1574).

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574.

MOOLTAN, MULTAN: A. D. 1848-1849. Siege and capture by the English.

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

MOORE, Sir John: Campaign in Spain and death.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808-1809 (AUGUST-JANUARY).

MOORE'S CREEK, Battle of (1776).

See NORTH CAROLINA: A. D. 1775-1776.

MOORISH SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL.

----------MOORS: Start--------

MOORS, OR MAURI, Origin.

See NUMIDIANS.

MOORS: A. D. 698-709. Arab conquest.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 647-709; and MAROCCO.

MOORS: A. D. 711-713. Conquest of Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 711-713, and after.

MOORS: 11-13th Centuries. The Almoravides and Almohades in Morocco.

See ALMORAVIDES; and ALMOHADES.

MOORS: A. D. 1492-1609. Persecution and final expulsion from Spain. The deadly effect upon that country.

"After the reduction … of the last Mohammedan kingdom in Spain, the great object of the Spaniards became to convert those whom they had conquered [in violation of the treaty made on the surrender of Granada]. … By torturing some, by burning others, and by threatening all, they at length succeeded; and we are assured that, after the year 1526, there was no Mohammedan in Spain, who had not been converted to Christianity. Immense numbers of them were baptized by force; but being baptized, it was held that they belonged to the Church, and were amenable to her discipline. That discipline was administered by the Inquisition, which, during the rest of the 16th century, subjected these new Christians, or Moriscoes, as they were now called, to the most barbarous treatment. The genuineness of their forced conversions was doubted; it therefore became the business of the Church to inquire into their sincerity. The civil government lent its aid; and among other enactments, an edict was issued by Philip II., in 1566, ordering the Moriscoes to abandon everything which by the slightest possibility could remind them of their former religion. They were commanded, under severe penalties, to learn Spanish, and to give up all their Arabic books. They were forbidden to read their native language, or to write it, or even to speak it in their own houses. Their ceremonies and their very games were strictly prohibited. They were to indulge in no amusements which had been practised by their fathers; neither were they to wear such clothes as they had been accustomed to. Their women were to go unveiled; and, as bathing was a heathenish custom, an public baths were to be destroyed, and even an baths in private houses. By these and similar measures, these unhappy people were at length goaded into rebellion; and in 1568 they took the desperate step of measuring their force against that of the whole Spanish monarchy. The result could hardly be doubted; but the Moriscoes maddened by their sufferings, and fighting for their all, protracted the contest till 1571, when the insurrection was finally put down. By this unsuccessful effort they were greatly reduced in numbers and in strength; and during the remaining 27 years of the reign of Philip II. we hear comparatively little of them. Notwithstanding an occasional outbreak, the old animosities were subsiding, and in the course of time would probably have disappeared. At all events, there was no pretence for violence on the part of the Spaniards, since it was absurd to suppose that the Moriscoes, weakened in every way, humbled, broken, and scattered through the kingdom, could, even if they desired it, effect anything against the resources of the executive government. {2227} But, after the death of Philip II., that movement began … which, contrary to the course of affairs in other nations, secured to the Spanish clergy in the 17th century, more power than they had possessed in the 16th. The consequences of this were immediately apparent. The clergy did not think that the steps taken by Philip II. against the Moriscoes were sufficiently decisive. … Under his successor, the clergy … gained fresh strength, and they soon felt themselves sufficiently powerful to begin another and final crusade against the miserable remains of the Moorish nation. The Archbishop of Valencia was the first to take the field. In 1602, this eminent prelate presented a memorial to Philip III. against the Moriscoes; and finding that his views were cordially supported by the clergy, and not discouraged by the crown, he followed up the blow by another memorial having the same object. … He declared that the Armada, which Philip II. sent against England in 1588, had been destroyed, because God would not allow even that pious enterprise to succeed, while those who undertook it, left heretics undisturbed at home. For the same reason, the late expedition to Algiers had failed; it being evidently the will of Heaven that nothing should prosper while Spain was inhabited by apostates. He, therefore, exhorted the king to exile all the Moriscoes, except some whom he might condemn to work in the galleys, and others who could become slaves, and labour in the mines of America. This, he added, would make the reign of Philip glorious to all posterity, and would raise his fame far above that of his predecessors, who in this matter had neglected their obvious duty. … That they should all be slain, instead of being banished, was the desire of a powerful party in the Church, who thought that such signal punishment would work good by striking terror into the heretics of every nation. Bleda, the celebrated Dominican, one of the most influential men of his time, wished this to be done, and to be done thoroughly. He said, that, for the sake of example, every Morisco in Spain should have his throat cut; because it was impossible to tell which of them were Christians at heart, and it was enough to leave the matter to God, who knew his own, and who would reward in the next world those who were really Catholics. … The religious scruples of Philip III. forbade him to struggle with the Church; and his minister Lerma would not risk his own authority by even the show of opposition. In 1609 he announced to the king, that the expulsion of the Moriscoes had become necessary. 'The resolution,' replied Philip, 'is a great one; let it be executed.' And executed it was, with unflinching barbarity. About 1,000,000 of the most industrious inhabitants of Spain were hunted out like wild beasts, because the sincerity of their religious opinions was doubtful. Many were slain, as they approached the coast; others were beaten and plundered; and the majority, in the most wretched plight, sailed for Africa. During the passage, the crew, in many of the ships, rose upon them, butchered the men, ravished the women, and threw the children into the sea. Those who escaped this fate, landed on the coast of Barbary, where they were attacked by the Bedouins, and many of them put to the sword. Others made their way into the desert, and perished from famine. Of the number of lives actually sacrificed, we have no authentic account; but it is said, on very good authority, that in one expedition, in which 140,000 were carried to Africa, upwards of 100,000 suffered death in its most frightful forms within a few months after their expulsion from Spain. Now, for the first time, the Church was really triumphant. For the first time there was not a heretic to be seen between the Pyrenees and the Straits of Gibraltar. All were orthodox, and all were loyal. Every inhabitant of that great country obeyed the Church, and feared the king. And from this happy combination, it was believed that the prosperity and grandeur of Spain were sure to follow. … The effects upon the material prosperity of Spain may be stated in a few words. From nearly every part of the country, large bodies of industrious agriculturists and expert artificers were suddenly withdrawn. The best systems of husbandry then known, were practised by the Moriscoes, who tilled and irrigated with indefatigable labour. The cultivation of rice, cotton, and sugar, and the manufacture of silk and paper were almost confined to them. By their expulsion all this was destroyed at a blow, and most of it was destroyed for ever. For the Spanish Christians considered such pursuits beneath their dignity. In their judgment, war and religion were the only two avocations worthy of being followed. To fight for the king, or to enter the Church was honourable; but everything else was mean and sordid. When, therefore, the Moriscoes were thrust out of Spain, there was no one to fill their place; arts and manufactures either degenerated, or were entirely lost, and immense regions of arable land were left uncultivated. … Whole districts were suddenly deserted, and down to the present day have never been repeopled. These solitudes gave refuge to smugglers and brigands, who succeeded the industrious inhabitants formerly occupying them; and it is said that from the expulsion of the Moriscoes is to be dated the existence of those organized bands of robbers, which, after this period, became the scourge of Spain, and which no subsequent government has been able entirely to extirpate. To these disastrous consequences, others were added, of a different, and, if possible, of a still more serious kind. The victory gained by the Church increased both her power and her reputation. … The greatest men, with hardly an exception, became ecclesiastics, and all temporal considerations, all views of earthly policy, were despised and set at nought. No one inquired; no one doubted; no one presumed to ask if all this was right. The minds of men succumbed and were prostrate. While every other country was advancing, Spain alone was receding. Every other country was making some addition to knowledge, creating some art, or enlarging some science, Spain numbed into a death-like torpor, spellbound and entranced by the accursed superstition which preyed on her strength, presented to Europe a solitary instance of constant decay."

H. T. Buckle, History of Civilization, volume 2, chapter 8.

ALSO IN: W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip II., book 5, chapters 1-8 (volume 3).

R. Watson, History of the Reign of Philip III., book 4.

J. Dunlop, Memoirs of Spain, 1621-1700, volume 1, chapter 1.

See, also, INQUISITION: A. D. 1203-1525.

MOORS: 15-19th Centuries. The kingdom of Marocco.

See MAROCCO.

----------MOORS: End--------

MOPH.

See MEMPHIS.

{2228}

MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MOQUELUMNAN FAMILY.

MOQUIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS.

MORA, The.

The name of the ship which bore William the Conqueror to England, and which was the gift of his wife, the Duchess Matilda.

MORAT, Battle of (1476).

See BURGUNDY (THE FRENCH DUKEDOM): A. D. 1476-1477.

----------MORAVIA: Start--------

MORAVIA: Its people and their early history.

See BOHEMIA: ITS PEOPLE, &c.

MORAVIA: 9th Century. Conversion to Christianity. The kingdom of Svatopluk and its obscure destruction.

"Moravia has not even a legendary history. Her name appears for the first time at the beginning of the 9th century, under its Slav form, Morava (German 'March,' 'Moehren'). It is used to denote at the same time a tributary of the Danube and the country it waters; it is met with again in the lower valley of that stream, in Servia, and appears to have a Slav origin. During the 7th and 8th centuries there is no doubt Moravia was divided among several princes, and had a hard struggle against the Avars. The first prince whose name is known was Moïmir, who ruled at the beginning of the 9th century. … During his reign Christianity made some progress in Moravia. … Moïmir tried to withstand the Germans, but was not successful; and in 846 Louis the German invaded his country, deposed him, and made his nephew Rostislav, whom the chroniclers call Rastiz, ruler in his stead. … The new prince, Rostislav, determined to secure both the political and moral freedom of his country. He fortified his frontiers and then declared war against the emperor. He was victorious, and when once peace was secured he undertook a systematic conversion of his people. Thus came about one of the great episodes in the history of the Slavs, and their Church, the mission of the apostles Cyril and Methodius. … After having struggled successfully for some time against the Germans" Rostislav was "betrayed by his nephew and vassal, Svatopluk, into the hands of Karloman, duke of Carinthia and son of Louis the German, who put out his eyes and shut him up in a monastery. Svatopluk believed himself sure of the succession to his uncle as the price of his treachery, but a very different reward fell to his lot, as Karloman, trusting but little in his fidelity to the Germans, threw him also into captivity. The German yoke was, however, hateful to the Moravians; they soon rebelled, and Karloman hoped to avert the danger by releasing Svatopluk and placing him at the head of an army. Svatopluk marched against the Moravians, then suddenly joined his forces to theirs and attacked the Germans. This time the independence of Moravia was secured, and was recognized by the treaty of Forcheim (874). … Thenceforward peace reigned between Svatopluk and Louis the German. … At one time he [Svatopluk] was the most powerful monarch of the Slavs; Rome was in treaty with him, Bohemia gravitated towards the orbit of Moravia, while Moravia held the empire in check. … At this time [891] the kingdom of Svatopluk … included, besides Moravia and the present Austrian Silesia, the subject country of Bohemia, the Slav tribes on the Elbe and the Vistula as far as the neighbourhood of Magdeburg, part of Western Galicia, the country of the Slovaks, and Lower Pannonia." But Svatopluk was ruined by war with his neighbor, Arnulf, duke of Pannonia. The latter "entered into an alliance with Braclav, a Slovene prince, sought the aid of the king of the Bulgarians, and, what was of far graver importance, summoned to his help the Magyars, who had just settled themselves on the Lower Danube. Swabians, Bavarians, Franks, Magyars, and Slovenes rushed simultaneously upon Moravia. Overwhelmed by numbers, Svatopluk made no attempt at resistance; he shut up his troops in fortresses, and abandoned the open country to the enemy, who ravaged it for four whole weeks. Then hostilities ceased; but no durable peace could exist between the two adversaries. War began again in the following year, when death freed Arnulf from Svatopluk. … At his death he left three sons; he chose the eldest, Moïmir II., as his heir, and assigned appanages to each of the others. On his death-bed he begged them to live at peace with one another, but his advice was not followed. … Bohemia soon threw off those bonds which had attached her as a vassal to Svatopluk; the Magyars invaded Moravian Pannonia, and forced Moïmir into an alliance with them. … In the year 900 the Bavarians, together with the Chekhs, invaded Moravia. In 903 the name of Moïmir disappears. As to the cause of his death, as to how it was that suddenly and for ever the kingdom of Moravia was destroyed, the chronicles tell us nothing. Cosmas of Prague shows us Moravia at the mercy of Germans, Chekhs, and Hungarians; then history is silent, towns and castles crumble to pieces, churches are overthrown, the people are scattered."

L. Leger, History of Austro-Hungary, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: G. F. Maclear, Conversion of the West: The Slavs, chapter 4.

MORAVIA: A. D. 1355. Absorption in the kingdom of Bohemia.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1355.

----------MORAVIA: End----------

MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum): Origin and early history.

See BOHEMIA: A. D. 1434-1457; and 1621-1648.

MORAVIAN OR BOHEMIAN BRETHREN (Unitas Fratrum): In Saxony and in America. The Indian Missions.

"In 1722, and in the seven following years, a considerable number of these 'Brethren,' led by Christian David, who were persecuted in their homes, were received by Count Zinzendorf on his estate at Berthelsdorf in Saxony. They founded a village called Herrnhut, or 'the Watch of the Lord.' There they were joined by Christians from other places in Germany, and, after some time, Zinzendorf took up his abode among them, and became their principal guide and pastor. … In 1737, he consecrated himself wholly to the service of God in connection with the Moravian settlement, and was ordained a bishop. … Zinzendorf had before been received into the Lutheran ministry. The peculiar fervor which characterized his religious work, and certain particulars in his teaching, caused the Saxon Government, which was wedded to the traditional ways of Lutheranism, to exclude him from Saxony for about ten years (1736-1747). He prosecuted his religious labors in Frankfort, journeyed through Holland and England, made a voyage to the West Indies, and, in 1741, another voyage to America. {2229} New branches of the Moravian body he planted in the countries which he visited. … It was a church within a church that Zinzendorf aimed to establish. It was far from his purpose to found a sect antagonistic to the national churches in the midst of which the Moravian societies arose. … With a religious life remarkable as combining warm emotion with a quiet and serene type of feeling, the community of Zinzendorf connected a missionary zeal not equalled at that time in any other Protestant communion. Although few in number, they sent their gospel messengers to all quarters of the globe."

G. P. Fisher, History of the Christian Church, pages 506-507.

The first settlement of the Moravians in America was planted in Georgia, in 1735. "But Oglethorpe's border war with the Spaniards compelled him to call every man in his colony to arms, and the Moravians, rather than forsake their principles [of non-resistance, and dependence upon prayer], abandoned their lands and escaped to Pennsylvania [1740]. Here some of their brethren were already fixed. Among the refugees was the young David Zeisberger, the future head of the Ohio missions. Bethlehem on the Lehigh became, and is yet, the centre in America of their double system of missions and education. They bought lands, laid out villages and farms, built houses, shops, and mills, but everywhere, and first of all, houses of prayer, in thankfulness for the peace and prosperity at length found. The first mission established by Zinzendorf in the colonies was in 1741, among the Mohican Indians, near the borders of New York and Connecticut. The bigoted people and authorities of the neighborhood by outrages and persecution drove them off, so that they were forced to take refuge on the Lehigh. The brethren established them in a new colony twenty miles above Bethlehem, to which they gave the name of Gnadenhütten (Tents of Grace). The prosperity of the Mohicans attracted the attention and visits of the Indians beyond. The nearest were the Delawares, between whom and the Mohicans there were strong ties of affinity, as branches of the old Lenni Lenape stock. Relations were thus formed between the Moravians and the Delawares. And by the fraternization between the Delawares and Shawanees … and their gradual emigration to the West to escape the encroachments of Penn's people, it occurred that the Moravian missionaries, Zeisberger foremost, accompanied their Delaware and Mohican converts to the Susquehanna in 1765, and again, when driven from there by the cession at Fort Stanwix, journeyed with them across the Alleghanies to Goshgoshink, a town established by the unconverted Delawares far up the Alleghany River." In 1770, having gained some important converts among the Delawares of the Wolf clan, at Kuskuskee, on Big Beaver Creek, they transferred themselves to that place, naming it Friedenstadt. But there they were opposed with such hostility by warriors and white traders that they determined "to plunge a step further into the wilderness, and go to the head chief of the Delawares at Gepelmukpechenk (Stillwater, or Tuscarawi) on the Muskingum. It was near this village that Christian Frederick Post, the brave, enterprising pioneer of the Moravians, had established himself in 1761, with the approbation of the chiefs. … By marriage with an Indian wife he had forfeited his regular standing with the congregation. His intimate acquaintance with the Indians, and their languages and customs, so far gained upon them that in 1762 he was permitted to take Heckewelder to share his cabin and establish a school for the Indian children. But in the autumn the threatened outburst of Pontiac's war had compelled them to flee." Early in 1772 the Moravian colony "was invited by the council at Tuscarawi, the Wyandots west of them approving it, to come with all their Indian brethren from the Alleghany and Susquehanna, and settle on the Muskingum (as the Tuscarawas was then called), and upon any lands that they might choose." The invitation was accepted. "The pioneer party, in the removal from the Beaver to Ohio, consisted of Zeisberger and five Indian families, 28 persons, who arrived at this beautiful ground May 3, 1772. … The site was at the large spring, and appropriately it was named for it Shoenbrun. In August arrived the Missionaries Ettwein and Heckewelder, with the main body of Christian Indians who had been invited from the Alleghany and the Susquehanna, about 250 in number. … This, and further accessions from the east in September, made it advisable to divide the colony into two villages. The second [named Gnadenhütten] was established ten miles below Shoenbrun. … In April, 1773, the remnants of the mission on the Beaver joined their brethren in Ohio. The whole body of the Moravian Indians … was now united and at rest under the shelter of the unconverted but … tolerant Delaware warriors. … The population of the Moravian villages at the close of 1775 was 414 persons. … The calamity of the Moravians was the war of the American Revolution. It developed the dangerous fact that their villages … were close upon the direct line between Pittsburgh and Detroit, the outposts of the two contending forces." The peaceful settlement became an object of hostility to the meaner spirits on both sides. In September, 1781, by order of the British commander at Detroit, they were expelled from their settlement, robbed of all their possessions, and sent to Sandusky. In the following February, a half-starved party of them, numbering 96, who had ventured back to their ravaged homes, for the purpose of gleaning the corn left standing in the fields, were massacred by a brutal American force, from the Ohio. "So perished the Moravian missions on the Muskingum. Not that the pious founders ceased their labors, or that these consecrated scenes knew them no more. But their Indian communities, the germ of their work, the sign of what was to be accomplished by them in the great Indian problem, were scattered and gone, Zeisberger, at their head, labored with the remnants of their congregation for years in Canada. They then transferred themselves temporarily to settlements on the Sandusky, the Huron, and the Cuyahoga rivers. At last he and Heckewelder, with the survivors of these wanderings, went back to their lands on the Tuscarawas, now surrounded by the whites, but fully secured to them by the generosity of Congress."

R. King, Ohio, chapter 6.

ALSO IN: D. Cranz, History of the United Brethren.

F. Bovet, The Banished Count (Life of Zinzendorf).

E. de Schweinitz, Life and Times of David Zeisberger.

D. Zeisberger, Diary.

D. Berger, United Brethren (American Church History), volume 12.

{2230}

----------MOREA: Start--------

MOREA: Origin of the name.

"The Morea must … have come into general use, as the name of the peninsula [of the Peloponnesus] among the Greeks, after the Latin conquest [of 1204-1205], even allowing that the term was used among foreigners before the arrival of the Franks. … The name Morea was, however, at first applied only to the western coast of the Peloponnesus, or perhaps more particularly to Elis, which the epitome of Strabo points out as a district exclusively Sclavonian, and which, to this day, preserves a number of Sclavonian names. … Originally the word appears to be the same geographical denomination which the Sclavonians of the north had given to a mountain district of Thrace in the chain of Mount Rhodope. In the 14th century the name of this province is written by the Emperor Cantacuzenos, who must have been well acquainted with it personally, Morrha. Even as late as the 14th century, the Morea is mentioned in official documents relating to the Frank principality as a province of the Peloponnesus, though the name was then commonly applied to the whole peninsula."

G. Finlay, History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders, chapter 1, section 4.

MOREA: The Principality of the.

See ACHAIA: A. D. 1205-1387.

----------MOREA: End--------

MOREAU, General, The Campaigns and the military and political fortunes of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER); 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL); 1799 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER), (NOVEMBER); 1800-1801 (MAY-FEBRUARY); and 1804-1805; also, GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (AUGUST).

MORETON BAY DISTRICT.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1800-1840, and 1859.

MORGAN, General Daniel, and the War or the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780-1781.

MORGAN, General John H., and his raid into Ohio and Indiana.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: KENTUCKY).

MORGAN, William, The abduction of.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1826-1832.

MORGANATIC MARRIAGES.

"Besides the dowry which was given before the marriage ceremony had been performed, it was customary [among some of the ancient German peoples] for the husband to make his wife a present on the morning after the first night. This was called the 'morgengabe,' or morning gift, the presenting of which, where no previous ceremony had been observed, constituted a particular kind of connexion called matrimonium morganaticam, or 'morganatic marriage. As the liberality of the husband was apt to be excessive, we find the amount limited by the Langobardian laws to one fourth of the bridegroom's substance."

W. C. Perry, The Franks, chapter 10.

MORGARTEN, Battle or (1315).

See SWITZERLAND: THE THREE FOREST CANTONS.

MORINI, The.

See BELGÆ.

MORISCOES.

This name was given to the Moors in Spain after their nominal and compulsory conversion to Christianity.

See MOORS: A. D. 1492-1609.

MORMAERS, MAARMORS.

A title, signifying great Maer or Steward, borne by certain princes or sub-kings of provinces in Scotland in the 10th and 11th centuries. The Macbeth of history was Mormaer of Moray.

W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland, volume 3, pages 49-51.

See, also, SCOTLAND: A. D. 1039-1054.

MORMANS, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (JANUARY-MARCH).

----------MORMONISM: Start--------

MORMONISM: A. D. 1805-1830. Joseph Smith and the Book or Mormon.

"Joseph Smith, Jr., who … appears in the character of the first Mormon prophet, and the putative founder of Mormonism and the Church of Latter Day Saints, was born in Sharon, Windsor County, Vermont, December 13, 1805. He was the son of Joseph Smith, Sr., who, with his wife Lucy and their family, removed from Royalton, Vermont, to Palmyra, New York, in the summer of 1816. The family embraced nine children, Joseph, Jr., being the fourth in the order of their ages. … At Palmyra, Mr. Smith, Sr., opened 'a cake and beer shop,' as described by his signboard, doing business on a small scale, by the profits of which, added to the earnings of an occasional day's work on hire by himself and his elder sons, for the village and farming people, he was understood to secure a scanty but honest living for himself and family. … In 1818 they settled upon a nearly wild or unimproved piece of land, mostly covered with standing timber, situate about two miles south of Palmyra. … Little improvement was made upon this land by the Smith family in the way of clearing, fencing, or tillage. … The larger proportion of the time of the Smiths … was spent in hunting and fishing … and idly lounging around the stores and shops in the village. … At this period in the life and career of Joseph Smith, Jr., or 'Joe Smith,' as he was universally named, and the Smith family, they were popularly regarded as an illiterate, whiskey-drinking, shiftless, irreligious race of people—the first named, the chief subject of this biography, being unanimously voted the laziest and most worthless of the generation. … Taciturnity was among his characteristic idiosyncrasies, and he seldom spoke to anyone outside of his intimate associates, except when first addressed by another; and then, by reason of his extravagancies of statement, his word was received with the least confidence by those who knew him best. He could utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvellous absurdity with the utmost apparent gravity. … He was, however, proverbially good-natured, very rarely if ever indulging in any combative spirit toward anyone, whatever might be the provocation, and yet was never known to laugh. Albeit, he seemed to be the pride of his indulgent father, who has been heard to boast of him as the 'genus of the family,' quoting his own expression. Joseph, moreover, as he grew in years, had learned to read comprehensively, in which qualification he was far in advance of his elder brother, and even of his father. … As he … advanced in reading and knowledge, he assumed a spiritual or religious turn of mind, and frequently perused the Bible, becoming quite familiar with portions thereof. … The final conclusion announced by him was, that all sectarianism was fallacious, all the churches on a false foundation, and the Bible a fable. … In September, 1819, a curious stone was found in the digging of a well upon the premises of Mr. Clark Chase, near Palmyra. This stone attracted particular notice on account of its peculiar shape, resembling that of a child's foot. It was of a whitish, glassy appearance, though opaque, resembling quartz. {2231} Joseph Smith, Sr., and his elder sons Alvin and Hyrum, did the chief labor of this well-digging, and Joseph, Jr., who had been a frequenter in the progress of the work, as an idle looker-on and lounger, manifested a special fancy for this geological curiosity, and he carried it home with him. … Very soon the pretension transpired that he could see wonderful things by its aid. … The most glittering sights revealed to the mortal vision of the young impostor, in the manner stated, were hidden treasures of great value, including enormous deposits of gold and silver sealed in earthen pots or iron chests, and buried in the earth in the immediate vicinity of the place where he stood. These discoveries finally became too dazzling for his eyes in daylight, and he had to shade his vision by looking at the stone in his hat! … The imposture was renewed and repeated at frequent intervals from 1820 to 1827, various localities being the scenes of … delusive searches for money [for carrying on which Smith collected contributions from his dupes], as pointed out by the revelations of the magic stone. … Numerous traces of the excavations left by Smith are yet remaining as evidences of his impostures and the folly of his dupes, though most of them have become obliterated by the clearing off and tilling of the lands where they were made." In the summer of 1827 "Smith had a remarkable vision. He pretended that, while engaged in secret prayer, alone in the wilderness, an 'angel of the Lord' appeared to him, with the glad tidings that 'all his sins had been forgiven'; … also that he had received a 'promise that the true doctrine and the fulness of the doctrine and the fulness of the gospel should at some future time be revealed to him.' … In the fall of the same year Smith had yet a more miraculous and astonishing vision than any preceding one. He now arrogated to himself, by authority of 'the spirit of revelation,' and in accordance with the previous 'promises' made to him, a far higher sphere in the scale of human existence, assuming to possess the gift and power of 'prophet, seer, and revelator.' On this assumption he announced to his family friends and the bigoted persons who had adhered to his supernaturalism, that he was 'commanded,' upon a secretly fixed day and hour, to go alone to a certain spot revealed to him by the angel, and there take out of the earth a metallic book of great antiquity in its origin, and of immortal importance in its consequences to the world, which was a record, in mystic letters or characters, of the long-lost tribes of Israel, … who had primarily inhabited this continent, and which no human being besides himself could see and live; and the power to translate which to the nations of the earth was also given to him only, as the chosen servant of God. … Accordingly, when the appointed hour came, the prophet, assuming his practised air of mystery, took in hand his money-digging spade and a large napkin, and went off in silence and alone in the solitude of the forest, and after an absence of some three hours returned, apparently with his sacred charge concealed within the folds of the napkin. … With the book was also found, or so pretended, a huge pair of spectacles in a perfect state of preservation, or the Urim and Thummim, as afterward interpreted, whereby the mystic record was to be translated and the wonderful dealings of God revealed to man, by the superhuman power of Joseph Smith. … The sacred treasure was not seen by mortal eyes, save those of the one anointed, until after the lapse of a year or longer time, when it was found expedient to have a new revelation, as Smith's bare word had utterly failed to gain a convert beyond his original circle of believers. By this amended revelation, the veritable existence of the book was certified to by eleven witnesses of Smith's selection. It was then heralded as the Golden Bible, or Book of Mormon, and as the beginning of a new gospel dispensation. … The spot from which the book is alleged to have been taken is the yet partially visible pit where the money speculators had previously dug for another kind of treasure, which is upon the summit of what has ever since been known as 'Mormon Hill,' now owned by Mr. Anson Robinson, in the town of Manchester, New York. This book … was finally described by Smith and his echoes as consisting of metallic leaves or plates resembling gold, bound together in a volume by three rings running through one edge of them, the leaves opening like an ordinary paper book. … Translations and interpretations were now entered upon by the prophet," and in 1830 the "Book of Mormon" was printed and published at Palmyra, New York, a well-to-do farmer, Martin Harris, paying the expense. "In claiming for the statements herein set forth the character of fairness and authenticity, it is perhaps appropriate to add … that the locality of the malversations resulting in the Mormon scheme is the author's birthplace; that he was well acquainted with 'Joe Smith,' the first Mormon prophet, and with his father and all the Smith family, since their removal to Palmyra from Vermont … ; that he was equally acquainted with Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery, and with most of the earlier followers of Smith, either as money-diggers or Mormons; that he established at Palmyra, in 1823, and was for many years editor and proprietor of the 'Wayne Sentinel,' and was editorially connected with that paper at the printing by its press of the original edition of the 'Book of Mormon' in 1830; that in the progress of the work he performed much of the reading of the proof-sheets, comparing the same with the manuscript copies, and in the meantime had frequent and familiar interviews with the pioneer Mormons."

P. Tucker, Origin, Rise and Progress of Mormonism, chapters 1-5, and preface.

It is believed by many that the groundwork of the Book of Mormon was supplied by an ingenious romance, written about 1814 by the Rev. Solomon Spalding, a Presbyterian minister of some learning and literary ability, then living at New Salem (now Conneaut), Ohio. This romance, which was entitled "The Manuscript Found," purported to narrate the history of a migration of the lost ten tribes of Israel to America. It was never published; but members of Mr. Spalding's family, and other persons, who read it or heard it read, in manuscript, claimed confidently, after the appearance of the Book of Mormon that the main body of the narrative and the notable names introduced in it were identical with those of the latter. Some circumstances, moreover, seemed to indicate a probability that Mr. Spalding's manuscript, being left during several weeks with a publisher named Patterson, at Pittsburgh, came there into the hands of one Sidney Rigdon, a young printer, who appeared subsequently as one of the leading missionaries of Mormonism, and who is believed to have visited Joseph Smith, at Palmyra, before the Book of Mormon came to light. {2232} On the other hand, Mormon believers have, latterly, made much of the fact that a manuscript romance without title, by Solomon Spalding, was found, not many years since, in the Sandwich Islands, by President Fairchild of Oberlin College, Ohio, and proved to bear no resemblance to the Book of Mormon. Spalding is said, however, to have written several romances, and, if so, nothing is proved by this discovery.

T. Gregg, The Prophet of Palmyra, chapters 1-11 and 41-45.

ALSO IN: E. E. Dickinson, New Light on Mormonism.

J. M. Kennedy, Early Days of Mormonism, chapters 1-2.

MORMONISM: A. D. 1830-1846. The First Hegira to Kirtland, Ohio, the Second to Missouri, the Third to Nauvoo, Illinois. The Danites. The building of the city and its Temple. Hostility of the Gentiles. The slaying of the Prophet.

"Immediately after the publication of the Book the Church was duly organized at Manchester. On April 6, 1830, six members were ordained elders—Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph Smith, Jr., Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Knight. The first conference was held at Fayette, Seneca county, in June. A special 'revelation' at this time made Smith's wife 'the Elect Lady and Daughter of God,' with the high-sounding title of 'Electa Cyria.' In later years this lady became disgusted with her husband's religion. … Another revelation was to the effect that Palmyra was not the gathering-place of the Saints, after all, but that they should proceed to Kirtland, in Ohio. Consequently, the early part of 1831 saw them colonized in that place, the move being known as 'The First Hegira.' Still another revelation (on the 6th of June) stated that some point in Missouri was the reliable spot. Smith immediately selected a tract in Jackson county, near Independence. By 1833 the few Mormons who had moved thither were so persecuted that they went into Clay county, and thence, in 1838, into Caldwell county, naming their settlement 'Far West.' The main body of the Mormons, however, remained in Kirtland from 1831 till they were forced to join their Western brethren in 1838. Brigham Young, another native of Vermont, joined at Kirtland in 1832, and was ordained an elder. The conference of elders on May 3, 1833, repudiated the name of Mormons and adopted that of 'Latter-Day Saints.' The first presidency consisted of Smith, Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams. In May, 1835, the Twelve Apostles—among them Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde—left on a mission for proselytes. … The Mormons were driven from Missouri by Governor Boggs's 'Extraordinary Order,' which caused them to gain sympathy as having been persecuted in a slave State. They moved to Hancock county, Illinois, in 1840, and built up Nauvoo [on the Mississippi River, 14 miles above Keokuk] by a charter with most unusual privileges."

F. G. Mather, The Early Days of Mormonism (Lippincott's Magazine, August 1880).

In the midst of the troubles of Smith and his followers in Missouri, and before their removal to Nauvoo, there arose among them "the mysterious and much dreaded band that finally took the name of Danites, or sons of Dan, concerning which so much has been said while so little is known, some of the Mormons even denying its existence. But of this there is no question. Says Burton: 'The Danite band, a name of fear in the Mississippi Valley, is said by anti-Mormons to consist of men between the ages of 17 and 49. They were originally termed Daughters of Gideon, Destroying Angels—the gentiles say devils—and, finally, Sons of Dan, or Danites, from one of whom was prophesied he should be a serpent in the path. They were organized about 1837 under D. W. Patten, popularly called Captain Fearnot, for the purpose of dealing as avengers of blood with gentiles; in fact they formed a kind of death society, desperadoes, thugs, hashshashiyun—in plain English, assassins in the name of the Lord. The Mormons declare categorically the whole and every particular to be the calumnious invention of the impostor and arch apostate, Mr. John C. Bennett. John Hyde, a seceder, states that the Danite band, or the United Brothers of Gideon, was organized on the 4th of July, 1838, and was placed under the command of the apostle David Patten, who for the purpose assumed the name of Captain Fearnot. It is the opinion of some that the Danite band, or Destroying Angels as again they are called, was organized at the recommendation of the governor of Missouri as a means of self-defence against persecutions in that State."

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 21, pages 124-126.

"The Mormons first attracted national notice about the time they quitted Missouri to escape persecution and took refuge in Illinois. In that free State a tract of land was granted them and a charter too carelessly liberal in terms. The whole body, already numbering about 15,000, gathered into a new city of their own, which their prophet, in obedience to a revelation, named Nauvoo; here a body of militia was formed under the name of the Nauvoo legion; and Joe Smith, as mayor, military commander, and supreme head of the Church, exerted an authority almost despotic. The wilderness blossomed and rejoiced, and on a lofty height of this holy city was begun a grotesque temple, built of limestone, with huge monolithic pillars which displayed carvings of moons and suns. … Nauvoo was well laid out, with wide streets which sloped towards well-cultivated farms; all was thrift and sobriety, no spirituous liquors were drunk, and the colonists here, as in their former settlements, furnished the pattern of insect industry. The wonderful proselyting work of this new sect abroad had already begun, and recruits came over from the overplus toilers in the British factory towns. … But there was something in the methods of this sect, not to speak of the jealousy they excited by their prosperity, which bred them trouble here as everywhere else where they came in contact with American commonplace life. It was whispered that the hierarchy of impostors grew rich upon the toils of their simple followers. Polygamy had not yet received the sanction of a divine revelation; and yet the first step towards it was practised in the theory of 'sealing wives' spiritually, which Smith had begun in some mysterious way that it baffled the gentile to discover. Sheriffs, too, were forbidden to serve civil process in Nauvoo without the written permission of its mayor. {2233} All these strange scandals of heathenish pranks, and more, besides, stirred up the neighboring gentiles, plain Illinois backwoodsmen; and the more so that, besides his 3,000 militia, the Mormon prophet controlled 6,000 votes, which, in the close Presidential canvass of 1844, might have been enough to decide the election. Joe Smith, indeed, whose Church nominated him for President, showed a fatal but thoroughly American disposition at this time to carry his power into politics. This king of plain speech, who dressed as a journeyman carpenter, suppressed a newspaper which was set up by seceding Mormons. When complaint was made he resisted Illinois process and proclaimed martial law; the citizens of the surrounding towns armed for a fight. Joe Smith was arrested and thrown into jail at Carthage with his brother Hiram. The rumor spreading that the governor was disposed to release these prisoners, a disorderly band gathered at the jail and shot them [June 27, 1844]. Thus perished Smith, the Mormon founder. His death at first created terror and confusion among his followers, but Brigham Young, his successor, proved a man of great force and sagacity. The exasperated gentiles clamored loudly to expel these religious fanatics from Illinois as they had been expelled from Missouri; and finally, to prevent a civil war, the governor of the State took forcible possession of the holy city, with its unfinished temple, while the Mormon charter of Nauvoo was repealed by the legislature. The Mormons now determined [1846] upon the course which was most suited to their growth, and left American pioneer society to found their New Jerusalem on more enduring foundations west of the Rocky Mountains."

J. Schouler, History of the United States, volume 4, pages 547-549.

ALSO IN: T. Ford, History of Illinois, chapters 8 and 10-11.

A. Davidson and B. Stuvé, History of Illinois, chapter 41.

J. Remy and J. Brenchley, Journey to Great Salt Lake City, book 2, chapters 2-3 (volume 1).

R. F. Burton, The City of the Saints, page 359.

MORMONISM: A. D. 1846-1848. The gentile attack on Nauvoo. Exodus of "the Saints" into the wilderness of the West. Their settlement on the Great Salt Lake.

"During the winter of 1845-46 the Mormons made the most prodigious preparations for removal. All the houses in Nauvoo, and even the temple, were converted into work-shops; and before spring more than 12,000 wagons were in readiness. The people from all parts of the country flocked to Nauvoo to purchase houses and farms, which were sold extremely low, lower than the prices at a sheriff's sale, for money, wagons, horses, oxen, cattle, and other articles of personal property which might be needed by the Mormons in their exodus into the wilderness. By the middle of May it was estimated that 16,000 Mormons had crossed the Mississippi and taken up their line of march with their personal property, their wives and little ones, westward across the continent to Oregon or California; leaving behind them in Nauvoo a small remnant of 1,000 souls, being those who were unable to sell their property, or who having no property to sell were unable to get away. The twelve apostles went first with about 2,000 of their followers. Indictments had been found against nine of them in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Illinois at its December term, 1845, for counterfeiting the current coin of the United States. The United States Marshal had applied to me [the writer being at that time Governor of Illinois] for a militia force to arrest them; but in pursuance of the amnesty agreed on for old offences, believing that the arrest of the accused would prevent the removal of the Mormons, and that if arrested there was not the least chance that any of them would ever be convicted, I declined the application unless regularly called upon by the President of the United States according to law. … It was notorious that none of them could be convicted; for they always commanded evidence and witnesses enough to make a conviction impossible."

T. Ford, History of Illinois, chapter 13.

"The Saints who had as yet been unable to leave Nauvoo continued to labour assiduously at the completion of the temple, so as to accomplish one of the most solemn prophecies of their well-beloved martyr. The sacred edifice was ultimately entirely finished, at the end of April, 1846, after having cost the Saints more than a million dollars. It was consecrated with great pomp on the 1st and 2nd of May, 1846. … The day after the consecration of the temple had been celebrated, the Mormons withdrew from the building all the sacred articles which adorned it, and satisfied with having done their duty in accomplishing, though to no purpose otherwise, a Divine command, they crossed the Mississippi to rejoin those who had gone before them. Nauvoo was abandoned. There remained within its deserted walls but some hundred families, whom the want of means and the inability to sell their effects had not allowed as yet to start upon the road to emigration. The presence of those who were thus detained, together with the bruit caused by the ceremony of dedication, raised the murmurs of the gentiles, and seemed to keep alive their animosity and alarm. Their eager desire to be entirely rid of the Mormons made them extremely sensitive to every idle story respecting the projects of the latter to return. They imagined that the Saints had only left in detachments to seek recruits among the red-skins, meaning to come back with sufficient force once more to take possession of their property in Illinois. These apprehensions rose to such a pitch that the anti-Mormons plunged into fresh acts of illegality and barbarism. … On the 10th of September, 1846, an army of 1,000 men, possessing six pieces of artillery, started to begin the attack under the direction of a person named Carlin, and of the Reverend Mr. Brockman. Nauvoo had only 300 men to oppose to this force, and but five small cannon, made from the iron of an old steamboat. The fire opened on the afternoon of the 10th, and continued on the 11th, 12th and 13th of September." Every attack of the besiegers was repulsed, until they consented to terms under which the remnant of the Mormons was to evacuate the town at the end of five days. "The Mormons had only three men killed and a few wounded during the whole affair; the loss of their enemies is unknown, but it would seem that it was heavy. It was agreed that a committee of five persons should remain at Nauvoo to attend to the interests of the exiles, and on the 17th of September, while the enemy, to the number of 1,625, entered the city to plunder, the remnant of the Mormons crossed the Mississippi to follow 'the track of Israel towards the west.' … {2234} About the end of June, 1846, the first column of the emigrants arrived on the banks of the Missouri, a little above the point of confluence of this immense river with the Platte, in the country of the Pottawatamies, where it stopped to await the detachments in its rear. This spot, now known by the name of Council Bluffs, was christened Kanesville by the Mormons. … At this place, in the course of July, the federal government made an appeal to the patriotism of the Mormons, and asked them to furnish a contingent of 500 men for the Mexican war. Did the government wish to favour the Saints by affording them an opportunity of making money by taking service, or did it merely wish to test their fidelity? This we cannot decide. … The Saints generally regarded this levy as a species of persecution; however … they furnished a battalion of 520 men, and received $20,000 for equipment from the war department." The head quarters of the emigration remained at Kanesville through the winter of 1846-47, waiting for the brethren who had been left behind. There were several encampments, however, some of them about 200 miles in advance. The shelters contrived were of every kind—huts, tents, and caves dug in the earth. The suffering was considerable and many deaths occurred. The Indians of the region were Pottawatamies and Omahas, both hostile to the United States and therefore friendly to the Mormons, whom they looked upon as persecuted foes of the American nation. "On the 14th of April [1847], Brigham Young and eight apostles, at the head of 143 picked men and 70 carts laden with grain and agricultural implements, started in search of Eden in the far-west. … The 23rd of July, 1847, Orson Pratt, escorted by a small advanced guard, was the first to reach the Great Salt Lake. He was joined the following day by Brigham Young and the main body of the pioneers. That day, the 24th of July, was destined to be afterwards celebrated by the Mormons as the anniversary of their deliverance. … Brigham Young declared, by divine inspiration, that they were to establish themselves upon the borders of the Salt Lake, in this region, which was nobody's property, and wherein consequently his people could follow their religion without drawing upon themselves the hatred of any neighbours. He spent several weeks in ascertaining the nature of the country, and then fixed upon a site for the holy city. … When he had thus laid the foundations of his future empire, he set off on his return to Council Bluffs, leaving on the borders of the Salt Lake the greater portion of the companions who had followed him in his distant search. During the summer, a convoy of 566 waggons, laden with large quantities of grain, left Kanesville and followed upon the tracks of the pioneers. … On their arrival at the spot indicated by the president of the Church, they set to work without a moment's repose. Land was tilled, trees and hedges planted, and grain sown before the coming frost." The main body of the emigrants, led by Brigham Young, moved from the banks of the Missouri about the 1st of May, 1848, and arrived at the Salt Lake the following autumn.

J. Remy and J. Brenchley, Journey to Great-Salt-Lake City, book 2, chapter 4 (volume 1).

"On the afternoon of the 22d [August, 1847] a conference was held, at which it was resolved that the place should be called the City of the Great Salt Lake. The term 'Great' was retained for several years, until changed by legislative enactment. It was so named in contradistinction to Little Salt Lake, a term applied to a body of water some 200 miles to the south."

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 21, chapter 10.

MORMONISM: A. D. 1850. Organization of the Territory of Utah.

See UTAH: A. D. 1849-1850.

MORMONISM: A. D. 1857-1859. The rebellion in Utah.

See UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.

MORMONISM: A. D. 1894. Admission of Utah to the Union as a State.

See UTAH: A. D. 1894.

----------MORMONISM: End----------

MOROCCO.

See MAROCCO.

MORONA, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

MORRILL TARIFF, The.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION: A. D. 1861-1864 (UNITED STATES).

MORRIS, Gouverneur, The framing of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787.

The origin of the Erie Canal.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825.

MORRIS, Robert, and the finances of the American Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784.

MORRIS-DANCE, The.

"Both English and foreign glossaries, observes Mr. Douce, uniformly ascribe the origin of this dance to the Moors, although the genuine Moorish or Morisco dance was, no doubt, very different from the European morris. … It has been supposed that the morris-dance was first brought into England in the reign of Edward III., and when John of Gaunt returned from Spain: but it is much more probable that we had it from our Gallic neighbours, or the Flemings."

H. Smith, Festivals, Games, etc., chapter 18.

MORRIS ISLAND, Military operations on.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1863 (JULY: SOUTH CAROLINA).

MORRIS'S PURCHASE.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1786-1799.

MORRISTOWN, N. J.: Washington in winter quarters (1777-1778).

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1777; and 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).

MORTARA, Battle of (1849).

See ITALY; A. D. 1848-1849.

MORTEMER, Battle of.

The French army invading Normandy, A. D. 1054, was surprised by the Normans, in the town of Mortemer and utterly routed. The town was destroyed and never rebuilt.

E. A. Freeman, Norman Conquest, chapter 12, section 2 (volume 3).

MORTIMER'S CROSS, Battle of (1461).

One of the battles in the "Wars of the Roses," fought Feb. 2, 1461, on a small plain called Kingsland Field, near Mortimer's Cross, in Herefordshire, England. The Yorkists, commanded by young Edward, Earl of March (soon afterwards King Edward IV.) were greatly superior in numbers to the Lancastrians, under the Earl of Pembroke, and won a complete victory.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471.

MORTMAIN, The Statute of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1279.

MORTON, Thomas, at Merrymount.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1622-1628.

MORTUATH, The.

See TUATH, THE.

MOSA, The.

The ancient name of the river Meuse.

{2235}

----------MOSCOW: Start--------

MOSCOW: A. D. 1147. Origin of the city.

"The name of Moscow appears for the first time in the chronicles at the date of 1147. It is there said that the Grand Prince George Dolgorouki, having arrived on the domain of a boyard named Stephen Koutchko, caused him to be put to death on some pretext, and that, struck by the position of one of the villages situated on a height washed by the Moskowa, the very spot whereon the Kremlin now stands, he built the city of Moscow. … During the century following its foundation, Moscow remained an obscure and insignificant village of Souzdal. The chroniclers do not allude to it except to mention that it was burned by the Tartars (1237), or that a brother of Alexander Nevski, Michael of Moscow, was killed there in a battle with the Lithuanians. The real founder of the principality of the name was Daniel, a son of Alexander Nevski, who had received this small town and a few villages as his appanage. … He was followed, in due course, by his brothers George and Ivan."

A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 1, chapter 12.

MOSCOW: A. D. 1362-1480. Rise of the duchy which grew to be the Russian Empire.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1237-1480.

MOSCOW: A. D. 1571. Stormed and sacked by the Crim Tartars.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1569-1571.

MOSCOW: A. D. 1812. Napoleon in possession. The burning of the city.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER); and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

----------MOSCOW: End--------

MOSKOWA, BORODINO, Battle of the.

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1812 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).

MOSLEM.

See ISLAM; also MAHOMETAN CONQUEST AND EMPIRE.

MOSQUITO INDIANS AND MOSQUITO COAST.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSQUITO, or MOSQUITO INDIANS; also NICARAGUA: A. D. 1850; and CENTRAL AMERICA: A. D. 1821-1871.

MOTASSEM, Al, Caliph, A. D. 833-841.

MOTAWAKKEL, Al, Caliph, A. D. 847-861.

MOTYE, Siege of.

See SYRACUSE: B. C. 397-396.

MOUGOULACHAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

MOULEY-ISMAEL, Battle of (1835).

See BARBARY STATES: A. D. 1830-1846.

MOULTRIE, Colonel, and the defense of Charleston.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (JUNE).

MOUND-BUILDERS OF AMERICA, The.

See AMERICA, PREHISTORIC.

MOUNT BADON, Battle of.

This battle was fought A. D. 520 and resulted in a crushing defeat of the West Saxons by the Britons, arresting the advance of the latter in their conquest of southwestern England for a generation. It figures in some legends among the victories of King Arthur.

J. R. Green, The Making of England, chapter 3.

MOUNT CALAMATIUS, Battle of.

See SPARTACUS, RISING OF.

MOUNT ETNA, Battle of (1849).

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

MOUNT GAURUS, Battle of.

See ROME: B. C. 343-290.

MOUNT TABOR, Battle of (1799).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST).

MOUNT VESUVIUS, Battle of (B. C. 338).

See ROME: B. C. 339-338.

MOUNTAIN, The Party of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1791 (OCTOBER); 1792 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER); and after, to 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE, The (1857).

See UTAH: A. D. 1857-1859.

MOURU.

See MARGIANA.

MOXO, The Great.

See EL DORADO.

MOXOS, MOJOS, The.

See BOLIVIA: ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS; also, AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

MOYTURA, Battle of.

Celebrated in the legendary history of Ireland and represented as a fatal defeat of the ancient people in that country called the Firbolgs by the new-coming Tuatha-de-Danaan. "Under the name of the 'Battle of the Field of the Tower' [it], was long a favourite theme of Irish song."

T. Moore, History of Ireland, chapter 5 (volume 1).

MOZARABES, MOSTARABES.

The Christian people who remained in Africa and southern Spain after the Moslem conquest, tolerated in the practice of their religion, "were called Mostarabes or Mozarabes; they adopted the Arabic language and customs. … The word is from the Arabic 'musta'rab,' which means one 'who tries to imitate or become an Arab in his manners and language.'"

H. Coppée, History of the Conquest of Spain by the Arab-Moors, book 4, chapter 3 (volume 1), with foot-note.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 51.

MOZART HALL.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1863-1871.

MUFTI.

See SUBLIME PORTE.

MUGELLO, Battle of (A. D. 542).

See ROME: A. D. 535-553.

MUGGLETONIANS.

See RANTERS.

MUGHAL OR MOGUL EMPIRE.

See INDIA: A. D. 1399-1605.

MUGWUMPS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1884.

MUHAJIRIN, The.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

MUHLBERG, Battle of (1547).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552.

MÜHLDORF, OR MAHLDORF, Battle of (1322).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1314-1347.

MULATTO.

See MESTIZO.

MULE, Crompton's, The invention of.

See COTTON MANUFACTURE.

MÜLHAUSEN, Battle of (1674).

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674-1678.

MULLAGHMAST, The Massacre of.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.

MULLIGAN, Colonel James A.: Defense of Lexington, Missouri.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI).

MULTAN, OR MOOLTAN: Siege and capture by the English (1848-1849).

See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.

MUNDA, Battle of.

See ROME: B. C. 45.

MUNDRUCU, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: TUPI.

MUNERA GLADIATORIA.

See LUDI.

----------MUNICH: Start--------

MUNICH: 13th Century. First rise to importance.

See BAVARIA: A. D. 1180-1356.

MUNICH: A. D. 1632. Surrender to Gustavus Adolphus.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1631-1632.

MUNICH: A. D. 1743. Bombardment and capture by the Austrians.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743.

----------MUNICH: End--------

MUNICIPAL CONSTITUTIONS AND FORMS.

See COMMUNE; BOROUGH; and GUILD.

{2236}

MUNICIPAL CURIA OF THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE.

See CURIA, MUNICIPAL.

MUNICIPIUM.

"The term Municipium appears to have been applied originally to those conquered Italian towns which Rome included in her dominion without conferring on the people the Roman suffrage and the capacity of attaining the honours of the Roman state. … If the inhabitants of such Municipia had everything Roman except the right to vote and to be eligible to the Roman magistracies, they had Commercium and Connubium. By virtue of the first, such persons could acquire property within the limits of the Roman state, and could dispose of it by sale, gift, and testament. By virtue of the second, they could contract a legal marriage with the daughter of a Roman citizen."

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 2, chapter 14.

MUNSEES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: DELAWARES, and ALGONQUIAN FAMILY; also, MANHATTAN ISLAND.

----------MÜNSTER: Start--------

MÜNSTER: A. D. 1532-1536. The reign of the Anabaptists.

See ANABAPTISTS OF MÜNSTER.

MÜNSTER: A. D. 1644-1648. Negotiation of the Peace of Westphalia.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648; and NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1646-1648.

----------MÜNSTER: End--------

MUNYCHIA.

See PIRÆUS.

MUNYCHIA, Battle of (B. C. 403).

See ATHENS: B. C. 404-403.

MURA, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: GUCK OR COCO GROUP.

MURAD V., Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1876 (MAY-AUGUST).

MURAT, King of Naples, The career of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY), 1806 (JANUARY-OCTOBER); GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER), to 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE); SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER); ITALY: A. D. 1808-1809; RUSSIA: A. D. 1812; GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813, 1813 (AUGUST), to (OCTOBER); ITALY: A. D. 1814, and 1815.

MURCI.

A name given to degenerate Romans, in the later days of the Empire, who escaped military service by cutting off the fingers of their right hands.

E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 17.

MURET, Battle of (A. D. 1213).

See ALBIGENSES: A. D. 1210-1213; and SPAIN: A. D. 1035-1258.

MURFREESBOROUGH, STONE RIVER, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862-1863 (DECEMBER-JANUARY: TENNESSEE).

MURRAY, The Regent, Assassination of.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568.

MURRHINE VASES.

"The highest prices were paid for the so-called Murrhine vases (vasa Murrhina) brought to Rome from the East. Pompey, after his victory over Mithridates, was the first to bring one of them to Rome, which he placed in the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter. Augustus, as is well known, kept a Murrhine goblet from Cleopatra's treasure for himself, while all her gold plate was melted. The Consularis T. Petronius, who owned one of the largest collections of rare vases, bought a basin from Murrha for 300,000 sestertii; before his death he destroyed this matchless piece of his collection, so as to prevent Nero from laying hold of it. Nero himself paid for a handled drinking-goblet from Murrha a million sestertii. Crystal vases also fetched enormous prices. There is some doubt about the material of these Murrhine vases, which is the more difficult to solve, as the only vase in existence which perhaps may lay claim to that name is too thin and fragile to allow of closer investigation. It was found in the Tyrol in 1837.

See Neue Zeitschrift des Ferdinandeums, volume v. 1839.

Pliny describes the colour of the Murrhine vases as a mixture of white and purple; according to some ancient writers, they even improved the taste of the wine drunk out of them."

E. Guhl and W. Koner, Life of the Greeks and Romans, section 91.

"I believe it is now understood that the murrha of the Romans was not porcelain, as had been supposed from the line, 'Murrheaque in Parthis pocula cocta focis' (Propert. iv. 5. 26.), but an imitation in coloured glass of a transparent stone."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 39, foot-note.

MURSA, Battle of (A. D. 351).

See ROME: A. D. 337-361.

MUSCADINS.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (JULY-APRIL).

MUSCULUS, The.

A huge movable covered way which the Romans employed in siege operations. Its construction, of heavy timbers, with a roof-covering of bricks, clay and hides, is described in Cæsar's account of the siege of Massilia.

Cæsar, The Civil War, book 2, chapter 10.

MUSEUM, British.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN: ENGLAND.

MUSEUM OF ALEXANDRIA, The.

See ALEXANDRIA: B. C. 282-246.

MUSKHOGEES, OR MASKOKALGIS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

MUSSULMANS.

See ISLAM.

MUSTAPHA I., Turkish Sultan, A. D. 1617-1618; and 1622-1623.

Mustapha II., Turkish Sultan, 1695-1703.

Mustapha III., Turkish Sultan, 1757-1774.

Mustapha IV., Turkish Sultan, 1807-1808.

MUTA, Battle of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 609-632.

MUTHUL, Battle of the.

See NUMIDIA: B. C. 118-104.

MUTINA, Battle of (B. C. 72).

See SPARTACUS, RISING OF.

MUTINA, Battle of (B. C. 43).

See ROME: B. C. 44-42.

MUTINA AND PARMA.

On the final conquest of Cisalpine Gaul by the Romans, about 220 B. C. the Senate planted the colonies of Mutina (Modena) and Parma on the line of the Æmilian Road and assigned the territory of the Apuans to the new colony of Luca (Lucca).

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 41 (volume 2).

MUTINY ACTS, The English.

In 1689 the Parliament (called a Convention at first) which settled the English crown upon William of Orange and Mary, "passed the first Act for governing the army as a separate and distinct body under its own peculiar laws, called 'The Mutiny Act.' … The origin of the first Mutiny Act was this. France had declared war against Holland, who applied under the treaty of Nimeguen to England for troops. Some English regiments refused to go, and it was felt that the common law could not be employed to meet the exigency. The mutineers were for the time by military force compelled to submit, happily without bloodshed; but the necessity for soldiers to be governed by their own code and regulations became manifest. Thereupon the aid of Parliament was invoked, but cautiously. {2237} The first Mutiny Act was very short in enactments and to continue only six months. It recited that standing armies and courts martial were unknown to English law, and enacted that no soldier should on pain of death desert his colours, or mutiny. At the expiration of the six months another similar Act was passed, also only for six months: and so on until the present practice was established of regulating and governing the army, now a national institution, by an annual Mutiny Act, which is requisite for the legal existence of a recognised force, whereby frequent meeting of Parliament is indirectly secured, if only to preserve the army in existence."

W. H. Torriano, William the Third, chapter 7.

"These are the two effectual securities against military power: that no pay can be issued to the troops without a previous authorisation by the commons in a committee of supply, and by both houses in an act of appropriation; and that no officer or soldier can be punished for disobedience, nor any court-martial held, without the annual re-enactment of the mutiny bill."

H. Hallam, Constitutional History of England, chapter 15 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: Lord Macaulay, History of England, chapter 11 (volume 3).

MUTINY OF THE ENGLISH FLEET.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.

MUTINY OF THE PHILADELPHIA LINE.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781 (JANUARY).

MUTINY OF THE SEPOYS.

See INDIA: A. D. 1857, to 1857-1858 (JULY-JUNE).

MUYSCAS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: CHIBCHAS.

MYCALE, Battle of.

See GREECE: B. C. 479.

MYCENÆ.

See GREECE: MYCENÆ: AND ITS KINGS; also ARGOS; HERACLEIDÆ; and HOMER.

MYCIANS, The.

A race, so-called by the Greeks, who lived anciently on the coast of the Indian Ocean, east of modern Kerman. They were known to the Persians as Maka.

G. Rawlinson, Five Great Monarchies: Persia, chapter 1.

MYLÆ, Naval battle at (B. C. 260).

See PUNIC WAR, THE FIRST.

MYONNESUS, Battle of (B. C. 190).

See SELEUCIDÆ: B. C. 224-187.

MYRMIDONS, The.

"Æakus was the son of Zeus, born of Ægina, daughter of Asopus, whom the god had carried off and brought into the island to which he gave her name. … Æakus was alone in Ægina: to relieve him from this solitude, Zeus changed all the ants in the island into men, and thus provided him with a numerous population, who, from their origin, were called Myrmidons."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 1, chapter 10.

According to the legends, Peleus, Telamon and Phocus were the sons of Æakus; Peleus migrated, with the Myrmidons, or some part of them, to Thessaly, and from there the latter accompanied his son Achilles to Troy.

MYSIANS, The.

See PHRYGIANS.—MYSIANS.

MYSORE, The founding of the kingdom of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769.

MYSORE WARS, with Hyder Ali and Tippoo Saib.

See INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769; 1780-1783; 1785-1793; and 1798-1805.

MYSTERIES, Ancient Religious.

See ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES.

MYSTICISM. QUIETISM.

"The peculiar form of devotional religion known under these names was not, as most readers are aware, the offspring of the 17th century. It rests, in fact, on a substratum of truth which is coeval with man's being, and expresses one of the elementary principles of our moral constitution. … The system of the Mystics arose from the instinctive yearning of man's soul for communion with the Infinite and the Eternal. Holy Scripture abounds with such aspirations—the Old Testament as well as the New; but that which under the Law was 'a shadow of good things to come,' has been transformed by Christianity into a living and abiding reality. The Gospel responds to these longings for intercommunion between earth and heaven by that fundamental article of our faith, the perpetual presence and operation of God the Holy Ghost in the Church, the collective 'body of Christ,' and in the individual souls of the regenerate. But a sublime mystery like this is not incapable of misinterpretation. … The Church has ever found it a difficult matter to distinguish and adjudicate between what may be called legitimate or orthodox Mysticism and those corrupt, degrading, or grotesque versions of it which have exposed religion to reproach and contempt. Some Mystics have been canonized as saints; others, no less deservedly, have been consigned to obloquy as pestilential heretics. It was in the East—proverbially the fatherland of idealism and romance—that the earliest phase of error in this department of theology was more or less strongly developed. We find that in the 4th century the Church was troubled by a sect called Massalians or Euchites, who placed the whole of religion in the habit of mental prayer; alleging as their authority the Scripture precept 'That men ought always to pray, and not to faint.' They were for the most part monks of Mesopotamia and Syria; there were many of them at Antioch when St. Epiphanius wrote his Treatise against heresies, A. D. 376. They held that every man is from his birth possessed by an evil spirit or familiar demon, who can only be cast out by the practice of continual prayer. They disparaged the Sacraments, regarding them as things indifferent: they rejected manual labor; and, although professing to be perpetually engaged in prayer, they slept, we are told, the greater part of the day, and pretended that in that state they received revelations from above. … The Massalians did not openly separate from the Church; they were condemned, however, by two Councils—one at Antioch in 391, the other at Constantinople in 426. Delusions of the same kind were reproduced from time to time in the Oriental Church; and, as is commonly the case, the originators of error were followed by a race of disciples who advanced considerably beyond them. The Hesychasts, or Quietists of Mount Athos in the 14th century, seem to have been fanatics of an extreme type. They imagined that, by a process of profound contemplation, they could discern internally the light of the Divine Presence—the 'glory of God'—the very same which was disclosed to the Apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration. Hence they were also called Thaborites. {2238} The soul to which this privilege was vouchsafed had no need to practise any of the external acts or rites of religion. … The theory of abstract contemplation, with the extraordinary fruits supposed to be derived from it, travelled in due course into the West, and there gave birth to the far-famed school of the Mystics, of which there were various ramifications. The earliest exponent of the system in France was John Scotus Erigena, the contemporary and friend of Charles the Bald. … Erigena incurred the censures of the Holy See; but the results of his teaching were permanent. … The Mystics, or Theosophists as some style them, attained a position of high renown and influence at Paris towards the close of the 12th century. Here two of the ablest expositors of the learning of the middle age, Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, initiated crowds of ardent disciples into the mysteries of the 'via interna,' and of 'pure love'—that marvellous quality by which the soul, sublimated and etherialized, ascends into the very presence-chamber of the King of kings. … The path thus traced was trodden by many who were to take rank eventually as the most perfect masters of spiritual science; among them are the venerated names of Thomas à Kempis, St. Bonaventure, John Tauler of Strasburg, Gerson, and St. Vincent Ferrier. … But, on the other hand, it is not less true that emotional religion has been found to degenerate, in modern as well as in ancient times, into manifold forms of moral aberration. … To exalt above measure the dignity and privileges of the spiritual element in man carries with it the danger of disparaging the material part of our nature; and this results in the preposterous notion that, provided the soul be absorbed in the contemplation of things Divine, the actions of the body are unimportant and indifferent. How often the Church has combated and denounced this most insidious heresy is well known to all who have a moderate acquaintance with its history. Under the various appellations of Beghards, Fratricelli, Cathari, Spirituals, Albigenses, Illuminati, Guerinets, and Quietists, the self-same delusion has been sedulously propagated in different parts of Christendom, and with the same ultimate consequences. A revival of the last-named sect, the Quietists, took place in Spain about the year 1675, when Michel de Molinos, a priest of the diocese of Saragossa, published his treatise called 'The Spiritual Guide,' or, in the Latin translation, 'Manuductio spiritualis.' His leading principle, like that of his multifarious predecessors, was that of habitual abstraction of the mind from sensible objects, with a view to gain, by passive contemplation, not only a profound realisation of God's presence, but so perfect a communion with Him as to end in absorption into His essence. … Persons of the highest distinction—Cardinals, Inquisitors, nay, even Pope Innocent himself—were suspected of sharing these dangerous opinions. Molinos was arrested and imprisoned, and in due time the Inquisition condemned sixty-eight propositions from his works; a sentence which was confirmed by a Papal bull in August, 1687. Having undergone public penance, he was admitted to absolution; after which, in 'merciful' consideration of his submission and repentance, he was consigned for the rest of his days to the dungeons of the Holy Office. Here he died in November, 1692. … 'The principles of Quietism had struck root so deeply, that they were not to be soon dislodged either by the terrors of the Inquisition, or by the well-merited denunciations of the Vatican. The system was irresistibly fascinating to minds of a certain order. Among those who were dazzled by it was the celebrated Jeanne Marie De la Mothe Guyon," whose ardent propagation of her mystic theology in the court circles of France—where Fenelon, Madame de Maintenon, and other important personages were greatly influenced—gave rise to bitter controversies and agitations. In the end, Madame Guyon was silenced and imprisoned and Fenelon was subjected to humiliating papal censures.

W. H. Jervis, History of the Church of France, volume 2, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: R. A. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics.

J. Bigelow, Miguel Molinos, the Quietist.

T. C. Upham, Life of M'me Guyon.

H. L. S. Lear, Fenelon, chapters 3-5.

S. E. Herrick, Some Heretics of Yesterday, chapter 1.

H. C. Lea, Chapters from the Religious History of Spain: Mystics.

MYTILENE, Siege of.

See LESBOS.

N

N. S. New Style.

See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.

NAARDEN: A. D. 1572. Massacre by the Spaniards.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1572-1573.

NABATHEANS, The.

"Towards the seventh century B. C., the name Edomite suddenly disappears, and is used only by some of the Israelitish prophets, who, in doing so, follow ancient traditions. Instead of it is found the hitherto unknown word, Nabathean. Nevertheless the two names, Nabathean and Edomite, undoubtedly refer to the same people, dwelling in the same locality, possessing the same empire, with the same boundaries, and the same capital, Selah [Petra]. Whence arose this change of name? According to an appearances from an internal revolution, of which we have no record, a change in the royal race and in the dominant tribe."

F. Lenormant, Manual of Ancient History, book 7, chapter 4.

"This remarkable nation [the Nabatheans, or Nabatæans] has often been confounded with its eastern neighbours, the wandering Arabs, but it is more closely related to the Aramæan branch than to the proper children of Ishmael. This Aramæan or, according to the designation of the Occidentals, Syrian stock must have in very early times sent forth from its most ancient settlements about Babylon a colony, probably for the sake of trade, to the northern end of the Arabian gulf; these were the Nabatæans on the Sinaitic peninsula, between the gulf of Suez and Aila, in the region of Petra (Wadi Mousa). In their ports the wares of the Mediterranean were exchanged for those of India; the great southern caravan-route, which ran from Gaza to the mouth of the Euphrates and the Persian gulf, passed through the capital of the Nabatæans—Petra—whose still magnificent rock-palaces and rock-tombs furnish clearer evidence of the Nabatæan civilization than does an almost extinct tradition."

T. Mommsen, History of Rome, book 5, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: H. Ewald, History of Israel, volume 5, page 351.

{2239}

NABOB. NAWAB.

Under the Moghul empire, certain viceroys or governors of provinces bore the title of Nawab, as the Nawab Wuzeer or Vizier of Oude, which became in English speech Nabob, and acquired familiar use in England as a term applied to rich Anglo-Indians.

NADIR SHAH, sovereign of Persia, A. D. 1736-1747.

NAEFELS, OR NÖFELS, Battle of (1388).

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1386-1388.

Battle of (1799).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).

NAGPUR: The British acquisition and annexation.

See INDIA: A. D. 1816-1819, and 1848-1856.

NAHANARVALI, The.

See LYGIANS.

NAHUA PEOPLES. NAHUATL.

See MEXICO, ANCIENT.

NAIRS, The.

See INDIA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

NAISSUS, The Battle of.

See GOTHS: A. D. 268-270.

NAJARA, Battle of.

See NAVARETTE.

NAMANGAN, Battle of (1876).

See RUSSIA: A. D. 1859-1876.

NAMAQUA, The.

See SOUTH AFRICA: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

NAMNETES, NANNETES, The.

See VENETI OF WESTERN GAUL.

----------NAMUR: Start--------

NAMUR: A. D. 1692. Siege and capture by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1692.

NAMUR: A. D. 1695. Siege and recovery by William of Orange.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1695-1696.

NAMUR: A. D. 1713. Ceded to Holland.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714; and NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1713-1715.

NAMUR: A. D. 1746-1748. Taken by the French and ceded to Austria.

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1747; and AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: CONGRESS.

----------NAMUR: End--------

NANA SAHIB, and the Sepoy Revolt.

See INDIA: A. D. 1848-1856; 1857 (MAY-AUGUST); and 1857-1858 (JULY-JUNE).

NANCY: Defeat and death of Charles the Bold (1477).

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1476-1477.

----------NANKING: Start--------

NANKING: A. D. 1842. Treaty ending the Opium War and opening Chinese ports.

See CHINA: A. D. 1839-1842.

NANKING: A. D. 1853-1864. The capital of the Taiping Rebels.

See CHINA: A. D. 1850-1864.

----------NANKING: End--------

----------NANTES: Start--------

NANTES: Origin of the name.

See VENETI OF WESTERN GAUL.

NANTES: A. D. 1598. The Edict of Henry IV.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1598-1599.

NANTES: A. D. 1685. The Revocation of the Edict.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1681-1698.

NANTES: A. D. 1793. Unsuccessful attack by the Vendeans. The crushing of the revolt and the frightful vengeance of the Terrorists. The demoniac Carrier and his Noyades.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER); THE CIVIL WAR; and 1793-1794 (OCTOBER-APRIL).

----------NANTES: End--------

NANTICOKES, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

NANTWICH, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (JANUARY).

NAO.

See CARAVELS.

NAPATA.

See ETHIOPIA.

----------NAPLES: Start--------

NAPLES: Origin of the city.

See NEAPOLIS AND PALÆPOLIS.

NAPLES: A. D. 536-543. Siege and capture by Belisarius. Recovery by the Goths.

See ROME: A. D. 535-553.

NAPLES: A. D. 554-800. The dukedom.

See ROME: A. D. 554-800.

NAPLES: 8-9th Centuries. The duchy of Beneventum.

See BENEVENTUM; also, AMALFI.

NAPLES: A. D. 1000-1080. The Norman Conquest. Grant by the Pope as a fief of the Church.

See ITALY: A. D. 1000-1090.

NAPLES: A. D. 1127. Union of Apulia with Sicily and formation of the kingdom of Naples or the Two Sicilies.

See ITALY: A. D. 1081-1194.

NAPLES: A. D. 1282-1300. Separation from Sicily. Continuance as a separate kingdom under the House of Anjou. Adhesion to the name "Sicily."

See ITALY: A. D. 1282-1300; also, TWO SICILIES.

NAPLES: A. D. 1312-1313. Hostilities between King Robert and the Emperor, Henry VII.

See ITALY: A. D. 1310-1313.

NAPLES: A. D. 1313-1328. King Robert's leadership of the Guelf interest in Italy. His part in the wars of Tuscany.

See ITALY: A. D. 1313-1330.

NAPLES: A. D. 1343-1389. The troubled reign of Joanna I. Murder of her husband, Andrew of Hungary. Political effects of the Great Schism in the Church. War of Charles of Durazzo and Louis of Anjou. Interfering violence of Pope Urban VI.

See ITALY: A. D. 1343-1389.

NAPLES: A. D. 1386-1414. Civil war between the Durazzo and the Angevin parties. Success of Ladislas. His capture, loss, and recapture of Rome.

See ITALY: A. D. 1386-1414.

NAPLES: A. D. 1414-1447. Renewal of civil war. Defeat of the Angevins and acquisition of the crown by Alfonso, king of Aragon and Sicily. League with Florence and Venice against Milan.

See ITALY: A. D. 1412-1447.

NAPLES: A. D.1447-1454. Claim of King Alfonso to the duchy of Milan. War with Milan and Florence.

See MILAN: A. D. 1447-1454.

NAPLES: A. D. 1458. Separation of the crown from those of Aragon and Sicily. Left to an illegitimate son of Alfonso. Revived French claims.

See ITALY: A. D. 1447-1480.

NAPLES: A. D. 1494-1496. Invasion and temporary conquest by Charles VIII. of France. Retreat of the French. Venetian acquisitions in Apulia.

See ITALY: A. D. 1492-1494, 1494-1496; and VENICE: A. D. 1494-1503.

NAPLES: A. D. 1501-1504. Perfidious treaty of partition between Louis XII. of France and Ferdinand of Aragon. Their joint conquest. Their quarrel and war. The French expelled. The Spaniards in possession.

See ITALY: A. D. 1501-1504.

NAPLES: A. D. 1504-1505. Relinquishment of French claims.

See ITALY: A. D. 1504-1506.

NAPLES: A. D. 1508-1509. The League of Cambrai against Venice.

See VENICE: A. D. 1508-1509.

NAPLES: A. D. 1528. Siege by the French and successful defense.

See ITALY: A. D. 1527-1529.

NAPLES: A. D. 1528-1570. Under the Spanish viceroys. Ravages of the Turks along the coast. The blockade and peril of the city. Revolt against the Inquisition. Alva's repulse of the French.

See ITALY: A. D. 1528-1570; and FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

{2240}

NAPLES: A. D. 1544. Repeated renunciation of the claims of Francis I.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1532-1547.

NAPLES: A. D. 1647-1654. Revolt of Masaniello. Undertakings of the Duke of Guise and the French.

See ITALY: A. D. 1646-1654.

NAPLES: A. D. 1713. The kingdom ceded to the House of Austria.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

NAPLES: A. D. 1734-1735. Occupation by the Spaniards. Cession to Spain, with Sicily, forming a kingdom for Don Carlos, the first of the Neapolitan Bourbons.

See ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735; and FRANCE: A. D. 1733-1735.

NAPLES: A. D. 1742. The neutrality of the kingdom in the War of the Austrian Succession enforced by England.

See ITALY: A. D. 1741-1743.

NAPLES: A. D. 1744. The War of the Austrian Succession. Neutrality broken.

See ITALY: A. D. 1744.

NAPLES: A. D. 1749-1792. Under the Spanish-Bourbon regime.

See ITALY: A. D. 1749-1792.

NAPLES: A. D. 1769. Seizure of Papal territory. Demand for the suppression of the Order of the Jesuits.

See JESUITS: A. D. 1761-1769.

NAPLES: A. D. 1793. Joined in the Coalition against Revolutionary France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

NAPLES: A. D. 1796. Armistice with Bonaparte. Treaty of Peace.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER), and (OCTOBER).

NAPLES: A. D. 1798-1799. The king's attack upon the French at Rome. His defeat and flight. French occupation of the capital. Creation of the Parthenopeian Republic.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-APRIL).

NAPLES: A. D. 1799. Expulsion of the French. Restoration of the king.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1799 (AUGUST-DECEMBER).

NAPLES: A. D. 1800-1801. The king's assistance to the Allies. Saved from Napoleon's vengeance by the intercession of the Russian Czar. Treaty of Foligno.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (JUNE-FEBRUARY).

NAPLES: A. D. 1805 (April). Joined in the Third Coalition against France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (JANUARY-APRIL).

NAPLES: A. D. 1805-1806. Napoleon's edict of dethronement against the king and queen. Its enforcement by French arms. Joseph Bonaparte made king of the Two Sicilies.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (DECEMBER-SEPTEMBER)

NAPLES: A. D. 1808. The crown resigned by Joseph Bonaparte (now king of Spain), and conferred on Joachim Murat.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1808 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).

NAPLES: A. D. 1808-1809. Murat on the throne. Expulsion of the English from Capri. Popular discontent. Rise of the Carbonari. Civil war in Calabria.

See ITALY: A. D. 1808-1809.

NAPLES: A. D. 1814. Desertion of Napoleon by Murat. His treaty with the Allies.

See ITALY: A. D. 1814.

NAPLES: A. D. 1815. Murat's attempt to head an Italian national movement. His downfall and fate. Restoration of the Bourbon Ferdinand.

See ITALY: A. D. 1815.

NAPLES: A. D. 1815. Accession to the Holy Alliance.

See HOLY ALLIANCE.

NAPLES: A. D. 1820-1821. Insurrection. Concession of a Constitution. Perjury and duplicity of the king. Intervention of Austria to overthrow the Constitution. Merciless re-establishment of despotism.

See ITALY: A. D. 1820-1821.

NAPLES: A. D. 1820-1822. The Congresses of Troppau, Laybach and Verona. Austrian intervention sanctioned.

See VERONA, THE CONGRESS OF.

NAPLES: A. D. 1830. Death of Francis I. Accession of Ferdinand II.

See ITALY: A. D.1830-1832.

NAPLES: A. D. 1848. Abortive revolt.

See ITALY: A. D. 1848-1849.

NAPLES: A. D. 1859-1861. Death of Ferdinand II. Accession of Francis II. The overthrow of his kingdom by Garibaldi. Its absorption in the kingdom of Italy.

See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859; and 1859-1861.

----------NAPLES: End--------

NAPO, QUIJO, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ANDESIANS.

NAPOLEON I.: His career.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (JULY-DECEMBER); and 1795 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER), to 1815 (JUNE-AUGUST).

NAPOLEON III.: His career as conspirator, President of the French Republic, and Emperor.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1830-1840; and 1848 (APRIL-DECEMBER), to 1870 (SEPTEMBER).

----------NARBONNE: Start--------

NARBONNE: Founding of the city.

"In the year B. C. 118 it was proposed to settle a Roman colony in the south of France at Narbo (Narbonne). … The Romans must have seized some part of this country, or they could not have made a colony, which implies the giving of land to settlers. Narbo was an old native town which existed at least as early as the latter part of the sixth century before the Christian era. … The possession of Narbo gave the Romans easy access to the fertile valley of the Garonne, and it was not long before they took and plundered Tolosa (Toulouse), which is on that river. … Narbo also commanded the road into Spain."

G. Long, Decline of the Roman Republic, volume 1, chapter 22.

NARBONNE: A. D. 437. Besieged by the Goths.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 419-451.

NARBONNE: A. D. 525-531. The capital of the Visigoths.

See GOTHS (VISIGOTHS): A. D. 507-711.

NARBONNE: A. D. 719. Capture and occupation by the Moslems.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 715-732.

NARBONNE: A. D. 752-759. Siege and recovery from the Moslems.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 752-759.

----------NARBONNE: End--------

NARISCI, The.

See MARCOMANNI.

NARRAGANSETTS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY; RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636; and NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637, 1674-1675, 1675, and 1676-1678.

NARSES, Campaigns of.

See ROME: A. D. 535-553.

NARVA, Siege and Battle of (1700).

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1697-1700.

NARVAEZ, Expedition of.

See FLORIDA: A. D. 1528-1542.

NASEBY, Battle of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE).

----------NASHVILLE, Tennessee: Start--------

NASHVILLE, Tennessee: A. D. 1779-1784. Origin and name of the city.

See TENNESSEE: A. D. 1785-1796.

{2241}

NASHVILLE, Tennessee: A. D. 1862. Occupied by the Union forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY: KENTUCKY-TENNESSEE); and (FEBRUARY-APRIL: TENNESSEE).

NASHVILLE, Tennessee: A. D. 1864. Under siege. Defeat of Hood's army.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A D. 1864 (DECEMBER: TENNESSEE).

----------NASHVILLE, Tennessee: End--------

NASI, The.

This was the title of the President of the Jewish Sanhedrin.

NASR-ED-DEEN, Shah of Persia, A. D. 1848-.

NASSAU, The House of.

"We find an Otho, Count of Nassau, so long ago as the beginning of the 10th century, employed as general under the Emperor Henry I … in subduing a swarm of savage Hungarians, who for many years had infested Germany. … The same fortunate warrior had a principal hand afterwards in reducing the Vandals, Danes, Sclavonians, Dalmatians, and Bohemians. Among the descendants of Otho of Nassau, Walram I and III more particularly distinguished themselves in the cause of the German Emperors; the former under the victorious Otho I, the latter under Conrad II. It was to these faithful services of his progenitors that, in a great measure, were owing the large possessions of Henry, surnamed the Rich, third in descent from the last mentioned Walram, and grandfather to the brave but unhappy Emperor Adolphus [deposed and slain at the battle of Gelheim, in 1298.]

See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.

The accession, by marriage, of Breda, Vianden, and other lordships in the Netherlands, gave the Nassaus such a weight in those provinces that John II of Nassau-Dillemburg, and his son Engelbert II, were both successively appointed Governors of Brabant by the Sovereigns of that State [Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and his son-in-law, the Emperor Maximilian]. … The last, who was likewise honoured with the commission of Maximilian I's Lieutenant-General in the Low-Countries, immortalized his fame, at the same time that he secured his master's footing there, by the glorious victory of Guinegaste,"—or Guinegate, or the "Battle of the Spurs."

See FRANCE: A. D. 1513—1515.

J. Breval, History of the House of Nassau, pages 2-3.

Engelbert II. dying childless, "was succeeded by his brother John, whose two sons, Henry and William, of Nassau, divided the great inheritance after their father's death. William succeeded to the German estates, became a convert to Protestantism, and introduced the Reformation into his dominions. Henry, the eldest son, received the family possessions and titles in Luxembourg, Brabant, Flanders and Holland, and distinguished himself as much as his uncle Engelbert, in the service of the Burgundo-Austrian house. The confidential friend of Charles V., whose governor he had been in that Emperor's boyhood, he was ever his most efficient and reliable adherent. It was he whose influence placed the imperial crown upon the head of Charles. In 1515 he espoused Claudia de Chalons, sister of Prince Philibert of Orange, 'in order,' as he wrote to his father, 'to be obedient to his imperial Majesty, to please the King of France, and more particularly for the sake of his own honor and profit.' His son Rene de Nassau-Chalons succeeded Philibert. The little principality of Orange, so pleasantly situated between Provence and Dauphiny, but in such, dangerous proximity to the seat of the 'Babylonian captivity' of the popes at Avignon, thus passed to the family of Nassau. The title was of high antiquity. Already in the reign of Charlemagne, Guillaume au Court-Nez, or 'William with the Short Nose,' had defended the little town of Orange against the assaults of the Saracens. The interest and authority acquired in the demesnes thus preserved by his valor became extensive, and in process of time hereditary in his race. The principality became an absolute and free sovereignty, and had already descended, in defiance of the Salic law, through the three distinct families of Orange, Baux, and Chalons. In 1544, Prince Rene died at the Emperor's feet in the trenches of Saint Dizier. Having no legitimate children, he left all his titles and estates to his cousin-german, William of Nassau [the great statesman and soldier, afterwards known as William the Silent], son of his father's brother William, who thus at the age of eleven years became William the Ninth of Orange."

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

The Dutch branch of the House of Nassau is now represented by the royal family of Holland. The possessions of the German branch, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, after frequent partitioning, was finally gathered into a duchy, which Prussia extinguished and absorbed in 1866.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866.

ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, Orange (Macmillan's Magazine, February, 1875).

Baron Maurier, Lives of all the Princes of Orange.

See, also, ORANGE; and GUELDERLAND: A. D. 1079-1473.

NAT TURNER'S INSURRECTION.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1828-1832.

----------NATAL: Start--------

NATAL: The Name.

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.

NATAL: A. D. 1834-1843. Founding of the colony as a Dutch republic. Its absorption in the British dominions.

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1806-1881.

----------NATAL: End--------

NATALIA, Queen of Servia.

See BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1879-1889.

NATCHEZ, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: NATCHESAN FAMILY, and MUSKHOGEAN FAMILY.

NATCHEZ: A. D. 1862. Taken by the National forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY-JULY: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

NATCHITOCHES, The.

See TEXAS: THE ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS.

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, French Revolution.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1789 (JUNE).

NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, German Revolution.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1848 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

NATIONAL BANK SYSTEM.

See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1861-1878.

NATIONAL CONVENTION, French, End of the.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1795 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

NATIONAL LIBRARY OF FRANCE.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN: FRANCE.

NATIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1825-1828.

NATIONALISTS, OR HOME RULERS, Irish.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1885-1886.

{2242}

NATIONALITY, The Principle of.

"Among the French a nationality is regarded as the work of history, ratified by the will of man. The elements composing it may be very different in their origin. The point of departure is of little importance; the only essential thing is the point reached. The Swiss nationality is the most complete. It embraces three families of people, each of which speaks its own language. Moreover, since the Swiss territory belongs to three geographical regions, separated by high mountains, Switzerland, which has vanquished the fatality of nature, from both the ethnographical and geographical point of view, is a unique and wonderful phenomenon. But she is a confederation, and for a long time has been a neutral country. Thus her constitution has not been subjected to the great ordeal of fire and sword. France, despite her diverse races—Celtic, German, Roman, and Basque—has formed a political entity that most resembles a moral person. The Bretons and Alsacians, who do not all understand the language of her government, have not been the least devoted of her children in the hour of tribulation. Among the great nations France is the nation par excellence. Elsewhere the nationality blends, or tends to blend, with the race, a natural development and, hence, one devoid of merit. All the countries that have not been able to unite their races into a nation, have a more or less troubled existence. Prussia has not been able to nationalize (that is the proper word to use) her Polish subjects; hence she has a Polish question, not to mention at present any other. England has an Irish question. Both Turkey and Austria have a number of such questions. Groups of people in various parts of the Austrian Empire demand from the Emperor that they may be allowed to live as Germans, Hungarians, Tsechs, Croatians, in fact, even as Italians. They do not revolt against him; on the contrary, each of them offers him a crown. The time is, however, past when a single head can wear several crowns; to-day every crown is heavy. These race claims are not merely a cause of internal troubles; the agitations that they arouse may lead to great wars. Evidently no state will ever interpose between Ireland and England, but, while quarrels take place between Germans and Slavs, there will intervene the two conflicting forces of Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism, formidable results and final consequences of ethnographical patriotism. Pan-Germanism and Pan-Slavism are, indeed, not forces officially acknowledged and organized. The Emperor of Germany can honestly deny that he is a Pan-Germanist, and the Tsar that he is a Pan-Slavist. Germans and Slavs of Austria, and Slavs of the Balkans, may, for their part, desire to remain Austrian or independent, as they are to-day. It is none the less true, however, that there is in Europe an old quarrel between two great races, that each of them is represented by a powerful empire, and that these empires cannot forever remain unconcerned about the quarrels of the two races. … The chief application of the principle of nationality has been the formation of the Italian and German nations. In former times the existence, in the centre of the Continent, of two objects of greed was a permanent cause of war. Will the substitution of two important states for German anarchy and Italian polyarchy prove a guaranty of future peace?"

