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Title: Famous Affinities of History V1
       The Romance of Devotion
ŒFú‰^øëeÄ^ø&€uN&Ä_&ƒ
Author: Lyndon Orr

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FAMOUS AFFINITIES OF HISTORY

THE ROMANCE OF DEVOTION

BY LYNDON ORR

VOLUME I OF IV.





CONTENTS


THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
ABELARD AND HELOISE
QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE EARL OF LEICESTER
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND LORD BOTHWELL
QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN AND THE MARQUIS MONALDESCHI
KING CHARLES II. AND NELL GWYN
MAURICE OF SAXONY AND ADRIENNE LECOUVREUR
THE STORY OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART





THE STORY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA


Of all love stories that are known to human history, the love
story of Antony and Cleopatra has been for nineteen centuries the
most remarkable. It has tasked the resources of the plastic and
the graphic arts. It has been made the theme of poets and of prose
narrators. It has appeared and reappeared in a thousand forms, and
it appeals as much to the imagination to-day as it did when Antony
deserted his almost victorious troops and hastened in a swift
galley from Actium in pursuit of Cleopatra.

The wonder of the story is explained by its extraordinary nature.
Many men in private life have lost fortune and fame for the love
of woman. Kings have incurred the odium of their people, and have
cared nothing for it in comparison with the joys of sense that
come from the lingering caresses and clinging kisses. Cold-blooded
statesmen, such as Parnell, have lost the leadership of their
party and have gone down in history with a clouded name because of
the fascination exercised upon them by some woman, often far from
beautiful, and yet possessing the mysterious power which makes the
triumphs of statesmanship seem slight in comparison with the
swiftly flying hours of pleasure.

But in the case of Antony and Cleopatra alone do we find a man
flinging away not merely the triumphs of civic honors or the
headship of a state, but much more than these--the mastery of what
was practically the world--in answer to the promptings of a
woman's will. Hence the story of the Roman triumvir and the
Egyptian queen is not like any other story that has yet been told.
The sacrifice involved in it was so overwhelming, so
instantaneous, and so complete as to set this narrative above all
others. Shakespeare's genius has touched it with the glory of a
great imagination. Dryden, using it in the finest of his plays,
expressed its nature in the title "All for Love."

The distinguished Italian historian, Signor Ferrero, the author of
many books, has tried hard to eliminate nearly all the romantic
elements from the tale, and to have us see in it not the triumph
of love, but the blindness of ambition. Under his handling it
becomes almost a sordid drama of man's pursuit of power and of
woman's selfishness. Let us review the story as it remains, even
after we have taken full account of Ferrero's criticism. Has the
world for nineteen hundred years been blinded by a show of
sentiment? Has it so absolutely been misled by those who lived and
wrote in the days which followed closely on the events that make
up this extraordinary narrative?

In answering these questions we must consider, in the first place,
the scene, and, in the second place, the psychology of the two
central characters who for so long a time have been regarded as
the very embodiment of unchecked passion.

As to the scene, it must be remembered that the Egypt of those
days was not Egyptian as we understand the word, but rather Greek.
Cleopatra herself was of Greek descent. The kingdom of Egypt had
been created by a general of Alexander the Great after that
splendid warrior's death. Its capital, the most brilliant city of
the Greco-Roman world, had been founded by Alexander himself, who
gave to it his name. With his own hands he traced out the limits
of the city and issued the most peremptory orders that it should
be made the metropolis of the entire world. The orders of a king
cannot give enduring greatness to a city; but Alexander's keen eye
and marvelous brain saw at once that the site of Alexandria was
such that a great commercial community planted there would live
and flourish throughout out succeeding ages. He was right; for
within a century this new capital of Egypt leaped to the forefront
among the exchanges of the world's commerce, while everything that
art could do was lavished on its embellishment.

Alexandria lay upon a projecting tongue of land so situated that
the whole trade of the Mediterranean centered there. Down the Nile
there floated to its gates the barbaric wealth of Africa. To it
came the treasures of the East, brought from afar by caravans--
silks from China, spices and pearls from India, and enormous
masses of gold and silver from lands scarcely known. In its harbor
were the vessels of every country, from Asia in the East to Spain
and Gaul and even Britain in the West.

When Cleopatra, a young girl of seventeen, succeeded to the throne
of Egypt the population of Alexandria amounted to a million souls.
The customs duties collected at the port would, in terms of modern
money, amount each year to more than thirty million dollars, even
though the imposts were not heavy. The people, who may be
described as Greek at the top and Oriental at the bottom, were
boisterous and pleasure-loving, devoted to splendid spectacles,
with horse-racing, gambling, and dissipation; yet at the same time
they were an artistic people, loving music passionately, and by no
means idle, since one part of the city was devoted to large and
prosperous manufactories of linen, paper, glass, and muslin.

To the outward eye Alexandria was extremely beautiful. Through its
entire length ran two great boulevards, shaded and diversified by
mighty trees and parterres of multicolored flowers, amid which
fountains plashed and costly marbles gleamed. One-fifth of the
whole city was known as the Royal Residence. In it were the
palaces of the reigning family, the great museum, and the famous
library which the Arabs later burned. There were parks and gardens
brilliant with tropical foliage and adorned with the masterpieces
of Grecian sculpture, while sphinxes and obelisks gave a
suggestion of Oriental strangeness. As one looked seaward his eye
beheld over the blue water the snow-white rocks of the sheltering
island, Pharos, on which was reared a lighthouse four hundred feet
in height and justly numbered among the seven wonders of the
world. Altogether, Alexandria was a city of wealth, of beauty, of
stirring life, of excitement, and of pleasure. Ferrero has aptly
likened it to Paris--not so much the Paris of to-day as the Paris
of forty years ago, when the Second Empire flourished in all its
splendor as the home of joy and strange delights.

Over the country of which Alexandria was the capital Cleopatra
came to reign at seventeen. Following the odd custom which the
Greek dynasty of the Ptolemies had inherited from their Egyptian
predecessors, she was betrothed to her own brother. He, however,
was a mere child of less than twelve, and was under the control of
evil counselors, who, in his name, gained control of the capital
and drove Cleopatra into exile. Until then she had been a mere
girl; but now the spirit of a woman who was wronged blazed up in
her and called out all her latent powers. Hastening to Syria, she
gathered about herself an army and led it against her foes.

But meanwhile Julius Caesar, the greatest man of ancient times,
had arrived at Alexandria backed by an army of his veterans.
Against him no resistance would avail. Then came a brief moment
during which the Egyptian king and the Egyptian queen each strove
to win the favor of the Roman imperator. The king and his advisers
had many arts, and so had Cleopatra. One thing, however, she
possessed which struck the balance in her favor, and this was a
woman's fascination.

According to the story, Caesar was unwilling to receive her. There
came into his presence, as he sat in the palace, a group of slaves
bearing a long roll of matting, bound carefully and seeming to
contain some precious work of art. The slaves made signs that they
were bearing a gift to Caesar. The master of Egypt bade them
unwrap the gift that he might see it. They did so, and out of the
wrapping came Cleopatra--a radiant vision, appealing,
irresistible. Next morning it became known everywhere that
Cleopatra had remained in Caesar's quarters through the night and
that her enemies were now his enemies. In desperation they rushed
upon his legions, casting aside all pretense of amity. There
ensued a fierce contest, but the revolt was quenched in blood.

This was a crucial moment in Cleopatra's life. She had sacrificed
all that a woman has to give; but she had not done so from any
love of pleasure or from wantonness. She was queen of Egypt, and
she had redeemed her kingdom and kept it by her sacrifice. One
should not condemn her too severely. In a sense, her act was one
of heroism like that of Judith in the tent of Holofernes. But
beyond all question it changed her character. It taught her the
secret of her own great power. Henceforth she was no longer a mere
girl, nor a woman of the ordinary type. Her contact with so great
a mind as Caesar's quickened her intellect. Her knowledge that, by
the charms of sense, she had mastered even him transformed her
into a strange and wonderful creature. She learned to study the
weaknesses of men, to play on their emotions, to appeal to every
subtle taste and fancy. In her were blended mental power and that
illusive, indefinable gift which is called charm.