E. Lavisse, General View of the Political History of Europe, chapter 5, sections 6-7.

NATIONALRATH, The.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1848-1890.

NATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITIES.

See EDUCATION, MEDIÆVAL.

NATIVE STATES OF INDIA.

See INDIA: A. D. 1877.

NATIVI.

See SLAVERY, MEDIÆVAL, &c.: ENGLAND.

NAUARCHI.

The title given in ancient Sparta to the commanders of the fleet. At Athens "the term Nauarchi seems to have been officially applied only to the commanders of the so-called sacred triremes."

G. Schömann, Antiquities of Greece: The State, part 3, chapters 1, and 3.

NAUCRATIS.

See NAUKRATIS.

NAUKRARIES.

See PHYLÆ.

NAUKRATIS.

"Naukratis was for a long time the privileged port [in Egypt] for Grecian commerce with Egypt. No Greek merchant was permitted to deliver goods in any other part (port), or to enter any other of the mouths of the Nile except the Kanôpic. If forced into any of them by stress of weather, he was compelled to make oath that his arrival was a matter of necessity, and to convey his goods round by sea into the Kanôpic branch to Naukratis; and if the weather still forbade such a proceeding, the merchandise was put into barges and conveyed round to Naukratis by the internal canals of the delta. Such a monopoly, which made Naukratis in Egypt something like Canton in China or Nangasaki in Japan, no longer subsisted in the time of Herodotus. … At what precise time Naukratis first became licensed for Grecian trade, we cannot directly make out. But there seems reason to believe that it was the port to which the Greek merchants first went, so soon as the general liberty of trading with the country was conceded to them; and this would put the date of such grant at least as far back as the foundation of Kyrene, … about 630 B. C., during the reign of Psammetichus. … [About a century later, Amasis] sanctioned the constitution of a formal and organised emporium or factory, invested with commercial privileges, and armed with authority exercised by presiding officers regularly chosen. This factory was connected with, and probably grew out of, a large religious edifice and precinct, built at the joint cost of nine Grecian cities: four of them Ionic,—Chios, Teos, Phokæa and Klazomenæ; four Doric,—Rhodes, Knidus, Halikarnassus, and Phaselis; and one Æolic,—Mitylene. By these nine cities the joint temple and factory was kept up and its presiding magistrates chosen; but its destination, for the convenience of Grecian commerce generally, seems revealed by the imposing title of The Hellênion."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 20.

The site of Naukratis has been determined lately by the excavations of Mr. W. M. Flinders Petrie, begun in 1885, the results of which are appearing in the publications of the "Egypt Exploration Fund." The ruins of the ancient city are found buried under a mound called Nebireh. Its situation was west of the Canobic branch of the Nile, on a canal which connected it with that stream.

See EGYPT: B. C. 670-525.

NAULOCHUS, Battle of.

A naval battle fought near Naulochus, on the coast of Sicily, in which Agrippa, commanding for the triumvir Octavius, defeated and destroyed the fleet of Sextus Pompeius, B. C. 36.

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 27.

{2243}

NAUMACHIÆ.

The naumachiæ of the Romans were structures resembling excavated amphitheatres, but having the large central space filled with water, for the representation of naval combats. "The great Naumachia of Augustus was 1,800 feet long and 1,200 feet broad."

R. Burn. Rome and the Campagna, introduction.

NAUPACTUS.

See MESSENIAN WAR, THE THIRD; and GREECE: B. C. 357-336.

NAUPACTUS, Battle of (B. C. 429).

See GREECE: B. C. 429-427.

NAUPACTUS, Treaty of.

A treaty, concluded B. C. 217, which terminated what was called the Social War, between the Achæan League, joined with Philip of Macedonia, and the Ætolian League, in alliance with Sparta.

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 63.

ALSO IN: E. A. Freeman, History of Federal Government, chapter 8, section 1.

NAUPLIA.

See ARGOS.

NAURAGHI.

See SARDINIA, THE ISLAND: NAME AND EARLY HISTORY.

NAUSETS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

NAUVOO, The Mormon city of.

See MORMONISM: A. D. 1830-1846, and 1846-1848.

NAVAJOS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ATHAPASCAN FAMILY and APACHE GROUP.

NAVARETTE NAJARA, Battle of.

Won, April 3, 1367, by the English Black Prince over a Spanish and French army, in a campaign undertaken to restore Peter the Cruel to the throne of Castile.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1366-1369, and FRANCE: A. D. 1360-1380.

----------NAVARINO: Start--------

NAVARINO: B. C. 425. An ancient episode in the harbor.

See GREECE: B. C. 425.

NAVARINO: A. D. 1686. Taken by the Venetians.

See TURKS: A. D. 1684-1696.

NAVARINO: A. D. 1827. Battle and destruction of the Turkish fleet.

See GREECE: A. D. 1821-1829.

----------NAVARINO: End--------

----------NAVARRE: Start-------- NAVARRE: Aboriginal inhabitants.

See BASQUES.

NAVARRE: Origin of the kingdom.

"No historical subject is wrapt in greater obscurity than the origin and early history of the kingdom of Navarre. Whether, during a great portion of the eighth and ninth centuries, the country was independent or tributary; and, if dependent, whether it obeyed the Franks, the Asturians, or the Arabs, or successively all three, are speculations which have long exercised the pens of the peninsular writers. … It seems undoubted that, in just dread of the Mohammedan domination, the inhabitants of these regions, as well as those of Catalonia, applied for aid to the renowned emperor of the Franks [Charlemagne]; and that he, in consequence, in 778, poured his legions into Navarre, and seized Pamplona. It seems no less certain that, from this period, he considered the country as a fief of his crown; and that his pretensions, whether founded in violence or in the voluntary submission of the natives, gave the highest umbrage to the Asturian kings: the feudal supremacy thenceforth became an apple of discord between the two courts, each striving to gain the homage of the local governors. … Thus things remained until the time of Alfonso III., who … endeavoured to secure peace both with Navarre and France by marrying a princess related to both Sancho Iñigo, count of Bigorre, and to the Frank sovereign, and by consenting that the province should be held as an immovable fief by that count. This Sancho Iñigo, besides his lordship of Bigorre, for which he was the vassal of the French king, had domains in Navarre, and is believed, on apparently good foundation, to have been of Spanish descent. He is said, however, not to have been the first count of Navarre; that his brother Aznar held the fief before him, nominally dependent on king Pepin, but successfully laying the foundation of Navarrese independence. If the chronology which makes Sancho succeed Aznar in 836, and the event itself, be correct, Alfonso only confirmed the count in the lordship. In this case, the only remaining difficulty is to determine whether the fief was held from Charles or Alfonso. … But whichever of the princes was acknowledged for the time the lord paramount of the province, there can be little doubt that both governor and people were averse to the sway of either; both had long aspired to independence, and that independence was at hand. The son of this Sancho Iñigo was Garcia, father of Sancho Garces, and the first king of Navarre [assuming the crown about 885-891]; the first, at least, whom … historic criticism can admit."

S. A. Dunham, History of Spain and Portugal, book 3, section 2, chapter 2.

See, also, SPAIN: A. D. 713-910.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1026. Acquisition of the crown of Castile by King Sancho el Mayor.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1026-1230.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1234. Succession of Thibalt, Count of Champagne, to the throne.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1212-1238.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1284-1328. Union with France, and separation.

In 1284, the marriage of Jeanne, heiress of the kingdom of Navarre and of the counties of Champagne and Brie, to Philip IV. of France, united the crown of Navarre to that of France. They were separated in 1328, on the death of her last surviving son, Charles IV., without male issue. Philip of Valois secured the French crown, under the so called Salic law, but that of Navarre passed to Jeanne's grand-daughter, of her own name.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1442-1521. Usurpation of John II. of Aragon. The House of Foix and the D'Albrets. Conquest by Ferdinand. Incorporation in the kingdom of Castile.

Blanche, daughter of Charles III. of Navarre and heiress of the kingdom, married John II. of Aragon, to whom she gave three children, namely, Don Carlos, or Charles, "who, as heir apparent, bore the title of Prince of Viana, and two daughters, Blanche and Eleanor. Don Carlos is known by his virtues and misfortunes. At the death of his mother Blanche [1442], he should have succeeded to the throne of Navarre; but John II. was by no means disposed to relinquish the title which he had acquired by marriage, and Carlos consented to be his father's viceroy. But even this dignity he was not permitted to enjoy unmolested." Persecuted through life, sometimes imprisoned, sometimes in exile, he died at the age of forty, in 1461.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1368-1479.

{2244}

"By the death of Don Carlos, the succession to the crown of Navarre devolved to his sister Blanche, the divorced wife of Henry IV. of Castile; and that amiable princess now became an object of jealousy not only to her father but also to her younger sister, Eleanor, married to the Count of Foix, to whom John II. had promised the reversion of Navarre after his own death. Gaston de Foix, the offspring of this union, had married a sister of Louis XI.; and it had been provided in a treaty between that monarch and John II., that in order to secure the succession of the House of Foix to Navarre, Blanche should be delivered into the custody of her sister. John executed this stipulation without remorse. Blanche was conducted to the Castle of Orthès in Bearn (April 1462), where, after a confinement of nearly two years, she was poisoned by order of her sister Eleanor." After committing this crime, the latter waited nearly fifteen years for the crown which it was expected to win, and then enjoyed it but three weeks. Her father reigned until the 20th of January, 1479, when he died; the guilty daughter soon followed him. "After Eleanor's brief reign … the blood-stained sceptre of Navarre passed to her grandson Phœbus, 1479, who, however, lived only four years, and was succeeded by his sister Catherine. Ferdinand and Isabella [now occupying the thrones of Aragon and Castile] endeavoured to effect a marriage between Catherine and their own heir; but this scheme was frustrated by Magdalen, the queen-mother, a sister of Louis XI. of France, who brought about a match between her daughter and John d'Albret, a French nobleman who had large possessions on the borders of Navarre (1485). Nevertheless the Kings of Spain supported Catherine and her husband against her uncle, John de Foix, viscount of Narbonne, who pretended to the Navarese crown on the ground that it was limited to male heirs; and after the death of John, the alliance with Spain was drawn still closer by the avowed purpose of Louis XII. to support his nephew, Gaston de Foix, in the claims of his father. After the fall of that young hero at Ravenna [see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513], his pretensions to the throne of Navarre devolved to his sister, Germaine de Foix, the second wife of King Ferdinand [see SPAIN: A. D. 1496-1517], an event which entirely altered the relations between the courts of Spain and Navarre. Ferdinand had now an interest in supporting the claims of the house of Foix-Narbonne; and Catherine, who distrusted him, despatched in May 1512, plenipotentiaries to the French court to negotiate a treaty of alliance." But it was too late. Ferdinand had already succeeded in diverting to Navarre an expedition which his son-in-law, Henry VIII. of England, acting in the Holy League against Louis XII., which Ferdinand now joined (see ITALY: A. D. 1510-1513), had sent against Guienne. With this aid he took possession of Upper Navarre. "In the following year, he effected at Orthès a year's truce with Louis XII. (April 1st 1513), by which Louis sacrificed his ally, the King of Navarre, and afterwards, by renewing the truce, allowed Ferdinand permanently to settle himself in his new conquest. The States of Navarre had previously taken the oath of allegiance to Ferdinand as their King, and on the 15th of June 1515, Navarre was incorporated into the kingdom of Castile by the solemn act of the Cortès. The dominions of John d'Albret and Catherine were now reduced to the little territory of Bearn, but they still retained the title of sovereigns of Navarre." Six years later, in 1521, the French invaded Navarre and overran the whole kingdom. "Pampeluna alone, animated by the courage of Ignatius Loyola, made a short resistance. To this siege, the world owes the Order of the Jesuits. Loyola, whose leg had been shattered by a cannon ball, found consolation and amusement during his convalescence in reading the lives of the saints, and was thus thrown into that state of fanatical exaltation which led him to devote his future life to the service of the Papacy." Attempting to extend their invasion beyond Navarre, the French were defeated at Esquiros and driven back, losing the whole of their conquests.

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 1, chapters 4 and 7, and book 2, chapter 3 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, chapters 2 and 23 (volumes 1 and 3).

NAVARRE: A. D. 1528-1563. The kingdom remaining on the French side of the Pyrenees. Jeanne d'Albret's Bourbon marriage and the issue of it. Establishment of Protestantism in Béarn.

Besides the Spanish province which Ferdinand the Catholic appropriated and joined to Castile, and which gave its name to the Kingdom of Navarre, "that kingdom embraced a large tract of country lying on the French side of the Pyrenees, including the principality of Béarn and the counties of Foix, Armagnac, Albret, Bigorre, and Comminges. Catherine de Foix, the heiress of this kingdom, had in 1491 carried it by marriage into the house of D'Albret. Henry, the second king of Navarre belonging to this house, was in 1528 united to Marguerite d'Angoulême, the favourite and devoted sister of Francis I. of France. Pampeluna, the ancient capital of their kingdom, being in the hands of the King of Spain, Henry and Marguerite held their Court at Nérac, the chief town of the duchy belonging to the family of D'Albret. It was at Nérac that Marguerite, herself more than half a Huguenot, opened an asylum to her persecuted fellow-countrymen [see PAPACY: A. D. 1521-1535]. Farel, Calvin, Beza sought temporary refuge and found glad welcome there, while to Lefevre, Clement Marot, and Gerard Roussel it became a second home. Marguerite died in 1549, leaving only one child, a daughter, who, in the event of her father having no issue by any second marriage, became heiress to the crown of Navarre. Born in 1528, Jeanne d'Albret had early and bitter experience of what heirship to such a crown involved. The Emperor Charles V. was believed to have early fixed his eye on her as a fit consort for Philip, his son and successor." To prevent this marriage, she was shut up for years, by her uncle, the French king, Francis I., in the gloomy castle of Plessis-les-Tours. When she was twelve years old he affianced her to the Duke of Cleves, notwithstanding her vigorous protests; but the alliance was subsequently broken off. "The next hand offered to Jeanne, and which she accepted, was that of Antoine, elder brother of the Prince of Condé, and head of the Bourbon family. They were married in 1548, a year after the death of Francis I., and a year before that of his sister Marguerite, Jeanne's mother. The marriage was an unfortunate one. Ambitious, yet weak and vain; frivolous and vacillating, yet headstrong and impetuous, faithless to his wife, faithless to his principles, faithless to his party, Antoine became the butt and victim of the policy of the Court. But though unfortunate in so many respects, this marriage gave to France, if not the greatest, the most fortunate, the most popular, the most beloved of all her monarchs"—namely, Henry IV.—Henry of Navarre—the first of the Bourbon dynasty of French kings. {2245} "Antoine of Navarre died at the siege of Rouen in 1562. The first use that the Queen made of the increased measure of freedom she thus acquired was to publish an edict establishing the Protestant and interdicting the exercise of the Roman Catholic worship in Béarn. So bold an act by so weak a sovereign—by one whose political position was so perilous and insecure—drew down upon her the instant and severe displeasure of the Pope," who issued against her a Bull of excommunication, in October, 1563, and assumed the right to dispose of her kingdom. This assumption was more than the French Court could permit. "The Pope had to give way, and the Bull was expunged from the ecclesiastical ordinances of the Pontificate."

W. Hanna, The Wars of the Huguenots, chapter 4.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1568-1569. The queen joins the Huguenots in France, with Prince Henry. Invasion by the French.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1563-1570.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1620-1622. Protestant intolerance. Enforcement of Catholic rights. The kingdom incorporated and absorbed in France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1620-1622.

NAVARRE: A. D. 1876. Disappearance of the last municipal and provincial privileges of the old kingdom.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1873-1885.

----------NAVARRE: End--------

NAVE. NAVIO.

See CARAVELS.

----------NAVIGATION LAWS: Start--------

NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1651. The first English Act.

"After the triumph of the parliamentary cause [in the English Civil War], great numbers of the royalists had sought refuge in Virginia, Barbadoes, and the other West India settlements; so that the white population of these dependencies was in general fiercely opposed to the new government, and they might be said to be in a state of rebellion after all the rest of the empire had been reduced to submission and quiet. Barbadoes, indeed, had actually received Lord Willoughby as governor under a commission from Charles II., then in Holland, and had proclaimed Charles as king. It was in these circumstances that the English parliament in 1651, with the view of punishing at once the people of the colonies and the Dutch, who had hitherto enjoyed the greater part of the carrying-trade between the West Indies and Europe, passed their famous Navigation Act, declaring that no merchandise either of Asia, Africa, or America, except only such as should be imported directly from the place of its growth or manufacture in Europe, should be imported into England, Ireland, or any of the plantations, in any but English-built ships, belonging either to English or English-plantation subjects, navigated by English commanders, and having at least three-fourths of the sailors Englishmen. It was also further enacted that no goods of the growth, production, or manufacture of any country in Europe should be imported into Great Britain except in British ships, or in such ships as were the real property of the people of the country or place in which the goods were produced, or from which they could only be, or most usually were, exported. Upon this law, which was re-enacted after the Restoration, and which down to our own day has been generally regarded and upheld as the palladium of our commerce, and the maritime Magna Charta of England, we shall only at present observe that one of its first consequences was undoubtedly the war with Holland which broke out the year after it was passed."

G. L. Craik, History of British Commerce, chapter 7 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, book 4, chapter 2.

J. A. Blanqui, History of Political Economy, chapter 29.

NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1660-1672. Effect upon the American colonies, and their relation to Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672.

NAVIGATION LAWS: A. D. 1849. Complete repeal of the British restrictive Acts.

"The question of the navigation laws was … brought forward [in the British Parliament, at the commencement of the session of 1849] … with a fair prospect of being settled!" The stringency of the original act of 1651 had been "slightly mitigated by another act passed in the reign of Charles II.; but the modifications thus introduced were of slight importance. A farther relaxation, made at the conclusion of the war of independence, allowed the produce of the United States to be imported in ships belonging to citizens of those states. The last amendment of the original law was obtained in the year 1825 by Mr. Huskisson, who made some important changes in it. The law, then, which the legislature had to reconsider in the year 1849 stood thus: the produce of Asia, Africa, and America might be imported from places out of Europe into the United Kingdom, if to be used therein, in foreign as well us in British ships, provided that such ships were the ships of the country of which the goods were the produce, and from which they were imported. Goods which were the produce of Europe, and which were not enumerated in the act, might be brought thence in the ships of any country. Goods sent to or from the United Kingdom to any of its possessions, or from one colony to another, must be carried in British ships, or in ships of the country in which they were produced and from which they were imported. Then followed some stringent definitions of the conditions which constituted a vessel a British ship in the sense of the act. These restrictions were not without their defenders. Even the great founder of economic science, Adam Smith, while admitting that the navigation laws were inconsistent with that perfect freedom of trade which he contended for, sanctioned their continuance on the ground that defence is much more important than opulence. But as it was more and more strongly felt that these laws were part and parcel of that baneful system of monopoly which, under the name of protection, had so long been maintained and was now so completely exploded, it began also to be seriously doubted whether they were necessary to the defence of the nation. … Therefore, on the 14th of February in this year, Mr. Labouchere, as president of the board of trade, proposed a resolution on the subject couched in the following terms: 'That it is expedient to remove the restrictions which prevent the free carriage of goods by sea to and from the United Kingdom and the British possessions abroad, and to amend the laws regulating the coasting trade of the United Kingdom, subject nevertheless to such control by her Majesty in council as may be necessary; and also to amend the laws for the registration of ships and seamen.' {2246} A long debate took place on the question of the second reading of the government measure. … 214 members followed Mr. Disraeli into the lobby, while 275 voted with the government, which therefore had a majority of 61. In the upper house Lord Brougham astonished friend and foe by coming forward as the strenuous and uncompromising opponent of the ministerial measure. … The second reading was carried by a majority of 10. The smallness of this majority caused some anxiety to the supporters of the measure with regard to its ultimate fate; but this anxiety was relieved by the withdrawal of the most conspicuous opponents of the bill, which consequently passed without farther opposition."

W. N. Molesworth, History of England, 1830-1874, volume 2, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: J. D. J. Kelley, The Question of Ships, chapter 4.

S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 20 (volume 4).

----------NAVIGATION LAWS: End----------

NAWAB-VIZIER, NEWAB-WU-ZEER, of Oude.

See OUDE; also NABOB.

----------NAXOS: Start--------

NAXOS: B. C. 490. Destruction by the Persians.

See GREECE: B. C. 490.

NAXOS: B. C. 466. Revolt from the Delian Confederacy. Subjugation by Athens.

See ATHENS: B. C. 470-466.

NAXOS: B. C. 376. Battle between the Spartans and Athenians.

A battle was fought in September, B. C. 376, off Naxos, between a Lacedæmonian fleet of 60 triremes and an Athenian fleet of 80. Forty-nine of the former were disabled or captured. "This was the first great victory … which the Athenians had gained at sea since the Peloponnesian war."

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 77.

NAXOS: A. D. 1204-1567. The mediæval dukedom.

"In the partition of the [Byzantine] empire [after the conquest of Constantinople, in 1204, by the Crusaders and the Venetians], the twelve islands of the Archipelago, which had formed the theme of the Egean sea in the provincial division of the Byzantine empire, fell to the share of the crusading barons; but Mark Sanudo, one of the most influential of the Venetian nobles in the expedition, obtained possession of the principal part of the ancient theme—though whether by purchase from the Frank barons to whom it had been allotted, or by grant to himself from the emperor, is not known. Sanudo, however, made his appearance at the parliament of Ravenika as one of the great feudatories of the empire of Romania, and was invested by the emperor Henry with the title of Duke of the Archipelago, or Naxos. It is difficult to say on what precise footing Sanudo placed his relations with the republic. His conduct in the war of Crete shows that he ventured to act as a baron of Romania, or an independent prince, when he thought his personal interests at variance with his born allegiance to Venice. … The new duke and his successors were compelled by their position to acknowledge themselves, in some degree, vassals both of the empire of Romania and of the republic of Venice; yet they acted as sovereign princes." Nearly at the close of the fourteenth century the dukedom passed from the Sanudo family to the Crispo family, who reigned under the protection of Venice until 1537, when the Duke of Naxos was reduced to vassalage by the Turkish sultan Suleiman. Thirty years later, his title and authority were extinguished by the sultan, on the petition of the Greek inhabitants, who could not endure his oppressive and disgraceful government.

G. Finlay, History of Greece from its Conquest by the Crusaders, chapter 10, sections 1-3.

ALSO IN: Sir J. E. Tennent, History of Modern Greece, chapter 3.

H. F. Tozer, The Islands of the Aegean, chapter 4.

----------NAXOS: End----------

NAZARETH, Battle of (1799).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1798-1799 (AUGUST-AUGUST).

NEANDERTHAL MAN.

The race represented by a remarkable human skull and imperfect skeleton found in 1857, in a limestone cave in the Neanderthal, Rhenish Prussia, and thought to be the most primitive race of which any knowledge has yet been obtained.

J. Geikie, Prehistoric Europe, page 22.

ALSO IN: W. B. Dawkins, Cave Hunting, page 240.

NEAPOLIS, Schools of.

In the first century of the Roman empire, "Neapolis [modern Naples] had its schools and colleges, as well as Athens; its society abounded in artists and men of letters, and it enjoyed among the Romans the title of the learned, which comprehended in their view the praise of elegance as well as knowledge."

C. Merivale, History of the Romans, chapter 40.

NEAPOLIS AND PALÆPOLIS.

"Palaepolis is mentioned only by Livy: it was an ancient Cumaean colony, the Cumaeans having taken refuge there across the sea. Neapolis derives its name from being a much later settlement of different Greek tribes, and was perhaps not founded till Olymp. 91, about the time of the Athenian expedition to Sicily, and as a fortress of the Greeks against the Sabellians. It is not impossible that the Athenians also may have had a share in it. Both towns, however, were of Chalcidian origin and formed one united state, which at that time may have been in possession of Ischia. Many absurdities have been written about the site of Palaepolis, and most of all by Italian antiquaries. We have no data to go upon except the two statements in Livy, that Palaepolis was situated by the side of Neapolis, and that the Romans [in the second Samnite war] had pitched their camp between the two towns. The ancient Neapolis was undoubtedly situated in the centre of the modern city of Naples above the church of Sta. Rosa; the coast is now considerably advanced. People have sought for Palaepolis likewise within the compass of the modern city. … I alone should never have discovered its true site, but my friend, the Count de Serre, a French statesman, who in his early life had been in the army and had thus acquired a quick and certain miliary eye, discovered it in a walk which I took with him. The town was situated on the outer side of Mount Posilipo, where the quarantine now is."

B. G. Niebuhr, Lectures on the History of Rome, lecture 40 (volume 1).

"Parthenopé was an ancient Greek colony founded by the Chalcidians of Cuma on the northern part of the Bay of Naples. In after years another city sprung up a little to the south, whence the original Parthenopé was called Palæpolis or Old-town, while the new town took the name of Neapolis. The latter preserves its name in the modern Naples." Palæpolis was taken by the Romans, B. C. 327, at the beginning of the second Samnite War, and is heard of no more. Neapolis made peace with them and lived.

H. G. Liddell, History of Rome, book 3, chapter 21 (volume 1).

{2247}

NEAPOLIS (Syracuse).

See TEMENITES.

NEARDA.

See JEWS: B. C. 536-A. D. 50.

----------NEBRASKA: Start--------

NEBRASKA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PAWNEE (CADDOAN) FAMILY.

NEBRASKA: A. D. 1803. Embraced in the Louisiana Purchase.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

NEBRASKA: A. D. 1854. Territorial organization. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1854.

NEBRASKA: A. D. 1867. Admission to the Union.

Nebraska was organized as a State and admitted to the Union in 1867.

----------NEBRASKA: End--------

NECKER, Ministry of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1774-1788, to 1789 (JUNE).

NECTANSMERE, Battle of (A. D. 685).

See SCOTLAND: 7TH CENTURY.

NEERWINDEN, LANDEN, Battle of (1693).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (JULY)

Battle of (1793).

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).

NEGRITO.

"The term Negrito, i. e. 'Little Negro,' [was] long applied by the Spaniards to the dark dwarfish tribes in the interior of Luzon, and some others of the Philippine Islands. Here it will be extended to the dwarfish negroid tribes in the Andaman Islands and interior of Malacca, but to no others."

A. H. Keane, Philology and Ethnology of the Interoceanic Races (appendix to Wallace's Hellwald's Australasia), section 4.

NEGRO, The.

See AFRICA: THE INHABITING RACES.

NEGRO PLOT, Imagined in New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1741.

NEGRO SLAVERY.

See SLAVERY: NEGRO.

NEGRO SUFFRAGE.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1867 (JANUARY), and (MARCH); and 1868-1870.

NEGRO TROOPS, in the American Civil War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY: SOUTH CAROLINA).

----------NEGROPONT: Start--------

NEGROPONT: The Name.

The ancient island of Eubœa received from the Venetians the name Negropont. "In the middle ages, Eubœa was called Egripo, a corruption of Euripus, the name of the town built upon the ruins of Chalcis. The Venetians, who obtained possession of the island upon the dismemberment of the Byzantine empire by the Latins, called it Negropont, probably a corruption of Egripo, and 'ponte,' a bridge."

W. Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography.

NEGROPONT: A. D. 1470. Capture and Massacre by the Turks.

See GREECE: A. D. 1454-1479.

----------NEGROPONT: End--------

NEGUS, OR NEGOOS, The.

See ABYSSINIA: 15-19TH CENTURIES.

NEHAVEND, Battle of.

See MAHOMETAN CONQUEST: A. D. 632-651.

NELSON'S FARM, OR GLENDALE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).

NEMEDIANS, The.

It is among the legends of the Irish that their island was settled, about the time of the patriarch Jacob, by a colony of descendants from Japhet, led by one Nemedius, from whom they and their posterity took the name of Nemedians. The Nemedians were afterwards subjugated by a host of African sea-rovers, known as Fomorians, but were delivered from these in time by a fresh colony of their kindred from the East called the Fir Bolgs.

T. Wright, History of Ireland, book 1, chapter 2.

NEMEAN AND ISTHMIAN GAMES.

"The Nemean and Isthmian [games in ancient. Greece] were celebrated each twice in every Olympiad, at different seasons of the year: the former in the plain of Nemea, in Argolis, under the presidency of Argos; the latter in the Corinthian isthmus, under the presidency of Corinth. These, like the Pythian and Olympic games, claimed a very high antiquity, though the form in which they were finally established was of late institution; and it is highly probable that they were really suggested by the tradition of ancient festivals, which had served to cement an Amphictyonic confederacy."

C. Thirlwall, History of Greece, chapter 10.

NEMETACUM.

Modern Arras.

See BELGÆ.

NEMETES, The.

See VANGIONES.

NEMI, Priest of.

See ARICIAN GROVE.

NEMOURS, Treaty and Edict of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1584-1589.

NEODAMODES.

Enfranchised helots, in ancient Sparta.

G. Grote, History of Greece, part 2, chapter 73.

NEOLITHIC PERIOD.

See STONE AGE.

NEOPLATONICS, The.

"There now [in the third century after Christ] arose another school, which from its first beginnings announced itself as a reform and support of the ancient faith, and, consequently, as an enemy of the new religion. This was the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria, founded by Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus, and which was afterwards represented by Porphyrius, Amelius, and Iamblicus. The doctrine of this school was the last, and in many respects the best production of paganism, now in its final struggle; the effort of a society, which acknowledged its own defects, to regenerate and to purify itself. Philosophy, and the religion of the vulgar, hitherto separated and irreconcilable, joined in harmony together for mutual support, and for a new existence. The Neoplatonics endeavoured, therefore, to unite the different systems of philosophy, especially the Pythagorean, Platonic, and Aristotelean, in one body with the principles of oriental learning, and thus to raise an edifice of universal, absolute truth. In the same manner they represented the varied forms of eastern and western religious worship as one entire whole, which had manifested itself indeed in different ways, but at the foundation of which there lay the same true faith. They taught that 'every kind of homage and adoration, which men offer to superior beings, is referred to heroes, demons, or Gods, but, finally, to the one most-high God, the author of all: that these demons are the chiefs and genii of the different parts, elements, and powers of the world, of people, countries, and cities, to obtain whose favour and protection, it behoved men to honour them according to the rites and customs of the ancients.' {2248} It is, therefore, manifest that these philosophers were essentially hostile to the Christian religion,—the exclusive character of which, and tendency to destroy all other religions, stood in direct contrast with their doctrines: and as their school was in its vigour at the very time in which Christianity made its most rapid advances, and had struck Paganism with a mortal wound, they employed themselves especially, and more earnestly, than other philosophers, to maintain their own tenets, and to destroy Christianity. They in nowise, however, desired to defend heathenism, or its worship, in their then degenerate and degrading state: their ideal was a more pure, more noble, spiritualized, polytheism, to establish which was the object which they had proposed to themselves. Whilst, therefore, on the one hand, they preserved the ancient and genuine truths which had sprung from primitive tradition, and purified them from recent errors and deformations; on the other, they adopted many of the doctrines of the hated Christianity, and sought to reform paganism by the aid of light which had streamed upon them from the sanctuary of the Church. This admission and employment of Christian truths are easily explained, if it be true, that two of their chiefs, Ammonius and Porphyrius, had been Christians. It is well known that they received instructions from Christian masters. … This uniformity, or imitation, consists not only in the use of terms, but in essential dogmas. The Neoplatonic idea of three hypostases in one Godhead would not have been heard of, if the Christian doctrine of the Trinity had not preceded it. … Their doctrines respecting the minor Gods, their influence and connexion with the supreme Being, approached near to the Christian dogma of the angels. Nor is the influence of Christianity less evident in the pure and grave morality of the Neoplatonics: in their lessons which teach the purifying of fallen souls, the detachment from the senses, the crucifying … of the affections and passions, it is easy to distinguish the Christian, from the commingled pagan, elements. The Neoplatonics endeavoured to reform polytheism by giving to men a doctrine more pure concerning the Gods, by attributing an allegorical sense to the fables, and a moral signification to the forms and ceremonies of religion: they sought to raise the souls of men to piety, and rejected from their mythology many of the degrading narrations with which it had before abounded. It was their desire also to abolish the sacrifices, for the Gods could only abhor the slaughter, the dismemberment and the burning of animals. But at the same time they reduced to a theory the apparitions of the Gods; they declared magic to be the most divine of sciences; they taught and defended theurgy, or the art of invoking the Gods (those of an inferior order, who were united to matter), and of compelling them to comply with the desires of men."

J. J. I. Döllinger, History of the Church, volume 1, pages 70-73.

ALSO IN: F. Ueberweg, History of Philosophy, sections 66-70 (volume 1).

C. Kingsley, Alexandria and Her Schools.

NEPAUL, OR NIPAL, English war with the Ghorkas of.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

NEPHTHALITES, The.

See HUNS, THE WHITE.

NÉRAC, Treaty of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1578-1580.

NERESHEIM, Battle of.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1796 (APRIL-OCTOBER).

NERI AND BIANCHI (Blacks and Whites), The.

See FLORENCE: A. D. 1295-1300, and 1301-1313.

NERIUM, Headland of.

The ancient name of Cape Finisterre,

NERO, Roman Emperor, A. D. 54-68.

NERONIA.

Games instituted by Nero, to be conducted in the Greek fashion and to recur periodically, like the Olympian.

NERVA, Roman Emperor, A. D. 96-98.

NERVII, The.

A tribe in Belgic Gaul, at the time of Cæsar's conquest, which occupied the country "between the Sambre and the Scheldt (French and Belgic Hainaut, provinces of Southern Brabant, of Antwerp, and part of Eastern Flanders). The writers posterior to Cæsar mention Bagacum (Bavay) as their principal town."

Napoleon III., History of Cæsar, book 3, chapter 2, foot-note (volume 2).

The tribe was destroyed by Cæsar.

See BELGÆ, CÆSAR'S CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE.

NESSA: Destruction by the Mongols (1220).

See KHORASSAN: A. D. 1220-1221.

NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY.

The great religious controversy of the Christian world in the fourth century, relating to the mystery of the Trinity, having been settled by the triumph of the doctrine of Athanasius over the doctrine of Arius, it was succeeded in the fifth century by a still more violent disputation, which concerned the yet profounder mystery of the Incarnation. To the dogmatists of one party it was wickedness to distinguish the divine nature and the human nature which they believed to be united in Christ; to the dogmatists of the other side it was sin to confound them. Cyril of Alexandria became the implacable leader of the first party. Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, was forced to the front of the battle on the other side and became its martyr. The opponents of Nestorius gained advantages in the contest from the then rapidly growing tendency in the Christian world to pay divine honors to the Virgin Mary as the Mother of God. To Nestorius and those who believed with him, this was abhorrent. "Like can but bear like," said Nestorius in one of his sermons; "a human mother can only bear a human being. God was not born—he dwelt in that which was born." But the mob was too easily charmed with Mariolatry to be moved by reasoning on the subject, and Cyril led the mob, not only in Alexandria, where it murdered Hypatia and massacred Jews at his bidding, but generally throughout the Christian world. A Council called at Ephesus in 431 and recognized as the third Œcumenical Council, condemned Nestorius and degraded him from his episcopal throne; but a minority disputed its procedure and organized a rival Council, which retorted anathemas and excommunications against Cyril and his friends. The emperor at last interfered and dissolved both; but Nestorius, four years later, was exiled to the Libyan desert and persecuted remorselessly until he died. Meantime the doctrine of Cyril had been carried to another stage of development by one of his most ardent supporters, the Egyptian monk Eutyches, who maintained that the human nature of Christ was absorbed in the divine nature. Both forms of the doctrine of one nature in the Son of God seem to have acquired somewhat confusedly the name of Monophysite, though the latter tenet is more often called Eutychian, from the name of its chief promulgator. {2249} It kindled new fires in the controversy. In 449, a second Council at Ephesus, which is called the "Robber Synod" on account of the peculiar violence and indecency of its proceedings, sustained the Monophysites. But two years later, in 451, the vanquished party, supported by Pope Leo the Great, at Rome, succeeded in assembling a Council at Chalcedon which laid down a definition of the Christian faith affirming the existence of two natures in one person, and which nevertheless condemned Nestorianism and Monophysitism, alike. Their success only inflamed the passions of the worshippers of the Virgin as the "Mother of God." "Everywhere monks were at the head of the religious revolution which threw off the yoke of the Council of Chalcedon." In Jerusalem "the very scenes of the Saviour's mercies ran with blood shed in his name by his ferocious self-called disciples." At Alexandria, a bishop was murdered in the baptistery of his church. At Constantinople, for sixty years, there went on a succession of bloody tumults and fierce revolutionary conspiracies which continually shook the imperial throne and disorganized every part of society, all turning upon the theological question of one nature or two in the incarnate Son of God. The Emperor Zeno "after a vain attempt to obtain the opinions of the chief ecclesiastical dignitaries, without assembling a new Council, a measure which experience had shown to exasperate rather than appease the strife, Zeno issued his famous Henoticon, or Edict of Union. … It aimed not at the reconcilement of the conflicting opinions, but hoped, by avoiding all expressions offensive to either party, to allow them to meet together in Christian amity." The Henoticon only multiplied the factions in number and heated the strife between them. The successor of Zeno, Anastasius, became a partisan in the fray, and through much of his reign of twenty-seven years the conflict raged more fiercely than ever. Constantinople was twice, at least, in insurrection. "The blue and green factions of the Circus—such is the language of the times—gave place to these more maddening conflicts. The hymn of the Angels in Heaven [the Trisagion] was the battle-cry on earth." At length the death of Anastasius ended the strife. His successor Justin (A. D. 518), bowed to the authority of the Bishop of Rome—the Pope Hormisdas—and invoked his aid. The Eastern world, exhausted, followed generally the emperor's example in taking the orthodoxy of Rome for the orthodoxy of Christianity. Nestorianism and Monophysitism in their extreme forms were driven from the open field in the Christian world, but both survived and have transmitted their remains to the present day.

H. H. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, book 2, chapters 3-4, book 3, chapter 1, and 3.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 47.

J. Alzog, Universal Church History, 2d epoch, chapter 2.

See, also, NESTORIANS; JACOBITE CHURCH; and MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY.

NESTORIANS, The.

"Within the limits of the Roman empire … this sect was rapidly extirpated by persecution [see above, NESTORIAN AND MONOPHYSITE CONTROVERSY]; and even in the patriarchate of Antioch, where, as we have seen, the tenets of Nestorius at first found greatest favour, it had disappeared as early as the time of Justinian [A. D. 527-565]. But another field lay open to it in the Persian kingdom of the Sassanidæ, and in this it ultimately struck its roots deeply. The Chaldæan church, which at the beginning of the fifth century was in a flourishing condition, had been founded by missionaries from Syria; its primate, or Catholicos, was dependent on the patriarch of Antioch, and in respect of language and discipline it was closely connected with the Syrian church. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that some of its members lent a ready ear to the Nestorian doctrines. This was especially the case with the church-teachers of the famous seminary at Edessa in Mesopotamia. … One of their number, Barsumas, who was bishop of the city of Nisibis from 435 to 489, by his long and active labours contributed most of all to the establishment of the Nestorian church in Persia. He persuaded the king Pherozes (Firuz) that the antagonism of his own sect to the doctrine of the established church of the Roman empire would prove a safeguard for Persia. … From that time Nestorianism became the only form of Christianity tolerated in Persia. … The Catholicos of Chaldæa now threw off his dependence on Antioch, and assumed the title of Patriarch of Babylon. The school of Edessa, which in 489 was again broken up by the Greek emperor, Zeno, was transferred to Nisibis, and in that place continued for several centuries to be an important centre of theological learning, and especially of biblical studies. … In the sixth century the Nestorians had established churches from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, and had preached the Gospel to the Medes, the Bactrians, the Huns, and the Indians, and as far as the coast of Malabar and the island of Ceylon. At a later period, starting from Balk and Samarcand, they spread Christianity among the nomad Tartar tribes in the remote valleys of the Imaus; and the inscription of Siganfu, which was discovered in China, and the genuineness of which is considered to be above suspicion, describes the fortunes of the Nestorian church in that country from the first mission, A. D. 636, to the year in which that monument was set up, A. D. 781. In the ninth century, during the rule of the caliphs at Bagdad, the patriarch removed to that city, and at this period twenty-five metropolitans were subject to him. … From the eleventh century onwards the prosperity of the Chaldæan church declined, owing to the terrible persecutions to which its members were exposed. Foremost among these was the attack of Timour the Tartar, who almost exterminated them. Within the present century their diminished numbers have been still further thinned by frightful massacres inflicted by the Kurds. Their headquarters now are a remote and rugged valley in the mountains of Kurdistan, on the banks of the Greater Zab. … Beyond the boundary which separates Turkey from Persia to the southward of Mount Ararat, a similar community is settled on the shores of Lake Urumia. A still larger colony is found at Mosul, and others … elsewhere in the neighbourhood of the Tigris. … Of their widely extended missions only one fragment now remains, in the Christians of St. Thomas on the Malabar coast of India."

H. F. Tozer, The Church and the Eastern Empire, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 47.

NETAD, Battle of.

See HUNS: A. D. 453.

{2250}

----------NETHERLANDS: Start--------

NETHERLANDS. The Land.

"The north-western corner of the vast plain which extends from the German ocean to the Ural mountains is occupied by the countries called the Netherlands [Low Countries]. This small triangle, enclosed between France, Germany, and the sea, is divided by the modern kingdoms of Belgium and Holland into two nearly equal portions. … Geographically and ethnographically, the Low Countries belong both to Gaul and to Germany. It is even doubtful to which of the two the Batavian island, which is the core of the whole country, was reckoned by the Romans. It is, however, most probable that all the land, with the exception of Friesland, was considered a part of Gaul. Three great rivers—the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheld—had deposited their slime for ages among the dunes and sandbanks heaved up by the ocean around their mouths. A delta was thus formed, habitable at last for man. It was by nature a wide morass, in which oozy islands and savage forests were interspersed among lagoons and shallows; a district lying partly below the level of the ocean at its higher tides, subject to constant overflow from the rivers, and to frequent and terrible inundations by the sea. … Here, within a half-submerged territory, a race of wretched icthyophagi dwelt upon 'terpen,' or mounds, which they had raised, like beavers, above the almost fluid soil. Here, at a later day, the same race chained the tyrant Ocean and his mighty streams into subserviency, forcing them to fertilize, to render commodious, to cover with a beneficent network of veins and arteries, and to bind by watery highways with the farthest ends of the world, a country disinherited by nature of its rights. A region, outcast of ocean and earth, wrested at last from both domains their richest treasures. A race, engaged for generations in stubborn conflict with the angry elements, was unconsciously educating itself for its great struggle with the still more savage despotism of man. The whole territory of the Netherlands was girt with forests. An extensive belt of woodland skirted the sea-coast, reaching beyond the mouths of the Rhine. Along the outer edge of this barrier, the dunes cast up by the sea were prevented by the close tangle of thickets from drifting further inward, and thus formed a breastwork which time and art were to strengthen. The groves of Haarlem and the Hague are relics of this ancient forest. The Badahuenna wood, horrid with Druidic sacrifices, extended along the eastern line of the vanished lake of Flevo. The vast Hercynian forest, nine days' journey in breadth, closed in the country on the German side, stretching from the banks of the Rhine to the remote regions of the Dacians, in such vague immensity (says the conqueror of the whole country) that no German, after traveling sixty days, had ever reached, or even heard of, its commencement. On the south, the famous groves of Ardennes, haunted by faun and satyr, embowered the country, and separated it from Celtic Gaul. Thus inundated by mighty rivers, quaking beneath the level of the ocean, belted about by hirsute forests, this low land, nether land, hollow land, or Holland, seemed hardly deserving the arms of the all-accomplished Roman."

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, introduction, section 1.

NETHERLANDS: The early inhabitants.

See BELGÆ; NERVII; BATAVIANS; and FRISIANS.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 69. Revolt of the Batavians under Civilis.

See BATAVIANS.

NETHERLANDS: 4-9th Centuries. Settlement and domination of the Franks.

See FRANKS; also, GAUL: A. D. 355-361.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 843-870. Partly embraced in the kingdom of Lotharingia. The partitioning.

See LORRAINE: A. D. 843-870.

NETHERLANDS: (Flanders): A. D. 863-1383. The Flemish towns and counts.

See FLANDERS.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 922-1345. The early Counts of Holland.

"It was in the year 922 that Charles the Simple [of France] presented to Count Dirk the territory of Holland, by letters patent. This narrow hook of land, destined, in future ages, to be the cradle of a considerable empire, stretching through both hemispheres, was, thenceforth, the inheritance of Dirk's descendants. Historically, therefore, he is Dirk I., Count of Holland. … From the time of the first Dirk to the close of the 13th century there were nearly four hundred years of unbroken male descent, a long line of Dirks and Florences. This iron-handed, hot-headed, adventurous race, placed as sovereign upon its little sandy hook, making ferocious exertions to swell into large consequence, conquering a mile or two of morass or barren furze, after harder blows and bloodier encounters than might have established an empire under more favorable circumstances, at last dies out. The countship falls to the house of Avennes, Counts of Hainault. Holland, together with Zeland, which it had annexed, is thus joined to the province of Hainault. At the end of another half century the Hainault line expires. William the Fourth died childless in 1355 [1345?]."

J. L. Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic, introduction, sections 5-6.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 13-15th Centuries. Relations with the Hanseatic League.

See HANSA TOWNS.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1345-1354. The Rise of the Hooks and the Kabeljauws, or Cods.

"On the death of William IV. [Count of Holland] without issue in 1345, his sister, married to the Emperor Louis, became Countess of Zealand, Holland, Friezland and Hainault. But her husband dying soon afterwards, many of the noblesse, whom she had offended by the attempt to restrain their excesses, instigated her son to assume the sovereignty. In the sanguinary struggle which ensued, the people generally adhered to the cause of Margaret." They "looked forward to the necessities of a female reign as likely to afford them opportunities to win further immunities, as the condition of their support against the turbulent nobles. Did not these live, like the great fish, by devouring the smaller ones? And how could they be checked but by the hooks which, though insignificant in appearance, when aptly used would be too strong for them. Such was the talk of the people; and from these household words arose the memorable epithets, which in after years were heard in every civic brawl, and above the din and death-cry of many a battle-field. Certain of the nobles adhered to the cause of the Hooks, while some of the cities, among which were Delft, Haarlem, Dort, and Rotterdam, supported the Kabeljauws [or Cods]. {2251} The community was divided into parties rather than into classes. … In the exasperation of mutual injury, the primary cause of quarrel was soon forgotten. The Hooks were proud of the accession of a lord to their ranks; and the Kabeljauws were equally glad of the valuable aid which a wealthy and populous town was able to afford. The majority of the cities,—perhaps the majority of the inhabitants in all of them,—favoured the Hook party, as the preponderance of the landowners lay in the opposite scale. But no adherence to antagonistic principles, or even a systematic profession of them, is traceable throughout the varying struggle. … In Friezland the two factions were designated by the recriminative epithets of 'Vet-Koopers' and 'Schieringers,'—terms hardly translatable. In the conflict which first marshalled the two parties in hostile array, the Hooks were utterly defeated;—their leaders who survived were banished, their property confiscated, and their dwellings razed to the ground. Margaret was forced to take refuge in England, where she remained until a short time previous to her death in 1354, when the four provinces acknowledged William V. as their undisputed lord. The succeeding reigns are chiefly characterised by the incessant struggles of the embittered factions. … Whatever progress was made during the latter half of the 14th century was municipal and commercial. In a national view the government was helpless and inefficient, entangled by ambitious family alliances with France, England, and Germany, and distracted by the rival powers and pretensions of domestic factions. Under the administration of the ill-fated Jacoba [or Jacqueline] these evils reached their full maturity."

W. T. McCullagh, Industrial History of Free Nations, chapter 9 (volume 2).

NETHERLANDS: 14-15th Centuries. Commercial and industrial superiority. Advance in learning and art.

"What a scene as compared with the rest of Northern Europe, and especially with England … must have been presented by the Low Countries during the 14th century! In 1370, there are 3,200 woollen-factories at Malines and on its territory. One of its merchants carries on an immense trade with Damascus and Alexandria. Another, of Valenciennes, being at Paris during a fair, buys up an the provisions exposed for sale in order to display his wealth. Ghent, in 1340, contains 40,000 weavers. In 1389, it has 189,000 men bearing arms; the drapers alone furnish 18,000 in a revolt. In 1380, the goldsmiths of Bruges are numerous enough to form in war time an entire division of the army. At a repast given by one of the Counts of Flanders to the Flemish magistrates, the seats provided for the guests being unfurnished with cushions, they quietly folded up their sumptuous cloaks, richly embroidered and trimmed with fur, and placed them on the wooden benches. When leaving the table at the conclusion of the feast, a courtier called their attention to the fact that they were going without their cloaks. The burgomaster of Bruges replied: 'We Flemings are not in the habit of carrying away the cushions after dinner.' … Commines, the French chronicler, writing in the 15th century, says that the traveller, leaving France and crossing the frontiers of Flanders, compared himself to the Israelites when they had quitted the desert and entered the borders of the Promised Land. Philip the Good kept up a court which surpassed every other in Europe for luxury and magnificence. … In all such matters of luxury and display, England of the 16th or 17th century had nothing to compare with the Netherlands a hundred or even two hundred years before. After luxury, come comfort, intelligence, morality, and learning, which develop under very different conditions. In the course of time even Italy was outstripped in the commercial race. The conquest of Egypt by the Turks, and the discovery of a water passage to the Indies, broke up the overland trade with the East, and destroyed the Italian and German cities which had flourished on it. … Passing from the dominion of the House of Burgundy to that of the House of Austria, which also numbered Spain among its vast possessions, proved to them in the end an event fraught with momentous evil. Still for a time, and from a mere material point of view it was an evil not unmixed with good. The Netherlanders were better sailors and keener merchants than the Spaniards, and, being under the same rulers, gained substantial advantages from the close connection. The new commerce of Portugal also filled their coffers; so that while Italy and Germany were impoverished, they became wealthier and more prosperous than ever. … With wealth pouring in from all quarters, art naturally followed in the wake of commerce. Architecture was first developed, and nowhere was its cultivation more general than in the Netherlands."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, &c., volume 1, chapter 1.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland and Hainault): A. D. 1417-1430. The despoiling of Countess Jaqueline.

In 1417, Count William VI. of Holland, Hainault and Friesland, died, leaving no male heirs, but a daughter, Jacoba, or Jaqueline, whom most of the nobles and towns of the several states had already acknowledged as the heiress of her father's sovereignty. Though barely seventeen years of age, the countess Jake, as she was sometimes called, wore a widow's weeds. She had been married two years before to John, the second son of the king of France, who became presently thereafter, by his brother's death, the dauphin of France. John had died, a few months before Count William's death, and the young countess, fair in person and well endowed in mind, was left with no male support, to contend with the rapacity of an unscrupulous bishop-uncle (John, called The Godless, Bishop of Liege), who strove to rob her of her heritage. "Henry V. [of England] had then stood her friend, brought about a reconciliation, established her rights and proposed a marriage between her and his brother John, Duke of Bedford, who was then a fine young man of five or six and twenty. … But she was a high-spirited, wilful damsel, and preferred her first cousin, the Duke of Brabant, whose father was a brother of Jean Sans Peur [Duke of Burgundy]. … The young Duke was only sixteen, and was a weak-minded, passionate youth. Sharp quarrels took place between the young pair; the Duchess was violent and headstrong, and accused her husband of allowing himself to be governed by favourites of low degree. The Duke of Burgundy interfered in vain. … After three years of quarrelling, in the July of 1421 Jaqueline rode out early one morning, met a knight of Hainault called Escaillon, 'who had long been an Englishman at heart,' and who brought her sixty horsemen, and galloped off for Calais, whence she came to England, where Henry received her with the courtesy due to a distressed dame-errant, and she became a most intimate companion of the Queen. … {2252} She loudly gave out that she intended to obtain a separation from her husband on the plea of consanguinity, although a dispensation had been granted by the Council of Constance, and 'that she would marry some one who would pay her the respect due to her rank.' This person soon presented himself in the shape of Humfrey, duke of Gloucester, the King's youngest brother, handsome, graceful, accomplished, but far less patient and conscientious than any of his three elders." Benedict XIII., the anti-pope, was persuaded to pronounce the marriage of Jaqueline and John of Brabant null and void; "but Henry V. knew that this was a vain sentence, and intimated to his brother that he would never consent to his espousing the Duchess of Brabant; showing him that the wedlock could not be legal, and that to claim the lady's inheritance would lead to a certain rupture with the Duke of Burgundy, who could not but uphold the cause of his cousin of Brabant." Notwithstanding these remonstrances, the Duke Humfrey did marry the seductive Jaqueline, early in 1424. "He then sent to demand from the Duke of Brabant the possession of the lady's inheritance; and on his refusal the Hainaulters espoused whichever party they preferred and began a warfare among themselves." Soon afterwards the godless bishop of Liege died and "bequeathed the rights he pretended to have to Hainault, not to his niece, but to the Duke of Burgundy. Gloucester in the meantime invaded Hainault and carried on a 'bitter war there.' Burgundy assembled men-at-arms for its protection; and letters passed between the Dukes, ending in a challenge—not between Jaqueline's two husbands, who would have seemed the fittest persons to have fought out the quarrel, but between Gloucester and Burgundy." It was arranged that the question of the possession of Hainault should be decided by single combat. Humfrey returned to England to make preparations, leaving Jaqueline at Mons, with her mother. The latter proved false and allowed the citizens of Mons to deliver up the unhappy lady to Philip of Burgundy. Her English husband found himself powerless to render her much aid, and was possibly indifferent to her fate, since another woman had caught his fancy. Jaqueline, after a time, escaped from her captivity, and revived the war in Hainault, Gloucester sending her 500 men. "The Duke of Brabant died, and reports reached her that Gloucester had married Eleanor Cobham; but she continued to battle for her county till 1428, when she finally came to terms with Philippe [of Burgundy], let him garrison her fortresses, appointed him her heir, and promised not to marry without his consent. A year or two after, however, she married a gentleman of Holland called Frank of Burslem, upon which he was seized by the Burgundians. To purchase his liberty she yielded all her dominions, and only received an annual pension until 1436, when she died, having brought about as much strife and dissension as any woman of her time."

C. M. Yonge, Cameos of English History, series 2, chapter 33.

ALSO IN: E. de Monstrelet, Chronicles (translated by Johnes), book 1, chapters 164, 181, 234>, book 2, chapters 22-32, 48-49.

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 1, chapters 5-6.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1428-1430. The sovereignty of the House of Burgundy established.

"Upon the surrender of Holland, Zealand, Friezland, and Hainault by Jacoba, Philip [the duke of Burgundy called Philip the Good] became possessed of the most considerable states of the Netherlands. John, duke of Burgundy, his father, had succeeded to Flanders and Artois, in right of his mother Margaret, sole heiress of Louis van der Male, count of Flanders. In the year 1429, Philip entered into possession of the county of Namur, by the death of Theodore, its last native prince, without issue, of whom he had purchased it during his lifetime for 132,000 crowns of gold. To Namur was added in the next year the neighbouring duchy of Brabant, by the death [A. D. 1430] of Philip (brother of John, who married Jacoba of Holland), without issue; although Margaret, countess-dowager of Holland, aunt of the late duke, stood the next in succession, since the right extended to females, Philip prevailed with the states of Brabant to confer on him, as the true heir, that duchy and Limburg, to which the Margraviate of Antwerp and the lordship of Mechlin were annexed. … The accession of a powerful and ambitious prince to the government of the county was anything but a source of advantage to the Dutch, excepting, perhaps, in a commercial point of view."

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1451-1453. Revolt of Ghent.

See GHENT: A. D. 1451-1453.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1456. The Burgundian hand laid on Utrecht.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1456.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1473. Guelderland taken into the Burgundian dominion.

See GUELDERLAND: A. D. 1079-1473.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477. The severance from Burgundy. Accession of the Duchess Mary. The grant of the "Great Privilege."

On the fifth of January, 1477, Charles the Bold of Burgundy came to his end at Nancy, and Louis XI. of France laid prompt and sure hands on the Burgundian duchy, which remained thenceforth united to the French crown. It was the further intention of Louis to secure more or less of the Netherland domain of the late duke, and he began seizures to that end. But the Netherland states much preferred to acknowledge the sovereignty of the young duchess Mary, daughter and sole heiress of Charles the Bold, provided she would make proper terms with them. "Shortly after her accession, the nobles, to whose guardianship she had been committed by Charles before his departure, summoned a general assembly of the states of the Netherlands at Ghent, to devise means for arresting the enterprises of Louis, and for raising funds to support the war with France, as well as to consider the state of affairs in the provinces. … This is the first regular assembly of the states-general of the Netherlands. … Charles, and his father, Philip, had exercised in the Netherlands a species of government far more arbitrary than the inhabitants had until then been accustomed to. … It now appeared that a favourable opportunity offered itself for rectifying these abuses; and the assembly, therefore, made the consideration of them a preliminary to the grant of any supplies for the war. … They insisted so firmly on this resolution that Mary, finding they were determined to refuse any subsidies till their grievances were redressed, consented to grant charters of privileges to all the states of the Netherlands. That of Holland and Zealand [was] commonly called the Great Charter."

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 2, chapter 2 (volume 1), with foot-note.

{2253}

"The result of the deliberations [of the assembly of the states, in 1477] is the formal grant by Duchess Mary of the 'Groot Privilegie,' or Great Privilege, the Magna Charta of Holland. Although this instrument was afterwards violated, and indeed abolished, it became the foundation of the republic. It was a recapitulation and recognition of ancient rights, not an acquisition of new privileges. It was a restoration, not a revolution. Its principal points deserve attention from those interested in the political progress of mankind. 'The duchess shall not marry without consent of the estates of her provinces. All offices in her gift shall be conferred on natives only. No man shall fill two offices. No office shall be farmed. The Great Council and Supreme Court of Holland is re-established. Causes shall be brought before it on appeal from the ordinary courts. It shall have no original jurisdiction of matters within the cognizance of the provincial and municipal tribunals. The estates and cities are guaranteed in their right not to be summoned to justice beyond the limits of their territory. The cities, in common with all the provinces of the Netherlands, may hold diets as often and at such places as they choose. No new taxes shall be imposed but by consent of the provincial estates. Neither the duchess nor her descendants shall begin either an offensive or defensive war without consent of the estates. In case a war be illegally undertaken, the estates are not bound to contribute to its maintenance. In all public and legal documents, the Netherland language shall be employed. The commands of the duchess shall be invalid, if conflicting with the privileges of a city. The seat of the Supreme Council is transferred from Mechlin to the Hague. No money shall be coined, nor its value raised or lowered, but by consent of the estates. Cities are not to be compelled to contribute to requests which they have not voted. The Sovereign shall come in person before the estates, to make his request for supplies.' … Certainly, for the fifteenth century, the 'Great Privilege' was a reasonably liberal constitution. Where else upon earth, at that day, was there half so much liberty as was thus guaranteed?"

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, introduction, section 8.

ALSO IN: L. S. Costello, Memoirs of Mary of Burgundy, chapters 28-30.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1477. The Austrian marriage of Mary of Burgundy.

"Several husbands were proposed to the Princess of Burgundy, and every one was of opinion there was a necessity of her marrying, to defend those territories that she had left to her, or (by marrying the dauphin), to recover what she had lost.

See BURGUNDY: A. D. 1477.

Several were entirely for this match, and she was as earnest for it as anybody, before the letters she had sent by the Lord of Humbercourt and the chancellor to the king [Louis XI.] were betrayed to the ambassadors from Ghent. Some opposed the match, and urged the disproportion of their age, the dauphin being but nine years old, and besides engaged to the King of England's daughter; and these suggested the son of the Duke of Cleves. Others recommended Maximilian, the emperor's son, who is at present King of the Romans." Duchess Mary made choice presently of Maximilian, then Archduke of Austria, afterwards King of the Romans and finally emperor. The husband-elect "came to Cologne, where several of the princess's servants went to meet him, and carry him money, with which, as I have been told, he was but very slenderly furnished; for his father was the stingiest and most covetous prince, or person, of his time. The Duke of Austria was conducted to Ghent, with about 700 or 800 horse in his retinue, and this marriage was consummated [August 18, 1477], which at first sight brought no great advantage to the subjects of the young princess; for, instead of his supporting her, she was forced to supply him with money. His armies were neither strong enough nor in a condition to face the king's; besides which, the humour of the house of Austria was not pleasing to the subjects of the house of Burgundy, who had been bred up under wealthy princes, that had lucrative offices and employments to dispose of; whose palaces were sumptuous, whose tables were nobly served, whose dress was magnificent, and whose liveries were pompous and splendid. But the Germans are of quite a contrary temper; boorish in their manners and rude in their way of living."

Philip de Commines, Memoirs, book 6, chapter 2 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: L. S. Costello, Memoirs of Mary of Burgundy, chapter 31.

See, also, AUSTRIA: A. D. 1477-1495.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1482-1493. Maximilian and the Flemings. The end of the Hook party in Holland.

"According to the terms of the marriage treaty between Maximilian and Mary, their eldest son, Philip, succeeded to the sovereignty of the Netherlands immediately upon the death of his mother [March 26, 1482]. As he was at this time only four years of age, Maximilian obtained the acknowledgment of himself as guardian of the young count's person, and protector of his states, by all the provinces except Flanders and Guelderland. The Flemings having secured the person of Philip at Ghent, appointed a regency." To reduce the Flemings to obedience, Maximilian carried on two campaigns in their country, during 1484 and 1485, as the result of which Ghent and Bruges surrendered. "Maximilian was acknowledged protector of Flanders during the minority of Philip, who was delivered by the Ghenters into the hands of his father, and by him entrusted to the care of Margaret of York, Duchess-dowager of Burgundy, until he became of age." Three years later (1488)—Maximilian having been, in the meantime, crowned "King of the Romans," at Aix la Chapelle, and thus cadetted, so to speak, for his subsequent coronation as emperor—the Flemings rose again in revolt, Maximilian was at Bruges, and rumor accused him of a design to occupy the city with German troops. The men of Bruges forestalled the attempt by seizing him personally and making him a prisoner. They kept him in durance for nearly four months, until he had signed a treaty, agreeing to surrender the government of the Netherlands to the young Duke Philip, his son; to place the latter under the care of the princes of the blood (his relatives on the Burgundian side); to withdraw all foreign troops, and to use his endeavors to preserve peace with France. {2254} On these terms Maximilian obtained his liberty; but, meantime, his father, the Emperor Frederic, had marched an army to the frontiers of Brabant for his deliverance, and the very honorable King of the Romans, making haste to the shelter of these forces, repudiated with alacrity all the engagements he had sworn to. His imperial father led the army he had brought into Flanders and laid siege to Ghent; but tired of the undertaking after six weeks and returned to Germany, leaving his forces to prosecute the siege and the war. The commotions in Flanders now brought to life the popular party of the "Hooks" in Holland, and war broke out in that province. In neither part of the Netherlands were the insurgents successful. The Flemings had been helped by France, and when the French king abandoned them they were forced to buy a peace on humiliating terms and for a heavy price in cash. In Holland, the revolt languished for a time, but broke out with fresh spirit in 1490, excited by an edict which summarily altered the value of the coin. In the next year it took the name of the "Casembrotspel," or Bread and Cheese War. This insurrection was suppressed in 1492, with the help of German troops, and proved only disastrous to the province. "It was the last effort made for a considerable time by the Hollanders against the increasing power and extortion of their counts. … The miserable remnant of the Hook or popular party melted so entirely away that we hear of them no more in Holland: the county, formerly a power respected in itself, was now become a small and despised portion of an overgrown state." In 1494, Philip having reached the age of seventeen, and Maximilian having become emperor by the death of his father, the latter surrendered and the former was installed in the government of the Netherlands.

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 2, chapter 3 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1494-1519. Beginning of the Austro-Spanish tyranny. Absorption in the vast dominion of Charles V. The seventeen Provinces, their independent constitutions and their States-General.

"In 1494, Philip, now 17 years of age, became sovereign of the Netherlands. But he would only swear to maintain the privileges granted by his grandfather and great-grandfather, Charles and Philip, and refused to acquiesce in the Great Privilege of his mother. The Estates acquiesced. For a time, Friesland, the outlying province of Holland, was severed from it. It was free, and it chose as its elective sovereign the Duke of Saxony. After a time he sold his sovereignty to the House of Hapsburg. The dissensions of the Estates had put them at the mercy of an autocratic family. Philip of Burgundy, in 1496, married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella. In 1500 his son Charles was born, who was afterwards Charles V., Duke of the Netherlands, but also King of Spain, Emperor of Germany, King of Jerusalem, and, by the grant of Alexander VI., alias Roderic Borgia and Pope, lord of the whole new world. Joanna, his mother, through whom he had this vast inheritance, went mad, and remained mad during her life and his.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1496-1517.

Charles not only inherited his mother's and father's sovereignties, but his grandfather's also.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1496-1526].

… The peril which the liberties of the Netherlands were now running was greater than ever. They had been drawn into the hands of that dynasty which, beginning with two little Spanish kingdoms [Castile and Aragon], had in a generation developed into the mightiest of monarchies. … Charles succeeded his father Philip as Count of Flanders in 1506. His father, Philip the Handsome, was at Burgos in Castile, where he was attacked by fever, and died when only 28 years of age. Ten years afterwards Charles became King of Spain (1516). When he was 19 years of age (1519) he was elected emperor.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1519.

The three nations over whom he was destined to rule hated each other cordially. There was antipathy from the beginning between Flemings and Spaniards. The Netherlands nobles were detested in Spain, the Spaniards in the Low Countries were equally abhorred. … Charles was born in Flanders, and during his whole career was much more a Fleming than a Spaniard. This did not, however, prevent him from considering his Flemish subjects as mainly destined to supply his wants, and submit to his exactions. He was always hard pressed for money. The Germans were poor and turbulent. The conquest and subjection of the Moorish population in Spain had seriously injured the industrial wealth of that country. But the Flemings were increasing in riches, particularly the inhabitants of Ghent. They had to supply the funds which Charles required in order to carry out the operations which his necessities or his policy rendered urgent. He had been taught, and he readily believed, that his subjects' money was his own. Now just as Charles had come to the empire, two circumstances had occurred which have had a lasting influence over the affairs of Western Europe. The first of these was the conquest of Egypt by the Turks under Selim I (1512-20). … Egypt had for nearly two centuries been the only route by which Eastern produce, so much valued by European nations, could reach the consumer. … Now this trade, trifling to be sure to our present experience, was of the highest importance to the trading towns of Italy, the Rhine, and the Netherlands. … But the Netherlands had two industries which saved them from the losses which affected the Germans and Italians. They were still the weavers of the world. They still had the most successful fisheries. … The other cause was the revolt against the papacy" [the Reformation—see PAPACY: A. D. 1516-1517, and after].

J. E. T. Rogers, The Story of Holland, chapters 5-6.

The seventeen provinces comprehended under the name of the Netherlands, as ruled by Charles V., were the four duchies of Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg, and Guelderland; the seven counties of Artois, Hainault, Flanders, Namur, Zutphen, Holland, and Zealand; the five seigniories or lordships of Friesland, Mechlin, Utrecht, Overyssel, and Groningen; and the margraviate of Antwerp. "Of these provinces, the four which adjoined the French border, and in which a French dialect was spoken, were called Walloon [see WALLOONS]; in the other provinces a dialect, more or less resembling German, prevailed, that of the midland ones being Flemish, that of the northern, Dutch. They differed still more in their laws and customs than in language. Each province was an independent state, having its own constitution, which secured more liberty to those who lived under it than was then commonly enjoyed in most other parts of Europe. … {2255} The only institutions which supplied any links of union among the different provinces were the States-General, or assembly of deputies sent from each, and the Supreme Tribunal established at Mechlin, having an appellate jurisdiction over them all. The States-General, however, had no legislative authority, nor power to impose taxes, and were but rarely convened. … The members of the States-General were not representatives chosen by the people, but deputies, or ambassadors, from certain provinces. The different provinces had also their own States."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, volume 2, pages 221-222.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1512. Burgundian provinces included in the Circle of Burgundy.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1493-1519.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1521-1555. The Reformation in the Provinces. The "Placards" and Persecutions of Charles V. The Edict of 1550. The Planting of the Inquisition.

"The people of the Netherlands were noted not less for their ingenuity shown in the invention of machines and implements, and for their proficiency in science and letters, than for their opulence and enterprise. It was their boast that common laborers, even the fishermen who dwelt in the huts of Friesland, could read and write, and discuss the interpretation of Scripture. … In such a population, among the countrymen of Erasmus, where, too, in previous ages, various forms of innovation and dissent had arisen, the doctrines of Luther must inevitably find an entrance. They were brought in by foreign merchants, 'together with whose commodities,' writes the old Jesuit historian Strada, 'this plague often sails.' They were introduced with the German and Swiss soldiers, whom Charles V. had occasion to bring into the country. Protestantism was also transplanted from England by numerous exiles who fled from the persecution of Mary. The contiguity of the country to Germany and France provided abundant avenues for the incoming of the new opinions. 'Nor did the Rhine from Germany, or the Meuse from France,' to quote the regretful language of Strada, 'send more water into the Low Countries, than by the one the contagion of Luther, by the other of Calvin, was imported into the same Belgic provinces.' The spirit and occupations of the people, the whole atmosphere of the country, were singularly propitious for the spread of the Protestant movement. The cities of Flanders and Brabant, especially Antwerp, very early furnished professors of the new faith. Charles V. issued, in 1521, from Worms, an edict, the first of a series of barbarous enactments or 'Placards,' for the extinguishing of heresy in the Netherlands; and it did not remain a dead letter. In 1523, two Augustinian monks were burned at the stake in Brussels. … The edicts against heresy were imperfectly executed. The Regent, Margaret of Savoy, was lukewarm in the business of persecution; and her successor, Maria, the Emperor's sister, the widowed Queen of Hungary, was still more leniently disposed. The Protestants rapidly increased in number. Calvinism, from the influence of France, and of Geneva, where young men were sent to be educated, came to prevail among them. Anabaptists and other licentious or fanatical sectaries, such as appeared elsewhere in the wake of the Reformation, were numerous; and their excesses afforded a plausible pretext for violent measures of repression against all who departed from the old faith. In 1550, Charles V. issued a new Placard, in which the former persecuting edicts were confirmed, and in which a reference was made to Inquisitors of the faith, as well as to the ordinary judges of the bishops. This excited great alarm, since the Inquisition was an object of extreme aversion and dread. The foreign merchants prepared to leave Antwerp, prices fell, trade was to a great extent suspended; and such was the disaffection excited, that the Regent Maria interceded for some modification of the obnoxious decree. Verbal changes were made, but the fears of the people were not quieted; and it was published at Antwerp in connection with a protest of the magistrates in behalf of the liberties which were put in peril by a tribunal of the character threatened. 'And,' says the learned Arminian historian, 'as this affair of the Inquisition and the oppression from Spain prevailed more and more, all men began to be convinced that they were destined to perpetual slavery.' Although there was much persecution in the Netherlands during the long reign of Charles, yet the number of martyrs could not have been so great as 50,000, the number mentioned by one writer, much less 100,000, the number given by Grotius."

G. P. Fisher, The Reformation, chapter 9.

"His hand [that of Charles V.] planted the inquisition in the Netherlands. Before his day it is idle to say that the diabolical institution ever had a place there. The isolated cases in which inquisitors had exercised functions proved the absence and not the presence of the system. … Charles introduced and organized a papal inquisition, side by side with those terrible 'placards' of his invention, which constituted a masked inquisition even more cruel than that of Spain. … The number of Netherlanders who were burned, strangled, beheaded, or buried alive, in obedience to his edicts … has been placed as high as 100,000 by distinguished authorities, and have never been put at a lower mark than 50,000. The Venetian envoy Navigero placed the number of victims in the provinces of Holland and Friesland alone at 30,000, and this in 1546, ten years before the abdication, and five before the promulgation of the hideous edict of 1550. … 'No one,' said the edict [of 1550], 'shall print, write, copy, keep, conceal, sell, buy, or give in churches, streets, or other places, any book or writing made by Martin Luther, John Ecolampadius, Ulrich Zwinglius, Martin Bucer, John Calvin, or other heretics reprobated by the Holy Church; … nor break, or otherwise injure the images of the holy virgin or canonized saints; … nor in his house hold conventicles, or illegal gatherings, or be present at any such in which the adherents of the above-mentioned heretics teach, baptize, and form conspiracies against the Holy Church and the general welfare. … Moreover, we forbid … all lay persons to converse or dispute concerning the Holy Scriptures, openly or secretly, especially on any doubtful or difficult matters, or to read, teach, or expound the Scriptures, unless they have duly studied theology and been approved by some renowned university; … or to preach secretly, or openly, or to entertain any of the opinions of the above-mentioned heretics. … Such perturbators of the general quiet are to be executed, to wit: the men with the sword and the women to be buried alive, if they do not persist in their errors; if they do persist in them they are to be executed with fire; all their property in both cases being confiscated to the crown.'"

The horrible edict further bribed informers, by promising to them half the goods of a convicted heretic, while, at the same time, it forbade, under sharp penalties, any petitioning for pardon in favor of such heretics.

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 1, chapter 1, and part 2, chapter 1 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: J. H. Merle d'Aubigne, History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, book 13, chapters 9-11 (volume 7).

{2265}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1539-1540. The revolt and enslavement of Ghent.

See GHENT: A. D. 1539-1540.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1547. Pragmatic Sanction of Charles V. changing the Relations of his Burgundian inheritance to the Empire.

In the Germanic diet assembled at Augsburg in 1547, after the Emperor's defeat of the Protestant princes at Muhlberg (see GERMANY: A. D. 1546-1552), he was able to exercise his will almost without opposition and decree arbitrarily whatever he chose. He there "proclaimed the Pragmatic Sanction for the Netherlands, whereby his old Burgundian inheritance was declared by his own law to be indivisible, the succession settled on the house of Hapsburg, it was attached to the German empire as a tenth district, had to pay certain contributions, but was not to be subject to the Imperial Chamber or the Imperial Court of Judicature. He thus secured the personal union of these territories with his house, and made it the duty of the empire to defend them, while at the same time he withdrew them from the jurisdiction of the empire; it was a union by which the private interests of the house of Hapsburg had everything to gain, but which was of no advantage to the empire."

L. Häusser, The Period of the Reformation, chapter 16.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1555. The Abdication of Charles V. Accession of Philip II. His sworn promises.

"In the autumn of this year [1555] the world was astonished by the declaration of the emperor's intention to resign all his vast dominions, and spend the remainder of his days in a cloister. … On the 25th of October, the day appointed for the ceremony [of the surrender of the sovereignty of the Netherlands], the knights of the Golden Fleece, and the deputies of all the states of the Netherlands assembled at Brussels. … On the day after the emperor's resignation the mutual oaths were taken by Philip and the states of Holland; the former swore to maintain all the privileges which they now enjoyed, including those granted or confirmed at his installation as heir in 1549. He afterwards renewed the promise made by Charles in the month of May preceding, that no office in Holland, except that of stadtholder, should be given to foreigners or to Netherlanders of those provinces in which Hollanders were excluded from offices. In the January of the next year [1556] the emperor resigned the crown of Spain to his son, reserving only an annuity of 100,000 crowns, and on the 7th of September following, having proceeded to Zealand to join the fleet destined to carry him to Spain, he surrendered the imperial dignity to his brother Ferdinand." He then proceeded to the cloister of St. Just, near Piacenza, where he lived in retirement until his death, which occurred August 21, 1558.

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 2, chapter 6 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: W. Stirling, Cloister Life of Charles V.

O. Delepierre, Historical Difficulties, chapter 10.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1555-1559. Opening of the dark and bloody reign of Philip II. of Spain. His malignity. His perfidy. His evil and plotting industry.

"Philip, bred in this [Spanish] school of slavish superstition, taught that he was the despot for whom it was formed, familiar with the degrading tactics of eastern tyranny, was at once the most contemptible and unfortunate of men. … He was perpetually filled with one idea—that of his greatness; he had but one ambition—that of command; but one enjoyment—that of exciting fear. … Deceit and blood were his greatest, if not his only, delights. The religious zeal which he affected, or felt, showed itself but in acts of cruelty; and the fanatic bigotry which inspired him formed the strongest contrast to the divine spirit of Christianity. … Although ignorant, he had a prodigious instinct of cunning. He wanted courage, but its place was supplied by the harsh obstinacy of wounded pride. All the corruptions of intrigue were familiar to him; yet he often failed in his most deep-laid designs, at the very moment of their apparent success, by the recoil of the bad faith and treachery with which his plans were overcharged. Such was the man who now began that terrible reign which menaced utter ruin to the national prosperity of the Netherlands. … Philip had only once visited the Netherlands before his accession to sovereign power. … Every thing that he observed on this visit was calculated to revolt both [his opinions and his prejudices]. The frank cordiality of the people appeared too familiar. The expression of popular rights sounded like the voice of rebellion. Even the magnificence displayed in his honour offended his jealous vanity. From that moment he seems to have conceived an implacable aversion to the country, in which alone, of all his vast possessions, he could not display the power or inspire the terror of despotism. The sovereign's dislike was fully equalled by the disgust of his subjects. … Yet Philip did not at first act in a way to make himself more particularly hated. He rather, by an apparent consideration for a few points of political interest and individual privilege, and particularly by the revocation of some of the edicts against heretics, removed the suspicions his earlier conduct had excited; and his intended victims did not perceive that the despot sought to lull them to sleep, in the hopes of making them an easier prey. Philip knew well that force alone was insufficient to reduce such a people to slavery. He succeeded in persuading the states to grant him considerable subsidies, some of which were to be paid by instalments during a period of nine years. That was gaining a great step towards his designs. … At the same time he sent secret agents to Rome, to obtain the approbation of the pope to his insidious but most effective plan for placing the whole of the clergy in dependence upon the crown. He also kept up the army of Spaniards and Germans which his father had formed on the frontiers of France; and although he did not remove from their employments the functionaries already in place, he took care to make no new appointments to office among the natives of the Netherlands. … To lead his already, deceived subjects the more surely into the snare, he announced his intended departure on a short visit to Spain; and created for the period of his absence a provisional government, chiefly composed of the leading men among the Belgian nobility. {2257} He flattered himself that the states, dazzled by the illustrious illusion thus prepared, would cheerfully grant to this provisional government the right of levying taxes during the temporary absence of the sovereign. He also reckoned on the influence of the clergy in the national assembly, to procure the revival of the edicts against heresy, which he had gained the merit of suspending. … As soon as the states had consented to place the whole powers of government in the hands of the new administration for the period of the king's absence, the royal hypocrite believed his scheme secure, and flattered himself he had established an instrument of durable despotism. … The edicts against heresy, soon adopted [including a re-enactment of the terrible edict of 1550—see above], gave to the clergy an almost unlimited power over the lives and fortunes of the people. But almost all the dignitaries of the church being men of great respectability and moderation, chosen by the body of the inferior clergy, these extraordinary powers excited little alarm. Philip's project was suddenly to replace these virtuous ecclesiastics by others of his own choice [through a creation of new bishoprics], as soon as the states broke up from their annual meeting; and for this intention he had procured the secret consent and authority of the court of Rome. In support of these combinations, the Belgian troops were completely broken up and scattered in small bodies over the country. … To complete the execution of this system of perfidy, Philip convened an assembly of all the states at Ghent, in the month of July, 1559. … Anthony Perrenotte de Granvelle, bishop of Arras [afterwards cardinal], who was considered as Philip's favorite counsellor, but who was in reality no more than his docile agent, was commissioned to address the assembly in the name of his master, who spoke only Spanish. His oration was one of cautious deception." It announced the appointment of Margaret, duchess of Parma, a natural daughter of Charles V., and therefore half-sister of Philip, to preside as regent over the government of the Netherlands during the absence of the sovereign. It also urged with skilful plausibility certain requests for money on the part of the latter. "But notwithstanding all the talent, the caution, and the mystery of Philip and his minister, there was among the nobles one man [William of Nassau, prince of Orange and stadtholder, or governor, of Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht] who saw through all. Without making himself suspiciously prominent, he privately warned some members of the states of the coming danger. Those in whom he confided did not betray the trust. They spread among the other deputies the alarm, and pointed out the danger to which they had been so judiciously awakened. The consequence was, a reply to Philip's demand, in vague and general terms, without binding the nation by any pledge; and an unanimous entreaty that he would diminish the taxes, withdraw the foreign troops, and entrust no official employments to any but natives of the country. The object of this last request was the removal of Granvelle, who was born in Franche-Comte. Philip was utterly astounded at all this. In the first moment of his vexation he imprudently cried out, 'Would ye, then, also bereave me of my place; I, who am a Spaniard?' But he soon recovered his self-command, and resumed his usual mask; expressed his regret at not having sooner learned the wishes of the state; promised to remove the foreign troops within three months; and set off for Zealand, with assumed composure, but filled with the fury of a discovered traitor and a humiliated despot." In August, 1559, he sailed for Spain.

T. C. Grattan, History of the Netherlands, chapter 7.

"Crafty, saturnine, atrabilious, always dissembling and suspecting, sombre, and silent like night when brooding over the hatching storm, he lived shrunk within himself, with only the fellowship of his gloomy thoughts and cruel resolves. … There is something terrific in the secrecy, dissimulation and dogged perseverance with which Philip would, during a series of years, meditate and prepare the destruction of one man, or of a whole population, and something still more awful in the icy indifference, the superhuman insensibility, the accumulated cold-blooded energy of hoarded-up vengeance with which, at the opportune moment, he would issue a dry sentence of extermination. … He seemed to take pleasure in distilling, slowly and chemically, the poison which, Python-like, he darted at every object which he detested or feared, or which he considered an obstacle in his path."

C. Gayarre, Philip II. of Spain, chapter 1.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1559-1562. The Spanish troops, the new bishoprics, and the shadow of the Inquisition. The appeal of Brabant to its ancient "Joyeuse Entrée."

"The first cause of trouble, after Philip's departure from the Netherlands, arose from the detention of the Spanish troops there. The king had pledged his word … that they should leave the country by the end of four months, at farthest. Yet that period had long since passed, and no preparations were made for their departure. The indignation of the people rose higher and higher at the insult thus offered by the presence of these detested foreigners. It was a season of peace. No invasion was threatened from abroad; no insurrection existed at home. … Granvelle himself, who would willingly have pleased his master by retaining a force in the country on which he could rely, admitted that the project was impracticable. 'The troops must be withdrawn,' he wrote, 'and that speedily, or the consequence will be an insurrection.' … The Prince of Orange and Count Egmont threw up the commands intrusted to them by the king. They dared no longer hold them, as the minister added, it was so unpopular. … Yet Philip was slow in returning an answer to the importunate letters of the regent and the minister; and when he did reply, it was to evade their request. … The regent, however, saw that, with or without instructions, it was necessary to act. … The troops were ordered to Zealand, in order to embark for Spain. But the winds proved unfavorable. Two months longer they were detained, on shore or on board the transports. They soon got into brawls with the workmen employed on the dikes; and the inhabitants, still apprehensive of orders from the king countermanding the departure of the Spaniards, resolved, in such an event, to abandon the dikes, and lay the country under water! Fortunately, they were not driven to this extremity. {2258} In January, 1561, more than a year after the date assigned by Philip, the nation was relieved of the presence of the intruders. … This difficulty was no sooner settled than it was followed by another scarcely less serious." Arrangements had been made for "adding 13 new bishoprics to the four already existing in the Netherlands. … The whole affair had been kept profoundly secret by the government. It was not till 1561 that Philip disclosed his views, in a letter to some of the principal nobles in the council of state. But, long before that time, the project had taken wind, and created a general sensation through the country. The people looked on it as an attempt to subject them to the same ecclesiastical system which existed in Spain. The bishops, by virtue of their office, were possessed of certain inquisitorial powers, and these were still further enlarged by the provisions of the royal edicts. … The present changes were regarded as part of a great scheme for introducing the Spanish Inquisition into the Netherlands. … The nobles had other reasons for opposing the measure. The bishops would occupy in the legislature the place formerly held by the abbots, who were indebted for their election to the religious houses over which they presided. The new prelates, on the contrary, would receive their nomination from the crown; and the nobles saw with alarm their own independence menaced by the accession of an order of men who would naturally be subservient to the interests of the monarch. … But the greatest opposition arose from the manner in which the new dignitaries were to be maintained. This was to be done by suppressing the offices of the abbots, and by appropriating the revenues of their houses to the maintenance of the bishops. … Just before Philip's departure from the Netherlands, a bull arrived from Rome authorizing the erection of the new bishoprics. This was but the initiatory step. Many other proceedings were necessary before the consummation of the affair. Owing to impediments thrown in the way by the provinces, and the habitual tardiness of the court of Rome, nearly three years elapsed before the final briefs were expedited by Pius IV."

W. H. Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip II., book 2, chapter 6 (volume 1).

"Against the arbitrary policy embodied in the edicts, the new bishoprics and the foreign soldiery, the Netherlanders appealed to their ancient constitutions. These charters were called 'handvests', in the vernacular Dutch and Flemish, because the sovereign made them fast with his hand. As already stated, Philip had made them faster than any of the princes of his house had ever done, so far as oath and signature could accomplish that purpose, both as hereditary prince in 1549, and as monarch in 1555. … Of these constitutions, that of Brabant, known by the title of the 'joyeuse entrée' 'blyde inkomst,' or blythe entrance, furnished the most decisive barrier against the present wholesale tyranny. First and foremost, the 'joyous entry' provided, 'that the prince of the land should not elevate the clerical state higher than of old has been customary and by former princes settled; unless by consent of the other two estates, the nobility and the cities.' Again, 'the prince can prosecute no one of his subjects, nor any foreign resident, civilly or criminally, except in the ordinary and open courts of justice in the province, where the accused may answer and defend himself with the help of advocates.' Further, 'the prince shall appoint no foreigners to office in Brabant.' Lastly 'should the prince, by force or otherwise, violate any of these privileges, the inhabitants of Brabant, after regular protest entered, are discharged of their oaths of allegiance, and, as free, independent, and unbound people, may conduct themselves exactly as seems to them best.' Such were the leading features, so far as they regarded the points now at issue, of that famous constitution which was so highly esteemed in the Netherlands, that mothers came to the province in order to give birth to their children, who might thus enjoy, as a birthright, the privileges of Brabant. Yet the charters of the other provinces ought to have been as effective against the arbitrary course of the government. 'No foreigner,' said the constitution of Holland, 'is eligible as councillor, financier, magistrate, or member of a court. Justice can be administered only by the ordinary tribunals and magistrates. The ancient laws and customs shall remain inviolable. Should the prince infringe any of these provisions, no one is bound to obey him.' These provisions from the Brabant and Holland charters are only cited as illustrative of the general spirit of the provincial constitutions. Nearly all the provinces possessed privileges equally ample, duly signed and sealed."

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 2, chapter 2 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: E. E. Crowe, Cardinal Granvelle (Eminent Foreign Statesmen, volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1562-1566. Beginning of organized resistance to the tyranny and persecution of Philip. The signing of the Compromise. The League of the Gueux.

William of Orange now "claimed, in the name of the whole country, the convocation of the states-general. This assembly alone was competent to decide what was just, legal, and obligatory for each province and every town. … The ministers endeavored to evade a demand which they were at first unwilling openly to refuse. But the firm demeanor and persuasive eloquence of the prince of Orange carried before them all who were not actually bought by the crown; and Granvelle found himself at length forced to avow that an express order from the king forbade the convocation of the states, on any pretext, during his absence. The veil was thus rent asunder, which had in some measure concealed the deformity of Philip's despotism. The result was a powerful confederacy among all who held it odious, for the overthrow of Granvelle, to whom they chose to attribute the king's conduct. … Those who composed this confederacy against the minister were actuated by a great variety of motives. … It is doubtful if any of the confederates except the prince of Orange clearly saw that they were putting themselves in direct and personal opposition to the king himself. William alone, clear-sighted in politics and profound in his views, knew, in thus devoting himself to the public cause, the adversary with whom he entered the lists. This great man, for whom the national traditions still preserve the sacred title of 'father' (Vader-Willem), and who was in truth not merely the parent but the political creator of the country, was at this period in his 30th year. … Philip, … driven before the popular voice, found himself forced to the choice of throwing off the mask at once, or of sacrificing Granvelle. {2259} An invincible inclination for manœuvring and deceit decided him on the latter measure; and the cardinal, recalled but not disgraced, quitted the Netherlands on the 10th of March, 1564. The secret instructions to the government remained unrevoked; the president Viglius succeeded to the post which Granvelle had occupied; and it was clear that the projects of the king had suffered no change. Nevertheless some good resulted from the departure of the unpopular minister. The public fermentation subsided; the patriot lords reappeared at court; and the prince of Orange acquired an increasing influence in the council and over the government. … It was resolved to dispatch a special envoy to Spain, to explain to Philip the views of the council. … The count of Egmont, chosen by the council for this important mission, set out for Madrid in the month of February, 1565. Philip received him with profound hypocrisy; loaded him with the most flattering promises; sent him back in the utmost elation: and when the credulous count returned to Brussels, he found that the written orders, of which he was the bearer, were in direct variance with every word which the king had uttered. These orders were chiefly concerning the reiterated subject of the persecution to be inflexibly pursued against the religious reformers. Not satisfied with the hitherto established forms of punishment, Philip now expressly commanded that the more revolting means decreed by his father in the rigor of his early zeal, such as burning, living burial, and the like, should be adopted. … Even Viglius was terrified by the nature of Philip's commands; and the patriot lords once more withdrew from all share in the government, leaving to the duchess of Parma and her ministers the whole responsibility of the new measures. They were at length put into actual and vigorous execution in the beginning of the year 1566. The inquisitors of the faith, with their familiars, stalked abroad boldly in the devoted provinces, carrying persecution and death in their train. Numerous but partial insurrections opposed these odious intruders. Every district and town became the scene of frightful executions or tumultuous resistance."

T. C. Grattan, History of the Netherlands, chapter 7.

In November, 1565, a meeting of Flemish nobles was held at Culenborg House, Brussels, where they formed a league, in which Philip de Marnix, Lord of Ste. Aldegonde, Count Louis of Nassau, a younger brother of the Prince of Orange, and Viscount Brederode, were the foremost leaders. "In a meeting held at Breda, in January 1566, the league promulgated their views in a paper called the Compromise, attributed to the hand of Ste. Aldegonde. The document contained a severe denunciation of the inquisition as an illegal, pernicious and iniquitous tribunal; the subscribers swore to defend one another against any attack that might be made upon them; and declared, at the same time, that they did not mean to throw off their allegiance to the King. … In the course of two months the Compromise was signed by about 2,000 persons, including many Catholics; but only a few of the great nobles could be prevailed on to subscribe it. … The Prince of Orange at first kept aloof from the league, and at this period Egmont, who was of a more impulsive temper, seemed to act the leading part; but the nation relied solely upon William. The latter gave at least a tacit sanction to the league in the spring of 1566, by joining the members of it in a petition to the Regent which he had himself revised."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 3, chapter 7 (volume 2).

"The league had its origin in banquets, and a banquet gave it form and perfection. … Brederode entertained the confederates in Kuilemberg House; about 300 guests assembled; intoxication gave them courage, and their audacity rose with their numbers. During the conversation, one of their number happened to remark that he had overheard the Count of Barlaimont whisper in French to the regent, who was seen to turn pale on the delivery of the petitions, that 'she need not be afraid of a band of beggars (gueux).' … Now, as the very name for their fraternity was the very thing which had most perplexed them, an expression was eagerly caught up, which, while it cloaked the presumption of their enterprise in humility, was at the same time appropriate to them as petitioners. Immediately they drank to one another under this name, and the cry 'Long live the gueux!' was accompanied with a general shout of applause. … What they had resolved on in the moment of intoxication they attempted, when sober, to carry into execution. … In a few days, the town of Brussels, swarmed with ash-gray garments, such as were usually worn by mendicant friars and penitents. Every confederate put his whole family and domestics in this dress. Some carried wooden bowls thinly overlaid with plates of silver, cups of the same kind, and wooden knives; in short, the whole paraphernalia of the beggar tribe, which they either fixed round their hats or suspended from their girdles. … Hence the origin of the name 'Gueux,' which was subsequently borne in the Netherlands by all who seceded from popery, and took up arms against the king."

F. Schiller, History of the Revolt of the Netherlands, book 3.

ALSO IN: J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 2, chapters 3-6 (volume 1).

F. von Raumer, History of the 16th and 17th Centuries illustrated by original documents, letter 16 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1566-1568. Field preaching under arms. The riots of the Image-breakers. Philip's schemes of revenge. Discouragement and retirement of Orange. Blindness of Egmont and Horn, and their fate.

"While the Privy Council was endeavouring to obtain a 'Moderation' of the Edicts, and … effected that the heretics should be no longer burnt but hung, and that the Inquisition should proceed 'prudently, and with circumspection,' a movement broke out among the people which mocked at all Edicts. The open country was suddenly covered with thousands of armed noblemen, citizens, and peasants, who assembled in large crowds in the open air to listen to some heretical preacher, Lutheran, Calvinist, or even an Anabaptist, and to hold forbidden services, with prayers and hymns, in the mother tongue. They sallied forth with pistols, arquebuses, flails, and pitchforks; the place of meeting was marked out like a camp, and surrounded by guards; from 10,000 to 20,000 assembled, the armed men outside, the women and children within. {2260} After the immense choir had sung a psalm, one of the excommunicated preachers appeared between two pikes (according to the 'Moderation' a price was set upon the head of everyone of them), and expounded the new doctrine from the Scriptures; the assembly listened in devout silence, and when the service was ended separated quietly, but defiantly. This was repeated day after day throughout the country, and nobody dared to attack the armed field preachers. The Regent was in a painful situation; she was always having it proclaimed that the Edicts were in force, but nobody cared. … It was all in vain unless foreign troops came to enforce obedience, and these she had neither power nor funds to procure. The King hesitated in his usual fashion, and left the Regent to the torments of powerlessness and uncertainty. Meanwhile the universal excitement bore fatal fruit. Instead of the dignified preachings and peaceful assemblies of May, in June and July there were wild excesses and furious mobs. Orange had just persuaded the Regent to permit the field preaching in the open country, if they avoided the towns, when the first great outbreak occurred in Antwerp. Two days after a great procession, on the 18th of August, 1566, at which the Catholic clergy of Antwerp had made a pompous display to the annoyance of the numerous Protestants, the beautiful cathedral was invaded by a furious mob, who destroyed without mercy all the images, pictures, and objects of art that it contained. This demolition of images, the stripping of churches, desecration of chapels, and destruction of all symbols of the ancient faith, spread from Antwerp to other places, Tournay, Valenciennes, &c. It was done with a certain moderation, for neither personal violence nor theft took place anywhere, though innumerable costly articles were lying about. Still, these fanatical scenes not only excited the ire of Catholics, but of every religious man; in Antwerp, especially, the seafaring mob had rushed upon everything that had been held sacred for centuries. In her distress the Regent wished to flee from Brussels, but Orange, Egmont, and Horn compelled her to remain, and induced her to proclaim the Act of the 25th of August, by which an armistice was decided on between Spain and the Beggars. In this the Government conceded the abolition of the Inquisition and the toleration of the new doctrines, and the Beggars declared that for so long as this promise was kept their league was dissolved. In consideration of this, the first men in the country agreed to quell the disturbances in Flanders, Antwerp, Tournay; and Malines, and to restore peace. Orange effected this in Antwerp like a true statesman, who knew how to keep himself above party spirit; but in Flanders, Egmont, on the contrary, went to work like a brutal soldier; he stormed against the heretics like Philip's Spanish executioners, and the scales fell from the eyes of the bitterly disappointed people. Meanwhile a decision had been come to at Madrid. … When at length the irresolute King had determined to proclaim an amnesty, though it was really rather a proscription, and to promise indulgence, while he was assuring the Pope by protocol before notaries that he never would grant any, the news came of the image riots of August, and a report from the Duchess in which she humbly begged the King's pardon for having allowed a kind of religious peace to be extorted from her, but she was entirely innocent; they had forced it from her as a prisoner in her palace, and there was one comfort, that the King was not bound by a promise made only in her name. Philip's rage was boundless. … He was resolved upon fearful revenge, even when he was writing that he should know how to restore order in his provinces by means of grace and mercy. … Well-informed as Orange was, he understood the whole situation perfectly; he knew that while the Regent was heaping flattery upon him, she and Philip were compassing his destruction; that her only object could be to keep the peace until the Spanish preparations were complete, and meanwhile, if possible, to compromise him with the people. He wrote to Egmont, and laid the dangers of their situation before him, and communicated his resolve either to escape Philip's revenge by flight, or to join with his friends in armed resistance to the expected attack of the Spanish army. But Egmont in his unhappy blindness had resolved to side with the Government which was more than ever determined on his destruction, and the meeting at Dendermonde, October, 1566, when Orange consulted him, Louis of Nassau, and Hogstraaten, as to u plan of united action, was entirely fruitless. … Admiral Horn, who had staked large property in the service of the Emperor and King, and had never received the least return in answer to his just demands, gave up his office, and, like a weary philosopher, retired into solitude. Left entirely alone, Orange thought of emigrating; in short, the upper circle of the previous party of opposition no longer existed. But it was not so with the mad leaders of the Beggars. While the zealous inhabitants of Valenciennes, incited by two of the most dauntless Calvinistic preachers, undertook to defend themselves against the royal troops with desperate bravery, Count Brederode went about the country with a clang of sabres, exciting disturbances in order to give the heretics at Valenciennes breathing-time by a happy diversion. … All that Philip wanted to enable him to gain the day was an unsuccessful attempt at revolt. The attack upon images and the Beggars' volunteer march did more for the Government than all Granvella's system; … drove every one who favoured the Catholics and loved peace into the arms of the Government., The reaction set in with the sanguinary defeat of the rebels at Valenciennes, who never again even made an attempt at resistance. Orange gave up the liberties of his country for lost. … Stating that he could never take the new oath of fealty which was required, because it would oblige him to become the executioner of his Protestant countrymen, he renounced his offices and dignities, … made a last attempt to save his friend Egmont, … and retired to Dillenburg, the ancient property of the family. He wished to be spared for better times; he saw the storm coming, and was too cool-headed to offer himself as the first sacrifice. In fact, just when he was travelling towards Germany, Duke Alba [more commonly called Alva], the hangman of the Netherlands, was on his way to his destination." Alva arrived in August, 1567, with an army of 10,000 carefully picked veterans, fully empowered to make the Netherlands a conquered territory and deal with it as such. His first important act was the treacherous seizure and imprisonment of Egmont and Horn. Then the organization of terror began. The imprisonment and the mockery of a trial of the two most distinguished victims was protracted until the 5th of June, 1568, when they were beheaded in the great square at Brussels.

L. Häusser, The Period of the Reformation, chapters 22-23.

ALSO IN: J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 2, chapters 6-10, and part 3, chapters 1-2.

F. Schiller, History of the Revolt of the Netherlands, books 3-4.

{2261}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1567. The Council of Blood.

"In the same despatch of the 9th September [1567], in which the Duke communicated to Philip the capture of Egmont and Horn, he announced to him his determination to establish a new court for the trial of crimes committed during the recent period of troubles. This wonderful tribunal was accordingly created with the least possible delay. It was called the Council of Troubles, but it soon acquired the terrible name, by which it will be forever known in history, of the Blood-Council. It superseded all other institutions. Every court, from those of the municipal magistracies up to the supreme councils of the provinces, were forbidden to take cognisance in future of any cause growing out of the late troubles. The Council of State, although it was not formally disbanded, fell into complete desuetude, its members being occasionally summoned into Alva's private chambers in an irregular manner, while its principal functions were usurped by the Blood-Council. Not only citizens of every province, but the municipal bodies, and even the sovereign provincial Estates themselves, were compelled to plead, like humble individuals, before this new and extraordinary tribunal. It is unnecessary to allude to the absolute violation which was thus committed of all charters, laws, and privileges, because the very creation of the Council was a bold and brutal proclamation that those laws and privileges were at an end. … So well … did this new and terrible engine perform its work, that in less than three months from the time of its erection, 1,800 human beings had suffered death by its summary proceedings; some of the highest, the noblest, and the most virtuous in the land among the number; nor had it then manifested the slightest indication of faltering in its dread career. Yet, strange to say, this tremendous court, thus established upon the ruins of all the ancient institutions of the country, had not been provided with even a nominal authority from any source whatever. The King had granted it no letters patent or charter, nor had even the Duke of Alva thought it worth while to grant any commissions, either in his own name or as Captain-General, to any of the members composing the board. The Blood-Council was merely an informal club, of which the Duke was perpetual president, while the other members were all appointed by himself. Of these subordinate councillors, two had the right of voting, subject, however, in all cases, to his final decision, while the rest of the number did not vote at all. It had not, therefore, in any sense, the character of a judicial, legislative, or executive tribunal, but was purely a board of advice by which the bloody labours of the Duke were occasionally lightened as to detail, while not a feather's weight of power or of responsibility was removed from his shoulders. He reserved for himself the final decision upon all causes which should come before the Council, and stated his motives for so doing with grim simplicity. 'Two reasons,' he wrote to the King, 'have determined me thus to limit the power of the tribunal; the first that, not knowing its members, I might be easily deceived by them; the second, that the men of law only condemn for crimes which are proved; whereas your Majesty knows that affairs of state are governed by very different rules from the laws which they have here.' It being, therefore, the object of the Duke to compose a body of men who would be of assistance to him in condemning for crimes which could not be proved, and in slipping over statutes which were not to be recognised, it must be confessed that he was not unfortunate in the appointments which he made to the office of councillors. … No one who was offered the office refused it. Noircarmes and Berlaymont accepted with very great eagerness. Several presidents and councillors of the different provincial tribunals were appointed, but all the Netherlanders were men of straw. Two Spaniards, Del Rio and Vargas, were the only members who could vote, while their decisions, as already stated, were subject to reversal by Alva. Del Rio was a man without character or talent, a mere tool in the hands of his superiors, but Juan de Vargas was a terrible reality. No better man could have been found in Europe, for the post to which he was thus elevated. To shed human blood was, in his opinion, the only important business and the only exhilarating pastime of life. … It was the duty of the different subalterns, who, as already stated, had no right of voting, to prepare reports upon the cases. Nothing could be more summary. Information was lodged against a man, or against a hundred men, in one document. The Duke sent the papers to the Council, and the inferior councillors reported at once to Vargas. If the report concluded with a recommendation of death to the man or the hundred men in question, Vargas instantly approved it, and execution was done upon the man, or the hundred men, within 48 hours. If the report had any other conclusion, it was immediately sent back for revision, and the reporters were overwhelmed with reproaches by the President. Such being the method of operation, it may be supposed that the councillors were not allowed to slacken in their terrible industry. The register of every city, village, and hamlet throughout the Netherlands showed the daily lists of men, women, and children thus sacrificed at the shrine of the demon who had obtained the mastery over this unhappy land. It was not often that an individual was of sufficient importance to be tried—if trial it could be called—by himself. It was found more expeditious to send them in batches to the furnace. Thus, for example, on the 4th of January, 84 inhabitants of Valenciennes were condemned; on another day, 95 miscellaneous individuals from different places in Flanders; on another, 46 inhabitants of Malines; on another, 35 persons from different localities, and so on. … Thus the whole country became a charnel-house; the death-bell tolled hourly in every village; not a family but was called to mourn for its dearest relatives, while the survivors stalked listlessly about, the ghosts of their former selves, among the wrecks of their former homes. The spirit of the nation, within a few months after the arrival of Alva, seemed hopelessly broken. The blood of its best and bravest had already stained the scaffold; men to whom it had been accustomed to look for guidance and protection, were dead, in prison, or in exile. Submission had ceased to be of any avail, flight was impossible, and the spirit of vengeance had alighted at every fireside. {2262} The mourners went daily about the streets, for there was hardly a house which had not been made desolate. The scaffolds, the gallows, the funeral piles which had been sufficient in ordinary times, furnished now an entirely inadequate machinery for the incessant executions. Columns and stakes in every street, the door-posts of private houses, the fences in the fields, were laden with human carcases, strangled, burned, beheaded. The orchards in the country bore on many a tree the hideous fruit of human bodies. Thus the Netherlands were crushed, and, but for the stringency of the tyranny which had now closed their gates, would have been depopulated."

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 3, chapter 1 (volume 2).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1568. Stupendous death-sentence of the Inquisition. The whole population condemned.

"Early in the year, the most sublime sentence of death was promulgated which has ever been pronounced since the creation of the world. The Roman tyrant wished that his enemies' heads were all upon a single neck, that he might strike them off at a blow; the Inquisition assisted Philip to place the heads of all his Netherland subjects upon a single neck, for the same fell purpose. Upon the 16th February, 1568, a sentence of the Holy Office condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal doom only a few persons, especially named, were excepted. A proclamation of the King, dated ten days later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and ordered it to be carried into instant execution without regard to age, sex, or condition. This is probably the most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. Three millions of people, men, women, and children, were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines; and as it was well known that these were not harmless thunders, like some bulls of the Vatican, but serious and practical measures which it was intended should be enforced, the horror which they produced may be easily imagined. It was hardly the purpose of Government to compel the absolute completion of the wholesale plan in all its length and breadth, yet in the horrible times upon which they had fallen, the Netherlanders might be excused for believing that no measure was too monstrous to be fulfilled. At any rate, it was certain that when all were condemned, any might at a moment's warning be carried to the scaffold, and this was precisely the course adopted by the authorities. … Under this new decree, the executions certainly did not slacken. Men in the highest and the humblest positions were daily and hourly dragged to the stake. Alva, in a single letter to Philip, coolly estimated the number of executions which were to take place immediately after the expiration of Holy Week, 'at 800 heads.' Many a citizen, convicted of a hundred thousand florins, and of no other crime, saw himself suddenly tied to a horse's tail, with his hands fastened behind him, and so dragged to the gallows. But although wealth was an unpardonable sin, poverty proved rarely a protection. Reasons sufficient could always be found for dooming the starveling laborer as well as the opulent burgher. To avoid the disturbances created in the streets by the frequent harangues or exhortations addressed to the bystanders by the victims on their way to the scaffold, a new gag was invented. The tongue of each prisoner was screwed into an iron ring, and then seared with a hot iron. The swelling and inflammation, which were the immediate result, prevented the tongue from slipping through the ring, and of course effectually precluded all possibility of speech."

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 3, chapter 2 (volume 2).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1568-1572. The arming of Revolt and beginning of War by the Prince of Orange. Alva's successes, brutalities, and senseless taxation. Quarrels with England and destruction of Flemish trade.

"So unprecedented already was the slaughter that even in the beginning of March 1568, when Alva had been scarcely six months in the country, the Emperor Maximilian, himself a Roman Catholic, addressed a formal remonstrance to the king on the subject, as his dignity entitled him to do, since the Netherlands were a part of the Germanic body. It received an answer which was an insult to the remonstrant from its defiance of truth and common sense, and which cut off all hope from the miserable Flemings. Philip declared that what he had done had been done 'for the repose of the Provinces,' … and almost on the same day he published a new edict, confirming a decree of the Inquisition which condemned all the inhabitants of the Netherlands to death as heretics, with the exception of a few persons who were named [see above]. … In their utter despair, the Flemings implored the aid of the Prince of Orange, who … had quitted the country. … He was now residing at Dillenbourg, in Nassau, in safety from Philip's threats, and from the formal sentence which, in addition to the general condemnation of the whole people, the Council of Blood had just pronounced against him by name. But he resolved that in such an emergency it did not become him to weigh his own safety against the claims his countrymen had on his exertions. After a few weeks energetically spent in levying troops and raising money to maintain them, he published a document which he entitled his 'Justification,' and which stated his own case and that of the Provinces with a most convincing clearness; and at the end of April he took the field at the head of a small force, composed of French Huguenots, Flemish exiles, … and German mercenaries. … Thus in the spring of 1568 began that terrible war which for 40 years desolated what, in spite of great natural disadvantages, had hitherto been one of the most prosperous countries of Europe. … To dwell on many of its details … would require volumes. … And, indeed, the pitched battles were few. At the outset [May 23, 1568] Count Louis of Nassau, the prince's brother, defeated and slew Count Aremberg, the Spanish governor of the province of Groningen, very nearly on the spot [near the convent of Heiliger-Lee, or the Holy Lion] on which, in the palmy days of Rome, the fierce valor of Arminius had annihilated the legions whose loss was so deeply imprinted on the heart of Augustus; and Alva had avenged the disaster by so complete a rout of Louis at Jemmingen, that more than half of the rebel army was slaughtered on the field, and Louis himself only escaped a capture, which would have delivered him to the scaffold, by swimming the Ems, and escaping with a mere handful of troops, all that were left of his army, into Germany. But after dealing this blow … Alva rarely fought a battle in the open field. {2263} He preferred showing the superiority of his generalship by defying the endeavours of the prince and his brothers to bring him to action, miscalculating, indeed, the eventual consequences of such tactics, and believing that the protraction of the war must bring the rebels to his sovereign's feet by the utter exhaustion of their resources; while the event proved that it was Spain which was exhausted by the contest, that kingdom being in fact so utterly prostrated by continued draining of men and treasure which it involved, that her decay may be dated from the moment when Alva reached the Flemish borders. His career in the Netherlands seemed to show that, warrior though he was, persecution was more to his taste than even victory. Victorious, indeed, he was, so far as never failing to reduce every town which he besieged, and to baffle every design of the prince which he anticipated. … Every triumph which he gained was sullied by a ferocious and deliberate cruelty, of which the history of no other general in the world affords a similar example. … Whenever Alva captured a town, he himself enjoined his troops to show no mercy either to the garrison or to the peaceful inhabitants. Every atrocity which greed of rapine, wantonness of lust, and blood-thirsty love of slaughter could devise was perpetrated by his express direction. … He had difficulties to encounter besides those of his military operations, and such as he was less skilful in meeting. He soon began to be in want of money. A fleet laden with gold and silver was driven by some French privateers into an English harbour, where Elizabeth at once laid her hands on it. If it belonged to her enemies, she had a right, she said, to seize it: if to her friends, to borrow it (she had not quite decided in which light to regard the Spaniards, but the logic was irresistible, and her grasp irremovable), and, to supply the deficiency, Alva had recourse to expedients which injured none so much as himself. To avenge himself on the Queen, he issued a proclamation [March, 1569] forbidding all commercial intercourse between the Netherlands and England; … but his prohibition damaged the Flemings more than the English merchants, and in so doing inflicted loss upon himself. … For he at the same time endeavoured to compel the States to impose, for his use, a heavy tax on every description of property, on every transfer of property, and even on every article of merchandise [the tenth penny, or ten per cent.] as often as it should be sold: the last impost, in the Provinces which were terrified into consenting to it, so entirely annihilating trade that it even roused the disapproval of his own council; and that, finding themselves supported by that body, even those Provinces which had complied, retracted their assent. … After a time [1572] he was forced first to compromise his demands for a far lower sum than that at which he had estimated the produce of his taxes, and at last to renounce even that. He was bitterly disappointed and indignant, and began to be weary of his post."

C. D. Yonge, Three Centuries of Modern History, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 3, chapters 2-7 (volume 2).

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, chapter 3 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1572. The Beggars of the Sea and their capture of Brill. Rapid Revolution in Holland and Zealand, but wholly in the name of the King and his Stadtholder, William of Orange. The Provisional Government organized.

In the spring of 1572, Alva having re-established friendly relations with Queen Elizabeth, all the cruisers of the rebellious Netherlanders—"Beggars of the Sea" as they had styled themselves—were suddenly expelled from English ports, where they had previously found shelter and procured supplies. The consequence was unexpected to those who brought it about, and proved most favorable to the patriotic cause. Desperately driven by their need of some harbor of refuge, the fleet of these adventurers made an attack upon the important seaport of Brill, took it with little fighting and held it stubbornly. Excited by this success, the patriotic burghers of Flushing, on the isle of Walcheren, soon afterwards rose and expelled the Spanish garrison from their town. "The example thus set by Brill and Flushing was rapidly followed. The first half of the year 1572 was distinguished by a series of triumphs rendered still more remarkable by the reverses which followed at its close. … Enkhuizen, the key to the Zuyder Zee, the principal arsenal, and one of the first commercial cities in the Netherlands, rose against the Spanish Admiral, and hung out the banner of Orange on its ramparts. The revolution effected here was purely the work of the people—of the mariners and burghers of the city. Moreover, the magistracy was set aside and the government of Alva repudiated without shedding one drop of blood, without a single wrong to person or property. By the same spontaneous movement, nearly all the important cities of Holland and Zealand raised the standard of him in whom they recognized their deliverer. The revolution was accomplished under nearly similar circumstances everywhere. With one fierce bound of enthusiasm the nation shook, off its chain. Oudewater, Dort, Harlem, Leyden, Gorcum, Loewenstein, Gouda, Medenblik, Horn, Alkmaar, Edam, Monnikendam, Purmerende, as well as Flushing, Veer, and Enkhuizen, all ranged themselves under the government of Orange as lawful stadholder for the King. Nor was it in Holland and Zealand alone that the beacon fires of freedom were lighted. City after city in Gelderland, Overyssel, and the See of Utrecht, all the important towns of Friesland, some sooner, some later, some without a struggle, some after a short siege, some with resistance by the functionaries of government, some by amicable compromise, accepted the garrisons of the Prince and formally recognized his authority. Out of the chaos which a long and preternatural tyranny had produced, the first struggling elements of a new and a better world began to appear. … Not all the conquests thus rapidly achieved in the cause of liberty were destined to endure, nor were any to be retained without a struggle. The little northern cluster of republics, which had now restored its honor to the ancient Batavian name, was destined, however, for a long and vigorous life. From that bleak isthmus the light of freedom was to stream through many years upon struggling humanity in Europe, a guiding pharos across a stormy sea; and Harlem, Leyden, Alkmaar—names hallowed by deeds of heroism such as have not often illustrated human annals, still breathe as trumpet-tongued and perpetual a defiance to despotism as Marathon, Thermopylae, or Salamis. {2264} A new board of magistrates had been chosen in all the redeemed cities by popular election. They were required to take an oath of fidelity to the King of Spain, and to the Prince of Orange as his stadholder; to promise resistance to the Duke of Alva, the tenth penny, and the Inquisition; 'to support every man's freedom and the welfare of the country; to protect widows, orphans, and miserable persons, and to maintain justice and truth.' Diedrich Sonoy arrived on the 2nd June at Enkhuizen. He was provided by the Prince with a commission, appointing him Lieutenant-Governor of North Holland or Waterland. Thus, to combat the authority of Alva, was set up the authority of the King. The stadholderate over Holland and Zealand, to which the Prince had been appointed in 1559, he now reassumed. Upon this fiction reposed the whole provisional polity of the revolted Netherlands. … The people at first claimed not an iota more of freedom than was secured by Philip's coronation oath. There was no pretence that Philip was not sovereign, but there was a pretence and a determination to worship God according to conscience, and to reclaim the ancient political 'liberties' of the land. So long as Alva reigned, the Blood Council, the Inquisition, and martial law, were the only codes or courts, and every charter slept. To recover this practical liberty and these historical rights, and to shake from their shoulders a most sanguinary government, was the purpose of William and of the people. No revolutionary standard was displayed. The written instructions given by the Prince to his lieutenant Sonoy were to 'see that the Word of God was preached, without, however, suffering any hindrance to the Roman Church in the exercise of its religion.' … The Prince was still in Germany, engaged in raising troops and providing funds."

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 3, chapters 6-7 (volume 2).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1572-1573. Capture of Mons by Louis of Nassau and its recovery by the Spaniards. Spanish massacres at Mechlin, Zutphen and Naarden. The siege and capture of Haarlem.

"While William of Orange was in Germany, raising money and troops, he still directed the affairs of the Netherlands. His prospects were again brightened by the capture, by his gallant brother Louis of Nassau, of the important city of Mons. … This last startling blow forced Alva to immediate action. He at once sent his son, Don Frederic, to lay siege to Mons. Soon after, the Duke of Medina Cœli, Alva's successor as governor of the Netherlands [to whom, however, Alva did not surrender his authority], arrived safely with his fleet, but another Spanish squadron fell with its rich treasures into the hands of the rebels. Alva was now so pressed for money that he agreed to abolish the useless tenth-penny tax, if the states-general of the Netherlands would grant him a million dollars a year. He had summoned the states of Holland to meet at the Hague on the 15th of July, but they met at Dort to renounce his authority, at the summons of William of Orange, who had raised an army in Germany, but was without means to secure the necessary three months' payment in advance. While still owning allegiance to the king, the states recognized Orange as stadtholder, empowered him to drive out the Spanish troops, and to maintain religious freedom. … Treating the Emperor Maximilian's peace orders as useless, the prince marched his army of 24,000 men to the relief of Mons. Most of the Netherland cities on the way accepted his authority, and everything looked favorable for his success, when an unforeseen and terrible calamity occurred. The French king, Charles IX., whose troops had been routed before Mons [by the Spaniards], had promised to furnish further aid to the provinces. Admiral Coligny was to join the forces of Orange with 15,000 men. The frightful massacre of St. Bartholomew in Paris, on the 24th of August, … was a terrible blow to the prince. It broke up all his plans. He had reached the neighborhood of Mons, which he was trying to reinforce, when a night attack was made by the Spaniards on his lines, September 11. … Obliged to leave his gallant brother Louis to his fate in Mons, Orange narrowly escaped being killed on his retreat. … Deserted by the cities that had been so earnest in his cause, sorrowful, but not despairing for his country, William had only his trust in God and his own destiny to sustain him. As Holland was the only province that clung to the hero patriot, he went there expecting and prepared to die for liberty. Louis of Nassau was forced, on the 21st of September, to abandon Mons to the Spaniards, who allowed Noircarmes … to massacre and pillage the inhabitants contrary to the terms of surrender. This wretch killed Catholics and Protestants alike, in order to secure their riches for himself. … The city of Mechlin, which had refused to admit a garrison of his troops, was even more brutally ravaged by Alva in order to obtain gold. … Alva's son, Don Frederic, now proved an apt pupil of his father, by almost literally executing his command to kill every man and burn every house in the city of Zutphen, which had opposed the entrance of the king's troops. The massacre was terrible and complete. The cause of Orange suffered still more by the cowardly flight of his brother-in-law, Count Van den Berg, from his post of duty in the provinces of Gelderland and Overyssel. By this desertion rugged Friesland was also lost to the patriot side. Holland alone held out against the victorious Spaniards. The little city of Naarden at first stoutly refused to surrender, but being weak was obliged to yield without striking a blow. Don Frederic's agent, Julian Romero, having promised that life and property should be spared, the people welcomed him and his soldiers at a grand feast on the 2d of December. Hardly was this over when 500 citizens, who had assembled in the town hall, were warned by a priest to prepare for death. This was the signal for the entrance of the Spanish troops, who butchered everyone in the building. They then rushed furiously through the streets, pillaging and then setting fire to the houses. As the inmates came forth, they were tortured and killed by their cruel foes. … Alva wrote boastfully to the king that 'they had cut the throats of the burghers and all the garrison, and had not left a mother's son alive.' He ascribed this success to the favor of God in permitting the defence of so feeble a city to be even attempted. … As the city of Haarlem was the key to Holland, Don Frederic resolved to capture it at any cost. But the people were so bent upon resistance that they executed two of their magistrates for secretly negotiating with Alva. … {2265} Ripperda, the commandant of the Haarlem garrison, cheered soldiers and people by his heroic counsels, and through the efforts of Orange the city was placed under patriot rule. Amsterdam, which was in the enemy's hands, was ten miles distant, across a lake traversed by a narrow causeway, and the prince had erected a number of forts to command the frozen surface. As a thick fog covered the lake in these December days, supplies of men, provisions, and ammunition were brought into the city in spite of the vigilance of the besiegers. The sledges and skates of the Hollanders were very useful in this work. But against Don Frederic's army of 30,000 men, nearly equalling the entire population of Haarlem, the city with its extensive but weak fortifications had only a garrison of about 4,000. The fact that about 300 of these were respectable women, armed with sword, musket, and dagger, shows the heroic spirit of the people. The men were nerved to fresh exertions by these Amazons, who, led by their noble chief, the Widow Kenau Hasselaer, fought desperately by their side, both within and without the works. The banner of this famous heroine, who has been called the Joan of Arc of Haarlem, is now in the City Hall. A vigorous cannonade was kept up against the city for three days, beginning December 18, and men, women, and children worked incessantly in repairing the shattered walls. They even dragged the statues of saints from the churches to fill up the gaps, to the horror of the superstitious Spaniards. The brave burghers repelled their assaults with all sorts of weapons. Burning coals and boiling oil were hurled at their heads, and blazing pitch-hoops were skilfully caught about their necks. Astonished by this terrible resistance, which cost him hundreds of lives, Don Frederic resolved to take the city by siege." On the last day of January. 1573, Don Frederic having considerably shattered an outwork called the ravelin, ordered a midnight assault, and the Spaniards carried the fort. "They mounted the walls expecting to have the city at their mercy. Judge of their amazement to find a new and stronger fort, shaped like a half-moon, which had been secretly constructed during the siege, blazing away at them with its cannon. Before they could recover from their shock, the ravelin, which had been carefully undermined, blew up, and sent them crushed and bleeding into the air. The Spaniards outside, terrified at these outbursts, retreated hastily to their camp, leaving hundreds of dead beneath the walls. Two assaults of veteran soldiers, led by able generals, having been repelled by the dauntless burghers of Haarlem, famine seemed the only means of forcing its surrender. Starvation in fact soon threatened both besiegers and besieged. Don Frederic wished to abandon the contest, but Alva threatened to disown him as a son if he did so. … There was soon a struggle for the possession of the lake, which was the only means of conveying supplies to the besieged. In the terrible hand-to-hand fight which followed the grappling of the rival vessels, on the 28th of May, the prince's fleet, under Admiral Brand, was totally defeated. … During the month of June the wretched people of Haarlem had no food but linseed and rapeseed, and they were soon compelled to eat dogs, cats, rats, and mice. When these gave out they devoured shoe-leather and the boiled hides of horses and oxen, and tried to allay the pangs of hunger with grass and weeds. The streets were full of the dead and the dying." Attempts at relief by Orange were defeated. "As a last resort the besieged resolved to form a solid column, with the women and children, the aged and infirm, in the centre, to fight their way out; but Don Frederic, fearing the city would be left in ruins, induced them to surrender on the 12th of July, under promise of mercy. This promise was cruelly broken by a frightful massacre of 2,000 people, which gave great joy to Alva and Philip."

A. Young, History of the Netherlands, chapters 10-11.

ALSO IN: R. Watson, History of Philip II., books 11-12.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1573-1574. Siege and deliverance of Alkmaar. Displacement of Alva. Battle of Mookerhyde and death of Louis of Nassau. Siege and relief of Leyden. The flooding of the land. Founding of Leyden University.

After the surrender of Haarlem, a mutiny broke out among the Spanish troops that had been engaged in the siege, to whom 28 months' arrears of pay were due. "It was appeased with great difficulty at the end of seven weeks, when Alva determined to make a decisive attack on Holland both by land and water, and with this view commanded his son, Don Frederic di Toledo, to march to the siege of Alkmaar, and repaired in person to Amsterdam. … Don Frederic laid siege to Alkmaar at the head of 16,000 able and efficient troops; within the town were 1,300 armed burghers and 800 soldiers, as many perhaps as it was at that time capable of containing. With this handful of men the citizens of Alkmaar defended themselves no less resolutely than the Haarlemmers had done. The fierce onslaughts of the Spaniards were beaten back with uniform success on the part of the besieged; the women and girls were never seen to shrink from the fight, even where it was hottest, but unceasingly supplied the defenders with stones and burning missiles, to throw amongst their enemies. … But as there were no means of conveying reinforcements to the besieged from without, and their supplies began to fail, they resolved, after a month's siege, on the desperate measure of cutting through the dykes. Some troops sent by Sonnoy having effected this, and opened the sluices, the whole country was soon deluged with water. Don Frederic, astounded at this novel mode of warfare, and fearing that himself and his whole army would be drowned, broke up his camp in haste, and fled, rather than retreated, to Amsterdam. It seemed almost as though the blessing which the Prince of Orange had promised his people had come upon them. The capture of Geertruydenberg, about this time, by one of his lieutenants, was followed by a naval victory, as signal as it was important. The Admiral Bossu, to whom was given the command of the [Spanish] fleet at Amsterdam, having sailed through the Pampus with the design of occupying the Zuyderzee, and thus making himself master of the towns of North Holland, encountered the fleet of those towns, consisting of 24 vessels, commanded by Admiral Dirkson, stationed in the Zuyderzee to await his arrival." After several days of skirmishing, the Dutch fleet forced a close fight, "which lasted with little intermission from the afternoon of the 11th of October to midday of the 12th, during which time two of the royalist ships were sunk and a third captured. {2266} "The remainder fled or surrendered, Bossu, himself, being taken prisoner. "On intelligence of the issue of the battle, Alva quitted Amsterdam in haste and secrecy. This success delivered the towns of North Holland from the most imminent danger, and rendered the possession of Amsterdam nearly useless to the royalists." Alva was now forced to call a meeting of the states-general, in the hope of obtaining a vote of money. "Upon their assembling at Brussels, the states of Holland despatched an earnest and eloquent address, exhorting them to emancipate themselves from Spanish slavery and the cruel tyranny of Alva, which the want of unanimity in the provinces had alone enabled him to exercise. … Their remonstrance appears to have been attended with a powerful effect, since the states-general could neither by threats or remonstrances be induced to grant the smallest subsidy. … Alva, having become heartily weary of the government he had involved in such irretrievable confusion, now obtained his recall; his place was filled by Don Louis de Requesens, grand commander of Castile. In the November of this year, Alva quitted the Netherlands, leaving behind him a name which has become a bye-word of hatred, scorn, and execration. … During the six years that he had governed the Netherlands, 18,000 persons had perished by the hand of the executioner, besides the numbers massacred at Naarden, Zutphen, and other conquered cities." The first undertaking of the new governor was an attempt to raise the siege of Middleburg, the Spanish garrison in which had been blockaded by the Gueux for nearly two years; but the fleet of 40 ships which he fitted out for the purpose was defeated, at Romers-waale, with a loss of ten vessels. "The surrender of Middleburg immediately followed, and with it that of Arnemuyden, which put the Gueux in possession of the principal islands of Zealand, and rendered them masters of the sea." But these successes were counterbalanced by a disaster which attended an expedition led from Germany by Louis of Nassau, the gallant but unfortunate brother of the Prince of Orange. His army was attacked and utterly destroyed by the Spaniards (April 14, 1574) at the village of Mookerheyde, or Mook, near Nimeguen, and both Louis and his brother Henry of Nassau were slain. "After raising the siege of Alkmaar, the Spanish forces, placed under the command of Francesco di Valdez on the departure of Don Frederic di Toledo, had for some weeks blockaded Leyden; but were recalled in the spring of this year to join the rest of the army on its march against Louis of Nassau. From that time the burghers of Leyden … had not only neglected to lay up any fresh stores of corn or other provision, but to occupy or destroy the forts with which the enemy had encompassed the town. This fact coming to the knowledge of Don Louis, he once more dispatched Valdez to renew the siege at the head of 8,000 troops. … Mindful of Haarlem and Alkmaar, the Spanish commander … brought no artillery, nor made any preparations for assault, but, well aware that there were not provisions in the town sufficient for three months, contented himself with closely investing it on all sides, and determined to await the slow but sure effects of famine." In this emergency, the States of Holland "decreed that all the dykes between Leyden and the Meuse and Yssel should be cut through, and the sluices opened at Rotterdam and Schiedam, by which the waters of those rivers, overflowing the valuable lands of Schieland and Rhynland, would admit of the vessels bringing succours up to the very gates of Leyden. The damage was estimated at 600,000 guilders. … The cutting through the dykes was a work of time and difficulty, as well from the labour required as from the continual skirmishes with the enemy. … Even when completed, it appeared as if the vast sacrifice were utterly unavailing. A steady wind blowing from the north-east kept back the waters. … Meanwhile the besieged, who for some weeks heard no tidings of their deliverers, had scarcely hope left to enable them to sustain the appalling sufferings they endured. … 'Then,' says the historian, who heard it from the mouths of the sufferers, 'there was no food so odious but it was esteemed a dainty.' … The siege had now lasted five months. … Not a morsel of food, even the most filthy and loathsome, remained … when, on a sudden, the wind veered to the north-west, and thence to the south-west; the waters of the Meuse rushed in full tide over the land, and the ships rode triumphantly on the waves. The Gueux, attacking with vigour the forts on the dykes, succeeded in driving out the garrisons with considerable slaughter. … On the … 3rd of October … Valdez evacuated all the forts in the vicinity. … In memory of this eventful siege, the Prince and States offered the inhabitants either to found an university or to establish a fair. They chose the former; but the States … granted both: the fair of Leyden was appointed to be held on the 1st of October in every year, the 3rd being ever after held as a solemn festival; and on the 8th of February in the next year, the university received its charter from the Prince of Orange in the name of King Philip. Both proved lasting monuments."

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 2, chapters 8-9 (volumes 1-2).

ALSO IN: J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 4, chapters 1-2 (volume 2).

W. T. Hewett, The University of Leiden (Harper's Magazine, March, 1881).

C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, series 5, chapter 16.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1575-1577. Congress at Breda. Offer of sovereignty to the English Queen. Death of Requesens. Mutiny of the Soldiery. The Spanish Fury. Alliance of Northern and Southern provinces under the Pacification of Ghent and the Union of Brussels. Arrival of Don John of Austria.

"The bankrupt state of Philip II.'s exchequer, and the reverses which his arms had sustained, induced him to accept … the proffered mediation of the Emperor Maximilian, which he had before so arrogantly rejected, and a Congress was held at Breda from March till June 1575. But the insurgents were suspicious, and Philip was inflexible; he could not be induced to dismiss his Spanish troops, to allow the meeting of the States-General, or to admit the slightest toleration in matters of religion; and the contest was therefore renewed with more fury than ever. The situation of the patriots became very critical when the enemy, by occupying the islands of Duyveland and Schouwen, cut off the communication between Holland and Zealand; especially as all hope of succour from England had expired. {2267} Towards the close of the year envoys were despatched to solicit the aid of Elizabeth, and to offer her, under certain conditions, the sovereignty of Holland and Zealand. Requesens sent Champagny to counteract these negociations, which ended in nothing. The English Queen was afraid of provoking the power of Spain, and could not even be induced to grant the Hollanders a loan. The attitude assumed at that time by the Duke of Alençon, in France, also prevented them from entering into any negociations with that Prince. In these trying circumstances, William the Silent displayed the greatest firmness and courage. It was now that he is said to have contemplated abandoning Holland and seeking with its inhabitants a home in the New World, having first restored the country to its ancient state of a waste of waters; a thought, however, which he probably never seriously entertained, though he may have given utterance to it in a moment of irritation or despondency. … The unexpected death of Requesens, who expired of a fever, March 5th 1576, after a few days' illness, threw the government into confusion. Philip II. had given Requesens a carte blanche to name his successor, but the nature of his illness had prevented him from filling it up. The government therefore devolved to the Council of State, the members of which were at variance with one another; but Philip found himself obliged to intrust it 'ad interim' with the administration, till a successor to Requesens could be appointed. Count Mansfeld was made commander-in-chief, but was totally unable to restrain the licentious soldiery. The Spaniards, whose pay was in arrear, had now lost all discipline. After the raising of the siege of Leyden they had beset Utrecht and pillaged and maltreated the inhabitants, till Valdez contrived to furnish their pay. No sooner had Requesens expired than they broke into open mutiny, and acted as if they were entire masters of the country. After wandering about some time and threatening Brussels, they seized and plundered Alost, where they established themselves; and they were soon afterwards joined by the Walloon and German troops. To repress their violence, the Council of State restored to the Netherlanders the arms of which they had been deprived, and called upon them by a proclamation to repress force by force; but these citizen-soldiers were dispersed with great slaughter by the disciplined troops in various rencounters. Ghent, Utrecht, Valenciennes, Maestricht were taken and plundered by the mutineers; and at last the storm fell upon Antwerp, which the Spaniards entered early in November, and sacked during three days. More than 1,000 houses were burnt, 8,000 citizens are said to have been slain, and enormous sums in ready money were plundered. The whole damage was estimated at 24,000,000 florins. The horrible excesses committed in this sack procured for it the name of the 'Spanish Fury.' The government was at this period conducted in the name of the States of Brabant. On the 5th of September, De Hèze, a young Brabant gentleman who was in secret intelligence with the Prince of Orange, had, at the head of 500 soldiers, entered the palace where the Council of State was assembled, and seized and imprisoned the members. William, taking advantage of the alarm created at Brussels by the sack of Antwerp, persuaded the provisional government to summon the States-General, although such a course was at direct variance with the commands of the King. To this assembly all the provinces except Luxemburg sent deputies. The nobles of the southern provinces, although they viewed the Prince of Orange with suspicion, feeling that there was no security for them so long as the Spanish troops remained in possession of Ghent, sought his assistance in expelling them; which William consented to grant only on condition that an alliance should be effected between the northern and the southern, or Catholic provinces of the Netherlands. This proposal was agreed to, and towards the end of September Orange sent several thousand men from Zealand to Ghent, at whose approach the Spaniards, who had valorously defended themselves for two months under the conduct of the wife of their absent general Mondragon, surrendered, and evacuated the citadel. The proposed alliance was now converted into a formal union by the treaty called the Pacification of Ghent, signed November 8th 1576; by which it was agreed, without waiting for the sanction of Philip, whose authority however was nominally recognised, to renew the edict of banishment against the Spanish troops, to procure the suspension of the decrees against the Protestant religion, to summon the States-General of the northern and southern provinces, according to the model of the assembly which had received the abdication of Charles V., to provide for the toleration and practise of the Protestant religion in Holland and Zealand, together with other provisions of a similar character. About the same time with the Pacification of Ghent, all Zealand, with the exception of the island of Tholen, was recovered from the Spaniards. … It was a mistake on the part of Philip II. to leave the country eight months with only an 'ad interim' government. Had he immediately filled up the vacancy … the States could not have seized upon the government, and the alliance established at Ghent would not have been effected, by which an almost independent commonwealth had been erected. But Philip seems to have been puzzled as to the choice of a successor; and his selection, at length, of his brother Don John of Austria [a natural son of Charles V.], caused a further considerable delay. … The state of the Netherlands compelled Don John to enter them, not with the pomp and dignity becoming the lawful representative of a great monarch, but stealthily, like a traitor or conspirator. In Luxemburg alone, the only province which had not joined the union, could he expect to be received; and he entered its capital a few days before the publication of the treaty of Ghent, in the disguise of a Moorish slave, and in the train of Don Ottavio Gonzaga, brother of the Prince of Melfi. Having neither money nor arms, he was obliged to negociate with the provincial government in order to procure the recognition of his authority. At the instance of the Prince of Orange, the States insisted on the withdrawal of the Spanish troops, the maintenance of the treaty of Ghent, an act of amnesty for past offences, the convocation of the States-General, and an oath from Don John that he would respect all the charters and customs of the country. The new governor was violent, but the States were firm, and in January 1577 was formed the Union of Brussels, the professed objects of which were, the immediate expulsion of the Spaniards, and the execution of the Pacification of Ghent; while at the same time the Catholic religion and the royal authority were to be upheld. {2268} This union, which was only a more popular repetition of the treaty of Ghent, soon obtained numberless signatures. … Meanwhile Rodolph II., the new Emperor of Germany, had offered his mediation, and appointed the Bishop of Liege to use his good offices between the parties; who, with the assistance of Duke William of Juliers, brought, or seemed to bring, the new governor to a more reasonable frame of mind. … Don John yielded all the points in dispute, and embodied them in what was called the Perpetual Edict, published March 12th, 1577. The Prince of Orange suspected from the first that these concessions were a mere deception."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 3, chapters 7-9 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell, Don John of Austria, volume 2, chapters 4-5.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1577-1581. The administration of Don John. Orange's well-founded distrust. Emancipation of Antwerp. Battle of Gemblours. Death of Don John and appointment of Parma. Corruption of Flemish nobles. Submission of the Walloon provinces. Pretensions of the Duke of Anjou. Constitution and declared independence of the Dutch Republic.

"It now seemed that the Netherlands had gained all they asked for, and that everything for which they had contended had been conceded. The Blood Council of Alva had almost extirpated the Reformers, and an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the Low Countries, with the exception of the Hollanders and Zelanders, belonged to the old Church, provided the Inquisition was done away with, and a religious peace was accorded. But Don John had to reckon with the Prince of Orange. In him William had no confidence. He could not forget the past. He believed that the signatures and concessions of the governor and Philip were only expedients to gain time, and that they would be revoked or set aside as soon as it was convenient or possible to do so. … He had intercepted letters from the leading Spaniards in Don John's employment, in which, when the treaty was in course of signature, designs were disclosed of keeping possession of all the strong places in the country, with the object of reducing the patriots in detail. … Above all, William distrusted the Flemish nobles. He knew them to be greedy, fickle, treacherous, ready to betray their country for personal advantage, and to ally themselves blindly with their natural enemies. … As events proved, Orange was in the right. Hence he refused to recognize the treaty in his own states of Holland and Zeland. As soon as it was published and sent to him, William, after conference with these states, published a severe criticism on its provisions. … In all seeming however Don John was prepared to carry out his engagements. He got together with difficulty the funds for paying the arrears due to the troops, and sent them off by the end of April. He caressed the people and he bribed the nobles. He handed over the citadels to Flemish governors, and entered Brussels on May 1st. Everything pointed to success and mutual good will. But we have Don John's letters, in which he speaks most unreservedly and most unflatteringly of his new friends, and of his designs on the liberties of the Netherlands. And all the while that Philip was soothing and flattering his brother, he had determined on ruining him, and on murdering the man [Escovedo] whom that brother loved and trusted. About this time, too, we find that Philip and his deputy were casting about for the means by which they might assassinate the Prince of Orange, 'who had bewitched the whole people!' An attempt of Don John to get possession of the citadel of Antwerp for himself failed, and the patriots gained it. The merchants of Antwerp 'agreed to find the pay still owing to the soldiers, on condition of their quitting the city. But while they were discussing the terms, a fleet of Zeland vessels came sailing up the Scheldt. Immediately a cry was raised, 'The Beggars are coming,' and the soldiers fled in dismay [August 1, 1577]. Then the Antwerpers demolished the citadel, and turned the statue of Alva again into cannon. After these events, William of Orange put an end to negotiations with Don John. Prince William was in the ascendant. But the Catholic nobles conspired against him, and induced the Archduke Matthias, brother of the German Emperor Rodolph, to accept the place of governor of the Netherlands in lieu of Don John. He came, but Orange was made the Ruwaard of Brabant, with full military power. It was the highest office which could be bestowed on him. The 'Union of Brussels' followed and was a confederation of all the Netherlands. But the battle of Gemblours was fought in February, 1578, and the patriots were defeated. Many small towns were captured, and it seemed that in course of time the governor would recover at least a part of his lost authority. But in the month of September, Don John was seized with a burning fever, and died on October 1st. … The new governor of the Netherlands, son of Ottavio Farnese, Prince of Parma, and of Margaret of Parma, sister of Philip of Spain, was a very different person from any of the regents who had hitherto controlled the Netherlands. He was, or soon proved himself to be, the greatest general of the age, and he was equally, according to the statesmanship of the age, the most accomplished and versatile statesman. He had no designs beyond those of Philip, and during his long career in the Netherlands, from October, 1578, to December, 1592, he served the King of Spain as faithfully and with as few scruples as Philip could have desired. … Parma was religious, but he had no morality whatever. … He had no scruple in deceiving, lying, assassinating, and even less scruple in saying or swearing that he had done none of these things. … He had an excellent judgment of men, and indeed he had experience of the two extremes, of the exceeding baseness of the Flemish nobles, and of the lofty and pure patriotism of the Dutch patriots. Nothing indeed was more unfortunate for the Dutch than the belief which they entertained, that the Flemings who had been dragooned into uniformity, could be possibly stirred to patriotism. Alva had done his work thoroughly. It is possible to extirpate a reformation. But the success of the process is the moral ruin of those who are the subjects of the experiment. Fortunately for Parma, there was a suitor for the Netherland sovereignty, in the person of the very worst prince of the very worst royal family that ever existed in Europe, i. e., the Duke of Anjou, of the house of Valois.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1577-1578.

{2269}

This person was favoured by Orange, probably because he had detected Philip's designs on France, and thought that national jealousy would induce the French government, which was Catherine of Medici, to favour the low countries. Besides, Parma had a faction in every Flemish town, who were known as the Malcontents, who were the party of the greedy and unscrupulous nobles. And, besides Anjou, there was the party of another pretender, John Casimir, of Poland. He, however, soon left them. Parma quickly found in such dissensions plenty of men whom he could usefully bribe. He made his first purchases in the Walloon district, and secured them. The provinces here were Artois, Hainault, Lille, Douay, and Orchies. They were soon permanently reunited to Spain. On January 20, 1570, the Union of Utrecht, which was virtually the Constitution of the Dutch Republic, was agreed to. It was greater in extent on the Flemish side than the Dutch Republic finally remained, less on that of Friesland [comprising Holland, Zeland, Gelderland, Zutphen, Utrecht, and the Frisian provinces]. Orange still had hopes of including most of the Netherland seaboard, and he still kept up the form of allegiance to Philip. The principal event of the year was the siege and capture of Maestricht [with the slaughter of almost its entire population of 34,000]. … Mechlin also was betrayed by its commander, De Bours, who reconciled himself to Romanism, and received the pay for his treason from Parma at the same time. In March, 1580, a similar act of treason was committed by Count Renneberg, the governor of Friesland, who betrayed its chief city, Groningen. … In the same year, 1580, was published the ban of Philip. This instrument, drawn up by Cardinal Granvelle, declared Orange to be a traitor and miscreant, made him an outlaw, put a heavy price on his head (25,000 gold crowns), offered the assassin the pardon of any crime, however heinous, and nobility, whatever be his rank. … William answered the ban by a vigorous appeal to the civilized world. … Renneberg, the traitor, laid siege to Steenwyk, the principal fortress of Drenthe, at the beginning of 1581. … In February, John Norris, the English general, … relieved the town. Renneberg raised the siege, was defeated in July by the same Norris, and died, full of remorse, a few days afterwards. But the most important event in 1581 was the declaration of Dutch Independence formally issued at the Hague on the 26th of July. By this instrument, Orange, though most unwillingly, felt himself obliged to accept the sovereignty over Holland and Zeland, and whatever else of the seven provinces was in the hands of the patriots. The Netherlands were now divided into three portions. The Walloon provinces in the south were reconciled to Philip and Parma. The middle provinces were under the almost nominal sovereignty of Anjou, the northern were under William. … Philip's name was now discarded from public documents … ; his seal was broken, and William was thereafter to conduct the government in his own name. The instrument was styled an 'Act of Abjuration.'"

J. E. T. Rogers, The Story of Holland, chapters 11-12.

ALSO IN: J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 5, chapters 4-5, and part 6, chapters 1-4.

Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell, Don John of Austria, volume 2, chapters 8-10.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1581-1584. Refusal of the sovereignty of the United Provinces by Orange. Its bestowal upon the Duke of Anjou. Base treachery of Anjou. The "French Fury" at Antwerp. Assassination of the Prince of Orange.

"What, then, was the condition of the nation, after this great step [the Act of Abjuration] had been taken? It stood, as it were, with its sovereignty in its hand, dividing it into two portions, and offering it, thus separated, to two distinct individuals. The sovereignty of Holland and Zealand had been reluctantly accepted by Orange. The sovereignty of the United Provinces had been offered to Anjou, but the terms of agreement with that Duke had not yet been ratified. The movement was therefore triple, consisting of an abjuration and of two separate elections of hereditary chiefs; these two elections being accomplished in the same manner by the representative bodies respectively of the united provinces and of Holland and Zealand. … Without a direct intention on the part of the people or its leaders to establish a republic, the Republic established itself. Providence did not permit the whole country, so full of wealth, intelligence, healthy political action—so stocked with powerful cities and an energetic population, to be combined into one free and prosperous commonwealth. The factious ambition of a few grandees, the cynical venality of many nobles, the frenzy of the Ghent democracy, the spirit of religious intolerance, the consummate military and political genius of Alexander Farnese, the exaggerated self-abnegation and the tragic fate of Orange, all united to dissever this group of flourishing and kindred provinces. The want of personal ambition on the part of William the Silent inflicted, perhaps, a serious damage upon his country. He believed a single chief requisite for the united states; he might have been, but always refused to become that chief; and yet he has been held up for centuries by many writers as a conspirator and a self-seeking intriguer. … 'These provinces,' said John of Nassau, 'are coming very unwillingly into the arrangement with the Duke of Alençon [soon afterwards made Duke of Anjou]. The majority feel much more inclined to elect the Prince, who is daily, and without intermission, implored to give his consent. … He refuses only on this account—that it may not be thought that, instead of religious freedom for the country, he has been seeking a kingdom for himself and his own private advancement. Moreover, he believes that the connexion with France will be of more benefit to the country and to Christianity.' … The unfortunate negotiations with Anjou, to which no man was more opposed than Count John, proceeded therefore. In the meantime, the sovereignty over the united provinces was provisionally held by the national council, and, at the urgent solicitation of the states-general, by the Prince. The Archduke Matthias, whose functions were most unceremoniously brought to an end by the transactions which we have been recording, took his leave of the states, and departed in the month of October. … Thus it was arranged that, for the present, at least, the Prince should exercise sovereignty over Holland and Zealand; although he had himself used his utmost exertions to induce those provinces to join the rest of the United Netherlands in the proposed election of Anjou. {2270} This, however, they sternly refused to do. There was also a great disinclination felt by many in the other states to this hazardous offer of their allegiance, and it was the personal influence of Orange that eventually carried the measure through. … By midsummer [1581] the Duke of Anjou made his appearance in the western part of the Netherlands. The Prince of Parma had recently come before Cambray with the intention of reducing that important city. On the arrival of Anjou, however, … Alexander raised the siege precipitately and retired towards Tournay," to which he presently laid siege, and which was surrendered to him in November.

J. L. Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, part 6, chapters 4-5 (volume 3).

Meantime, the Duke of Anjou had visited England, paying court to Queen Elizabeth, whom he hoped to marry, but who declined the alliance after making the acquaintance of her suitor. "Elizabeth made all the reparation in her power, by the honours paid him on his dismissal. She accompanied him as far as Canterbury, and sent him away under the convoy of the earl of Leicester, her chief favourite; and with a brilliant suite and a fleet of fifteen sail. Anjou was received at Antwerp with equal distinction; and was inaugurated there on the 19th of February [1582] as Duke of Brabant, Lothier, Limbourg, and Guelders, with many other titles, of which he soon proved himself unworthy. … During the rejoicings which followed this inauspicious ceremony, Philip's proscription against the Prince of Orange put forth its first fruits. The latter gave a grand dinner in the chateau of Antwerp, which he occupied, on the 18th of March, the birth-day of the duke of Anjou." As he quitted the dining hall, he was shot in the cheek by a young man who approached him with the pretence of offering a petition, and who proved to be the tool of a Spanish merchant at Antwerp, with whom Philip of Spain had contracted for the procurement of the assassination. The wound inflicted was severe but not fatal. "Within three months, William was able to accompany the duke of Anjou in his visits to Ghent, Bruges, and the other chief towns of Flanders; in each of which the ceremony of inauguration was repeated. Several military exploits now took place [the most important of them being the capture of Oudenarde, after a protracted siege, by the Prince of Parma]. … The duke of Anjou, intemperate, inconstant, and unprincipled, saw that his authority was but the shadow of power. … The French officers, who formed his suite and possessed all his confidence, had no difficulty in raising his discontent into treason against the people with whom he had made a solemn compact. The result of their councils was a deep-laid plot against Flemish liberty; and its execution was ere-long attempted. He sent secret orders to the governors of Dunkirk, Bruges, Termonde, and other towns, to seize on and hold them in his name; reserving for himself the infamy of the enterprise against Antwerp. To prepare for its execution, he caused his numerous army of French and Swiss to approach the city." Then, on the 17th of January, 1583, with his body guard of 200 horse, he suddenly attacked and slew the Flemish guards at one of the gates and admitted the troops waiting outside. "The astonished but intrepid citizens, recovering from their confusion, instantly flew to arms. All differences in religion or politics were forgotten in the common danger to their freedom. … The ancient spirit of Flanders seemed to animate all. Workmen, armed with the instruments of their various trades, started from their shops and flung themselves upon the enemy. … The French were driven successively from the streets and ramparts. … The duke of Anjou saved himself by flight, and reached Termonde. His loss in this base enterprise [known as the French Fury] amounted to 1,500; while that of the citizens did not exceed 80 men. The attempts simultaneously made on the other towns succeeded at Dunkirk and Termonde; but all the others failed. The character of the Prince of Orange never appeared so thoroughly great as at this crisis. With wisdom and magnanimity rarely equalled and never surpassed, he threw himself and his authority between the indignation of the country and the guilt of Anjou; saving the former from excess and the latter from execration. The disgraced and discomfited duke proffered to the states excuses as mean as they were hypocritical. … A new treaty was negotiated, confirming Anjou in his former station, with renewed security against any future treachery on his part. He in the mean time retired to France," where he died, June 10, 1584. Exactly one month afterwards (July 10), Prince William was murdered, in his house, at Delft, by Balthazar Gerard, one of the many assassins whom Philip II. and Parma had so persistently sent against him. He was shot as he placed his foot upon the first step of the great stair in his house, after dining in a lower apartment, and he died in a few moments.

T. C. Grattan, History of the Netherlands, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: J. A. Froude, History of England: Reign of Elizabeth, chapters 26, 29, 31-32 (volume 5-6).

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, chapter 4 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585. Limits of the United Provinces and the Spanish Provinces. The Republican constitution of the United Provinces, and the organization of their government. Disgraceful surrender of Ghent. Practical recovery of Flanders and Brabant by the Spanish king.

At the time of the assassination of the Prince of Orange, "the limit of the Spanish or 'obedient' Provinces, on the one hand, and of the United Provinces on the other, cannot … be briefly and distinctly stated. The memorable treason—or, as it was called, the 'reconciliation' of the Walloon Provinces in the year 1583-4—had placed the Provinces of Hainault, Arthois, Douay, with the flourishing cities, Arras, Valenciennes, Lille, Tournay, and others—all Celtic Flanders, in short—in the grasp of Spain. Cambray was still held by the French governor, Seigneur de Balagny, who had taken advantage of the Duke of Anjou's treachery to the States, to establish himself in an unrecognized but practical petty sovereignty, in defiance both of France and Spain; while East Flanders and South Brabant still remained a disputed territory, and the immediate field of contest. With these limitations, it may be assumed, for general purposes, that the territory of the United States was that of the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands, while the obedient Provinces occupied what is now the territory of Belgium. … {2271} What now was the political position of the United Provinces at this juncture? The sovereignty which had been held by the Estates, ready to be conferred respectively upon Anjou and Orange, remained in the hands of the Estates. There was no opposition to this theory. … The people, as such, claimed no sovereignty. … What were the Estates? … The great characteristic of the Netherland government was the municipality. Each Province contained a large number of cities, which were governed by a board of magistrates, varying in number from 20 to 40. This college, called the Vroedschap (Assembly of Sages), consisted of the most notable citizens, and was a self-electing body—a close corporation—the members being appointed for life, from the citizens at large. Whenever vacancies occurred from death or loss of citizenship, the college chose new members—sometimes immediately, sometimes by means of a double or triple selection of names, the choice of one from among which was offered to the stadtholder [governor, or sovereign's deputy] of the province. This functionary was appointed by the Count, as he was called, whether Duke of Bavaria or of Burgundy, Emperor, or King. After the abjuration of Philip [1581], the governors were appointed by the Estates of each Province. The Sage-Men chose annually a board of senators, or schepens, whose functions were mainly judicial; and there were generally two, and sometimes three, burgomasters, appointed in the same way. This was the popular branch of the Estates. But, besides this body of representatives, were the nobles, men of ancient lineage and large possessions, who had exercised, according to the general feudal law of Europe, high, low, and intermediate jurisdiction upon their estates, and had long been recognized as an integral part of the body politic, having the right to appear, through delegates of their order, in the provincial and in the general assemblies. Regarded as a machine for bringing the most decided political capacities into the administration of public affairs, and for organizing the most practical opposition to the system of religious tyranny, the Netherland constitution was a healthy, and, for the age, an enlightened one. … Thus constituted was the commonwealth upon the death of William the Silent. The gloom produced by that event was tragical. Never in human history was a more poignant and universal sorrow for the death of any individual. The despair was, for a brief season, absolute; but it was soon succeeded by more lofty sentiments. … Even on the very day of the murder, the Estates of Holland, then sitting at Delft, passed a resolution 'to maintain the good cause, with God's help, to the uttermost, without sparing gold or blood.' … The next movement, after the last solemn obsequies had been rendered to the Prince, was to provide for the immediate wants of his family. For the man who had gone into the revolt with almost royal revenues, left his estate so embarrassed that his carpets, tapestries, household linen—nay, even his silver spoons, and the very clothes of his wardrobe—were disposed of at auction for the benefit of his creditors. He left eleven children—a son and daughter by the first wife, a son and daughter by Anna of Saxony, six daughters by Charlotte of Bourbon, and an infant, Frederic Henry, born six months before his death. The eldest son, Philip William, had been a captive in Spain for seventeen years, having been kidnapped from school, in Leyden, in the year 1567. He had already become … thoroughly Hispaniolized under the masterly treatment of the King and the Jesuits. … The next son was Maurice, then 17 years of age. … Grandson of Maurice of Saxony, whom he resembled in visage and character, he was summoned by every drop of blood in his veins to do life-long battle with the spirit of Spanish absolutism, and he was already girding himself for his life's work. … Very soon afterwards the States General established a State Council, as a provisional executive board, for the term of three months, for the Provinces of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Friesland, and such parts of Flanders and Brabant as still remained in the Union. At the head of this body was placed young Maurice, who accepted the responsible position, after three days' deliberation. … The Council consisted of three members from Brabant, two from Flanders, four from Holland, three from Zeeland, two from Utrecht, one from Mechlin, and three from Friesland—eighteen in all. They were empowered and enjoined to levy troops by land and sea, and to appoint naval and military officers; to establish courts of admiralty, to expend the moneys voted by the States, to maintain the ancient privileges of the country, and to see that all troops in service of the Provinces made oath of fidelity to the Union. Diplomatic relations, questions of peace and war, the treaty-making power, were not entrusted to the Council, without the knowledge and consent of the States General, which body was to be convoked twice a year by the State Council. … Alexander of Parma … was swift to take advantage of the calamity which had now befallen the rebellious Provinces. … In Holland and Zeeland the Prince's blandishments were of no avail. … In Flanders and Brabant the spirit was less noble. Those provinces were nearly lost already. Bruges [which had made terms with the King early in 1584] seconded Parma's efforts to induce its sister-city Ghent to imitate its own baseness in surrendering without a struggle; and that powerful, turbulent, but most anarchical little commonwealth was but too ready to listen to the voice of the tempter. … Upon the 17th August [1584] Dendermonde surrendered. … Upon the 7th September Vilvoorde capitulated, by which event the water-communication between Brussels and Antwerp was cut off, Ghent, now thoroughly disheartened, treated with Parma likewise; and upon the 17th September made its reconciliation with the King. The surrender of so strong and important a place was as disastrous to the cause of the patriots as it was disgraceful to the citizens themselves. It was, however, the result of an intrigue which had been long spinning. … The noble city of Ghent—then as large as Paris, thoroughly surrounded with moats, and fortified with bulwarks, ravelins, and counterscarps, constructed of earth, during the previous two years, at great expense, and provided with bread and meat, powder and shot, enough to last a year—was ignominiously surrendered. The population, already a very reduced and slender one for the great extent of the place and its former importance, had been estimated at 70,000. {2272} The number of houses was 35,000, so that, as the inhabitants were soon farther reduced to one-half, there remained but one individual to each house. On the other hand, the 25 monasteries and convents in the town were repeopled. … The fall of Brussels was deferred till March, and that of Mechlin (19th July, 1585), and of Antwerp [see below] (19th August, 1585), till Midsummer of the following year; but the surrender of Ghent foreshadowed the fate of Flanders and Brabant. Ostend and Sluys, however, were still in the hands of the patriots, and with them the control of the whole Flemish coast. The command of the sea was destined to remain for centuries with the new republic."

J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands, chapter 1 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1584-1585. The Siege and surrender of Antwerp. Decay of the city.

"After the fall of Ghent, Farnese applied himself earnestly to the siege of Antwerp, one of the most memorable recorded in history. The citizens were animated in their defence by the valour and talent of Ste Aldegonde. It would be impossible to detail with minuteness in this general history the various contrivances resorted to on either side for the attack and the defence; and we must therefore content ourselves with briefly adverting to that stupendous monument of Farnese's military genius, the bridge which he carried across the Scheldt, below Antwerp, in order to cut off the communication of the city with the sea and the maritime provinces. From the depth and wideness of the river, the difficulty of finding the requisite materials, and of transporting them to the place selected in the face of an enemy that was superior on the water, the project was loudly denounced by Farnese's officers as visionary and impracticable; yet in spite of all these discouragements and difficulties, as the place seemed unapproachable in the usual way, he steadily persevered, and at last succeeded in an undertaking which, had he failed, would have covered him with perpetual ridicule. The spot fixed upon for the bridge was between Ordam and Kalloo, where the river is both shallower and narrower than at other parts. The bridge consisted of piles driven into the water to such distance as its depth would allow; which was 200 feet on the Flanders side and 900 feet on that of Brabant. The interval between the piles, which was 12 feet broad, was covered with planking; but at the extremities towards the centre of the river the breadth was extended to 40 feet, thus forming two forts, or platforms, mounted with cannon. There was still, however, an interstice in the middle of between 1,000 and 1,100 feet, through which the ships of the enemy, favoured by the wind and tide, or by the night, could manage to pass without any considerable loss, and which it therefore became necessary to fill up. This was accomplished by mooring across it the hulls of 32 vessels, at intervals of about 20 feet apart, and connecting them together with planks. Each vessel was planted with artillery and garrisoned by about 30 men; while the bridge was protected by a flota of vessels moored on each side, above and below, at a distance of about 200 feet. During the construction of the bridge, which lasted half a year, the citizens of Antwerp viewed with dismay the progress of a work that was not only to deprive them of their maritime commerce, but also of the supplies necessary for their subsistence and defence. At length they adopted a plan suggested by Gianbelli, an Italian engineer, and resolved to destroy the bridge by means of fire-ships, which seem to have been first used on this occasion. Several such vessels were sent down the river with a favourable tide and wind, of which two were charged with 6,000 or 7,000 lbs. of gunpowder each, packed in solid masonry, with various destructive missiles. One of these vessels went ashore before reaching its destination; the other arrived at the bridge and exploded with terrible effect. Curiosity to behold so novel a spectacle had attracted vast numbers of the Spaniards, who lined the shores as well as the bridge. Of these 800 were killed by the explosion, and by the implements of destruction discharged with the powder; a still greater number were maimed and wounded, and the bridge itself was considerably damaged. Farnese himself was thrown to the earth and lay for a time insensible. The besieged, however, did not follow up their plan with vigour. They allowed Farnese time to repair the damage, and the Spaniards, being now on the alert, either diverted the course of the fire-ships that were subsequently sent against them, or suffered them to pass the bridge through openings made for the purpose. In spite of the bridge, however, the beleaguered citizens might still have secured a transit down the river by breaking through the dykes between Antwerp and Lillo, and sailing over the plains thus laid under water, for which purpose it was necessary to obtain possession of the counter-dyke of Kowenstyn; but after a partial success, too quickly abandoned by Hohenlohe and Ste Aldegonde, they were defeated in a bloody battle which they fought upon the dyke. Antwerp was now obliged to capitulate; and as Farnese was anxious to put an end to so long a siege, it obtained more favourable terms than could have been anticipated (August 17th 1585). The prosperity of this great commercial city received, however, a severe blow from its capture by the Spaniards. A great number of the citizens, as well as of the inhabitants of Brabant and Flanders, removed to Amsterdam and Middelburg."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 3, chapter 9 (volume 2).

The downfall of the prosperity of the great capital "was instantaneous. The merchants and industrious citizens all wandered away from the place which had been the seat of a world-wide traffic. Civilization and commerce departed, and in their stead were the citadel and the Jesuits."

J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands, chapter 5 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: F. Schiller, Siege of Antwerp.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1585-1586. Proffered sovereignty of the United Provinces declined by France and England. Delusive English succors. The queen's treachery and Leicester's incompetency. Useless battle at Zutphen.

"It was natural that so small a State, wasted by its protracted struggles, should desire, more earnestly than ever, an alliance with some stronger power; and it was from among States supposed to have sympathies with Protestants, that such an alliance was sought. From the Protestant countries of Germany there was no promise of help; and the eyes of the Dutch diplomatists were therefore turned towards France and England. In France, the Huguenots, having recovered from St. Bartholomew, now enjoyed toleration; and were a rising and hopeful party, under the patronage of Henry of Navarre. {2273} If the king of France would protect Holland from Philip, and extend to its people the same toleration which he allowed his own subjects, Holland offered him the sovereignty of the united provinces. This tempting offer was declined: for a new policy was now to be declared, which united France and Spain in a bigoted crusade against the Protestant faith. The League, under the Duke de Guise, gained a fatal ascendency over the weak and frivolous king, Henry III., and held dominion in France. … Nor was the baneful influence of the League confined to France: it formed a close alliance with Philip and the Pope, with whom it was plotting the overthrow of Protestant England, the subjection of the revolted provinces of Spain, and the general extirpation of heresy throughout Europe. … The only hope of the Netherlands was now in England, which was threatened by a common danger; and envoys were sent to Elizabeth with offers of the sovereignty, which had been declined by France. So little did the Dutch statesmen as yet contemplate a republic, that they offered their country to any sovereign, in return for protection. Had bolder counsels prevailed, Elizabeth might, at once, have saved the Netherlands, and placed herself at the head of the Protestants of Europe. She saw her own danger, if Philip should recover the provinces: but she held her purse-strings with the grasp of a miser: she dreaded an open rupture with Spain; and she was unwilling to provoke her own Catholic subjects. Sympathy with the Protestant cause, she had none. … She desired to afford as much assistance as would protect her own realm against Philip, at the least possible cost, without precipitating a war with Spain. She agreed to send men and money: but required Flushing, Brill, and Rammekens to be held as a security for her loans. She refused the sovereignty of the States: but she despatched troops to the Netherlands, and sent her favourite, the Earl of Leicester, to command them. As she had taken the rebellious subjects of Spain under her protection, Philip retaliated by the seizure of British ships. Spanish vengeance was not averted, while the Netherlands profited little by her aid."

Sir T. E. May, Democracy in Europe, chapter 11 (volume 2).

Leicester sailed for the Hague in the middle of December, 1585, having been preceded by 8,000 English troops, eager to prevent or revenge the fall of Antwerp. "Had there been good faith and resolution, and had Lord Grey, or Sir Richard Bingham, or Sir John Norris been in command, 20,000 Dutch and English troops might have taken the field in perfect condition. The States would have spent their last dollar to find them in everything which soldiers could need. They would have had at their backs the enthusiastic sympathy of the population, while the enemy was as universally abhorred; and Parma, exhausted by his efforts in the great siege, with his chest empty, and his ranks thinned almost to extinction, could not have encountered them with a third of their numbers. A lost battle would have been followed by a renewed revolt of the reconciled Provinces, and Elizabeth, if she found peace so necessary to her, might have dictated her own conditions." But months passed and nothing was done, while Queen Elizabeth was treacherously negotiating with agents of Spain. In the summer of 1586, "half and more than half of the brave men who had come over in the past September were dead. Their places were taken by new levies gathered in haste upon the highways, or by mutinous regiments of Irish kernes, confessed Catholics, and led by a man [Sir William Stanley] who was only watching an opportunity to betray his sovereign. … Gone was now the enthusiasm which had welcomed the landing of Leicester. In the place of it was suspicion and misgiving, distracted councils, and divided purposes. Elizabeth while she was diplomatising held her army idle. Parma, short-handed as he was, treated with his hand upon his sword, and was for ever carving slice on slice from the receding frontiers of the States. At the time of Leicester's installation he was acting on the Meuse. He held the river as far as Venloo. Venloo and Grave were in the hands of the patriots, both of them strong fortresses, the latter especially. … After the fall of Antwerp these two towns were Parma's next object. The siege of Grave was formed in January. In April Colonel Norris and Count Hohenlohe forced the Spanish lines and threw in supplies; but Elizabeth's orders prevented further effort. Parma came before the town in person in June, and after a bombardment which produced little or no effect, Grave, to the surprise of everyone, surrendered. Count Hemart, the governor, was said to have been corrupted, by his mistress. Leicester hanged him; but Hemart's gallows did not recover Grave or save Venloo, which surrendered also three weeks later. The Earl, conscious of the disgrace, yet seeing no way to mend it, … was willing at last to play into his mistress's hands. He understood her [Queen Elizabeth] at last, and saw what she was aiming at. 'As the cause is now followed,' he wrote to her on the 27th of June, 'it is not worth the cost or the danger. … They [the Netherlanders] would rather have lived with bread and drink under your Majesty's protection than with all their possessions under the King of Spain. It has almost broken their hearts to think your Majesty should not care any more for them. But if you mean soon to leave them they will be gone almost before you hear of it. I will do my best, therefore, to get into my hands three or four most principal places in North Holland, so as you shall rule these men, and make war and peace as you list. Part not with Brill for anything. With these places you can have what peace you will in an hour, and have your debts and charges readily answered. But your Majesty must deal graciously with them at present, and if you mean to leave them keep it to yourself.' … No palliation can be suggested, of the intentions to which Leicester saw that she was still clinging, and which he was willing to further in spite of his oath to be loyal to the States. … The incapacity of Leicester … was growing evident. He had been used as a lay figure to dazzle the eyes of the Provinces, while both he and they were mocked by the secret treaty. The treaty was hanging fire. … The Queen had … so far opened her eyes as to see that she was not improving her position by keeping her army idle; and Leicester, that he might not part with his government in entire disgrace, having done absolutely nothing, took the field for a short campaign in the middle of August [1586]. {2274} Parma had established himself in Gelderland, at Zutphen, and Duesberg. The States held Deventer, further down the Issel; but Deventer would probably fall as Grave and Venloo had fallen if the Spaniards kept their hold upon the river; Leicester therefore proposed to attempt to recover Zutphen. Everyone was delighted to be moving. … The Earl of Essex, Sir William Russell, Lord Willoughby, and others who held no special commands, attached themselves to Leicester's staff; Sir Philip Sidney obtained leave of absence from Flushing; Sir John Norris and his brother brought the English contingent of the States army; Sir William Stanley had arrived with his Irishmen; and with these cavaliers glittering about him, and 9,000 men, Leicester entered Gelderland. Duesberg surrendered to him without a blow; Norris surprised a fort outside Zutphen, which commanded the river and straitened the communications of the town." Parma made an attempt, on the morning of September 22, to throw supplies into the town, and Leicester's knights and gentlemen, forewarned of this project by a spy, "Volunteered for an ambuscade to cut off the convoy. … Parma brought with him every man that he could spare, and the ambuscade party were preparing unconsciously to encounter 4,000 of the best troops in the world. They were in all about 500. … The morning was misty. The waggons were heard coming, but nothing could be seen till a party of horse appeared at the head of the train where the ambuscade was lying. Down charged the 500, much as in these late years 600 English lancers charged elsewhere, as magnificently and as uselessly. … Never had been a more brilliant action seen or heard of, never one more absurd and profitless. For the ranks of the Spanish infantry were unbroken, the English could not touch them, could not even approach them, and behind the line of their muskets the waggons passed steadily to the town. … A few, not many, had been killed; but among those whose lives had been flung away so wildly was Philip Sidney. He was struck by a musket ball on his exposed thigh, as he was returning from his last charge," and died a few weeks later. "Parma immediately afterwards entered Zutphen unmolested. … Leicester's presence was found necessary in England. With the natural sympathy of one worthless person for another, he had taken a fancy to Stanley, and chose to give him an independent command; and leaving the government to the Council of the States, and the army again without a chief, he sailed in November for London."

J. A. Froude, History of England: The Reign of Elizabeth, chapter 33 (volume 6).

ALSO IN: Correspondence of Leicester during his Government of the Low Countries (Camden Society 27).

W. Gray, Life and Times of Sir Philip Sidney, chapter 10.

C. R. Markham, The Fighting Veres, chapters 7-8.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1587-1588. The ruin of the Spanish Provinces. Great prosperity of the United Provinces. Siege and capture of Sluys. The last of Leicester.

"Though the United Provinces were distracted by domestic dissensions and enfeebled by mutual distrust, their condition, compared with that portion of the Netherlands reduced under the yoke of Spain, was such as to afford matter of deep gratulation and thankfulness. The miseries of war had visited the latter unhappy country in the fullest measure; multitudes of its inhabitants had fled in despair; and the sword, famine, and pestilence, vied with each other in destroying the remainder. … The rich and smiling pastures, once the admiration and envy of the less favoured countries of Europe, were now no more; woods, roads, and fields, were confounded in one tangled mass of copse and brier. In the formerly busy and wealthy towns of Flanders and Brabant, Ghent, Antwerp, and Bruges, members of noble families were seen to creep from their wretched abodes in the darkness of night to beg their bread, or to search the streets for bones and offal. A striking and cheering contrast is the picture presented by the United Provinces. The crops had, indeed, failed there also, but the entire command of the sea which they preserved, and the free importation of corn, secured plentiful supplies. … They continued to carry on, under Spanish colours, a lucrative half-smuggling traffic, which the government of that nation found it its interest to connive at and encourage. The war, therefore, instead of being, as usual, an hindrance to commerce, rather gave it a new stimulus; the ports were crowded with vessels. … Holland and Zealand had now for more than ten years been delivered from the enemy. … The security they thus offered, combined with the freedom of religion, and the activity of trade and commerce, drew vast multitudes to their shores; the merchants and artisans expelled, on account of their religion, from the Spanish Netherlands, transferred thither the advantages of their enterprise and skill. … The population of the towns became so overflowing that it was found impossible to build houses fast enough to contain it. … The miserable condition of the Spanish Netherlands, and the difficulty of finding supplies for his troops, caused the Duke of Parma to delay taking the field until late in the summer [1587]; when, making a feint attack upon Ostend, he afterwards … commenced a vigorous siege of Sluys. In order to draw him off from this undertaking, Maurice, with the Count of Hohenlohe, marched towards Bois-le-Duc. … The danger of Sluys hastened the return of the Earl of Leicester to the Netherlands, who arrived in Ostend with 7,000 foot and 500 horse. … Sluys had been besieged seven weeks, and the garrison was reduced from 1,600 men to scarcely half that number, when Leicester made an attempt to master the fort of Blankenburg, in the neighbourhood of the enemy's camp; but on intelligence that Parma was approaching to give him battle, he hastily retreated to Ostend," and Sluys was surrendered. "The loss of Sluys exasperated the dissensions between Leicester and the States into undisguised and irreconcilable hostility." He was soon afterwards recalled to England, and early in the following year the queen required him to resign his command and governorship in the Netherlands. In the meantime, the English queen had reopened negotiations with Parma, who occupied her attention while his master, Philip II. of Spain, was preparing the formidable Armada which he launched against England the next year

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1588.

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapters 2-3 (volume 2).

{2275}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1588-1593. Successes of Prince Maurice. Departure of Parma to France. His death. Appointment of Archduke Albert to the Government.