For Cleopatra was never beautiful. Signor Ferrero seems to think
this fact to be discovery of his own, but it was set down by
Plutarch in a very striking passage written less than a century
after Cleopatra and Antony died. We may quote here what the Greek
historian said of her:

Her actual beauty was far from being so remarkable that none could
be compared with her, nor was it such that it would strike your
fancy when you saw her first. Yet the influence of her presence,
if you lingered near her, was irresistible. Her attractive
personality, joined with the charm of her conversation, and the
individual touch that she gave to everything she said or did, were
utterly bewitching. It was delightful merely to hear the music of
her voice, with which, like an instrument of many strings, she
could pass from one language to another.

Caesar had left Cleopatra firmly seated on the throne of Egypt.
For six years she reigned with great intelligence, keeping order
in her dominions, and patronizing with discrimination both arts
and letters. But ere long the convulsions of the Roman state once
more caused her extreme anxiety. Caesar had been assassinated, and
there ensued a period of civil war. Out of it emerged two striking
figures which were absolutely contrasted in their character. One
was Octavian, the adopted son of Caesar, a man who, though still
quite young and possessed of great ability, was cunning, cold-
blooded, and deceitful. The other was Antony, a soldier by
training, and with all a soldier's bluntness, courage, and
lawlessness.

The Roman world was divided for the time between these two men,
Antony receiving the government of the East, Octavian that of the
West. In the year which had preceded this division Cleopatra had
wavered between the two opposite factions at Rome. In so doing she
had excited the suspicion of Antony, and he now demanded of her an
explanation.

One must have some conception of Antony himself in order to
understand the events that followed. He was essentially a soldier,
of excellent family, being related to Caesar himself. As a very
young man he was exceedingly handsome, and bad companions led him
into the pursuit of vicious pleasure. He had scarcely come of age
when he found that he owed the enormous sum of two hundred and
fifty talents, equivalent to half a million dollars in the money
of to-day. But he was much more than a mere man of pleasure, given
over to drinking and to dissipation. Men might tell of his
escapades, as when he drove about the streets of Rome in a common
cab, dangling his legs out of the window while he shouted forth
drunken songs of revelry. This was not the whole of Antony.
Joining the Roman army in Syria, he showed himself to be a soldier
of great personal bravery, a clever strategist, and also humane
and merciful in the hour of victory.

Unlike most Romans, Antony wore a full beard. His forehead was
large, and his nose was of the distinctive Roman type. His look
was so bold and masculine that people likened him to Hercules. His
democratic manners endeared him to the army. He wore a plain tunic
covered with a large, coarse mantle, and carried a huge sword at
his side, despising ostentation. Even his faults and follies added
to his popularity. He would sit down at the common soldiers' mess
and drink with them, telling them stories and clapping them on the
back. He spent money like water, quickly recognizing any daring
deed which his legionaries performed. In this respect he was like
Napoleon; and, like Napoleon, he had a vein of florid eloquence
which was criticized by literary men, but which went straight to
the heart of the private soldier. In a word, he was a powerful,
virile, passionate, able man, rough, as were nearly all his
countrymen, but strong and true.

It was to this general that Cleopatra was to answer, and with a
firm reliance on the charms which had subdued Antony's great
commander, Caesar, she set out in person for Cilicia, in Asia
Minor, sailing up the river Cydnus to the place where Antony was
encamped with his army. Making all allowance for the exaggeration
of historians, there can be no doubt that she appeared to him like
some dreamy vision. Her barge was gilded, and was wafted on its
way by swelling sails of Tyrian purple. The oars which smote the
water were of shining silver. As she drew near the Roman general's
camp the languorous music of flutes and harps breathed forth a
strain of invitation.

Cleopatra herself lay upon a divan set upon the deck of the barge
beneath a canopy of woven gold. She was dressed to resemble Venus,
while girls about her personated nymphs and Graces. Delicate
perfumes diffused themselves from the vessel; and at last, as she
drew near the shore, all the people for miles about were gathered
there, leaving Antony to sit alone in the tribunal where he was
dispensing justice.

Word was brought to him that Venus had come to feast with Bacchus.
Antony, though still suspicious of Cleopatra, sent her an
invitation to dine with him in state. With graceful tact she sent
him a counter-invitation, and he came. The magnificence of his
reception dazzled the man who had so long known only a soldier's
fare, or at most the crude entertainments which he had enjoyed in
Rome. A marvelous display of lights was made. Thousands upon
thousands of candles shone brilliantly, arranged in squares and
circles; while the banquet itself was one that symbolized the
studied luxury of the East.

At this time Cleopatra was twenty-seven years of age--a period of
life which modern physiologists have called the crisis in a
woman's growth. She had never really loved before, since she had
given herself to Caesar, not because she cared for him, but to
save her kingdom. She now came into the presence of one whose
manly beauty and strong passions were matched by her own subtlety
and appealing charm.

When Antony addressed her he felt himself a rustic in her
presence. Almost resentful, he betook himself to the coarse
language of the camp. Cleopatra, with marvelous adaptability, took
her tone from his, and thus in a moment put him at his ease.
Ferrero, who takes a most unfavorable view of her character and
personality, nevertheless explains the secret of her fascination:

Herself utterly cold and callous, insensitive by nature to the
flame of true devotion, Cleopatra was one of those women gifted
with an unerring instinct for all the various roads to men's
affections. She could be the shrinking, modest girl, too shy to
reveal her half-unconscious emotions of jealousy and depression
and self-abandonment, or a woman carried away by the sweep of a
fiery and uncontrollable passion. She could tickle the esthetic
sensibilities of her victims by rich and gorgeous festivals, by
the fantastic adornment of her own person and her palace, or by
brilliant discussions on literature and art; she could conjure up
all their grossest instincts with the vilest obscenities of
conversation, with the free and easy jocularity of a woman of the
camps.

These last words are far too strong, and they represent only
Ferrero's personal opinion; yet there is no doubt that she met
every mood of Antony's so that he became enthralled with her at
once. No such woman as this had ever cast her eyes on him before.
He had a wife at home--a most disreputable wife--so that he cared
little for domestic ties. Later, out of policy, he made another
marriage with the sister of his rival, Octavian, but this wife he
never cared for. His heart and soul were given up to Cleopatra,
the woman who could be a comrade in the camp and a fount of
tenderness in their hours of dalliance, and who possessed the keen
intellect of a man joined to the arts and fascinations of a woman.

On her side she found in Antony an ardent lover, a man of vigorous
masculinity, and, moreover, a soldier whose armies might well
sustain her on the throne of Egypt. That there was calculation
mingled with her love, no one can doubt. That some calculation
also entered into Antony's affection is likewise certain. Yet this
does not affect the truth that each was wholly given to the other.
Why should it have lessened her love for him to feel that he could
protect her and defend her? Why should it have lessened his love
for her to know that she was queen of the richest country in the
world--one that could supply his needs, sustain his armies, and
gild his triumphs with magnificence?

There are many instances in history of regnant queens who loved
and yet whose love was not dissociated from the policy of state.
Such were Anne of Austria, Elizabeth of England, and the
unfortunate Mary Stuart. Such, too, we cannot fail to think, was
Cleopatra.

The two remained together for ten years. In this time Antony was
separated from her only during a campaign in the East. In
Alexandria he ceased to seem a Roman citizen and gave himself up
wholly to the charms of this enticing woman. Many stories are told
of their good fellowship and close intimacy. Plutarch quotes Plato
as saying that there are four kinds of flattery, but he adds that
Cleopatra had a thousand. She was the supreme mistress of the art
of pleasing.

Whether Antony were serious or mirthful, she had at the instant
some new delight or some new charm to meet his wishes. At every
turn she was with him both day and night. With him she threw dice;
with him she drank; with him she hunted; and when he exercised
himself in arms she was there to admire and applaud.