"The destruction of the great Spanish Armada by the English in 1588 infused new hopes into all the enemies of Spain, and animated the Dutch with such courage, that Maurice led his army against that of the Duke of Parma, and forced him to raise the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom, at that time garrisoned by a portion of Leicester's army under the command of Sir Francis Vere. … The young Stadtholder was induced by this success to surprise the Castle of Blyenbeck, which was yielded to his arms in 1589; and the following year [March 1] he got possession of Breda by a 'ruse de guerre,'"—having introduced 70 men into the town by concealing them in a boat laden with turf. "The Duke of Parma was now recalled from the Low Countries into France [see FRANCE: A. D. 1590], and the old Peter Ernest, Count de Mansfeld, succeeded to the government of the Low Countries. … Maurice defeated the Spanish army in the open field at Caervorden, and took Nimeguen [October 21, 1591] and Zutphen [May 30, 1591; also, Deventer, June 10, of the same year]. … These successes added greatly to the reputation of Count Maurice, who now made considerable progress, so that in the year 1591 the Dutch saw their frontiers extended, and had well-grounded hopes of driving the Spaniards out of Friesland in another campaign. … The death of the Prince of Parma [which occurred December 3, 1592] delivered the Confederates from a formidable adversary; but old Count Mansfeld, at the head of an army of 30,000 men, took the field against them. Maurice, however, in 1593, notwithstanding this covering force, sat down before Gertruydenberg, advantageously situated on the frontier of Brabant." The siege was regarded as a masterpiece of the military art of the day, and the city was brought to surrender at the end of three months. "With the useful aid of Sir Francis Vere and the English, Maurice afterwards took Gronenburg and Grave, which formed part of his own patrimony. The Duke of Parma was succeeded in the government of the Netherlands by the Archduke Albert, a younger son of the Emperor Maximilian, who was married to Isabella, daughter of King Philip."

Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years' War: Maurice of Orange-Nassau, pages 25-28.

ALSO IN: C. R. Markham, The Fighting Veres, part 1, chapters 10-15.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1597. Spanish operations in Northern France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1593-1598.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1609. Steady decline of Spanish power. Sovereignty of the provinces made over to the Infanta Isabella and the Archduke, her husband. Death of Philip II. Negotiations for peace. A twelve years' truce agreed upon. Acknowledgment of the independence of the republic.

"Philip's French enterprise had failed. The dashing and unscrupulous Henry of Navarre had won his crown, by conforming to the Catholic faith. …

See FRANCE: A. D. 1591-1593.

Great was the shock given by his politic apostacy to the religious sentiments of Europe: but it was fatal to the ambition of Philip; and again the Netherlands could count upon the friendship of a king of France. Their own needs were great: but the gallant little republic still found means to assist the Protestant champion against their common enemy, the king of Spain. In the Netherlands the Spanish power was declining. The feeble successors of Parma were no match for Maurice of Nassau and the republican leaders: the Spanish troops were starving and mutinous: the provinces under Spanish rule were reduced to wretchedness and beggary. Cities and fortresses fell, one after another, into the hands of the stadtholder. The Dutch fleet joined that of England in a raid upon Spain itself, captured and sacked Cadiz [see SPAIN: A. D. 1596], raised the flag of the republic on the battlements of that famous city; and left the Spanish fleet burning in the harbour. Other events followed, deeply affecting the fortunes of the republic. Philip at length made peace with Henry of Navarre, and was again free to coerce his revolted provinces. But his accursed rule was drawing to a close. In 1598 he made over the sovereignty of the Netherlands to the Infanta Isabella and her affianced husband, the Archduke Albert, who had cast aside his cardinal's hat, his archbishopric, and his priestly vows of celibacy, for a consort so endowed. Philip had ceased to reign in the Netherlands; and a few months afterwards [September 13, 1598] he closed his evil life, in the odour of sanctity. … The tyrant was dead: the little republic, which he had scourged so cruelly, was living and prosperous. … Far different was the lot of the ill-fated provinces still in the grasp of the tyrant. The land lay waste and desolate: its inhabitants had tied to England or Holland, or were reduced to want and beggary. … That the republic should have outlived its chief oppressor was an event of happy augury: but years of trial and danger were still to be passed through. The victory of Nieuport [gained July 2, 1600, by an army of Dutch and English over the superior forces of the Archduke Albert] raised Prince Maurice's fame, as a soldier, to its highest point; and the gallant defence of Ostend, for upwards of three years [against a siege, conducted by the Spanish general Spinola, to which its garrison finally succumbed in 1604, when the town was a heap of ruins, and after 100,000 men are said to have been sacrificed on both sides] … proved that the courage and endurance of his soldiers had not declined during the protracted war [while Sluys was taken by the Prince the same year]. At sea the Dutch fleets won new victories over the Spaniards and Portuguese; and privateers made constant ravages upon the enemy's commerce. But there were also failures and reverses, on the side of the republic, dissensions among its leaders, and anxieties concerning the attitude of foreign States. And thus, with varied fortunes, this momentous war had now continued for upwards of forty years. … On both sides there was a desire for peace. The Dutch would accept nothing short of unconditional independence: the Spaniards almost despaired of reducing them to subjection, while they dreaded more republican victories at sea, and the extension of Dutch maritime enterprise in the East. Overtures for peace were first made cautiously and secretly by the archdukes ['this was the title of the archduke and archduchess'], and received by the States with grave distrust. Jealous and haughty was the bearing of the republic, in the negotiations which ensued. The states-general, in full session, represented Holland, and received the Spanish envoys. The independence of the States was accepted, on both sides, as the basis of any treaty: but, as a preliminary to the negotiations, the republic insisted upon its formal recognition, as a free and equal State, in words dictated by itself. … {2276} At length an armistice was signed, in order to arrange the terms of a treaty of peace. It was a welcome breathing time: but peace was still beset with difficulties and obstacles. The Spaniards were insincere: they could not bring themselves to treat seriously, and in good faith, with heretics and rebels: they desired the re-establishment of the Church of Rome; and they claimed the exclusive right of trading with the East and West Indies. The councils of the republic were also divided. Barneveldt, the civilian, was bent upon peace: Prince Maurice, the soldier, was burning for the renewal of the war. But Barneveldt and the peace party prevailed, and negotiations were continued. Again and again, the armistice was renewed: but a treaty of peace seemed as remote as ever. At length [April 9, 1609], after infinite disputes, a truce for twelve years was agreed upon. In form it was a truce, and not a treaty of peace: but otherwise the republic gained every point upon which it had insisted. Its freedom and independence were unconditionally recognised: it accepted no conditions concerning religion: it made no concessions in regard to its trade with the Indies. The great battle for freedom was won: the republic was free: its troubles and perils were at an end. Its oppressors had been the first to sue for peace: their commissioners had treated with the states-general at the Hague; and they had yielded every point for which they had been waging war for nearly half a century."

Sir T. E. May, Democracy in Europe, chapter 11 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapters 3-4 (volume 2).

J. L. Motley, History of the United Netherlands, chapters 30-52 (volumes 3-4).

Douglas Campbell, The Puritan in Holland England, and America, chapter 18 (volume 2).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1594-1620. Rise and growth of Eastern trade. Formation of the Dutch East India Company.

"Previous to their assertion of national independence, the commerce of the Dutch did not extend beyond the confines of Europe. But new regions of traffic were now to open to their dauntless enterprise. It was in 1594 that Cornelius Houtman, the son of It brewer at Gouda, returned from Lisbon, where, having passed the preceding year, he had seen the gorgeous produce of the East piled on the quays of the Tagus. His descriptions fired the emulation of his friends at Amsterdam, nine of whom agreed to join stock and equip a little flotilla for a voyage round the Cape of Good Hope; Houtman undertook the command, and thus the marvellous commerce of the Dutch in India began. The influence which their trade with India and their settlements there exerted in maturing and extending the greatness of the Dutch, has often been overrated. It was a source, indeed, of infinite pride, and for a time of rapid and glittering profit; but it was attended with serious drawbacks, both of national expenditure and national danger. … From the outset they were forced to go armed. The four ships that sailed on the first voyage of speculation from Amsterdam, in 1595, were fitted out for either war or merchandise. They were about to sail into hitherto interdicted waters; they knew that the Portuguese were already established in the Spice Islands, whither they were bound; and Portugal was then a dependency of Spain. On their arrival at Java, they had, consequently, to encounter open hostility both from Europeans and the natives whom the former influenced against them. At Bali, however, they were better received; and, in 1597, they reached home with a rich cargo of spices and Indian wares. It was a proud and joyous day in Amsterdam when their return was known. … From various ports of Zealand and Holland 80 vessels sailed the following year to America, Africa, and India. Vainly the Portuguese colonists laboured to convince the native princes of the East that the Dutch were a mere horde of pirates with whom no dealings were safe. Their businesslike and punctilious demeanour, and probably, likewise, the judiciously selected cargoes with which they freighted their ships outwards, whereby they were enabled to offer better terms for the silk, indigo, and spice they wished to buy, rapidly disarmed the suspicion of several of the chiefs. … In 1602 the celebrated East India Company was formed under charter granted by the States-General,—the original capital being 6,000,000 guilders, subscribed by the merchants of Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn, Enkhuysen, Middleberg, but above all Amsterdam. They established factories at many places, both on the continent of India and in the islands; but their chief depot was fixed at Bantam," until, dissatisfied with certain taxes imposed on them by the lord of Bantam, they looked elsewhere for a station. "The sovereign of Java gladly offered them a settlement not above 100 miles distant, with full permission to erect such buildings as they chose, and an engagement that pepper (the chief spice thence exported) should be sent out of his dominions toll-free. These terms were accepted. Jocatra, a situation very propitious for traffic, was chosen as the site of their future factory. Warehouses of stone and mortar quickly rose; and dwellings, to the number of 1,000, were in a short time added. All nations had leave to settle and trade within its walls; and this was the origin of Batavia. In six years the Company sent out 46 vessels, of which 43 returned in due course laden with rich cargoes. … By the books of the Company it appeared that, during the next eleven years, they maintained 30 ships in the Eastern trade, manned by 5,000 seamen. … Two hundred per cent. was divided by the proprietors of the Company's stock on their paid-up capital in sixteen years. … But of all the proud results of their Indian commerce, that which naturally afforded to the Dutch the keenest sense of exultation, was the opportunity it afforded them of thoroughly undermining the once exclusive trade of Spain, not with foreign nations merely, but with her own colonies, and even at home. The infatuated policy of her government had prepared the way for her decline. … In the space of a few years the Dutch had taken and rifled 11 Spanish galleons, 'carkets and other huge ships, and made about 40 of them unserviceable.' So crippled was their colonial trade that, even for their own use, the Spaniards were obliged to buy nutmegs, cloves, and mace, from their hated rivals."

W. T. McCullagh, Industrial History of Free Nations, chapter 13 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: D. McPherson, Annals of Commerce, volume 2, pages 206-296.

J. Yeats, Growth and Vicissitudes of Commerce, part 3, chapters 3-4.

{2277}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1603-1619. Calvinistic persecution of Arminianism. The hunting down of John of Barneveldt by Prince Maurice. Synod of Dort.

Calvin's doctrine of predestination was strongly expressed in what was called the Heidelberg Catechism. "A synod of the pastors of Holland had decreed that this must be signed by all their preachers, and be to them what the Thirty-nine Articles are to the English Church and the Confession of Augsburg to the Lutherans. Many preachers hesitated to pledge themselves to doctrines that they did not think Scriptural nor according to primitive faith, and still more, not accordant with the eternal mercy of God. Of these Jacob Hermann, a minister of Amsterdam, or as he Latinised his name, Arminius, was the foremost, and under his influence a number of clergy refused their signature. The University of Leyden in 1603 chose Arminius as their Professor of Theology. The opposite party, in great wrath, insisted on holding a synod, and the States-General gave permission, but at first only on condition that there should be a revision of the confession of faith and catechism. The ministers refused, but the States-General insisted, led by John Barneveldt, then Advocate and Keeper of the Seals, who declared in their name that as 'foster fathers and protectors of the churches to them every right belonged.' It was an Erastian sentiment, but this opinion was held by all reformed governments, including the English, and Barneveldt spoke in the hope of mitigating Calvinistic violence. The Advocate of the States-General was in fact their mouthpiece. They might vote, but no one expressed their decisions at home or abroad save the Advocate; and Barneveldt, both from position and character, was thus the chief manager of civil affairs, and an equal if not a superior power to Maurice of Nassau, the Stadtholder and commander-in-chief, and recently, by the death of his elder brother, Prince of Orange. The question had even been mooted of giving him the sovereignty, but to this Barneveldt was strongly averse. Maurice knew very little about the argument, and his real feelings were Arminian, though jealousy of Barneveldt made him favour the opposite party, whose chief champion was Jacob Gomer, or Gomerus as he called himself. King James, though really holding with the Arminians, disliked Barneveldt, and therefore threw all the weight of England into the scale against them. Arguments were held before Maurice and before the university, in which three champions on the one side were pitted against three on the other, but nothing came of them but a good deal of audacious profanity, till Arminius, in ministering to the sick during a visitation of the plague at Amsterdam, caught the disease and died. He was so much respected that the University of Leyden pensioned his widow. They chose a young Genevese, named Conrad Voorst or Vorstius, as his successor. Voorst had written two books, one on the nature of God, Tractatus Theologicus de Deo, and the other, Exegesis Apologetica, in which (by Fuller's account) there was a considerable amount of materialism, and likewise what amounted to a denial of the Divine Omniscience, being no doubt a reaction from extreme Calvinism. King James met with the book, and was horrified at its statements. He conceived himself bound to interfere both as protector to the States—which he said had been cemented with English blood—and because the University of Leyden was much frequented by the youth of England and Scotland, who often completed their legal studies there. He ordered Sir Ralf Winwood, his ambassador at the Hague, to deliver a sharp remonstrance to the States, and to read them a catalogue of the dangerous and blasphemous errors that he had detected, recommending the States to protest against the appointment, and burn the books. Barneveldt was much distressed, and uncertain whether James really was speaking out of zeal for orthodoxy, or to have an excuse for a quarrel. Letters and arguments passed without number. … Leyden supported the professor it had invited, and, together with Barneveldt, felt that to expel a man whom they had chosen, at the bidding of a foreign sovereign, was almost accepting a yoke like that of the Inquisition. … Maurice, on the other hand, was glad to set the English King against Barneveldt, and to represent that support of the foes of strict Calvinism meant treachery to the Republic and a betrayal to Spain. Winwood, on the King's part, insisted on Vorstius's dismissal and banishment. … Maurice's own preacher, Uytenbogen, wrote a remonstrance on behalf of the Arminians, who were therefore sometimes termed Remonstrants, while the Gomerists, from their answer, were called Counter-Remonstrants. Unfortunately, political jealousy of Barneveldt on the part of Maurice caused the influence of Uytenbogen to decline. Most of the preachers and of the populace held to the Counter-Remonstrants and their old-fashioned Calvinism, most of the nobles and magistrates were Remonstrants. The question began to branch into a second, namely, whether the state had power to control the faith of all its subjects, and whether when it convoked a synod it could control its decisions, or was bound to enforce them absolutely and without question. … Whichever party was predominant in a place turned the other out of church. Appeals were made to the Stadtholder, and he became angry. The States-General at large, with Barneveldt to speak for them, were Remonstrant; the states of Holland were Counter-Remonstrant; and one of the questions thus at issue was how far the power of the general government outweighed that of a particular state. … By steps here impossible to follow, Maurice destroyed the ascendency of Barneveldt, and the reports that the old statesman was playing into the hands of Spain grew more and more current. The magistrates of the Arminian persuasion found themselves depending for protection on the Waartgelders, a sort of burgher militia, who endeavoured to keep the peace between the furious mobs who struggled on either side. Accusations flew about freely that now Maurice, now Barneveldt wanted the sovereignty. England favoured the former; and after Henri IV. was dead, French support little availed the latter, but rather did him harm. Maurice did not scruple to raise the popular cry that there were two factions in Holland, for Orange or for Spain, though he must have known that there never had been a more steady foe of Spain than the old statesman. The public, however, preferred the general to the statesman, and bit by bit Maurice succeeded in exchanging Remonstrant magistrates for Counter-Remonstrant, or, as Barneveldt explained the matter to Sir Dudley Carleton, who had become ambassador from England, Puritan for double Puritan. … Sunday, the 17th of July, 1617, Uytenbogen preached against the assembly of a national synod, knowing well that it would only confirm and narrow the cruel doctrine. Maurice, who was bent on the synod came out in a rage. … {2278} Barneveldt on this moved the States-General to refuse their consent to the synod as inconsistent with their laws. This was carried by a majority, and was called the Sharp Resolve. … The High Council by a majority of one set aside the Sharp Resolve, and decided for the synod. Barneveldt had a severe illness, during which Maurice's influence made progress, assisted by detestable accusations that the Advocate was in league with the Spaniards. At last Maurice mastered Utrecht, hitherto the chief hold of Arminianism. He disbanded the Waartgelders, and when the States-General came together in the summer of 1618, he had all prepared for sweeping his adversaries from his path. On the 29th of August, as Barneveldt was going to take his place at the States-General, he was told by a chamberlain that the Prince wished to speak with him, and in Maurice's ante-room was arrested by a lieutenant of the guard and locked up. In exactly the same manner was arrested his friend and supporter Pensionary Rambolt Hoogenboets, who had protested against the decree by which the High Council reversed that of the States-General, and Hugo Van Groot, or, as he called himself, Hugo Grotius, one of the greatest scholars who ever lived, especially in jurisprudence, and a strong adherent of the Advocate. … The synod met at Dordrecht [or Dort] in January, 1619, and lasted till April. The Calvinists carried the day completely, and Arminians were declared heretics, schismatics, incapable of preaching, or of acting as professors or schoolmasters, unless they signed the Heidelberg Catechism and Netherland Confession, which laid down the hard-and-fast doctrine that predestination excluded all free will on man's part, but divided the human race into vessels of wrath and vessels of mercy, without power on their own part to reverse the doom. … The trial of Barneveldt was going on at the same time with the Synod of Dordrecht after he had been many months in prison. Twenty-four commissioners were appointed, twelve from Holland, and two from each of the other states, and most of them were personal enemies of the prisoner. Before them he was examined day by day for three months, without any indictment; no witnesses, no counsel on either side; nor was he permitted pen and ink to prepare his defence, nor the use of his books and papers." Barneveldt and his family protested against the flagrant injustice and illegality of the so-called trial, but refused to sue for pardon, which Maurice was determined they should do. "It was submission that he wanted, not life"; but as the submission was not yielded he coldly exacted the life. Barneveldt was condemned and sentenced to be beheaded by the sword. The sentence was executed on the same day it was pronounced, May 12, 1619. Grotius was condemned to perpetual imprisonment, but made his escape, by the contrivance of his wife, in 1621.

C. M. Yonge, Cameos from English History, series 6, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: J. L. Motley, Life and Death of John of Barneveld, chapters 14-22 (volume 2).

J. Arminius, Works, etc.; edited by Nichols, volume 1.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D.1608-1620. Residence of the exiled Independents who afterwards founded Plymouth Colony in New England.

See INDEPENDENTS: A. D. 1604-1617.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1609. The founding of the Bank of Amsterdam.

See MONEY AND BANKING: 17TH CENTURY.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1609. Henry Hudson's voyage of exploration.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1609.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1610-1614. Possession taken of New Netherland (New York).

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1621. Incorporation of the Dutch West India Company.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1621-1646.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1621-1633. End of the Twelve Years Truce. Renewal of war. Death of Prince Maurice. Reversion of the sovereignty of the Spanish Provinces to the king of Spain.

"In 1621, the twelve years' truce being expired, the King of Spain and the Archdukes offered to renew it, on the condition that the States would acknowledge their ancient sovereigns, one of whom, the Archduke Albert, died this year. Even if the States had been inclined to negotiate, the will of Maurice was in the ascendant, and the war was renewed. The Dutch, it is true, were now entirely insulated. James of England was making overtures to Spain and being cajoled. France, who had wished to save Barneveldt, was unfriendly in consequence of the manner in which her intercession had been treated. The Dutch party which was opposed to Maurice was exasperated, and the great counsellor was no more there to advise his country in its emergencies. The safety of Holland lay in the fact that the wars of religion were being waged on a wider and more distant field, for a larger stake, and with larger armies. Not content with murdering Barneveldt, Maurice took care to ruin his family. But at last, and just before his death in 1625, Maurice, in the bitterness of disappointment, said, 'As long as the old rascal was alive, we had counsels and money; now we can find neither one nor the other.' … The memory of Barneveldt was avenged, even though his reputation has not been rehabilitated. Frederic Henry, half-brother of Maurice, was at once made Captain and Admiral-General of the States, and soon after Stadtholder. … Very speedily the controversy which had threatened to tear Holland asunder was silenced by mutual consent, except in synods and presbyteries. In a few years, Holland became, as far as the government was concerned, the most tolerant country in the world, the asylum of those whom bigotry hunted from their native land. Hence it became the favourite abode of those wealthy and enterprising Jews, who greatly increased its wealth by aiding its external and internal commerce."

J. E. T. Rogers, Story of Holland, chapter 26.

"Marquis Spinola commenced the campaign by the siege of. Bergen-op-Zoom, with a considerable Spanish army, in 1622, but Maurice was enabled to meet him with the united forces of Mansfeld, Brunswick [see GERMANY: A. D. 1621-1623], and his own, and obliged the Marquis to raise the siege. He afterwards encountered Don Gonsalvo de Cordova, who endeavoured to stay their passage into Germany with a Spanish force near Fleurus; but he also was defeated. After this, however, Prince Maurice could effect nothing considerable, but maintained his ground solely by acting on the defensive during the entire year 1623. … He could not prevent the capture [by Spinola] of Breda, one of the strongest fortifications of the Low Countries. … The mortification at being unable to relieve this place during a long blockade of six months preyed upon the mind of Prince Maurice, whose health had already begun to give way. … An access of fever obliged him to quit the field and withdraw to the Hague, where he died in 1625, at the age of 58 years."

Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Thirty Years' War: Maurice of Orange-Nassau, page 47.

{2279}

The new Stadtholder, Prince Frederic Henry, made every effort to raise the siege of Breda, but without success, and the place was surrendered (June 2, 1625) to the Spaniards. In the next year little was accomplished on either side; but in 1627 the Prince took Grol, after a siege of less than one month. In 1628 the Dutch Admiral Piet Heyn captured one of the Spanish silver-fleets, with a cargo, largely pure silver, valued at 12,000,000 florins. In 1629 the king of Spain and the Archduchess made overtures of peace, with offers of a renewed truce for 24 years. "But no sooner did the negotiations become public than they encountered general and violent opposition," especially from the West India Company, which found the war profitable, and from the ministers of the church. At the same time the operations of the war assumed more activity. The Prince laid siege to Bois-le-Duc, a Brabant town deemed impregnable, and the Spaniards, to draw him away, invaded Guelderland, and captured Amersfoort, near Utrecht. They laid waste the country, and were compelled to retire, without interrupting the siege of Bois-le-Duc, which presently was surrendered. In 1631 the Prince undertook the siege of Dunkirk, which had long been a rendezvous of pirates, troublesome to the commerce of all the surrounding nations; but on the approach of a Spanish relieving force, the deputies of the States, who had authority over the commander, required him to relinquish the undertaking. In 1632, the Prince achieved a great success, in the siege and reduction of Maestricht, which he accomplished, notwithstanding his lines were attacked by a Spanish army of 24,000 men, and by an army from Germany, under the Imperial general Pappenheim, who brought 16,000 men to assist in raising the siege. In the face of these two armies, Maestricht was forced to capitulate, and the fall of Limburg followed. Peace negotiations were reopened the same year, but came to nothing, and they were followed shortly by the death of the Archduchess Isabella. "At her death, the Netherlands, in pursuance of the terms of the surrender made by Philip II., reverted to the King of Spain, who placed the government, after it had been administered a short time by a commission, in the hands of the Marquis of Aitona, commander-in-chief of the army, until the arrival of his brother Ferdinand, cardinal and archbishop of Toledo [known as 'the Cardinal Infant'], whom he had, during the lifetime of the Archduchess, appointed her successor."

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapter 6 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: C. R. Markham, The Fighting Veres, part 2, chapter 4.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1623. The massacre of Amboyna.

See INDIA: A. D. 1600-1702.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1624-1661. Conquests in Brazil and their loss.

See BRAZIL: A. D. 1510-1661.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1625. The Protestant alliance in the Thirty Years War.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1624-1626.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1635. Alliance with France against Spain and Austria.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1635-1638. The Cardinal Infant in the government of the Spanish Provinces. His campaigns against the Dutch and French. Invasion of France. Dutch capture of Breda.

In 1635, the Archduchess Isabella having recently died, it was thought expedient in Spain "that a member of the royal family should be intrusted with the administration of the Netherlands [Spanish Provinces]. This appointment was accordingly conferred on the Cardinal Infant [Ferdinand, son of Philip III.], who was at that time in Italy, where he had collected a considerable army. With this force, amounting to about 12,000 men, he had passed in the preceding year through Germany, on his route to the Netherlands, and, having formed a junction with the Imperialists, under the King of Hungary, he greatly contributed to the victory gained over the Swedes and German Protestants, at Nordlingen. …

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

The Cardinal Infant entered on the civil and military government of the Spanish Netherlands nearly at the time when the seizure of the Elector of Treves had called forth from France an open declaration of war. By uniting the newly raised troops which he had brought with him from Italy to the veteran legions of the provinces, he found himself at the head of a considerable military force. At the same time, an army of 20,000 French was assembled under the inspection of their king at Amiens, and was intrusted to Chatillon, and Mareschal Brezé the brother-in-law of Richelieu. … It was intended, however, that this army should form a junction with the Dutch at Maestricht, after which the troops of both nations should be placed under the orders of Frederic Henry, Prince of Orange, who had inherited all the military talents of his ancestors. In order to counteract this movement, the Cardinal Infant separated his army into two divisions. One was ordered to confront the Dutch, and the other, under Prince Thomas of Savoy, marched to oppose the progress of the French. This latter division of the Spaniards encountered the enemy at Avein, in the territory of Liege; but though it had taken up a favourable position, it was totally defeated, and forced to retreat to Namur. The French army then continued its march with little farther interruption, and effected its intended union with the Dutch in the neighbourhood of Maestricht. After this junction, the Prince of Orange assumed the command of the allied army, which now stormed and sacked Tillemont, where great cruelties were committed. … The union of the two armies spread terror throughout the Spanish Netherlands, and the outrages practised at Tillemont gave the Catholics a horror at the French name and alliance. … The Flemings, forgetting their late discontents with the Spanish government, now made the utmost efforts against their invaders. … The Spanish prince … contrived to elude a general engagement. … His opponents … were obliged to employ their arms in besieging towns. It was believed for some time that they intended to invest Brussels, but the storm fell on Louvain." The Emperor now sent from Germany a force of 18,000 men, under Piccolomini, "to the succour of the Cardinal Infant. {2280} The slowness of all the operations of the Prince of Orange afforded sufficient time for these auxiliaries to cut off the French supplies of provisions, and advance to the relief of Louvain. On the intelligence of their approach, the half-famished French abandoned the siege, and, after suffering severely in their retreat, retired to recruit at Ruremonde. The Dutch afforded them no assistance, and showed them but little sympathy in their disasters. Though the Dutch hated Spain, they were jealous of France, and dreaded an increase of its power in the Netherlands. … Mareschals Chatillon and Brezé, who were thus in a great measure the victims of the policy of their allies, were under the necessity of leading back beyond the Meuse, to Nimeguen, the wretched remains of their army, now reduced to 9,000 men. … After the departure of the French, the exertions of the Prince of Orange were limited, during this season, to an attempt for the recovery of the strong fortress of Skink, which had recently been reduced by the Spaniards. The Cardinal Infant, availing himself of the opportunity thus presented to him, quickly regained, by aid of the Austrian reinforcements, his superiority in the field. He took several fortresses from the Dutch, and sent to the frontiers of France detachments which levied contributions over great part of Picardy and Champagne. … Encouraged by these successes, Olivarez [the Spanish minister] redoubled his exertions, and now boldly planned invasions of France from three different quarters"—to enter Picardy on the north, Burgundy on the east, and Guienne at the south. "Of all these expeditions, the most successful, at least for a time, was the invasion of Picardy, which, indeed, had nearly proved fatal to the French monarchy. By orders of the Cardinal Infant, his generals, Prince Thomas of Savoy, Piccolomini, and John de Vert, or Wert, … began their march at the head of an army which exceeded 30,000 men, and was particularly strong in cavalry. … No interruption being … offered by the Dutch, the Spanish generals entered Picardy [1636], and seized almost without resistance on La Capelle and Catelet, which the French ministry expected would have occupied their arms for some months. The Count de Soissons, who was already thinking more of his plots against Richelieu than the defence of his country, did nothing to arrest the progress of the Spaniards, till they arrived at the Somme," and there but little. They forced the passage of the river with slight difficulty, and "occupied Roye, to the south of the Somme, on the river Oise; and having thus obtained an entrance into France, spread themselves over the whole country lying between these rivers. The smoke of the villages to which they set fire was seen from the heights in the vicinity of Paris; and such in that capital was the consternation consequent on these events that it seems probable, had the Spanish generals marched straight on Paris, the city would have fallen into their hands." But Prince Thomas was not bold enough for the exploit, and prudently "receded with his army to form the siege of Corbie. This town presented no great resistance to his arms, but the time occupied by its capture allowed the Parisians to recover from their consternation, and to prepare the means of defence." They raised an army of 60,000 men, chiefly apprentices and artisans of the capital, before which Prince Thomas was obliged to retreat. "The French quickly recovered all those fortified places in Picardy which had been previously lost by the incapacity, or, as Richelieu alleged, by the treachery of their governors. But they could not prevent the Spaniards from plundering and desolating the country as they retired. … The Cardinal Infant was obliged to remain on the defensive for some time after his retreat from Picardy to the Netherlands, which were anew invaded by a French force, under the Cardinal La Valette, a younger son of the Duke d'Epernon. But even while restricting his operations to defence, the Infant could not prevent the capture by the French of Ivry and Landreci in Hainault. While opposing the enemy in that quarter, he received intelligence of an unexpected attempt on Breda by the Dutch [1637]. He immediately hastened to its relief; but the Prince of Orange having rapidly collected 6,000 or 7,000 peasants, whom he had employed in forming intrenchments and drawing lines of circumvallation, was so well fortified on the arrival of the Cardinal Infant, who had crossed the Scheldt at Antwerp, and approached with not fewer than 25,000 men, that that Prince, in despair of forcing the enemy's camp, or in any way succouring Breda, marched towards Guelderland. In that province he took Venlo and Ruremonde; but Breda, as he had anticipated, surrendered to the Dutch after a siege of nine weeks. … Its capture greatly relieved the Dutch in Brabant, who now, for many years, had been checked by an enemy in the heart of their territories. … Early in the year 1638, the Infant resumed offensive operations, and again rendered himself formidable to his enemies. He frustrated the attempts which the Dutch had concerted against Antwerp. … In person he beat off the army of the Prince of Orange, who had invested Gueldres; and, about the same time, his active generals; Prince Thomas of Savoy and Piccolomini, compelled the French to raise the siege of St. Omer."

J. Dunlop, Memoirs of Spain from 1621 to 1700, volume 1, chapter 4.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1643. Invasion of France by the Spaniards and their defeat at Rocroi. Loss of Thionville and the line of the Moselle.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1642-1643; and 1643.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1645-1646. French campaign in Flanders, under Orleans and Enghien (Conde). Siege and capture of Dunkirk.

"In 1645, Orleans led the [French] army into Flanders, and began the campaign with the capture of Mardyck. A few weeks of leisurely siege resulted in the conquest of some towns, and by the first of September Gaston sought rest at the Court. As it was now well towards the end of the season, the Hollanders were at last ready to cooperate, and they joined the French under Gassion and Rantzau. But the allied armies did little except march and countermarch, and at the end of the year the Spaniards surprised the French garrison at Mardyck and retook the only place of importance they had lost. … Gaston was, however, well content even with the moderate glory of such warfare. In 1646 he commanded an army of 35,000 men, one portion of which was led by Enghien himself. The Hollanders were under arms unusually early, but they atoned for this by accomplishing nothing. The French laid siege to Courtrai, which in due time surrendered, and they then spent three weeks in a vigorous siege of Mardyck. {2281} This place was finally captured for the second time in fourteen months. It was now late in August, and Orleans was ready to rest from a campaign which had lasted three months. … By the departure of Gaston the Duke of Enghien was left free to attempt some important movement, and his thoughts turned upon the capture of the city of Dunkirk. Dunkirk was situated on the shore of the North Sea, in a position that made it alike important and formidable to commerce. … Its harbor leading to a canal in the city where a fleet might safely enter, and its position near the shores of France and the British Channel, had rendered it a frequent retreat for pirates. The cruisers that captured the ships of the merchants of Havre and Dieppe, or made plundering expeditions along the shores of Picardy and Normandy, found safe refuge in the harbor of Dunkirk. Its name was odious through northern France, alike to the shipper and the resident of the towns along the coast. The ravages of the pirates of Dunkirk are said to have cost France as much as a million a year. … The position of Dunkirk was such that it seemed to defy attack, and the strangeness and wildness of its approaches added terror to its name. It was surrounded by vast plains of sand, far over which often spread the waters of the North Sea, and its name was said to signify the church of the dunes. Upon them the fury of the storms often worked strange changes. What had seemed solid land would be swallowed up in some tempest. What had been part of the ocean would be left so that men and wagons could pass over what the day before had been as inaccessible as the Straits of Dover. An army attempting a siege would find itself on these wild dunes far removed from any places for supplies, and exposed to the utmost severity of storm and weather. Tents could hardly be pitched, and the changing sands would threaten the troops with destruction. The city was, moreover, garrisoned by 3,000 soldiers, and by 3,000 of the citizens and 2,000 sailors. … The ardor of Enghien was increased by these difficulties, and he believed that with skill and vigor the perils of a siege could be overcome. This plan met the warm approval of Mazarin. … Enghien advanced with his army of about 15,000 men, and on the 10th of September the siege began. It was necessary to prevent supplies being received by sea. Tromp, excited to hearty admiration of the genius of the young general, sailed with ten ships into the harbor, and cut off communications. Enghien, in the meantime, was pressing the circumvallation of the city with the utmost vigor. … Half fed, wet, sleepless, the men worked on, inspired by the zeal of their leader. Piccolomini attempted to relieve the city, but he could not force Enghien's entrenchments, except by risking a pitched battle, and that he did not dare to venture. Mines were now carried under the city by the besiegers, and a great explosion made a breach in the wall. The French and Spanish met, but the smoke and confusion were so terrible that both sides at last fell back in disorder. The French finally discovered that the advantage was really theirs, and held the position. Nothing now remained but a final and bloody assault, but Leyde did not think that honor required him to await this. He agreed that if he did not receive succor by the 10th of October, the city should be surrendered. Piccolomini dared not risk the last army in Flanders in an assault on Enghien's entrenchments, and, on October 11th, the Spanish troops evacuated the town. A siege of three weeks had conquered obstacles of man and nature, and destroyed the scourge of French commerce."

J. B. Perkins, France under [Richelieu and] Mazarin, chapter 8 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: Lord Mahon, Life of Condé, chapter 2.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1646-1648. Final Negotiation of Peace between Spain and the United Provinces.

"The late campaign had been so unfortunate [to the Spaniards] that they felt their only possibility of obtaining reasonable terms, or of continuing the war with the hope of a change in fortune, was to break the alliance between Holland and France. A long debt of gratitude, assistance rendered in the struggle with Spain when assistance was valuable, the treaty of 1635 renewed in 1644, forbade Holland making a peace, except jointly with France. On the other hand, the States-General were weary of war, and jealous of the power and ambition of the French. … This disposition was skilfully fostered by the Spanish envoys. Pau and Knuyt, plenipotentiaries from Holland to the Congress at Münster [where, in part, the negotiations of the Peace of Westphalia were in progress—see GERMANY: A. D. 1648], were gained to the Spanish interest, as Mazarin claimed, by the promise to each of 100,000 crowns. But, apart from bribes, the Spanish used Mazarin's own plans to alarm the Hollanders. … It was intimated to the Hollanders that France was about to make a separate peace, that the Spanish Netherlands were to be given her, and that perhaps with the hand of the infanta might be transferred what claims Spain still made on the allegiance of the United Provinces. The French protested in vain they had never thought of making any treaty unless Holland joined, and that the proposed marriage of Louis with the infanta had been idle talk, suggested by the Spanish for the purpose of alarming the States-General. The Hollanders were suspicious, and they became still more eager for peace. … In the spring of 1646, seventy-one proposed articles had been submitted to the Spanish for their consideration. The French made repeated protests against these steps, but the States-General insisted that they were only acting with such celerity as should enable them to have the terms of their treaty adjusted as soon as those of the French. The successes of 1646 and the capture of Dunkirk quickened the desires of the United Provinces for a treaty with their ancient enemy. … In December, 1646, articles were signed between Spain and Holland, to be inserted in the treaty of Münster, when that should be settled upon, though the States-General still declared that no peace should be made unless the terms were approved by France. Active hostilities were again commenced in 1647, but little progress was made in Flanders during this campaign. Though the Hollanders had not actually made peace with Spain, they gave the French no aid. … On January 30, 1648, the treaty was at last signed. 'One would think,' wrote Mazarin, 'that for eighty years France had been warring with the provinces, and Spain had been protecting them. They have stained their reputation with a shameful blemish.' {2282} It was eighty years since William of Orange had issued his proclamation inviting all the Netherlands to take up arms 'to oppose the violent tyranny of the Spaniards.' Unlike the truce of 1609, a formal and final peace was now made. The United Provinces were acknowledged as free and sovereign states. At the time of the truce the Spaniards had only treated with them 'in quality of, and as holding them for independent provinces.' By a provision which had increased the eagerness for peace of the burghers and merchants of the United Provinces, it was agreed that the Escaut [Scheldt] should be closed. The wealth and commerce of Antwerp were thus sacrificed for the benefit of Amsterdam. The trade with the Indies was divided between the two countries. Numerous commercial advantages were secured and certain additional territory was ceded to the States-General."

J. B. Perkins, France under [Richelieu and] Mazarin, chapter 8 (volume 1).

"It had … become a settled conviction of Holland that a barrier of Spanish territory between the United Provinces and France was necessary as a safeguard against the latter. But the idea of fighting to maintain that barrier had not yet arisen, though fighting was the outcome of the doctrine. All that the United Provinces now did, or could do, was simply to back out of the war with Spain, sit still, and look passively upon the conflict between her and France for possession of the barrier, until it should please the two belligerents to make peace."

J. Geddes, History of the Administration of John De Witt, book 2, chapter 1, section 1 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1647-1648. The Spanish war with France. Siege and Battle of Lens.

"While Condé was at the head of the army of the Netherlands, it at least suffered no disaster; but, while he was affording the enemy a triumph in Spain [by his failure at Lerida,—the army which he left behind him was equally unfortunate].

See SPAIN: A. D. 1644-1646.

As he had taken some regiments with him to Spain, it did not exceed 16,000 men; and in 1647 was commanded by the two marshals, Gassion and Rantzau," who exercised the command on alternate days. Both were brave and skilful officers, but they were hostile to one another, and Rantzau was, unfortunately, a drunkard. "The Spanish army had been raised to 22,000 men, and besides being superior in numbers to them, was now under the command of a singularly active leader, the Archduke Leopold. He took town after town before their face; and towards the end of June laid siege to Landrecies. The danger of so important a place stimulated Mazarin to send some strong battalions, including the royal guards, to reinforce the army: and the two marshals made skilful dispositions to surprise the Spanish camp. By a night march of great rapidity, they reached the neighbourhood of the enemy without their presence being suspected; but the next morning, when the attack was to be made, it was Rantzau's turn to command; and he was too helplessly drunk to give the necessary orders. Before he had recovered his consciousness daylight had revealed his danger to the archduke, and he had taken up a position in which he could give battle with advantage. Greatly mortified, the French were forced to draw off, and leave Landrecies to its fate. As some apparent set-off to their losses, they succeeded in taking Dixmude, and one or two other unimportant towns, and were besieging Lens, when Gassion was killed; and though, a few days afterwards, that town was taken, its capture made but small amends. … Though the war was almost at an end in Germany, Turenne was still in that country; and, therefore, the next year there was no one who could be sent to replace Gassion but Condé and Grammont, who fortunately for the prince, was his almost inseparable comrade and adviser. … Though 16,000 men had been thought enough for Gassion and Rantzau, 30,000 were now collected to enable Condé to make a more successful campaign. The archduke had received no reinforcements, and had now only 18,000 men to make head against him; yet with this greatly inferior force he, for a while, balanced Condé's successes; losing Ypres, it is true, but taking Courtrai and Furnes, and defeating and almost annihilating a division with which the prince had detached Rantzau to make an attempt upon Ostend. At last, in the middle of August, he laid siege to Lens, the capture of which had, as we have already mentioned, been the last exploit of the French army in the preceding campaign, and which was now retaken without the garrison making the slightest effort at resistance. But, just as the first intelligence of his having sat down before it reached Condé, he was joined by the Count d'Erlach with a reinforcement of 5,000 men from the German army; and he resolved to march against the archduke in the hope of saving" the place. "He arrived in sight of the town on the 20th of August, a few hours after it had surrendered; and he found the archduke's victorious army in a position which, eager as he was for battle, he could not venture to attack. For Leopold had 18,000 men under arms, and the force that Condé had been able to bring with him did not exceed 14,000, with 18 guns. For the first time in his life he decided on retreating;" but early in the retreat his army was thrown into disorder by an attack from the archduke's cavalry, commanded by General Beck. "All was nearly lost, when Grammont turned the fortune of the day. He was in the van, but the moment that he learnt what was taking place behind him, he halted the advanced guard, and leading it back towards the now triumphant enemy, gave time for those regiments which had been driven in to rally behind the firm line which he presented. … It soon came to be a contest of hard fighting, unvaried by manœuvres on either side; and in hard fighting no troops could stand before those who might be lead by Condé. … At last victory declared for him in every part of his line. He had sustained a heavy loss himself, but less than that of the enemy, who left 3,000 of their number slain upon the field; while 5,000 prisoners, among whom was Beck himself, struck down by a mortal wound, and nearly all their artillery and baggage, attested the reality and greatness of his triumph."

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, chapter 10 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Sir E. Cust, Lives of the Warriors of the Civil Wars, part 1, pages 149-152.

{2283}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1647-1650. Suspension of the Stadtholdership. Supremacy of the States of Holland.

The fourth stadtholder, William II., who succeeded his father, Frederick Henry, in 1647, "was young and enterprising, and not at all disposed to follow the pacific example of his father. … His attempt at a coup d'état only prepared the way for an interregnum. … He was brother-in-law to the Elector of Brandenburg … and son-in-law to Charles I. of England and Henrietta Maria, the sister of Louis XIII. … The proud descendant of the Stuarts, the Princess Mary, who had been married to him when hardly more than a child, thought it beneath her not to be the wife of a sovereign, and encouraged her husband not to be satisfied to remain merely 'the official of a republic.' Thus encouraged, the son of Frederick Henry cherished the secret purpose of transforming the elective stadtholdership into an hereditary monarchy. … He needed supreme authority to enable him to render assistance to Charles I. … Finding in the opposition of the States an insurmountable obstacle to his wish of intervention, he sought the support of France, … and was now ready to come to an understanding with Mazarin to break the treaty of Munster and wrest the Netherlands from Spain. Mazarin promised in return to help him to assert his authority over the States. … But if William desired war, the United Provinces, and in particular the province of Holland, could not dispense with peace. … The States of Holland … fixed the period for the disbanding of the twenty-nine companies whose dismissal had been promised to them. After twelve days of useless deliberations they issued definite orders to that effect. The step had been provoked, but it was precipitate and might give rise to a legal contest as to their competency. The Prince of Orange, therefore, eager to hasten a struggle from which he expected an easy victory, chose to consider the resolution of the States of Holland as a signal for the rupture of the Union, and the very next day solemnly demanded reparation from the States-General, who in their turn issued a counter order. The Prince made skilful use of the rivalry of power between the two assemblies to obtain for himself extraordinary powers which were contrary to the laws of the Confederation. By the terms of the resolution, which was passed by only four provinces, of which two were represented by but one deputy each, he was authorised to take all measures necessary for the maintenance of order and peace, and particularly for the preservation of the Union. 'The States-General consequently commissioned him to visit the town councils of Holland, accompanied by six members of the States-General and of the Council of State, with all the pomp of a military escort, including a large number of officers. He was charged to address them with remonstrances and threats intended to intimidate the provincial States.' This was the first act of the coup d'état that he had prepared, and his mistake was quickly shown him." The Prince gained nothing by his visitation of the towns. At Amsterdam he was not permitted to enter the place with his following, and he returned to the Hague especially enraged against that bold and independent city. He planned an expedition to take it by surprise; but the citizens got timely warning and his scheme was baffled. He had succeeded, however, in arresting and imprisoning six of the most influential deputies of the Assembly of Holland, and his attitude was formidable enough to extort some concessions from the popular party, by way of compromise. A state of suspicious quiet was restored for the time, which William improved by renewing negotiations for a secret treaty with France. "Arrogating to himself already the right to dispose as he pleased of the republic, he signed a convention with Count d'Estrades, whom he had summoned to the Hague. By this the King of France and the Prince of Orange engaged themselves 'to attack conjointly the Netherlands on May 1, 1651, with an army of 20,000 foot and 10,000 horse, to break at the same time with Cromwell, to re-establish Charles II. as King of England, and to make no treaty with Spain excepting in concert with each other.' The Prince of Orange guaranteed a fleet of 50 vessels besides the land contingent, and in return for his co-operation was promised the absolute possession of the city of Antwerp and the Duchy of Brabant or Marquisate of the Holy Roman Empire. William thus interested France in the success of his cause by making ready to resume the war with Spain, and calculated, as he told his confidants, on profiting by her assistance to disperse the cabal opposed to him. … The internal pacification amounted then to no more than a truce, when three months later the Prince of Orange, having over-fatigued and heated himself in the chase, was seized with small-pox, of which in a few days he died. He was thus carried off at the age of 24, in the full force and flower of his age, leaving only one son, born a week after his father's death. … His attempt at a coup d'état was destined to press heavily and long upon the fate of the posthumous son, who had to wait 22 years before succeeding to his ancestral functions. It closed the succession to him for many years, by making the stadtholdership a standing menace to the public freedom. … The son of William II., an orphan before his birth, and named William like his father, seemed destined to succeed to little more than the paternal name. … Three days after the death of William II., the former deputies, whom he had treated as state prisoners and deprived of all their offices, were recalled to take their seats in the Assembly. At the same time the provincial Town Councils assumed the power of nominating their own magistrates, which had almost always been left to the pleasure of the Stadtholder, and thus obtained the full enjoyment of municipal freedom. The States of Holland, on their side, grasped the authority hitherto exercised in their province by the Prince of Orange, and claimed successively all the rights of sovereignty. The States of Zealand … exhibited the same eagerness to free themselves from all subjection. … Thus, before declaring the stadtholdership vacant, the office was deprived of its prerogatives. To complete this transformation of the government, the States of Holland took the initiative in summoning to the Hague a great assembly of the Confederation, which met at the beginning of the year 1651. … The congress was called upon to decide between two forms of constitution. The question was whether the United Provinces should be a republic governed by the States-General, or whether the government should belong to the States of each province, with only a reservation in favour of the obligations imposed by the Act of Union. Was each province to be sovereign in itself, or subject to the federal power?" The result was a suspension and practical abolition of the stadtholdership. "Freed from the counterbalancing power of the Stadtholder, Holland to a great extent absorbed the federal power, and was the gainer by all that that power lost. … {2284} The States of Holland, … destined henceforward to be the principal instrument of government of the republic, was composed partly of nobles and partly of deputies from the towns. … The Grand Pensionary was the minister of the States of Holland. He was appointed for five years, and represented them in the States-General. … Called upon by the vacancy in the stadtholdership to the government of the United Provinces, without any legal power of enforcing obedience, Holland required a statesman who could secure this political supremacy and use it for her benefit. The nomination of John de Witt as Grand Pensionary placed at her service one of the youngest members of the assembly."

A. L. Pontalis, John de Witt, chapters 1-2 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1648. Still held to form a part of the Empire.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1648.

NETHERLANDS: (United Provinces): A. D. 1648-1665. Prosperity and pre-eminence of the Dutch Republic. The causes.

"That this little patch of earth, a bog rescued from the waters, warred on ever by man and by the elements, without natural advantages except those of contact with the sea, should in the middle of the seventeenth century have become the commercial centre of Europe, is one of the phenomena of history. But in the explanation of this phenomenon history has one of its most instructive lessons. Philip II. said of Holland, 'that it was the country nearest to hell.' Well might he express such an opinion. He had buried around the walls of its cities more than three hundred thousand Spanish soldiers, and had spent in the attempt at its subjugation more than two hundred million ducats. This fact alone would account for his abhorrence, but, in addition, the republic was in its every feature opposed to the ideal country of a bigot and a despot. The first element which contributed to its wealth, as well as to the vast increase of its population, was its religious toleration. … This, of course, was as incomprehensible to a Spanish Catholic as it was to a High-Churchman or to a Presbyterian in England. That Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Jews, and Catholics should all be permitted to live under the same government seemed to the rest of Europe like flying in the face of Providence. Critics at this time occasionally said that the Hollanders cared nothing for religion; that with them theology was of less account than commerce. To taunts like these no reply was needed by men who could point to their record of eighty years of war. This war had been fought for liberty of conscience, but more than all, as the greater includes the less, for civil liberty. During its continuance, and at every crisis, Catholics had stood side by side with Protestants to defend their country, as they had done in England when the Spanish Armada appeared upon her coast. It would have been a strange reward for their fidelity to subject them, as Elizabeth did, to a relentless persecution, upon the pretext that they were dangerous to the State. In addition to the toleration, there were other causes leading to the marvellous prosperity of the republic, which are of particular interest to Americans. In 1659, Samuel Lamb, a prominent and far-seeing London merchant, published a pamphlet, in the form of a letter to Cromwell, urging the establishment of a bank in England similar to the one at Amsterdam. In this pamphlet, which Lord Somers thought worthy of preservation, the author gives the reasons, as they occurred to him, which accounted for the vast superiority of Holland over the rest of Europe as a commercial nation. … As the foundation of a bank for England was the subject of the letter, the author naturally lays particular stress upon that factor, but the other causes which he enumerates as explaining the great trade of the republic are the following: First. The statesmen sitting at the helm in Holland are many of them merchants, bred to trade from their youth, improved by foreign travel, and acquainted with all the necessities of commerce. Hence, their laws and treaties are framed with wisdom. Second. In Holland when a merchant dies, his property is equally divided among his children, and the business is continued and expanded, with all its traditions and inherited experience. In England, on the contrary, the property goes to the eldest son, who often sets up for a country gentleman, squanders his patrimony, and neglects the business by which his father had become enriched. Third. The honesty of the Hollanders in their manufacturing and commercial dealings. When goods are made up in Holland, they sell everywhere without question, for the purchaser knows that they are exactly as represented in quality, weight, and measure. Not so with England's goods. Our manufacturers are so given to fraud and adulteration as to bring their commodities into disgrace abroad. 'And so the Dutch have the pre-eminence in the sale of their manufactures before us, by their true making, to their very files and needles.' Fourth. The care and vigilance of the government in the laying of impositions so as to encourage their own manufactures; the skill and rapidity with which they are changed to meet the shifting wants of trade; the encouragement given by ample rewards from the public treasury for useful inventions and improvements; and the promotion of men to office for services and not for favor or sinister ends. Such were the causes of the commercial supremacy of the Dutch as they appeared to an English merchant of the time, and all modern investigations support his view. … Sir Joshua [Josiah] Child, writing a few years later ['A New Discourse of Trade, page 2, and after—1665], gives a fuller explanation of the great prosperity of the Netherland Republic. He evidently had Lamb's pamphlet before him, for he enumerates all the causes set forth by his predecessor. In addition, he gives several others, as to some of which we shall see more hereafter. Among these are the general education of the people, including the women, religious toleration, care of the poor, low custom duties and high excise, registration of titles to real estate, low interest, the laws permitting the assignment of debts, and the judicial system under which controversies between merchants can be decided at one fortieth part of the expense in England. … Probably, no body of men governing a state were ever more enlightened and better acquainted with the necessities of legislation than were these burghers, merchants, and manufacturers who for two centuries gave laws to Holland. It was largely due to the intelligence displayed by these men that the republic, during the continuance of its war, was enabled to support a burden of taxation such as the world has rarely seen before or since. {2285} The internal taxes seem appalling. Rents were taxed twenty-five per cent.; on all sales of real estate two and a half per cent. were levied, and on all collateral inheritances five per cent. On beer, wine, meat, salt, spirits, and all articles of luxury, the tax was one hundred per cent., and on some articles this was doubled. But this was only the internal taxation, in the way of excise duties, which were levied on everyone, natives and foreigners alike. In regard to foreign commodities, which the republic needed for its support, the system was very different. Upon them there was imposed only a nominal duty of one per cent., while wool, the great staple for the manufacturers, was admitted free. Here the statesmen of the republic showed the wisdom which placed them, as masters of political economy, at least two centuries in advance of their contemporaries."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America, volume 2, pages 324-331.

ALSO IN: W. T. McCullagh, Industrial History of Free Nations, volume 2: The Dutch, chapter 12.

NETHERLANDS: (The United Provinces): A. D. 1651-1660. The rule of Holland, and her Grand Pensionary, John de Witt.

"The Republic had shaken off the domination of a person; it now fell under the domination of a single province. Holland was overwhelmingly preponderant in the federation. She possessed the richest, most populous, and most powerful towns. She contributed more than one-half of the whole federal taxation. She had the right of naming the ambassadors at Paris, Stockholm, and Vienna. The fact that the States General met on her territory—at the Hague—necessarily gave her additional influence and prestige. … With the Stadtholder's power that of the States General also, as representing the idea of centralisation, had largely disappeared. The Provincial Estates of Holland, therefore, under the title of 'Their High Mightinesses,' became the principal power—to such an extent, indeed, that the term 'Holland' had by the time of the Restoration [the English Restoration, A. D. 1660] become synonymous among foreign powers with the whole Republic. Their chief minister was called 'The Grand Pensionary,' and the office had been since 1653 filled by one of the most remarkable men of the time, John de Witt. John de Witt therefore represented, roughly speaking, the power of the merchant aristocracy of Holland, as opposed to the claims of the House of Orange, which were supported by the 'noblesse,' the army, the Calvinistic clergy, and the people below the governing class. Abroad the Orange family had the sympathy of monarchical Governments. Louis XIV. despised the Government of 'Messieurs les Marchands,' while Charles II., at once the uncle and the guardian of the young Prince of the house of Orange, the future William III. of England, and mindful of the scant courtesy which, to satisfy Cromwell, the Dutch had shown him in exile, was ever their bitter and unscrupulous foe. The empire of the Dutch Republic was purely commercial and colonial, and she held in this respect the same position relatively to the rest of Europe that England holds at the present day."

O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 9.

ALSO IN: J. Geddes, History of the Administration of John de Witt, volume 1.

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1652. Recovery of Dunkirk and Gravelines. Invasion of France. See FRANCE: A. D. 1652.

NETHERLANDS: (The United Provinces): A. D. 1652. First Settlement at the Cape of Good Hope. See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.

NETHERLANDS: (The United Provinces): A. D. 1652-1654. War with the English Commonwealth.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1652-1654.

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1653-1656. Campaigns of Condé in the service of Spain against France.

See FRANCE: A. D 1653-1656.

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1657-1658. England in alliance with France in the Franco-Spanish War. Loss of Dunkirk and Gravelines.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1655-1658.

NETHERLANDS: (Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1659. Cessions of territory to France by the Treaty of the Pyrenees.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1659-1661.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1664. The seizure of New Netherland by the English.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1664.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1665-1666. War with England renewed.

"A formal declaration of war between Holland and England took place in March, 1665. The English nation, jealous of the commercial prosperity of Holland, eagerly seconded the views of the king against that country, and in regard to the war a remarkable degree of union prevailed throughout Great Britain. Such, however, was not the case with the Dutch, who were very much divided in opinion, and had many reasons to be doubtful of the support of France. One of the grand objects of Charles II. was undoubtedly … to restore his nephew the Prince of Orange to all the power which had been held by his ancestors in the United Provinces. But between Holland and England there existed, besides numerous other most fertile causes of discord, unsettled claims, upon distant territories, rival colonies in remote parts of the world, maritime jealousy and constant commercial opposition. These were national motives for hostility, and affected a large body of the Dutch people. But, on the other hand, considerations of general interest were set aside by the political factions which divided the United Provinces, and which may be classed under the names of the Republican and the Monarchical parties. The Monarchical party was, of course, that which was attached to the interests of the House of Orange. … In the end of 1664, 130 Dutch merchantmen had been captured by England; acts of hostility had occurred in Guinea, at the Cape de Verd, [in New Netherland], and in the West Indies: but Louis [XIV. of France] had continued to avoid taking any active part against Great Britain, notwithstanding all the representations of De Witt, who on this occasion saw in France the natural ally of Holland. On the 13th of June [1665], however, a great naval engagement took place between the Dutch fleet, commanded by Opdam and Van Tromp, and the English fleet, commanded by the Duke of York and Prince Rupert. Opdam was defeated and killed; Van Tromp saved the remains of his fleet; and on the very same day a treaty was concluded between Arlington [the English minister] and an envoy of the Bishop of Munster, by which it was agreed that the warlike and restless prelate should invade the United Provinces with an army of 20,000 men, in consideration of sums of money to be paid by England. {2286} This treaty at once called Louis into action, and he notified to the Bishop of Munster that if he made any hostile movement against the States of Holland he would find the troops of France prepared to oppose him. This fact was announced to the States by D'Estrades on the 22nd of July, together with the information that the French monarch was about to send to their assistance a body of troops by the way of Flanders. … Still, however, Louis hung back in the execution of his purposes, till the aspect of affairs in the beginning of 1666 forced him to declare war against England, on the 26th of January in that year, according to the terms of his treaty with Holland. … The part that France took in the war was altogether insignificant, and served but little to free the Dutch from the danger in which they were placed. That nation itself made vast efforts to obtain a superiority at sea; and in the beginning of June, 1666, the Dutch fleet, commanded by De Ruyter and Van Tromp, encountered the English fleet, under Monk and Prince Rupert, and a battle which lasted for four days, with scarcely any intermission, took place. It would seem that some advantage was gained by the Dutch; but both fleets were tremendously shattered, and retired to the ports of their own country to refit. Shortly after, however, they again encountered, and one of the most tremendous naval engagements in history took place, in which the Dutch suffered a complete defeat; 20 of their first-rate men-of-war were captured or sunk; and three admirals, with 4,000 men, were killed on the part of the States. The French fleet could not come up in time to take part in the battle, and all that Louis did was to furnish De Witt with the means of repairing the losses of the States as rapidly as possible. The energy of the grand pensionary himself, however, effected much more than the slow and unwilling succour of the French king. With almost superhuman exertion new fleets were made ready and manned, while the grand pensionary amused the English ministers with the prospect of a speedy peace on their own terms; and at a moment when England was least prepared, De Ruyter and Cornelius de Witt appeared upon the coast, sailed up the Thames, attacked and took Sheerness, and destroyed a great number of ships of the line. A multitude of smaller vessels were burnt; and the consternation was so great throughout England, that a large quantity of stores and many ships were sunk and destroyed by order of the British authorities themselves, while De Ruyter ravaged the whole sea-coast from the mouth of the Thames to the Land's End. The negotiations for peace, which had commenced at Breda, were now carried on upon terms much more advantageous to Holland, and were speedily concluded; England, notwithstanding the naval glory she had gained, being fully as much tired of the war as the States themselves. A general treaty was signed on the 25th of July."

G. P. R. James, Life and Times of Louis XIV., volume 2, chapter 6.

"The thunder of the Dutch guns in the Medway and the Thames woke England to a bitter sense of its degradation. The dream of loyalty was roughly broken. 'Everybody now-a-days,' Pepys tells us, 'reflect upon Oliver and commend him: what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him.' But Oliver's successor was coolly watching this shame and discontent of his people with the one aim of turning it to his own advantage."

J. R. Green, History of the English People, book 8, chapter 1 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: C. D. Yonge, History of the British Navy, volume 2, chapter 5.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1667. The claims and conquests of Louis XIV. The War of the Queen's Rights.

In 1660 Louis XIV., king of France, was married to the Infanta of Spain, Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV., who solemnly renounced at the time, for herself and her posterity, all rights to the Spanish crown. The insincerity and hollowness of the renunciation was proved terribly at a later time by the long "war of the Spanish succession." Meantime Louis discovered other pretended rights in his Spanish wife on which he might found claims for the satisfaction of his territorial greed. These rested on the fact that she was born of her father's first marriage, and that a customary right in certain provinces of the Spanish Netherlands gave daughters of a first marriage priority of inheritance over sons of a second marriage. At the same time, in the laws of Luxembourg and Franche-Comté, which admitted all children to the partition of an inheritance, he found pretext for claiming, on behalf of his wife, one fourth of the former and one third of the principality last named. Philip IV. of Spain died in September, 1665, leaving a sickly infant son under the regency of an incapable and priest-ruled mother, and Louis began quickly to press his claims. Having made his preparations on a formidable scale, he sent forth in May, 1667, to all the courts of Europe, an elaborate "Treatise on the Rights of the Most Christian Queen over divers States of the monarchy of Spain," announcing at the same time his intention to make a "journey" in the Catholic Netherlands—the intended journey being a ruthless invasion, in fact, with 50,000 men, under the command of the great marshal-general, Turenne. The army began its march simultaneously with the announcement of its purpose, crossing the frontier on the 24th of May. Town after town was taken, some without resistance and others after a short, sharp siege, directed by Vauban, the most famous among military engineers. Charleroi was occupied on the 2d of June; Tournay surrendered on the 24th; two weeks later Douai fell; Courtrai endured only four days of siege and Oudenarde but two; Lille was a more difficult prize and held Turenne and the king before it for twenty days. "All Walloon Flanders had again become French at the price of less effort and bloodshed than it had cost, in the Middle Ages, to force one of its places. … September 1, the whole French army was found assembled before the walls of Ghent." But Ghent was not assailed, the French army being greatly fatigued and much reduced by the garrisoning of the conquered places. Louis, accordingly, returned to Saint-Germain, and Turenne, after taking Alost, went into winter quarters. Before the winter passed great changes of circumstance had occurred. The Triple Alliance of England, Holland and Sweden had been formed, Louis had made his secret treaty at Vienna with the Emperor, for the partitioning of the Spanish dominions, and his further "journey" in the Netherlands was postponed.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 1, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: A. F. Pontalis, John de Witt, chapter 7 (volume 1).

{2287}

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1668. The Triple Alliance with England and Sweden against the French king.

"The rapid conquests of the French king in Flanders during the last summer had drawn the eyes of Europe towards the seat of war in that country. The pope, Clement IX., through pity for the young king of Spain, and the States, alarmed at the approach of the French arms to their frontier, offered their mediation. To both Louis returned the same answer, that he sought nothing more than to vindicate the rights of his wife; that he should be content to retain possession of the conquests which he had already made, or to exchange them either for Luxembourg, or Franche-comté, with the addition of Aire, St. Omer, Donai, Cambrai, and Charleroi, to strengthen his northern frontier. … But Spain was not sufficiently humbled to submit to so flagrant an injustice. … If it was the interest of England, it was still more the interest of the States, to exclude France from the possession of Flanders. Under this persuasion, sir William Temple, the resident at Brussels, received instructions to proceed to the Hague and sound the disposition of de Witt; and, on his return to London, was despatched back again to Holland with the proposal of a defensive alliance, the object of which should be to compel the French monarch to make peace with Spain on the terms which he had previously offered. … Temple acted with promptitude and address: … he represented the danger of delay; and, contrary to all precedent at the Hague, in the short space of five days—had the constitutional forms been observed it would have demanded five weeks—he negotiated [January, 1668] three treaties which promised to put an end to the war, or, if they failed in that point, to oppose at least an effectual barrier to the further progress of the invader. The first was a defensive alliance by which the two nations bound themselves to aid each other against any aggressor with a fleet of forty men of war, and an army of 6,400 men, or with assistance in money in proportion to the deficiency in men; by the second, the contracting powers agreed by every means in their power to dispose France to conclude a peace with Spain on the alternative already offered, to persuade Spain to accept one part of that alternative before the end of May, and, in case of a refusal, to compel her by war, on condition that France should not interfere by force of arms. These treaties were meant for the public eye: the third was secret, and bound both England and the States, in case of the refusal of Louis, to unite with Spain in the war, and not to lay down their arms till the peace of the Pyrenees were confirmed. On the same day the Swedish ambassadors gave a provisional, and afterwards a positive assent to the league, which from that circumstance obtained the name of the Triple Alliance. Louis received the news of this transaction with an air of haughty indifference. … In consequence of the infirm state of Charles II. of Spain, he had secretly concluded with the emperor Leopold an 'eventual' treaty of partition of the Spanish monarchy on the expected death of that prince, and thus had already bound himself by treaty to do the very thing which it was the object of the allied powers to effect. … The intervention of the emperor, in consequence of the eventual treaty, put an end to the hesitation of the Spanish cabinet; the ambassadors of the several powers met at Aix-la-Chapelle [April-May, 1668]; Spain made her choice; the conquered towns in Flanders were ceded to Louis, and peace was re-established between the two crowns. … The States could ill dissemble their disappointment. They never doubted that Spain, with the choice in her hands, would preserve Flanders, and part with Franche-comté. … The result was owing, it is said, to the resentment of Castel-Rodrigo [the governor of the Spanish Netherlands], who, finding that the States would not join with England to confine France within its ancient limits, resolved to punish them by making a cession, which brought the French frontier to the very neighbourhood of the Dutch territory."

J. Lingard, History of England, volume 11, chapter 6.

"Dr. Lingard, who is undoubtedly a very able and well-informed writer, but whose great fundamental rule of judging seems to be that the popular opinion on a historical question cannot possibly be correct, speaks very slightingly of this celebrated treaty [of the Triple Alliance]. … But grant that Louis was not really stopped in his progress by this famous league; still it is certain that the world then, and long after, believed that he was so stopped; and that this was the prevailing impression in France as well as in other countries. Temple, therefore, at the very least, succeeded in raising the credit of his country, and lowering the credit of a rival power."

Lord Macaulay, Sir William Temple (Essays).

ALSO IN: O. Airy, The English Restoration and Louis XIV., chapter 14.

Sir W. Temple, Letters, January 1668 (Works, volume 1).

L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th Century, book 15, chapter 4 (volume 3).

A. F. Pontalis, John de Witt, chapter 7 (volume 1).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1670. Betrayed to France by the English king.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1668-1670.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1672-1674. The war with France and England. Murder of the DeWitts. Restoration of the Stadtholdership.

"The storm that had been prepared in secret for Holland began to break in 1672. France and England had declared war at once by land and sea, without any cause of quarrel, except that Louis declared that the Dutch insulted him, and Charles complained that they would not lower their flag to his, and that they refused the Stadtholdership to his nephew, William of Orange. Accordingly, his fleet made a piratical attack on the Dutch ships returning from Smyrna, and Louis, with an immense army, entered Holland. … They [the French] would have attempted the passage of the Yssel, but the Dutch forces, under the Prince of Orange, were on the watch, and turned towards the Rhine, which was so low, in consequence of a drouth, that 2,000 adventurous cavalry were able to cross, half wading, half swimming, and gained a footing on the other side." This "passage of the Rhine" was absurdly celebrated as a great military exploit by the servile flatterers of the French king. "The passage thus secured, the King crossed the river the next day on a bridge of boats, and rapidly overran the adjoining country, taking the lesser towns, and offering to the Republic the most severe terms, destructive of their independence, but securing the nominal Stadtholdership to the Prince of Orange. {2288} The magistrates of Amsterdam had almost decided on carrying the keys to Louis, and the Grand Pensionary himself was ready to yield; but William, who preferred ruling a free people by their own choice to being imposed on them by the conqueror, still maintained that perseverance would save Holland, that her dykes, when opened, would admit floods that the enemy could not resist, and that they had only to be firm. The spirit of the people was with him, and in Amsterdam, Dordrecht, and the other cities, there were risings with loud outcries of 'Orange boven,' Up with Orange, insisting that he should be appointed Stadtholder. The magistracy confirmed the choice, but Cornelius de Witt, too firm to yield to a popular cry, refused to sign the appointment, and thus drew on himself the rage of the people. He was arrested under an absurd accusation of having bribed a man to assassinate the Prince, and … [after torture] was sentenced to exile, whereupon his brother [the Grand Pensionary] announced that he should accompany him; but while he was with him in his prison at [the Hague], the atrocious mob again arose [August 20, 1672], broke open the doors, and, dragging out the two brothers, absolutely tore them limb from limb."

C. M. Yonge, Landmarks of History, part 3, chapter 4, part 6.

The Prince of Orange, profiting by the murder of the De Witts, rewarded the murderers, and is smirched by the deed, whether primarily responsible for it or not; but the power which it secured to him was used ably for Holland. The dykes had already been cut, on the 18th of June, and "the sea poured in, placing a waste of water between Louis and Amsterdam, and the province of Holland at least was saved. The citizens worked with the intensest energy to provide for their defence. … Every fourth man among the peasantry was enlisted; mariners and gunners were drawn from the fleet." Meantime, on the 7th of June, the fleet itself, under De Ruyter, had been victorious, in Southwold Bay, or Solebay, over the united fleets of England and France. The victory was indecisive, but it paralyzed the allied navy for a season, and prevented a contemplated descent on Zealand. "All active military operations against Holland were now necessarily at an end. There was not a Dutch town south of the inundation which was not in the hands of the French; and nothing remained for the latter but to lie idle until the ice of winter should enable them to cross the floods which cut them off from Amsterdam. Leaving Turenne in command, Louis therefore returned to St. Germain on August 1." Before winter came, however, the alarm of Europe at Louis' aggressions had brought about a coalition of the Emperor Leopold and the Elector of Brandenburg, to succor the Dutch States. Louis was forced to call Turenne with 16,000 men to Westphalia and Condé with 17,000 to Alsace. "On September 12 the Austrian general Montecuculi, the Duke of Lorraine, and the Grand Elector effected their junction, intending to cross the Rhine and join William;" but Turenne, by a series of masterly movements, forced them to retreat, utterly baffled, into Franconia and Halberstadt. The Elector of Brandenburg, discouraged, withdrew from the alliance, and made peace with Louis, June 6, 1673. The spring of 1673 found the French king advantageously situated, and his advantages were improved. Turning on the Spaniards in their Belgian Netherlands, he laid siege to the important stronghold of Maestricht and it was taken for him by the skill of Vauban, on the 30th of June. But while this success was being scored, the Dutch, at sea, had frustrated another attempt of the Anglo-French fleet to land troops on the Zealand coast. On the 7th of June, and again on the 14th, De Ruyter and Van Tromp fought off the invaders, under Prince Rupert and D'Estrees, driving them back to the Thames. Once more, and for the last time, they made their attempt, on the 21st of August, and were beaten in a battle near the Zealand shore which lasted from daylight until dark. The end of August found a new coalition against Louis formed by treaties between Holland, Spain, the Emperor and the Duke of Lorraine. A little later, the Prince of Orange, after capturing Naarden, effected a junction near Bonn with Montecuculi; who had evaded Turenne. The Electors of Treves and Mayence thereupon joined the coalition and Cologne and Munster made peace. By this time, public opinion in England had become so angrily opposed to the war that Charles was forced to arrange terms of peace with Holland, notwithstanding his engagements with Louis. The tide was now turning fast against France. Denmark had joined the coalition. In March it received the Elector Palatine; in April the Dukes of Brunswick and Lüneburg came into the league; in May the Emperor procured from the Diet a declaration of war in the name of the Empire, and on the 1st of July the Elector of Brandenburg cast in his lot once more with the enemies of France. To effectually meet this new league of his foes, Louis resolved with heroic promptitude to abandon his conquests in the Netherlands. Maestricht and Grave, alone, of the places he had taken, were retained. But Holland still refused to make peace on the terms which the French king proposed, and held her ground in the league.

O. Airy, The English Reformation and Louis XIV., chapter 19.

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, History of France, chapter 44 (volume 5).

C. D. Yonge, History of France under the Bourbons, chapter 15 (volume 2).

A. F. Pontalis, John de Witt, chapters 12-14 (volume 2).

Sir W. Temple, Memoirs, part 2 (works, volume 2).

See, also, NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1673. Reconquest of New Netherland from the English.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1673-1678. Fresh conquests by Louis XIV.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674, and 1674-1678; also, NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1674. The Treaty of Westminster. Peace with England. Relinquishment of New Netherland.

An offer from the Dutch to restore New Netherland to England "was extorted from the necessities of the republic, and its engagement with Spain. With the consent of the States General, the Spanish ambassador offered advantageous articles to the British government. Charles, finding that Louis refused him further supplies, and that he could not expect any from Parliament, replied that he was willing to accept reasonable conditions. … Sir William Temple was summoned from his retirement, and instructed to confer with the Spanish ambassador at London, the Marquis del Fresno, to whom the States General had sent full powers. {2289} In three days all the points were arranged; and a treaty was signed at Westminster [February 19, 1674] by Arlington and four other commissioners on the part of Great Britain, and by Fresno on the part of the United Netherlands. The honor of the flag, which had been refused by De Witt, was yielded to England; the Treaty of Breda was revived; the rights of neutrals guaranteed; and the commercial principles of the Triple Alliance renewed. By the sixth article it was covenanted that 'all lands, islands, cities, havens, castles and fortresses, which have been or shall be taken by one party from the other, during the time of this last unhappy war, whether in Europe or elsewhere, and before the expiration of the times above limited for the duration of hostilities, shall be restored to the former Lord and Proprietor in the same condition they shall be in at the time that this peace shall be proclaimed.' This article restored New Netherland to the King of Great Britain. The Treaty of Breda had ceded it to him on the principle of 'uti possidetis.' The Treaty of Westminster gave it back to him on the principle of reciprocal restitution. Peace was soon proclaimed at London and at the Hague. The treaty of Westminster delivered the Dutch from fear of Charles, and cut off the right arm of Louis, their more dreaded foe. England, on her part, slipped out of a disastrous war. … By the treaty of Westminster the United Provinces relinquished their conquest of New Netherland to the King of England. The sovereign Dutch States General had treated directly with Charles as sovereign. A question at once arose at Whitehall about the subordinate interest of the Duke of York. It was claimed by some that James's former American proprietorship was revived. … The opinion of counsel having been taken, they advised that the duke's proprietorship had been extinguished by the Dutch conquest, and that the king was now alone seized of New Netherland, by virtue of the Treaty of Westminster. … A new patent to the Duke of York was therefore sealed. By it the king again conveyed to his brother the territories he had held before, and granted him anew the absolute powers of government he had formerly enjoyed over British subjects, with the like additional authority over 'any other person or persons' inhabiting his province. Under the same description of boundaries, New Jersey, and all the territory west of the Connecticut River, together with Long Island and the adjacent islands, and the region of Pemaquid, were again included in the grant. The new patent did not, as has been commonly, but erroneously stated, 'recite and confirm the former.' It did not in any way allude to that instrument. It read as if no previous English patent had ever existed. … As his colonial lieutenant and deputy, the duke, almost necessarily, appointed Major Edmund Andros, whom the king had directed in the previous March to receive New Netherland from the Dutch."

J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of New York, volume 2, chapters 5-6.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1674-1678. Continued war of the Coalition against France.

"The enemies of France everywhere took courage. … Louis XIV. embraced with a firm glance the whole position, and, well advised by Turenne, clearly took his resolution. He understood the extreme difficulty of preserving his conquests, and the facility moreover of making others more profitable, while defending his own frontier. To evacuate Holland, to indemnify himself at the expense of Spain, and to endeavor to treat separately with Holland while continuing the war against the House of Austria,—such was the new plan adopted; an excellent plan, the very wisdom of which condemned so much the more severely the war with Holland. … The places of the Zuyder-Zee were evacuated in the course of December by the French and the troops of Munster. … The evacuation of the United Provinces was wholly finished by spring. … Louis resolved to conquer Franche-Comté in person; while Turenne covered Alsace and Lorraine, Schomberg went to defend Roussillon, and Condé labored to strengthen the French positions on the Meuse, by sweeping the enemy from the environs of Liege and Maestricht. On the ocean, the defensive was preserved." Louis entered Franche-Comté at the beginning of May with a small army of 8,000 infantry and 5,000 or 6,000 cavalry, but with Vauban, the great master of sieges, to do his serious work for him. A small corps had been sent into the country in February, and had already taken Gray, Vesoul and Lons-le-Saulnier. Besançon was now reduced by a short siege; Dole surrendered soon afterward, and early in July the subjugation of the province was complete. "The second conquest of Franche-Comté had cost a little more trouble than the first; but it was definitive. The two Burgundies were no more to be separated, and France was never again to lose her frontier of the Jura. … The allies, from the beginning of the year, had projected a general attack against France. They had debated among themselves the design of introducing two great armies, one from Belgium into Champagne, the other from Germany into Alsace and Lorraine; the Spaniards were to invade Roussillon; lastly, the Dutch fleet was to threaten the coasts of France and attempt some enterprise there. The tardiness of the Germanic diet to declare itself" frustrated the first of these plans. Condé, occupying a strong position near Charleroi, from which the allies could not draw him, took quick advantage of an imprudent movement which they made, and routed them by a fierce attack, at the village of Seneffe (August 11, 1674). But William of Orange rallied the flying forces—Dutch, German and Spanish now fighting side by side—so successfully that Condé was repulsed with terrible loss in the end, when he attempted to make his victory complete. The battle was maintained, by the light of the moon, until midnight, and both armies withdrew next morning, badly crippled. Turenne meantime, in June, had crossed the Rhine at Philippsburg and encountered the Imperialists, on the 16th, near Sinsheim, defeated them there and driven them beyond the Neckar. The following month, he again crossed the river and inflicted upon the Palatinate the terrible destruction which made it for the time being a desert, and which is the black blot on the fame of the great soldier. "Turenne ordered his troops to consume and waste cattle, forage, and harvests, so that the enemy's army, when it returned in force, as he foresaw it would do, could find nothing whereon to subsist." In September the city of Strasburg opened its gates to the Imperialists and gave them the control of its fortified bridge, crossing the Rhine. {2290} Turenne, hastening to prevent the disaster, but arriving too late, attacked his enemies, October 4, at the village of Ensisheim and gained an inconclusive victory. Then followed, before the close of the year, the most famous of the military movements of Turenne. The allies having been heavily reinforced, he retired before them into Lorraine, meeting and gathering up reinforcements of his own as he moved. Then, when he had completely deceived them as to his intentions, he traversed the whole length of the Vosges with his army, in December, and appeared suddenly at Belfort, finding their forces scattered and entirely unprepared. Defeating them at Mülhausen December 29, and again at Colmar, January 5, he expelled them from Alsace, and offered to Strasburg the renewal of its neutrality, which the anxious city was glad to accept. "Thus ended this celebrated campaign, the most glorious, perhaps, presented in the military history of ancient France. None offers higher instruction in the study of the great art of war." In the campaign of 1675, which opened in May, Turenne was confronted by Montecuculi, and the two masterly tacticians became the players of a game which has been the wonder of military students ever since. "Like two valiant athletes struggling foot to foot without either being able to overthrow the other, Turenne and Montecuculi manœuvred for six weeks in the space of a few square leagues [in the canton of Ortnau, Swabia] without succeeding in forcing each other to quit the place." At length, on the 27th of July, Turenne found an opportunity to attack his opponent with advantage, in the defile of Salsbach, and was just completing his preparations to do so, when a cannon-ball from one of the enemy's batteries struck him instantly dead. His two lieutenants, who succeeded to the command, could not carry out his plans, but fought a useless bloody battle at Altenheim and nearly lost their army before retreating across the Rhine. Condé was sent to replace Turenne. Before he arrived, Strasburg had again given its bridge to the Imperialists and they were in possession of Lower Alsace; but no important operations were undertaken during the remainder of the year. In other parts of the wide war field the French suffered disaster. Marshal de Crequi, commanding on the Moselle, was badly defeated at Konsaarbrück, August 11, and Treves, which he defended, was lost a few weeks later. The Swedes, also, making a diversion in the north, as allies of France, were beaten back, at Fehrbellin.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.

But next year (1676) Louis recovered all his prestige. His navy, under the command of Duquesne and Tourville, fought the Dutch and Spaniards on equal terms, and defeated them twice in the Mediterranean, on the Sicilian coast. On land the main effort of the French was directed against the Netherlands. Condé, Bouchain and Aire were taken by siege; and Maestricht was successfully defended against Orange, who besieged it for nearly eight weeks. But Philippsburg, the most important French post on the Rhine, was lost, surrendering to the Duke of Lorraine. Early in 1677, Louis renewed his attacks on the Spanish Netherlands and took Valenciennes March 17, Cambrai April 4, and Saint-Omer April 20, defeating the Prince of Orange at Cassel (April 11) when he attempted to relieve the latter place. At the same time Crequi, unable to defend Lower Alsace, destroyed it—burning the villages, leaving the inhabitants to perish—and prevented the allies, who outnumbered him, from making any advance. In November, when they had gone into winter-quarters, he suddenly crossed the Rhine and captured Freiburg. The next spring (1678) operations began early on the side of the French with the siege of Ghent. The city capitulated, March 9, after a short bombardment. The Spanish governor withdrew to the citadel, but "surrendered, on the 11th, that renowned castle built by Charles V. to hold the city in check. The city and citadel of Ghent had not cost the French army forty men." Ypres was taken the same month. Serious negotiations were now opened and the Peace of Nimeguen, between France and Holland, was signed August 11, followed early the next year by a general peace. The Prince of Orange, who opposed the peace, fought one bootless but bloody battle at Saint-Denis, near Mons, on the 14th of August, three days after it had been signed.

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 1, chapters 5-6.

"It may be doubted whether Europe has fully realised the greatness of the peril she so narrowly escaped on this occasion. The extinction of political and mental freedom, which would have followed the extinction of the Dutch Republic, would have been one of the most disastrous defeats of the cause of liberty and enlightenment possible in the then condition of the world. … The free presses of Holland gave voice to the stilled thought and agony of mankind. And they were the only free presses in the world. But Holland was not only the greatest book mart of Europe, it was emphatically the home of thinkers and the birthplace of ideas. … The two men then living to whose genius and courage the modern spirit of mental emancipation and toleration owes its first and most arduous victories were Pierre Bayle and John Locke. And it is beyond dispute that if the French King had worked his will on Holland, neither of them would have been able to accomplish the task they did achieve under the protection of Dutch freedom. They both were forced to seek refuge in Holland from the bigotry which hunted them down in their respective countries. All the works of Bayle were published in Holland, and some of the earliest of Locke's writings appeared there also; and if the remainder saw the light afterwards in England, it is only because the Dutch, by saving their own freedom, were the means of saving that of England as well. … At least, no one can maintain that if Holland had been annihilated in 1672, the English revolution could have occurred in the form and at the time it did."

J. C. Morison, The Reign of Louis XIV. (Fortnightly Review, March, 1874).

ALSO IN: H. M. Hozier, Turenne, chapters 12-13.

T. O. Cockayne, Life of Turenne.

Lord Mahon, Life of Condé, chapter 12.

See, also, NIMEGUEN, PEACE OF.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1689. Invasion of England by the Prince of Orange. His accession to the English throne.

See ENGLAND A. D. 1688 (JULY-NOVEMBER), to 1689 (JANUARY-FEBRUARY).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1689-1696. The War of the League of Augsburg, or the Grand Alliance against Louis XIV.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1690, to 1695-1696.

{2291}

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D; 1690-1691. The Battle of Fleurus and the loss of Mons.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1689-1691.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1692. The Naval Battle of La Hogue.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1692.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1692. The loss of Namur and the Battle of Steenkerke.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1692.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1693. The Battle of Neerwinden.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1693 (JULY).

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1694-1696. Campaigns without battles. The recovery of Namur.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1694; and 1695-1696.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1697. The Peace of Ryswick. French conquests restored.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1697.

A. D. 1698-1700. The question of the Spanish Succession. The Treaties of Partition.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1698-1700.

NETHERLANDS: (The Spanish Provinces): A. D. 1701. Occupied by French troops.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1702. The Second Grand Alliance against France and Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1701-1702; and ENGLAND: A. D. 1701-1702.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702. The War of the Spanish Succession: The Expedition to Cadiz. The sinking of the treasure ships in Vigo Bay.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1702.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1702-1704. The War of the Spanish Succession: Marlborough's first campaigns.