At night the pair would disguise themselves as servants and wander
about the streets of Alexandria. In fact, more than once they were
set upon in the slums and treated roughly by the rabble who did
not recognize them. Cleopatra was always alluring, always tactful,
often humorous, and full of frolic.

Then came the shock of Antony's final breach with Octavian. Either
Antony or his rival must rule the world. Cleopatra's lover once
more became the Roman general, and with a great fleet proceeded to
the coast of Greece, where his enemy was encamped. Antony had
raised a hundred and twelve thousand troops and five hundred
ships--a force far superior to that commanded by Octavian.
Cleopatra was there with sixty ships.

In the days that preceded the final battle much took place which
still remains obscure. It seems likely that Antony desired to
become again the Roman, while Cleopatra wished him to thrust Rome
aside and return to Egypt with her, to reign there as an
independent king. To her Rome was almost a barbarian city. In it
she could not hold sway as she could in her beautiful Alexandria,
with its blue skies and velvet turf and tropical flowers. At Rome
Antony would be distracted by the cares of state, and she would
lose her lover. At Alexandria she would have him for her very own.

The clash came when the hostile fleets met off the promontory of
Actium. At its crisis Cleopatra, prematurely concluding that the
battle was lost, of a sudden gave the signal for retreat and put
out to sea with her fleet. This was the crucial moment. Antony,
mastered by his love, forgot all else, and in a swift ship started
in pursuit of her, abandoning his fleet and army to win or lose as
fortune might decide. For him the world was nothing; the dark-
browed Queen of Egypt, imperious and yet caressing, was
everything. Never was such a prize and never were such great hopes
thrown carelessly away. After waiting seven days Antony's troops,
still undefeated, finding that their commander would not return to
them, surrendered to Octavian, who thus became the master of an
empire.

Later his legions assaulted Alexandria, and there Antony was twice
defeated. At last Cleopatra saw her great mistake. She had made
her lover give up the hope of being Rome's dictator, but in so
doing she had also lost the chance of ruling with him tranquilly
in Egypt. She shut herself behind the barred doors of the royal
sepulcher; and, lest she should be molested there, she sent forth
word that she had died. Her proud spirit could not brook the
thought that she might be seized and carried as a prisoner to
Rome. She was too much a queen in soul to be led in triumph up the
Sacred Way to the Capitol with golden chains clanking on her
slender wrists.

Antony, believing the report that she was dead, fell upon his
sword; but in his dying moments he was carried into the presence
of the woman for whom he had given all. With her arms about him,
his spirit passed away; and soon after she, too, met death,
whether by a poisoned draught or by the storied asp no one can
say.

Cleopatra had lived the mistress of a splendid kingdom. She had
successively captivated two of the greatest men whom Rome had ever
seen. She died, like a queen, to escape disgrace. Whatever modern
critics may have to say concerning small details, this story still
remains the strangest love story of which the world has any
record.





ABELARD AND HELOISE

Many a woman, amid the transports of passionate and languishing
love, has cried out in a sort of ecstasy:

"I love you as no woman ever loved a man before!"

When she says this she believes it. Her whole soul is aflame with
the ardor of emotion. It really seems to her that no one ever
could have loved so much as she.

This cry--spontaneous, untaught, sincere--has become almost one
of those conventionalities of amorous expression which belong to
the vocabulary of self-abandonment. Every woman who utters it,
when torn by the almost terrible extravagance of a great love,
believes that no one before her has ever said it, and that in her
own case it is absolutely true.

Yet, how many women are really faithful to the end? Very many,
indeed, if circumstances admit of easy faithfulness. A high-
souled, generous, ardent nature will endure an infinity of
disillusionment, of misfortune, of neglect, and even of ill
treatment. Even so, the flame, though it may sink low, can be
revived again to burn as brightly as before. But in order that
this may be so it is necessary that the object of such a wonderful
devotion be alive, that he be present and visible; or, if he be
absent, that there should still exist some hope of renewing the
exquisite intimacy of the past.

A man who is sincerely loved may be compelled to take long
journeys which will separate him for an indefinite time from the
woman who has given her heart to him, and she will still be
constant. He may be imprisoned, perhaps for life, yet there is
always the hope of his release or of his escape; and some women
will be faithful to him and will watch for his return. But, given
a situation which absolutely bars out hope, which sunders two
souls in such a way that they can never be united in this world,
and there we have a test so terribly severe that few even of the
most loyal and intensely clinging lovers can endure it.

Not that such a situation would lead a woman to turn to any other
man than the one to whom she had given her very life; but we might
expect that at least her strong desire would cool and weaken. She
might cherish his memory among the precious souvenirs of her love
life; but that she should still pour out the same rapturous,
unstinted passion as before seems almost too much to believe. The
annals of emotion record only one such instance; and so this
instance has become known to all, and has been cherished for
nearly a thousand years. It involves the story of a woman who did
love, perhaps, as no one ever loved before or since; for she was
subjected to this cruel test, and she met the test not alone
completely, but triumphantly and almost fiercely.

The story is, of course, the story of Abelard and Heloise. It has
many times been falsely told. Portions of it have been omitted,
and other portions of it have been garbled. A whole literature has
grown up around the subject. It may well be worth our while to
clear away the ambiguities and the doubtful points, and once more
to tell it simply, without bias, and with a strict adherence to
what seems to be the truth attested by authentic records.

There is one circumstance connected with the story which we must
specially note. The narrative does something more than set forth
the one quite unimpeachable instance of unconquered constancy. It
shows how, in the last analysis, that which touches the human
heart has more vitality and more enduring interest than what
concerns the intellect or those achievements of the human mind
which are external to our emotional nature.

Pierre Abelard was undoubtedly the boldest and most creative
reasoner of his time. As a wandering teacher he drew after him
thousands of enthusiastic students. He gave a strong impetus to
learning. He was a marvelous logician and an accomplished orator.
Among his pupils were men who afterward became prelates of the
church and distinguished scholars. In the Dark Age, when the
dictates of reason were almost wholly disregarded, he fought
fearlessly for intellectual freedom. He was practically the
founder of the University of Paris, which in turn became the
mother of medieval and modern universities.

He was, therefore, a great and striking figure in the history of
civilization. Nevertheless he would to-day be remembered only by
scholars and students of the Middle Ages were it not for the fact
that he inspired the most enduring love that history records. If
Heloise had never loved him, and if their story had not been so
tragic and so poignant, he would be to-day only a name known to
but a few. His final resting-place, in the cemetery of Pere
Lachaise, in Paris, would not be sought out by thousands every
year and kept bright with flowers, the gift of those who have
themselves both loved and suffered.

Pierre Abelard--or, more fully, Pierre Abelard de Palais--was a
native of Brittany, born in the year 1079. His father was a
knight, the lord of the manor; but Abelard cared little for the
life of a petty noble; and so he gave up his seigniorial rights to
his brothers and went forth to become, first of all a student, and
then a public lecturer and teacher.

His student days ended abruptly in Paris, where he had enrolled
himself as the pupil of a distinguished philosopher, Guillaume de
Champeaux; but one day Abelard engaged in a disputation with his
master. His wonderful combination of eloquence, logic, and
originality utterly routed Champeaux, who was thus humiliated in
the presence of his disciples. He was the first of many enemies
that Abelard was destined to make in his long and stormy career.
From that moment the young Breton himself set up as a teacher of
philosophy, and the brilliancy of his discourses soon drew to him
throngs of students from all over Europe.

Before proceeding with the story of Abelard it is well to
reconstruct, however slightly, a picture of the times in which he
lived. It was an age when Western Europe was but partly civilized.
Pedantry and learning of the most minute sort existed side by side
with the most violent excesses of medieval barbarism. The Church
had undertaken the gigantic task of subduing and enlightening the
semi-pagan peoples of France and Germany and England.

When we look back at that period some will unjustly censure Rome
for not controlling more completely the savagery of the medievals.
More fairly should we wonder at the great measure of success which
had already been achieved. The leaven of a true Christianity was
working in the half-pagan populations. It had not yet completely
reached the nobles and the knights, or even all the ecclesiastics
who served it and who were consecrated to its mission. Thus, amid
a sort of political chaos were seen the glaring evils of
feudalism. Kings and princes and their followers lived the lives
of swine. Private blood-feuds were regarded lightly. There was as
yet no single central power. Every man carried his life in his
hand, trusting to sword and dagger for protection.

The cities were still mere hamlets clustered around great castles
or fortified cathedrals. In Paris itself the network of dark
lanes, ill lighted and unguarded, was the scene of midnight murder
and assassination. In the winter-time wolves infested the town by
night. Men-at-arms, with torches and spears, often had to march
out from their barracks to assail the snarling, yelping packs of
savage animals that hunger drove from the surrounding forests.

Paris of the twelfth century was typical of France itself, which
was harried by human wolves intent on rapine and wanton plunder.
There were great schools of theology, but the students who
attended them fought and slashed one another. If a man's life was
threatened he must protect it by his own strength or by gathering
about him a band of friends. No one was safe. No one was tolerant.
Very few were free from the grosser vices. Even in some of the
religious houses the brothers would meet at night for unseemly
revels, splashing the stone floors with wine and shrieking in a
delirium of drunkenness. The rules of the Church enjoined
temperance, continence, and celibacy; but the decrees of Leo IX.
and Nicholas II. and Alexander II. and Gregory were only partially
observed.

In fact, Europe was in a state of chaos--political and moral and
social. Only very slowly was order emerging from sheer anarchy. We
must remember this when we recall some facts which meet us in the
story of Abelard and Heloise.

The jealousy of Champeaux drove Abelard for a time from Paris. He
taught and lectured at several other centers of learning, always
admired, and yet at the same time denounced by many for his
advocacy of reason as against blind faith. During the years of his
wandering he came to have a wide knowledge of the world and of
human nature. If we try to imagine him as he was in his thirty-
fifth year we shall find in him a remarkable combination of
attractive qualities.

It must be remembered that though, in a sense, he was an
ecclesiastic, he had not yet been ordained to the priesthood, but
was rather a canon--a person who did not belong to any religious
order, though he was supposed to live according to a definite set
of religious rules and as a member of a religious community.
Abelard, however, made rather light of his churchly associations.
He was at once an accomplished man of the world and a profound
scholar. There was nothing of the recluse about him. He mingled
with his fellow men, whom he dominated by the charm of his
personality. He was eloquent, ardent, and persuasive. He could
turn a delicate compliment as skilfully as he could elaborate a
syllogism. His rich voice had in it a seductive quality which was
never without its effect.

Handsome and well formed, he possessed as much vigor of body as of
mind. Nor were his accomplishments entirely those of the scholar.
He wrote dainty verses, which he also set to music, and which he
sang himself with a rare skill. Some have called him "the first of
the troubadours," and many who cared nothing for his skill in
logic admired him for his gifts as a musician and a poet.
Altogether, he was one to attract attention wherever he went, for
none could fail to recognize his power.

It was soon after his thirty-fifth year that he returned to Paris,
where he was welcomed by thousands. With much tact he reconciled
himself to his enemies, so that his life now seemed to be full of
promise and of sunshine.

It was at this time that he became acquainted with a very
beautiful young girl named Heloise. She was only eighteen years of
age, yet already she possessed not only beauty, but many
accomplishments which were then quite rare in women, since she
both wrote and spoke a number of languages, and, like Abelard, was
a lover of music and poetry. Heloise was the illegitimate daughter
of a canon of patrician blood; so that she is said to have been a
worthy representative of the noble house of the Montmorencys--
famous throughout French history for chivalry and charm.

Up to this time we do not know precisely what sort of life Abelard
had lived in private. His enemies declared that he had squandered
his substance in vicious ways. His friends denied this, and
represented him as strict and chaste. The truth probably lies
between these two assertions. He was naturally a pleasure-loving
man of the world, who may very possibly have relieved his severer
studies by occasional revelry and light love. It is not at all
likely that he was addicted to gross passions and low practices.

But such as he was, when he first saw Heloise he conceived for her
a violent attachment. Carefully guarded in the house of her uncle,
Fulbert, it was difficult at first for Abelard to meet her save in
the most casual way; yet every time that he heard her exquisite
voice and watched her graceful manners he became more and more
infatuated. His studies suddenly seemed tame and colorless beside
the fierce scarlet flame which blazed up in his heart.

Nevertheless, it was because of these studies and of his great
reputation as a scholar that he managed to obtain access to
Heloise. He flattered her uncle and made a chance proposal that he
should himself become an inmate of Fulbert's household in order
that he might teach this girl of so much promise. Such an offer
coming from so brilliant a man was joyfully accepted.

From that time Abelard could visit Heloise without restraint. He
was her teacher, and the two spent hours together, nominally in
the study of Greek and Hebrew; but doubtless very little was said
between them upon such unattractive subjects. On the contrary,
with all his wide experience of life, his eloquence, his perfect
manners, and his fascination, Abelard put forth his power to
captivate the senses of a girl still in her teens and quite
ignorant of the world. As Remusat says, he employed to win her the
genius which had overwhelmed all the great centers of learning in
the Western world.

It was then that the pleasures of knowledge, the joys of thought,
the emotions of eloquence, were all called into play to charm and
move and plunge into a profound and strange intoxication this
noble and tender heart which had never known either love or
sorrow. ... One can imagine that everything helped on the
inevitable end. Their studies gave them opportunities to see each
other freely, and also permitted them to be alone together. Then
their books lay open between them; but either long periods of
silence stilled their reading, or else words of deepening intimacy
made them forget their studies altogether. The eyes of the two
lovers turned from the book to mingle their glances, and then to
turn away in a confusion that was conscious.

Hand would touch hand, apparently by accident; and when
conversation ceased, Abelard would often hear the long, quivering
sigh which showed the strange, half-frightened, and yet exquisite
joy which Heloise experienced.

It was not long before the girl's heart had been wholly won.
Transported by her emotion, she met the caresses of her lover with
those as unrestrained as his. Her very innocence deprived her of
the protection which older women would have had. All was given
freely, and even wildly, by Heloise; and all was taken by Abelard,
who afterward himself declared:

"The pleasure of teaching her to love surpassed the delightful
fragrance of all the perfumes in the world."

Yet these two could not always live in a paradise which was
entirely their own. The world of Paris took notice of their close
association. Some poems written to Heloise by Abelard, as if in
letters of fire, were found and shown to Fulbert, who, until this
time, had suspected nothing. Angrily he ordered Abelard to leave
his house. He forbade his niece to see her lover any more.

But the two could not be separated; and, indeed, there was good
reason why they should still cling together. Secretly Heloise left
her uncle's house and fled through the narrow lanes of Paris to
the dwelling of Abelard's sister, Denyse, where Abelard himself
was living. There, presently, the young girl gave birth to a son,
who was named Astrolabe, after an instrument used by astronomers,
since both the father and the mother felt that the offspring of so
great a love should have no ordinary name.

Fulbert was furious, and rightly so. His hospitality had been
outraged and his niece dishonored. He insisted that the pair
should at once be married. Here was revealed a certain weakness in
the character of Abelard. He consented to the marriage, but
insisted that it should be kept an utter secret.

Oddly enough, it was Heloise herself who objected to becoming the
wife of the man she loved. Unselfishness could go no farther. She
saw that, were he to marry her, his advancement in the Church
would be almost impossible; for, while the very minor clergy
sometimes married in spite of the papal bulls, matrimony was
becoming a fatal bar to ecclesiastical promotion. And so Heloise
pleaded pitifully, both with her uncle and with Abelard, that
there should be no marriage. She would rather bear all manner of
disgrace than stand in the way of Abelard's advancement.

He has himself given some of the words in which she pleaded with
him:

What glory shall I win from you, when I have made you quite
inglorious and have humbled both of us? What vengeance will the
world inflict on me if I deprive it of one so brilliant? What
curses will follow such a marriage? How outrageous would it be
that you, whom nature created for the universal good, should be
devoted to one woman and plunged into such disgrace? I loathe the
thought of a marriage which would humiliate you.