"The campaign [of 1702] opened late in the Low Countries, owing, doubtless, to the death of king William. The elector of Bavaria, and his brother the elector of Cologne, took part with France. About the middle of April, the prince of Nassau-Saarbruck invested Keyserwerth, a place belonging to the latter elector, on the Rhine; whilst Lord Athlone, with the Dutch army, covered the siege, in pursuance of the advice of Lord Marlborough to the states. The place was strong; the French Marshal Boufflers made efforts to relieve it; after a vigorous defence, it was carried by assault, with dreadful carnage, about the middle of June. Boufflers, unable to relieve Keyserwerth, made a rapid, march to throw himself between Athlone and Nimeguen, with the view to carry that place by surprise; was defeated by a forced and still more rapid march of the Dutch, under Athlone, to cover it; and moved upon Cleves, laying the country waste with wanton barbarity along his line of march. Marlborough now arrived to take the command in chief. It was disputed with him by Athlone, who owed his military rank and the honours of the peerage to the favour of king William. Certain representatives of the states, who attended the army under the name of field deputies, thwarted him by their caution and incompetency; the Prussian and Hanoverian contingents refused to move without the orders of their respective sovereigns. Lord Marlborough, with admirable temper and adroitness, and, doubtless, with the ascendant of his genius, surmounted all these obstacles. The Dutch general cheerfully served under him; the confederates were reconciled to his orders; he crossed the Meuse in pursuit of the French; came within a few leagues of Boufflers' lines; and, addressing the Dutch field deputies who accompanied him, said, in a tone of easy confidence, 'I will now rid you of these troublesome neighbours.' Boufflers accordingly retreated,—abandoning Spanish Guelderland, and exposing Venloo, Ruremonde, and even Liege, which he had made a demonstration to cover. The young duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV., and elder brother of the king of Spain, had commanded the French army in name. He now returned to Versailles; and Boufflers could only look on, whilst Marlborough successively captured Venloo, Ruremonde, and Liege. The navigation of the Meuse and communication with Maestricht was now wholly free; the Dutch frontier was secure; and the campaign terminated with the close of October. … The duke of Marlborough resumed his command in the Low Countries about the middle of spring. He found the French strong and menacing on every side. Marshal Villars had, like Marlborough, fixed the attention of Europe for the first time in the late campaign. He obtained a splendid victory over the prince of Baden at Fredlingen, near the Black Forest. That prince lost 3,000 men, his cannon and the field. … Villars opened this year's campaign by taking Kehl, passed through the Black Forest into Bavaria, and formed a junction with the elector; whilst the prince of Baden was kept in check by a French army under marshal Tallard. … The imperial general, Count Styrum was now moving to join the prince of Baden with 20,000 men. Villars persuaded the elector to cross the Danube and prevent this junction; attacked the imperialists in the plain of Hochstedt near Donawert; and put them to the rout. The capture of Augsburg followed: the road was open to Vienna, and the emperor thought of abandoning the capital. … Holland was once more threatened on her frontier. Marshal Villeroi, liberated by exchange, was again at the head of an army, and, in conjunction with Boufflers, commenced operations for recovering the ground and the strong places from which Marlborough had dislodged the French on the Meuse. The campaign had opened at this point of the theatre of war with the capture of Rheinberg. It was taken by the Prussians before the duke of Marlborough arrived. The duke's first operation was the capture of Bonne. He returned to the main army with the view to engage the French under Villeroi. That marshal abandoned his camp, and retired within his lines of defence on the approach of the English general. Marlborough was prevented from attacking the French by the reluctance of the Dutch generals and the positive prohibition of the Dutch field deputies. … The only fruit of Marlborough's movement was the easy capture of Huy. Boufflers obtained the slight advantage of surprising and defeating the Dutch general Opdam near Antwerp. Marlborough, still embarrassed by the Dutch field deputies, to whose good intentions and limited views he bowed with a facility which only proves the extent of his superiority, closed the campaign with the acquisition of Limburg and Guelders. … In the beginning of … [1704] the emperor, threatened by the French and Bavarians in the very capital of the empire, implored aid from the queen; and on the 19th of April, the duke of Marlborough left England to enter upon a campaign memorable for … [the] victory of Blenheim. … On his arrival at the Hague, he proposed to the states general to alarm France for her frontier by a movement on the Moselle. {2292} Their consent even to this slight hazard for their own security, was not easily obtained. Villeroi, who commanded in Flanders, soon lost sight of him; so rapid or so well masked were his movements; Tallard, who commanded on the Moselle, thought only of protecting the frontier of France; and Marlborough, to the amazement of Europe, whether enemies or allies, passed in rapid succession the Rhine, the Maine, and the Necker. Intercepted letters, and a courier from the prince of Baden, apprised him that the French were about to join the Bavarians through the defiles of the Black Forest, and march upon Vienna. He now threw off the mask, sent a courier to the states, acquainting them that he was marching to the succour of the empire by order of the queen of England, and trusted they would permit their troops to share the glory of his enterprise. The pensionary Heinsius alone was in his confidence; and the states, though taken by surprise, conveyed to him their sanction and confidence with the best grace. He met Prince Eugene for the first time at Mindlesheim. Marlborough and Eugene are henceforth associated in the career of war and victory."

Sir J. Mackintosh, The History of England, volume 9, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: L. Creighton, Life of Marlborough, chapters 6-7.

G. Saintsbury, Marlborough, chapter 5.

W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough, chapters 11-22 (volume 1).

J. H. Burton, History of the Reign of Queen Anne, chapters 5-6 (volume 1).

Sec, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1702, and 1703.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1704. The War of the Spanish Succession: The campaign on the Danube and victory at Blenheim.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1704.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1705. The War of the Spanish Succession: A campaign spoiled.

After his campaign in Bavaria, with its great victory on the field of Blenheim (see GERMANY: A. D. 1704), Marlborough passed the winter in England and returned in the spring of 1705 to the Low Countries, where he had planned to lead, again, the campaign of the year. Prince Eugene was now in Italy, and the jealous, incapable Prince Louis of Baden, commanding the German army, was the coadjutor on whom he must depend. The latter assented to Marlborough's plans and promised co-operation. The Dutch generals and deputies also were reluctantly brought over to his views, which contemplated an invasion of France on the side of the Moselle. "Slight as were the hopes of any effective co-operation which Prince Louis gave, they were much more than he accomplished. When the time came he declared himself sick, threw up his command and set off to drink the waters of Schlangenbad. Count de Frise whom he named in his place brought to Marlborough only a few ragged battalions, and, moreover, like his principal, showed himself most jealous of the English chief. … Marlborough nevertheless took the field and even singly desired to give battle. But positive instructions from Versailles precluded Villars [the commander of the French] from engaging. He intrenched himself in an extremely strong position at Sirk, where it was impossible for an inferior army to assail him. And while the war was thus unprosperous on the Moselle, there came adverse tidings from the Meuse. Marshal Villeroy had suddenly resumed the offensive, had reduced the fortress of Huy, had entered the city and invested the citadel of Liege." Marlborough, on this news, being applied to for immediate aid by the Dutch General Overkirk—the ablest and best of his colleagues—"set out the very next day on his march to Liege, leaving only a 'sufficient force as he hoped for the security of Treves." Villeroy "at once relinquished his design upon the citadel of Liege and fell back in the direction of Tongres, so that Marlborough and Overkirk effected their junction with ease. Marlborough took prompt measures to re-invest the fortress of Huy, and compelled it to surrender on the 11th of July. Applying his mind to the new sphere before him, Marlborough saw ground to hope that, with the aid of the Dutch troops, he might still make a triumphant campaign. The first object was to force the defensive lines that stretched across the country from near Namur to Antwerp, protected by numerous fortified posts and covered in other places by rivers and morasses, … now defended by an army of at least 60,000 men, under Marshal Villeroy and the Elector of Bavaria. Marlborough laid his plans before Generals Overkirk and Slangenberg as also those civilian envoys whom the States were wont to commission at their armies. But he found to his sorrow that for jealousy and slowness a Dutch deputy was fully a match for a German Margrave." He obtained with great difficulty a nominal assent to his plans, and began the execution of them; but in the very midst of his operations, and when one division of the Dutch troops had successfully crossed the river Dyle, General Slangenberg and the deputies suddenly drew back and compelled a retreat. Then Marlborough's "fertile genius devised another scheme—to move round the sources of the river [Dyle] and to threaten Brussels from the southern side. … On the 15th off August he began his march, as did also Overkirk in a parallel direction, and in two days they reached Genappe near the sources of the Dyle. There uniting in one line of battle they moved next morning towards Brussels by the main chaussée, or great paved road; their head-quarters that day being fixed at Frischermont, near the borders of the forest of Soignies. On the French side the Elector and Villeroy, observing the march of the allies, had made a corresponding movement of their own for the protection of the capital. They encamped behind the small stream of the Ische, their right and rear being partly covered by the forest. Only the day before they had been joined by Marsin from the Rhine, and they agreed to give battle sooner than yield Brussels. One of their main posts was at Waterloo. … It is probable, had a battle now ensued, that it would have been fought on the same, or nearly the same ground as was the memorable conflict a hundred and ten years afterwards. … But the expected battle did not take place." Once more the Dutch deputies and General Slangenberg interfered, refusing to permit their troops to engage; so that Marlborough was robbed of the opportunity for winning a victory which he confidently declared would have been greater than Blenheim. This practically ended the campaign of the year, which had been ruined and wasted throughout by the stupidity, the cowardice and the jealousies of the Dutch deputies and the general who counselled them.

Earl Stanhope, History of England: Reign of Queen Anne, chapter 6.

In Spain, a campaign of more brilliancy was carried on by Charles Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, in Catalonia.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1705.

{2293}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1706-1707. The War of the Spanish Succession: The Battle of Ramillies and its results.

"The campaign of 1706 was begun unusually late by Marlborough, his long stay on the Continent in the winter and his English political business detaining him in London till the end of April, and when he finally landed at the Hague his plans were still coloured by the remembrance of the gratuitous and intolerable hindrances which he had met with from his allies. … He had made up his mind to operate with Eugene in Italy, which, if he had done, there would probably have been seen what has not been seen for nearly two thousand years—a successful invasion of France from the southeast. But the kings of Prussia and Denmark, and others of the allies whom Marlborough thought he had propitiated, were as recalcitrant as the Dutch, and the vigorous action of Villars against the Margrave of Baden made the States-General more than ever reluctant to lose their sword and shield. So Marlborough was condemned to action on his old line of the Dyle, and this time fortune was less unkind to him. Secret overtures were made which induced him to threaten Namur, and as Namur was of all posts in the Low Countries that to which the French attached most importance, both on sentimental and strategical grounds, Villeroy was ordered to abandon the defensive policy which he had for nearly two years been forced to maintain, and to fight at all hazards. Accordingly the tedious operations which had for so long been pursued in this quarter were exchanged at once for a vigorous offensive and defensive, and the two generals, Villeroy with rather more than 60,000 men, Marlborough with that number or a little less, came to blows at Ramillies (a few miles only from the spot where the lines had been forced the year before) on May 23, 1706, or scarcely more than a week after the campaign had begun. Here, as before, the result is assigned by the French to the fault of the general. … The battle itself was one completely of generalship, and of generalship as simple as it was masterly. It was in defending his position, not in taking it up, that Villeroy lost the battle. … Thirteen thousand of the French and Bavarians were killed, wounded, and taken, and the loss of the allies, who had been throughout the attacking party, was not less than 4,000 men. … The Dutch, who bore the burden of the attack on Ramillies, had the credit of the day's fighting on the allied side, as the Bavarian horse had on that of the French. In hardly any of Marlborough's operations had he his hands so free as at Ramillies, and in none did he carry off a completer victory. … The strong places of Flanders fell before the allied army like ripe fruit. Brussels surrendered and was occupied on the fourth day after the battle, May 28. Louvain and Malines had fallen already. The French garrison precipitately left Ghent, and the Duke entered it on June 2. Oudenarde came in next day; Antwerp was summoned, expelled the French part of its garrison, and capitulated on September 7. And a vigorous siege in less than a month reduced Ostend, reputed one of the strongest places in Europe. In six weeks from the battle of Ramillies not a French soldier remained in a district which the day before that battle had been occupied by a network of the strongest fortresses and a field army of 80,000 men. The strong places on the Lys and the Dender, tributaries of the Scheldt, gave more trouble, and Menin, a small but very important position, cost nearly half the loss of Ramillies before it could be taken. But it fell, as well as Dendermonde and Ath, and nothing but the recrudescence of Dutch obstruction prevented Marlborough from finishing the campaign with the taking of Mons, almost the last place of any importance held by the French north of their own frontier, as that frontier is now understood. But the difficulties of all generals are said to begin on the morrow of victory, and certainly the saying was true in Marlborough's case. … The Dutch were, before all things, set on a strong barrier or zone of territory, studded with fortresses in their own keeping, between themselves and France: the Emperor naturally objected to the alienation of the Spanish-Austrian Netherlands. The barrier disputes were for years the greatest difficulty which Marlborough had to contend with abroad, and the main theme of the objections to the war made by the adverse party at home. … It was in the main due, no doubt, to these jealousies and hesitations, strengthened by the alarm caused by the loss of the battle of Almanza in Spain, and by the threatened invasion of Germany under Villars, that made the campaign of 1707 an almost wholly inactive one. … The campaign of this year is almost wholly barren of any military operations interesting to anyone but the mere annalist of tactics."

G. Saintsbury, Marlborough, chapter 6.

In Spain, several sharp changes of fortune during two years terminated in a disastrous defeat of the allies at Almanza in April, 1707, by the Duke of Berwick.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1706 and 1707; see, also, GERMANY: A. D. 1706-1711.

Earl Stanhope, History of England: Reign of Queen Anne, chapter 7 and 9.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1708-1709. The War of the Spanish Succession: Oudenarde and Malplaquet.

To the great satisfaction of Marlborough, Prince Eugene of Savoy was sent by the Emperor to co-operate with him, in the spring of 1708. The two generals met in April to discuss plans; after which Eugene returned into Germany to gather up the various contingents that would compose his army. He encountered many difficulties and delays, and was unable to bring his forces to the field until July. Marlborough, meantime, had been placed in a critical situation. "For whilst the English commander and Eugene had formed the plan to unite and overwhelm Vendome, the Court of Versailles had, on its side, contemplated the despatch of a portion of the Army of the Rhine, commanded by the Elector of Bavaria and the Duke of Berwick, so to reinforce Vendome that he might overwhelm Marlborough, and Berwick was actually on his march to carry out his portion of the plan." Prince Eugene crossed the Moselle on the 28th June, "reached Düren the 3rd July, and learning there that affairs were critical, hastened with an escort of Hussars, in advance of his army, to Brussels. On his arrival there, the 6th, he learned that the French had attacked and occupied the city of Ghent, and were then besieging the castle." {2294} The two commanders having met at Assche, to concert their movements, made haste to throw: "a reinforcement into the fortress of Oudenarde, then besieged by the French; and, convinced now that the conquest of that fortress by Vendome would give him an unassailable position, they pushed forward their troops with all diligence to save it. The two armies united on the 8th. On the 9th they set out for Oudenarde, and crossed the Dender on the 10th. Before daybreak of the 11th Marlborough despatched General Cadogan with a strong corps to the Scheldt, to throw bridges over that river near Oudenarde and to reconnoitre the enemy. The main army followed at 7 o'clock." In the battle which ensued, Vendome was hampered by the equal authority of the Duke of Burgundy—the king's grandson—who would not concur with his plans. "One after another the positions occupied by the French soldiers were carried. Then these took advantage of the falling night to make a retreat as hurried and disorderly as their defence had been wanting in tenacity. In no pitched battle, indeed, have the French soldiers less distinguished themselves than at Oudenarde. Fighting under a divided leadership, they were fighting virtually without leadership, and they knew it. The Duke of Burgundy contributed as much as either Marlborough or Eugene to gain the battle of Oudenarde for the Allies." The French army, losing heavily in the retreat, was rallied finally at Ghent. "The Allies, meanwhile, prepared to take advantage of their victory. They were within a circle commanded by three hostile fortresses, Ypres, Lille, and Tournay. After some consideration it was resolved, on the proposition of Eugene, that Lille should be besieged." The siege of Lille, the capital of French Flanders, fortified by the utmost skill and science of Vauban, and held by a garrison of 10,000 men under Marshal Boufflers, was a formidable undertaking. The city was invested on the 13th of August, and defended heroically by the garrison: but Vendome, who would have attacked the besiegers, was paralyzed by the royal youth who shared his command. Lille, the town, was surrendered on the 22d of October and its citadel on the 9th of December. The siege of Ghent followed, and the capitulation of that city, on the 2d of January, 1709, closed the campaign. "The winter of 1709 was spent mainly in negotiations. Louis XIV. was humiliated, and he offered peace on terms which the Allies would have done well to accept." Their demands, however, rose too high, and the war went on. "It had been decided that the campaign in the Netherlands should be continued under the same skilful generals who had brought that of 1708 to so successful an issue. … On the 23rd of [June] … the allied army, consisting of 110,000 men, was assembled between Courtray and Menin. Marlborough commanded the left wing, about 70,000 strong; Eugene the right, about 40,000. Louis, on his side, had made extraordinary efforts. But even with these he had been able to put in the field an army only 80,000 strong [under Marshal Villars]. … Villars had occupied a position between Douai and the Lys, and had there thrown up lines, in the strengthening of which he found daily employment for his troops." Not venturing to attack the French army in its strong position, Marlborough and Eugene began operations by laying siege to Tournay. The town was yielded to them on the 30th of July and the citadel on the 3d of September. They next turned their attention to Mons, which the French thought it necessary to save at any cost. The attempt which the latter made to drive the allied army from the position it had gained between themselves and Mons had its outcome in the terribly bloody battle of Malplaquet—"the bloodiest known till then in modern history. The loss of the victors was greater than that of the vanquished. That of the former amounted to from 18,000 to 20,000 men: the French admitted a loss of 7,000, but German writers raise it to 15,000. Probably it did not exceed 11,000. … The results … were in no way proportionate to its cost. The French army retreated in good order, taking with it all its impedimenta, to a new position as strong as the former. There, under Berwick, who was sent to replace Villars, it watched the movements of the Allies. These resumed, indeed, the siege of Mons [which surrendered on the 20th of October]. … But this was the solitary result of the victory."

Colonel G. B. Malleson, Prince Eugene of Savoy, chapters 10-11.

ALSO IN: W. Coxe, Memoirs of Marlborough, chapters 66-83 (volumes 4-5).

H. Martin, History of France: Age of Louis XIV. (translated by M. L. Booth), volume 2, chapters 5-6.

J. W. Gerard, Peace of Utrecht, chapters 17-19.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D, 1709. The Barrier Treaty with England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1709.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1710-1712. The War of the Spanish Succession: The last campaigns of Marlborough.

"As soon as it became clear that the negotiations [at Gertruydenberg] would lead to nothing, Eugene and Marlborough at once began the active business of the campaign. … Marlborough began … with the siege of Douai, the possession of which would be of the greatest importance to him. … In spite of Villars' boasts the French were unable to prevent the capture of Douai. … The campaign of 1710 was full of disappointment to Marlborough. He had hoped to carry the war into the heart of France. But after Douai fell, Villars so placed his army that [Marlborough] … was obliged to content himself with the capture of Bethune, St. Venant, and Aire. Heavy rains and a great deal of illness among his troops prevented further operations. Besides this, his energy was somewhat paralysed by the changes which had taken place in England," where the Duchess of Marlborough and the Whig party had lost the favor of the Queen, and the Tory opponents of Marlborough and the war had come into power.

L. Creighton, Life of Marlborough, chapters 15-16.

"In 1711, in a complicated series of operations round Arras, Marlborough, who was now alone, Eugene having been recalled to Vienna, completely outgeneraled Villars and broke through his lines. But he did not fight, and the sole result of the campaign was the capture of Bouchain at the cost of some 16,000 men, while no serious impression was made on the French system of defence. … Lille had cost 14,000; Tournay a number not exactly mentioned, but very large; the petty place of Aire 7,000. How many, malcontent Englishmen might well ask themselves, would it cost before Arras, Cambrai, Hesdin, Calais, Namur, and all the rest of the fortresses that studded the country, could be expected to fall? … Marlborough had himself, so to speak, spoilt his audience. {2295} He had given them four great victories in a little more than five years; it was perhaps unreasonable, but certainly not unnatural, that they should grow fretful when he gave them none during nearly half the same time. … The expense of the war was frightening men of all classes in England, and, independently of the more strictly political considerations, … it will be seen that there was some reason for wishing Marlborough anywhere but on or near the field of battle. He was got rid of none too honourably; restrictions were put upon his successor Ormond which were none too honourable either; and when Villars, freed from his invincible antagonist, had inflicted a sharp defeat upon Eugene at Denain, the military situation was changed from one very much in favour of the allies to one slightly against them, and so contributed beyond all doubt to bring about the Peace of Utrecht."

G. Saintsbury, Marlborough, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: G. B. Malleson, Prince Eugene of Savoy, chapter 12.

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapter 11 (volume 3).

See, also, ENGLAND: A. D. 1710-1712.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1713-1714. The Treaties of Utrecht. Cession of the Spanish Provinces to the House of Austria. Barrier towns secured.

See UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1713-1715. Second Barrier Treaty with England. Barrier arrangements with France and the Emperor.

Connected with the other arrangements concluded in the treaties negotiated at Utrecht, the States, in 1713, signed a new Barrier Treaty with England, "annulling that of 1709, and providing that the Emperor Charles should be sovereign of the Netherlands [heretofore the 'Spanish Provinces,' but now become the 'Austrian Provinces'], which, neither in the whole nor in the part, should ever be possessed by France. The States, on their side, were bound to support, if required, the succession of the Electress of Hanover to the throne of England. … By the treaty concluded between France and the States, it was agreed that … the towns of Menin, Tournay, Namur, Ypres, with Warneton, Poperingen, Comines and Werwyk, Fumes, Dixmuyde, and the fort of Knokke, were to be ceded to the States, as a barrier, to be held in such a manner as they should afterwards agree upon with the Emperor." In the subsequent arrangement, concluded with the Emperor in 1715, "he permitted the boundary on the side of Flanders to be fixed in a manner highly satisfactory to the States, who sought security rather than extent of dominion. By the possession of Namur they commanded the passage of the Sambre and Meuse; Tournay ensured the navigation of the Scheldt; Menin and Warneton protected the Leye; while Ypres and the fort of Knokke kept open the communication with Fumes, Nieuport and Dunkirk. … Events proved the barrier, so earnestly insisted upon, to have been wholly insufficient as a means of defence to the United Provinces, and scarcely worth the labour and cost of its maintenance."

C. M. Davies, History of Holland, chapter 11 (volume 3).

(NETHERLANDS: Holland): A. D. 1713-1725. Continued Austro-Spanish troubles. The Triple Alliance. The Quadruple Alliance. The Alliance of Hanover.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1713-1725; also, ITALY: A. D. 1715-1735.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1729-1731. The Treaty of Seville. The second Treaty of Vienna. The Ostend Company abolished.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1726-1731.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1731-1740. The question of the Austrian Succession. Guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738; and 1740.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1740-1741. Beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1740-1741.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1743. The War of the Austrian Succession: Dutch Subsidies and Troops.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743; and 1743-1744.

NETHERLANDS: (Austrian Provinces): A. D. 1744. Invasion by the French.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1743-1744.

NETHERLANDS: (The Austrian Provinces): A. D. 1745. The War of the Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy. French conquests.

In the spring of 1745, while events in the second Silesian War were still threatening to Frederick the Great (see AUSTRIA: A. D. 1744-1745), his allies, the French, though indifferent to his troubles, were doing better for themselves in the Netherlands. They had given to Marshal de Saxe, who commanded there, an army of 76,000 excellent troops. "As to the Allies, England had furnished her full contingent of 28,000 men, but Holland less than half of the 50,000 she had stipulated; there were but eight Austrian squadrons, and the whole body scarcely exceeded 50,000 fighting men. The nominal leader was the young Duke of Cumberland, but subject in a great measure to the control of an Austrian veteran, Marshal Konigsegg, and obliged to consult the Dutch commander, Prince de Waldeck. Against these inferior numbers and divided councils the French advanced in full confidence of victory, and, after various movements to distract the attention of the Allies, suddenly, on the 1st of May, invested Tournay. … To relieve this important city, immediately became the principal object with the Allies; and the States, usually so cautious, nay, timorous in their suggestions, were now as eager in demanding battle. … On the other hand, the Mareschal de Saxe made most skilful dispositions to receive them. Leaving 15,000 infantry to cover the blockade of Tournay, he drew up the rest of his army, a few miles further, in an excellent position, which he strengthened with numerous works; and his soldiers were inspirited by the arrival of the King and Dauphin, who had hastened from Paris to join in the expected action. The three allied generals, on advancing against the French, found them encamped on some gentle heights, with the village of Antoin and the river Scheldt on their right, Fontenoy and a narrow valley in their front, and a small wood named Barre on their left. The passage of the Scheldt, and, if needful, a retreat, were secured by the bridge of Calonne in the rear, by a tête de pont, and by a reserve of the Household Troops. Abbatis were constructed in the wood of Barre; redoubts between Antoin and Fontenoy; and the villages themselves had been carefully fortified and, garrisoned. The narrow space between Fontenoy and Barre seemed sufficiently defended by cross fires, and by the natural ruggedness of the ground: in short, as the French officers thought, the strength of the position might bid defiance to the boldest assailant. {2296} Nevertheless, the Allied chiefs, who had already resolved on a general engagement, drove in the French piquets and outposts on the 10th of May, New Style, and issued orders for their intended attack at daybreak. … At six o'clock on the morning of the 11th, the cannonade began. The Prince of Waldeck, and his Dutch, undertook to carry Antoin and Fontenoy by assault, while the Duke of Cumberland, at the head of the British and Hanoverians, was to advance against the enemy's left. His Royal Highness, at the same time with his own attack, sent General Ingoldsby, with a division, to pierce through the wood of Barre, and storm the redoubt beyond it." Ingoldsby's division and the Dutch troops were both repulsed, and the latter made no further effort. But the British and Hanoverians, leaving their cavalry behind and dragging with them a few field pieces, "plunged down the ravine between Fontenoy and Barre, and marched on against a position which the best Marshals of France had deemed impregnable, and which the best troops of that nation defended. … Whole ranks of the British were swept away, at once, by the murderous fire of the batteries on their left and right. Still did their column, diminishing in numbers not in spirit, steadily press forward, repulse several desperate attacks of the French infantry, and gain ground on its position. … The battle appeared to be decided: already did Marshal Konigsegg offer his congratulations to the Duke of Cumberland; already had Mareschal de Saxe prepared for retreat, and, in repeated messages, urged the King to consult his safety and withdraw, while it was yet time, beyond the Scheldt." The continued inactivity of the Dutch, however, enabled the French commander to gather his last reserves at the one point of danger, while he brought another battery to bear on the head of the advancing British column. "The British, exhausted by their own exertions, mowed down by the artillery in front, and assailed by the fresh troops in flank, were overpowered. Their column wavered—broke—fell back. … In this battle of Fontenoy (for such is the name it has borne), the British left behind a few pieces of artillery, but no standards, and scarce any prisoners but the wounded. The loss in these, and in killed, was given out as 4,041 British, 1,762 Hanoverians, and only 1,544 Dutch; while on their part the French likewise acknowledged above 7,000." As the consequence of the battle of Fontenoy, not only Tournay, but Ghent, likewise, was speedily surrendered to the French. "Equal success crowned similar attempts on Bruges, on Oudenarde, and on Dendermonde, while the allies could only act on the defensive and cover Brussels and Antwerp. The French next directed their arms against Ostend, … which … yielded in fourteen days. … Meanwhile the events in Scotland [the Jacobite rebellion—see SCOTLAND: A. D. 1745-1746] were compelling the British government to withdraw the greater part of their force; and it was only the approach of winter, and the retreat of both armies into quarters, that obtained a brief respite for the remaining fortresses of Flanders."

Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope), History of England, 1713-1783, chapter 26 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: F. P. Guizot, Popular History of France, chapter 52 (volume 6).

J. G. Wilson, Sketches of Illustrious Soldiers: Saxe.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1746-1747. The War of the Austrian Succession: French conquest of the Austrian provinces. Humiliation of Holland. The Stadtholdership restored.

"In the campaign in Flanders in 1746, the French followed up the successes which they had achieved in the previous year. Brussels, Antwerp, Mons, Charleroi, Namur, and other places successively surrendered to Marshal Saxe and the Prince of Conti. After the capture of Namur in September, Marshal Saxe, reuniting all the French forces, attacked Prince Charles of Lorraine at Raucoux [or Roucoux], between Liege and Viset, and completely defeated him, October 11; after which both sides went into winter quarters. All the country between the Meuse and the sea was now in the power of France, Austria retaining only Luxemburg and Limburg. … Ever since the year 1745 some negociations had been going on between France and the Dutch for the reestablishment of peace. The States-General had proposed the assembling of a Congress to the Cabinet of Vienna, which, however, had been rejected. In September 1746, conferences had been opened at Breda, between France, Great Britain, and the States-General; but as Great Britain had gained some advantages at sea, the negociations were protracted, and the Cabinets of London and Vienna had endeavoured to induce the Dutch to take a more direct and active part in the war. In this state of things the Court of Versailles took a sudden resolution to coerce the States-General. A manifest was published by Louis XV. April 17th 1747, filled with those pretexts which it is easy to find on such occasions: not, indeed, exactly declaring war against the Dutch Republic, but that he should enter her territories 'without breaking with her'; that he should hold in deposit the places he might conquer, and restore them as soon as the States ceased to succour his enemies. At the same time Count Löwendahl entered Dutch Flanders by Bruges, and seized in less than a month Sluys, Ysendick, Sas de Gand, Hulst, Axel, and other places. Holland had now very much declined from the position she had held a century before. There were indeed many large capitalists in the United Provinces, whose wealth had been amassed during the period of the Republic's commercial prosperity, but the State as a whole was impoverished and steeped in debt. … In … becoming the capitalists and money-lenders of Europe, they [the Dutch] had ceased to be her brokers and carriers. … Holland was no longer the entrepôt of nations. The English, the Swedes, the Danes, and the Hamburghers had appropriated the greater part of her trade. Such was the result of the long wars in which she had been engaged. … Her political consideration had dwindled equally with her commerce. Instead of pretending as formerly to be the arbiter of nations, she had become little more than the satellite of Great Britain; a position forced upon her by fear of France, and her anxiety to maintain her barriers against that encroaching Power. Since the death of William III., the republican or aristocratic party had again seized the ascendency. William III.'s collateral heir, John William Friso, had not been recognised as Stadtholder, and the Republic was again governed, as in the time of De Witt, by a Grand Pensionary and greffier. The dominant party had, however, become highly unpopular. {2297} It had sacrificed the army to maintain the fleet, and the Republic seemed to lie at the mercy of France. At the approach of the French, consternation reigned in the provinces. The Orange party raised its head and demanded the re-establishment of the Stadtholdership. The town of Veere in Zealand gave the example of insurrection, and William IV. of Nassau-Dietz, who was already Stadtholder of Friesland, Groningen and Gelderland, was ultimately proclaimed hereditary Stadtholder, Captain-General and Admiral of the United Provinces. William IV. was the son of John William Friso, and son-in-law of George II., whose daughter, Anne, he had married. The French threatening to attack Maestricht, the allies under the Duke of Cumberland marched to Lawfeld in order to protect it. Here they were attacked by Marshal Saxe, July 2nd 1747, and after a bloody battle compelled to recross the Meuse. The Duke of Cumberland, however, took up a position which prevented the French from investing Maestricht. On the other hand, Löwendahl [a Swedish general in the French service] carried Bergen-op-Zoom by assault., July 16th." The following spring (1748), the French succeeded in laying siege to Maestricht, notwithstanding the presence of the allies, and it was surrendered to them on the 7th of May. "Negociations had been going on throughout the winter, and a Congress had been appointed to meet at Aix-la-Chapelle, whose first conference took place April 24th 1748." The taking of Maestricht was intended to stimulate these negotiations for peace, and it undoubtedly had that effect. The treaties which concluded the war were signed the following October.

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 4 (volume 3).

ALSO IN: C. M. Davies, History of Holland, part 3, chapter 12, part 4, chapter 1.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1746-1787. The restored Stadtholdership. Forty years of peace. War with England and trouble with Austria. The razing of the Barriers. Premature revolutions.

In their extremity, when the provinces of the Dutch Republic were threatened with invasion by the French, a cry for the House of Orange was raised once more. "The jealousies of Provincial magistratures were overborne, and in obedience to the voice of the people a Stadholder again arose. William of Nassau Dietz, the heir to William III., and the successor to a line of Stadholders who had ruled continuously in Friesland since the days of Philip II., was summoned to power. … William IV. had married, as William II. and William III. had done, the daughter of a King of England. As the husband of Anne, the child of George II., he had added to the consideration of his House; and he was now able to secure for his descendants the dignities to which he had himself been elected. The States General in 1747 declared that both male and female heirs should succeed to his honours. The constitution was thus in a measure changed, and the appointment of a hereditary chief magistrate appeared to many … to be a departure from the pure ideal of a Republic. The election of the new Stadholder brought less advantage to his people than to his family. He could not recall the glorious days of the great ancestors who had preceded him. Without abilities for war himself, and jealous of those with whom he was brought in contact, he caused disunion to arise among the forces of the allies. … When the terms at Aix La Chapelle restored their losses to the Dutch and confirmed the stipulations of previous treaties in their favour, it was felt that the Republic was indebted to the exertions of its allies, and not to any strength or successes of its own. It was well for the Republic that she could rest. The days of her greatness had gone by, and the recent struggle had manifested her decline to Europe. … The next forty years were years of peace, … When war again arrived it was again external circumstances [connected with the war between England and her revolted colonies in America] that compelled the Republic to take up arms. … She … contemplated, as it was discovered, an alliance with the American insurgents. The exposure of her designs drew on her a declaration of war from England, which was followed by the temporary loss of many of her colonies both in the East and West Indies. But in Europe the struggle was more equally sustained. The hostile fleets engaged in 1781 off the Dogger Bank; and the Dutch sailors fought with a success that made them claim a victory, and that at least secured them from the consequences of a defeat. The war indeed caused far less injury to the Republic than might have been supposed. … When she concluded peace in 1783, the whole of her lost colonies, with the one exception of Negapatam, were restored to her. But the occasion of the war had been made use of by Austria, and a blow had been meanwhile inflicted upon the United Provinces the fatal effect of which was soon to be apparent. The Emperor Joseph II. had long protested against the existence of the Barrier: and he had seized upon the opportunity to undo by an arbitrary act all that the blood and treasure of Europe had been lavished to secure. 'The Emperor will hear no more of Barriers,' wrote his minister; 'our connection with France has made them needless': and the fortresses for which William III. had schemed and Marlborough had fought, were razed to the ground [1782]. Holland, unable at the moment to resist, withdrew her garrisons in silence; and Joseph, emboldened by his success, proceeded to ask for more [1784]. The rectification of the Dutch frontiers, the opening of the Scheldt, and the release for his subjects from the long-enforced restrictions upon their trade did not appear too much to him. But the spirit of the Dutch had not yet left them. They fired at the vessels which dared to attempt to navigate the Scheldt, and war again appeared imminent. The support of France, however, upon which the Emperor had relied, was now given to the Republic, and Joseph recognized that he had gone too far. The Barrier, once destroyed, was not to be restored; but the claims which had been put forward were abandoned upon the payment of money compensation by the States. The feverous age of revolution was now at hand, and party spirit, which had ever divided the United Provinces, and had been quickened by the intercourse and alliance with America during the war, broke out in an insurrection against the Stadholder [William V.], which drove him from his country, and compelled him to appeal to Prussian troops for his restoration. Almost at the same time, in the Austrian provinces, a Belgic Republic was proclaimed [1787], the result in a great degree of imprudent changes which Joseph II. had enforced. The Dutch returned to their obedience under Prussian threats [and invasion of Holland by an army of 30,000 men—September, 1787], and Belgium under the concessions of Leopold III. But these were the clouds foreshadowing the coming storm, beneath whose fury all Europe was to tremble."

C. F. Johnstone, Historical Abstracts, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 6, chapter 8 (volume 3).

F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, period 4, chapter 1, section 2, and chapter 2, section 2 (volume 5).

{2298}

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1748. Termination and results of the War of the Austrian Succession. French conquests restored to Austria and to Holland.

See AIX-LA-CHAPELLE, THE CONGRESS.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1782. Recognition of the United States of America.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782 (APRIL).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1792-1793. The Austrian provinces occupied by the French revolutionary army. Determination to annex them to the French Republic. Preparations to attack Holland.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1702 (SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER); and 1702-1703 (DECEMBER-FEBRUARY).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1793 (February-April). French invasion of Holland. Defeat at Neerwinden and retreat. Recovery of Belgian provinces by the Austrians.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (FEBRUARY-APRIL).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1793 (March-September). The Coalition against Revolutionary France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1793 (MARCH-SEPTEMBER).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1794. French conquest of the Austrian Provinces. Holland open to invasion.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794 (MARCH-JULY).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1794-1795. Subjugation and occupation by the French. Overthrow of the Stadtholdership. Establishment of the Batavian Republic, in alliance with France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1794-1795 (OCTOBER-MAY).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1797. Naval defeat by the English in the Battle of Camperdown.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1797.

NETHERLANDS: (Austrian Provinces): A. D. 1797. Ceded to France.

See FRANCE: A. D. 17\!7 (MAY-OCTOBER).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1799. English and Russian invasion. Capture of the Dutch fleet. Ignominious ending of the expedition. Capitulation of the Duke of York. Dissolution of the Dutch East India Company.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1790 (APRIL-SEPTEMBER), and (SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1801. Revolution instigated and enforced by Bonaparte. A new Constitution.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1802. The Peace of Amiens. Recovery of the Cape of Good Hope and Dutch Guiana.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1806. Final seizure of Cape Colony by the English.

See SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1486-1806.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1806-1810. Commercial blockade by the English Orders in Council and Napoleon's Decrees.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1810.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1806-1810. The Batavian Republic transformed into the Kingdom of Holland. Louis Bonaparte made King. His fidelity to the country offensive to Napoleon. His abdication. Annexation of Holland to the French empire.

"While Bonaparte was the chief of the French republic, he had no objection to the existence of a Batavian republic in the north of France, and he equally tolerated the Cisalpine republic in the south. But after the coronation all the republics, which were grouped like satellites round the grand republic, were converted into kingdoms, subject to the empire, if not avowedly, at least in fact. In this respect there was no difference between the Batavian and Cisalpine republic. The latter having been metamorphosed into the kingdom of Italy, it was necessary to find some pretext for transforming the former into the kingdom of Holland. … The Emperor kept up such an extensive agency in Holland that he easily got up a deputation, soliciting him to choose a king for the Batavian republic. This submissive deputation came to Paris in 1806, to solicit the Emperor, as a favour, to place Prince Louis [Napoleon's brother] on the throne of Holland. … Louis became King of Holland much against his inclination, for he opposed the proposition as much as he dared, alleging as an objection the state of his health, to which certainly the climate of Holland was not favourable; but Bonaparte sternly replied to his remonstrance—'It is better to die a king than live a prince.' He was then obliged to accept the crown. He went to Holland accompanied by Hortense, who, however, did not stay long there. The new king wanted to make himself beloved by his subjects, and as they were an entirely commercial people, the best way to win their affections was … not to adopt Napoleon's rigid laws against commercial intercourse with England. Hence the first coolness between the two brothers, which ended in the abdication of Louis. I know not whether Napoleon recollected the motive assigned by Louis for at first refusing the crown of Holland, namely, the climate of the country, or whether he calculated upon greater submission in another of his brothers; but this is certain, that Joseph was not called from the throne of Naples to the throne of Spain, until after the refusal of Louis. … Before finally seizing Holland, Napoleon formed the project of separating from it Brabant and Zealand, in exchange for other provinces, the possession of which was doubtful: but Louis successfully resisted this first act of usurpation. Bonaparte was too intent on the great business in Spain, to risk any commotion in the north, where the declaration of Russia against Sweden already sufficiently occupied him. He therefore did not insist upon, and even affected indifference to the proposed augmentation of the territory of the empire. … But when he got his brother Joseph recognized, and when he had himself struck an important blow in the Peninsula, he began to change his tone to Louis. On the 20th of December [1808] he wrote to him a very remarkable letter, which exhibits the unreserved expression of that tyranny which he wished to exercise over all his family in order to make them the instruments of his despotism. He reproached Louis for not following his system of policy, telling him that he had forgotten he was a Frenchman, and that he wished to become a Dutchman. Among other things he said: … 'I have been obliged a second time to prohibit trade with Holland. In this state of things we may consider ourselves really at war. In my speech to the legislative body I manifested my displeasure; for I will not conceal from you, that my intention is to unite Holland with France. {2299} This will be the most severe blow I can aim against England, and will deliver me from the perpetual insults which the plotters of your cabinet are constantly directing against me. The mouths of the Rhine, and of the Meuse, ought, indeed, to belong to me. … The following are my conditions:—First, the interdiction of all trade and communication with England. Second. The supply of a fleet of fourteen sail of the line, seven frigates and seven brigs or corvettes, armed and manned. Third, an army of 25,000 men. Fourth. The suppression of the rank of Marshals. Fifth. The abolition of all the privileges of nobility, which is contrary to the constitution. Your Majesty may negotiate on these bases with the Duke de Cadore, through the medium of your minister; but be assured, that on the entrance of the first packet-boat into Holland, I will restore my prohibitions, and that the first Dutch officer who may presume to insult my flag, shall be seized and hanged at the main-yard. Your Majesty will find in me a brother if you prove yourself a Frenchman; but if you forget the sentiments which attach you to our common country, you cannot think it extraordinary that I should lose sight of those which nature has raised between us. In short, the union of Holland and France will be, of all things, most useful to France, Holland and the Continent, because it will be most injurious to England. This union must be effected willingly, or by force.' … Here the correspondence between the two brothers was suspended for a time; but Louis still continued exposed to new vexations on the part of Napoleon. About the end of 1809, the Emperor summoned to Paris the sovereigns who might be called his vassals. Among the number was Louis, who, however, did not shew himself very willing to quit his states. He called a council of his ministers, who were of opinion that for the interest of Holland he ought to make this new sacrifice. He did so with resignation. Indeed, every day passed on the throne was a sacrifice to Louis. … Amidst the general silence of the servants of the empire, and even of the kings and princes assembled in the capital, he ventured to say:—'I have been deceived by promises which were never intended to be kept. Holland is tired of being the sport of France.' The Emperor, who was unused to such language as this, was highly incensed at it. Louis had now no alternative, but to yield to the incessant exactions of Napoleon, or to see Holland united to France. He chose the latter, though not before he had exerted all his feeble power in behalf of the subjects whom Napoleon had consigned to him; but he would not be the accomplice of him who had resolved to make those subjects the victims of his hatred against England. … Louis was, however, permitted to return to his states, to contemplate the stagnating effect of the continental blockade on every branch of trade and industry, formerly so active in Holland. Distressed at witnessing evils to which he could apply no remedy, he endeavoured by some prudent remonstrances to avert the utter ruin with which Holland was threatened. On the 23rd of March, 1810, he wrote … [a] letter to Napoleon. … Written remonstrances were not more to Napoleon's taste than verbal ones at a time when, as I was informed by my friends, whom fortune chained to his destiny, no one presumed to address a word to him, except to answer his questions. … His brother's letter highly roused his displeasure. Two months after he received it, being on a journey in the north, he addressed to Louis from Ostend a letter," followed in a few days by another in which latter he said: "'I want no more phrases and protestations. It is time I should know whether you intend, by your follies, to ruin Holland. I do not choose that you should again send a Minister to Austria, or that you should dismiss the French who are in your service. I have recalled my Ambassador, as I intend only to have a Chargé-d'affaires in Holland. The Sieur Serrurier, who remains there in that capacity, will communicate to you my intentions. My Ambassador shall no longer be exposed to your insults. Write to me no more those set phrases which you have been repeating for the last three years, and the falsehood of which is proved every day. This is the last letter I will ever write to you as long as I live.' … Thus reduced to the cruel alternative of crushing Holland with his own hands, or leaving that task to the Emperor, Louis did not hesitate to lay down his sceptre. Having formed this resolution, he addressed a message to the legislative body of the kingdom of Holland, explaining the motives of his abdication. … The French troops entered Holland under the command of the Duke de Reggio; and that Marshal, who was more King than the King himself, threatened to occupy Amsterdam. Louis then descended from his throne [July 1, 1810]. … Louis bade farewell to the people of Holland in a proclamation, after the publication of which he repaired to the waters of Toeplitz. There he was living in tranquil retirement, when he learnt that his brother had united Holland to the Empire [December 10, 1810]. He then published a protest. … Thus there seemed to be an end of all intercourse between these two brothers, who were so opposite in character and disposition. But Napoleon, who was enraged that Louis should have presumed to protest, and that in energetic terms, against the union of his kingdom with the empire, ordered him to return to France, whither he was summoned in his character of Constable and French Prince. Louis, however, did not think proper to obey this summons, and Napoleon, faithful to his promise of never writing to him again, ordered … [a] letter to be addressed to him by M. Otto, … Ambassador from France to Vienna," saying: "'The Emperor requires that Prince Louis shall return, at the latest, by the 1st of December next, under pain of being considered as disobeying the constitution of the empire and the head of his family, and being treated accordingly.'"

M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 4, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: D. A. Bingham, Marriages of the Bonapartes, chapter 11 (volume 2).

T. C. Grattan, History of the Netherlands, chapter 22.

See, also, FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (JANUARY-OCTOBER).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1809. The English Walcheren expedition against Antwerp.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1809 (JULY-DECEMBER).

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1811. Java taken by the English.

See INDIA: A. D. 1805-1816.

{2300}

NETHERLANDS: (Holland): A. D. 1813. Expulsion of the French. Independence regained. Restoration of the Prince of Orange.

"The universal fermentation produced in Europe by the deliverance of Germany was not long of spreading to the Dutch Provinces.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1812-1813, to 1813 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

The yoke of Napoleon, universally grievous from the enormous pecuniary exactions with which it was attended, and the wasting military conscriptions to which it immediately led, had been in a peculiar manner felt as oppressive in Holland, from the maritime and commercial habits of the people, and the total stoppage of all their sources of industry, which the naval war and long-continued blockade of their coasts had occasioned. They had tasted for nearly twenty years of the last drop of humiliation in the cup of the vanquished—that of being compelled themselves to aid in upholding the system which was exterminating their resources, and to purchase with the blood of their children the ruin of their country. These feelings, which had for years existed in such intensity, as to have rendered revolt inevitable but for the evident hopelessness at all former times of the attempt, could no longer be restrained after the battle of Leipsic had thrown down the colossus of French external power, and the approach of the Allied standards to their frontiers had opened to the people the means of salvation.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1813 (OCTOBER) and (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

From the Hansa Towns the flame of independence spread to the nearest cities of the old United Provinces; and the small number of French troops in the country at once encouraged revolt and paved the way for external aid. At this period, the whole troops which Napoleon had in Holland did not exceed 6,000 French, and two regiments of Germans, upon whose fidelity to their colours little reliance could be placed. Upon the approach of the Allied troops under Bulow, who advanced by the road of Munster, and Winzingerode, who soon followed from the same quarter, the douaniers all withdrew from the coast, the garrison of Amsterdam retired, and the whole disposable force of the country was concentrated at Utrecht, to form a corps of observation, and act according to circumstances. This was the signal for a general revolt. At Amsterdam [November 15], the troops were no sooner gone than the inhabitants rose in insurrection, deposed the Imperial authorities, hoisted the orange flag, and established a provisional government with a view to the restoration of the ancient order of things; yet not violently or with cruelty, but with the calmness and composure which attest the exercise of social rights by a people long habituated to their enjoyment. The same change took place, at the same time and in the same orderly manner, at Rotterdam, Dordrecht, Delft, Leyden, Haarlem, and the other chief towns; the people, everywhere, amidst cries of 'Orange Boven' and universal rapture, mounted the orange cockade, and reinstated the ancient authorities. … Military and political consequences of the highest importance immediately followed this uncontrollable outbreak of public enthusiasm. A deputation from Holland waited on the Prince Regent of England and the Prince of Orange, in London: the latter shortly after embarked on board an English line-of-battle ship, the Warrior, and on the 27th landed at Scheveling, from whence he proceeded to the Hague. Meantime the French troops and coast-guards, who had concentrated at Utrecht, seeing that the general effervescence was not as yet supported by any solid military force, and that the people, though they had all hoisted the orange flag, were not aided by any corps of the Allies, recovered from their consternation, and made it general forward movement against Amsterdam. Before they got there, however, a body of 300 Cossacks had reached that capital, where they were received with enthusiastic joy: and this advanced guard was soon after followed by General Benkendorf's brigade, which, after travelling by post from Zwoll to Harderwyk, embarked at the latter plage, and, by the aid of a favourable wind, reached Amsterdam on the 1st December. The Russian general immediately advanced against the forts of Mayder and Halfweg, of which he made himself master, taking twenty pieces of cannon and 600 prisoners; while on the eastern frontier, General Oppen, with Bulow's advanced guards, carried Dornbourg by assault on the 23d, and, advancing against Arnheim, threw the garrison, 3,000 strong, which strove to prevent the place being invested, with great loss back into the town. Next day, Bulow himself came up with the main strength of his corps, and, as the ditches were still dry, hazarded an escalade, which proved entirely successful; the greater part of the garrison retiring to Nimeguen, by the bridge of the Rhine. The French troops, finding themselves thus threatened on all sides, withdrew altogether from Holland: the fleet at the Texel hoisted the orange flag, with the exception of Admiral Verhuel, who, with a body of marines that still proved faithful to Napoleon, threw himself with honourable fidelity into the fort of the Texel. Amsterdam, amidst transports of enthusiasm, received the beloved representative of the House of Orange. Before the close of the year, the tricolour flag floated only on Bergen-op-zoom and a few of the southern frontier fortresses; and Europe beheld the prodigy of the seat of war having been transferred in a single year from the banks of the Niemen to those of the Scheldt."

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 82 (volume 17).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1814 (May-June). Belgium, or the former Austrian provinces and Liege, annexed to Holland, and the kingdom of the Netherlands created.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1814 (APRIL-JUNE); and VIENNA, THE CONGRESS OF.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1815. The Waterloo campaign. Defeat and overthrow of Napoleon.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1815 (JUNE).

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1816. Accession to the Holy Alliance.

See HOLY ALLIANCE.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1830-1832. Belgian revolt and acquisition of independence. Dissolution of the kingdom of the Netherlands. Creation of the kingdom of Belgium. Siege of Antwerp citadel.

"In one sense the union" of Belgium with Holland, in the kingdom of the Netherlands created by the Congress of Vienna, "was defensible. Holland enjoyed more real freedom than any other Continental monarchy; and the Belgians had a voice in the government of the united territory. But, in another sense, the union was singularly unhappy. The phlegmatic Dutch Protestant was as indisposed to unite with the light-hearted Roman Catholic Belgian as the languid waters of the Saone with the impetuous torrent of the Rhone. Different as were the rivers, they met at last; and diplomatists probably hoped that Dutch and Belgians would similarly combine. {2301} These hopes were disappointed, and the two people, incapable of union, endeavoured to find independent courses for themselves in separate channels. The grounds of Belgian dislike to the union were intelligible. Belgium had a population of 3,400,000 souls; Holland of only 2,000,000 persons. Yet both countries had an equal representation in the States-General. Belgium was taxed more heavily than Holland, and the produce of taxation went almost entirely into Dutch pockets. The Court, which was Dutch, resided in Holland. The public offices were in Holland. Four persons out of every five in the public service at home were Dutchmen. The army was almost exclusively commanded by Dutchmen. Dutch professors were appointed to educate the Belgian youths in Belgian schools, and a Dutch director was placed over the Bank of Brussels. The Court even endeavoured to change the language of the Belgian race, and to substitute Dutch for French in all judicial proceedings. The Belgians were naturally irritated. … On the 2nd of June, the States-General were dissolved; the elections were peacefully concluded; and the closest observers failed to detect any symptoms of the coming storm on the political horizon. The storm which was to overwhelm the union was, in fact, gathering in another country. The events of July [at Paris] were to shake Europe to the centre. 'On all sides crowns were falling into the gutter,' and the shock of revolution in Paris was felt perceptibly in Brussels. Nine years before the States-General had imposed a mouture, or tax upon flour. The tax had been carried by a very small majority; and the majority had been almost entirely composed of Dutch members. On the 25th of August, 1830, the lower orders in Brussels engaged in a serious riot, ostensibly directed against this tax. The offices of a newspaper, conducted in the interests of the Dutch, were attacked; the house of the Minister of Justice was set on fire; the wine and spirit shops were forced open; and the mob, maddened by liquor, proceeded to other acts of pillage. On the morning of the 26th of August the troops were called out and instructed to restore order. Various conflicts took place between the soldiers and the people; but the former gained no advantage over the rioters, and were withdrawn into the Place Royale, the central square of the town. Relieved from the interference of the military, the mob continued the work of destruction. Respectable citizens, dreading the destruction of their property, organised a guard for the preservation of order. Order was preserved; but the task of preserving it had converted Brussels into an armed camp. It had placed the entire control of the town in the hands of the inhabitants. Men who had unexpectedly obtained a mastery over the situation could hardly be expected to resign the power which events had given to them. They had taken up their arms to repress a mob; victors over the populace, they turned their arms against the Government, and boldly despatched a deputation to the king urging the concession of reforms and the immediate convocation of the States-General. The king had received the news of the events at Brussels with considerable alarm. Troops had been at once ordered to march on the city; and, on the 28th of August, an army of 6,000 men had encamped under its walls. The citizens, however, represented that the entrance of the troops would be a signal for the renewal of the disturbances; and the officer in command in consequence agreed to remain passively outside the walls. The king sent the Prince of Orange to make terms with his insurgent subjects. The citizens declined to admit the prince into the city unless he came without his soldiers. The prince, unable to obtain any modification of this stipulation, was obliged to trust himself to the people alone. It was already evident that the chief town of Belgium had shaken off the control of the Dutch Government. The king, compelled to submit to the demands of the deputation, summoned the States-General for the 13th of September. But this concession only induced the Belgians to raise their demands. They had hitherto only asked for reforms: they now demanded independence, the dissolution of the union, and the independent administration of Belgium. The revolution had originally been confined to Brussels: it soon extended to other towns. Civic guards were organised in Liege, Tournay, Mons, Verviers, Bruges, and other places. Imitating the example of Brussels, they demanded the dissolution of the union between Holland and Belgium. The troops, consisting of a mixed force of Dutch and Belgians, could not be depended on; and the restoration of the royal authority was obviously impossible. On the 13th of September the States-General met. The question of separation was referred to them by the king; and the Deputies leisurely applied themselves to its consideration, in conformity with the tedious rules by which their proceedings were regulated. Long before they had completed the preliminary discussions which they thought necessary the march of events had taken the question out of their hands. On the 19th of September fresh disturbances broke out in Brussels. The civic guard, attempting to quell the riot, was overpowered; and the rioters, elated with their success, announced their intention of attacking the troops, who were encamped outside the city walls. Prince Frederick of Orange, concluding that action was inevitable, at last made up his mind to attack the town. Dividing the forces under his command into six columns, he directed them, on the 23rd of September, against the six gates of the city. … Three of the columns succeeded, after a serious struggle, in obtaining possession of the higher parts of the city; but they were unable to accomplish any decisive victory. For four days the contest was renewed. On the 27th of September, the troops, unable to advance, were withdrawn from the positions which they had won. On the following day the Lower Chamber of the States-General decided in favour of a dissolution of the union. The crown of Belgium was evidently dropping into the gutter; but the king decided on making one more effort to preserve it in his family. On the 4th of October he sent the Prince of Orange to Antwerp, authorising him to form a separate Administration for the southern provinces of the kingdom, and to place himself at the head of it. … Arrangements of this character had, however, already become impossible. On the very day on which the prince reached Antwerp the Provisional Government at Brussels issued an ordonnance declaring the independence of Belgium and the immediate convocation of a National Congress. … {2302} On the 10th of October, the Provisional Government, following up its former ordonnance, issued a second decree, regulating the composition of the National Congress and the qualifications of the electors. On the 12th the elections were fixed for the 27th of October. On the 10th of November the Congress was formally opened; and on the 18th the independence of the Belgian people was formally proclaimed by its authority. … On the 4th of November the Ministers of the five great Continental powers, assembled in London at the invitation of the King of Holland, declared that an armistice should immediately be concluded, and that the Dutch troops should be withdrawn from Belgium. The signature of this protocol, on the eve of the meeting of the National Congress, virtually led to the independence of the Belgian people, which the Congress immediately proclaimed."

S. Walpole, History of England from 1815, chapter 11 (volume 2).

It still remained for the Powers to provide a king for Belgium, and to gain the consent of the Dutch and Belgian Governments to the territorial arrangements drawn up for them. The first difficulty was overcome in June, 1831, by the choice of Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg to be king of Belgium. The second problem was complicated by strong claims on both sides to the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. The Conference solved it by dividing the disputed territory between Belgium and Holland. The Belgians accepted the arrangement; the King of Holland rejected it, and was coerced by France and England, who expelled his forces from Antwerp, which he still held. A French army laid siege to the citadel, while an English fleet blockaded the river Scheldt. After a bombardment of 24 days, December, 1832, the citadel surrendered; but it was not until April, 1839, the final Treaty of Peace between Belgium and Holland was signed.

C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 2, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1815-1852, chapters 24-25 and 29.

NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1830-1884. Peaceful years of the kingdoms of Belgium and Holland. Constitutional and material progress. The contest of Catholics and Liberals in Belgium.

"After winning its independence (1830) Belgium has also been free to work out its own career of prosperous development. King Leopold I. during his long reign showed himself the model of a constitutional sovereign in furthering its progress. The first railway on the continent was opened in 1835 between Brussels and Malines, and its railway system is now most complete. Its population between 1830 and 1880 increased by more than one-third, and now is the densest in all Europe, numbering 5,900,000 on an area only twice as large as Yorkshire. … When Napoleon III. seized on power in France all Belgians feared that he would imitate his uncle by seizing Belgium and all land up to the Rhine; but the close connection of King Leopold [brother of Prince Albert, the Prince Consort] with the English royal house and his skilful diplomacy averted the danger from Belgium. The chief internal trouble has been the strife between the liberal and clerical parties. In 1850 there were over 400 monasteries, with some 12,000 monks and nuns, in the land, and the Liberals made strenuous efforts for many years to abolish these and control education; but neither party could command a firm and lasting majority. In the midst of these eager disputes King Leopold I. died (1865), after seeing his kingdom firmly established in spite of ministerial crises every few months. His son Leopold II. has also been a constitutional sovereign. In 1867 the Luxemburg question seemed to threaten the Belgian territory, for Napoleon III. had secretly proposed to Bismarck that France should take Belgium and Luxemburg, as well as all land up to the Rhine, as the price of his friendship to the new German Confederation.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1866-1870.

… Again in 1870 the Franco-German war threw a severe strain on Belgium to guard its neutrality, but after Sedan this danger vanished. The strife between the liberal and clerical parties went on as fiercely in Belgium as in France itself, and after the rise and fall of many ministries the Liberals succeeded in closing the convents and gaining control over State education. The constitution is that of a limited monarchy with responsible ministers, Senate, and Chamber of Deputies. The electorate up to 1884 was limited to citizens paying 42 francs a year in direct taxes, but in 1884 it was extended by the clerical party acting for once in connection with the radicals." (On the revised constitution of 1893 see below: 1892-1893.) In the kingdom of the Netherlands (Holland), King William, after he had been forced to recognize Belgian independence, "abdicated [1840] in favour of his son. The latter soon restored a good understanding with Belgium, and improved the finances of his kingdom; so the upheavals of 1848 caused no revolution in Holland, and only led to a thorough reform of its constitution. The Upper House of the States-General consists of members chosen for nine years by the estates or councils of the provinces, those of the lower house by electors having a property qualification. The king's ministers are now responsible to the Parliament. Liberty of the press and of public worship is recognised. The chief questions in Holland have been the reduction of its heavy debt, the increase of its army and navy, the improvement of agriculture and commerce, and the management of large and difficult colonial possessions." Holland "has to manage 28,000,000 subjects over the seas, mostly in Malaysia. She there holds all Java, parts of Borneo, Sumatra, Timor, the Moluccas, Celebes, and the western half of New Guinea; in South America, Dutch Guiana and, the Isle of Curaçoa. It was not till 1862 that the Dutch at a great cost freed the slaves in their West Indian possessions [viz., the islands of Curaçoa, Aruba, St. Martin, Bonaire, St. Eustache, and Saba]; but their rule in Malaysia is still conducted with the main purpose of securing revenue by means of an oppressive labour system. The Dutch claims in Sumatra are contested by the people of Acheen in the northern part of that great island."

J. H. Rose, A Century of Continental History, chapter 43.

"The politico-religious contest between Catholics and Liberals exists to a greater or less degree in all Catholic countries, and even in Protestant ones possessing, like Prussia, Catholic provinces: but nowhere is political life more completely absorbed by this antagonism than in Belgium, nowhere are the lines of the contest more clearly traced. … In order thoroughly to grasp the meaning of our politico-religious strife, we must cast a glance at its origin. We find this in the constitution adopted by the Congress after the Revolution of 1830. {2303} This constitution enjoins and sanctions all the freedom and liberty which has long been the privilege of England, and of the States she has founded in America and Australia. A free press, liberty as regards education, freedom to form associations or societies, provincial and communal autonomy, representative administration—all exactly as in England. How was it that the Congress of 1830, the majority of whose members belonged to the Catholic party, came to vote in favour of principles opposed, not only to the traditions, but also the dogmas of the Catholic Church? This singular fact is explained by the writings of the celebrated priest and author, La Mennais, whose opinions at that time exercised the greatest influence. La Mennais's first book, 'L'Essai sur l'indifference en Matière de Religion,' lowered all human reasoning, and delivered up society to the omnipotent guidance of the Pope. This work, enthusiastically perused by bishops, seminarists, and priests, established the author as an unprecedented authority. When, after the year 1828, he pretended that the Church would regain her former power by separating herself from the State, retaining only her liberty, most of his admirers professed themselves of his opinion. … Nearly all Belgian priests were at that time La Mennaisiens. They accepted the separation of Church and State, and, in their enthusiastic intoxication, craved but liberty to reconquer the world. It was thus that Catholics and Liberals united to vote for Belgium the constitution still in existence after a half-century. In 1832, Pope Gregory XVI., as Veuillot tells us, 'hurled a thunderbolt at the Belgian constitution in its cradle.' In a famous Encyclical, since incessantly quoted, the Pope declared, ex cathedrâ, that modern liberties were a plague, 'a delirium,' from whence incalculable evils would inevitably flow. Shortly afterwards, the true author of the Belgian constitution, La Mennais, having been to Rome in the vain hope of converting the Pope to his views, was repulsed, and, a little later, cast out from the bosom of the Church. The separation was effected. There was an end to that 'union' of Catholics and Liberals which had overthrown King William and founded a new political order in Belgium. It was not, however, till after 1838 that the two parties distinctly announced their antagonism. … The Liberal party is composed of all who, having faith in human reason and in liberty, fear a return to the past, and desire reforms of all sorts. … When Catholics are mentioned as opposed to Liberals, it is as regards their political, not their religious opinions. The Liberals are all, or nearly all, Catholics also; at all events by baptism. … The Catholic party is guided officially by the bishops. It is composed, in the first place, of all the clergy, of the convents and monasteries, and of those who from a sentiment of religious obedience do as they are directed by the bishop of the diocese and the Pope, and also of genuine Conservatives, otherwise called reactionists—that is to say, of those who consider that liberty leads to anarchy, and progress to communism. This section comprises the great mass of the proprietors and cultivators of the soil and the country populations. … We see that in Belgium parties are divided, and fight seriously for an idea; they are separated by no material, but by spiritual interests. The Liberals defend liberty, which they consider menaced by the aims of the Church. The Catholics defend religion, which they look upon as threatened by their adversaries' doctrines. Both desire to fortify themselves against a danger, non-existent yet, but which they foresee. … The educational question, which has been the centre of the political life of the country during the last two years, deserves expounding in detail. Important in itself, and more important still in its consequences, it is everywhere discussed with passion. Primary education was organized here in 1842, by a law of compromise adopted by the two parties, thanks to M. J. B. Nothomb, one of the founders of the Belgian Constitution, who died recently in Berlin, where he had been Belgian Minister for a space of upwards of forty years. This law enacted that every parish should possess schools sufficient for the number of children needing instruction; but it allowed the 'commune' to adopt private schools. The inspection of the public schools and the control of the religious teaching given by the masters and mistresses, was reserved to the clergy. Advanced Liberals began to clamour for the suppression of this latter clause as soon as they perceived the preponderating influence it gave the priests over the lay teachers. The reform of the law of 1842 became the watchword of the Liberal party, and this was ultimately effected in July, 1879; now each parish or village must provide the schools necessary for the children of its inhabitants, and must not give support to any private school. Ecclesiastical inspection is suppressed. Religious instruction may be given by the ministers of the various denominations, in the school buildings, but out of the regular hours. This system has been in force in Holland since the commencement of the present century. Lay instruction only is given by the communal masters and mistresses; no dogmas are taught, but the school is open to the clergy of all denominations who choose to enter, as it is evidently their duty to do. This system, now introduced in Belgium, has been accepted, without giving rise to any difficulties, by both Protestants and Jews, but it is most vehemently condemned by the Catholic priesthood. … In less than a year they have succeeded in opening a private school in every commune and village not formerly possessing one. In this instance the Catholic party has shown a devotedness really remarkable. … At the same time in all the Churches, and nearly every Sunday, the Government schools have been attacked, stigmatized as 'écoles sans Dieu' (schools without God), to be avoided as the plague, and where parents were forbidden to place their children, under pain of committing the greatest sin. Those who disobeyed, and allowed their children still to frequent the communal schools, were deprived of the Sacraments of the Church. They were refused absolution at confession, and the Eucharist, even at Easter. All the schoolmasters and mistresses were placed under the ban of the Church, and the priests often even refused to pronounce a blessing on their marriage. It is only lately that, contrary instructions having been received from Rome, this extreme step is now very rarely resorted to. The Liberal majority in the House has ordered a Parliamentary inquiry—which is still in progress, and the results of which in this last six months, fill the columns of our newspapers—in order to ascertain by what means the clergy succeed in filling their schools. … As a natural consequence of the excessive heat of the conflict, the two parties end by justifying the accusations of their adversaries. {2304} The Liberals become anti-religionists, because religion is—and is daily becoming more and more—anti-liberal; and the Catholics are afraid of liberty, because it is used against their faith, which is, in their opinion, the only true and the necessary foundation of civilization. … The existence in Belgium of two parties so distinctly and clearly separated, offers, however, some compensation: it favours the good working of Parliamentary government."

E. de Laveleye, The Political Condition of Belgium (Contemporary Review, April, 1882), pages 715-724, with foot-note.

NETHERLANDS: (Belgium): A. D. 1876-1890. The founding of the Congo Free State.

See CONGO FREE STATE.

NETHERLANDS: (Holland, or the Kingdom of the Netherlands): A. D. 1887. Revision of the Constitution.

The constitution of 1848 (see above), in the Kingdom of the Netherlands, was revised in 1887, but in a very conservative spirit. Attempts to make the suffrage universal, and to effect a separation of church and state, were defeated. The suffrage qualification by tax-payment was reduced to ten guilders, and certain classes of lodgers were also admitted to the franchise, more than doubling the total number of voters, which is now estimated to be about 290,000. All private soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the regular army are excluded from the franchise. The upper chamber of the States General is elected as before by the Provincial States, but its membership is raised to fifty. The second chamber, consisting of one hundred members, is chosen directly by the voters. In the new constitution, the succession to the throne is definitely prescribed, in the event of a failure of direct heirs. Three collateral lines of descent are designated, to be accepted in their order as follows: 1. Princess Sophia of Saxony and her issue; 2. the descendants of the late Princess Marian of Prussia; 3. the descendants of the late Princess Mary of Wied. The late king of the Netherlands, William III., died in 1890, leaving only a daughter, ten years old, to succeed him. The young queen, Wilhelmina, is reigning under the regency of her mother.

The Statesman's Year-book, 1894.

ALSO IN: The Annual Register, 1887.

Appleton's Annual Cyclopœdia, 1887.

NETHERLANDS: (Belgium): A. D. 1892-1893. The revised Belgian Constitution. Introduction of plural Suffrage.

A great agitation among the Belgian workingmen, ending in a formidable strike, in 1890, was only quieted by the promise from the government of a revision of the constitution and the introduction of universal suffrage. The Constituent Chambers, elected to perform the task of revision, were opened on the 11th of July, 1892. The amended constitution was promulgated on the 7th of September, 1893. It confers the suffrage on every citizen twenty-five years of age or over, domiciled in the same commune for not less than one year, and not under legal disqualification. The new constitution is made especially interesting by its introduction of a system of cumulative or plural voting. One supplementary vote is conferred on every married citizen (or widower), thirty-five years or more of age, having legitimate issue, and paying at least five francs per annum house tax; also on every citizen not less than twenty-five years old who owns real property to the value of 2,000 francs, or who derives an income of not less than 100 francs a year from an investment in the public debt, or from the savings bank. Two supplementary votes are given to each citizen twenty-five years of age who has received certain diplomas or discharged certain functions which imply the possession of a superior education. The same citizen may accumulate votes on more than one of these qualifications, but none is allowed to cast more than three. On the adoption of the new constitution, the Brussels correspondent of the "London Times" wrote to that journal; "This article, which adds to manhood suffrage as it exists in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the United States, and the Australian colonies, the safeguard of a double and triple suffrage accorded to age, marriage, and paternity, as well as to the possession of money saved or inherited, or of a profession, will constitute one of the distinguishing marks of the new Belgian Constitution. As it reposes upon the just principle that votes must be considered in reference to their weight rather than to their numbers, it has had the effect of putting an immediate end to the violent political crisis which disturbed the country. It has been accepted without much enthusiasm, indeed, but as a reasonable compromise. The moderates of all classes, who do not go to war for abstract theories, think that it has a prospect of enduring." An attempt to introduce proportional representation along with the plural suffrage was defeated. The constitution of the Senate raised questions hardly less important than those connected with the elective franchise. Says the correspondent quoted above: "The advanced Radical and Socialist parties had proposed to supplement the Chamber, the political representation of the territorial interests of the country, by a Senate representing its economic interests. The great social forces—capital, labour, and science—in their application to agriculture, industry, and commerce, were each to send their representatives. It may be that this formula, which would have made of the Belgian Senate an Assembly sui generis in Europe, may become the formula of the future. The Belgian legislators hesitated before the novelty of the idea and the difficulty of its application. This combination rejected, there remained for the Senate only the alternative between two systems—namely, to separate that Assembly from the Chamber by its origin or else by its composition. The Senate and the Government preferred the first of these solutions, that is to say direct elections for the Chamber, an election by two degrees for the Senate, either by the members of the provincial councils or by specially elected delegates of the Communes. But these proposals encountered from all the benches in the Chamber a general resistance." The result was a compromise. The Senate consists of 76 members elected directly by the people, and 26 elected by the provincial councils. The term of each is eight years. The Senators chosen by the councils are exempted from a property qualification; those popularly elected are required to be owners of real property yielding not less than 12,000 francs of income, or to pay not less than 1,200 francs in direct taxes. The legislature is empowered to restrict the voting for Senators to citizens thirty years of age or more. {2305} The members of the Chamber of Representatives are apportioned according to population and elected for four years, one half retiring every two years. The Senate and Chamber meet annually in November, and are required to be in session for at least forty days; but the King may convoke extraordinary sessions, and may dissolve the Chambers either separately or together. In case of a dissolution, the constitution requires an election to be held within forty days, and a meeting of the Chambers within two months. Only the Chamber of Representatives can originate money bills or bills relating to the contingent for the army. The executive consists of seven ministries, namely of Finance, of Justice, of Interior and Instruction, of War, of Railways, Posts and Telegraphs, of Foreign Affairs, of Agriculture, Industry and Public Works. The King's Privy Council is a distinct body.

----------NETHERLANDS: End----------

NEUCHATÊL: Separation from Prussia.

See SWITZERLAND: A. D. 1803-1848.

NEUENBERG: Capture by Duke Bernhard (1638).

See GERMANY: A. D. 1634-1639.

NEUSTRIA.

See AUSTRASIA.

NEUTRAL GROUND, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

NEUTRAL NATION, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: HURONS, &c.

NEUTRAL RIGHTS.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809.

----------NEVADA: Start--------

NEVADA: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.

NEVADA: A. D. 1848-1864. Acquisition from Mexico. Silver discoveries. Territorial and State organization.

"Ceded to the United States at the same time, and, indeed, as one with California [see MEXICO: A. D. 1848], this region of the Spanish domain had not, like that west of the Sierra Nevada, a distinctive name, but was described by local names, and divided into valleys. In March following the treaty with Mexico and the discovery of gold, the inhabitants of Salt Lake valley met and organized the state of Deseret, the boundaries of which included the whole of the recently acquired Mexican territory outside of California, and something more." But Congress, failing to recognize the state of Deseret, created instead, by an act passed on the 9th of September, 1850, the Territory of Utah, with boundaries which embraced Nevada likewise. This association was continued until 1861, when the Territory of Nevada was organized by act of Congress out of western Utah. Meantime the discovery in 1859 of the extraordinary deposit of silver which became famous as the Comstock Lode, and other mining successes of importance, had rapidly attracted to the region a large population of adventurers. It was this which had brought about the separate territorial organization. Three years later the young territory was permitted to frame a state constitution and was admitted into the Union in October, 1864.

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 20: Nevada, page 66.

----------NEVADA: End--------

NEVELLE, Battle of (1381).

See FLANDERS: A. D. 1379-1381.

NEVILLE'S CROSS, OR DURHAM, Battle of.

A crushing defeat suffered by an army of the Scots, invading England under their young king, David Bruce, who was taken prisoner. The battle was fought near Durham, October 17, 1346.

J. H. Burton, History of Scotland, chapter 25 (volume 3).

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1333-1370.

NEW ALBION, The County Palatine of.

By a royal charter, witnessed by the Deputy-General of Ireland, at Dublin, June 21, 1634, King Charles I. granted to Sir Edmund Plowden and eight other petitioners, the whole of Long Island ("Manitie, or Long Isle"), together with forty leagues square of the adjoining continent, constituting the said domain a county palatine and calling it New Albion, while the island received the name of Isle Plowden. "In this document the boundaries of New Albion are so defined as to include all of New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and Pennsylvania embraced in a square, the eastern side of which, forty leagues in length, extended (along the coast) from Sandy Hook to Cape May, together with Long Island, and all other 'isles and islands in the sea within ten leagues of the shores of the said region.' The province is expressly erected into a county palatine, under the jurisdiction of Sir Edmund Plowden as earl, depending upon his Majesty's' royal person and imperial crown, as King of Ireland.'" Subsequently, within the year 1634, the whole of the grant was acquired by and became vested in Plowden and his three sons. Sir Edmund, who died in 1659, spent the remainder of his life in futile attempts to make good his claim against the Swedes on the Delaware and the Dutch, and in exploiting his magnificent title as Earl Palatine of New Albion. The claim and the title seem to have reappeared occasionally among his descendants until some time near the close of the 18th century.

G. B. Keen, Note on New Albion. (Narrative and Critical History of America, J. Winsor, editor, volume 3, pages 457-468).

ALSO IN: S. Hazard, Annals of Pennsylvania, pages 36-38 and 108-112.

NEW AMSTERDAM.

The name originally given by the Dutch to the city of New York.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1634; and 1653.

Also the name first given to the village out of which grew the city of Buffalo, N. Y.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1786-1799.

----------NEW BRUNSWICK: Start--------

NEW BRUNSWICK: Embraced in the Norumbega of the old geographers.

See NORUMBEGA; also, CANADA: NAMES.

NEW BRUNSWICK: A. D. 1621-1668. Included in Nova Scotia.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.

NEW BRUNSWICK: A. D. 1713. Uncertain disposition by the Treaty of Utrecht.

See CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

NEW BRUNSWICK: A. D. 1820-1837. The Family Compact.

See CANADA: A. D. 1820-1837.

NEW BRUNSWICK: A. D. 1854-1866. The Reciprocity Treaty with the United States.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES AND CANADA): A. D. 1854-1866.

NEW BRUNSWICK: A. D. 1867. Embraced in the Confederation of the Dominion of Canada.

See CANADA: A. D. 1867.

----------NEW BRUNSWICK: End--------

NEW CÆSAREA, OR NEW JERSEY.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.

NEW CARTHAGE. The founding of.

See CARTHAGENA, THE FOUNDING OF.

NEW CASTILE.

See PERU: A. D. 1528-1531.

{2306}

----------NEW ENGLAND: Start--------

NEW ENGLAND. [Footnote: The greater part of New England history is given elsewhere, as the history of the several New England states, and is only indexed in this place, instead of being repeated.]

NEW ENGLAND: The Aboriginal Inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

NEW ENGLAND: The Norumbega of early geographers.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1498.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1498. First coasted by Sebastian Cabot.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1498.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1524. Coasted by Verrazano.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1523-1524.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1602-1607. The voyages of Gosnold, Pring and Weymouth.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1602-1605.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1604. Embraced in the region claimed as Acadia by the French.

See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1605. Coast explored by Champlain.

See CANADA: A. D. 1603-1605.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1606. Embraced in the grant to the North Virginia Company of Plymouth.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1607-1608. The Popham Colony on the Kennebec. The fruitless venture of the Plymouth Company.

See MAINE: A. D. 1607-1608.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1614. Named, mapped and described by Captain John Smith.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1614-1615.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620. The voyage of the Mayflower and the planting of Plymouth Colony.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1620.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623. Incorporation of the Council for New England, successor to the Plymouth Company. Its great domain and its monopoly of the Fisheries.

"While the king was engaged in the overthrow of the London company [see VIRGINIA: A. D. 1622-1624], its more loyal rival in the West of England [the Plymouth company, or North Virginia branch of the Virginia company] sought new letters-patent, with a great enlargement of their domain. The remonstrances of the Virginia corporation and the rights of English commerce could delay for two years, but not defeat, the measure that was pressed by the friends of the monarch. On the 3d of November, 1620, King James incorporated 40 of his subjects—some of them members of his household and his government, the most wealthy and powerful of the English nobility—as 'The Council established at Plymouth, in the county of Devon, for the planting, ruling, ordering, and governing New England in America.' The territory, which was conferred on them in absolute property, with unlimited powers of legislation and government, extended from the 40th to the 48th degree of north latitude, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The grant included the fisheries; and a revenue was considered certain from a duty to be imposed on all tonnage employed in them. The patent placed emigrants to New England under the absolute authority of the corporation, and it was through grants from that plenary power, confirmed by the crown, that institutions the most favorable to colonial independence and the rights of mankind came into being. The French derided the action of the British monarch in bestowing lands and privileges which their own sovereign, seventeen years before, had appropriated. The English nation was incensed at the largess of immense monopolies by the royal prerogative; and in April, 1621, Sir Edwin Sandys brought the grievance before the house of commons. … But the parliament was dissolved before a bill could be perfected. In 1622, five and thirty sail of vessels went to fish on the coasts of New England, and made good voyages. The monopolists appealed to King James, and he issued a proclamation, which forbade any to approach the northern coast of America, except with the leave of their company or of the privy council, In June, 1623, Francis West was despatched as admiral of New England, to exclude such fishermen as came without a license. But they refused to pay the tax which he imposed, and his ineffectual authority was soon resigned."

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 1, chapter 13 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: C. Deane, New England (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 3, chapter 9).

Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Brief Narration (Maine Historical Society Collection, volume 2).

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631. The grants made by the Council for New England. Settlements planted. Nova Scotia, Maine and New Hampshire conferred.

Captain John Mason, a native of King's Lynn, in Norfolk, became governor of Newfoundland in 1615. "While there he wrote a tract entitled 'A Brief Discourse of the Newfoundland,' and sent it to his friend Sir John Scot of Edinburgh, to peruse, and to print if he thought it worthy. It was printed in the year 1620. … In the spring or summer of 1621, Mason returned into England, and immediately found proof of the effect of his little tract. … Sir William Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, immediately sought him out. He had been appointed Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to Prince Henry, honored with Knighthood, and was Master of Requests for Scotland. He invited Mason to his house, where he discussed with him a scheme of Scotch colonization, and he resolved to undertake settling a colony in what is now Nova Scotia. He begged Mason to aid him in procuring a grant of this territory from the Council for New England, it being within their limits. Mason referred him to Sir Ferdinando Gorges, one of the Council and their Treasurer. The king readily recommended Alexander to Gorges, and Gorges heartily approved the plan. In September, 1621, Alexander obtained a Royal Patent for a tract of land which he called New Scotland, a name attractive to his countrymen. This must have been gratifying to Mason, who had urged Scotch emigration in his tract printed only a year before. The Council for New England, established in November, 1620, was now granting and ready to grant to associations or to individuals parcels of its vast domain in America. … The second patent for land granted by the Council was to Captain John Mason, bearing date March 9, 1621-2. It was all the land lying between the Naumkeag and the Merrimac rivers, extending back from the sea-coast to the heads of both of these rivers, with all the islands within three miles of the shore. Mason called this Mariana. This tract of territory lies wholly within the present bounds of Massachusetts. We now arrive at a period when Mason and Gorges have a joint interest in New England. {2307} On the 10th of August, 1622, the Council made a third grant. This was to Gorges and Mason jointly of land lying upon the sea-coast between the Merrimac and the Kennebec rivers, extending three-score miles into the country, with all islands within five leagues of the premises to be, or intended to be, called the Province of Maine. Thus was the territory destined seven years later to bear the name of New Hampshire, first carved from the vast domain of New England, whose boundaries were fixed by the great circles of the heavens. Thus was Capt. Mason joint proprietor of his territory afterwards known as New Hampshire, before a single settler had built a cabin on the Pascataqua. Captain Robert Gorges, son of Sir Ferdinando, was authorized to give the grantees possession of this new Province. Great enthusiasm on the subject of colonization now prevailed in England, extending from the king, through all ranks. … Before the year 1622 closed, the Council issued many patents for land, in small divisions, to persons intending to make plantations. Among the grants, is one to David Thomson and two associates, of land on the Pascataqua. The bounds and extent of this patent are unknown. Only the fact that such a patent was granted is preserved. … The Council for New England, in view of the many intended settlements, as well as the few already made, now proposed to set up a general government in New England. Captain Robert Gorges, recently returned from the Venetian wars, was appointed Governor, with Captain Francis West, Captain Christopher Levett, and the governor of New Plymouth as his Council. Captain Gorges arrived here the middle of September, 1623, having been preceded some months by Captain West, who was Vice-Admiral of New England as well as Councillor. Captain Levett came as late as November. … The next year, 1624, war between England and Spain broke out, and drew off for a while Gorges and Mason from their interests in colonization. Gorges was Captain of the Castle and Island of St. Nicholas, at Plymouth, a post that he had held for thirty years; and he was now wholly taken up with the duties of his office. Mason's services were required as a naval officer of experience. … In 1626 England plunged into a war with France, without having ended the war with Spain. Captain Mason was advanced to be Treasurer and Paymaster of the English armies employed in the wars. There was no time now to think of American colonization. His duties were arduous. … In 1629 peace was made with France, and the war with Spain was coming to an end. No sooner were Gorges and Mason a little relieved from their public duties than they sprang at once to their old New England enterprise. They resolved to push forward their interests. They came to some understanding about a division of their Province of Maine. On the 7th of November, 1629, a day memorable in the history of New Hampshire, the Council granted to Mason a patent of all that part of the Province of Maine lying between the Merrimac and Pascataqua rivers; and Mason called it New Hampshire, out of regard to the favor in which he held Hampshire in England, where he had resided many years. … This grant had hardly been made when Champlain was brought to London, a prisoner, from Canada, by Kirke. The French had been driven from that region. Gorges and Mason procured immediately a grant from the Council of a vast tract of land in the region of Lake Champlain, supposed to be not only a fine country for peltry, but to contain vast mineral wealth. The Province was called Laconia on account of the numerous lakes supposed or known to be there, and was the most northern grant hitherto made by the Council. The patent bears date November 17, 1629, only ten days later than Mason's New Hampshire grant. … For the purpose of advancing the interests of Gorges and Mason in Laconia as well as on the Pascataqua, they joined with them six merchants in London, and received from the Council a grant dated November 3, 1631, of a tract of land lying on both sides of the Pascataqua river, on the sea-coast and within territory already owned by Gorges and Mason in severalty. This patent, called the Pascataqua Patent, covered, on the west side of the river, the present towns of Portsmouth, New Castle, Rye and part of Greenland; on the east side, Kittery, Eliot, the Berwicks, and the western part of Lebanon."

C. W. Tuttle, Captain John Mason (Prince Society Publications, 1887), pages 12-24.

ALSO IN: S. F. Haven, Grants under the Great Council for New England (Lowell Institute. Lecture: Early History of Massachusetts, pages 127-162).

J. P. Baxter, editor, Sir Ferdinando Gorges and his Province of Maine (Prince Society Publications 1890).

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, page 397, foot-note.

See, also, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629; and CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1631.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1623-1629. The Dorchester Company and the royal charter to the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1629. The new patent to Plymouth Colony.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1623-1629 PLYMOUTH COLONY.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1629-1630. The immigration of the Governor and Company of Massachusetts Bay with their charter.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1629-1630.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1634-1637. The pioneer settlements in Connecticut.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1634-1637.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1635. Dissolution of the Council for New England and partitioning of its territorial claims by lot.

"The Council for New England, having struggled through nearly fifteen years of maladministration and ill-luck, had yielded to the discouragements which beset it. By the royal favor, it had triumphed over the rival Virginia Company, to be overwhelmed in its turn by the just jealousy of Parliament, and by dissensions among its members. The Council, having, by profuse and inconsistent grants of its lands, exhausted its common property, as well as its credit with purchasers for keeping its engagements, had no motive to continue its organization. Under these circumstances, it determined on a resignation of its charter to the king, and a surrender of the administration of its domain to a General Governor of his appointment, on the condition that all the territory, a large portion of which by its corporate action had already been alienated to other parties [see above: A. D. 1621-1631], should be granted in severalty by the king to the members of the Council. Twelve associates accordingly proceeded to a distribution of New England among themselves by lot; and nothing was wanting to render the transaction complete, and to transfer to them the ownership of that region, except to oust the previous patentees, of whom the most powerful body were colonists in Massachusetts Bay. To effect this, Sir John Banks, Attorney-General, brought a writ of 'quo warranto' in Westminster Hall against the Massachusetts Company. …

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1634-1637.

{2308}

It seemed that, when a few more forms should be gone through, all would be over with the presumptuous Colony. … But … everything went on as if Westminster Hall had not spoken. 'The Lord frustrated their design.' The disorders of the mother country were a safeguard of the infant liberty of New England."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, volume 1, chapter 10.

In the parcelling of New England by lot among the members of the Council, the divisions were: (1) Between the St. Croix and Pemaquid, to William Alexander. (2) From Pemaquid to Sagadahoc, in part to the Marquis of Hamilton. (3) Between the Kennebec and Androscoggin; and (4) from Sagadahoc to Piscataqua, to Sir F. Gorges. (5) From Piscataqua to the Naumkeag, to Mason. (6) From the Naumkeag round the sea-coast, by Cape Cod to Narragansett, to the Marquis of Hamilton. (7) From Narragansett to the half-way bound, between that and the Connecticut River, and 50 miles up into the country, to Lord Edward Gorges. (8) From this midway point to the Connecticut River, to the Earl of Carlisle. (9 and 10) From the Connecticut to the Hudson, to the Duke of Lennox. (11 and 12) From the Hudson to the limits of the Plymouth Company's territory, to Lord Mulgrave.

W. C. Bryant and S. H. Gay, History of the United States, volume 1, page 337, foot-note.

ALSO IN: T. Hutchinson, History of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, volume 1, pages 48-50.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1636. Providence Plantation and Roger Williams.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1636; and RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1636.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1636-1639. The first American constitution. The genesis of a state.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1636-1639.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1636-1641. Public Registry laws.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1630-1641.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1637. The Pequot War.

"The region extending from the bounds of Rhode Island to the banks of the Hudson was at the time of the colonization held in strips of territory mainly by three tribes of the natives, who had long had feuds among themselves and with other tribes. They were the Narragansetts, the Mohegans, and the Pequots. The Mohegans were then tributaries of the Pequots, and were restive under subjection to their fierce and warlike conquerors, who were estimated to number at the time 1,000 fighting men. … The policy of the whites was to aggravate the dissensions of the tribes, and to make alliance with one or more of them. Winthrop records in March, 1631, the visit to Boston of a Connecticut Indian, probably a Mohegan, who invited the English to come and plant near the river, and who offered presents, with the promise of a profitable trade. His object proved to be to engage the interest of the whites against the Pequots. His errand was for the time unsuccessful. Further advances of a similar character were made afterwards, the result being to persuade the English that, sooner or later, they would need to interfere as umpires, and must use discretion in a wise regard to what would prove to be for their own interest. In 1633 the Pequots had savagely mutilated and murdered a party of English traders, who, under Captain Stone, of Virginia, had gone up the Connecticut. The Boston magistrates had instituted measures to call the Pequots to account, but nothing effectual was done. The Dutch had a fort on the river near Hartford, and the English had built one at its mouth. In 1636 several settlements had been made in Connecticut by the English from Cambridge, Dorchester, and other places. John Oldham, of Watertown, had in that year been murdered, while on a trading voyage, by some Indians belonging on Block Island. To avenge this act our magistrates sent Endicott, as general, with a body of 90 men, with orders to kill all the male Indians on that island, sparing only the women and little children. He accomplished his bloody work only in part, but after destroying all the corn-fields and wigwams, he turned to hunt the Pequots on the main. After this expedition, which simply exasperated the Pequots, they made a desperate effort to induce the Narragansetts to come into a league with them against the English. It seemed for a while as if they would succeed in this, and the consequences would doubtless have been most disastrous to the whites. The scheme was thwarted largely through the wise and friendly intervention of Roger Williams, whose diplomacy was made effective by the confidence which his red neighbors had in him. The Narragansett messengers then entered into a friendly league with the English in Boston. All through the winter of 1637 the Pequots continued to pick off the whites in their territory, and they mutilated, tortured, roasted, and murdered at least thirty victims, becoming more and more vindictive and cruel in their doings. There were then in Connecticut some 250 Englishmen, and, as has been said, about 1,000 Pequot 'braves.' The authorities in Connecticut resolutely started a military organization, giving the command to the redoubtable John Mason, a Low-Country soldier, who had recently gone from Dorchester. Massachusetts and Plymouth contributed their quotas, having as allies the Mohegans, of whose fidelity they had fearful misgivings, but who proved constant though not very effective. Of the 160 men raised by Massachusetts, only about 20, under Captain Underhill,—a good fighter, but a sorry scamp,—reached the scene in season to join with Mason in surprising the unsuspecting and sleeping Pequots in one of their forts near the Mystic. Fire, lead, and steel with the infuriated vengeance of Puritan soldiers against murderous and fiendish heathen, did effectively the exterminating work. Hundreds of the savages, in their maddened frenzy of fear and dismay, were shot or run through as they were impaled on their own palisades in their efforts to rush from their blazing wigwams, crowded within their frail enclosures. The English showed no mercy, for they felt none. … A very few of the wretched savages escaped to another fort, to which the victorious English followed them. This, however; they soon abandoned, taking refuge, with their old people and children, in the protection of swamps and thickets. Here, too, the English, who had lost but two men killed, though they had many wounded, and who were now reinforced, pursued and surrounded them, allowing the aged and the children, by a parley, to come out. {2309} The men, however, were mostly slain, and the feeble remnant of them which sought protection among the so-called river Indians, higher up the Connecticut, and among the Mohawks, were but scornfully received,—the Pequot sachem Sassacus, being beheaded by the latter. A few of the prisoners were sold in the West Indies as slaves, others were reduced to the same humiliation among the Mohegans, or as farm and house servants to the English. … But the alliances into which the whites had entered in order to divide their savage foes were the occasions of future entanglements in a tortuous policy, and of later bloody struggles of an appalling character. … In all candor the admission must be made, that the Christian white men … allowed themselves to be trained by the experience of Indian warfare into a savage cruelty and a desperate vengefulness."

G. E. Ellis, The Indians of Eastern Massachusetts (Memorial History of Boston, volume 1, pages 252-254).

"More than 800 [of the Pequots] had been slain in the war, and less than 200 remained to share the fate of captives. These were distributed among the Narragansets and Mohegans, with the pledge that they should no more be called Pequots, nor inhabit their native country again. To make the annihilation of the race yet more complete, their very name was extinguished in Connecticut by legislative act. Pequot river was called the Thames, Pequot town was named New London."

S. G. Arnold, History of Rhode Island, volume 1, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: G. H. Hollister, History of Connecticut, chapters 2-3.

G. E. Ellis, Life of John Mason (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume 3).

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1638. The purchase, settlement and naming of Rhode Island. The founding of New Haven Colony.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1640; and CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1638.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1639. The Fundamental Agreement of New Haven.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1639.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1644. The growth of population and the rise of towns. The end of the Puritan exodus.

"Over 20,000 persons are estimated to have arrived in New England in the fifteen years before the assembling of the Long Parliament [1640]; one hundred and ninety-eight ships bore them over the Atlantic; and the whole cost of their transportation, and of the establishment of the plantation, is computed at about £200,000, or nearly a million of dollars. The progress of settlement had been proportionally rapid. … Hingham was settled in 1634. Newbury, Concord, and Dedham were incorporated in 1635. And from that date to 1643, acts were passed incorporating Lynn, North Chelsea, Salisbury, Rowley, Sudbury, Braintree, Woburn, Gloucester, Haverhill, Wenham, and Hull. West of Worcester, the only town incorporated within the present limits of the state was Springfield, for which an act was passed in 1636. These little municipalities were, in a measure, peculiar to New England; each was sovereign within itself; each sustained a relation to the whole, analogous to that which the states of our Union hold respectively to the central power, or the constitution of the United States; and the idea of the formation of such communities was probably derived from the parishes of England, for each town was a parish, and each, as it was incorporated, was required to contribute to the maintenance of the ministry as the basis of its grant of municipal rights. Four counties were erected at this time: Suffolk, Essex, Middlesex, and Old Norfolk, all which were incorporated in 1643. Each of the first three contained eight towns, and Old Norfolk six."

J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 8.

"Events in England had now [1640] reached a crisis, and the Puritan party, rising rapidly into power, no longer looked to America for a refuge. The great tide of emigration ceased to flow; but the government of Massachusetts went on wisely and strongly under the alternating rule of Winthrop, Dudley, and Bellingham. The English troubles crippled the holders of the Mason and Gorges grants, and the settlements in New Hampshire—whither Wheelwright had gone, and where turbulence had reigned—were gradually added to the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. In domestic matters everything went smoothly. There was some trouble with Bellingham, and Winthrop was again made Governor [1642]. The oath of allegiance to the King taken by the magistrates was abandoned, because Charles violated the privileges of Parliament, and the last vestige of dependence vanished. Massachusetts was divided into counties; and out of a ludicrous contest about a stray pig, in which deputies and magistrates took different sides, grew a very important controversy as to the powers of deputies and assistants, which resulted [1644] in the division of the legislature into two branches, and a consequent improvement in the symmetry and solidity of the political system."

H. C. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies, chapter 18.

See, also, TOWNSHIP AND TOWN-MEETING.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1655. Colonizing enterprises of New Haven on the Delaware.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1640-1655.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1643. The confederation of the colonies.

In May, 1643, "a confederacy, to be known as the United Colonies of New England, was entered into at Boston, between delegates from Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven on the one hand, and the General Court of Massachusetts on the other. Supposed dangers from the Indians, and their quarrels with the Dutch of Manhattan, had induced the people of Connecticut to withdraw their formal objections to this measure. Two commissioners from each colony were to meet annually, or oftener, if necessary; the sessions to be held alternately at Boston, Hartford, New Haven, and Plymouth; but Boston was to have two sessions for one at each of the other places. The commissioners, all of whom must be church members, were to choose a president from among themselves, and everything was to be decided by six voices out of the eight. No war was to be declared by either colony without the consent of the commissioners, to whose province Indian affairs and foreign relations were especially assigned. The sustentation of the 'truth and liberties of the Gospel' was declared to be one great object of this alliance. All war expenses were to be a common charge, to be apportioned according to the number or male inhabitants in each colony. Runaway servants and fugitive criminals were to be delivered up, a provision afterward introduced into the Constitution of the United States; and the commissioners soon recommended, what remained ever after the practice of New England, and ultimately became, also, a provision of the United States Constitution, that judgments of courts of law and probates of wills in each colony should have full faith and credit in all the others. {2310} The commissioners from Massachusetts, as representing by far the most powerful colony of the alliance, claimed an honorary precedence, which the others readily conceded. Plymouth, though far outgrown by Massachusetts, and even by Connecticut, had made, however, some progress. It now contained seven towns, and had lately adopted a representative system. But the old town of Plymouth was in decay, the people being drawn off to the new settlements. Bradford had remained governor, except for four years, during two of which he had been relieved by Edward Winslow, and the other two by Thomas Prince. New Haven was, perhaps, the weakest member of the alliance. Besides that town, the inhabitants of which were principally given to commerce, there were two others, Milford and Guilford, agricultural settlements; Southold, at the eastern extremity of Long Island, also acknowledged the jurisdiction of New Haven, and a new settlement had recently been established at Stamford. … The colony of Connecticut, not limited to the towns on the river, to which several new ones had already been added, included also Stratford and Fairfield, on the coast of the Sound, west of New Haven. … The town of Southampton, on Long Island, acknowledged also the jurisdiction of Connecticut. Fort Saybrook, at the mouth of the river, was still an independent settlement, and Fenwick, as the head of it, became a party to the articles of confederation. But the next year he sold out his interest to Connecticut, and into that colony Saybrook was absorbed. … Gorges's province of Maine was not received into the New England alliance, 'because the people there ran a different course both in their ministry and civil administration.' The same objection applied with still greater force to Aquiday and Providence."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 10 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: J. S. Barry, History of Massachusetts, volume 1, chapter 1.

G. P. Fisher, The Colonial Era, chapter 8.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1644. The chartering of Providence Plantation, and the Rhode Island Union.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1647.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1649-1651. Under Cromwell and the Commonwealth.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1649-1651.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1650. Adjustment of Connecticut boundaries with the Dutch.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1650.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1660. The disputed jurisdiction in Maine. The claims of Massachusetts made good.

See MAINE: A. D. 1643-1677.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1656-1661. The persecution of Quakers.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1656-1661.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1657-1662. The Halfway Covenant.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1657-1669.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1660-1664. The protection of the Regicides.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1660-1664.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1660-1665. Under the Restored Monarchy. The first collision of Massachusetts with the crown.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1660-1665.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1662. The Union of Connecticut and New Haven by Royal Charter.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1662-1664.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1663. The Rhode Island charter, and beginning of boundary conflicts with Connecticut.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1660-1663.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1674-1675. King Philip's War: Its causes and beginning.

"The Pokanokets had always rejected the Christian faith and Christian manners, and their chief had desired to insert in a treaty, what the Puritans always rejected, that the English should never attempt to convert the warriors of his tribe from the religion of their race. The aged Massassoit—he who had welcomed the pilgrims to the soil of New England, and had opened his cabin to shelter the founder of Rhode Island—now slept with his fathers, and Philip, his son, had succeeded him as head of the allied tribes. Repeated sales of land had narrowed their domains, and the English had artfully crowded them into the tongues of land, as 'most suitable and convenient for them,' and as more easily watched. The principal seats of the Pokanokets were the peninsulas which we now call Bristol and Tiverton. As the English villages drew nearer and nearer to them, their hunting-grounds were put under culture, their natural parks were turned into pastures, their best fields for planting corn were gradually alienated, their fisheries were impaired by more skilful methods, till they found themselves deprived of their broad acres, and, by their own legal contracts, driven, as it were, into the sea. Collisions and mutual distrust were the necessary consequence. There exists no evidence of a deliberate conspiracy on the part of all the tribes. The commencement of war was accidental; many of the Indians were in a maze, not knowing what to do, and disposed to stand for the English; sure proof of no ripened conspiracy. But they had the same complaints, recollections, and fears: and, when they met, they could not but grieve together at the alienation of the domains of their fathers. They spurned the English claim of jurisdiction over them, and were indignant that Indian chiefs or warriors should be arraigned before a jury. And, when the language of their anger and sorrow was reported to the men of Plymouth colony by an Indian tale-bearer, fear professed to discover in their unguarded words the evidence of an organized conspiracy. The haughty Philip, who had once before been compelled to surrender his 'English arms' and pay an onerous tribute, was, in 1674, summoned to submit to an examination, and could not escape suspicion. The wrath of his tribe was roused, and the informer was murdered. The murderers, in their turn, were identified, seized, tried by a jury, of which one half were Indians, and, in June, 1675, on conviction, were hanged. The young men of the tribe panted for revenge: without delay, eight or nine of the English were slain in or about Swansey, and the alarm of war spread through the colonies. Thus was Philip hurried into 'his rebellion;' and he is reported to have wept as he heard that a white man's blood had been shed. … What chances had he of success? The English were united; the Indians had no alliance, and half of them joined the English, or were quiet spectators of the fight: the English had guns enough; few of the Indians were well armed, and they could get no new supplies: the English had towns for their shelter and safe retreat; the miserable wigwams of the natives were defenceless: the English had sure supplies of food; the Indians might easily lose their precarious stores. They rose without hope, and they fought without mercy. {2311} For them as a nation there was no to-morrow. … At the first alarm, volunteers from Massachusetts joined the troops of Plymouth; on the twenty-ninth of June, within a week from the beginning of hostilities, the Pokanokets were driven from Mount Hope; and in less than a month Philip was a fugitive among the Nipmucks, the interior tribes of Massachusetts. The little army of the colonists then entered the territory of the Narragansetts, and from the reluctant tribe extorted a treaty of neutrality, with a promise to deliver up every hostile Indian. Victory seemed promptly assured. But it was only the commencement of horrors. Canonchet, the chief sachem of the Narragansetts, was the son of Miantonomoh; and could he forget his father's wrongs? Desolation extended along the whole frontier. Banished from his patrimony where the pilgrims found a friend, and from his cabin which had sheltered exiles, Philip and his warriors spread through the country, awakening their race to a warfare of extermination."

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (author's last revision), part 2, chapter 5 (volume 1).

"At this time, according to loose estimates, there may have been some 36,000 Indians and 60,000 whites in New England; 10,000 of the former fit for war, and 15,000 of the latter capable of bearing arms. … At the outset, the Narragansetts, numbering 2,000 warriors, did not actually second Philip's resistance. But Canonchet, their sachem, might well remember the death of his father Miantonomo [who, taken prisoner in a war with the Mohegans, and surrendered by them to the English, in 1643, with a request for permission to put him to death, was deliberately returned to his savage captors, on advice taken from the ministers at Boston—doomed to death without his knowledge]. … No efforts at conciliation seem to have been made by either party; for the whites felt their superiority (were they not 'the Lord's chosen people?'); and Philip knew the desperate nature of the struggle between united and well-armed whites, and divided uncontrolled savages; yet when the emergency came he met it, and never faltered or plead from that day forth."

C. W. Elliott, The New England History, volume 1, chapter 40.

ALSO IN: B. Church, History of King Philip's War, (Prince Society Publication 1867).

S. G. Drake, Aboriginal Races of North America, book 3.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1675 (July-September). King Philip's War: Savage successes of the Indian enemy. Increasing rage and terror among the colonists.

The Nipmucks, into whose country Philip retreated, "had already commenced hostilities by attacking Mendon. They waylaid and killed Captain Hutchinson, a son of the famous Mrs. Hutchinson, and 16 out of a party of 20 sent from Boston to Brookfield to parley with them. Attacking Brookfield itself, they burned it, except one fortified house. The inhabitants were saved by Major Willard, who, on information of their danger, came with a troop of horse from Lancaster, thirty miles through the woods, to their rescue. A body of troops presently arrived from the eastward, and were stationed for some time at Brookfield. The colonists now found that by driving Philip to extremity they had roused a host of unexpected enemies. The River Indians, anticipating an intended attack upon them, joined the assailants. Deerfield and Northfield, the northernmost towns on the Connecticut River, settled within a few years past, were attacked and several of the inhabitants killed and wounded. Captain Beers, sent from Hadley to their relief with a convoy of provisions, was surprised near Northfield and slain, with 20 of his men. Northfield was abandoned and burned by the Indians. … Driven to the necessity of defensive warfare, those in command on the river determined to establish a magazine and garrison at Hadley. Captain Lathrop, who had been dispatched from the eastward to the assistance of the river towns, was sent with 80 men, the flower of the youth of Essex county, to guard the wagons intended to convey to Hadley 3,000 bushels of unthreshed wheat, the produce of the fertile Deerfield meadows. Just before arriving at Deerfield, near a small stream still known as Bloody Brook, under the shadow of the abrupt conical Sugar Loaf, the southern termination of the Deerfield mountain, Lathrop fell into an ambush, and, after a brave resistance, perished there with all his company. Captain Moseley, stationed at Deerfield, marched to his assistance, but arrived too late to help him. That town, also, was abandoned, and burned by the Indians. Springfield, about the same time, was set on fire, but was partially saved by the arrival of Major Treat, with aid from Connecticut. Hatfield, now the frontier town on the north, was vigorously attacked, but the garrison succeeded in repelling the assailants. Meanwhile, hostilities were spreading; the Indians on the Merrimac began to attack the towns in their vicinity; and the whole of Massachusetts was soon in the utmost alarm. Except in the immediate neighborhood of Boston, the country still remained an immense forest, dotted by a few openings. The frontier settlements … were mostly broken up, and the inhabitants, retiring towards Boston, spread everywhere dread and intense hatred of 'the bloody heathen.' Even the praying Indians, and the small dependent and tributary tribes, became objects of suspicion and terror. … Not content with realities sufficiently frightful, superstition, as usual, added bugbears of her own. Indian bows were seen in the sky, and scalps in the moon. The northern lights became an object of terror. Phantom horsemen careered among the clouds, or were heard to gallop invisible through the air. The howling of wolves was turned into a terrible omen. The war was regarded as a special judgment in punishment of prevailing sins. … About the time of the first collision with Philip, the Tarenteens, or Eastern Indians, had attacked the settlements in Maine and New Hampshire, plundering and burning the houses, and massacring such of the inhabitants as fell into their hands. This sudden diffusion of hostilities and vigor of attack from opposite quarters, made, the colonists believe that Philip had long been plotting and had gradually matured an extensive conspiracy, into which most of the tribes had deliberately entered, for the extermination of the whites. This belief infuriated the colonists, and suggested some very questionable proceedings. … But there is no evidence of any deliberate concert; nor, in fact, were the Indians united. Had they been so, the war would have been far more serious. The Connecticut tribes proved faithful, and that colony remained untouched. Even the Narragansetts, the most powerful confederacy in New England, in spite of so many former provocations, had not yet taken up arms. But they were strongly suspected of intention to do so, and were accused, notwithstanding their recent assurances, of giving aid and shelter to the hostile tribes."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, volume 1, chapter 14.

ALSO IN: R. Markham, History of King Philip's War, chapters 7-8.

G. H. Hollister, History of Connecticut, volume 1, chapter 12.

M. A. Green, Springfield, 1636-1886, chapter 9.

{2312}

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1675 (October-December). King Philip's War: The crushing of the Narragansetts.

"The attitude of the powerful Narragansett tribe was regarded with anxiety. It was known that, so far from keeping their compact to surrender such enemies of the English as should fall into their hands, they had harbored numbers of Philip's dispersed retainers and allies. While the Federal Commissioners were in session at Boston [October], Canonchet, sachem of the Narragansetts, came thither with other chiefs, and promised that the hostile Indians whom they acknowledged to be then under their protection should be surrendered within ten days. But probably the course of events on Connecticut River emboldened them. At all events, they did not keep their engagement. The day for the surrender came and went, and no Indians appeared. If that faithless tribe, the most powerful in New England, should assume active hostilities, a terrible desolation would ensue. The Commissioners moved promptly. The fifth day after the breach of the treaty found them reassembled after a short recess. They immediately determined to raise an additional force of 1,000 men for service in the Narragansett country. They appointed Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, to be commander-in-chief, and desired the colony of Connecticut to name his lieutenant. The General was to place himself at the head of his troops within six weeks, 'a solemn day of prayer and humiliation' being kept through all the colonies meanwhile. … Time was thus given to the Narragansetts to make their peace 'by actual performance of their covenants made with the Commissioners; as also making reparation for all damages sustained by their neglect hitherto, together with security for their further fidelity.' … It is not known whether Philip was among the Narragansetts at this time. Under whatever influence it was, whether from stupidity or from confidence, they made no further attempt at pacification. … The Massachusetts troops marched from Dedham to Attleborough on the day before that which had been appointed by the Commissioners for them to meet the Plymouth levy at the northeastern corner of the Narragansett country. The following day they reached Seekonk: A week earlier, the few English houses at Quinsigamond (Worcester) had been burned by a party of natives; and a few days later, the house of Jeremiah Bull, at Pettyquamscott, which had been designated as the place of general rendezvous for the English, was fired, and ten men and five women and children, who had taken refuge in it, were put to death. … The place where the Narragansetts were to be sought was in what is now the town of South Kingston, 18 miles distant, in a northwesterly direction, from Pettyquamscott, and a little further from that Pequot fort to the southwest, which had been destroyed by the force under Captain Mason forty years before. According to information afterwards received from a captive, the Indian warriors here collected were no fewer than 3,500. They were on their guard, and had fortified their hold to the best of their skill. It was on a solid piece of upland of five or six acres, wholly surrounded by a swamp. On the inner side of this natural defence they had driven rows of palisades, making a barrier nearly a rod in thickness; and the only entrance to the enclosure was over a rude bridge consisting of a felled tree, four or five feet from the ground, the bridge being protected by a block-house. The English [whose forces, after a considerable delay of the Connecticut troops, had been all assembled at Pettyquamscott on Saturday, December 18], breaking up their camp [on the morning of the 19th] while it was yet dark, arrived before the place at one o'clock after noon. Having passed, without shelter, a very cold night, they had made a march of 18 miles through deep snow, scarcely halting to refresh themselves with food. In this condition they immediately advanced to the attack. The Massachusetts troops were in the van of the storming column; next came the two Plymouth companies; and then the force from Connecticut. The foremost of the assailants were received with a well-directed fire," and seven of their captains were killed or mortally wounded. "Nothing discouraged by the fall of their leaders, the men pressed on, and a sharp conflict followed, which, with fluctuating success, lasted for two or three hours. Once the assailants were beaten out of the fort; but they presently rallied and regained their ground. There was nothing for either party but to conquer or die, enclosed together as they were. At length victory declared for the English, who finished their work by setting fire to the wigwams within the fort. They lost 70 men killed and 150 wounded. Of the Connecticut contingent alone, out of 300 men 40 were killed and as many wounded. The number of the enemy that perished is uncertain. … What is both certain and material is that on that day the military strength of the formidable Narragansett tribe was irreparably broken."

J. G. Palfrey, Compendious History of New England, book 3, chapter 3 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: S. G. Arnold, History of Rhode Island, volume 1, chapter 10.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1676-1678. King Philip's War: The end of the conflict.

"While the overthrow of the Narragansetts changed the face of things, it was far from putting an end to the war. It showed that when the white man could find his enemy he could deal crushing blows, but the Indian was not always so easy to find. Before the end of January Winslow's little army was partially disbanded for want of food, and its three contingents fell back upon Stonington, Boston, and Plymouth. Early in February the Federal Commissioners called for a new levy of 600 men to assemble at Brookfield, for the Nipmucks were beginning to renew their incursions, and after an interval of six months the figure of Philip again appears for a moment upon the scene. What he had been doing or where he had been, since the Brookfield fight in August, was never known. When in February, 1676, he reappeared, it was still in company with his allies the Nipmucks, in their bloody assault upon Lancaster. On the 10th of that month at sunrise the Indians came swarming into the lovely village. {2313} Danger had already been apprehended, the pastor, Joseph Rowlandson, the only Harvard graduate of 1652, had gone to Boston to solicit aid, and Captain Wadsworth's company was slowly making its way over the difficult roads from Marlborough, but the Indians were beforehand. Several houses were at once surrounded and set on fire, and men, women, and children began falling under the tomahawk. The minister's house was large and strongly built, and more than forty people found shelter there until at length it took fire and they were driven out by the flames. Only one escaped, a dozen or more were slain, and the rest, chiefly women and children, taken captive. … Among the captives was Mary Rowlandson, the minister's wife, who afterward wrote the story of her sad experiences. … It was a busy winter and spring for these Nipmucks. Before February was over, their exploit at Lancaster was followed by a shocking massacre at Medfield. They sacked and destroyed the towns of Worcester, Marlborough, Mendon, and Groton, and even burned some houses in Weymouth, within a dozen miles of Boston. Murderous attacks were made upon Sudbury, Chelmsford, Springfield, Hatfield, Hadley, Northampton, Wrentham, Andover, Bridgewater, Scituate, and Middleborough. On the 18th of April Captain Wadsworth, with 70 men, was drawn into an ambush near Sudbury, surrounded by 500 Nipmucks, and killed with 50 of his men; six unfortunate captives were burned alive over slow fires. But Wadsworth's party made the enemy pay dearly for his victory; that afternoon 120 Nipmucks bit the dust. In such wise, by killing two or three for one, did the English wear out and annihilate their adversaries. Just one month from that day, Captain Turner surprised and slaughtered 300 of these warriors near the falls of the Connecticut river which have since borne his name, and this blow at last broke the strength of the Nipmucks. Meanwhile the Narragansetts and Wampanoags had burned the towns of Warwick and Providence. After the wholesale ruin of the great swamp fight, Canonchet had still some 600 or 700 warriors left, and with these, on the 26th of March, in the neighbourhood of Pawtuxet, he surprised a company of 50 Plymouth men, under Captain Pierce, and slew them all, but not until he had lost 140 of his best warriors. Ten days later, Captain Denison, with his Connecticut company, defeated and captured Canonchet, and the proud son of Miantonomo met the same fate as his father. He was handed over to the Mohegans and tomahawked. … The fall of Canonchet marked the beginning of the end. In four sharp fights in the last week of June, Major Talcott of Hartford slew from 300 to 400 warriors, being nearly all that were left of the Narragansetts; and during the month of July Captain Church patrolled the country about Taunton, making prisoners of the Wampanoags. Once more King Philip, shorn of his prestige, comes upon the scene. … Defeated at Taunton, the son of Massasoit was hunted by Church to his ancient lair at Bristol Neck and there," betrayed by one of his own followers, he was surprised on the morning of August 12, and shot as he attempted to fly. "His severed head was sent to Plymouth, where it was mounted on a pole and exposed aloft upon the village green, while the meeting-house bell summoned the townspeople to a special service of thanksgiving. … By midsummer of 1678 the Indians had been everywhere suppressed, and there was peace in the land. … In Massachusetts and Plymouth … the destruction of life and property had been simply frightful. Of 90 towns, 12 had been utterly destroyed, while more than 40 others had been the scene of fire and slaughter. Out of this little society nearly 1,000 staunch men … had lost their lives, while of the scores of fair women and poor little children that had perished under the ruthless tomahawk, one can hardly give an accurate account. … But … henceforth the red man figures no more in the history of New England, except as an ally of the French in bloody raids upon the frontier."

J. Fiske, The Beginnings of New England, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: W. Hubbard, History of the Indian Wars in New England, edited by S. G. Drake, volume 1.

Mrs. Rowlandson, Narrative of Captivity.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1684-1686. The overthrow of the Massachusetts charter.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1671-1686.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1685-1687. The overthrow of the Connecticut charter.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1685-1687.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1686. The consolidation of the "Territory and Dominion of New England" under a royal governor-general.

"It was … determined in the Privy Council that Connecticut, New Plymouth, and Rhode Island should be united with Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and the Narragansett country, and be made 'one entire government, the better to defend themselves against invasion.' This was good policy for England. It was the despotic idea of consolidation. It was opposed to the republican system of confederation. … Consolidation was indeed the best mode of establishing in his colonies the direct government which Charles had adopted in November, 1684, and which James was now to enforce. … For more than twenty years James had been trying his "'prentice hand" upon New York. The time had now come when he was to use his master hand on New England. … By the advice of Sunderland, James commissioned Colonel Sir Edmund Andros to be captain general and governor-in-chief over his 'Territory and Dominion of New England in America,' which meant Massachusetts Bay, New Plymouth, New Hampshire, Maine, and the Narragansett country, or the King's Province. Andros's commission was drawn in the traditional form, settled by the Plantation Board for those of other royal governors in Virginia, Jamaica, and New Hampshire. Its substance, however, was much more despotic. Andros was authorized, with the consent of a council appointed by the crown, to make laws and levy taxes, and to govern the territory of New England in obedience to its sovereign's Instructions, and according to the laws then in force, or afterward to be established. … To secure Andros in his government, two companies of regular soldiers, chiefly Irish Papists, were raised in London and placed under his orders."

J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of New York, volume 2, chapter 9.

See, also, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1671-1686; and CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1685-1687.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1688. New York and New Jersey brought under the governor-generalship of Andros.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1688.

{2314}

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1689. The bloodless revolution, arrest of Andros, and proclamation of William and Mary.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1686-1689.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1689-1697. King William's War (the First Intercolonial War).

See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690; and 1692-1697.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1690. The first Colonial Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1692. The charter to Massachusetts as a royal province. Plymouth absorbed.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1689-1692.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1692. The Salem Witchcraft madness.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1692; and 1692-1693.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1696-1749. Suppression of colonial manufactures. Oppressive commercial policy of England.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710. Queen Anne's War (the Second Intercolonial War): Border incursions by the French and Indians. The final conquest of Acadia.

"But a few years of peace succeeded the treaty of Ryswick. First came the contest in Europe over the Spanish succession," and then the recognition of "the Pretender" by Louis XIV. "This recognition was, of course, a challenge to England and preparations were made for war. William III. died in March, 1702, and was succeeded by Anne, the sister of his wife, and daughter of James II. War was declared by England against France, May 15th, 1702. The contest that followed is known in European history as the War of the Spanish Succession; in American history it is usually called Queen Anne's 'War; or the Second Intercolonial War. On one side were France, Spain, and Bavaria; on the other, England, Holland, Savoy, Austria, Prussia, Portugal, and Denmark. It was in this war that the Duke of Marlborough won his fame. To the people of New England, war between France and England meant the hideous midnight war-whoop, the tomahawk and scalping-knife, burning hamlets, and horrible captivity. To provide against it, a conference was called to meet at Falmouth, on Casco Bay, in June, 1703, when Governor Dudley, of Massachusetts, met many of the chiefs of the Abenaquis. The Indians, professing to have no thought of war, promised peace and friendship by their accustomed tokens. … But, as usual, only a part of the tribes had been brought into the alliance," and some lawless provocations by a party of English marauders soon drove the Abenaquis again into their old French Alliance. "By August, 500 French and Indians were assembled, ready for incursions into the New England settlements. They divided into several bands and fell upon a number of places at the same time. Wells, Saco, and Casco were again among the doomed villages, but the fort at Casco was not taken, owing to the arrival of an armed vessel under Captain Southwick. About 150 persons were killed or captured in these attacks." In February, the town of Deerfield, Massachusetts, was destroyed, 47 of the inhabitants were killed and 112 carried away captive. "On the 30th of July, the town of Lancaster was assailed, and a few people were killed, seven buildings burned, and much property destroyed. These and other depredations of war-parties along the coasts filled New England with consternation. … It was … resolved to fit out an expedition for retaliation, and as usual the people of Acadia were selected to expiate the sins of the Indians and Canadians. Colonel Benjamin Church was put in command of 550 men, 14 transports, and 36 whale-boats, convoyed by three ships of war. Sailing from Boston in May, 1704," Church ravaged the lesser French settlements on the Acadian coast, but ventured no attack on Port Royal. "In 1705, 450 men under Subercase—soldiers, Canadian peasants, adventurers, and Indians, well armed, and with rations for twenty days, blankets and tents—set out to destroy the English settlements in Newfoundland, marching on snow-shoes. They took Petit Havre and St. John's, and devastated all the little settlements along the eastern coast, and the English trade was for the time completely broken up. Subercase was made Governor of Acadia in 1706. The following spring New England sent Colonel March to Port Royal with two regiments, but he returned without assaulting the fort. Governor Dudley forbade the troops to land when they came back to Boston, and ordered them to go again. Colonel March was ill, and Colonel Wainwright took command; but after a pretence of besieging the fort for eleven days he retired with small loss, the expedition having cost Massachusetts £2,200. In 1708 a council at Montreal decided to send a large number of Canadians and Indians to devastate New England. But after a long march through the almost impassable mountain region of northern New Hampshire, a murderous attack on Haverhill, in which 30 or 40 were killed, was the only result. … In 1709 a plan was formed in England for the capture of New France by a fleet and five regiments of British soldiers aided by the colonists. But a defeat in Portugal called away the ships destined for America, and a force gathered at Lake Champlain under Colonel Nicholson for a land attack was so reduced by sickness—said to have resulted from the poisoning of a spring by Indians—that they burned their canoes and retreated. The next year, Nicholson was furnished with six ships of war, thirty transports, and one British and four New England regiments for the capture of Port Royal. Subercase had only 260 men and an insufficient supply of provisions." He surrendered after a short bombardment, "and on the 16th of October the starving and ragged garrison marched out to be sent to France. For the last time the French flag was hauled down from the fort, and Port Royal was henceforth an English fortress, which was re-named Annapolis Royal, in honor of Queen Anne."

R. Johnson, History of the French War, chapter 8.

"With a change of masters came a change of names. Acadié was again called 'Nova Scotia'—the name bestowed upon it by James I. in 1621; and Port Royal, 'Annapolis.'"

R. Brown, History of the Island of Cape Breton, letter 8.

ALSO IN: P. H. Smith, Acadia, pages 108-111.

See, also, CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1722-1725. Renewed war with the northeastern Indians.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1713-1730.

{2315}

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744. King George's War (the Third Intercolonial War): Hostilities in Nova Scotia.

"The war that had prevailed for several years between Britain and Spain [see ENGLAND: A. D. 1739-1741], inflicted upon the greater number of the British provinces of America no farther share of its evils than the burden of contributing to the expeditions of Admiral Vernon, and the waste of life by which his disastrous naval campaigns were signalized. Only South Carolina and Georgia had been exposed to actual attack and danger. But this year [1744], by an enlargement of the hostile relations of the parent state, the scene of war was extended to the more northern provinces. The French, though professing peace with Britain, had repeatedly given assistance to Spain; while the British king, as Elector of Hanover, had espoused the quarrel of the emperor of Germany with the French monarch; and after various mutual threats and demonstrations of hostility that consequently ensued between Britain and France, war [the War of the Austrian Succession] was now formally declared by these states against each other.

See AUSTRIA: A. D. 1718-1738, and after.

The French colonists in America, having been apprized of this event before it was known in New England, were tempted to improve the advantage of their prior intelligence by an instant and unexpected commencement of hostilities, which accordingly broke forth without notice or delay in the quarter of Nova Scotia. … On the island of Canso, adjoining the coast of Nova Scotia, the British had formed a settlement, which was resorted to by the fishermen of New England, and defended by a small fortification garrisoned by a detachment of troops from Annapolis. … Duquesnel, the governor of Cape Breton, on receiving intelligence of the declaration of war between the two parent states, conceived the hope of destroying the fishing establishments of the English by the suddenness and vigor of an unexpected attack. His first blow, which was aimed at Canso, proved successful (May 13, 1744). Duvivier, whom he despatched from his headquarters at Louisburg, with a few armed vessels and a force of 900 men, took unresisted possession of this island, burned the fort and houses, and made prisoners of the garrison and inhabitants. This success Duquesnel endeavoured to follow up by the conquest of Placentia in Newfoundland, and of Annapolis in Nova Scotia; but at both these places his forces were repulsed. In the attack of Annapolis, the French were joined by the Indians of Nova Scotia; but the prudent forecast of Shirley, the governor of Massachusetts, had induced the assembly of this province, some time before, to contribute a reinforcement of 200 men for the greater security of the garrison of Annapolis; and to the opportune arrival of the succour thus afforded the preservation of the place was ascribed. … The people of New England were stimulated to a pitch of resentment, apprehension, and martial energy, that very shortly produced an effort of which neither their friends nor their enemies had supposed them to be capable, and which excited the admiration of both Europe and America. … War was declared against the Indians of Nova Scotia, who had assisted in the attack upon Annapolis; all the frontier garrisons were reinforced; new forts were erected; and the materials of defence were enlarged by a seasonable gift of artillery from the king. Meanwhile, though the French were not prepared to prosecute the extensive plan of conquest which their first operations announced, their privateers actively waged a harassing naval warfare that greatly endamaged the commerce of New England. The British fisheries on the coast of Nova Scotia were interrupted; the fishermen declared their intention of returning no more to their wonted stations on that coast; and so many merchant vessels were captured and carried into Louisburg in the course of this summer, that it was expected that in the following year no branch of maritime trade would be pursued by the New England merchants, except under the protection of convoy."

J. Grahame, History [Colonial] of the United States, book 10, chapter 1 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: P. H. Smith, Acadia, pages 123-128.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745. King George's War. The taking of Louisburg.

"Louisburg, on which the French had spent much money [see CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1720-1745], was by far the strongest fort north of the Gulf of Mexico. But the prisoners of Canso, carried thither, and afterward dismissed on parole, reported the garrison to be weak and the works out of repair. So long as the French held this fortress, it was sure to be a source of annoyance to New England, but to wait for British aid to capture it would be tedious and uncertain, public attention in Great Britain being much engrossed by a threatened invasion. Under these circumstances, Shirley proposed to the General Court of Massachusetts the bold enterprise of a colonial expedition, of which Louisburg should be the object. After six days' deliberation and two additional messages from the governor, this proposal was adopted by a majority of one vote. A circular letter, asking aid and co-operation, was sent to all the colonies as far south as Pennsylvania. In answer to this application, urged by a special messenger from Massachusetts, the Pennsylvania Assembly … voted £4,000 of their currency to purchase provisions. The New Jersey Assembly … furnished … £2,000 toward the Louisburg expedition, but declined to raise any men. The New York Assembly, after a long debate, voted £3,000 of their currency; but this seemed to Clinton a niggardly grant, and he sent, besides, a quantity of provisions purchased by private subscription, and ten eighteen-pounders from the king's magazine. Connecticut voted 500 men, led by Roger Wolcott, afterward governor, and appointed, by stipulation of the Connecticut Assembly, second in command of the expedition. Rhode Island and New Hampshire each raised a regiment of 300 men; but the Rhode Island troops did not arrive till after Louisburg was taken. The chief burden of the enterprise, as was to be expected, fell on Massachusetts. In seven weeks an army of 3,250 men was enlisted, transports were pressed, and bills of credit were profusely issued to pay the expense. Ten armed vessels were provided by Massachusetts, and one by each of the other New England colonies. The command in chief was given to William Pepperell, a native of Maine, a wealthy merchant, who had inherited and augmented a large fortune acquired by his father in the fisheries; a popular, enterprising, sagacious man, noted for his universal good fortune, but unacquainted with military affairs; except as a militia officer. … The enterprise … assumed something of the character of an anti-Catholic crusade. One of the chaplains, a disciple of Whitfield, carried a hatchet, specially provided to hew down the images in the French churches. {2316} Eleven days after embarking at Boston [April, 1745], the Massachusetts armament assembled at Casco, to wait there the arrival of the Connecticut and Rhode Island quotas, and the melting of the ice by which Cape Breton was environed. The New Hampshire troops were already there; those from Connecticut came a few days after. Notice having been sent to England and the West Indies of the intended expedition, Captain Warren presently arrived with four ships of war, and, cruising before Louisburg, captured several vessels bound thither with supplies. Already, before his arrival, the New England cruisers had prevented the entry of a French thirty-gun ship. As soon as the ice permitted, the troops landed and commenced the siege, but not with much skill, for they had no engineers. … Five unsuccessful attacks were made, one after another, upon an island battery which protected the harbor. In that cold, foggy climate, the troops, very imperfectly provided with tents, suffered severely from sickness, and more than a third were unfit for duty. But the French garrison was feeble and mutinous, and when the commander found that his supplies had been captured, he relieved the embarrassment of the besiegers by offering to capitulate. The capitulation [June 17] included 650 regular soldiers, and near 1,300 effective inhabitants of the town, all of whom were to be shipped to France. The island of St. John's presently submitted on the same terms. The loss during the siege was less than 150, but among those reluctantly detained to garrison the conquered fortress ten times as many perished afterward by sickness. In the expedition of Vernon and this against Louisburg perished a large number of the remaining Indians of New England, persuaded to enlist as soldiers in the colonial regiments. Some dispute arose as to the relative merits of the land and naval forces, which had been joined during the siege by additional ships from England. Pepperell, however, was made a baronet, and both he and Shirley were commissioned as colonels in the British army. Warren was promoted to the rank of rear admiral. The capture of this strong fortress, effected in the face of many obstacles, shed, indeed, a momentary luster over one of the most unsuccessful wars in which Britain was ever engaged."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 25 (volume 2).

"As far as England was concerned, it [the taking of Louisburg] was the great event of the war of the Austrian succession. England had no other success in that war to compare with it. As things turned out, it is not too much to say that this exploit of New England gave peace to Europe."

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, book 5, chapter 9 (volume 5).

"Though it was the most brilliant success the English achieved during the war, English historians scarcely mention it."

R. Johnson, History of the French War, chapter 9.

ALSO IN: T. C. Haliburton, Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia, chapter 3 (volume 1).

R. Brown, History of Cape Breton, letters 12-14.

S. A. Drake, The Taking of Louisburg.

U. Parsons, Life of Sir William Pepperell, chapters 3-5.

F. Parkman, The Capture of Louisbourg (Atlantic Monthly, March-May, 1891).

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1745-1748. King George's War: The mortifying end. Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and restoration of Louisburg to France.

"Elated by their success [at Louisburg], the Provincials now offered to undertake the conquest of Canada; but the Duke of Bedford, to whom Governor Shirley's plan had been submitted, disapproved of it, as exhibiting to the colonists too plainly their own strength. … He therefore advised to place the chief dependence on the fleet and army to be sent from England, and to look on the Americans as useful only when joined with others. Finally, the Whigs determined to send a powerful fleet to Quebec, at the same time that an army should attack Montreal, by the route of Lake Champlain; and so late as April, 1746, orders were issued to the several governors to levy troops without limitation, which, when assembled on the frontiers, the king would pay. From some unknown cause, the plan was abandoned as soon as formed. The general appointed to the chief command was ordered not to embark, but the instructions to enlist troops had been transmitted to America, and were acted on with alacrity. Massachusetts raised 3,500 men to co-operate with the fleet, which, however, they were doomed never to see. After being kept a long time in suspense, they were dispersed, in several places, to strengthen garrisons which were supposed to be too weak for the defenses assigned them. Upward of 3,000 men, belonging to other colonies, were assembled at Albany, undisciplined, without a commissariat, and under no control. After the season for active operations was allowed to pass away, they disbanded themselves, some with arms in their hands demanding pay of their governors, and others suing their captains. In addition to this disgraceful affair, the Provincials had the mortification to have a large detachment of their men cut off in Lower Horton, then known as Minas, situated nearly in the centre of Nova Scotia. The Canadian forces, which had traveled thither to co-operate with an immense fleet expected from France, determining to winter in that province, rendered it a subject of continued anxiety and expense to Massachusetts. Governor Shirley resolved, after again reinforcing the garrison at Annapolis, to drive them from the shores of Minas Basin, where they were seated; and in the winter of the year 1746, a body of troops was embarked at Boston for the former place. After the loss of a transport, and the greatest part of the soldiers on board, the troops arrived, and reembarked for Grand Pré in the district of Minas, in the latter end of December. … The issue was, that being cantoned at too great distances from each other, La Corne, a commander of the French, having intelligence of their situation, forced a march from Schiegnieto, through a most tempestuous snow-storm, and surprised them at midnight. After losing 160 of their men, in killed, wounded and prisoners, the party were obliged to capitulate, not, however, on dishonorable terms, and the French, in their turn, abandoned their post. On the 8th of May, 1749, peace was proclaimed at Boston [according to the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, concluded October 7, 1748], much to the mortification of the Provincials; Cape Breton was restored to France; and Louisburg, which had created so much dread, and inflicted such injuries on their commerce, was handed over to their inveterate enemies, to be rendered still stronger by additional fortifications. The French also obtained the islands of St. Pierre and Michelon, on the south coast of Newfoundland, as stations for their fisheries." England reimbursed the colonies to the extent of £183,000 for the expenses of their vain conquest of Louisburg, and £135,000 for their losses in raising troops under the orders that were revoked.

T. C. Haliburton, Rule and Misrule of the English in America, book 3, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: J. Hannay, History of Acadia, chapter 19.

S. G. Drake, Particular History of the Five Years French and Indian War, chapters 6-9.

J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, book 5, chapter 10 (volume 5).

See, also, AIX-LA-CHAPELLE: THE CONGRESS.

{2317}

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1750-1753. Dissensions among the colonies at the opening of the great French War.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1750-1753.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1754. The Colonial Congress at Albany. Franklin's Plan of Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1755-1760. The last Intercolonial, or French and Indian War, and English conquest of Canada.

See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, 1755; OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, 1755; CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1761. Harsh enforcement of revenue laws. The Writs of Assistance and Otis' speech.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1761.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1763-1764. Enforcement of the Sugar (or Molasses) Act.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1765-1766. The Stamp Act. Its effects and its repeal. The Stamp Act Congress. The Declaratory Act.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765: and 1766.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1766-1768. The Townshend duties. The Circular Letter of Massachusetts.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766-1767; and 1767-1768.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1768-1770. The quartering of troops in Boston. The "Massacre," and the removal of the troops.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1768; and 1770.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1769-1785. The ending of Slavery.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1638-1781; 1769-1785; and 1774.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1770-1773. Repeal of the Townshend duties except on Tea. Committees of Correspondence instituted. The Tea Ships and the Boston Tea-party.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1770, and 1772-1773; and BOSTON: A. D. 1773.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1774. The Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Act, and the Quebec Act. The First Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1775. The beginning of the War of the American Revolution. Lexington. Concord. The country in arms and Boston under siege. Ticonderoga. Bunker Hill. The Second Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1775-1783. The War of the Revolution. Independence achieved.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775 (APRIL), to 1783.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1787-1789. Formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787; and 1787-1789.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1808. The Embargo and its effects.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1804-1809; and 1808.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1812-1814. Federalist opposition to the war with England.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1814. The Hartford Convention.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER) THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1824-1828. Change of front on the tariff question.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES): A. D. 1816-1824; and 1828.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1831-1832. The rise of the Abolitionists.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1828-1832.

NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1861-1865. The war for the Union.

See, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL), and after.

----------NEW ENGLAND: End----------

NEW FOREST.

To create a new royal hunting ground in his English dominion, William the Conqueror ruthlessly demolished villages, manors, chapels, and parish churches throughout thirty miles of country, along the coast side of Hampshire, from the Avon on the west to Southampton Water on the east, and called this wilderness of his making, The New Forest. His son William Rufus was killed in it—which people thought to be a judgment. The New Forest still exists and embraces no less than 66,000 acres, extending over a district twenty miles by fifteen in area, of woodland, heath, bog and rough pasture.

J. C. Brown, Forests of England, part 1, chapter 2, D.

NEW FRANCE.

See CANADA.

NEW GRANADA.

See COLOMBIAN STATES.

----------NEW HAMPSHIRE: Start--------

NEW HAMPSHIRE: The aboriginal inhabitants. See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: ALGONQUIAN FAMILY.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1623-1631. Gorges' and Mason's grant and the division of it. First colonies planted. The naming of the province.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1621-1631.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1641-1679. The claims of Massachusetts asserted and defeated.

According to its terms, the Massachusetts patent embraced a territory extending northward three miles beyond the head-waters of the Merrimack, and covered, therefore, the greater part of Mason's New Hampshire grant, as well as that of Gorges in Maine. In 1641, when this fact had been ascertained, the General Court of Massachusetts "passed an order (with the consent of the settlers at Dover and Strawberry-bank, on the Piscataqua), 'That from thenceforth, the said people inhabiting there are and shall be accepted and reputed under the Government of the Massachusetts,' etc. Mason had died, and confusion ensued, so that the settlers were mostly glad of the transfer. A long controversy ensued between Mason's heirs and Massachusetts as to the right of jurisdiction. The history of New Hampshire and Maine at this period was much the same. In 1660, at the time of the Restoration, the heirs of Mason applied to the Attorney-General in England, who decided that they had a good title to New Hampshire. The Commissioners who came over in 1664 attempted to re-establish them; but as the settlers favored Massachusetts, she resumed her government when they left. Mason's heirs renewed their claim in 1675, and in 1679 it was solemnly decided against the claim of the Massachusetts Colony, although their grant technically included all lands extending to three miles north of the waters of the Merrimack river. John Cutt was the first President in New Hampshire, and thenceforward, to the American Revolution, New Hampshire was treated as a Royal province, the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors being appointed by the King, and the laws made by the people being subject to his revision."

C. W. Elliott, The New England History, volume 1, chapter 26.

ALSO IN: G. Barstow, History of New Hampshire, chapters 2-5.

J. Belknap, History of New Hampshire, volume 1, chapters 2-9.

N. Adams, Annals of Portsmouth, pages 28-64.

See, also, NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1640-1644.

{2318}

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1675. Outbreak of the Taranteens.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1675.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1744-1748. King George's War and the taking of Louisburg.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744; 1745; and 1745-1748.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1749-1774. Boundary dispute with New York. The grants in Vermont, and the struggle of the "Green Mountain Boys" to defend them.

See VERMONT: A. D. 1749-1774.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1754. The Colonial Congress at Albany, and Franklin's Plan of Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1755-1760. The French and Indian War, and conquest of Canada.

See CANADA: A. D. 1750-1753, to 1760; NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1749-1755, 1755; OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754, 1754, 1755; CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1760-1766. The question of taxation by Parliament. The Sugar Act. The Stamp Act and its repeal. The Declaratory Act. The Stamp Act Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775; 1763-1764; 1765; and 1766.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1766-1768. The Townshend duties. The Circular Letter of Massachusetts.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766-1767; and 1767-1768.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1768-1770. The quartering of troops in Boston. The "Massacre" and the removal of the troops.

See BOSTON: A. D. 1768; and 1770.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1770-1773. Repeal of the Townshend duties except on Tea. Committees of Correspondence instituted. The Tea Ships and the Boston Tea-party.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1770, and 1772-1773; and BOSTON: A. D. 1773.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1774. The Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Act, and the Quebec Act. The First Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1775. The beginning of the War of the American Revolution. Lexington. Concord. The country in arms and Boston beleaguered. Ticonderoga. Bunker Hill. The Second Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1775-1776. The end of royal government. Adoption of a constitution. Declaration of Independence.

The New Hampshire Assembly, called by Governor Wentworth, came together June 12, 1775, in the midst of the excitements produced by news of Lexington and Ticonderoga. Meantime, a convention of the people had been called and was sitting at Exeter. Acting on a demand from the latter, the assembly proceeded first to expel from its body three members whom the governor had called by the king's writ from three new townships, and who were notorious royalists. "One of the expelled members, having censured this proceeding, was assaulted by the populace, and fled for shelter to the governor's house. The people demanded him, and, being refused, they pointed a gun at the governor's door; whereupon the offender was surrendered and carried to Exeter. The governor retired to the fort, and his house was pillaged. He afterwards went on board the Scarborough and sailed for Boston. He had adjourned the assembly to the 28th of September. But they met no more. In September, he issued a proclamation from the Isles of Shoals, adjourning them to April next. This was the closing act of his administration. It was the last receding step of royalty. It had subsisted in the province 95 years. The government of New Hampshire was henceforth to be a government of the people. … The convention which had assembled at Exeter was elected but for six months. Previous to their dissolution in November, they made provisions, pursuant to the recommendations of congress, for calling a new convention, which should be a more full representation of the people. They sent copies of these provisions to the several towns, and dissolved. The elections were forthwith held. The new convention promptly assembled, and drew up a temporary form of government. Having assumed the name of 'House of Representatives,' they adopted a constitution [January, 1776], and proceeded to choose twelve persons to constitute a distinct and a co-ordinate branch of the legislature, by the name of a Council." The constitution provided for no executive. "The two houses assumed to themselves the executive duty during the session, and they appointed a committee of safety to sit in the recess, varying in number from six to sixteen, vested with executive powers. The president of the council was president of the executive committee. … On the 11th of June, 1776, a committee was chosen by the assembly, and another by the council of New Hampshire, 'to make a draught of a declaration of the independence of the united colonies.' On the 15th, the committees of both houses reported a 'Declaration of Independence,' which was adopted unanimously, and a copy sent forthwith to their delegates in congress."

G. Barstow, History of New Hampshire, chapter 9.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1776. The ending of Slavery.

See SLAVERY, NEGRO: A. D. 1769-1785.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1776-1783. The War of Independence. Peace with England.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776, to 1783.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1783. Revision of the State constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1779.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1788. Ratification of the Federal constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: A. D. 1814. The Hartford Convention.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (DECEMBER) THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.

----------NEW HAMPSHIRE: End--------

----------NEW HAVEN: Start--------

NEW HAVEN: A. D. 1638. The planting of the Colony and the founding of the City.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1638.

NEW HAVEN: A. D. 1639. The Fundamental Agreement.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1639.

NEW HAVEN: A. D. 1640-1655. The attempts at colonization on the Delaware.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1640-1655.

NEW HAVEN: A. D. 1643. Progress and state of the colony. The New England Confederation.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1643.

{2319}

NEW HAVEN: A. D. 1660-1664. The protection of the Regicides.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1660-1664.

NEW HAVEN: A. D. 1662-1664. Annexation to Connecticut.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1662-1664.

NEW HAVEN: A. D. 1666. The migration to Newark, N.J.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.

NEW HAVEN: A. D. 1779. Pillaged by Tryon's marauders.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778-1779 WASHINGTON GUARDING THE HUDSON.

----------NEW HAVEN: End--------

NEW HOPE CHURCH, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-SEPTEMBER: GEORGIA).

----------NEW JERSEY: Start--------

NEW JERSEY: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: DELAWARES.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1610-1664. The Dutch in possession. The Patroon colony at Pavonia.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614; and 1621-1646.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1620. Embraced in the patent of the Council for New England.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1634. Embraced in the Palatine grant of New Albion.

See NEW ALBION.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1635. Territory assigned to Lord Mulgrave on the dissolution of the Council for New England.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1635.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1640-1655. The attempted colonization from New Haven, on the Delaware.

The London merchants who formed the leading colonists of New Haven, and who were the wealthiest among the pioneer settlers of New England, had schemes of commerce in their minds, as well as desires for religious freedom, when they founded their little republic at Quinnipiac. They began with no delay to establish a trade with Barbadoes and Virginia, as well as along their own coasts; and they were promptly on the watch for advantageous openings at which to plant a strong trading-post or two among the Indians. In the winter of 1638-39, one George Lamberton of New Haven, while trafficking Virginia-wards, discovered the lively fur trade already made active on Delaware Bay by the Dutch and Swedes [see DELAWARE: A. D. 1638-1640], and took a hand in it. His enterprising townsmen, when they heard his report, resolved to put themselves at once on some kind of firm footing in the country where this profitable trade could be reached. They formed a "Delaware Company," in which the Governor, the minister, and all the chiefs of the colony were joined, and late in the year 1640 they sent a vessel into Delaware Bay, commanded by Captain Turner, who was one of their number. Captain Turner "was instructed by the Delaware Company to view and purchase lands at the Delaware Bay, and not to meddle with aught that rightfully belonged to the Swedes or Dutch. … But New Haven's captain paid little heed to boundaries. He bought of the Indians nearly the whole southwestern coast of New Jersey, and also a tract of land at Passayunk, on the present site of Philadelphia, and opposite the Dutch fort Nassau. … On the 30th of August, 1641, there was a Town-Meeting at New Haven, which voted to itself authority over the region of the Delaware Bay. The acts of the Delaware Company were approved, and 'Those to whome the affaires of the towne is committed' were ordered to 'Dispose of all the affayres of Delaware Bay.' The first instalment of settlers had previously gone to the Bay. Trumbull says that nearly fifty families removed. As they went by New Amsterdam, Governor Kieft issued an unavailing protest, which was met, however, by fair words. The larger portion of the party settled in a plantation on Varkin's Kill (Ferkenskill, Hog Creek?), near what is now Salem, New Jersey. A fortified trading-house was built or occupied at Passayunk. This was the era of Sir Edmund Plowden's shadowy Palatinate of New Albion, and, if there is any truth in the curious 'Description,' there would seem to be some connection between this fort of the New Haven settlers and Plowden's alleged colony." The Dutch and the Swedes, notwithstanding their mutual jealousies, made common cause against these New England intruders, and succeeded in breaking up their settlements., The exact occurrences are obscurely known, but it is certain that the attempted colonization was a failure, and that, "slowly, through the winter and spring of 1643, the major part of [the settlers] … straggled home to New Haven. … The poverty and distress were not confined to the twoscore households who had risked their persons in the enterprise. The ill-starred effort had impoverished the highest personages in the town, and crippled New Haven's best financial strength. "Yet the scheme of settlement on the Delaware was not abandoned. While claims against the Dutch for damages and for redress of wrongs were vigorously pressed, the town still looked upon the purchased territory as its own, and was resolute in the intention to occupy it. In 1651 a new expedition of fifty persons set sail for the Delaware, but was stopped at Manhattan by Peter Stuyvesant, and sent back, vainly raging at the insolence of the Dutch. All New England shared the wrath of New Haven, but confederated New England was not willing to move in the matter unless New Haven would pay the consequent costs. New Haven seemed rather more than half disposed to take up arms against New Netherland on her own responsibility; but her small quarrel was soon merged in the greater war which broke out between Holland and England. When this occurred, "concerted action on the part of the New Englanders would have given New Holland to the Allies, and extended New Haven's limits to the Delaware, without any one to gainsay or resist. After the Commissioners [of the United Colonies] declared for war, Massachusetts refused to obey, adopted the role of a secessionist, and checked the whole proceeding. New Haven, with whom the proposed war was almost a matter of life and death, was justified in adverting to the conduct of Massachusetts as 'A provoaking sinn against God, and of a scandalous nature before men.' The mutinous schemes of Roger Ludlow and of some New Haven malcontents complicated the problem still more both for Connecticut and New Haven. Finally, just as an army of 800 men was ready [1654] to march upon New Amsterdam, tidings came of a European peace, and New Haven's last chance was gone. But the town did not lose hope." Plans for a new colony were slowly matured through 1654 and 1655, but "the enterprise was completely thwarted by a series of untoward events," the most decisive of which was the conquest of New Sweden by Stuyvesant in October, 1655. "But the dream of Delaware was not forgotten."

C. H. Levermore, The Republic of New Haven, chapter 3, section 5.

ALSO IN: S. Hazard, Annals of Pennsylvania, pages 57-178.

{2320}

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667. The English occupation and proprietary grant to Berkeley and Carteret. The naming of the province. The Newark immigration from New Haven.

"Before the Duke of York was actually in possession of his easily acquired territory [of New Netherlands, or New York—see NEW YORK: A. D. 1664], on the 23d and 24th of June, 1664, he executed deeds of lease and release to Lord John Berkeley, Baron of Stratton, and Sir George Carteret, of Saltrum in Devon, granting to them, their heirs and assigns, all that portion of his tract 'lying and being to the westward of Long Island and Manhitas Island, and bounded on the east part by the main sea, and part by Hudson's river, and hath upon the west, Delaware bay or river, and extending southward to the main ocean as far as Cape May, at the mouth of Delaware bay; and to the northward, as far as the northernmost branch of the said bay or river of Delaware, which is 41° 40' of latitude, and crosseth over thence in a strait line to Hudson's river, in 41° of latitude; which said tract of land is hereafter to be called by the name or names of New Cæsarea, or New Jersey.' The name of 'Cæsarea' was conferred upon the tract in commemoration of the gallant defence of the Island of Jersey, in 1649, by Sir George Carteret, then its governor, against the Parliamentarians; but the people preferred the English name of New Jersey, and the other was consequently soon lost. The grant of the Duke of York from the crown conferred upon him, his heirs and assigns, among other rights appertaining thereto, that most important one of government; the power of hearing and determining appeals being reserved to the king; but, 'relying,' says Chalmers, 'on the greatness of his connection, he seems to have been little solicitous to procure the royal privileges conferred on the proprietors of Maryland and Carolina,' whose charters conferred almost unlimited authority. 'And while as counts-palatine they exercised every act of government in their own names, because they were invested with the ample powers possessed by the prætors of the Roman provinces, he ruled his territory in the name of the king.' In the transfer to Berkeley and Carteret, they, their heirs and assigns, were invested with all the powers conferred upon the duke. … Lord Berkeley and Sir George Carteret, now sole proprietors of New Jersey, on the 10th February 1664, signed a constitution, which they made public under the title of 'The Concessions and agreement of the Lords Proprietors of New Jersey, to and with all and every of the adventurers, and all such as shall settle and plant there.' … On the same day that this instrument was signed, Philip Carteret, a brother to Sir George, received a commission as governor of New Jersey. … The ship Philip, having on board about 30 people, some of them servants, and laden with suitable commodities, sailed from England in the summer, and arrived in safety at the place now known as Elizabethtown Point, or Elizabeth Port, in August of the same year. What circumstance led to the governor's selection of this spot for his first settlement, is not now known, but it was, probably, the fact of its having been recently examined and approved of by others. He landed, and gave to his embryo town the name of Elizabeth, after the lady of Sir George. … Governor Carteret, so soon as he became established at Elizabethtown, sent messengers to New England and elsewhere, to publish the concessions of the proprietors and to invite settlers. In consequence of this invitation and the favorable terms offered, the province soon received large additions to its population."

W. A. Whitehead, East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments (New Jersey Historical. Society Collections., volume 1), period 2.

"In August, 1665, he [Governor Carteret] sent letters to New England offering to settlers every civil and religious privilege. Mr. Treat and some of his friends immediately visited New Jersey. They bent their steps toward the New Haven property on the Delaware Bay, and selected a site for a settlement near what is now Burlington. Returning by way of Elizabeth, they met Carteret, and were by him influenced to locate on the Passaic River. … Early in the spring of 1666, the remnant of the old New Haven, the New Haven of 1638, under the leadership of Robert Treat and Mathew Gilbert, sailed into the Passaic. … In June, 1667, the entire force of the little colony was gathered together in their new abode, to which the name 'Newark' was applied, in honor of Mr. Pierson's English home. [Mr. Pierson was the minister at Branford, in the New Haven colony, and his flock migrated with him to Newark almost bodily.] The Fundamental Agreement was revised and enlarged, the most notable expansion being the following article: 'The planters agree to submit to such magistrates as shall be annually chosen by the Friends from among themselves, and to such Laws as we had in the place whence we came.' Sixty-four men wrote their names under this Bill of Rights, of whom 23 were from Branford, and the remaining 41 from New Haven, Milford, and Guilford. Most of them were probably heads of families, and, in all the company, but six were obliged to make their marks. … It seems to me that, after 1666, the New Haven of Davenport and Eaton must be looked for upon the banks, not of the Quinnipiac, but of the Passaic. The men, the methods, the laws, the officers, that made New Haven Town what it was in 1640, disappeared from the Connecticut Colony, but came to full life again immediately in New Jersey. … Newark was not so much the product as the continuation of New Haven."

C. H. Levermore, The Republic of New Haven, chapter 4, section 6.

ALSO IN: Documents Relating to the Colonial History New Jersey, volume 1.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1673. The Dutch reconquest.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1673-1682. The sale to new Proprietors, mostly Quakers, and division of the province into East Jersey and West Jersey. The free constitution of West Jersey.

In 1673 Lord Berkeley, one of the original proprietors, "sold his one-half interest in the Province for less than $5,000. John Fenwick and Edward Byllinge, two English Quakers, were the purchasers. A dispute arose between the new proprietors about the division of their property, and William Penn, who afterward became the founder of Pennsylvania, was chosen arbitrator to settle the difficulty, and succeeded to the satisfaction of all parties interested. Fenwick sailed from London, in 1675, in the ship 'Griffith,' with his family and a small company of Quakers. This was the first English vessel that came to New Jersey with immigrants. {2321} The party sailed up the Delaware bay, and, entering a creek, landed on its banks three miles and a half from the Delaware. This creek, and the settlement founded on it, Fenwick named Salem. This was the first English settlement permanently established in West Jersey."

J. R. Sypher and E. A. Apgar, History of New Jersey, chapter 1.

In July, 1676, the province was divided, Philip Carteret taking East Jersey, and the successors of Berkeley taking West Jersey. "Thereupon, Carteret, by will, devised his plantation of New Jersey to trustees to be sold for certain purposes, by him stated, in 1681-2. … He had not a peaceable time. Indeed, anything like constant peace was the lot of very few of New Jersey's early Governors. Governor Andros, of New York, disputed Carteret's authority; nay, failing by peaceable means to gain his point, he sent a party of soldiers by night [1678], who dragged Carteret from his bed, carried him to New York, and there kept him close until a day was set on which he was tried before his opponent himself in the New York Courts, and three times acquitted by the jury, who were sent back with directions to convict, but firmly each time refused. The authority of Carteret was confirmed by the Duke of York, and Andros was recalled. … The trustees of Sir George Carteret could not make sale of East Jersey. After ineffectual attempts at private sale they offered it at public auction, and William Penn and eleven associates, most if not all Quakers, bought it for £3,400. It was too heavy a purchase, apparently, for their management. Each sold half his right to another, and so were constituted the twenty-four Proprietors. They procured a deed of confirmation from the Duke of York March 14th, 1682, and then the twenty-four Lords Proprietors by sealed instrument established a council, gave them power to appoint overseers, and displace all officers necessary to manage their property, to take care of their lands, deed them, appoint dividends, settle the rights of particular Proprietors in such dividends, grant warrants of survey, in fine, to do everything necessary for the profitable disposition of all the territory. … The new Proprietors were men of rank. William Penn is known to all the world. With him were James, Earl of Perth, John Drummond, Robert Barclay, famous, like Penn, as a Quaker gentleman, and a controversialist for Quaker belief; David Barclay. … Each Proprietor had a twenty-fourth interest in the property, inheritable, divisible, and assignable, as if it were a farm instead of a province. And by these means the estate has come down to those who now own the property. … In New Jersey … our Legislature has nothing at all to do with our waste or unappropriated land. It all belongs to the Proprietors, to those, namely, who own what are known as Proprietary rights, or rights of Proprietorship, and is subject to the disposition of the Board of Proprietors. … What is left in their control is now [1884] of comparatively slight value."

C. Parker, Address, Bi-Centennial Celebration of the Board of American Proprietors of East New Jersey.

The division line between East Jersey and West Jersey, as established by the agreement between the Proprietors, began at Little Egg Harbor and extended northwestward to a point on the Delaware river in 41 degrees of north latitude. "After this line had been established, John Fenwick's interest in West Jersey was conveyed to John Eldridge and Edmund Warner in fee, and they were admitted into the number of proprietors. In order to establish a government for the Province of West Jersey, provisional authority was given to Richard Hartshore and Richard Guy, residents of East Jersey, and to James Wasse, who was sent especially from England to act on behalf of the proprietors. These persons were commissioned on the 18th of August, 1676, by Byllinge and his trustees, in conjunction with Eldridge and Warner, and full power was given them to conduct the affairs of the government in accordance with instructions from the proprietors. Fenwick, who had founded a settlement at Salem, refused to recognize the transfer of his portion of the Province to Eldridge and Warner, and declared himself to be independent of this new government. It therefore became the first duty of the commissioners to settle this difficulty. All efforts, however, for that purpose failed. The original plan of the government was devised by William Penn and his immediate associates. It was afterward approved by all the proprietors interested in the Province, and was first published on the 3d of March, 1676, as 'The Concessions and Agreements of the proprietors, freeholders and inhabitants of the Province of West Jersey in America.' This constitution declared that no man or number of men on earth had power or authority to rule over men's consciences in religious matters; and that no person or persons within the Province should be in any wise called in question or punished, in person, estate or privilege, on account of opinion, judgment, faith or worship toward God in matters of religion. … That all the inhabitants of the Province should have the right to attend court and be present at all proceedings, 'to the end that Justice may not be done in a corner, nor in any covert manner.' … The executive authority of the government was lodged in the hands of commissioners, to be appointed at first by the proprietors or a majority of them; but after the further settlement of the Province they were to be chosen by the resident proprietors and inhabitants, on the 25th of March of each year. The first election for commissioners occurred in 1680. … One of the most remarkable features in this instrument is the fact that no authority is retained by the proprietary body. 'We put the power in the people,' was the language of the fundamental law."

J. R. Sypher and E. A. Apgar, History of New Jersey, chapter 3.

ALSO IN: W. A. Whitehead, East Jersey under the Proprietary Governments, pages 66-99.

Documents Relating to the Colonial History of New Jersey, volume 1.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1674. Final recovery by the English.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1688. Joined with New England under the Governorship of Andros.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1688.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1688-1738. Extinguishment of the Proprietary political powers. Union of the two Jerseys in one royal province.

"In New Jersey, had the proprietary power been vested in the people or reserved to one man, it might have survived, but it was divided among speculators in land, who, as a body, had gain, and not the public welfare, for their end. In April, 1688, 'the proprietors of East New Jersey had surrendered their pretended right of government,' and the surrender had been accepted. {2322} In October of the same year, the council of the proprietaries of West New Jersey voted to the secretary-general for the dominion of New England the custody of 'all records relating to government.' Thus the whole province fell, with New York and New England, under the government of Andros. At the revolution, therefore [the English Revolution of 1688-89], the sovereignty over New Jersey had reverted to the crown; and the legal maxim, soon promulgated by the board of trade, that the domains of the proprietaries might be bought and sold, but not their executive power, weakened their attempts at the recovery of authority, and consigned the colony to a temporary anarchy. A community of husbandmen may be safe for a short season with little government. For twelve years, the province was not in a settled condition. From June, 1689, to August, 1692, East New Jersey had apparently no superintending administration, being, in time of war, destitute of military officers as well as of magistrates with royal or proprietary commissions. They were protected by their neighbors from external attacks: and there is no reason to infer that the several towns failed to exercise regulating powers within their respective limits. … The proprietaries, threatened with the ultimate interference of parliament in provinces 'where,' it was said, 'no regular government had ever been established,' resolved to resign their pretensions. In their negotiations with the crown, they wished to insist that there should be a triennial assembly: but King William, though he had against his inclination approved triennial parliaments for England, would never consent to them in the plantations. In 1702, the first year of Queen Anne, the surrender took place before the privy council. The domain, ceasing to be connected with proprietary powers, was, under the rules of private right, confirmed to its possessors, and the decision has never been disturbed. The surrender of 'the pretended' rights to government being completed, the two Jerseys were united in one province; and the government was conferred on Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, who, like Queen Anne, was the grandchild of Clarendon. Retaining its separate legislature, the province had for the next thirty-six years the same governors as New York. It never again obtained a charter: the royal commission of April 1702, and the royal instructions to Lord Cornbury, constituted the form of its administration. To the governor appointed by the crown belonged the power of legislation, with consent of the royal council and the representatives of the people. … The freemen of the colony were soon conscious of the diminution of their liberties."

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (author's last revision), part 3, chapter 2 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. O. Raum, History of New Jersey, chapter 8 (volume 1).

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1711. Queen Anne's War.

See CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1744-1748. King George's War.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744; 1745: and 1745-1748.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1760-1766. The question of taxation by Parliament. The Sugar Act. The Stamp Act and its repeal. The Declaratory Act. The First Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775: 1763-1764; 1765; and 1766.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1766-1774. Opening events of the Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766-1767, to 1774: and BOSTON: A. D. 1768, to 1773.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1774-1776. End of royal government. Adoption of a State Constitution.

In the person of William Franklin, unworthy son of Benjamin Franklin, New Jersey was afflicted, at the outbreak of the Revolutionary struggle, with an arbitrary and obstinately royalist governor. Finding the assembly of the colony refractory and independent, he refused to convene it in 1774, when the people desired to send delegates to the Continental Congress. Thereupon a convention was held at New Brunswick; and this body not only commissioned delegates to the general Congress, but appointed a "general committee of correspondence" for the Province. The committee, in May of the following year, called together, at Trenton, a second Provincial Convention, which took to itself the title of the "Provincial Congress of New Jersey," and assumed the full authority of all the branches of the government, providing for the defense of the Province and taking measures to carry out the plans of the Continental Congress. "Governor Franklin convened the Legislature on the 16th of November, 1775. No important business was transacted, and on the 6th of December the Assembly was prorogued by the governor to meet on the 3d of January, 1776, but it never reassembled, and this was the end of Provincial legislation in New Jersey under royal authority. … Though the Provincial Congress of New Jersey had to a great extent assumed the control of public affairs in the Province, it had not renounced the royal authority. … On the 24th of June, a committee was appointed to draft a constitution. … New Jersey was, however, not yet disposed to abandon all hopes of reconciliation with the Crown, and therefore provided in the last article of this constitution that the instrument should become void whenever the king should grant a full redress of grievances, and agree to administer the government of New Jersey in accordance with the constitution of England and the rights of British subjects. But, on the 18th of July, 177[6] the Provincial Congress assumed the title of 'The Convention of the State of New Jersey,' declared the State to be independent of royal authority, and directed that all official papers, acts of Assembly and other public documents should be made in the name and by the authority of the State." Before this occurred, however, Governor Franklin had been placed under arrest, by order of Congress, and sent to Connecticut, where he was released on parole. He sailed immediately for England. "When the State government was organized under the new constitution, the Legislature enacted laws for the arrest and punishment of all persons who opposed its authority."

J. R. Sypher and E. A. Apgar, History of New Jersey, chapters 10-11.

ALSO IN: T. F. Gordon, History of New Jersey, chapter 12.

See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1779.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1775. The beginning of the War of the American Revolution. Lexington. Concord. Siege of Boston. Ticonderoga. Bunker Hill. The Second Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.

{2323}

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1776-1778. The battle ground of Washington campaigns.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776; 1776-1777; and 1778 (JUNE).

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1777-1778. Withholding ratification from the Articles of Confederation.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1778-1779. British raids from New York.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1778-1779.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1778-1783. The war on the Hudson, on the Delaware, and in the South. Surrender of Cornwallis. Peace with Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778, to 1783.

NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1787. Ratification of the Federal Constitution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.

----------NEW JERSEY: End----------

NEW MADRID, The capture of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MARCH-APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

NEW MARKET, OR GLENDALE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JUNE-JULY: VIRGINIA).

NEW MARKET (Shenandoah Valley), Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (MAY-JUNE: VIRGINIA) THE CAMPAIGNING IN THE SHENANDOAH.

----------NEW MEXICO: Start----------

NEW MEXICO: Aboriginal Inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: PUEBLOS, APACHE GROUP, and SHOSHONEAN FAMILY.

NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1846. The American conquest and occupation by Kearney's expedition.

"While the heaviest fighting [of the Mexican War] was going on in Old Mexico [see MEXICO: A. D. 1846-1847], the Government [of the United States] easily took possession of New Mexico and California, by means of expeditions organized on the remote frontiers. New Mexico was wanted for the emigration to the Pacific. If we were to have California we must also have the right of way to it. In the hands of the Spaniards, New Mexico barred access to the Pacific so completely that the oldest travelled route was scarcely known to Americans at all, and but little used by the Spaniards themselves. If now we consult a map of the United States it is seen that the thirty-fourth parallel crosses the Mississippi at the mouth of the Arkansas, cuts New Mexico in the middle, and reaches the Pacific near Los Angeles. It was long the belief of statesmen that the great tide of emigration must set along this line, because it had the most temperate climate, was shorter, and would be found freer from hardship than the route by way of the South Pass. This view had set on foot the exploration of the Arkansas and Red Rivers. But if we except the little that Pike and Long had gathered, almost nothing was known about it. Yet the prevailing belief gave New Mexico, as related to California, an exceptional importance. These considerations weighed for more than acquisition of territory, though the notion that New Mexico contained very rich silver-mines undoubtedly had force in determining its conquest. … With this object General Kearney marched from Fort Leavenworth in June, 1846, for Santa Fe, at the head of a force of which a battalion of Mormons formed part. After subduing New Mexico, Kearney was to go on to California, and with the help of naval forces already sent there, for the purpose, conquer that country also. … General Kearney marched by the Upper Arkansas, to Bent's Fort, and from Bent's Fort over the old trail through El Moro and Las Vegas, San Miguel and Old Pecos, without meeting the opposition he expected, or at any time seeing any considerable body of the enemy. On the 18th of August, as the sun was setting, the stars and stripes were unfurled over the palace of Santa Fe, and New Mexico was declared annexed to the United States. Either the home government thought New Mexico quite safe from attack, or, having decided to reserve all its strength for the main conflict, had left this province to its fate. After organizing a civil government, and appointing Charles Bent of Bent's Fort, governor, General Kearney broke up his camp at Santa Fe, September 25. His force was now divided. One part, under Colonel Doniphan, was ordered to join General Wool in Chihuahua. A second detachment was left to garrison Santa Fe, while Kearney went on to California with the rest of his troops. The people everywhere seemed disposed to submit quietly, and as most of the pueblos soon proffered their allegiance to the United States Government, little fear of an outbreak was felt. Before leaving the valley, a courier was met bearing the news that California also had submitted to us without striking a blow. This information decided General Kearney to send back most of his remaining force, while with a few soldiers only he continued his march through what is now Arizona for the Pacific."

S. A. Drake, The Making of the Great West, pages 251-255.

ALSO IN: H. O. Ladd, History of the War with Mexico, chapters 9-12.

P. St. G. Cooke, The Conquest of New Mexico and California.

H. H. Bancroft, History of the Pacific States, volume 12, chapter 17.

H. O. Ladd, The Story of New Mexico, chapter 16.

NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1848. Cession to the United States.

See MEXICO: A. D. 1848.

NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1850. Territorial organization.

See UTAH: A. D. 1849-1850.

NEW MEXICO: A. D. 1875-1894. Prospective admission to the Union.

A bill to admit New Mexico to the Union as a state was passed by both houses of Congress in 1875, but failed in consequence of an amendment made in the Senate too late for action upon it in the House of Representatives. Attempts to convert the scantily populated territory into a state were then checked for several years. At this writing (July 1894) a bill for organizing and admitting the state of New Mexico has again passed the House of Representatives, and is likely to have a favorable vote in the Senate.

----------NEW MEXICO: End----------

NEW MODEL, The.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JANUARY-APRIL).

NEW NETHERLAND.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614.

NEW ORANGE.

See NEW YORK: A. D. 1673.

----------NEW ORLEANS: Start--------

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1718. The founding of the city.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1717-1718.

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1763. Reserved from the cession to England in the Treaty of Paris, and transferred with western Louisiana to Spain.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES.

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1768-1769. Revolt against the Spanish rule. A short-lived Republic and its tragic ending.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1766-1768; and 1769.

{2324}

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1785-1803. Fickle treatment of American traders.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1785-1800; and 1798-1803.

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1798-1804. Transferred to France and sold to the United States. Incorporation as a city.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1789-1803; and 1804-1812.

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1815. Jackson's defense of the city and great victory. See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1815 (JANUARY).

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1862 (April). Farragut's capture of the city.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (APRIL: ON THE MISSISSIPPI).

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1862 (May-December). The rule of General Butler.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (MAY-DECEMBER: LOUISIANA).

NEW ORLEANS: A. D. 1866. Riot and massacre.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1865-1867.

----------NEW ORLEANS: End--------

NEW PLYMOUTH.

See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1621, and after.

NEW SCOTLAND.

See NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1621-1668.

----------NEW SOUTH WALES: Start--------

NEW SOUTH WALES: A. D. 1770-1788. The discovery. The naming. The first settlement.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1601-1800.

NEW SOUTH WALES: A. D. 1850. Separation of the Colony of Victoria.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1839-1855.

NEW SOUTH WALES: A. D. 1859. Separation of the Moreton Bay District and its erection into the Colony of Queensland.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1859.

NEW SOUTH WALES: A. D. 1890. Characteristics. Comparative view.

See AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1890.

----------NEW SOUTH WALES: End--------

NEW SPAIN: The name given at first to Yucatan, and afterwards to the province won by Cortes.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1517-1518; and MEXICO: A. D. 1521-1524.

NEW STYLE.

See CALENDAR, GREGORIAN.

NEW SWEDEN.

See DELAWARE: A. D. 1638-1640.

NEW WORLD, The: First use of the phrase.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1500-1514.

----------NEW YORK: Start--------

NEW YORK: The aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, ALGONQUIAN FAMILY, HURONS, &c., HORIKANS; and MANHATTAN ISLAND.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1498. Probable discovery of the Bay by Sebastian Cabot.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1498.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1524. The Bay visited by Verrazano.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1523-1524.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1606. Embraced in the territory granted by King James I. of England to the Plymouth or North Virginia Company.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1606-1607.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1609. Discovery and exploration of Hudson River by Hendrik Hudson, in the service of Holland.

"Early in September, 1609, the ship 'Half-Moon,' restlessly skirting the American coast, in the vain quest for a strait or other water route leading to India, came to the mouth of a great lonely river, flowing silently out from the heart of the unknown continent. The 'Half-Moon' was a small, clumsy, high-pooped yacht, manned by a score of Dutch and English sea-dogs, and commanded by an English adventurer then in Dutch pay, and known to his employers as Hendrik Hudson. … Hudson, on coming to the river to which his name was afterward given, did not at first know that it was a river at all; he believed and hoped that it was some great arm of the sea, that in fact it was the Northwest Passage to India, which he and so many other brave men died in vainly trying to discover. … Hudson soon found that he was off the mouth of a river, not a strait; and he spent three weeks in exploring it, sailing up till the shoaling water warned him that he was at the head of navigation, near the present site of Albany. … Having reached the head of navigation the 'Half-Moon' turned her bluff bows southward, and drifted down stream with the rapid current until she once more reached the bay. … Early in October, Hudson set out on his homeward voyage to Holland, where the news of his discovery excited much interest among the daring merchants, especially among those whose minds were bent on the fur-trade. Several of the latter sent small ships across to the newly found bay and river, both to barter with the savages and to explore and report further upon the country. The most noted of these sea-captains who followed Hudson, was Adrian Block."

T. Roosevelt, New York, chapter 1.

ALSO IN: R. Juet, Journal of Hudson's Voyage (New York Historical Society Collection, series 2, volume 1).

See AMERICA: A. D. 1609.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1609-1615. Champlain and the French in the North.

See CANADA: A. D. 1608-1611; and 1611-1616.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1610-1614. Possession taken by the Dutch. Named New Netherland.

"The gallant and enterprising people under whose auspices Hudson had achieved his brilliant discovery [of the Hudson River] had just emerged from a long, bloody, but glorious contest for freedom, which they had waged with dogged determination against Spain since 1566. …

See NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1562-1566, and after.

It was at this crisis, when peace had at length returned, after an absence of more than forty years, and when numbers of people must, by the transition, have found themselves deprived of their accustomed active employment and habitual excitement, that the intelligence of Hudson's discovery broke on the public, affording to private adventure a new field. … The commodities which abounded among the natives of the newly discovered countries were objects of great demand in Europe. The furs that the rigors of the northern climate rendered indispensable to the inhabitants of Holland, and which they had hitherto obtained through Russian and other traders, were to be had now from the Indians in exchange for the veriest baubles and coarsest goods. Stimulated by these considerations, … a vessel was despatched by some Amsterdam merchants, freighted with a variety of goods, to the Manhattans, in the course of the following year [1610]. The success of this venture seems to have given increased stimulus to the spirit of enterprise. {2325} New discoveries were projected; licenses were granted by the States-General, on the recommendation of the Admiralty, to two ships, the Little Fox and Little Crane, ostensibly to look again for a northerly passage to China; and the cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Hoorn, and Enckhuyzen, as well as several private merchants and citizens, applied for information to the States of Holland and West Friesland, relative to a certain newly discovered navigable river, and the proper course to be steered in proceeding thither. These ships proceeded, on procuring the requisite information, to that quarter early in the ensuing spring; and of so much importance was the country now considered, that the traders erected and garrisoned one or two small forts on the river, for the protection of the fur-trade. … The favorable position of the island of Manhattan for commerce was easily perceived by the Europeans from the first, and it soon became the head-quarters of the traders. Their establishment in that locality consisted now [1613] of four houses, under the superintendence of Hendrick Corstiaensen, who, by means of his trading-boats, visited every creek, inlet, and bay in the neighborhood, where an Indian settlement was to be found, and thus secured for his employers the furs and other valuable produce of the country. But the growing prosperity of the infant post was now fated to experience an unexpected check. Captain Argal, of Virginia, returning in the month of November of this year from a seemingly predatory visit to a settlement which the French had made at Port Royal, in Acadia, touched at the island of Manhattans, with a view, it is said, of looking after a grant of land which he had obtained there from the Virginia Company, and forced Corstiaensen to submit himself and his plantation to the king of England, and to the governor of Virginia under him, and to agree to pay tribute in token of his dependence on the English crown. … Active steps were taken, early in the next year, to obtain an exclusive right to the trade of those distant countries," and in March, 1614, the States General passed an ordinance conferring on those who should discover new lands the exclusive privilege of making four voyages thither before others could have admission to the traffic. This ordinance "excited considerable animation and activity among adventurers. A number of merchants belonging to Amsterdam and Hoorn fitted out and dispatched five ships: namely, the Little Fox, the Nightingale, the Tiger, and the Fortune, the two last under the command of Adriaen Block and Hendrick Corstiaensen, of Amsterdam. The fifth vessel was called the Fortune also; she belonged to Hoorn, and was commanded by Captain Cornelis Jacobsen Mey. The three last-named and now well-known navigators proceeded immediately on an exploring expedition to the mouth of the Great River of the Manhattans, but Block had the misfortune, soon after his arrival there, of losing his vessel, which was accidentally burnt. … He forthwith set about constructing a yacht, 38 feet keel, 44½ feet long, and 11½ feet wide, which, when completed, he called the 'Restless,' significant of his own untiring industry. … In this craft, the first specimen of European naval architecture in these waters, Skipper Block proceeded to explore the coast east of Manhattan Island. He sailed along the East River, to which he gave the name of 'The Hellegat,' after a branch of the river Scheld, in East Flanders; and leaving Long Island, then called Metoac, or 'Sewan-hacky, 'the land of shells,' on the south, he discovered the Housatonick, or river of the Red Mountain." Proceeding eastwardly, Block found the Connecticut River, which he named Fresh River, and ascended it to an Indian village at 41° 48'. Passing out of the Sound, and ascertaining the insular character of Long Island, he gave his own name to one of the two islands off its eastern extremity. After exploring Narragansett Bay, he went on to Cape Cod, and there fell in with Hendrick Corstiaensen's ship. "While these navigators were thus engaged at the east, Captain Cornelis Mey was actively employed in exploring the Atlantic coast farther south. … He reached the great Delaware Bay, … two capes of which still commemorate his visit; one, the most northward, being called after him, Cape Mey; another, Cape Cornelis; while the great south cape was called Hindlopen, after one of the towns in the province of Friesland. … Intelligence of the discoveries made by Block and his associates having been transmitted to Holland, was received there early in the autumn of this year [1614]. The united company by whom they had been employed lost no time in taking the steps necessary to secure to themselves the exclusive trade of the countries thus explored, which was guarantied to them by the ordinance of the 27th of March. They sent deputies immediately to the Hague, who laid before the States General a report of their discoveries, as required by law, with a figurative map of the newly explored countries, which now, for the first time, obtained the name of New Netherland. A special grant in favor of the interested parties was forthwith accorded … to visit and trade with the countries in America lying between 40° and 45° north latitude, of which they strangely claimed to be the first discoverers."