Indeed, every possible effort which another woman in her place
would employ to make him marry her she used in order to dissuade
him. Finally, her sweet face streaming with tears, she uttered
that tremendous sentence which makes one really think that she
loved him as no other woman ever loved a man. She cried out, in an
agony of self-sacrifice:

"I would rather be your mistress than the wife even of an
emperor!"

Nevertheless, the two were married, and Abelard returned to his
lecture-room and to his studies. For months they met but seldom.
Meanwhile, however, the taunts and innuendos directed against
Heloise so irritated Fulbert that he broke his promise of secrecy,
and told his friends that Abelard and Heloise were man and wife.
They went to Heloise for confirmation. Once more she showed in an
extraordinary way the depth of her devotion.

"I am no wife," she said. "It is not true that Abelard has married
me. My uncle merely tells you this to save my reputation."

They asked her whether she would swear to this; and, without a
moment's hesitation, this pure and noble woman took an oath upon
the Scriptures that there had been no marriage.

Fulbert was enraged by this. He ill-treated Heloise, and,
furthermore, he forbade Abelard to visit her. The girl, therefore,
again left her uncle's house and betook herself to a convent just
outside of Paris, where she assumed the habit of a nun as a
disguise. There Abelard continued from time to time to meet her.

When Fulbert heard of this he put his own interpretation on it. He
believed that Abelard intended to ignore the marriage altogether,
and that possibly he might even marry some other woman. In any
case, he now hated Abelard with all his heart; and he resolved to
take a fearful and unnatural vengeance which would at once prevent
his enemy from making any other marriage, while at the same time
it would debar him from ecclesiastical preferment.

To carry out his plot Fulbert first bribed a man who was the body-
servant of Abelard, watching at the door of his room each night.
Then he hired the services of four ruffians. After Abelard had
retired and was deep in slumber the treacherous valet unbarred the
door. The hirelings of Fulbert entered and fell upon the sleeping
man. Three of them bound him fast, while the fourth, with a razor,
inflicted on him the most shameful mutilation that is possible.
Then, extinguishing the lights, the wretches slunk away and were
lost in darkness, leaving behind their victim bound to his couch,
uttering cries of torment and bathed in his own blood.

It is a shocking story, and yet it is intensely characteristic of
the lawless and barbarous era in which it happened. Early the next
morning the news flew rapidly through Paris. The city hummed like
a bee-hive. Citizens and students and ecclesiastics poured into
the street and surrounded the house of Abelard.

"Almost the entire city," says Fulques, as quoted by McCabe, "went
clamoring toward his house. Women wept as if each one had lost her
husband."

Unmanned though he was, Abelard still retained enough of the
spirit of his time to seek vengeance. He, in his turn, employed
ruffians whom he set upon the track of those who had assaulted
him. The treacherous valet and one of Fulbert's hirelings were run
down, seized, and mutilated precisely as Abelard had been; and
their eyes were blinded. A third was lodged in prison. Fulbert
himself was accused before one of the Church courts, which alone
had power to punish an ecclesiastic, and all his goods were
confiscated.

But, meantime, how did it fare with Heloise? Her grief was greater
than his own, while her love and her devotion were absolutely
undiminished. But Abelard now showed a selfishness--and indeed, a
meanness--far beyond any that he had before exhibited. Heloise
could no more be his wife. He made it plain that he put no trust
in her fidelity. He was unwilling that she should live in the
world while he could not; and so he told her sternly that she must
take the veil and bury herself for ever in a nunnery.

The pain and shame which she experienced at this came wholly from
the fact that evidently Abelard did not trust her. Long afterward
she wrote:

God knows I should not have hesitated, at your command, to precede
or to follow you to hell itself!

It was his distrust that cut her to the heart. Still, her love for
him was so intense that she obeyed his order. Soon after she took
the vows; and in the convent chapel, shaken with sobs, she knelt
before the altar and assumed the veil of a cloistered nun. Abelard
himself put on the black tunic of a Benedictine monk and entered
the Abbey of St. Denis.

It is unnecessary here to follow out all the details of the lives
of Abelard and Heloise after this heart-rendering scene. Abelard
passed through many years of strife and disappointment, and even
of humiliation; for on one occasion, just as he had silenced
Guillaume de Champeaux, so he himself was silenced and put to rout
by Bernard of Clairvaux--"a frail, tense, absorbed, dominant
little man, whose face was white and worn with suffering," but in
whose eyes there was a light of supreme strength. Bernard
represented pure faith, as Abelard represented pure reason; and
the two men met before a great council to match their respective
powers.

Bernard, with fiery eloquence, brought a charge of heresy against
Abelard in an oration which was like a charge of cavalry. When he
had concluded Abelard rose with an ashen face, stammered out a few
words, and sat down. He was condemned by the council, and his
works were ordered to be burned.

All his later life was one of misfortune, of humiliation, and even
of personal danger. The reckless monks whom he tried to rule rose
fiercely against him. His life was threatened. He betook himself
to a desolate and lonely place, where he built for himself a hut
of reeds and rushes, hoping to spend his final years in
meditation. But there were many who had not forgotten his ability
as a teacher. These flocked by hundreds to the desert place where
he abode. His hut was surrounded by tents and rude hovels, built
by his scholars for their shelter.

Thus Abelard resumed his teaching, though in a very different
frame of mind. In time he built a structure of wood and stone,
which he called the Paraclete, some remains of which can still be
seen.

All this time no word had passed between him and Heloise. But
presently Abelard wrote and gave to the world a curious and
exceedingly frank book, which he called The Story of My
Misfortunes. A copy of it reached the hands of Heloise, and she at
once sent to Abelard the first of a series of letters which have
remained unique in the literature of love.

Ten years had passed, and yet the woman's heart was as faithful
and as full of yearning as on the day when the two had parted. It
has been said that the letters are not genuine, and they must be
read with this assertion in mind; yet it is difficult to believe
that any one save Heloise herself could have flung a human soul
into such frankly passionate utterances, or that any imitator
could have done the work.

In her first letter, which was sent to Abelard written upon
parchment, she said:

At thy command I would change, not merely my costume, but my very
soul, so entirely art thou the sole possessor of my body and my
spirit. Never, God is my witness, never have I sought anything in
thee but thyself; I have sought thee, and not thy gifts. I have
not looked to the marriage-bond or dowry.

She begged him to write to her, and to lead her to God, as once he
had led her into the mysteries of pleasure. Abelard answered in a
letter, friendly to be sure, but formal--the letter of a priest to
a cloistered nun. The opening words of it are characteristic of
the whole:

To Heloise, his sister in Christ, from Abelard, her brother in
Him.

The letter was a long one, but throughout the whole of it the
writer's tone was cold and prudent. Its very coldness roused her
soul to a passionate revolt. Her second letter bursts forth in a
sort of anguish:

How hast thou been able to frame such thoughts, dearest? How hast
thou found words to convey them? Oh, if I dared but call God cruel
to me! Oh, most wretched of all creatures that I am! So sweet did
I find the pleasures of our loving days that I cannot bring myself
to reject them or to banish them from my memory. Wheresoever I go,
they thrust themselves upon my vision, and rekindle the old
desire.

But Abelard knew only too well that not in this life could there
be anything save spiritual love between himself and Heloise. He
wrote to her again and again, always in the same remote and
unimpassioned way. He tells her about the history of monasticism,
and discusses with her matters of theology and ethics; but he
never writes one word to feed the flame that is consuming her. The
woman understood at last; and by degrees her letters became as
calm as his--suffused, however, with a tenderness and feeling
which showed that in her heart of hearts she was still entirely
given to him.

After some years Abelard left his dwelling at the Paraclete, and
there was founded there a religious house of which Heloise became
the abbess. All the world respected her for her sweetness, her
wisdom, and the purity of her character. She made friends as
easily as Abelard made enemies. Even Bernard, who had overthrown
her husband, sought out Heloise to ask for her advice and counsel.

Abelard died while on his way to Rome, whither he was journeying
in order to undergo a penalty; and his body was brought back to
the Paraclete, where it was entombed. Over it for twenty-two years
Heloise watched with tender care; and when she died, her body was
laid beside that of her lover.

To-day their bones are mingled as she would have desired them to
be mingled. The stones of their tomb in the great cemetery of Pere
Lachaise were brought from the ruins of the Paraclete, and above
the sarcophagus are two recumbent figures, the whole being the
work of the artist Alexandra Lenoir, who died in 1836. The figure
representing Heloise is not, however, an authentic likeness. The
model for it was a lady belonging to a noble family of France, and
the figure itself was brought to Pere Lachaise from the ancient
College de Beauvais.

The letters of Heloise have been read and imitated throughout the
whole of the last nine centuries. Some have found in them the
utterances of a woman whose love of love was greater than her love
of God and whose intensity of passion nothing could subdue; and so
these have condemned her. But others, like Chateaubriand, have
more truly seen in them a pure and noble spirit to whom fate had
been very cruel; and who was, after all, writing to the man who
had been her lawful husband.

Some of the most famous imitations of her letters are those in the
ancient poem entitled, "The Romance of the Rose," written by Jean
de Meung, in the thirteenth century; and in modern times her first
letter was paraphrased by Alexander Pope, and in French by
Colardeau. There exist in English half a dozen translations of
them, with Abelard's replies. It is interesting to remember that
practically all the other writings of Abelard remained unpublished
and unedited until a very recent period. He was a remarkable
figure as a philosopher and scholar; but the world cares for him
only because he was loved by Heloise.





QUEEN ELIZABETH AND THE EARL OF LEICESTER


History has many romantic stories to tell of the part which women
have played in determining the destinies of nations. Sometimes it
is a woman's beauty that causes the shifting of a province. Again
it is another woman's rich possessions that incite invasion and
lead to bloody wars. Marriages or dowries, or the refusal of
marriages and the lack of dowries, inheritance through an heiress,
the failure of a male succession--in these and in many other ways
women have set their mark indelibly upon the trend of history.

However, if we look over these different events we shall find that
it is not so much the mere longing for a woman--the desire to have
her as a queen--that has seriously affected the annals of any
nation. Kings, like ordinary men, have paid their suit and then
have ridden away repulsed, yet not seriously dejected. Most royal
marriages are made either to secure the succession to a throne by
a legitimate line of heirs or else to unite adjoining states and
make a powerful kingdom out of two that are less powerful. But, as
a rule, kings have found greater delight in some sheltered bower
remote from courts than in the castled halls and well-cared-for
nooks where their own wives and children have been reared with all
the appurtenances of legitimacy.

There are not many stories that hang persistently about the love-
making of a single woman. In the case of one or another we may
find an episode or two--something dashing, something spirited or
striking, something brilliant and exhilarating, or something sad.
But for a woman's whole life to be spent in courtship that meant
nothing and that was only a clever aid to diplomacy--this is
surely an unusual and really wonderful thing.

It is the more unusual because the woman herself was not intended
by nature to be wasted upon the cold and cheerless sport of
chancellors and counselors and men who had no thought of her
except to use her as a pawn. She was hot-blooded, descended from a
fiery race, and one whose temper was quick to leap into the
passion of a man.

In studying this phase of the long and interesting life of
Elizabeth of England we must notice several important facts. In
the first place, she gave herself, above all else, to the
maintenance of England--not an England that would be half Spanish
or half French, or even partly Dutch and Flemish, but the Merry
England of tradition--the England that was one and undivided, with
its growing freedom of thought, its bows and bills, its nut-brown
ale, its sturdy yeomen, and its loyalty to crown and Parliament.
She once said, almost as in an agony:

"I love England more than anything!"

And one may really hold that this was true.

For England she schemed and planned. For England she gave up many
of her royal rights. For England she descended into depths of
treachery. For England she left herself on record as an arrant
liar, false, perjured, yet successful; and because of her success
for England's sake her countrymen will hold her in high
remembrance, since her scheming and her falsehood are the offenses
that one pardons most readily in a woman.

In the second place, it must be remembered that Elizabeth's
courtships and pretended love-makings were almost always a part of
her diplomacy. When not a part of her diplomacy they were a mere
appendage to her vanity. To seem to be the flower of the English
people, and to be surrounded by the noblest, the bravest, and the
most handsome cavaliers, not only of her own kingdom, but of
others--this was, indeed, a choice morsel of which she was fond of
tasting, even though it meant nothing beyond the moment.

Finally, though at times she could be very cold, and though she
made herself still colder in order that she might play fast and
loose with foreign suitors who played fast and loose with her--the
King of Spain, the Duc d'Alencon, brother of the French king, with
an Austrian archduke, with a magnificent barbarian prince of
Muscovy, with Eric of Sweden, or any other Scandinavian suitor--
she felt a woman's need for some nearer and more tender
association to which she might give freer play and in which she
might feel those deeper emotions without the danger that arises
when love is mingled with diplomacy.

Let us first consider a picture of the woman as she really was in
order that we may understand her triple nature--consummate
mistress of every art that statesmen know, and using at every
moment her person as a lure; a vain-glorious queen who seemed to
be the prey of boundless vanity; and, lastly, a woman who had all
a woman's passion, and who could cast suddenly aside the check and
balance which restrained her before the public gaze and could
allow herself to give full play to the emotion that she inherited
from the king, her father, who was himself a marvel of fire and
impetuosity. That the daughter of Henry VIII. and Anne Boleyn
should be a gentle, timid maiden would be to make heredity a
farce.

Elizabeth was about twenty-five years of age when she ascended the
throne of England. It is odd that the date of her birth cannot be
given with precision. The intrigues and disturbances of the
English court, and the fact that she was a princess, made her
birth a matter of less account than if there had been no male heir
to the throne. At any rate, when she ascended it, after the deaths
of her brother, King Edward VI., and her sister, Queen Mary, she
was a woman well trained both in intellect and in physical
development.

Mr. Martin Hume, who loves to dwell upon the later years of Queen
Elizabeth, speaks rather bitterly of her as a "painted old
harridan"; and such she may well have seemed when, at nearly
seventy years of age, she leered and grinned a sort of skeleton
smile at the handsome young courtiers who pretended to see in her
the queen of beauty and to be dying for love of her.

Yet, in her earlier years, when she was young and strong and
impetuous, she deserved far different words than these. The
portrait of her by Zucchero, which now hangs in Hampton Court,
depicts her when she must have been of more than middle age; and
still the face is one of beauty, though it be a strange and almost
artificial beauty--one that draws, attracts, and, perhaps, lures
you on against your will.

It is interesting to compare this painting with the frank word-
picture of a certain German agent who was sent to England by his
emperor, and who seems to have been greatly fascinated by Queen
Elizabeth. She was at that time in the prime of her beauty and her
power. Her complexion was of that peculiar transparency which is
seen only in the face of golden blondes. Her figure was fine and
graceful, and her wit an accomplishment that would have made a
woman of any rank or time remarkable. The German envoy says:

She lives a life of such magnificence and feasting as can hardly
be imagined, and occupies a great portion of her time with balls,
banquets, hunting, and similar amusements, with the utmost
possible display, but nevertheless she insists upon far greater
respect being shown her than was exacted by Queen Mary. She
summons Parliament, but lets them know that her orders must be
obeyed in any case.

If any one will look at the painting by Zucchero he will see how
much is made of Elizabeth's hands--a distinctive feature quite as
noble with the Tudors as is the "Hapsburg lip" among the
descendants of the house of Austria. These were ungloved, and were
very long and white, and she looked at them and played with them a
great deal; and, indeed, they justified the admiration with which
they were regarded by her flatterers.

Such was the personal appearance of Elizabeth. When a young girl,
we have still more favorable opinions of her that were written by
those who had occasion to be near her. Not only do they record
swift glimpses of her person, but sometimes in a word or two they
give an insight into certain traits of mind which came out
prominently in her later years.

It may, perhaps, be well to view her as a woman before we regard
her more fully as a queen. It has been said that Elizabeth
inherited many of the traits of her father--the boldness of
spirit, the rapidity of decision, and, at the same time, the fox-
like craft which often showed itself when it was least expected.