E. B. O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, book 1, chapter 4 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: Documents Relating to Colonial History of New York, volume 1, pages 4-12.

B. Fernow, New Netherland (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 4, chapter 8).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1614-1621. The first trading monopoly succeeded by the Dutch West India Company.

"It was perceived that, to secure the largest return from the peltry trade, a factor should reside permanently on the Mauritius River [North, or Hudson, as it has been successively called], among the Maquaas or Mohawks, and the Mahicans, at the head of tide-water. Hendrick Christiaensen, who, after his first experiment in company with Adriaen Block, is stated to have made 'ten voyages' to Manhattan, accordingly constructed [1614] a trading house on 'Castle Island,' at the west side of the river, a little below the present city of Albany. … To compliment the family of the stadtholder, the little post was immediately named Fort Nassau. … It has been confidently affirmed that the year after the erection of Fort Nassau, at Castle Island, a redoubt was also thrown up and fortified 'on an elevated spot' near the southern point of Manhattan Island. But the assertion does not appear to be confirmed by sufficient authority. … The Holland merchants, who had obtained from the States General the exclusive right of trading for three years to New Netherland, though united together in one company to secure the grant of their charter, were not strictly a corporation, but rather 'participants' in a specific, limited, and temporary monopoly, which they were to enjoy in common. … {2326} On the 1st of January, 1618, the exclusive charter of the Directors of New Netherland expired by its own limitation. Year by year the value of the returns from the North River had been increasing; and the hope of larger gains incited the factors of the company to push their explorations further into the interior. … No systematic agricultural colonization of the country had yet been undertaken. The scattered agents of the Amsterdam Company still looked merely to peaceful traffic, and the cultivation of those friendly relations which had been covenanted with their savage allies on the banks of the Tawasentha [where they had negotiated a treaty of friendship and alliance with the Five Nations of the Iroquois, in 1617]. Upon the expiration of their special charter, the merchants who had formed the United New Netherland Company applied to the government at the Hague for a renewal of their privileges, the value of which they found was daily increasing. But the States General, who were now contemplating the grant of a comprehensive charter for a West India Company avoided a compliance with the petition." In June, 1621, "the long-pending question of a grand commercial organization was finally settled; and an ample charter gave the West India Company almost unlimited powers to colonize, govern, and defend New Netherland."

J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of New York, volume 1, chapters 2-3.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1615-1664. Dutch relations with the Iroquois.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY, THEIR CONQUESTS.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1620. Embraced in the English patent of the Council for New England.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1620-1623.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1621-1646. Early operations of the Dutch West India Company. The purchase of Manhattan Island. The Patroons and their colonies.

"When it became evident that the war [of the United Provinces] with Spain would be renewed, the way was opened for the charter of a company, so often asked and denied. Just before the expiration of the twelve years' truce, April, 1621, the great West India Company was formed, and incorporated by the States General. It was clothed with extraordinary powers and privileges. It could make alliances and treaties, declare war and make peace. Although its field of operations was limited to Africa, the West India Islands, and the continent of America, it could in case of war fight the Spaniards wherever found on land or sea. And finally, it was permitted to colonize unoccupied or subjugated countries. To it especially were committed the care and the colonization of New Netherland. The West India Company, after completing its organization in 1623, began its work in New Netherland by erecting a fort on Manhattan Island [called Fort Amsterdam], and another on the Delaware, and by reconstructing the one at Albany. It sent over to be distributed in these places 30 families, not strictly as colonists, to settle and cultivate the land, but rather as servants of the Company, in charge of their factories, engaged in the purchase and preparation of furs and peltries for shipment. Some of them returned home at the expiration of their term of service, and no other colonists were brought out for several years. The Company found more profitable employment for its capital in fitting out fleets of ships of war, which captured the Spanish treasure-ships, and thus enabled the Company to pay large dividends to its stockholders. In 1626 its agents bought all Manhattan Island of the Indian owners for sixty guilders in goods on which an enormous profit was made; and about the same time they purchased other tracts of land in the vicinity, including Governor's and Staten Islands, on similar terms. The Company was now possessed of lands enough for the accommodation of a large population. They were fertile, and only needed farmers to develop their richness. But these did not come. … Accordingly, in 1629, the managers took up a new line of action. They enacted a statute, termed 'Freedoms and Exemptions,' which authorized the establishment of colonies within their territory by individuals, who were to be known as Patroons, or Patrons. An individual might purchase of the Indian owners a tract of land, on which to plant a colony of fifty souls within four years from the date of purchase. He who established such a colony might associate with himself other persons to assist him in his work, and share the profits, but he should be considered the Patroon, or chief, in whom were centred all the rights pertaining to the position, such as the administration of justice, the appointment of civil and military officers, the settlement of clergymen, and the like. He was a kind of feudal lord, owing allegiance to the West India Company, and to the States General, but independent of control within the limits of his own territory. The system was a modified relic of feudalism. The colonists were not serfs, but tenants for a specified term of years, rendering service to the Patroon for a consideration. When their term of service expired, they were free to renew the contract, make a new one, or leave the colony altogether. The privileges of a Patroon at first were restricted to the members of the company, but in about ten years were extended to others. The directors of the company were the first to improve the opportunity now offered of becoming 'princes and potentates' in the western hemisphere. … In 1630, the agents of Director Killian Van Rensselaer bought a large tract of land on the west side of the Hudson River below Albany, and in July following other tracts on both sides of the river, including the present site of Albany. In July, 1630, Director Michael Paauw bought lands on the west side of the Hudson opposite Manhattan Island, and named his territory Pavonia. A few months later Staten Island was transferred to him, and became a part of his domain. … Killian Van Rensselaer also formed a partnership with several of his brother directors, among whom was the historian De Laet, for the purpose of planting a colony on his lands on the upper Hudson, to be known as the colony of Rensselaerwyck. He seems to have had a clearer perception of what was required for such a work than the other Patroons. The colony was organized in accordance with the charter, and on business principles. Before the colonists left Holland they were assigned to specific places and duties. Civil and military officers were appointed, superintendents and overseers of the various departments were selected, and all were instructed in their duties. The number of the first colonists was respectable. {2327} They were chiefly farmers and mechanics, with their families. On their arrival, May, 1630, farms situated on either side the river were allotted to them, utensils and stock distributed, houses built, and arrangements made for their safety in case the natives should become hostile. Order was maintained, and individual rights respected. They were not long in settling down, each to his allotted work. Year by year new colonists arrived, and more lands were bought for the proprietors. In 1646, when Killian Van Rensselaer, the first Patroon, died, over two hundred colonists had been sent from Holland, and a territory forty-eight by twenty-four miles, besides another tract of 62,000 acres, had been acquired. The West India Company had changed its policy under the direction of new men, and no longer favored the Patroons. The Van Rensselaers were much annoyed, and even persecuted, but they held firmly to their rights under the charter. Their colony was prosperous, and their estate in time became enormous. … Of all the Patroon colonies Rensselaerwyck alone survived. It owed its existence mainly to its management, but largely to its situation, remote from the seat of government, and convenient for the Indian trade."

G. W. Schuyler, Colonial New York, introduction, section 1.

ALSO IN: I. Elting, Dutch Village Communities on the Hudson, pages 12-16.

J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of New York, volume 1, chapter 7.

See, also, LIVINGSTON MANOR.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1629-1631. Dutch occupancy of the Delaware.

See DELAWARE: A. D. 1629-1631.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1630. Introduction of public registry.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1630-1641.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1634. The city named New Amsterdam.

Soon after the appointment of Wouter Van Twiller, who became governor of New Netherland in 1633, "the little town on Manhattan Island received the name of New Amsterdam … and was invested with the prerogative of 'staple right,' by virtue of which all the merchandise passing up and down the river was subject to certain duties. This right gave the post the commercial monopoly of the whole province."

Mrs. Lamb, History of the City of New York, volume 1, page 73.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1634-1635. Dutch advance posts on the Connecticut.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1634-1637.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1635. Territory granted to Lord Lennox and Lord Mulgrave, on the dissolution of the Council for New England.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1635.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1638. Protest against the Swedish settlement on the Delaware.

See DELAWARE: A. D. 1638-1640.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1638-1647. The colony thrown open to free immigration and free trade. Kieft's administration, and the ruinous Indian wars.

"The colony did not thrive. The patroon system kept settlers away, and the paternal government of a trading corporation checked all vigorous and independent growth, while Van Twiller [Wouter Van Twiller, appointed governor in 1633] went steadily from bad to worse. He engaged in childish quarrels with everyone, from the minister down. … This utter misgovernment led at last to Van Twiller's removal. He retired in possession of large tracts of land, which he had succeeded in acquiring, and was replaced [1638] by William Kieft, a bankrupt merchant of bad reputation. Kieft practically abolished the Council, and got all power into his own hands; but he had some sense of order. … Despite his improvements, the place remained a mere trading-post, and would not develope into a colony. The patroons were the curse of the scheme, and too powerful to be overthrown; so they proposed, as a remedy for the existing evils, that their powers and privileges should be greatly enlarged. The Company had bought back some of the lands; but they were still helpless, and the State would do nothing for them. In this crisis they had a return of good sense, and solved the problem by destroying their stifling monopoly. They threw the trade to New Netherlands open to all comers, and promised the absolute ownership of land on the payment of a small quit-rent. The gates were open at last, and the tide of emigration swept in. De Vries who had bought land on Staten Island, came out with a company; while ship followed ship filled with colonists, and English came from Virginia, and still more from New England. Men of property and standing began to turn their attention to the New Netherlands; fine well-stocked farms rapidly covered Manhattan, and healthy progress had at last begun. Thus strengthened, the Company [1640] restricted the patroons to a water-front of one mile and a depth of two, but left them their feudal privileges, benefits which practically accrued to Van Rensselaer, whose colony at Beverwyck had alone, among the manors, thriven and grown at the expense of the Company. The opening of trade proved in one respect a disaster. The cautious policy of the Company was abandoned, and greedy traders who had already begun the business, and were now wholly unrestrained, hastened to make their fortunes by selling arms to the Indians in return for almost unlimited quantities of furs. Thus the Mohawks obtained guns enough to threaten both the Dutch and all the surrounding tribes, and this perilous condition was made infinitely worse by the mad policy of Kieft. He first tried to exact tribute from the Indians near Manhattan, then offered a price for the head of any of the Raritans who had destroyed the settlement of De Vries; and, when a young man was murdered by a Weckquaesgeek, the Governor planned immediate war." Public opinion among the colonists condemned the measures of Kieft, and forced him to accept a council of twelve select-men, chosen at a public meeting; but "the twelve," as they were called, failed to control their governor. Acting on the advice of two or three among them, whose support he had secured, he ordered a cowardly attack upon some fugitive Indians from the River tribes, who had been driven into the settlements by the onslaught of the Mohawks, and whom De Vries and others were trying to protect. "The wretched fugitives, surprised by their supposed protectors, were butchered in the dead of a winter's night [1643], without mercy, and the bloody soldiers returned in the morning to Manhattan, where they were warmly welcomed by Kieft. This massacre lighted up at once the flames of war among all the neighboring tribes of Algonquins. All the outlying farms were laid waste, and their owners murdered, while the smaller settlements were destroyed. Vriesendael alone was spared. {2328} A peace, patched up by De Vries, gave a respite until summer, and the war raged more fiercely than before, the Indians burning and destroying in every direction, while trade was broken up and the crews of the vessels slaughtered." Kieft's life was now in danger from the rage of his own people, and eight men, appointed by public meeting, took control of public affairs, as far as it was possible to do so. Under the command of John Underhill, the Connecticut Indian fighter, who had lately migrated to Manhattan, the war was prosecuted with great vigor and success on Long Island and against the Connecticut Indians who had joined in it; but little headway was made against the tribes on the Hudson, who harassed and ruined the colony. Thus matters went badly for a long period, until, in 1647, the Company in Holland sent out Peter Stuyvesant to take the place of Kieft. "In the interval, the Indian tribes, weary at last of war, came in and made peace. Kieft continued his quarrels; but his power was gone, and he was hated as the principal cause of all the misfortunes of the colony. The results of his miserable administration were certainly disastrous enough. Sixteen hundred Indians had perished in the war; but all the outlying Dutch settlements and farms had been destroyed, and the prosperity of the colony had received a check from which it recovered very slowly. In Connecticut, the English had left the Dutch merely a nominal hold, and had really destroyed their power in the East. On the South river [the Delaware] the Swedes had settled, and, disregarding Kieft's blustering proclamations, had founded strong and growing colonies. … The interests of Holland were at a low ebb."

H. C. Lodge, Short History of the English Colonies, chapter 16.

A more favorable view of Kieft and his administration is taken by Mr. Gerard, who says: "Few proconsuls had a more arduous task in the administration of the government of a province than had Director Kieft. The Roman official had legions at command to sustain his power and to repel attack; and in case of disaster the whole empire was at hand for his support. Kieft, in a far distant province, with a handful of soldiers crowded in a dilapidated fort and a few citizens turbulent and unreliable, surrounded on all sides by savages ever on the alert for rapine and murder, receiving little support from the home government, and having a large territory to defend and two civilized races to contend with, passed the eight years of his administration amid turmoil and dissension within, and such hostile attack from without as to keep the province in continuous peril. The New England colonies were always in a state of antagonism and threatening war. … The Swedes and independent settlers on the South and Schuylkill rivers were constantly making encroachments and threatening the Company's occupancy there, while pretenders under patents and independent settlers, knowing the weakness of the government, kept it disturbed and agitated. What wonder that mistakes were made, that policy failed, that misfortunes came, and that Kieft's rule brought no prosperity to the land? The radical trouble with his administration was that he was under a divided rule—a political governor with allegiance to the States-General, and a commercial Director, as the representative of a great company of traders. The States-General was too busily occupied in establishing its independence and watching the balance of European power to give supervision to the affairs of a province of small political importance—while the Company, looking upon its colony merely as a medium of commercial gain, drew all the profit it could gather from it, disregarded its true interests, and gave it only occasional and grudging support. … Towards the Indians Kieft's dealings were characterized by a rigid regard for their possessory rights; no title was deemed vested and no right was absolutely claimed until satisfaction was made to the native owner. Historians of the period have been almost universal in their condemnation of him for the various contests and wars engaged in with the Indians, and have put on him all responsibility for the revolts. But this is an ex post facto criticism, which, with a false judgment, condemns a man for the results of his actions rather than for the actions themselves. Indeed, without the energy displayed by the Director towards the aborigines, the colony would probably have been annihilated. … Imprudence, rashness, arbitrary action, want of political sagacity may be imputed to Director Kieft, but not excessive inhumanity, nor want of effort, nor unfaithfulness to his employers or to his province. He has been generally condemned, but without sufficient consideration of the trials which he experienced, the anxiety to which he was subject, and the perplexities incident to a government over discontented, ignorant and mutinous subjects, and to the continued apprehension of outside attack. Left mostly to his own resources, and receiving no sympathy and little aid, his motives the subject of attack from both tavern and pulpit, and twice the object of attempted assassination, his rule as a whole, though disastrous, was not dishonorable."

J. W. Gerard, The Administration of William Kieft (Memorial History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 6).

ALSO IN: Mrs. Lamb, History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapters 6-8.

E. B. O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, book 2, chapter 7 and book 3, chapters 1-9 (volume 1).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1640-1643. Expulsion of New Haven colonists from the Delaware.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1640-1655.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1647-1664. Peter Stuyvesant and his administration.

Peter Stuyvesant, the director or governor who succeeded Kieft, "took possession of the government on the 11th of May, 1647. On his arrival he was greeted with a hearty and cordial reception by the citizens, to which he responded by reciprocal professions of interest and regard. He had for several years been in the Company's service as Director of their colony at Curaçoa, and was distinguished for his energy and bravery. Having lost a leg in an attack on the Portuguese settlement at St. Martin's, he had been obliged to return to Europe for surgical aid, whence, still retaining his former commission, he was sent to the charge of the Province of New Netherlands. Immediately on his accession he organized a representative Council of nine members from a list of eighteen presented to him by the inhabitants of the province, and gave his assent to various important provisions for the regulation of trade and commerce. By a conciliatory and just treatment of the Indians so recently in revolt he speedily gained their affection and goodwill, and by his judicious measures for their mutual protection restored peace and harmony among all classes."

S. S. Randall, History of the State of New York, period 2, chapter 5.

{2329}

"The powers of government—executive, legislative, and judicial—which he [Stuyvesant] assumed, were quite extensive, and often arbitrary. Directly or indirectly, he appointed and commissioned all public officers, framed all laws, and decided all important controversies. … He directed churches to be built, installed ministers, and even ordered them when and where to preach. Assuming the sole control of the public lands, he extinguished the Indian title thereto, and allowed no purchase to be made from the natives without his sanction; and granted at pleasure, to individuals and companies, parcels of land, subject to such conditions as he saw fit to impose. In the management of these complicated affairs the Director developed a certain imperiousness of manner and impatience of restraint, due, perhaps, as much to his previous military life as to his personal character. … During the whole of his predecessor's unquiet rule a constant struggle had been going on between the personal prerogative of the Executive and the inherent sentiment of popular freedom which prevailed among the commonalty, leading the latter constantly to seek for themselves the franchises and freedoms of the Fatherland, to which, as loyal subjects, they deemed themselves entitled in New Netherland. The contest was reopened soon after Stuyvesant's installation, and the firmness of both Director and people, in the maintenance of what each jealously considered their rights, gave indication of serious disturbance to the public weal." The governor, at length, in 1647, conceded "a popular representation in the affairs of government. An election was therefore held, at which the inhabitants of Amsterdam, Breuckelen, Amersfoort and Pavonia chose eighteen of 'the most notable, reasonable, honest, and respectable' among them, from whom, according to the custom of the Fatherland, the Director and Council selected 'Nine Men' as an advisory Council; and although their powers and duties were jealously limited and guarded by the Director's Proclamation, yet the appointment of the Nine Men was a considerable gain to the cause of popular rights. … The subsequent history of Stuyvesant's government is a record of quarrels with colonial patroons, with the English in New England, the Swedes on the South River, and last—not least—with his own people. In fact, the government was by no means well adapted to the people or adequate to protect them. The laws were very, imperfect, and the Director and Council either incompetent or indisposed to remedy the serious defects which existed in the administration of civil and criminal justice."

H. R. Stiles, History of the City of Brooklyn, volume 1, chapter 3.

"Director Stuyvesant was recalled to Europe soon after the surrender [to the English—see below], to vindicate his conduct … and … found himself the object of serious charges and most virulent attacks. He returned to this country in 1668, and died on his bouwerie in 1672. … Throughout his chequered life he exhibited a character of high morality, and in his dealings with the Indians an energetic and dignified deportment, which contributed, no doubt, considerably to the success of his arms and policy. Alike creditable to his talents are his negotiations with the neighboring English colonies. His vindications of the rights of his country, on these occasions, betoken a firmness of manner, a sharpness of perception, a clearness of argument and a soundness of judgment, combined with an extent of reading, which few of his contemporaries could equal, and none surpass. … It would afford pleasure were we justified in pronouncing a like panegyric on other parts of his administration; but none can review [his arbitrary resistance to just popular demands] … and his persecution of the Lutherans and other Nonconformists, without reprobating his tyranny, and regretting that a character, so faultless in other respects, should be stained by traits so repulsive as these, and that the powers of a mind so strong should be exerted in opposing rather than promoting civil and religious freedom. The hostility this part of his public conduct evoked redounds most creditably to the character of the settlers, whose struggles for freer institutions cannot fail to win for them our sympathy and regard."

E. B. O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, book 6, chapter 8 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Remonstrance of New Netherlands (Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York, volume 1, pages 275-317); also volume 13.

G. P. Fisher, The Colonial Era, chapter 9.

B. Fernow, Peter Stuyvesant (Memorial History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 7).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1650. The adjustment of boundaries with Connecticut.

To settle the long pending controversy between Dutch and English respecting the territory claimed by each on Long Island and at the mouth of the Connecticut River, Governor Stuyvesant went in person to Hartford, September, 1650, and opened negotiations. His hands were tied from the beginning by instructions from his company to press no claim to the extremity of a quarrel, because the English were too strong in America to be fought with. He assented, therefore, to the appointment of two arbitrators on each side, and he named Englishmen as his arbitrators. "The four agreed upon a settlement of the boundary matter, ignoring all other points in dispute as having occurred under the administration of Kieft. It was agreed that the Dutch were to retain their lands, in Hartford [the post of 'Good Hope,' established in 1633, and which they had continued to hold, in the midst of the spreading English settlement]; that the boundary line between the two peoples on the mainland was not to come within ten miles of the Hudson River, but was to be left undecided for the present, except the first 20 miles from the Sound, which was to begin on the west side of Greenwich Bay, between Stamford and Manhattan, running thence 20 miles north; and that Long Island should be divided by a corresponding line across it, 'from the westernmost part of Oyster Bay,' to the sea. The English thus got the greater part of Long Island, a recognition of the rightfulness of their presence in the Connecticut territory, and at least the initial 20 miles of a boundary line which must, in the nature of things, be prolonged in much the same direction, and which in fact has pretty closely governed subsequent boundary lines on that side of Connecticut. If these seem hard terms for the Dutch, and indicative of treachery on the part of their two English agents, it must be borne in mind that, by the terms of his instructions from his principals, Stuyvesant had to take the best terms he could get. The treaty of Hartford was dated September 19, 1650."

A. Johnston, Connecticut (American Commonwealths), chapter 10.

ALSO IN: E. B. O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, book 4, chapters 1-9 (volume 2).

C. W. Bowen, The Boundary Disputes of Connecticut, part 1, chapter 1.

Division of the Boundary in America (Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York, volume 1, pages 541-577).

{2930}

NEW YORK: A. D. 1653. The grant of municipal government to New Amsterdam.

"An interesting moment arrived. A new city appeared in the annals of the world. Its birth was announced on the evening of February 2, 1653, at the feast of Candlemas. A proclamation of the governor defined its exceedingly limited powers and named its first officers. It was called New Amsterdam. There was nothing in the significant scene which inspired enthusiasm. It came like a favor grudgingly granted. Its privileges were few, and even those were subsequently hampered by the most illiberal interpretations which could be devised. Stuyvesant made a speech on the occasion, in which he took care to reveal his intention of making all future municipal appointments, instead of submitting the matter to the votes of the citizens, as was the custom in the Fatherland; and he gave the officers distinctly to understand, from the first, that their existence did not in any way diminish his authority, but that he should often preside at their meetings, and at all times counsel them in matters of importance. … A pew was set apart in the church for the City Fathers; and on Sunday mornings these worthies left their homes and families early to meet in the City Hall, from which, preceded by the bell-ringer, carrying their cushions of state, they marched in solemn procession to the sanctuary in the fort. On all occasions of ceremony, secular or religious, they were treated with distinguished attention. Their position was eminently respectable, but it had as yet no emoluments. … There were two burgomasters, Arent van Hattam and Martin Cregier. … There were five schepens,—Paulus Van der Grist, Maximilian Van Gheel, Allard Anthony, Peter Van Couwenhoven, and William Beekman."

Mrs. M. J. Lamb, History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: D. T. Valentine, History of the City of New York, chapter 5.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1654. Threatened attack from New England.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1640-1655.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1655. Subjugation of the Swedes on the Delaware.

See DELAWARE: A. D. 1640-1656.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1664. The English conquest. New Amsterdam becomes New York.

The Navigation Act of Cromwell, maintained by the English after the Stuart Restoration, was continually evaded, almost openly, in the British American colonies; and it was with the Dutch at New Amsterdam that the illicit trade of the New Englanders, the Virginians and the Marylanders was principally carried on. "In 1663 the losses to the revenue were so extensive that the framers of the customs … complained of the great abuses which, they claimed, defrauded the revenue of £10,000 a year. The interest of the kingdom was at stake, and the conquest of the New Netherland was resolved upon. … The next concern of the Chancellor [Clarendon] was to secure to the Crown the full benefit of the proposed conquest. He was as little satisfied with the self-rule of the New England colonies as with the presence of Dutch sovereignty on American soil; and in the conquest of the foreigner he found the means to bring the English subject into closer dependence on the King. James Duke of York, Grand Admiral, was the heir to the Crown. … A patent to James as presumptive heir to the crown, from the King his brother, would merge in the crown; and a central authority strongly established over the territory covered by it might well, under favorable circumstances, be extended over the colonies on either side which were governed under limitations and with privileges directly secured by charter from the King. … The first step taken by Clarendon was the purchase of the title conveyed to the Earl of Stirling in 1635 by the grantees of the New England patent. This covered the territory of Pemaquid, between the Saint Croix and the Kennebec, in Maine, and the island of Matowack, or Long Island. … A title being thus acquired by the adroitness of Clarendon, a patent was, on the 12th of March, 1664, issued by Charles II. to the Duke of York, granting him the Maine territory of Pemaquid, all the islands between Cape Cod and the Narrows, the Hudson River, and all the lands from the west side of the Connecticut to the east side of Delaware Bay, together with the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The inland boundary was 'a line from the head of Connecticut River to the source of Hudson River, thence to the head of the Mohawk branch of Hudson River, and thence to the east side of Delaware Bay.' The patent gave to the Duke of York, his heirs, deputies, and assigns, 'absolute power to govern within this domain according to his own rules and discretions consistent with the statutes of England.' In this patent the charter granted by the King to the younger John Winthrop in 1662 for Connecticut, in which it was stipulated that commissioners should be sent to New England to settle the boundaries of each colony, was entirely disregarded. The idea of commissioners for boundaries now developed with larger scope, and the King established a royal commission, consisting of four persons recommended by the Duke of York, whose private instructions were to reduce the Dutch to submission and to increase the prerogatives of the Crown in the New England colonies, which Clarendon considered to be 'already well nigh ripened, to a commonwealth.' Three of these commissioners were officers in the royal army,—Colonel Richard Nicolls, Sir Robert Carr, Colonel George Cartwright. The fourth was Samuel Maverick. … To Colonel Nicolls the Duke of York entrusted the charge of taking possession of and governing the vast territory covered by the King's patent. To one more capable and worthy the delicate trust could not have been confided. … His title under the new commission was that of Deputy-Governor; the tenure of his office, the Duke's pleasure. … When the news of the gathering of the fleet reached the Hague, and explanation was demanded of Downing [the English ambassador] as to the truth of the reports that it was intended for the reduction of the New Netherland, he boldly insisted on the English right to the territory by first possession. To a claim so flimsy and impudent only one response was possible,—a declaration of war. But the Dutch people at large had little interest in the remote settlement, which was held to be a trading-post rather than a colony, and not a profitable post at best. {2331} The West India Company saw the danger of the situation, but its appeals for assistance were disregarded. Its own resources and credit were unequal to the task of defence. Meanwhile the English fleet, composed of one ship of 36, one of 30, a third of 16, and a transport of 10 guns, with three full companies of the King's veterans,—in an 450 men, commanded by Colonels Nicolls, Carr, and Cartwright,—sailed from Portsmouth for Gardiner's Bay on the 15th of May. On the 23d of July Nicolls and Cartwright reached Boston, where they demanded military aid from the Governor and Council of the Colony. Calling upon Winthrop for the assistance of Connecticut, and appointing a rendezvous at the west end of Long Island, Nicolls set sail with his ships and anchored in New Utrecht Bay, just outside of Coney Island, a spot since historical as the landing-place of Lord Howe's troops in 1776. Here Nicolls was joined by militia from New Haven and Long Island. The city of New Amsterdam … was defenceless. The Director, Stuyvesant, heard of the approach of the English at Fort Orange (Albany), whither he had gone to quell disturbances with the Indians. Returning in haste, he summoned his council together. The folly of resistance was apparent to all, and after delays, by which the Director-General sought to save something of his dignity, a commission for a surrender was agreed upon between the Dutch authorities and Colonel Nicolls. The capitulation confirmed the inhabitants in the possession of their property, the exercise of their religion, and their freedom as citizens. The municipal officers were continued in their rule. On the 29th of August, 1664, the articles were ratified … and the city passed under English rule. The first act of Nicolls on taking possession of the fort, in which he was welcomed by the civic authorities, was to order that the city of New Amsterdam be thereafter known as New York, and the fort as Fort James, in honor of the title and name of his lord and patron. At the time of the surrender the city gave small promise of its magnificent future. Its entire population, which did not exceed 1,500 souls, was housed within the triangle at the point of the island. … Nicolls now established a new government for the province. A force was sent up the Hudson under Captain Cartwright, which took possession of Fort Orange, the name of which was changed to Albany, in honor of a title of the Duke of York."

J. A. Stevens, The English in New York (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 3, chapter 10).

ALSO IN: J. R. Brodhead, History of New York, volume 1, chapter 20.

Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York, volumes 2-3.

See, also, MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1660-1665.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1664. The separation of New Jersey, by grant to Berkeley and Carteret.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1664. The annexation of the Delaware settlements.

See DELAWARE: A. D. 1664.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1664-1674. The province as the English received it. Dutch institutions, their influence and survival.

"In the year 1664, when the government passed to the English, New Netherland is said by the Chevalier Lambrechtsen to have consisted of three cities and thirty villages. Its population was then about ten thousand souls, exclusive of the Indians, who were important auxiliaries for trade and peltries. The inhabitants enjoyed a fair measure of freedom and protection. High roads already existed, and there were numerous owners of flourishing farms, or bouweries, and other real property, while urban life was well policed by proper laws. The treatment by the Dutch of the many English and other aliens who already dwelt within the Dutch territory was rather in advance of the age, while the jurisprudence established here by the Dutch, being largely borrowed from the high civilization of Rome, was certainly superior in refinement to the contemporary feudal and folk law introduced by the English in 1664. Theoretically, the administration of justice conformed to a high standard, and both Dutch and aliens were protected by adequate constitutional guaranties. We cannot for an instant presume that the institutions which half a century had reared were swept into oblivion by a single stroke of the English conquerors in 1664. It would be more rational to suppose that the subsidence of the Dutch institutions was as gradual as the facts demonstrate it to have been. Negro slavery was introduced by the Dutch, but it existed here only under its least objectionable conditions. A large measure of religious liberty was tolerated, although the Dutch Reformed Church was the only one publicly sanctioned. On several occasions delegates of the commonalty were brought into consultation with the Director-General and Council, and thus, to some extent, a principle of representative government was at least recognized, although it was somewhat at variance with the company's standard of colonial government, and savored too much of the English idea and encroachment to be palatable. It must not be forgotten that at home the Dutch were a self-governing people and accustomed to that most important principle of free government—self-assessment in taxation. In common with all commercial peoples, they possessed a sturdy independence of mind and demeanor. There is no proof that these excellent qualities were diminished by transplantation to the still freer air of the new country. New Netherland was not altogether fortunate in its type of government, experience demonstrating that the selfish spirit of a mercantile monopoly is not the fit repository of governmental powers. Yet, on the whole, it must be conceded that the company's government introduced here much that was good and accomplished little that was pernicious. In 1664 it certainly surrendered to the English one of the finest and most flourishing colonies of America, possessing a hardy, vigorous, and thrifty people, well adapted to all the principles of civil and religious freedom. History shows that this people speedily coalesced with all that was good in the system introduced by the English, and sturdily opposed all that was undesirable. … It is certain … that after the overthrow of the Dutch political authority the English proceeded gradually to introduce into New York, by express command, their own laws and customs. Yet it requires a very much more extended examination of original sources than has ever been made to determine absolutely just how much of the English laws and institutions was in force at a particular epoch of colonial history. The subject perplexed the colonial courts, and it is still perplexing."

R. L. Fowler, Constitutional and Legal History, of New York in the 17th Century (Memorial History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 14).

{2332}

"Although the New Netherland became a permanent English colony under the Treaty of Westminster in 1674 [see below], its population remained largely Dutch until nearly the middle of the next century. The prosperity of New York, growing steadily with the progress of trade and the exportation of grains, attracted emigrants from Holland notwithstanding the change of flag. Many families now living on Manhattan Island are descended from Dutchmen who came out after the English occupation. The old names with which we have become familiar in the early annals of New Amsterdam continue in positions of honour and prominence through the English colonial records. In 1673, we find among the city magistrates Johannes van Bruggh, Johannes de Peyster, Ægidius Luyck, Jacob Kip, Laurans van der Spiegel, Wilhelm Beeckman, Guleyn Verplanck, Stephen van Courtlandt. In 1677, Stephanus van Courtlandt is mayor, and Johannes de Peyster deputy mayor. In 1682, Cornelis Steenwyck is mayor; in 1685, the office is filled by Nicholas Bayard; in 1686, by Van Courtlandt again. Abraham de Peyster was mayor from 1691 to 1695; and in his time the following Dutchmen were aldermen: W. Beeckman, Johannes Kip, Brandt Schuyler, Garrett Douw, Arent van Scoyck, Gerard Douw, Rip van Dam, Jacobus van Courtlandt, Samuel Bayard, Jacobus van Nostrandt, Jan Hendricks Brevoort, Jan van Home, Petrus Bayard, Abraham Wendell, John Brevoort. These names recur down to 1717. In 1718, John Roosevelt, Philip van Courtlandt, and Cornelius de Peyster are aldermen. In 1719, Jacobus van Courtlandt is mayor, and among the aldermen are Philip van Courtlandt, Harmanus van Gilder, Jacobus Kip, Frederic Philipse, John Roosevelt, Philip Schuyler. In 1745, Stephen Bayard is mayor. During the last half of the eighteenth century the Dutch names are more and more crowded out by the English. … By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Dutch names occur only occasionally. These Dutchmen not only preserved their leadership in public affairs, but carried on a large proportion of the city's trade. New York was an English colony, but its greatness was largely built on Dutch foundations. It is often said that the city became flourishing only after the English occupation. This is true, with the qualification that the Dutch trader and the Dutch farmer after that event had greater opportunities for successful activity. … Dutch continued to be the language of New York until the end of the seventeenth century, after which time English contended for the mastery with steady success. In the outlying towns of Long Island and New Jersey and along the Hudson River, Dutch was generally used for a century later. … In New York city the large English immigration, the requirements of commerce, and the frequent intermarriages of Dutch and English families had given to English the predominance by the year 1750. … In New York city the high-stoop house, and the peculiar observance of New Year's Day which continued until 1870, are two familiar relics of Holland. The valuable custom of registering transfers of real estate has been received from the same source."

B. Tuckerman, Peter Stuyvesant, chapter 4.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1665. The Duke's Laws.

"At a general meeting held at Hempstead, on Long Island [March 1, 1665], attended by deputies from all the towns, Governor Nichols presently published, on his own and the duke's authority, a body of laws for the government of the new province, alphabetically arranged, collated, and digested, 'out of the several laws now in force in his majesty's American colonies and plantations,' exhibiting indeed, many traces of Connecticut and Massachusetts legislation. … The code [was] known as the 'Duke's Laws,' which Nichols imagined 'could not but be satisfactory even to the most factious Republicans.' A considerable number of immigrants seem to have come in on the strength of it from the neighboring colonies of New England,"

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 17 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: The Duke of York's Book of Laws, compiled and edited by S. George, et al.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1665-1666. French invasions of the Iroquois country, under Courcelles and Tracy.

See CANADA: A. D. 1640-1700.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1673. The reconquest of the city and province by the Dutch.

The seizure of New Netherland by the English in 1664 was one of several acts of hostility which preceded an actual declaration of war between England and Holland. The war became formal, however, in the following year, and ended in 1666, ingloriously for England although she retained her American conquests.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1665-1666

Then followed a period of hypocritical alliance on the part of Charles II. with the Dutch, which gave him an opportunity to betray them in 1672, when he joined Louis XIV. of France in a perfidious attack upon the sturdy republic.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1672-1674.

During the second year of this last mentioned war, Cornelis Evertsen, worthy son of a famous Dutch admiral, made an unexpected reconquest of the lost province. Evertsen "had been sent out from Zealand with fifteen ships to harass the enemy in the West Indies, which was effectually done. At Martinico he fell in with four ships dispatched from Amsterdam, under the command of Jacob Binckes. Joining their forces, the two commodores followed Krynssen's track to the Chesapeake, where they took eight and burned five Virginia tobacco ships, in spite of the gallantry of the frigates which were to convoy them to England. As they were going out of the James River, the Dutch commodores met a sloop from New York," and received information from one of its passengers which satisfied them that they might easily take possession of the town. "In a few days [August 7, 1673] the Dutch fleet, which, with three ships of war from Amsterdam, and four from Zealand, was now swelled by prizes to 23 vessels, carrying 1,600 men, arrived off Sandy Hook. The next morning they anchored under Staten Island." On the following day the city, which could make no defense, and all the Dutch inhabitants of which were eager to welcome their countrymen, was unconditionally surrendered. "The recovery of New York by the Dutch was an absolute conquest by an open enemy in time of war. … 'Not the smallest' article of capitulation, except military honors to the garrison, was granted by the victors. … {2333} Their reconquest annihilated British sovereignty over ancient New Netherland, and extinguished the duke's proprietary government in New York, with that of his grantees in New Jersey. Evertsen and Binckes for the time represented the Dutch Republic, under the dominion of which its recovered American provinces instantly passed, by right of successful war. The effete West India Company was in no way connected with the transaction. … The name of 'New Netherland' was of course restored to the reconquered territory, which was held to embrace not only all that the Dutch possessed according to the Hartford agreement of 1650, but also the whole of Long Island east of Oyster Bay, which originally belonged to the province and which the king had granted to the Duke of York. … It was, first of all, necessary to extemporize a provisional government. No orders had been given to Evertsen or Binckes about New Netherland. Its recovery was a lucky accident, wholly due to the enterprise of the two commodores; upon whom fell the responsibility of governing their conquest until directions should come from the Hague." They appointed Captain Anthony Colve to be Governor General of the Province. "Colve's commission described his government as extending from 15 miles south of Cape Henlopen to the east end of Long Island and Shelter Island, thence through the middle of the Sound to Greenwich, and so northerly, according to the boundary made in 1650, including Delaware Bay and all the intermediate territory, as possessed by the English under the Duke of York. … The name of the city of New York was … changed to 'New Orange,' in compliment to the prince stadtholder. … The metropolis being secured, 200 men were sent up the river, in several vessels, to reduce Esopus and Albany. No opposition was shown." Albany was ordered to be called Willemstadt.

J. R. Brodhead, History of the State of New York, volume 2, chapters 4-5.

ALSO IN: Mrs. M. J. Lamb, History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 14-15.

Documents Relating to Colonial History of New York, volume 2.

Memorial History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 9.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1674. Restored to England by the Treaty of Westminster.

See NETHERLANDS (HOLLAND): A. D. 1674.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1674-1675. Long Island annexed, with attempts against half of Connecticut.

See CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1674-1675.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1684. Doubtful origin of English claims to the sovereignty of the Iroquois country.

"Colonel Dongan [governor of New York] was instrumental in procuring a convention of the Five Nations, at Albany, in 1684, to meet Lord Howard of Effingham, Governor of Virginia, at which he (Dongan) was likewise present. This meeting, or council, was attended by the happiest results. … Colonel Dongan succeeded in completely gaining the affections of the Indians, who conceived for him the warmest esteem. They even asked that the arms of the Duke of York might be put upon their castles;—a request which it need not be said was most readily complied with, since, should it afterwards become necessary, the governor might find it convenient to construe it into an act of at least partial submission to English authority, although it has been asserted that the Indians themselves looked upon the ducal insignia as a sort of charm, that might protect them against the French."

W. L. Stone, Life and Times of Sir W. Johnson, volume 1, page 15.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1684-1687. French invasions of the Iroquois country under De La Barre and De Nonville.

See CANADA: A. D. 1640-1700.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1686. The Dongan Charter.

"The year 1686 was distinguished by the granting of the 'Dongan Charter' to the city of New York. It was drafted by Mayor Nicholas Bayard and Recorder James Graham, and was one of the most liberal ever bestowed upon a colonial city. By it, sources of immediate income became vested in the corporation. Subsequent charters added nothing to the city property, save in the matter of ferry rights, in immediate reference to which the charters of 1708 and 1730 were obtained. … The instrument was the basis of a plan of government for a great city."

Mrs. M. J. Lamb, History of the City of New York, volume 1, page 317.

ALSO IN: M. Benjamin, Thomas Dongan and the Granting of the New York Charter (Memorial History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 11).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1688. Joined with New England under the governorship of Andros.

In April, 1688, Sir Edmund Andros, who had been made Governor-general of all New England in 1686, received a new commission from the King which "constituted him Governor of all the English possessions on the mainland of America, except Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The 'Territory and Dominion' of New England was now to embrace the country between the 40th degree of latitude and the River St. Croix, thus including New York and the Jerseys. The seat of government was to be at Boston; and a Deputy-Governor, to reside at New York, was to be the immediate head of the administration of that colony and of the Jerseys. The Governor was to be assisted by a Council consisting of 42 members, of whom five were to constitute a quorum. … The Governor in Council might impose and collect taxes for the support of the government, and might pass laws, which however were, within three months of their enactment, to be sent over to the Privy Council for approval or repeal. … The seal of New York was to be broken, and the seal of New England to be used for the whole jurisdiction. Liberty of conscience was to be allowed, agreeably to the Declaration of Indulgence."

J. G. Palfrey, Compendious History of New England, book 3, chapter 14 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Mrs. M. J. Lamb, History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 18.

J. R. Brodhead, editor Documents Relative to Colonial History of New York, volume 3, pages 537-554.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1689-1691. The Revolution. Jacob Leisler and his fate.

News of the revolution in England which drove James II. from the throne, giving it to his daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, reached New York, from Virginia, in February, 1689, but was concealed as long as possible from the public by Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson. No disturbance of the authority of the latter occurred until after the people of Boston had risen, in April, and seized the Governor-General, Sir Edmund Andros, stripping his authority from him and casting him into prison. This spirited movement was followed a little later by like action in New York. Two parties had quickly taken form, "one composed of the adherents of James, the other of the friends of William and Mary. The former embraced the aristocratic citizens, including Nicholas Bayard, the commander of the city militia, the members of the council, and the municipal authorities. {2334} The friends of the new monarchs formed a large majority of the citizens. They maintained that the entire fabric of the imperial government, including that of the colonies, had been overthrown by the revolution, and that, as no person was invested with authority in the province, it reverted to the legitimate source of all authority—the people—who might delegate their powers to whomsoever they would. Among the principal supporters of this view was Jacob Leisler, a German by birth, a merchant, the senior captain of one of the five train-bands of the city commanded by Colonel Bayard, and one of the oldest and wealthiest inhabitants. … He was a zealous opponent of the Roman Catholics, and a man of great energy and determination. … Rumors of terrible things contemplated by the adherents of James spread over the town, and produced great excitement. The five companies of militia and a crowd of citizens gathered at the house of Leisler, and induced him to become their leader and guide in this emergency. Colonel Bayard attempted to disperse them, but he was compelled to fly for his life. A distinct line was now drawn between the 'aristocrats,' led by Bayard, Van Cortlandt, Robert Livingston, and others, and the 'democrats'—the majority of the people—who regarded Leisler as their leader and champion. At his suggestion a 'Committee of Safety' was formed, composed of ten members—Dutch, Huguenot, and English. They constituted Leisler 'Captain of the Fort,' and invested him with the powers of commander-in-chief—really chief magistrate—until orders should come from the new monarch. This was the first really republican ruler that ever attained to power in America. He took possession of Fort James and the public funds that were in it, and, in June, 1689, he proclaimed, with the sound of trumpets, William and Mary sovereigns of Great Britain and the colonies. Then he sent a letter to the king, giving him an account of what he had done." Lieutenant-Governor Nicholson made little attempt to assert his authority in the face of these demonstrations, but departed presently for England, "after formally giving authority to his councillors to preserve the peace during his absence, and until their Majesties' pleasure should be made known. … Nicholson's desertion of his post gave Leisler and the Republicans great advantages. He ordered the several counties of the province to elect their civil and military officers. Some counties obeyed, and others did not. The counter influence of Nicholson's councillors was continually and persistently felt, and Leisler and his party became greatly incensed against them, especially against Bayard, who was the chief instigator of the opposition to the 'usurper,' as he called the Republican leader. So hot became the indignation of Leisler and his friends that Bayard was compelled to fly for his life to Albany. The other councillors, alarmed, soon followed him. At Albany they acknowledged allegiance to William and Mary. They set up an independent government, and claimed to be the true and only rulers of the province. In this position they were sustained by the civil authorities at Albany." Leisler's son-in-law, Jacob Milborne, was sent with a force to take possession of their seat of government, but failed to accomplish his mission. "Soon after this event a letter arrived at New York by a special messenger from the British Privy Council, directed to 'Francis Nicholson, Esq., or, in his absence, to such as, for the time being, take care for preserving the peace and administering the laws in His Majesty's province of New York.'" This letter was delivered by the messenger to Leisler. Bayard, who had come to the city in disguise, and attempted to secure the missive, was arrested and imprisoned. "From this time the opposition to Leisler's government assumed an organized shape, and was sleepless and relentless. Leisler justly regarding himself as invested with supreme power by the people and the spirit of the letter from the Privy Council, at once assumed the title of lieutenant-governor; appointed councillors; made a new provincial seal; established courts, and called an assembly to provide means for carrying on war with Canada. … Colonel Henry Sloughter was appointed Governor of New York, but did not arrive until the spring of 1691. Richard Ingoldsby, a captain of foot, arrived early in the year, with a company of regular soldiers, to take possession of and hold the government until the arrival of the governor. He was urged by Leisler's enemies to assume supreme power at once, as he was the highest royal officer in the province. He haughtily demanded of Leisler the surrender of the fort, without deigning to show the governor his credentials. Leisler, of course, refused, and ordered the troops to be quartered in the city. Ingoldsby attempted to take the fort by force, but failed. For several weeks the city was fearfully excited by rival factions—'Leislerians' and 'anti-Leislerians.' On the arrival of Governor Sloughter, in March (1691), Leisler at once loyally tendered to him the fort and the province. Under the influence of the enemies of Leisler, the royal governor responded to this meritorious action by ordering the arrest of the lieutenant-governor; also Milborne, and six other 'inferior insurgents' … , on a charge of high treason." The accused were tried, convicted and sentenced to be hanged; but all except Leisler and Milborne received pardon. These two appealed to the king; but the governor's councillors succeeded in suppressing the appeal. As Sloughter hesitated to sign the death-warrant, they intoxicated him at a dinner party and obtained his signature to the fatal document while his judgment was overcome. Before the drunken governor recovered his senses Jacob Leisler and Jacob Milborne had been hanged. "When the governor became sober, he was appalled at what he had done: He was so keenly stung by remorse and afflicted by delirium tremens that he died a few weeks afterward. Calm and impartial judgment, enlightened by truth, now assigns to Jacob Leisler the high position in history of a patriot and martyr."

B. J. Lossing, The Empire State, chapter 8.

"Leisler lacked judgment and wisdom in administrative affairs, but his aims were comprehensive and patriotic. His words are imbued with a reverent spirit, and were evidently the utterances of an honest man. It was his lot to encounter an opposition led by persons who held office under King James. They pursued him with a relentless spirit. … It is the office of history to bear witness to Jacob Leisler's integrity as a man, his loyalty as a subject, and his purity as a patriot."

R. Frothingham, The Rise of the Republic, chapter 3.

{2335}

"The founder of the Democracy of New York was Jacob Leisler. … And Jacob Leisler was truly an honest man, who, though a martyr to the cause of liberty, and sacrificed by injustice, aristocracy, and party malignity, ought to be considered as one in whom New York should take pride—although the ancestors of many of her best men denounced him as a rebel and a traitor."

W. Dunlap, History of the New Netherlands, volume 1, chapter 12.

ALSO IN: C. F. Hoffman, The Administration of Jacob Leisler (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume 3).

Papers relating to Lieutenant Governor Leisler's Administration (O'Callaghan's Documentary History of New York, volume 2).

Documents Relating to Leisler's Administration (New York Historical Society Collection, 1868).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1689-1697. King William's War: The Schenectady massacre. Abortive expedition against Montreal. French plans of conquest.

See CANADA: A. D. 1689-1690; and 1692-1697:

NEW YORK: A. D. 1690. The first Colonial Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1690.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1692. Bradford's press set up.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1692-1696.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1696. Count Frontenac's invasion of the Iroquois country.

See CANADA: A. D. 1696.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1696-1749. Suppression of colonial manufactures.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1709-1711. Queen Anne's War: Unsuccessful projects against Montreal. Capture of Port Royal.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710; and CANADA: A. D. 1711-1713.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1710. Colonization of Palatines on the Hudson. Settlement of Palatine Bridge and German Flats.

See PALATINES: A. D. 1709-1710.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1720-1734. Conflicts of royal governors with the people. Zenger's trial. Vindication of the freedom of the press.

"In September 1720, William Burnet, the son of Bishop Burnet and godson of William III., entered upon the government of New York, burdened by instructions from England to keep alive the assembly which had been chosen several years before. This he did, to the great discontent of the people, until it had lasted more than eleven years. … But he was intelligent, and free from avarice. It was he who took possession of Oswego, and he 'left no stone unturned to defeat the French designs at Niagara.' Nevertheless, for all his merit, in 1728, he was transferred to Massachusetts to make way for the groom of the chamber of George II. while he was prince of Wales. At the time when the ministry was warned that 'the American assemblies aimed at nothing less than being independent of Great Britain as fast as they could,' Newcastle sent as governor to New York and New Jersey the dull and ignorant John Montgomerie. Sluggish, yet humane, the pauper chief magistrate had no object in America but to get money; and he escaped contests with the legislatures by giving way to them in all things. … He died in office in 1731. His successor, in 1732, was William Cosby, a brother-in-law of the earl of Halifax, and connected with Newcastle. A boisterous and irritable man, broken in his fortunes, having little understanding and no sense of decorum or of virtue, he had been sent over to clutch at gain. Few men did more to hasten colonial emancipation. … To gain very great perquisites, he followed the precedent of Andros in Massachusetts in the days of the Stuarts, and insisted on new surveys of lands and new grants, in lieu of the old. To the objection of acting against law, he answered: 'Do you think I mind that? I have a great interest in England.' The courts of law were not pliable; and Cosby displaced and appointed judges, without soliciting the consent of the council or waiting for the approbation of the sovereign. Complaint could be heard only through the press. A newspaper was established to defend the popular cause; and, in November 1734, about a year after its establishment, its printer, John Peter Zenger, a German by birth, who had been an apprentice to the famous printer, William Bradford, and afterward his partner, was imprisoned, by an order of the council, on the charge of publishing false and seditious libels. The grand jury would find no bill against him, and the attorney-general filed an information. The counsel of Zenger took exceptions to the commissions of the judges, because they ran during pleasure, and because they had been granted without the consent of council. The angry judge met the objection by disbarring James Alexander who offered it, though he stood at the head of his profession in New York for sagacity, penetration, and application to business. All the central colonies regarded the controversy as their own. At the trial the publishing was confessed; but the aged and venerable Andrew Hamilton, who came from Philadelphia to plead for Zenger, justified the publication by asserting its truth. 'You cannot be admitted,' interrupted the chief justice, 'to give the truth of a libel in evidence.' 'Then,' said Hamilton to the jury, 'we appeal to you for witnesses of the facts. The jury have a right to determine both the law and the fact, and they ought to do so.' 'The question before you,' he added, 'is not the cause of a poor printer, nor of New York alone; it is the cause of liberty.' … The jury gave their verdict, 'Not guilty.' Hamilton received of the common council of New York the franchises of the city for 'his learned and generous defence of the rights of mankind and the liberty of the press.'"

G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last Revision) part 3, chapter 15 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: J. Grahame, History of the United States (Colonial), book 10, chapter 1 (volume 2).

W. L. Stone, History of New York City, 2d period, chapter 2.

E. Lawrence, William Cosby and the Freedom of the Press (Memorial History of the City of New York, volume 2, chapter 7).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1725. The first Newspaper.

See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1704-1729.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1726. How the Iroquois placed themselves under the protection of England.

"Governour Burnet … assembled the chiefs of the Iroquois at Albany [1726]; he reminded them of all the benefits they had received from England, and all the injuries that had been inflicted by France. He pointed out the evils that would flow to them from a French fort at Niagara, on their territory. The Indians declared their unwillingness to suffer this intrusion of the French, but said they now had not power to prevent it. They called upon the Governour of New York to write to the King of England for help to regain their country from the French of Canada. Burnet seized this opportunity to gain a surrender of their country to England, to be protected for their use. Such a surrender would be used by Europeans for their own purposes; but (in the sense they viewed and represented it), was altogether incomprehensible by the Indian chiefs; and the deputies had no power from the Iroquois confederacy to make any such surrender. … By the treaty of Utrecht … France had acknowledged the Iroquois and their territory to be subject to Great Britain."

W. Dunlap, History of New York, volume 1, page 289.

{2336}

NEW YORK: A. D. 1741. The pretended Negro Plot. Panic and merciless frenzy of the people.

In 1741, "the city of New York became the scene of a cruel and bloody delusion, less notorious, but not less lamentable than the Salem witchcraft. That city now contained some 7,000 or 8,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,200 or 1,500 were slaves. Nine fires in rapid succession, most of them, however, merely the burning of chimneys, produced a perfect insanity of terror. An indented servant woman purchased her liberty and secured a reward, of £100 by pretending to give information of a plot formed by a low tavern-keeper, her master, and three negroes, to burn the city and murder the whites. This story was confirmed and amplified by an Irish prostitute, convicted of a robbery, who, to recommend herself to mercy, reluctantly turned informer. Numerous arrests had been already made among the slaves and free blacks. Many others followed. The eight lawyers who then composed the bar of New York all assisted by turns on behalf of the prosecution. The prisoners, who had no counsel, were tried and convicted upon most insufficient evidence. The lawyers vied with each other in heaping all sorts of abuse on their heads, and Chief-justice Delancey, in passing sentence, vied with the lawyers. Many confessed to save their lives, and then accused others. Thirteen unhappy convicts were burned at the stake, eighteen were hanged, and seventy-one transported. The war and the religious excitement then prevailing tended to inflame the yet hot prejudices against Catholics. A non-juring schoolmaster, accused of being a Catholic priest in disguise, and of stimulating the negroes to burn the city by promises of absolution, was condemned and executed."

R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 25 (volume 2).

ALSO IN: Mrs. Lamb, History of the City of New York, volume 1, chapter 26.

G. W. Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, volume 1, chapter 13.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1744. Treaty with the Six Nations at Albany.

See VIRGINIA: A. D. 1744.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1744-1748. King George's War.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744; 1745; and 1745-1748.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1746-1754. The founding of King's College.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1746-1787.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1749-1774. The struggle for Vermont. The disputed New Hampshire Grants, and the Green Mountain Boys who defended them.

See VERMONT: A. D. 1749-1774.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1754. The Colonial Congress at Albany and Franklin's Plan of Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1755. The French and Indian War: Battle of Lake George. Abortive expedition against Niagara. Braddock's defeat.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755; and OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1755.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1756-1757. The French and Indian War: English loss of Oswego and of Fort William Henry.

See CANADA: A. D. 1756-1757.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1758. The French and Indian War: Bloody defeat of the English at Ticonderoga. Final capture of Louisburg and recovery of Fort Duquesne.

See CANADA: A. D. 1758; and CAPE BRETON ISLAND: A. D. 1758-1760.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1759. The French and Indian War: Niagara, Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Quebec taken.

See CANADA: A. D. 1759.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1760. The French and Indian War: Completed English conquest of Canada.

See CANADA: A. D. 1760.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1763-1764. Pontiac's War. Sir William Johnson's Treaty with the Indians at Fort Niagara.

See PONTIAC'S WAR.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1763-1766. The question of taxation by Parliament. The Sugar Act. The Stamp Act and its repeal. The Declaratory Act. The Stamp Act Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775; 1763-1764; 1765; and 1766.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1765. Patriotic self-denials. Non-importation agreements.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764-1767.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1765-1768. The Indian treaties of German Flats and Fort Stanwix. Adjustment of boundaries with the Six Nations.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765-1768.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1766-1773. Opening events of the Revolution.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766-1767, to 1772-1773, and BOSTON: A. D. 1768, to 1773.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1773-1774. The Revolutionary spirit abroad. The conflict of parties. The Vigilance Committee, the Committee of Fifty-One, and the Committee of Sixty.

"In 1773 the tax on tea was imposed. On October 25th the Mohawks of New York, a band of the Sons of Liberty, were ordered by their old leaders to be on the watch for the tea ships; and it was merely the chances of time and tide that gave the opportunity of fame first to the Mohawks of Boston. … An 'association' was now circulated for signatures, engaging to boycott, 'not deal with, or employ, or have any connection with' any persons who should aid in landing, or 'selling, or buying tea, so long as it is subject to a duty by Parliament'; and December 17th a meeting of the subscribers was held and a committee of fifteen chosen as a Committee of Correspondence that was soon known as the Vigilance Committee. Letters also were exchanged between the speakers of many of the houses of assembly in the different provinces; and January 20, 1774, the New York Assembly, which had been out of touch with the people ever since the Stamp Act was passed in the year after its election, appointed their Speaker, with twelve others, a standing Committee of Correspondence and Enquiry, a proof that the interest of all classes was now excited. April 15th, the 'Nancy' with a cargo of tea arrived off Sandy Hook, followed shortly by the 'London.' The Committee of Vigilance assembled, and, as soon as Captain Lockyier, of the' Nancy' landed in spite of their warning, escorted him to a pilot boat and set him on board again. … April 23d, the 'Nancy' stood out to sea without landing her cargo, and with her carried Captain Chambers of the 'London,' from which the evening before eighteen chests of tea had been emptied into the sea by the Liberty Boys. The bill closing the port of Boston was enacted March 31st, and a copy of the act reached New York by the ship Samson on the 12th. {2337} Two days later the Committee of Vigilance wrote to the Boston Committee recommending vigorous measures as the most effectual, and assuring them that their course would be heartily supported by their brethren in New York. So rapid had been the march of events that not till now did the merchants and responsible citizens of New York take alarm. Without their concurrence or even knowledge they were being rapidly compromised by the unauthorized action of an irresponsible committee, composed of men who for the most part were noted more for enthusiasm than for judgment, and many of whom had been not unconcerned in petty riots and demonstrations condemned by the better part of the community. … 'The men who at that time called themselves the Committee,' wrote Lieutenant Governor Colden the next month, 'who dictated and acted in the name of the people, were many of them of the lower ranks, and all the warmest zealots of those called the Sons of Liberty. The more considerable merchants and citizens seldom or never appeared among them. … The principal inhabitants, being now afraid that these hot-headed men might run the city into dangerous measures, appeared in a considerable body at the first meeting of the people after the Boston Port Act was published here.' This meeting, convoked by advertisement, was held May 16th, at the house of Samuel Francis, 'to consult on the measures proper to be pursued.' … A committee of fifty, Jay among them, instead of one of twenty-five, as at first suggested, was nominated 'for the approbation of the public,' 'to correspond with our sister colonies on all matters of moment.' Three days later these nominations were confirmed by a public meeting held at the Coffee House, but not until a fifty-first member was added, Francis Lewis, as a representative of the radical party which had been as much as possible ignored. … At the Coffee House again, on May 23d, the Committee of Fifty-one met and organized; they repudiated the letter to Boston from the Committee of Vigilance as unofficial," and prepared a response to another communication just received from Boston, by the famous messenger, Paul Revere. In this reply it was "urged that 'a Congress of Deputies from the Colonies in General is of the utmost moment,' to form 'some unanimous resolutions … not only respecting your [Boston's] deplorable circumstances, but for the security of our common rights;' and that the advisability of a non-importation agreement should be left to the Congress. … The importance of this letter can hardly be exaggerated, for it was the first serious authoritative suggestion of a General Congress to consider 'the common rights' of the colonies in general. … The advice of New York was followed gradually by the other colonies, but even before a Continental Congress was a certainty, the Committee of Fifty-one, with singular confidence, resolved that delegates to it should be chosen, and called a meeting for that purpose for July 19th. … Philip Livingston, John Alsop, James Duane, and John Jay were nominated as delegates to be submitted to the public meeting, July 19th. The people met accordingly at the Coffee House, and after a stormy debate elected the committee's candidates in spite of a strong effort to substitute for Jay, McDougall, the hero of the Liberty Boys." This election, however, was not thought to be an adequate expression of the popular will, and polls were subsequently opened in each ward, on the 28th of July. The result was a unanimous vote for Jay and his colleagues. "Thus, fortunately, at the very inception of the Revolution, before the faintest clatter of arms, the popular movement was placed in charge of the 'Patricians' as they were called, rather than of the 'Tribunes,' as respectively represented by Jay and McDougall."

G. Pellew, John Jay, chapter 2.

"The New York Committee of Fifty-One, having accomplished its object, appointed a day for the choice, by the freeholders of the city, of a 'Committee of Observation,' numbering sixty, to enforce in New York the Non-Importation Act of the late Congress; and when this new committee was duly elected and organized, with Isaac Low as chairman, the Fifty-One was dissolved."

Mrs. M. J. Lamb, History of the City of New York, volume 1, page 768.

ALSO IN: I. Q. Leake, Life and Times of General John Lamb, chapter 6.

J. A. Stevens, The Second Non-importation Agreement (Memorial History of the City of New York, volume 2, chapter 11).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1774. The Boston Port Bill, the Massachusetts Act, and the Quebec Act. The First Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1774.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (April). Disadvantages experienced by the patriots. The first provincial Convention held.

"The republicans of the province of New York, composing by far the greater portion of the inhabitants, labored under severe disabilities. Acting Governor Colden was a Loyalist, and his council held office by the King's will. The assembly, though chosen by the people, continued in existence only by the King's prerogative. They might be dissolved by the representative of the crown (the acting governor) at any moment. There was no legally constituted body to form a rallying point for the patriots, as in Massachusetts, where there was an elective council and an annually elected assembly. In all the other colonies there was some nucleus of power around which the people might assemble and claim to be heard with respect. But in New York they were thrown back upon their own resources, and nobly did they preserve their integrity and maintain their cause, in spite of every obstacle. The whole continent was now moving in the direction of rebellion. … The excitement in New York was equally intense. Toward the close of the preceding December, the Liberty Boys were called to action by the seizure of arms and ammunition, which some of them had imported, and had consigned to Walter Franklin, a well known merchant. These were seized by order of the collector, because, as he alleged, of the want of cockets, or custom-house warrants, they having been in store several days without them. While they were on their way to the custom-house, some of the Sons of Liberty rallied and seized them, but before they could be concealed they were retaken by government officials and sent on board a man-of-war in the harbor. … The republicans failed in their efforts, in the New York Assembly, to procure the appointment of delegates to the second Continental Congress, to be convened at Philadelphia in May. Nothing was left for them to do but to appeal to the people. {2338} The General Committee of sixty members, many of them of the loyal majority in the assembly, yielding to the pressure of popular sentiment, called a meeting of the freeholders and freemen of the city at the Exchange, to take into consideration the election of delegates to a convention of representatives from such of the counties of the province as should adopt the measure, the sole object of such convention being the choice of proper persons to represent the colony in the Continental Congress. This movement was opposed by the loyalists. … At first there was confusion. This soon subsided, and the meeting proceeded with calmness and dignity to nominate eleven persons to represent the city in a provincial convention to be held in New York on the 20th [April], who were to be instructed to choose delegates to the Continental Congress. On the following day the chairman of the Committee of Sixty gave notice of the proposed convention on the 20th to the chairmen of the committees of correspondence in the different counties, advising them to choose delegates to the same. There was a prompt response. … The convention assembled at the Exchange, in New York, on the 20th, and consisted of 42 members [representing seven counties outside of New York city]. Colonel Schuyler was at the head of the delegation from Albany, and took a leading part in the convention. Philip Livingston was chosen president of the convention, and John M'Kesson, secretary. This was the first provincial convention in New York—the first positive expression of the doctrine of popular sovereignty in that province. They remained in session three days, and chose for delegates to the Continental Congress Philip Livingston, James Duane, John Alsop, John Jay, Simon Boerum, William Floyd, Henry Wisner, Philip Schuyler, George Clinton, Lewis Morris, Francis Lewis, and Robert R. Livingston, to whom were given full power, 'or any five of them, to meet the delegates from other colonies, and to concert and determine upon such measures as shall be judged most effectual for the preservation and reestablishment of American rights and privileges, and for the restoration of harmony between Great Britain and her colonies.' While this convention was in session intelligence of the bloodshed at Lexington was on its way, but it did not reach New York until the day after the adjournment."

B. J. Lossing, Life and Times of Philip Schuyler, volume 1, chapters 17-18.

ALSO IN: W. Dunlap, History of New York, volume 1, chapter 29.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (April-May). The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution. Lexington. Concord. Action upon the news. Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga. Siege of Boston. Bunker Hill. The Second Continental Congress.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1775.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1775 (April-September). The Sons of Liberty take control of the city. The end of royal government. Flight of Governor Tryon.

"On Sunday, the 24th of April, 1775, the news of the battle of Lexington reached the city. This was the signal for open hostilities. Business was at once suspended; the Sons of Liberty assembled in large numbers, and, taking possession of the City Hall, distributed the arms that were stored in it, together with a quantity which had been deposited in the arsenal for safe keeping, among the citizens, a party of whom formed themselves into a voluntary corps under the command of Samuel Broome, and assumed the temporary government of the city. This done, they demanded and obtained the keys of the custom house, closed the building and laid an embargo upon the vessels in port destined for the eastern colonies. … It now became necessary to organize some provisional government for the city, and for this purpose, on the 5th of May, a meeting of the citizens was called at the Coffee-House, at which a Committee of One Hundred was chosen and invested with the charge of municipal affairs, the people pledging themselves to obey its orders until different arrangements should be made by the Continental Congress. This committee was composed in part of men inclined to the royalist cause, yet, such was the popular excitement at the time, that they were carried away by the current and forced to acquiesce in the measures of their more zealous colleagues. … The committee at once assumed the command of the city, and, retaining the corps of Broome as their executive power, prohibited the sale of weapons to any persons suspected of being hostile to the patriotic party. … The moderate men of the committee succeeded in prevailing on their colleagues to present a placable address to Lieutenant-Governor Colden, explanatory of their appointment, and assuring him that they should use every effort to preserve the public peace; yet ominous precautions were taken to put the arms of the city in a serviceable condition, and to survey the neighboring grounds with a view to erecting fortifications. … On the 25th of June, Washington entered New York on his way from Mount Vernon to Cambridge to take command of the army assembled there. The Provincial Congress received him with a cautious address. Despite their patriotism, they still clung to the shadow of loyalty; fearing to go too far, they acted constantly under protest that they desired nothing more than to secure to themselves the rights of true-born British subjects. The next morning Washington quitted the city, escorted on his way by the provincial militia. Tryon [Governor Tryon, who had been absent, in England since the spring of 1774, leaving the government in the hands of Lieutenant-Governor Colden, and who now returned to resume it] had entered it the night before, and thus had been brought almost face to face with the rebel who was destined to work such a transformation in his majesty's colonies of America. The mayor and corporation received the returning governor with expressions of joy, and even the patriot party were glad of the change which relieved them from the government of Colden. … Meanwhile, the colony of New York had been ordered by the Continental Congress to contribute her quota of 3,000 men to the general defence, and four regiments were accordingly raised. … The city now presented a curious spectacle, as the seat of two governments, each issuing its own edicts, and denouncing those of the other as illegal authority. It was not long before the two powers came into collision." This was brought about by an order from the Provincial Congress, directing the removal of guns from the Battery. Shots were exchanged between the party executing this order and a boat from the ship of war "Asia"; whereupon the "Asia" cannonaded the town, riddling houses and wounding three citizens. "Hitherto, the governor had remained firm at his post; but finding his position daily growing more perilous, despite the pledges of the corporation for his personal safety, he determined to abandon the city, and took refuge on board the 'Asia.'"

Mary L. Booth, History of the City of New York, chapter 16.

ALSO IN: I. Q. Leake, Life and Times of General John Lamb, chapter 7.

{2339}

NEW YORK: A. D. 1776 (January-August). Flight of Governor Tryon. New York City occupied by Washington. Battle of Long Island. Defeat of the American army.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (AUGUST).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1776 (September-November). The struggle for the city. Washington's retreat. The British in possession.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1776-1777. The Jersey Prison-ship and the Sugar-house Prisons. See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1777 PRISONERS AND EXCHANGES.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1776-1777. The campaigns in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1777. WASHINGTON'S RETREAT; and 1777 (JANUARY-DECEMBER).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1777. Adoption of a Constitution and organization of a State government. Religious freedom established.

"After the Declaration of Independence, the several colonies proceeded to form State governments, by adopting constitutions. In that business New York moved early. On the 1st of August, 1776, a committee of the 'Convention of the Representatives of New York,' as the provisional government was called, sitting at White Plains, in Westchester County, were appointed to draw up and report a constitution. The committee consisted of the following named gentlemen: John Jay, John Sloss Hobart, William Smith, William Duer, Gouverneur Morris, Robert R. Livingston, John Broome, John Morin Scott, Abraham Yates, Jr., Henry Wisner, Sen., Samuel Townsend, Charles De Witt and Robert Yates. John Jay was the chairman, and to him was assigned the duty of drafting the Constitution. The Convention was made migratory by the stirring events of the war during the ensuing autumn and winter. First they held their sessions at Harlem Heights; then at White Plains; afterward at Fishkill, in Dutchess County, and finally at Kingston, in Ulster County, where they continued from February till May, 1777. There undisturbed the committee on the Constitution pursued their labors, and on the 12th of March, 1777, reported a draft of that instrument. It was under consideration in the Convention for more than a month after that, and was finally adopted on the 20th of April. Under it a State government was established by an ordinance of the Convention, passed in May, and the first session of the Legislature was appointed to meet at Kingston in July." The election of State officers was held in June. Jay and others issued a circular recommending General Schuyler for Governor and General George Clinton for Lieutenant Governor. But Schuyler "declined the honor, because he considered the situation of affairs in his Department too critical to be neglected by dividing his duties. The elections were held in all the Counties excepting New York, Kings, Queens, and Suffolk, then occupied by the British, and Brigadier General George Clinton was elected Governor, which office he held, by successive elections, for eighteen years, and afterward for three years. Pierre Van Courtlandt, the President of the Senate, became Lieutenant Governor. Robert R. Livingston was appointed Chancellor; John Jay Chief Justice; Robert Yates and John Sloss Hobart judges of the Supreme Court, and Egbert Benson attorney-general. So it was that the great State of New York was organized and put into operation at a time when it was disturbed by formidable invasions on its northern, southern, and western frontiers."

B. J. Lossing, Life and Times of Philip Schuyler, volume 2, chapter 9.

The framers of this first constitution of the State of New York "proceeded at the outset to do away with the established church, repealing all such parts of the common law and all such statutes of the province 'as may be construed to establish or maintain any particular denomination of Christians or their ministers.' Then followed a section … which, it is believed, entitles New York to the honor of being the first organized government of the world to assert by constitutional provision the principle of perfect religious freedom. It reads as follows: 'And whereas, we are required by the benevolent principles of rational liberty, not only to expel civil tyranny, but also to guard against that spiritual oppression and intolerance wherewith the bigotry and ambition of weak and wicked priests and princes have scourged mankind, this convention doth further, in the name and by the authority of the good people of this state, ordain, determine, and declare that the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall forever hereafter be allowed within this state to all mankind.' Thomas Jefferson, to whom Virginia is chiefly indebted for her religious liberty [embodied in her Declaration of Rights, in 1776] derived his religious as well as his political ideas from the philosophers of France. But the men who framed this constitutional provision for New York, which has since spread over most of the United States, and lies at the base of American religious liberty, were not freethinkers, although they believed in freedom of thought. Their Dutch ancestors had practised religious toleration, they expanded toleration into liberty, and in this form transmitted to posterity the heritage which Holland had sent across the sea a century and a half before."

D. Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England and America, volume 2, pages 251-252.

ALSO IN: W. Jay, Life of John Jay, chapter 3 (volume 1).

T. Roosevelt, Gouverneur Morris, chapter 3.

B. F. Butler, Outline of Constitutional History of New York (New York Historical Society Collections, series 2, volume 2).

See, also, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1779.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1777. Opposition to the recognition of the State independence of Vermont.

See VERMONT: A. D. 1777-1778.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1777-1778. Burgoyne's invasion from Canada and his surrender. The Articles of Confederation. The alliance with France.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1777(JULY-OCTOBER), to 1778 (FEBRUARY).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1778. Fortifying West Point.

See WEST POINT.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1778. The war on the Indian Border. Activity of Tories and Savages. The Massacre at Cherry Valley.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JUNE-NOVEMBER), and (JULY).

{2340}

NEW YORK: A. D. 1778-1779. Washington's ceaseless guard upon the Hudson.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D.1778-1779 WASHINGTON GUARDING THE HUDSON.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1779. Sullivan's expedition against the Senecas.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1779 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1780. Arnold's attempted betrayal of West Point.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1780-1783. The war in the South. The surrender of Cornwallis. Peace with Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1780, to 1783.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1781. Western territorial claims and their cession to the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1783. Flight of the Tories, or Loyalists.

See TORIES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1783. Evacuation of New York City by the British.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1784. Founding of the Bank of New York.

See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1780-1784.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1786. Rejection of proposed amendments to the Articles of Confederation.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783-1787.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1786-1799. Land-fee of Western New York ceded to Massachusetts. The Phelps and Gorham Purchase. The Holland Purchase. The founding of Buffalo.

The conflicting territorial claims of New York and Massachusetts, caused by the overlapping grants of the English crown, were not all settled by the cession of western claims to the United States which New York made in 1781 and Massachusetts in 1785 (see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786). "Although the nominal amount in controversy, by these acts, was much diminished, it still left some 19,000 square miles of territory in dispute, but this controversy was finally settled by a convention of Commissioners appointed by the parties, held at Hartford, Connecticut, on the 16th day of December, 1786. According to the stipulations entered into by the convention, Massachusetts ceded to the state of New York all her claim to the government, sovereignty, and jurisdiction of all the territory lying west of the present east line of the state of New York; and New York ceded to Massachusetts the pre-emption right or fee of the land subject to the title of the natives, of all that part of the state of New York lying west of a line beginning at a point in the north line of Pennsylvania, 82 miles west of the north-east corner of said state, and running from thence due north through Seneca lake to lake Ontario; excepting and reserving to the state of New York a strip of land east of and adjoining the eastern bank of Niagara river, one mile wide and extending its whole length. The land, the pre-emption right of which was thus ceded, amounted to about 6,000,000 of acres. In April, 1788, Massachusetts contracted to sell to Nathaniel Gorham of Charlestown, Middlesex county, and Oliver Phelps of Granville, Hampshire county, of said state, their pre-emption right to all the lands in Western New York, amounting to about 6,000,000 acres, for the sum of $1,000,000, to be paid in three annual instalments, for which a kind of scrip Massachusetts had issued, called consolidated securities, was to be received, which was then in market much below par. In July, 1788, Messrs. Gorham and Phelps purchased of the Indians by treaty, at a convention held at Buffalo, the Indian title to about 2,600,000 acres of the eastern part of their purchase from Massachusetts. This purchase of the Indians being bounded west by a line beginning at a point in the north line of the state of Pennsylvania, due south of the corner or point of land made by the confluence of the Kanahasgwaicon (Cannnseraga) creek with the waters of Genesee river; thence north on said meridian line to the corner or point at the confluence aforesaid; thence northwardly along the waters of said Genesee river to a point two miles north of Kanawageras (Cannewagus) village; thence running due west 12 miles; thence running northwardly, so as to be 12 miles distant from the westward bounds of said river, to the shore of lake Ontario. On the 21st day of November, 1788, the state of Massachusetts conveyed and forever quitclaimed to N. Gorham and O. Phelps, their heirs and assigns forever, all the right and title of said state to all that tract of country of which Messrs. Phelps and Gorham had extinguished the Indian title. This tract, and this only, has since been designated as the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. … So rapid were the sales of the proprietors that before the 18th day of November, 1790, they had disposed of about 50 townships [each six miles square], which were mostly sold by whole townships or large portions of townships, to sundry individuals and companies of farmers and others, formed for that purpose. On the 18th day of November, 1790, they sold the residue of their tract (reserving two townships only), amounting to upwards of a million and a quarter acres of land, to Robert Morris of Philadelphia, who soon sold the same to Sir William Pultney, an English gentleman. … This property, or such part of it as was unsold at the time of the decease of Sir William, together with other property which he purchased in his lifetime in its vicinity, is now [1849] called the Pultney Estate. … Messrs. Phelps and Gorham, who had paid about one third of the purchase money of the whole tract purchased of Massachusetts, in consequence of the rise of the value of Massachusetts consolidated stock (in which the payments for the land were to be received) from 20 per cent. to par, were unable further to comply with their engagements." After long negotiations they were permitted to relinquish to the state of Massachusetts all that western section of their purchase of which they had not acquired the Indian title, and this was resold in March, 1791, by Massachusetts, to Samuel Ogden, acting for Robert Morris. Morris made several sales from the eastern portion of his purchase, to the state of Connecticut (investing its school fund) and to others, in large blocks known subsequently as the Ogden Tract, the Cragie Tract, the Connecticut Tract, etc. The remainder or most of it, covering the greater part of western New York, was disposed of to certain gentlemen in Holland, and came to be generally known as the Holland Purchase.

O. Turner, Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase, pages 325 and 396-424.

{2341}

"Much has been written and more has been said about the 'Holland Company.' When people wished to be especially precise, they called it the 'Holland Land Company.' … Yet there never was any such thing as the Holland Company or the Holland Land Company. Certain merchants and others of the city of Amsterdam placed funds in the hands of friends who were citizens of America to purchase several tracts of land in the United States, which, being aliens, the Hollanders could not hold in their own name at that time. One of these tracts, comprising what was afterwards known as the Holland Purchase, was bought from Robert Morris. … In the forepart of 1798 the legislature of New York authorized those aliens to hold land within the State, and in the latter part of that year the American trustees conveyed the Holland Purchase to the real owners." The great territory covered by the Purchase surrounded several Indian "Reservations"—large blocks of land, that is, which the aboriginal Seneca proprietors reserved for their own occupancy when they parted with their title to the rest, which they did at a council held in 1797. One of these Reservations embraced the site now occupied by the city of Buffalo. Joseph Ellicott, the agent of the Holland proprietors, quickly discerned its prospective importance, and made an arrangement with his Indian neighbors by which he secured possession of the ground at the foot of Lake Erie and the head of Niagara River, in exchange for another piece of land six miles away. Here, in 1799, Ellicott began the founding of a town which he called New Amsterdam, but which subsequently took the name of the small stream, Buffalo Creek, on which it grew up, and which, by deepening and enlargement, became its harbor.

C. Johnson, Centennial History of Erie Company, New York, chapter 13.

ALSO IN: O. Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps' and Gorham's Purchase, part 2.

O. Turner, Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase, pages 401-424.

H. L. Osgood, The Title of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase (Rochester Historical Society Publications, volume 1).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1787-1788. The formation and adoption of the Federal Constitution. The chief battle ground of the contest.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787; and 1787-1789.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1789. Inauguration of President Washington in New York City.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1789. The beginnings of Tammany.

See TAMMANY SOCIETY.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1790. Renunciation of claims to Vermont.

See VERMONT: A. D. 1790-1791.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1799. Gradual emancipation of Slaves enacted.

During the session of the legislature in April, 1799, "emancipation was at last enacted. It was provided that all children born of slave parents after the ensuing 4th of July should be free, subject to apprenticeship, in the case of males till the age of 28, in the case of females till the age of 25, and the exportation of slaves was forbidden. By this process of gradual emancipation there was avoided that question of compensation which had been the secret of the failure of earlier bills. At that time the number of slaves was only 22,000, small in proportion to the total population of nearly a million. So the change was effected peacefully and without excitement."

G. Pellew, John Jay, page 328.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1805. The Free School Society in New York City.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1776-1880.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1807. Fulton's first steamboat on the Hudson.

See STEAM NAVIGATION: THE BEGINNINGS.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1812-1815. The war on the Canadian frontier.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER); 1813 (OCTOBER-NOVEMBER); 1813 (DECEMBER); 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER); 1814 (SEPTEMBER).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1819. The Clintonians and Bucktails.

During the first term of De Witt Clinton as governor of the State, the feud in the Democratic Republican party, between his supporters and his opponents, which began in 1812 when he audaciously sought to attain the Presidency, against Madison, assumed a fixed and definite form. "Clinton's Republican adversaries were dubbed 'Bucktails,' from the ornaments worn on ceremonial occasions by the Tammany men, who had long been Clinton's enemies. The Bucktails and their successors were the 'regular' Republicans, or the Democrats as they were later called; and they kept their regularity until, long afterwards, the younger and greater Bucktail leader [Martin Van Buren], when venerable and laden with honors, became the titular head of the Barn-burner defection. The merits of the feud between Bucktails and Clintonians it is now difficult to find. Each accused the other of coquetting with the Federalists; and the accusation of one of them was nearly always true."

E. M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren, page 56.

ALSO IN: J. Schouler, History of the United States, volume 3, page 227.

J. D. Hammond, History of Political Parties in the State of New York, volume 1, page 450.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1817-1825. Construction of the Erie Canal.

"History will assign to Gouverneur Morris the merit of first suggesting a direct and continuous communication from Lake Erie to the Hudson. In 1800, he announced this idea from the shore of the Niagara river to a friend in Europe. … The praise awarded to Gouverneur Morris must be qualified by the fact, that the scheme he conceived was that of a canal with a uniform declination, and without locks, from Lake Erie to the Hudson. Morris communicated his project to Simeon De Witt in 1803, by whom it was made known to James Geddes in 1804. It afterward became the subject of conversation between Mr. Geddes and Jesse Hawley, and this communication is supposed to have given rise to the series of essays written by Mr. Hawley, under the signature of 'Hercules,' in the 'Genesee Messenger,' continued from October, 1807, until March, 1808, which first brought the public mind into familiarity with the subject. These essays, written in a jail, were the grateful return, by a patriot, to a country which punished him with imprisonment for being unable to pay debts owed to another citizen, and displayed deep research, with singular vigor and comprehensiveness of thought, and traced with prophetic accuracy a large portion of the outline of the Erie canal. In 1807, Albert Gallatin, then secretary of the treasury, in pursuance of a recommendation made by Thomas Jefferson, president of the United States, reported a plan for appropriating all the surplus revenues of the general government to the construction of canals and turnpike roads; and it embraced in one grand and comprehensive view, nearly without exception, all the works which have since been executed or attempted by the several states in the Union. … {2342} In 1808, Joshua Forman, a representative in the assembly from Onondaga county, submitted his memorable resolution," referring to the recommendation made by President Jefferson to the federal congress, and directing that "'a joint committee be appointed to take into consideration the propriety of exploring and causing an accurate survey to be made of the most eligible and direct route for a canal, to open a communication between the tide waters of the Hudson river and Lake Erie, to the end that Congress may be enabled to appropriate such sums as may be necessary to the accomplishment of that great national object.'" The committee was appointed, its report was favorable, and the survey was directed to be made. "There was then no civil engineer in the state. James Geddes, a land surveyor, who afterward became one of our most distinguished engineers, by the force of native genius and application in mature years, levelled and surveyed, under instructions from the surveyor-general," several routes to Lake Ontario and to Lake Erie. "Mr. Geddes' report showed that a canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson was practicable, and could be made without serious difficulty. In 1810, on motion of Jonas Platt, of the senate, who was distinguished throughout a pure and well-spent life by his zealous efforts to promote this great undertaking, Gouverneur Morris, De Witt Clinton, Stephen Van Rensselaer, Simeon De Witt, William North, Thomas Eddy, and Peter B. Porter, were appointed commissioners 'to explore the whole route for inland navigation from the Hudson river to Lake Ontario and to Lake Erie.' Cadwallader D. Colden, a contemporary historian, himself one of the earliest and ablest advocates of the canals, awards to Thomas Eddy the merit of having suggested this motion to Mr. Platt, and to both these gentlemen that of engaging De Witt Clinton's support, he being at that time a member of the senate. … The commissioners in March, 1811, submitted their report written by Gouverneur Morris, in which they showed the practicability and advantages of a continuous canal from Lake Erie to the Hudson, and stated their estimate of the cost at $5,000,000. … On the presentation of this report, De Witt Clinton introduced a bill, which became a law on the 8th of April, 1811, under the title of 'An act to provide for the improvement of the internal navigation of this state.' … The act added Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton to the board of commissioners, and authorized them to consider all matters relating to such inland navigation, with powers to make application in behalf of the state to Congress, or to any state or territory, to cooperate and aid in the undertaking. … Two of the commissioners, Mr. Morris and Mr. Clinton, repaired to the federal capital, and submitted the subject to the consideration of the President (Mr. Madison) and of Congress. In 1812, the commissioners reported that, although it was uncertain whether the national government would do anything, it certainly would do nothing which would afford immediate aid to the enterprise. … The commissioners then submitted that, having offered the canal to the national government, and that offer having virtually been declined, the state was now at liberty to consult and pursue the maxims of policy, and these seemed to demand imperatively that the canal should be made by herself, and for her own account, as soon as the circumstances would permit. … On the 19th of June, 1812, a law was enacted, reappointing the commissioners and authorizing them to borrow money and deposite it in the treasury, and to take cessions of land, but prohibiting any measures to construct the canals. … From 1812 to 1815, the country suffered the calamities of war, and projects of internal improvement necessarily gave place to the patriotic efforts required to maintain the national security and honor." But after peace had returned, the advocates of the enterprise prevailed with considerable difficulty over its opponents, and "ground was broken for the construction of the Erie canal on the 4th day of July, 1817, at Rome, with ceremonies marking the public estimation of that great event. De Witt Clinton, having just before been elected to the chief magistracy of the state, and being president of the board of canal commissioners, enjoyed the high satisfaction of attending, with his associates, on the auspicious occasion. … On the 26th of October, 1825, the Erie canal was in a navigable condition throughout its entire length, affording an uninterrupted passage from Lake Erie to tidewater in the Hudson. … This auspicious consummation was celebrated by a telegraphic discharge of cannon, commencing at Lake Erie [at Buffalo], and continued along the banks of the canal and of the Hudson, announcing to the city of New York the entrance on the bosom of the canal of the first barge [bearing Governor Clinton and his coadjutors] that was to arrive at the commercial emporium from the American Mediterraneans."