Henry had also, as is well known, a love of the other sex, which
has made his reign memorable. And yet it must be noted that while
he loved much, it was not loose love. Many a king of England, from
Henry II. to Charles II., has offended far more than Henry VIII.
Where Henry loved, he married; and it was the unfortunate result
of these royal marriages that has made him seem unduly fond of
women. If, however, we examine each one of the separate espousals
we shall find that he did not enter into it lightly, and that he
broke it off unwillingly. His ardent temperament, therefore, was
checked by a certain rational or conventional propriety, so that
he was by no means a loose liver, as many would make him out to
be.

We must remember this when we recall the charges that have been
made against Elizabeth, and the strange stories that were told of
her tricks--by no means seemly tricks--which she used to play with
her guardian, Lord Thomas Seymour. The antics she performed with
him in her dressing-room were made the subject of an official
inquiry; yet it came out that while Elizabeth was less than
sixteen, and Lord Thomas was very much her senior, his wife was
with him on his visits to the chamber of the princess.

Sir Robert Tyrwhitt and his wife were also sent to question her,
Tyrwhitt had a keen mind and one well trained to cope with any
other's wit in this sort of cross-examination. Elizabeth was only
a girl of fifteen, yet she was a match for the accomplished
courtier in diplomacy and quick retort. He was sent down to worm
out of her everything that she knew. Threats and flattery and
forged letters and false confessions were tried on her; but they
were tried in vain. She would tell nothing of importance. She
denied everything. She sulked, she cried, she availed herself of a
woman's favorite defense in suddenly attacking those who had
attacked her. She brought counter charges against Tyrwhitt, and
put her enemies on their own defense. Not a compromising word
could they wring out of her.

She bitterly complained of the imprisonment of her governess, Mrs.
Ashley, and cried out:

"I have not so behaved that you need put more mistresses upon me!"

Altogether, she was too much for Sir Robert, and he was wise
enough to recognize her cleverness.

"She hath a very good wit," said he, shrewdly; "and nothing is to
be gotten of her except by great policy." And he added: "If I had
to say my fancy, I think it more meet that she should have two
governesses than one."

Mr. Hume notes the fact that after the two servants of the
princess had been examined and had told nothing very serious they
found that they had been wise in remaining friends of the royal
girl. No sooner had Elizabeth become queen than she knighted the
man Parry and made him treasurer of the household, while Mrs.
Ashley, the governess, was treated with great consideration. Thus,
very naturally, Mr. Hume says: "They had probably kept back far
more than they told."

Even Tyrwhitt believed that there was a secret compact between
them, for he said, quaintly: "They all sing one song, and she hath
set the note for them."

Soon after this her brother Edward's death brought to the throne
her elder sister, Mary, who has harshly become known as Bloody
Mary. During this time Elizabeth put aside her boldness, and
became apparently a shy and simple-minded virgin. Surrounded on
every side by those who sought to trap her, there was nothing in
her bearing to make her seem the head of a party or the young
chief of a faction. Nothing could exceed her in meekness. She
spoke of her sister in the humblest terms. She exhibited no signs
of the Tudor animation that was in reality so strong a part of her
character.

But, coming to the throne, she threw away her modesty and brawled
and rioted with very little self-restraint. The people as a whole
found little fault with her. She reminded them of her father, the
bluff King Hal; and even those who criticized her did so only
partially. They thought much better of her than they had of her
saturnine sister, the first Queen Mary.

The life of Elizabeth has been very oddly misunderstood, not so
much for the facts in it as for the manner in which these have
been arranged and the relation which they have to one another. We
ought to recollect that this woman did not live in a restricted
sphere, that her life was not a short one, and that it was crowded
with incidents and full of vivid color. Some think of her as
living for a short period of time and speak of the great
historical characters who surrounded her as belonging to a single
epoch. To them she has one set of suitors all the time--the Duc
d'Alencon, the King of Denmark's brother, the Prince of Sweden,
the russian potentate, the archduke sending her sweet messages
from Austria, the melancholy King of Spain, together with a number
of her own brilliant Englishmen--Sir William Pickering, Sir Robert
Dudley, Lord Darnley, the Earl of Essex, Sir Philip Sidney, and
Sir Walter Raleigh.

Of course, as a matter of fact, Elizabeth lived for nearly seventy
years--almost three-quarters of a century--and in that long time
there came and went both men and women, those whom she had used
and cast aside, with others whom she had also treated with
gratitude, and who had died gladly serving her. But through it all
there was a continual change in her environment, though not in
her. The young soldier went to the battle-field and died; the wise
counselor gave her his advice, and she either took it or cared
nothing for it. She herself was a curious blending of forwardness
and folly, of wisdom and wantonness, of frivolity and unbridled
fancy. But through it all she loved her people, even though she
often cheated them and made them pay her taxes in the harsh old
way that prevailed before there was any right save the king's
will.

At the same time, this was only by fits and starts, and on the
whole she served them well. Therefore, to most of them she was
always the good Queen Bess. What mattered it to the ditcher and
yeoman, far from the court, that the queen was said to dance in
her nightdress and to swear like a trooper?

It was, indeed, largely from these rustic sources that such
stories were scattered throughout England. Peasants thought them
picturesque. More to the point with them were peace and prosperity
throughout the country, the fact that law was administered with
honesty and justice, and that England was safe from her deadly
enemies--the swarthy Spaniards and the scheming French.

But, as I said, we must remember always that the Elizabeth of one
period was not the Elizabeth of another, and that the England of
one period was not the England of another. As one thinks of it,
there is something wonderful in the almost star-like way in which
this girl flitted unharmed through a thousand perils. Her own
countrymen were at first divided against her; a score of greedy,
avaricious suitors sought her destruction, or at least her hand to
lead her to destruction; all the great powers of the Continent
were either demanding an alliance with England or threatening to
dash England down amid their own dissensions.

What had this girl to play off against such dangers? Only an
undaunted spirit, a scheming mind that knew no scruples, and
finally her own person and the fact that she was a woman, and,
therefore, might give herself in marriage and become the mother of
a race of kings.

It was this last weapon, the weapon of her sex, that proved,
perhaps, the most powerful of all. By promising a marriage or by
denying it, or by neither promising nor denying but withholding
it, she gave forth a thousand wily intimations which kept those
who surrounded her at bay until she had made still another deft
and skilful combination, escaping like some startled creature to a
new place of safety.

In 1583, when she was fifty years of age, she had reached a point
when her courtships and her pretended love-making were no longer
necessary. She had played Sweden against Denmark, and France
against Spain, and the Austrian archduke against the others, and
many suitors in her own land against the different factions which
they headed. She might have sat herself down to rest; for she
could feel that her wisdom had led her up into a high place,
whence she might look down in peace and with assurance of the
tranquillity that she had won. Not yet had the great Armada rolled
and thundered toward the English shores. But she was certain that
her land was secure, compact, and safe.

It remains to see what were those amatory relations which she may
be said to have sincerely held. She had played at love-making with
foreign princes, because it was wise and, for the moment, best.
She had played with Englishmen of rank who aspired to her hand,
because in that way she might conciliate, at one time her Catholic
and at another her Protestant subjects. But what of the real and
inward feeling of her heart, when she was not thinking of
political problems or the necessities of state!

This is an interesting question. One may at least seek the answer,
hoping thereby to solve one of the most interesting phases of this
perplexing and most remarkable woman.

It must be remembered that it was not a question of whether
Elizabeth desired marriage. She may have done so as involving a
brilliant stroke of policy. In this sense she may have wished to
marry one of the two French princes who were among her suitors.
But even here she hesitated, and her Parliament disapproved; for
by this time England had become largely Protestant. Again, had she
married a French prince and had children, England might have
become an appanage of France.

There is no particular evidence that she had any feeling at all
for her Flemish, Austrian, or Russian suitors, while the Swede's
pretensions were the laughing-stock of the English court. So we
may set aside this question of marriage as having nothing to do
with her emotional life. She did desire a son, as was shown by her
passionate outcry when she compared herself with Mary of Scotland.