W. H. Seward, Notes on New York (Works, volume 2), pages 88-117.

ALSO IN: D. Hosack, Memoir of De Witt Clinton, pages 82-119 and 245-504.

J. Renwick, Life of De Witt Clinton, chapters 10-19.

C. D. Colden, Memoir: Celebration of the Completion of the New York Canals.

M. S. Hawley, Origin of the Erie Canal.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1821. Revision of the Constitution.

"The Constitution did not meet the expectations of its framers. The cumbrous machinery by which it was sought to insure the control of the People, through the supremacy of the Assembly, had only resulted in fortifying power practically beyond their reach. The Council of Revision was objected to because it had exercised the veto power contrary to the spirit of the Constitution, which was in harmony with the traditions of the Colony from the earliest conflict with the executive power; and because the officers who thus interposed their objections to the will of the Legislature, holding office for good behavior (except the Governor), were beyond the reach of the People. It was seen that this power was a dangerous one, in a Council so constituted; but it was thought that it could be safely intrusted to the Governor alone, as he was directly responsible to the People. The Council of Appointment, although not vested with any judicial authority, and in fact disclaiming it, nevertheless at an early day summoned its appointees before it, for the purpose of hearing accusations against them, and proving their truth or falsity. At a later day, more summary proceedings were resorted to. The office thus became very unpopular. Nearly every civil, military, and judicial officer of the commonwealth was appointed by this Council. {2343} In 1821, 8,287 military and 6,663 civil officers held their commissions from it, and this vast system of centralized power was naturally very obnoxious. The Legislature, in 1820, passed 'an act recommending a Convention of the People of this State,' which came up for action in the Council of Revision, on November 20th of the same year; present, Governor Clinton, Chancellor Kent, Chief Justice Spencer, and Justices Yates and Woodworth, on which day the Council, by the casting vote of the Governor, adopted two objections to it; first, because it did not provide for taking the sense of the People on the question; and second, because it submitted the new Constitution to the People in toto, instead of by sections. These objections were referred to a select committee, Michael Ulshoeffer, chairman, who submitted their report January 9, 1821, in opposition to the opinion of the Council, which was adopted by the Assembly. The bill, however, failed to pass, not receiving a two-third vote. Immediately thereupon a committee was appointed to draft a new bill. The committee subsequently introduced a bill for submitting the question to the people, which passed both Houses; received the sanction of the Council of Revision on the 13th of March, and was subsequently amended, the amendments receiving the sanction of the Council on the third of April. The popular vote on holding the Convention was had in April, and resulted as follows: 'For Convention' 109,346. 'For No Convention' 34,901. The Convention assembled in Albany, August 28, and adjourned November 10, 1821. The Council of Revision was abolished, and its powers transferred to the Governor. The Council of Appointment was abolished without a dissenting voice. The principal department officers were directed to be appointed on an open separate nomination by the two Houses, and subsequent joint ballot. Of the remaining officers not made elective, the power of appointment was conferred upon the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. In 1846, two hundred and eighty-nine offices were thus filled. The elective franchise was extended. The Constitution was adopted at an election held in February, 1822, by the following vote: Constitution—For, 74,732: Against, 41,402. … The People took to themselves a large portion of the power they had felt it necessary, in the exercise of a natural conservatism, to intrust to the Assembly. They had learned that an elective Governor and an elective Senate are equally their agents, and interests which they thought ought to be conserved, they intrusted to them, subject to their responsibility to the People. The entire Senate were substituted in the place of the members who chanced to be the favorites with a majority in the Assembly, as a Council to the Governor, and thus the People of all the State were given a voice in appointments. The Supreme Judicial Tribunal remained the same. The direct sovereignty of the People was thus rendered far more effective, and popular government took the place of parliamentary administration."

E. A. Werner, Civil List and Constitutional History of New York, 1887, pages 126-128.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1823. The rise of the Albany Regency.

"The adoption of the new constitution in 1822 placed the political power of the State in the hands of Mr. Van Buren, the recognized representative leader of the Democratic party. Governor Clinton, as the end of his term of service approached, became as powerless as he was in 1816. … William L. Marcy was then State Comptroller, Samuel L. Talcott, Attorney-General; Benjamin Knower, Treasurer; and Edwin Crosswell, editor of the 'Argus' and state printer. These gentlemen, with Mr. Van Buren as their chief, constituted the nucleus of what became the Albany Regency. After adding Silas Wright, Azariah C. Flagg, John A. Dix, James Porter, Thomas W. Olcott, and Charles E. Dudley to their number, I do not believe that a stronger political combination ever existed at any state capital. … Their influence and power for nearly twenty years was almost as potential in national as in state politics."

T. Weed, Autobiography, volume 1, chapter 11.

"Even to our own day, the Albany Regency has been a strong and generally a sagacious influence in its party. John A. Dix, Horatio Seymour, Dean Richmond and Samuel J. Tilden long directed its policy, and from the chief seat in its councils the late secretary of the treasury, Daniel Manning, was chosen in 1885."

E. M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren, page 96.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1826-1832. Anti-Masonic excitement. The abduction of Morgan.

"The society of free-masons included a large number of the foremost citizens in all walks of life, and the belief existed that they used their secret ties to advance their ambitions. … This belief was used to create prejudice among those who were not members, and it added fuel to the fires of faction. At this juncture, September 11, 1826, William Morgan, of Batavia, a free-mason, who had announced his intention to print a pamphlet exposing the secrets of masonry, was arrested on a charge of larceny, made by the master of a masonic lodge, but found not guilty, and then arrested for debt, and imprisoned in jail at Canandaigua. He was taken secretly from that jail and conveyed to Fort Niagara, where he was kept until September, when he disappeared. The masons were charged with his abduction, and a body found in the Niagara River was produced as proof that he was drowned to put him out of the way. Thurlow Weed, then an editor in Rochester, was aggressive in charging that Morgan was murdered by the masons, and as late as 1882 he published an affidavit rehearsing a confession made to him by John Whitney, that the drowning was in fact perpetrated by himself and four other persons whom he named, after a conference in a masonic lodge. In 1827, Weed, who was active in identifying the drowned body, was charged with mutilating it, to make it resemble Morgan, and the imputation was often repeated; and the abduction and murder were in turn laid at the door of the anti-masons. The disappearance became the chief topic of partisan discussion. De Witt Clinton was one of the highest officers in the masonic order, and it was alleged that he commanded that Morgan's book should be 'suppressed at all hazards,' thus instigating the murder; but the slander was soon exposed. The state was flooded with volumes portraying masonry as a monstrous conspiracy, and the literature of the period was as harrowing as a series of sensational novels."

E. H. Roberts, New York, volume 2, chapter 33.

{2344}

"A party soon grew up in Western New York pledged to oppose the election of any Free Mason to public office. The Anti-Masonic Party acquired influence in other States, and began to claim rank as a national political party. On most points its principles were those of the National Republicans. But Clay, as well as Jackson, was a Free Mason, and consequently to be opposed by this party. … In 1832 it even nominated a Presidential ticket of its own, but, having no national principle of controlling importance, it soon after declined."

A. Johnston, History of American Politics, chapter 12, section 3, with foot-note.

ALSO IN: T. Weed, Autobiography, chapters 20-30, 36, and 40.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1827. The last of Slavery in the state.

"On the 28th of January, 1817, the governor sent a message to the legislature recommending the entire abolition of slavery in the State of New York, to take place on the fourth day of July, 1827. By an act passed some years before, all persons born of parents who were slaves after July 1799, were to be free; males at twenty-eight and females at twenty-five years of age. The present legislature adopted the recommendation of the governor. This great measure in behalf of human rights, which was to obliterate forever the black and foul stain of slavery from the escutcheon of our own favored state, was produced by the energetic action of Cadwallader D. Colden, Peter A. Jay, William Jay, Daniel D. Tompkins and other distinguished philanthropists, chiefly residing in the city of New York. The Society of Friends, who never slumber when the principles of benevolence and a just regard to equal rights call for their action, were zealously engaged in this great enterprise."

J. D. Hammond, History of Political Parties in the State of New York, volume 1, chapter 22.

ALSO IN: E. H. Roberts, New York, volume 2, page 565.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1835-1837. The Loco-focos.

"The Van Buren party began to be called the Loco-focos, in derision of the fancied extravagance of their financial doctrines. The Loco-foco or Equal Rights party proper was originally a division of the Democrats, strongly anti-monopolist in their opinions, and especially hostile to banks,—not only government banks but all banks,—which enjoyed the privileges then long conferred by special and exclusive charters. In the fall of 1835 some of the Democratic candidates in New York were especially obnoxious to the anti-monopolists of the party. When the meeting to regularly confirm the nominations made in committee was called at Tammany Hall, the anti-monopolist Democrats sought to capture the meeting by a rush up the main stairs. The regulars, however, showed themselves worthy of their regularity by reaching the room up the back stairs. In a general scrimmage the gas was put out. The anti-monopolists, perhaps used to the devices to prevent meetings which might be hostile, were ready with candles and loco-foco matches. The hall was quickly illuminated; and the anti-monopolists claimed that they had defeated the nominations. The regulars were successful, however, at the election; and they and the Whigs dubbed the anti-monopolists the Loco-foco men. … The hatred which Van Buren after his message of September, 1837, received from the banks commended him to the Loco-focos; and in October, 1837, Tammany Hall witnessed their reconciliation with the regular Democrats upon a moderate declaration for equal rights."

E. M. Shepard, Martin Van Buren, pages 293-295.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1838. Passage of the Free Banking Act.

See MONEY AND BANKING: A. D. 1838.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1839-1846. The Anti-rent disturbances.

See LIVINGSTON MANOR.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1840-1841. The McLeod Case.

See CANADA: A. D. 1840-1841.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1845-1846. Schism in the Democratic party over Slavery extension. Hunkers and Barnburners.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1845-1846.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1846. Constitutional revision.

During the twenty-five years of the existence of the constitution of 1821, "ten different proposals for amendments were submitted to the electors, who decided against choosing presidential electors by districts, but in favor of extending the franchise, in favor of electing mayors by the people, and in 1846 for no license except in the city of New York. The commonwealth grew not only in population, but in all the elements of progress and prosperity and power, and by the census of 1845 was shown to contain 2,604,495 inhabitants. Legislation had tended to the substitution of rights for privileges granted as favors. The tenure of land, especially under the claims of the patroons, had caused difficulties for which remedies were sought; and the large expenditures for internal improvements, involving heavy indebtedness, prompted demands for safe-guards for the creditor and the taxpayer. The judiciary system had confessedly become independent, and required radical reformation. When, therefore, in 1845, the electors were called upon to decide whether a convention should be held to amend the State constitution, 213,257 voted in the affirmative, against 33,860 in the negative. The convention met June 1, 1846, but soon adjourned until October 9, when it proceeded with its task. John Tracy of Chenango presided; and among the members were Ira Harris of Albany, George 'V. Patterson of Chautauqua, Michael Hoffman and Arphaxed Loomis of Herkimer, Samuel J. Tilden of New York, Samuel Nelson of Otsego, and others eminent at home and in State affairs. The convention dealt radically with the principles of government. The new constitution gave to the people the election of many officers before appointed at Albany. It provided for the election of members of both houses of the legislature by separate districts. Instead of the cumbrous court for the correction of errors, it established an independent court of appeals. It abolished the court of chancery and the circuit courts, and merged both into the supreme court, and defined the jurisdiction of county courts. All judges were to be elected by the people. Feudal tenures were abolished, and no leases on agricultural lands for a longer period than twelve years were to be valid, if any rent or service were reserved. The financial articles established sinking funds for both the canal and general fund debt, forbade the loan of the credit of the State, and limited rigidly the power of the legislature to create debts, except to repel invasion or suppress insurrection, and declared the school and literature funds inviolate. Provision was made for general laws for the formation of corporations. The constitution required the submission to the people once every twenty years of the question whether a convention shall be called or not."

E. H. Roberts, New York, volume 2, pages 567-569.

{2345}

NEW YORK: A. D. 1848. The Free Soil movement. The Buffalo Convention.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1848.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1848. Legal Emancipation of Women.

See LAW, COMMON; A. D. 1839-1848.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1848. Adoption of the Code of Civil Procedure.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1848-1883.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1861 (April). The speeding of the Seventh Regiment to the defense of Washington.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1861 (APRIL-MAY: MARYLAND).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1862-1886. The founding and growth of Cornell University.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1862-1886.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1863. The Draft Riots in New York City.

"A new levy of 300,000 men was called for in April, 1863, with the alternative of a draft if the quotas were not filled by volunteering. The quota of the city of New York was not filled, and a draft was begun there on Saturday, the 11th of July. There had been premonitions of trouble when it was attempted to take the names and addresses of those subject to call, and in the tenement-house districts some of the marshals had narrowly escaped with their lives. On the morning when the draft was to begin, several of the most widely read Democratic journals contained editorials that appeared to be written for the very purpose of inciting a riot. They asserted that any draft at all was unconstitutional and despotic, and that in this case the quota demanded from the city was excessive, and denounced the war as a 'mere abolition crusade.' It is doubtful if there was any well-formed conspiracy, including any large number of persons, to get up a riot; but the excited state of the public mind, especially among the laboring population, inflammatory handbills displayed in the grog-shops, the presence of the dangerous classes, whose best opportunity for plunder was in time of riot, and the absence of the militia that had been called away to meet the invasion of Pennsylvania, all favored an outbreak. It was unfortunate that the draft was begun on Saturday, and the Sunday papers published long lists of the names that were drawn—an instance of the occasional mischievous results of journalistic enterprise. … When the draft was resumed on Monday, the serious work began. One provost-marshal's office was at the corner of Third Avenue and Forty-Sixth street. It was guarded by sixty policemen, and the wheel was set in motion at ten o'clock. The building was surrounded by a dense, angry crowd, who were freely cursing the draft, the police, the National Government, and 'the nigger.' The drawing had been in progress but a few minutes when there was a shout of 'stop the cars!' and at once the cars were stopped, the horses released, the conductors and passengers driven out, and a tumult created. Then a great human wave was set in motion, which bore down everything before it and rolled into the marshal's office, driving out at the back windows the officials and the policemen, whose clubs, though plied rapidly and knocking down a rioter at every blow, could not dispose of them as fast as they came on. The mob destroyed everything in the office, and then set the building on fire. The firemen came promptly, but were not permitted to throw any water upon the flames. At this moment Superintendent John A. Kennedy, of the police, approaching incautiously and unarmed, was recognized and set upon by the crowd, who gave him half a hundred blows with clubs and stones, and finally threw him face downward into a mud-puddle, with the intention of drowning him. When rescued, he was bruised beyond recognition, and was lifted into a wagon and carried to the police headquarters. The command of the force now devolved upon Commissioner Thomas C. Acton and Inspector Daniel Carpenter, whose management during three fearful days was worthy of the highest praise. Another marshal's office, where the draft was in progress, was at Broadway and Twenty-Ninth street, and here the mob burned the whole block of stores on Broadway between Twenty-Eighth and Twenty-Ninth streets. … In the afternoon a small police force held possession of a gun-factory in Second Avenue for four hours, and was then compelled to retire before the persistent attacks of the rioters, who hurled stones through the windows and beat in the doors. Toward evening a riotous procession passed down Broadway, with drums, banners, muskets, pistols, pitchforks, clubs, and boards inscribed 'No Draft!' Inspector Carpenter, at the head of two hundred policemen, marched up to meet it. His orders were, 'Take no prisoners, but strike quick and hard.' The mob was met at the corner of Amity (or West Third) street. The police charged at once in a compact body, Carpenter knocking down the foremost rioter with a blow that cracked his skull, and in a few moments the mob scattered and fled, leaving Broadway strewn with their wounded and dying. From this time, the police were victorious in every encounter. During the next two days there was almost constant rioting, mobs appearing at various points, both up-town and down-town. The rioters set upon every negro that appeared—whether man, woman, or child—and succeeded in murdering eleven of them. … This phase of the outbreak found its worst expression in the sacking and burning of the Colored Orphan Asylum, at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Fourth street. The two hundred helpless children were with great difficulty taken away by the rear doors while the mob were battering at the front. … One of the saddest incidents of the riot was the murder of Colonel Henry J. O'Brien of the 11th New York Volunteers, whose men had dispersed one mob with a deadly volley. An hour or two later the Colonel returned to the spot alone, when he was set upon and beaten and mangled and tortured horribly for several hours, being at last killed by some frenzied women. … Three days of this vigorous work by the police and the soldiers brought the disturbance to an end. About fifty policemen had been injured, three of whom died; and the whole number of lives destroyed by the rioters was eighteen. The exact number of rioters killed is unknown, but it was more than 1,200. The mobs burned about 50 buildings, destroying altogether between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 worth of property. Governor Seymour incurred odium by a speech to the rioters, in which he addressed them as his friends, and promised to have the draft stopped; and by his communications to the President, in which he complained of the draft, and asked to have it suspended till the question of its constitutionality could be tested in the courts."

R. Johnson, Short History of the War of Secession, chapter 18.

ALSO IN: J. G. Nicolay and J. Hay, Abraham Lincoln, volume 7, chapter 1.

H. Greeley, The American Conflict, volume 2, chapter 21.

D. M. Barnes, The Draft Riots in New York.

{2346}

NEW YORK: A. D. 1863-1871. The Tweed Ring.

Between 1863 and 1871 the city of New York, and, to a considerable extent, the state at large, fell under the control and into the power of a combination of corrupt politicians commonly known as the Tweed Ring. Its chief was one William Marcy Tweed, of Scotch parentage, who first appeared in public life as an alderman of the city, in 1850. Working himself upward, in the Democratic party, to which he adhered, he attained in 1863 the powerful dignity of Grand Sachem of the Tammany Society and chairman or "Boss" of the general committee of Tammany Hall. "At this time, however, the Tammany 'Ring,' as it afterwards was called, was not completely formed, and Tammany Hall, though by far the most important political organization in the city, was not absolute even in the Democratic party. It had a bitter enemy in Mozart Hall, a political organization led by Fernando Wood, a former mayor of the city. The claims of Mozart Hall were satisfied in this same year, 1863, by granting to its leader the Democratic nomination to Congress. … Soon afterwards Tweed was appointed deputy-commissioner of streets. The 'Ring' was now fast consolidating. The enormous patronage possessed by its members enabled them to control almost all the nominations of the Democratic party to positions in the city. They provided their adherents with places in the city government, and when the supply of places became inadequate, they enlarged the city pay-roll to create new places. By means of the political influence they exerted over the Democratic party in the State, they packed the State legislature with their followers, and placed upon the bench judges on whom they could rely. … In 1865 the Ring obtained control of the mayoralty. Its candidate, John T. Hoffman, was a man of much higher character than his supporters and associates. He was personally honest, but his ambition blinded him to the acts of his political friends. … In 1868 … Hoffman was nominated for governor and was elected. His election was secured by the grossest and most extensive frauds ever perpetrated in the city, e. g. illegal naturalization of foreigners, false registration, repeating of votes, and unfair counting. The mayoralty, left vacant by the promotion of Hoffman, was filled by the election of Hall [A. Oakey Hall], who took his seat on the 1st day of January 1869. As Samuel J. Tilden said, by this election 'the Ring became completely organized and matured.' It controlled the common council of the city and the legislature of the State, and its nominee sat in the gubernatorial chair. Hall was mayor; Sweeny [Peter B. Sweeny, 'the great schemer of the Ring'] was city chamberlain or treasurer of both city and county; Tweed was practically supreme in the street department; Connolly [Richard B.] was city comptroller, and thus had charge of the city finances; the city judiciary was in sympathy with these men." But great as were the power and the opportunities of the Ring, it obtained still more of both through its well-paid creatures in the State legislature, by amendments of the city charter and by acts which gave Tweed and his partners free swing in debt-making for the city. In 1871, the last year of the existence of the Ring, it had more than $48,000,000 of money at its disposal. Its methods of fraud were varied and numerous. "But all the other enterprises of the Ring dwindle into insignificance when compared with the colossal frauds that were committed in the building of the new court-house for the county. When this undertaking was begun, it was stipulated that its total cost should not exceed $250,000; but before the Ring was broken up, upwards of $8,000,000 had been expended, and the work was not completed. … Whenever a bill was brought in by one of the contractors, he was directed to increase largely the total of his charge. … A warrant was then drawn for the amount of the bill as raised; the contractor was paid, perhaps the amount of his original, bill, perhaps a little more; and the difference between the original and the raised bills was divided between the members of the Ring. It is said that about 65 per cent. of the bills actually paid by the county represented fraudulent addition of this sort." The beginning of the end of the reign of the Ring came in July, 1871, when copies of some of the fraudulent accounts, made by a clerk in the auditor's office, came into the possession of the New York Times and were published. "The result of these exposures was a meeting of citizens early in September. … It was followed by the formation of a sort of peaceable vigilance committee, under the imposing title of the 'Committee of Seventy.' This committee, together with Samuel J. Tilden (long a leading Democratic politician, and afterwards candidate for the presidency of the United States), went to work at once, and with great energy, to obtain actual proof of the frauds described by the 'Times.' It was owing mainly to the tireless endeavours of Mr. Tilden … that this work was successful, and that prosecutions were brought against several members of the Ring." The Tammany leaders attempted to make a scapegoat of Connolly; but the latter came to terms with Mr. Tilden, and virtually turned over his office to Mr. Andrew H. Green, of the Committee of Seventy, appointing him deputy-comptroller, with full powers. "This move was a tremendous step forward for the prosecution. The possession of the comptroller's office gave access to papers which furnished almost all the evidence afterwards used in the crusade against the Ring." At the autumn election of 1871 there was a splendid rally of the better citizens, in the city and throughout the state, and the political power of the Ring was broken. "None of the leading actors in the disgraceful drama failed to pay in some measure the penalty of his deeds. Tweed, after a chequered experience in eluding the grasp of justice, died in jail. Connolly passed the remainder of his life in exile. Sweeny left the country and long remained abroad. … Hall was tried and obtained a favourable verdict, but he has chosen to live out of America. Of the judges whose corrupt decisions so greatly aided the Ring, Barnard and M'Cunn were impeached and removed from the bench, while Cardozo resigned his position in time to avoid impeachment. The following figures will give an approximate idea of the amount the Ring cost the city of New York. In 1860, before Tweed came into power, the debt of the city was reported as amounting only to $20,000,000 while the tax rate was about 1.60 per cent. on the assessed valuation of the property in the city liable to taxation. {2347} In the middle of the year 1871, the total debt of the city and the county—which were coterminous, and for all practical purposes the same—amounted to $100,955,333.33, and the tax rate had risen to over 2 per cent. During the last two years and a half of the government of the Ring the debt increased at the rate of $28,652,000 a year."

F. J. Goodnow, The Tweed Ring in New York City (chapter 88 of Bryce's "American Commonwealth," volume 2).

ALSO IN: S. J. Tilden, The New York City "Ring": its Origin, Maturity and Fall.

C. F. Wingate, An episode in Municipal Government (N. A. Rev., Oct. 1874, January and July, 1875, October. 1876).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1867. The Public Schools made entirely free.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1867.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1867-1882. Amendments of the Constitution.

The constitution of 1846 having provided for its own revision at the end of twenty years, if so willed by the people, the calling of a constitutional convention was approved by popular vote in 1866, and the convention of elected delegates assembled June 4, in the following year. Its final adjournment was not reached until February 28, 1868. The constitution proposed by the convention was submitted to the people in 1869, and rejected, with the exception of the judiciary article, which reorganized the Court of Appeals, and provided for a temporary Commission of Appeals, to determine the cases pending in the Court, where business in arrears had accumulated to a serious extent. The rejection of the constitution framed in 1867 led, in 1872, to the creation by the governor and legislature of a Commission for the revision of the constitution, which met at Albany, December 4, 1872, and adjourned March 15, 1873. Several amendments proposed by the Commission were submitted to popular vote in 1874 and 1876, and were adopted. By the more important of these amendments, colored citizens were admitted to the franchise without property qualifications; a strong, specific enactment for the prevention and punishment of bribery and corruption at elections was embodied in the constitution itself; some changes were made in the provisions for districting the state, after each census, and the pay of members of the legislature was increased to $1,500 per annum; the power of the legislature to pass private bills was limited; the term of the governor was extended from two years to three; the governor was empowered to veto specific items in bills which appropriate money, approving the remainder; the governor was allowed thirty days for the consideration of bills left in his hands at the adjournment of the legislature, which bills become law only upon his approval within that time; a superintendent of public works was created to take the place of the Canal Commissioners previously existing, and a superintendent of state prisons to take the place of the three inspectors of state prisons; a selection of judges from the bench of the Supreme Court of the state to act as Associate Judges of the Court of Appeals was authorized; the loaning or granting of the credit or money of the state, or that of any county, city, town, or village to any association, corporation, or private undertaking was forbidden; corrupt conduct in office was declared to be felony. By an amendment of the constitution submitted by the legislature to the people in 1882, the canals of the state were made entirely free of tolls.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1869. Black Friday.

"During the war gold had swollen in value to 285, when the promise of the nation to pay a dollar on demand was only worth thirty-five cents. Thence it had gradually sunk. … All our purchases from foreign nations, all duties on those purchases, and all sales of domestic produce to other nations are payable in gold. There is therefore a large and legitimate business in the purchase and sale of gold, especially in New York, the financial centre of the nation. But a much larger business of a gambling nature had gradually grown up around that which was legitimate. … These gambling operations were based on the rise and fall of gold, and these in turn depended on successful or unsuccessful battles, or on events in foreign nations that could be neither foreseen nor guarded against. The transactions were therefore essentially gambling. … So large was the amount of this speculative business, gathering up all the gold-betting of the nation in a single room, that it more than equalled the legitimate purchase and sale of gold. There were large and wealthy firms who made this their chief business; and prominent among them was the firm of Smith, Gould, Martin & Co., four gentlemen under one partnership name, all wealthy and all accustomed to this business for years. Their joint wealth and business skill made them a power in Wall street. The leading mind of the firm, though not the first named, was Mr. Jay Gould, President of the Erie Railway, joint owner with Colonel James Fisk Jr., of two lines of steamboats, and largely interested in a number of railroads and other valuable properties. Mr. Gould looked upon gold, railroads, and steamboats as the gilded dice wherewith to gamble. … During the spring of 1869 he was a buyer of gold. There was perhaps fifteen millions of that rare currency in New York outside the Sub-Treasury; and he had bought half that amount, paying therefor a bonus of a little more than two millions of dollars. As fast as he had purchased the precious metal he had loaned it out to those who needed it for the payment of duties, and who hoped to repurchase it at a lower rate. And so, though the owner of seven millions, he had none of it in hand; he merely possessed the written acknowledgment of certain leading merchants and brokers that they owed him that amount of specie, which they would repay with interest on demand. Having this amount obtainable at any moment, Mr. Gould had the mercantile community at his mercy. But there was some hundred millions of gold in the Treasury, more or less, and the President of the United States or the Secretary of the Treasury might at any time throw it on the market. On this point it was very desirable to ascertain the opinion of President Grant; more desirable to have constant access to his private ear." In various ways, argumentative influences were brought to bear on President Grant and the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Boutwell, to persuade them that it was desirable for the country, while the crops were being moved, to hold up the price of gold. One important channel for such influences was supplied by the President's brother-in-law, a retired New York merchant, named Corbin, who was drawn into the speculation and given a share in Gould's gold purchases. {2348} By strenuous exertions, Gould and his associates pushed up the price till "in May it stood at 144 7/8; but as soon as they ceased to buy, the price began to recede until in the latter part of June it again stood at 136. The others were then frightened and sold out. 'All these other fellows deserted me like rats from a ship,' said Gould. But for him to sell out then would involve a heavy loss, and he preferred a gain. He therefore called upon his friend and partner Fisk to enter the financial arena. It is but justice to Mr. Fisk to say that for some time he declined; he clearly saw that the whole tendency of gold was downward. But when Gould made the proposition more palatable by suggesting corruption, Fisk immediately swallowed the bait. … He … entered the market and purchased twelve millions. There is an old adage that there is honor among thieves. This appears not to be true on the Gold Exchange. All Mr. Gould's statements to his own partner were false, except those relating to Corbin and Butterfield. And Mr. Corbin did his best. He not only talked and wrote to the President himself; not only wrote for the New York 'Times,' but when General Grant visited him in New York, he sent Gould to see him so often that the President, unaware of the financial trap set for him, rebuked the door servant for giving Mr. Gould such ready access. But it is worthy of note that neither Corbin, Gould, nor Fisk ever spoke to the President of their personal interest in the matter. They were only patriots urging a certain course of conduct for the good of the country. These speculations as to the advantage to the country of a higher price of gold seem to have had some effect on the Presidential mind; for early in September he wrote to Mr. Boutwell, then at his Massachusetts home, giving his opinion of the financial condition of the country, and suggesting that it would not be wise to lower the price of gold by sales from the Treasury while the crops were moving to the seaboard. Mr. Boutwell therefore telegraphed to the Assistant Secretary at Washington only to sell gold sufficient to buy bonds for the sinking fund. Through Mr. Corbin or in some other way this letter came to the knowledge of the conspirators; for they at once began to purchase and the price began to rise. … On the 13th of September, gold, swelling and falling like the tide, stood at 135½. The clique then commenced their largest purchases, and within nine days had bought enough to hold sixty-six millions—nearly every cent of it fictitious, and only included in promises to pay. On the evening of Wednesday, September 22, the price was 140½; but it had taken the purchase of thirty or forty millions to put it up that five cents. Could it be forced five cents higher, and all sold, the profits would be over ten millions of dollars! It was a stake worth playing for. But the whole mercantile community was opposed to them; bountiful harvests were strong arguments against them; and more than all else, there stood the Sub-Treasury of the United States, with its hundred millions of dollars in its vaults, ready at any time to cast its plethora of wealth on their unfortunate heads. … Corbin, while assuring Gould that there was no danger of any Government sale, and yet himself greatly in trepidation, addressed a letter to General Grant urging him not to interfere with the warfare then raging between the bulls and the bears, nor to allow the Secretary of the Treasury to do so. … The letter would probably have had some effect, but unfortunately the ring overdid their business in the way in which they sent it." The letter was conveyed by a private messenger. The messenger, "Mr. Chapin, delivered his letter, asked General Grant if there was any reply, and being told there was none, started for his home, first telegraphing to his employer, 'Letter delivered all right.' It was a most unfortunate telegraphic message he sent back. He swears that his meaning was that the letter was delivered all right; and so the despatch reads. But the gold gamblers, blinded by the greatness of the stake at risk, interpreted the 'all right' of the message as an answer to the contents of Mr. Corbin's letter—that the President thought the letter all right; and on the strength of that reading Fisk rushed into the market and made numerous purchases of gold. But that very letter, which was intended to be their governmental safeguard, led to their ruin. Carried by special messenger for a day and a half, its urgency that the Administration should sell no gold, coupled with frequent assertions in the newspapers that Mr. Corbin was a great bull in gold, excited General Grant's suspicions. He feared that Corbin was not actuated by patriotic motives alone in this secret correspondence. At the President's suggestion, therefore, Mrs. Grant wrote to her sister, Mrs. Corbin, telling her that rumors had reached them that Mr. Corbin was connected with speculators in New York, and that she hoped if this was so he would at once disengage himself from them; that the President was much distressed at such rumors. On the receipt of this letter, Mr. Corbin was greatly excited." Corbin showed the letter to Gould, and got himself let out of the game, so that he might be able to say to President Grant that he had no interest in gold; but Fisk was not told of the President's suspicions. "On the evening of Wednesday, September 21, it was determined to close the corner within two days." A desperate attack on the market began next morning. Gold opened that day at 39½; it closed at 44. The next day was "Friday, September 24, commonly called Black Friday, either from the black mark it caused on the characters of dealers in gold, or, as is more probable, from the ruin it brought to both sides. The Gold Room was crowded for two hours before the time of business. … Fisk was there, gloating over the prospect of great gains from others' ruin. His brokers were there, noisy and betting on the rapid rise of gold and the success of the corner. All alike were greatly excited, palpitating between hope and fear, and not knowing what an hour might bring forth. … Gold closed on Thursday at 144; Speyers [principal broker of the conspirators] commenced his work on Friday by offering 145, one per cent. higher than the last purchase. Receiving no response, he offered to buy at 146, 147, 148, and 149 respectively, but without takers. Then 150 was offered, and half a million was sold him by Mr. James Brown, who had quietly organized a band of prominent merchants who were determined to meet the gold gamblers on their own ground. … Amid the most tremendous confusion the voices of the excited brokers could be heard slowly bidding up the value of their artificial metal. {2349} Higher and higher rose the tide of speculation; from 156 to 159 there was no offer whatever; amid deep silence Speyers called out, 'Any part of five millions for 160.' 'One million taken at 160,' was the quiet response of James Brown. Further offers were made by the brokers of the clique all the way from 160 to 163½. But Mr. Brown preferred to grapple the enemy by the throat, and he sold Speyers five millions more, making seven millions of gold sold that hour for which Speyers agreed to pay eleven millions in currency. Such figures almost stagger one to read of them! But Speyers continued to buy till before noon he had purchased nearly sixty millions. … As the price rose cent by cent, men's hearts were moved within them as the trees are shaken by the swelling of the wind. But when the first million was taken at 160 a great load was removed, and when the second million was sold there was such a burst of gladness, such a roar of multitudinous voices as that room, tumultuous as it had always been, never heard before. Everybody instantly began to sell, desiring to get rid of all their gold before it had tumbled too deep. And just as the precious metal was beginning to flow over the precipice, the news was flashed into the room that Government had telegraphed to sell four millions. Instantly the end was reached; gold fell to 140, and then down, down, down, to 133. There were no purchasers at any price. … The gold ring had that day bought sixty millions of gold, paying or rather agreeing to pay therefor ninety-six millions of dollars in currency!" But Gould, Fisk & Co., who owned several venal New York judges, placed injunctions and other legal obstacles in the way of a settlement of claims against themselves. "Of course these judicious and judicial orders put an end to all business except that which was favorable to Fisk and Gould. They continued to settle with all parties who owed them money; they were judicially enjoined from settling with those to whom, if their own brokers may be believed, they were indebted, and they have not yet settled with them. … As the settlements between the brokers employed by the ring and their victims were all made in private, there is no means of knowing the total result. But it is the opinion of Mr. James B. Hodskin, Chairman of the Arbitration Committee of the Exchange, and therefore better acquainted with its business than anyone else, that the two days' profits of the clique from the operations they acknowledged and settled for were not less than twelve millions of dollars; and that the losses on those transactions which they refused to acknowledge were not less than twenty millions. The New York 'Tribune' a day or two afterward put the gains of the clique at eleven million dollars. Some months after 'Black Friday' had passed away, Congress ordered an investigation into its causes. … For two or three days the whole business of New York stood still awaiting the result of the corner. … In good-will with all the world, with grand harvests, with full markets on both sides the Atlantic, came a panic that affected all business. Foreign trade came to a stand-still. The East would not send to Europe: the West could not ship to New York. Young men saw millions of dollars made in a few days by dishonesty; they beheld larger profits result from fraud than from long lives of honesty. Old men saw their best-laid plans frustrated by the operations of gamblers. Our national credit was affected by it. Europe was told that our principal places of business were nests of gamblers, and that it was possible for a small clique, aided by our banking institutions, to get possession of all the gold there was in the land; and that when one firm had gone through business transactions to the amount of over one hundred millions of dollars, the courts of the United States would compel the completion of those bargains which resulted in a profit, while those that ended in a loss were forbidden. For two or three months the sale of bonds in Europe was affected by the transactions of that day; and not until the present generation of business men has passed away will the evil influence of Black Friday be entirely lost."

W. R. Hooper, Black Friday (The Galaxy, December, 1871).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1875-1881. Stalwarts and Half-breeds.

See STALWARTS.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1881. Adoption of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

See LAW, COMMON: A. D. 1848-1883.

NEW YORK: A. D. 1892. Restored Tammany government in the City.

The Tammany organization was greatly discredited and crippled for a time by the exposure and overthrow of Tweed and his "ring," in 1871; but after a few years, under the chieftainship of John Kelly and Richard Croker, successive "grand sachems," it recovered its control of the city government so completely that, in 1892, Dr. Albert Shaw was justified in describing the latter as follows: "There is in New York no official body that corresponds with the London Council. The New York Board of Aldermen, plus the Mayor, plus the Commissioners who are the appointive heads of a number of the working departments such as the Excise, Park, Health and Police departments, plus the District Attorney, the Sheriff, the Coroners, and other officials pertaining to the county of New York as distinct from the city of New York, plus a few of the head Tammany bosses and the local Tammany bosses of the twenty-four Assembly Districts—all these men and a few other officials and bosses, taken together, would make up a body of men of about the same numerical strength as the London Council; and these are the men who now dominate the official life of the great community of nearly eighteen hundred thousand souls. In London the 137 councillors fight out every municipal question in perfectly open session upon its actual merits before the eyes of all London, and of the whole British empire. In New York, the governing group discusses nothing openly. The Board of Aldermen is an obscure body of twenty-five members, with limited power except for mischief, its members being almost to a man high Tammany politicians who are either engaged directly in the liquor business or are in one way or another connected with that interest. So far as there is any meeting in which the rulers of New York discuss the public affairs of the community, such meetings are held in the Tammany wigwam in Fourteenth Street. But Tammany is not an organization which really concerns itself with any aspects of public questions, either local or general, excepting the 'spoils' aspect. It is organized upon what is a military rather than a political basis, and its machinery extends through all the assembly districts and voting precincts of New York, controlling enough votes to hold and wield the balance of power, and thus to keep Tammany in the possession of the offices. {2350} Its local hold is maintained by the dispensing of a vast amount of patronage. The laborers on public works, the members of the police force and the fire brigades, the employees of the Sanitary Department, of the Excise Department, of the Street Cleaning and Repair Department and of the Water and Dock and Park Departments, the teachers in the public schools and the nurses in the public hospitals, all are made to feel that their livelihood depends on the favor of the Tammany bosses; and they must not only be faithful to Tammany themselves, but all their friends and relatives to the remotest collateral degree must also be kept subservient to the Tammany domination. The following characterization of Tammany leadership and method is from the New York Evening Post. … 'None of the members occupy themselves with any legislation, except such as creates salaried offices and contracts in this city, to be got hold of either by capture at the polls or "deals" with the Republican politicians here or in Albany. When such legislation has been successful, the only thing in connection with it which Tammany leaders consider is how the salaries shall be divided and what "assessments" the places or contracts can stand. If any decent outsider could make his way into the inner conferences at which these questions are settled, he would hear not the grave discussion of the public interests, how to keep streets clean, or how to repave them, or how to light them or police them, or how to supply the city with water, but stories of drunken or amorous adventure, larded freely with curious and original oaths, ridicule of reformers and "silk-stockinged" people generally, abuse of "kickers," and examination of the claims of gamblers, liquor-dealers, and pugilists to more money out of the public treasury. In fact, as we have had of late frequent occasion to observe, the society is simply an organization of clever adventurers, most of them in some degree criminal, for the control of the ignorant and vicious vote of the city in an attack on the property of the tax-payers. There is not a particle of politics in the concern any more than in any combination of Western brigands to "hold up" a railroad train and get at the express packages. Its sole object is plunder in any form which will not attract the immediate notice of the police.'"

A. Shaw, Municipal Problems of New York and London (Review of Reviews, April 1892).

NEW YORK: A. D. 1894. Constitutional Convention.

A bill passed by the legislature of 1892, calling a convention to revise the constitution of the State, provided for the election of 128 delegates by Assembly districts, and 32 at large, but added 9 more whom the Governor should appoint, 3 to represent labor interests, 3 woman-suffrage claims, and 3 the advocates of prohibition. By the legislature of 1893 this act was set aside and a new enactment adopted, making the total number of delegates to the Constitutional Convention 165, all elective, and apportioning five to each senatorial district. The convention assembled at Albany, May 9, 1894. Its labors are unfinished at the time this volume goes to press. Questions of reform in municipal government have claimed the greatest attention.

----------NEW YORK: End----------

NEW YORK SOCIETY LIBRARY.

See LIBRARIES, MODERN: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

----------NEW ZEALAND: Start--------

NEW ZEALAND: The aborigines.

"The traditions of these people [the Maoris] lead to the conclusion that they first came to New Zealand about 600 years ago, from some of the islands between Samoa and Tahiti; but some ethnologists put the migration as far back as 3,000 years. Their language is a dialect of the Polynesian, most resembling that of Rarotonga, but their physical characters vary greatly. Some are fair, with straight hair, and with the best type of Polynesian features; others are dusky brown, with curly or almost frizzly hair, and with the' long and broad arched nose of the Papuan; while others have the coarse thick features of the lower Melanesian races. Now these variations of type cannot be explained unless we suppose the Maoris to have found in the islands an indigenous Melanesian people, of whom they exterminated the men, but took the better-looking of the women for wives; and as their traditions decidedly state that they did find such a race when they first arrived at New Zealand, there seems no reason whatever for rejecting these traditions, which accord with actual physical facts, just as the tradition of a migration from 'Hawaiki,' a Polynesian island, accords with linguistic facts."

Hellwald-Wallace, Australasia (Stanford's Compendium, new issue, 1893), chapter 14, section 9 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders.

J. S. Polack, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders.

Lady Martin, Our Maoris.

W. D. Hay, Brighter Britain, volume 2, chapters 3-5.

See, also, MALAYAN RACE.

NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1642-1856. Discovery. Colonization. Early dealings with Natives. Constitutional organization.

"The honour of the actual discovery of New Zealand must be accorded to the Dutch Navigator, Tasman, who visited it in 1642, discovering Van Dieman's Land during the same voyage. As, however, he does not appear to have landed, the knowledge of the country derived by Europeans from his account of it must have been of very limited extent. … It was our own countryman, Captain Cook, to whom we are so largely indebted for what we now know of the geography of the Pacific, who made us acquainted with the nature of the country and the character of its inhabitants. The aborigines were evidently of a much higher type than those of the Australian continent. They are a branch of the Polynesian race, and according to their own traditions came about 600 years ago from 'Hawaiki,' which ethnologists interpret to mean either Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands), or Savaii in the Samoa group. They are divided into some twenty clans, analogous to those of the Scottish Highlands. Cook's first visit was paid in 1769, but he touched at the islands on several occasions during his subsequent voyages, and succeeded in making, before his final departure, a more or less complete exploration of its coasts. The aborigines were divided into numerous tribes, which were engaged in almost constant wars one with another. … As has been the case in so many distant lands, the first true pioneers of civilization were the missionaries. {2351} In 1814, thirty-seven years after Captain Cook's last visit to New Zealand, a few representatives of the English Church Missionary Society landed in the North Island, less with the intention of colonising than with the hope of converting the natives to Christianity. The first practical steps in the direction of settlement were taken by the New Zealand Land Company, composed of a very strong and influential body of gentlemen headed by Lord Durham, and having much the same ideas as those which actuated the South Australian Colonisation Society. The proposal to found a new Colony was at first bitterly opposed by the Government of the day, but in consequence of the energetic action of the Company, who sent out agents with large funds to purchase land of the natives, the Government ultimately gave way, and despatched as Consul Captain Hobson, who arrived in January 1840. One of his first steps on assuming office was to call a meeting of the natives and explain to them the object of his mission, with the view of entering into a treaty for placing the sovereignty of their island in Her Majesty the Queen. He was not at first successful, the natives fearing that if they acceded to the proposal, their land would be taken from them; but being reassured on this point, the majority of the chiefs ultimately signed the treaty in February of the same year. By the terms of this treaty, called the Treaty of Waitangi, the chiefs, in return for their acknowledgment of the supremacy of the Queen of England, were guaranteed for themselves and their people the exclusive possession of their lands so long as they wished to retain them, and they, on their side, accorded to the Crown the exclusive right of pre-emption over such lands as might, from time to time, come into the market. It will thus be seen that the acquisition of land in New Zealand by European settlers was effected in a manner entirely different from that which obtained in other colonies; for, although the right of pre-emption by the Crown was subsequently waived, no land could be obtained from natives unless they were perfectly willing to part with it. It is true that lands have in some instances been confiscated as a punishment for native insurrections, but, with this exception, all lands have passed from natives to Europeans by the ordinary processes of bargain and sale. Captain Hobson's next action was to place himself in communication with the New Zealand Company's agents, and ascertain what they were doing in the way of colonisation. He found that besides acquiring various blocks of land in the North and South Islands, they had formed a permanent settlement at Wellington, at which they were organising a system of government incompatible with the Queen's authority, which he therefore promptly suppressed. … In June of 1840 the settlement was made a colony by Charter under the Great Seal, Captain Hobson naturally becoming the first Governor. This eminent public servant died at his post in September 1842, being succeeded by Captain R. Fitzroy, who, however, did not reach the Colony till a year afterwards. In the interval occurred that lamentable incident, the massacre of white settlers by the natives at Wairu, in the South Island. Shortly after this the Company made strenuous efforts to obtain a share in the Executive Government, but this was twice disallowed by the Home authorities. Captain Fitzroy's term of office was in all respects a stormy one, the native chiefs rising in rebellion, open and covert, against the terms of the Waitangi treaty. With only 150 soldiers, and destitute of any military facilities, this governor deemed it prudent to come to a compromise with the rebels, fearing the effect upon the minds of the natives generally of the certain defeat which he must sustain in active warfare. Receiving, however, reinforcements from Sidney, Captain Fitzroy took the field, sustaining in his first expedition a decided defeat. Two other expeditions followed this, and at length the success of the British arms was assured, Captain Fitzroy suffering from the irony of fate, since, having been neglected in his peril, he was recalled in the moment of victory. Captain (afterwards Sir George) Grey succeeded to the Governorship in November 1845; having the good fortune to be surrounded by ministers of exceptional ability, and arriving in the Colony at a fortunate turn in its affairs, he takes his place among the successful Governors of New Zealand. Colonel Gore Browne—after an interregnum of nearly two years—succeeded to power, and during his viceroyalty in 1853, responsible government, which, however, did not provide for ministerial responsibility, was inaugurated. … The Home Government shortly afterwards (May 1856) … established responsible government in its fullest form, but unfortunately without any special provisions for the representation of the native races. … Up to 1847 New Zealand remained a Crown Colony, the Government being administered by a Governor appointed by the Crown, an Executive Council, and a Legislative Council. Under this system, the Governor had very large powers, since the only control over him was that exercised by the Home Government. The Executive Council consisted of the Governor and three official members, while the Legislative Council was made up of the Executive Council and three non-official members nominated by the Governor. At that time Auckland was the seat of Government, which has since been moved to Wellington. In 1852, before the expiration of the period over which the provisional charter granted in 1847 was to extend, the Imperial Parliament granted a new constitution to New Zealand (15 & 16 Vic. cap. 72), and in the following year it came into force and is still [1886] operative. The Legislature, under this Constitution, consists of a Governor, a Legislative Council, composed of life members nominated by the Crown, and a House of Representatives elected by the people, under a franchise which practically amounts to household suffrage."

Her Majesty's Colonies (Colonial and Ind. Exhibition, 1886), pages 245-248.

ALSO IN: G. W. Rusden, History of New Zealand, volume 1.

G. Tregarthen, Story of Australasia.

NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1853-1883. Land questions with the Natives. The King movement. The Maori War.

"In the course of years, as it was evident to the natives that the Europeans were the coming power in the land, suspicion and distrust were excited, and at last the tocsin sounded. … It was considered that a head was needed to initiate a form of Government among the tribes to resist the encroachments daily made by the Europeans, and which seemed to threaten the national extinction of the native race. The first to endeavour to bring about a new order of things was a native chief named Matene Te Whiwi, of Otaki. {2352} In 1853 he marched to Taupo and Rotorua, accompanied by a number of followers, to obtain the consent of the different tribes to the election of a king over the central parts of the island, which were still exclusively Maori territory, and to organize a form of government to protect the interests of the native race. Matene … met with little success. … The agitation, however, did not stop, the fire once kindled rapidly spread, ardent followers of the new idea sprang up, and their numbers soon increased, until finally, in 1854, a tribal gathering was convened at Manawapou. … After many points had been discussed, a resolution was come to among the assembled tribes that no more land should be sold to Europeans. A solemn league was entered into by an present for the preservation of the native territory, and a tomahawk was passed round as a pledge that all would agree to put the individual to death who should break it. In 1854 another bold stand was made, and Te Heuheu, who exercised a powerful sway over the tribes of the interior, summoned a native council at Taupo, when the King movement began in earnest. It was there decided that the sacred mountain of Tongariro should be the centre of a district in which no land was to be sold to the government, and that the districts of Hauraki, Waikato, Kawhia, Mokau, Taranaki, Whanganui, Rangitikei, and Titiokura, should form the outlying portions of the boundary; that no roads should be made by the Europeans within the area, and that a king should be elected to reign over the Maoris. In 1857 Kingite meetings were held, … at which it was agreed that Potatau Te Wherowhero, the most powerful chief of Waikato, should be elected king, under the title of Potatau the First, and finally, in June, 1858, his flag was formally hoisted at Ngaruawahia. Potatau, who was far advanced in life when raised to this high office, soon departed from the scene, and was succeeded by his son Matutaera Te Wherowhero, under the title of Potatau the Second. The events of the New Zealand war need not here be recited, but it may be easily imagined that during the continuance of the fighting the extensive area of country ruled over by the Maori monarch was kept clear of Europeans. But in 1863 and 1864 General Cameron, at the head of about 20,000 troops, composed of Imperial and Colonial forces, invaded the Waikato district, and drove the natives southward and westward, till his advanced corps were at Alexandra and Cambridge. Then followed the Waikato confiscation of Maori lands and the military settlements. The King territory was further broken into by the confiscations at Taranaki and the East Coast. … Since the termination of the lamentable war between the two races, the King natives have, on all occasions, jealously preserved their hostile spirit to Europeans. … The New Zealand war concluded, or rather died out, in 1865, when the confiscated line was drawn, the military settlements formed, and the King natives isolated themselves from the Europeans. For ten years it may be said that no attempt was mane to negotiate with them. They were not in a humour to be dealt with. About 1874 and 1875, however, it became evident that something would have to be done. The colony had greatly advanced in population, and a system of public works had been inaugurated, which made it intolerable that large centres of population should be cut off from each other by vast spaces of country which Europeans were not allowed even to traverse." Then began a series of negotiations, which, up to 1883, had borne no fruit.

J. H. Kerry-Nicholls, The King Country, introduction.

ALSO IN: G. W. Rusden, History of New Zealand.

Colonel Sir J. E. Alexander, Incidents of the Maori War.

NEW ZEALAND: A. D. 1887-1893. Maori representation. Women Suffrage.

An act passed in 1887 created four districts in each of which the Maoris elect a member of the House of Representatives. Every adult Maori has a vote in this election. By an act passed in 1893 the elective franchise was extended to women.

----------NEW ZEALAND: End----------

NEWAB-WUZEER, OR NAWAB-VIZIER, of Oude.

See OUDE; also NABOB.

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY: The founding of the city by migration from New Haven (1666-1667).

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1664-1667.

NEWBERN, North Carolina: Capture by the national forces.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JANUARY-APRIL: NORTH CAROLINA).

NEWBURGH, Washington's headquarters at.

"At the close of 1780, the army was cantoned at three points: at Morristown and at Pompton, in New Jersey, and at Phillipstown, in the Hudson Highlands. Washington established his head-quarters at New Windsor in December, 1780, where he remained until June, 1781, when the French, who had quartered during the winter at Newport and Lebanon, formed a junction with the Americans on the Hudson. In April, 1782, he established his head-quarters at Newburgh, two miles above the village of New Windsor, where he continued most of the time until November, 1783, when the Continental army was disbanded."

B. J. Lossing, Field-book of the Revolution, volume 1, page 671.

NEWBURGH ADDRESSES, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1782-1783.

NEWBURN, Battles of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1640.

NEWBURY, First Battles of.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

NEWBURY, Second Battle.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1644 (AUGUST-SEPTEMBER).

NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE, Origin of.

See PONS ÆLII.

NEWCOMEN, and the invention of the steam engine.

See STEAM ENGINE: THE BEGINNINGS.

----------NEWFOUNDLAND: Start--------

NEWFOUNDLAND: Aboriginal inhabitants.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: BEOTHUKAN FAMILY.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1000. Supposed identity with the Helluland of Norse Sagas.

See AMERICA: 10-11TH CENTURIES.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1498. Discovery by Sebastian Cabot.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1498.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1500. Visited by Cortereal, the Portuguese explorer.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1500.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1501-1578. The Portuguese, Norman, Breton and Basque fisheries.

"It is a very curious circumstance, that the country in which the Cabots started their idea for a navigation to the north-west, and in which they at first proclaimed their discovery of the rich fishing-banks near their New-found-Isles, did not at once profit by it so much as their neighbors, the French and the Portuguese. … {2353} During the first half of the 16th century we hear little of English fishing and commercial expeditions to the great banks; although they had a branch of commerce and fishery with Iceland. … 'It was not until the year 1548 that the English government passed the first act for the encouragement of the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland, after which they became active competitors in this profitable occupation.'" In Portugal, Cortereal's discovery had revealed "the wealth to be derived from the fish, particularly cod-fish, which abounded on that coast. The fishermen of Portugal and of the Western Islands, when this news was spread among them, made preparations for profiting by it, and soon extended their fishing excursions to the other side of the ocean. According to the statement of a Portuguese author, very soon after the discoveries by the Cortereals, a Portuguese Fishing Company was formed in the harbors of Vianna, Aveiro and Terceira, for the purpose of colonizing Newfoundland and making establishments upon it. Nay, already, in 1506, three years after the return of the last searching expedition for the Cortereals, Emanuel gave order, 'that the fishermen of Portugal, at their return from Newfoundland, should pay a tenth part of their profits at his custom-houses.' It is certain, therefore, that the Portuguese fishermen must, previous to that time, have been engaged in a profitable business. And this is confirmed by the circumstance that they originated the name of 'tierra de Bacalhas' [or Bacalhao] (the Stockfish-country) and gave currency to it; though the word, like the cod-fishery itself, appears to be of Germanic origin. …. The nations who followed them in the fishing business imitated their example, and adopted the name 'country of the Bacalhas' (or, in the Spanish form, Baccallaos), though sometimes interchanging it with names of their own invention, as the 'Newfoundland: 'Terre neuve,' etc. … They [the Portuguese] continued their expeditions to Newfoundland and its neighborhood for a long time. They were often seen there by later English and other visitors during the course of the 16th century; for instance, according to Herrera, in 1519; again by the English in 1527; and again by Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583. … The Portuguese engaged in this fishery as early as 1501, according to good authorities, and perhaps under the charter of Henry VII. In 1578, they had 50 ships employed in that trade, and England as many more, and France 150. … The inhabitants of the little harbors of Normandy and Brittany, the great peninsulas of France, … were also among the first who profited by the discoveries of the Cabots and Cortereals, and who followed in the wake of the Portuguese fishermen toward the north-west cod-fish country. … The first voyages of the Bretons of St. Malo and the Normans of Dieppe to Newfoundland, are said to have occurred as early as 1504. … They probably visited places of which the Portuguese had not taken possession; and we therefore find them at the south of Newfoundland, and especially at the island of Cape Breton, to which they gave the name, still retained,—the oldest French name on the American north-east coast. … The Spaniards, and more particularly the mariners and fishermen of Biscay, have pretended, like those of Brittany and Normandy, that they and their ancestors, from time immemorial, had sailed to Newfoundland; and, even before Columbus, had established their fisheries there. But the Spanish historian Navarette, in more modern times, does not sustain this pretension of his countrymen. … We may come to the conclusion that, if the fisheries of the Spanish Basques on the Banks of Newfoundland and in the vicinity, did not begin with the voyage of Gomez [in 1525], they received from it a new impulse. … From this time, for more than a century, they [the Basques] appeared in these waters every year with a large fleet, and took their place upon the banks as equals by the side of the Bretons, Normans, and Basques of France, until the middle of the 17th century, when rival nations dispossessed them of their privileges."

J. G. Kohl, History of the Discovery of Maine (Maine Historical Society Collections, series 2, volume 1), chapters 6 and 8, with foot-note.

ALSO IN: R. Brown, History of Cape Breton, chapters 1-2.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1534. Visited by Jacques Cartier.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1534-1535.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1583. Formal possession taken for England by Sir Humphrey Gilbert.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1583.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1610-1655. Early English attempts at colonization. The grants to Lord Baltimore and Sir David Kirke.

"For 27 years after the failure of the Gilbert expedition no fresh attempt was made to establish a colony in the island. During this interval fishermen of various nationalities continued to frequent its shores. … The French were actively engaged in the prosecution of the fisheries in the neighboring seas. Their success in this direction strengthened their desire to gain possession of Newfoundland. Hence it is that in the history of the country France has always been an important factor. Having from time to time held possession of various points of the land, England's persistent rival in these latitudes has given names to many towns, villages, creeks, and harbors. To this day Newfoundland has not completely shaken off French influence. … In 1610 another attempt was made to plant a colony of Englishmen in Newfoundland. John Guy, a merchant, and afterwards mayor of Bristol, published in 1609 a pamphlet on the advantages which would result to England from the establishment of a colony in the island. This publication made such a deep impression on the public mind that a company was formed to carry out the enterprise it suggested. The most illustrious name on the roll was that of Lord Bacon. … The importance of Newfoundland as a site for an English colony did not escape the wide-ranging eye of Bacon. He pronounced its fisheries 'more valuable than all the mines of Peru,' a judgment which time has amply verified. … To this company James I., by letters patent dated April, 1610, made a grant of all the part of Newfoundland which lies between Cape Bonavista in the north and Cape St. Mary. Mr. Guy was appointed governor, and with a number of colonists he landed at Mosquito Harbor, on the north side of Conception Bay, where he proceeded to erect huts. … We have no authentic account of the progress of this settlement, begun under such favourable auspices, but it proved unsuccessful from some unexplained cause. Guy and a number of the settlers returned to England, the rest remaining to settle elsewhere in the New World. {2354} Five years afterwards, in 1615, Captain Richard Whitbourne, mariner, of Exmouth, Devonshire, received a commission from the Admiralty of England to proceed to Newfoundland for the purpose of establishing order among the fishing population and remedying certain abuses which had grown up. … It was shown that there were upwards of 250 English vessels, having a tonnage of 1,500 tons, engaged in the fisheries along the coast. Fixed habitations extended at intervals along the shore from St. John's to Cape Race. … Having done what he could during the active part of his life to promote its interests, on his return to England, in his advanced years, he [Whitbourne] wrote an account of the country, entitled 'A Discourse and Discovery of Newfoundland.' … His book made a great impression at the time. … So highly did King James think of the volume that he ordered a copy to be sent to every parish in the kingdom. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York issued a letter recommending it, with the view of encouraging emigration to Newfoundland. … A year after the departure of Whitbourne, in 1623, by far the most skilfully-organized effort to carry out the settlement of Newfoundland was made, under the guidance of Sir George Calvert, afterwards Lord Baltimore. … When Secretary of State he obtained a patent conveying to him the lordship of the whole southern peninsula of Newfoundland, together with all the islands lying within ten leagues of the eastern shores, as well as the right of fishing in the surrounding waters, all English subjects having, as before, free liberty of fishing. Being a Roman Catholic, Lord Baltimore had in view to provide an asylum for his co-religionists who were sufferers from the intolerant spirit of the times. The immense tract thus granted to him extended from Trinity Bay to Placentia, and was named by him Avalon, from the ancient name of Glastonbury, where, it is believed, Christianity was first preached in Britain. … Lord Baltimore called his Newfoundland province Avalon and his first settlement Verulam. The latter name, in course of time, became corrupted into Ferulam, and then into the modern Ferryland. At this spot, on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, about 40 miles north of Cape Race, Lord Baltimore planted his colony, and built a noble mansion, in which he resided with his family during many years." But after expending some £30,000 upon the establishment of his colony, Lord Baltimore abandoned it, on account of the poor quality of the soil and its exposure to the attacks of the French. Not long afterwards he obtained his Maryland grant [see MARYLAND: A. D. 1632] and resumed the enterprise under more favorable conditions. "Soon after the departure of Lord Baltimore, Viscount Falkland, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, hoping to permanently increase the scanty population of Newfoundland, sent out a number of emigrants from that country. At a later date, these were so largely reinforced by settlers from Ireland that the Celtic part of the population at this day is not far short of equality in numbers with the Saxon portion. In 1638, Sir David Kirke, one of Britain's bravest sea-captains, arrived in Newfoundland and took up his abode at Ferryland, where Lord Baltimore had lived. Sir David was armed with the powers of a Count Palatine over the island, having obtained from Charles I. a grant of the whole." This was by way of reward for his exploit in taking Quebec

See CANADA: A. D. 1628-1635.

Kirke "governed wisely and used every effort to promote the colonization of the country. His settlement prospered greatly. The Civil War, however, broke out in England, and, Kirke being a staunch loyalist, all his possessions in Newfoundland were confiscated by the victorious Commonwealth. By the aid of Claypole, Cromwell's son-in-law, Kirke eventually got the sequestration removed, and, returning to Ferryland, died there in 1655, at the age of 56. At this time Newfoundland contained a population of 350 families, or nearly 2,000 inhabitants, distributed in 15 small settlements along the eastern coast."

J. Hatton and M. Harvey, Newfoundland, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: H. Kirke, The First English Conquest of Canada, chapters 3-4.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1660-1688. The French gain their footing.

"With the possession of Cape Breton, Acadia, and the vast regions stretching from the gulf of the River St. Lawrence, and the mighty lakes, Newfoundland obtained a new value in the estimation of the government of France, as it formed one side of the narrow entrance to its transatlantic dependencies: consequently the pursuit of the fishery by its seamen was encouraged, and every opportunity was improved to gain a footing in the country itself. This encroaching tendency could not, however, be manifested without a protest on the part of the somewhat sluggish English, both by private individuals and by the government. Charles I. … imposed a tribute of five per cent. on the produce taken by foreigners in this fishery, to which exaction the French, as well as others, were forced to submit. During the distracted time of the Commonwealth, it does not appear that the struggling government at home found leisure to attend to these distant affairs, though the tribute continued to be levied. The Restoration brought to England a sovereign who owed much to the monarch of France, to whom he was therefore attached by the ties of gratitude, and by the desire to find a counterpoise to the refractory disposition of which he was in continual apprehension among his own subjects. It was not until 1675 that Louis XIV. prevailed on Charles to give up the duty of five per cent., and by that time the French had obtained a solid footing on the southern coast of Newfoundland, so that, with Cape Breton in their possession, they commanded both sides of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Over a territory of some 200 miles in extent, belonging to the British sovereignty, they had built up imperceptibly an almost undisputed dominion. At Placentia, situated in the bay of that name, a strong fort was erected, sustained by other forts standing at intervals along the shore, and at the same place a royal government was established. How real was the authority assumed, and how completely was the English sovereignty ignored, needs no better proof than is furnished in an ordinance issued by Louis in the year 1681, concerning the marine of France. In this state paper, Newfoundland is reckoned as situate in those seas which are free and common to all French subjects, provided that they take a license from the admiral for every voyage. … {2355} Thus that period which is regarded as among the most humiliating in the annals of our nation,—when the king was a pensioner of France, and his ministers received bribes from the same quarter, witnessed the partial sliding under this alien power of the most ancient of the colonial possessions of the Crown. Not less than half of the inhabited coast of Newfoundland was thus taken under that despotic rule, which, while swaying the councils of England to the furtherance of its ambitious designs, was labouring for the subjugation of the European continent. The revolution of 1688 broke the spell of this encroaching autocracy."

C. Pedley, History of Newfoundland, chapter 2.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1694-1697. French success in the war with England. The Treaty of Ryswick and its unsatisfactory terms.

"On the accession of William III. to the throne of England hostilities broke out between the rival nations. In William's declaration of war against the French, Newfoundland holds a prominent place among the alleged causes which led to the rupture of pacific relations. The grievance was tersely set forth in the royal manifesto: 'It was not long since the French took license from the Governor of Newfoundland to fish upon that coast, and paid a tribute for such licenses as an acknowledgement of the sole right of the Crown of England to that island; but of late the encroachments of the French, and His Majesty's subjects trading and fishing there, had been more like the invasions of an enemy than becoming friends, who enjoyed the advantages of that trade only by permission.' Newfoundland now became the scene of military skirmishes, naval battles, and sieges by land and water." In 1692 the English made an unsuccessful attack on Placentia. In 1694, a French fleet, under the Chevalier Nesmond, intended for an attack upon Boston and New York, stopped at Newfoundland on the way and made a descent on the harbor and town of St. John's. Nesmond "was repulsed, and instead of going on to Boston he returned to France. A more determined effort at conquest was made later in the same year. The new expedition was under the command of Iberville and Brouillan, the former being at the head of a Canadian force. The garrison of St. John's was weak in numbers, and, in want of military stores, could only make a feeble resistance; capitulating on easy terms, the troops were shipped to England. The fort and town were burned to the ground, and the victors next proceeded to destroy all the other adjacent English settlements; Carbonear and Bonavista alone proved too strong for them. The English Government at once commenced dispositions for dislodging the invaders; but before anything was attempted the treaty of Ryswick was signed, in 1697. This treaty proved most unfortunate for Newfoundland. It revived in the island the same state of division between France and England which had existed at the beginning of the war. The enemy retired from St. John's and the other settlements which they had forcibly occupied. Their claims upon Placentia and all the other positions on the south-west coast were, however, confirmed. The British inhabitants of Newfoundland were, therefore, once more left open to French attacks, should hostilities be again renewed between the rival powers."

J. Hatton and M. Harvey, Newfoundland, part 1, chapter 2.

ALSO IN: F. Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV., chapter 18.

W. Kingsford, History of Canada, book 4, chapter 7 (volume 2).

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1705. English settlements destroyed by the French.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1702-1710.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1713. Relinquished to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht. French fishing rights reserved.

In the 12th and 13th articles of the Treaty signed at Utrecht, April 11, 1713, which terminated the War of the Spanish Succession (commonly known in American history as Queen Anne's War) it was stipulated that "All Nova Scotia or Acadié, with its ancient boundaries, as also the city of Port Royal, now called Annapolis Royal, … the island of Newfoundland, with the adjacent islands, … the town and fortress of Placentia, and whatever other places in the island are in possession of the French, shall from this time forward belong of right wholly to Great Britain. … That the subjects of France should be allowed to catch fish and dry them on that part of the island of Newfoundland which stretches from Cape Bonavista to the northern point of the island, and from thence down the western side as far as Point Riché; but that no fortifications or any buildings should be erected there, besides Stages made of Boards, and Huts necessary and usual for drying fish. … But the island of Cape Breton, as also all others, both in the mouth of the river of St. Lawrence and in the gulf of the same name, shall hereafter belong of Right to the King of France, who shall have liberty to fortify any place or places there."

R. Brown, History of the Island of Cape Breton, letter 9.

ALSO IN: J. Hatton and M. Harvey, Newfoundland, part 1, chapters 3-4; and part 3, chapter 7.

See, also, UTRECHT: A. D. 1712-1714.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1744. Attack on Placentia by the French.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1748. The islands of St. Pierre and Michelon ceded to France.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D: 1745-1748.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1763. Ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, with rights of fishing reserved to France.

See SEVEN YEARS WAR: THE TREATIES; also FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1763.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1778. French fishery rights on the banks recognized in the Franco-American Treaty.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (FEBRUARY).

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1783. American fishing rights conceded in the Treaty of Peace with the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1783 (SEPTEMBER).

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1818. Fisheries Treaty between Great Britain and the United States.

See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1814-1818.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1854-1866. Reciprocity Treaty with the United States.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (UNITED STATES AND CANADA): A. D. 1854-1866.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1871. The Treaty of Washington.

See ALABAMA CLAIMS: A. D. 1871.

NEWFOUNDLAND: A. D. 1877. The Halifax Fishery award. Termination of the Fishery Articles of the Treaty of Washington. Renewed fishery disputes.

See FISHERIES, NORTH AMERICAN: A. D. 1877-1888.

----------NEWFOUNDLAND: End----------

NEWNHAM HALL.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: REFORMS, &c.: A. D. 1865-1883.

NEWPORT, England, The Treaty at.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1648 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER), and (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER).

{2356}

----------NEWPORT, Rhode Island: Start--------

NEWPORT, Rhode Island: A. D. 1524. Visited by Verrazano.

See AMERICA: A. D. 1523-1524.

NEWPORT, Rhode Island: A. D. 1639. The first settlement.

See RHODE ISLAND: A. D. 1638-1640.

NEWPORT, Rhode Island: A. D. 1778. Held by the British. Failure of French-American attack.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JULY-NOVEMBER).

----------NEWPORT, Rhode Island: End--------

NEWSPAPERS.

See PRINTING AND THE PRESS: A. D. 1612-1650, and after.

NEWTON BUTLER, Battle of (1689).

See IRELAND: A. D. 1688-1689.

NEWTONIA, Battles of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1862 (JULY-SEPTEMBER: MISSOURI-ARKANSAS); and 1864 (MARCH-OCTOBER: ARKANSAS-MISSOURI).

NEY, Marshal, Campaigns and execution of.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER), 1806-1807, 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE); SPAIN: A. D. 1809; RUSSIA: A. D. 1812; GERMANY: A. D. 1813; FRANCE: A. D. 1815, and 1815-1830.

NEZ PERCÉS, The.

See AMERICAN ABORIGINES: NEZ PERCÉS.

----------NIAGARA: Start--------

NIAGARA: The name and its original applications.

"Colden wrote it [the name] 'O-ni-ag-a-ra,' in 1741, and he must have received it from the Mohawks or Oneidas. It was the name of a Seneca village at the mouth of the Niagara river; located as early as 1650, near the site of Youngstown. It was also the place where the Marquis de Nonville constructed a fort in 1687, the building of which brought this locality under the particular notice of the English. The name of this Indian village in the dialect of the Senecas was 'Ne-ah'-gä,' in Tuscarora 'O-ne-ä'-kars,' in Onondaga 'O-ne-ah'-gä,' in Oneida 'O-ne-ah'-gäle,' and in Mohawk 'O-ne-a'-gä-rä.' These names are but the same word under dialectical changes. It is clear that Niagara was derived from some one of them, and thus came direct from the Iroquois language. The signification of the word is lost, unless it is derived, as some of the present Iroquois suppose, from the word which signifies 'neck,' in Seneca 'O-ne-ah'-ä,' in Onondaga 'O-ne-yä'-ä' and in Oneida 'O-ne-arle.' The name of this Indian village was bestowed by the Iroquois upon Youngstown; upon the river Niagara, from the falls to the Lake; and upon Lake Ontario."

L. H. Morgan, League of the Iroquois, book 3, chapter 3.

"It [the name Niagara] is the oldest of all the local geographical terms which have come down to us from the aborigines. It was not at first thus written by the English, for with them it passed through almost every possible alphabetical variation before its present orthography was established. We find its germ in the 'On-gui-aah-ra' of the Neutral Nation, as given by Father L'Allemant in a letter dated in 1641, at the mission station of Sainte Marie, on Lake Huron. … The name of the river next occurs on Sanson's map of Canada, published in Paris in 1656, where it is spelled 'Ongiara.' Its first appearance as Niagara is on Coronelli's map, published in Paris in 1688. From that time to the present, the French have been consistent in their orthography, the numerous variations alluded to occurring only among English writers. The word was probably derived from the Mohawks, through whom the French had their first intercourse with the Iroquois. The Mohawks pronounced it Nyah,-ga-rah', with the primary accent on the first syllable; and the secondary on the last. … The corresponding Seneca name, Nyah'-gaah, was always confined by the Iroquois to the section of the river below the Falls, and to Lake Ontario. That portion of the river above the Falls being sometimes called Gni-gwaah-geh, one of their names for Lake Erie."

O. H. Marshall, The Niagara Frontier (Historical Writings, page 283).

NIAGARA: A. D. 1687-1688. Fort constructed by De Nonville and destroyed a year later.

"We arrived there [at Niagara] on the morning of the 30th [of July, 1687]. We immediately set about choosing a place, and collecting stakes for the construction of the Fort which I had resolved to build at the extremity of a tongue of land, between the river Niagara and Lake Ontario, on the Iroquois side. On the 31st of July and 1st of August we continued this work, which was the more difficult from there being no wood on the place suitable for making palisades, and from its being necessary to draw them up the height. We performed this labor so diligently that the fort was in a state of defence on the last mentioned day. … The 2d day of August, the militia having performed their allotted task, and the fort being in a condition of defence in case of assault, they set out at noon, in order to reach the end of the lake on their return to their own country. On the morning of the 3d, being the next day, I embarked for the purpose of joining the militia, leaving the regular troops under the direction of M. de Vaudreuil to finish what was the most essential, and to render the fort not only capable of defence, but also of being occupied by a detachment of 100 soldiers, which are to winter there under the command of M. Troyes."

Marquis de Nonville, Journal of Expedition against the Senecas (translated in Historical Writings of O. H. Marshall, p. 173).

"De Nonville's journal removes the doubt which has been entertained as to the location of this fortress, some having supposed it to have been first built at Lewiston. … It occupied the site of the present fort on the angle formed by the junction of the Niagara with Lake Ontario. … De Nonville left De Troyes with provisions and munitions for eight months. A sickness soon after broke out in the garrison, by which they nearly all perished, including their commander. … They were so closely besieged by the Iroquois that they were unable to supply themselves with fresh provisions. The fortress was soon after abandoned and destroyed [1688], much to the regret of De Nonville."

Marquis de Nonville, Journal of Expedition against the Senecas (translated in Historical Writings of O. H. Marshall, p. 173). Foot-notes

ALSO IN: F. Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV., pages 155 and 166.

NIAGARA: A. D. 1725-1726. The stone fort built. How the French gained their footing. Joncaire's wigwam.

Captain Joncaire "had been taken prisoner when quite young by the Iroquois, and adopted into one of their tribes. This was the making of his fortune. He had grown up among them, acquired their language, adapted himself to their habits, and was considered by them as one of themselves. On returning to civilized life he became a prime instrument in the hands of the Canadian government, for managing and cajoling the Indians. … When the French wanted to get a commanding site for a post on the Iroquois lands, near Niagara, Joncaire was the man to manage it. {2357} He craved a situation where he might put up a wigwam, and dwell among his Iroquois brethren. It was granted, of course, 'for was he not a son of the tribe—was he not one of themselves?' By degrees his wigwam grew into an important trading post; ultimately it became Fort Niagara."

W. Irving, Life of Washington, volume 1, chapter 5.

"In 1725 the Fort of Niagara was commenced by Chaussegross de Léry, on the spot where the wooden structure of de Denonville formerly stood; it was built of stone and completed in 1726."

W. Kingsford, History of Canada, volume 2, page 516.

NIAGARA: A. D. 1755. Abortive expedition against the fort, by the English.

See CANADA: A. D. 1755 (AUGUST-OCTOBER).

NIAGARA: A. D. 1756. The fort rebuilt by Pouchot.

See CANADA: A. D. 1756.

NIAGARA: A. D. 1759. The fort taken by the English.

See CANADA: A. D. 1759 (JULY-AUGUST).

NIAGARA: A. D. 1763. The ambuscade and massacre at Devil's Hole.

See DEVIL'S HOLE.

NIAGARA: A. D. 1764. Sir William Johnson's treaty with the Indians. Cession of the Four Mile Strip' along both banks of the river.

See PONTIAC'S WAR.

NIAGARA: A. D. 1783. Retention of the Fort by Great Britain after peace with the United States.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1784-1788.

NIAGARA: A. D. 1796. Surrender of the fort by Great Britain.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1794-1795.

NIAGARA: A. D. 1813. Surprise and capture of the fort by the British.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1813 (DECEMBER).

----------NIAGARA: End--------

NIAGARA, OR LUNDY'S LANE, Battle of.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

NIAGARA FRONTIER: A. D. 1812-1814. The War. Queenstown. Buffalo. Chippewa. Lundy's Lane. Fort Erie.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1812 (SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER); 1813 (DECEMBER); 1814 (JULY-SEPTEMBER).

NIAGARA PEACE MISSION, The.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1864 (JULY).

NIAGARA RIVER, Navigated by La Salle (1679).

See CANADA: A. D. 1669-1687.

NIBELUNGEN LIED, The.

"Of the bequests made to us of the [German] Popular Poetry of the time of the Hohenstauffen, by far the most important, in fact the most important literary memorial of any kind, is the epic of between nine and ten thousand lines known as the Nibelungen Lied. The manuscripts which have preserved for us the poem come from about the year 1200. For full a thousand years before that, however, many of the lays from which it was composed had been in existence; some indeed proceed from a still remoter antiquity, sung by primitive minstrels when the Germans were at their wildest, untouched by Christianity or civilization. These lays had been handed down orally, until at length a poet of genius elaborated them and intrusted them to parchment."

J. K. Hosmer, Short History of German Literature, part 1, chapter 1.

"In the year 1757, the Swiss Professor Bodmer printed an ancient poetical manuscript, under the title of Chriemhilden Rache und die Kluge (Chriemhilde's Revenge, and the Lament); which may be considered as the first of a series, or stream of publications and speculations still rolling on, with increased current, to the present day. … Some fifteen years after Bodmer's publication, which, for the rest, is not celebrated as an editorial feat, one C. H. Müller undertook a Collection of German Poems from the Twelfth, Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries; wherein, among other articles, he reprinted Bodmer's Chriemhilde and Klage, with a highly remarkable addition prefixed to the former, essential indeed to the right understanding of it; and the whole now stood before the world as one Poem, under the name of the Nibelungen Lied, or Lay of the Nibelungen. It has since been ascertained that the Klage is a foreign inferior appendage; at best related only as epilogue to the main work: meanwhile out of this Nibelungen, such as it was, there soon proceeded new inquiries and kindred enterprises. For much as the Poem, in the shape it here bore, was defaced and marred, it failed not to attract observation: to all open-minded lovers of poetry, especially where a strong patriotic feeling existed, the singular antique Nibelungen was an interesting appearance. Johannes Müller, in his famous Swiss History, spoke of it in warm terms: subsequently, August Wilhelm Schlegel, through the medium of the Deutsche Museum, succeeded in awakening something like a universal popular feeling on the subject; and, as a natural consequence, a whole host of Editors and Critics, of deep and of shallow endeavour, whose labours we yet see in progress. The Nibelungen has now been investigated, translated, collated, commented upon, with more or less result, to almost boundless lengths. … Apart from its antiquarian value, and not only as by far the finest monument of old German art; but intrinsically, and as a mere detached composition, this Nibelungen has an excellence that cannot but surprise us. With little preparation, any reader of poetry, even in these days, might find it interesting. It is not without a certain Unity of interest and purport, an internal coherence and completeness; it is a Whole, and some spirit of Music informs it: these are the highest characteristics of a true Poem. Considering farther what intellectual environment we now find it in, it is doubly to be prized and wondered at; for it differs from those Hero-books, as molten or carved metal does from rude agglomerated ore; almost as some Shakspeare from his fellow Dramatist, whose Tamburlaines and Island Princesses, themselves not destitute of merit, first show us clearly in what pure loftiness and loneliness the Hamlets and Tempests reign. The unknown Singer of the Nibelungen, though no Shakspeare, must have had a deep poetic soul; wherein things discontinuous and inanimate shaped themselves together into life, and the Universe with its wondrous purport stood significantly imaged; overarching, as with heavenly firmaments and eternal harmonies, the little scene where men strut and fret their hour, His Poem, unlike so many old and new pretenders to that name, has a basis and organic structure, a beginning, middle and end; there is one great principle and idea set forth in it, round which all its multifarious parts combine in living union. … With an instinctive art, far different from acquired artifice, this Poet of the Nibelungen, working in the same province with his contemporaries of the Heldenbuch [Hero-book] on the same material of tradition, has, in a wonderful degree, possessed himself of what these could only strive after; and with his 'clear feeling of fictitious truth,' avoid as false the errors and monstrous perplexities in which they vainly struggled. {2358} He is of another species than they; in language, in purity and depth of feeling, in fineness of invention, stands quite apart from them.' The language of the Heldenbuch … was a feeble half-articulate child's-speech, the metre nothing better than a miserable doggerel; whereas here in the old Frankish (Oberdeutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen, we have a clear decisive utterance, and in a real system of verse not without essential regularity, great liveliness, and now and then even harmony of rhythm. … No less striking than the verse and language is the quality of the invention manifested here. Of the Fable, or narrative material of the Nibelungen we should say that it had high, almost the highest merit; so daintily yet firmly is it put together; with such felicitous selection of the beautiful, the essential, and no less felicitous rejection of whatever was unbeautiful or even extraneous. The reader is no longer afflicted with that chaotic brood of Fire-drakes, Giants, and malicious turbaned Turks, so fatally rife in the Heldenbuch: all this is swept away, or only hovers in faint shadows afar off; and free field is open for legitimate perennial interests. Yet neither is the Nibelungen without its wonders; for it is poetry and not prose; here too, a supernatural world encompasses the natural, and, though at rare intervals and in calm manner, reveals itself there. … The whole story of the Nibelungen is fateful, mysterious, guided on by unseen influences; yet the actual marvels are few, and done in the far distance; those Dwarfs, and Cloaks of Darkness, and charmed Treasure-caves, are heard of rather than beheld, the tidings of them seem to issue from unknown space. Vain were it to inquire where that Nibelungen-land specially is: its very name is Nebel-land or Nift-land, the land of Darkness, of Invisibility. The 'Nibelungen Heroes' that muster in thousands and tens of thousands, though they march to the Rhine or Danube, and we see their strong limbs and shining armour, we could almost fancy to be children of the air."

T. Carlyle, The Nibelungen Lied (Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, volume 3).

"The traditions of German heroic poetry extend over more than 300 years, and are drawn from various German tribes. King Ostrogotha reigned over the Goths about the year 250, and was the contemporary of the emperors Philip and Decius. Ermanaric governed the Ostrogoths about 100 years later, and was a very warlike king, ruling over a large extent of territory. The invasion of the Huns drove him to despair, and he fell by his own hand before the year 374. Soon after the year 400 the Burgundians founded a mighty empire in the most fertile part of the Upper Rhine, where Cæsar had already fought with the Germans, near Spiers, Worms, and Mayence. The Roman Aëtius, who ruled Gaul with the aid of his Hun allies, defeated the Burgundians by means of these barbarians in a terrible battle about the year 437; 20,000 men fell, amongst them their king Gundicarius (Gunther). The Burgundians seemed to be annihilated, and soon after retreated to Savoy. About the same time Attila was king of the Huns and Ostrogoths to the terror of the world. His name is Gothic, the arrangements of his court were Gothic, and he reckoned among his knights Theodomer; the king of the Ostrogoths. The West had just learnt all the terror of this 'Scourge of God,' when news came of his sudden death (453), and in the following year his followers succumbed to the attacks of the Germans (454). Twenty-two years later, Odoacer deposed the last shadow of a Roman emperor; and again, twelve years later, Theodoric led the Ostrogoths into Italy and Odoacer fell by his hand. About the same period the Merovingian Clovis founded the kingdom of the Franks; about the year 530 his sons destroyed the Thuringian empire; and his grandson Theodebert extended his kingdom so far, that, starting from Hungary, he planned an attack on the Byzantine emperor. The Merovingians also offered a successful resistance to the Vikings, who were the terror of the North Sea, and who appeared even at the mouths of the Rhine. From another quarter the Longobards in little more than a century reached Italy, having started from Lüneburg, in the neighbourhood of Brunswick, and their King Alboin took possession of the crown of Italy in 568. These wonderful transferences of power, and this rapid founding of new empires, furnished the historical background of the German hero-legends. The fact that the movement was originally against Rome was forgotten; the migration was treated as a mere incident in the internal history of the German nation. There is no trace of chronology. … Legend adheres to the fact of the enmity between Odoacer and Theodoric, but it really confuses Theodoric with his father Theodomer, transplants him accordingly to Attila's court, and supposes that he was an exile there in hiding from the wrath of Odoacer. Attila becomes the representative of everything connected with the Huns. He is regarded as Ermanaric's and Gunther's enemy, and as having destroyed the Burgundians. These again are confused with a mythical race, the Nibelungen, Siegfried's enemies, and thus arose the great and complicated scheme of the Nibelungen legend. … This Middle High-German Epic is like an old church, in the building of which many architects have successively taken part. … Karl Lachmann attempted the work of restoring the Nibelungen lied and analysing its various elements, and accomplished the task, not indeed faultlessly, yet on the whole correctly. He has pointed out later interpolations, which hide the original sequence of the story, and has divided the narrative which remains after the removal of these accretions into twenty songs, some of which are connected, while others embody isolated incidents of the legend. Some of them, but certainly only a few, may be by the same author. … We recognise in most of these songs such differences in conception, treatment, and style, as point to separate authorship. The whole may have been finished in about twenty years, from 1190-1210. Lachmann's theory has indeed been contested. Many students still believe that the poem, as we have it, was the work of one hand; but on this hypothesis no one has succeeded in explaining the strange contradictions which pervade the work, parts of which show the highest art, while the rest is valueless."

W. Scherer, History of German Literature, chapters 2 and 5 (volume 1).

ALSO IN: B. Taylor, Studies in German Literature, chapter 4.

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