"The Queen of Scots has a bonny son, while I am but a barren
stock!"

She was too wise to wed a subject; though. had she married at all,
her choice would doubtless have been an Englishman. In this
respect, as in so many others, she was like her father, who chose
his numerous wives, with the exception of the first, from among
the English ladies of the court; just as the showy Edward IV. was
happy in marrying "Dame Elizabeth Woodville." But what a king may
do is by no means so easy for a queen; and a husband is almost
certain to assume an authority which makes him unpopular with the
subjects of his wife.

Hence, as said above, we must consider not so much whom she would
have liked to marry, but rather to whom her love went out
spontaneously, and not as a part of that amatory play which amused
her from the time when she frisked with Seymour down to the very
last days, when she could no longer move about, but when she still
dabbled her cheeks with rouge and powder and set her skeleton face
amid a forest of ruffs.

There were many whom she cared for after a fashion. She would not
let Sir Walter Raleigh visit her American colonies, because she
could not bear to have him so long away from her. She had great
moments of passion for the Earl of Essex, though in the end she
signed his death-warrant because he was as dominant in spirit as
the queen herself.

Readers of Sir Walter Scott's wonderfully picturesque novel,
Kenilworth, will note how he throws the strongest light upon
Elizabeth's affection for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
Scott's historical instinct is united here with a vein of
psychology which goes deeper than is usual with him. We see
Elizabeth trying hard to share her favor equally between two
nobles; but the Earl of Essex fails to please her because he
lacked those exquisite manners which made Leicester so great a
favorite with the fastidious queen.

Then, too, the story of Leicester's marriage with Amy Robsart is
something more than a myth, based upon an obscure legend and an
ancient ballad. The earl had had such a wife, and there were
sinister stories about the manner of her death. But it is Scott
who invents the villainous Varney and the bulldog Anthony Foster;
just as he brought the whole episode into the foreground and made
it occur at a period much later than was historically true. Still,
Scott felt--and he was imbued with the spirit and knowledge of
that time--a strong conviction that Elizabeth loved Leicester as
she really loved no one else.

There is one interesting fact which goes far to convince us. Just
as her father was, in a way, polygamous, so Elizabeth was even
more truly polyandrous. It was inevitable that she should surround
herself with attractive men, whose love-locks she would caress and
whose flatteries she would greedily accept. To the outward eye
there was very little difference in her treatment of the handsome
and daring nobles of her court; yet a historian of her time makes
one very shrewd remark when he says: "To every one she gave some
power at times--to all save Leicester."

Cecil and Walsingham in counsel and Essex and Raleigh in the field
might have their own way at times, and even share the sovereign's
power, but to Leicester she intrusted no high commands and no
important mission. Why so? Simply because she loved him more than
any of the rest; and, knowing this, she knew that if besides her
love she granted him any measure of control or power, then she
would be but half a queen and would be led either to marry him or
else to let him sway her as he would.

For the reason given, one may say with confidence that, while
Elizabeth's light loves were fleeting, she gave a deep affection
to this handsome, bold, and brilliant Englishman and cherished him
in a far different way from any of the others. This was as near as
she ever came to marriage, and it was this love at least which
makes Shakespeare's famous line as false as it is beautiful, when
he describes "the imperial votaress" as passing by "in maiden
meditation, fancy free."





MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AND LORD BOTHWELL


Mary Stuart and Cleopatra are the two women who have most
attracted the fancy of poets, dramatists, novelists, and painters,
from their own time down to the present day.

In some respects there is a certain likeness in their careers.
Each was queen of a nation whose affairs were entangled with those
of a much greater one. Each sought for her own ideal of love until
she found it. Each won that love recklessly, almost madly. Each,
in its attainment, fell from power and fortune. Each died before
her natural life was ended. One caused the man she loved to cast
away the sovereignty of a mighty state. The other lost her own
crown in order that she might achieve the whole desire of her
heart.

There is still another parallel which may be found. Each of these
women was reputed to be exquisitely beautiful; yet each fell short
of beauty's highest standards. They are alike remembered in song
and story because of qualities that are far more powerful than any
physical charm can be. They impressed the imagination of their own
contemporaries just as they had impressed the imagination of all
succeeding ages, by reason of a strange and irresistible
fascination which no one could explain, but which very few could
experience and resist.

Mary Stuart was born six days before her father's death, and when
the kingdom which was her heritage seemed to be almost in its
death-throes. James V. of Scotland, half Stuart and half Tudor,
was no ordinary monarch. As a mere boy he had burst the bonds with
which a regency had bound him, and he had ruled the wild Scotland
of the sixteenth century. He was brave and crafty, keen in
statesmanship, and dissolute in pleasure.

His first wife had given him no heirs; so at her death he sought
out a princess whom he pursued all the more ardently because she
was also courted by the burly Henry VIII. of England. This girl
was Marie of Lorraine, daughter of the Duc de Guise. She was fit
to be the mother of a lion's brood, for she was above six feet in
height and of proportions so ample as to excite the admiration of
the royal voluptuary who sat upon the throne of England.

"I am big," said he, "and I want a wife who is as big as I am."

But James of Scotland wooed in person, and not by embassies, and
he triumphantly carried off his strapping princess. Henry of
England gnawed his beard in vain; and, though in time he found
consolation in another woman's arms, he viewed James not only as a
public but as a private enemy.

There was war between the two countries. First the Scots repelled
an English army; but soon they were themselves disgracefully
defeated at Solway Moss by a force much their inferior in numbers.
The shame of it broke King James's heart. As he was galloping from
the battle-field the news was brought him that his wife had given
birth to a daughter. He took little notice of the message; and in
a few days he had died, moaning with his last breath the
mysterious words:

"It came with a lass--with a lass it will go!"

The child who was born at this ill-omened crisis was Mary Stuart,
who within a week became, in her own right, Queen of Scotland. Her
mother acted as regent of the kingdom. Henry of England demanded
that the infant girl should be betrothed to his young son, Prince
Edward, who afterward reigned as Edward VI., though he died while
still a boy. The proposal was rejected, and the war between
England and Scotland went on its bloody course; but meanwhile the
little queen was sent to France, her mother's home, so that she
might be trained in accomplishments which were rare in Scotland.

In France she grew up at the court of Catherine de' Medici, that
imperious intriguer whose splendid surroundings were tainted with
the corruption which she had brought from her native Italy. It
was, indeed, a singular training-school for a girl of Mary
Stuart's character. She saw about her a superficial chivalry and a
most profound depravity. Poets like Ronsard graced the life of the
court with exquisite verse. Troubadours and minstrels sang sweet
music there. There were fetes and tournaments and gallantry of
bearing; yet, on the other hand, there was every possible
refinement and variety of vice. Men were slain before the eyes of
the queen herself. The talk of the court was of intrigue and lust
and evil things which often verged on crime. Catherine de' Medici
herself kept her nominal husband at arm's-length; and in order to
maintain her grasp on France she connived at the corruption of her
own children, three of whom were destined in their turn to sit
upon the throne.

Mary Stuart grew up in these surroundings until she was sixteen,
eating the fruit which gave a knowledge of both good and evil. Her
intelligence was very great. She quickly learned Italian, French,
and Latin. She was a daring horsewoman. She was a poet and an
artist even in her teens. She was also a keen judge of human
motives, for those early years of hers had forced her into a
womanhood that was premature but wonderful. It had been proposed
that she should marry the eldest son of Catherine, so that in time
the kingdom of Scotland and that of France might be united, while
if Elizabeth of England were to die unmarried her realm also would
fall to this pair of children.

And so Mary, at sixteen, wedded the Dauphin Francis, who was a
year her junior. The prince was a wretched, whimpering little
creature, with a cankered body and a blighted soul. Marriage with
such a husband seemed absurd. It never was a marriage in reality.
The sickly child would cry all night, for he suffered from
abscesses in his ears, and his manhood had been prematurely taken
from him. Nevertheless, within a twelvemonth the French king died
and Mary Stuart was Queen of France as well as of Scotland,
hampered only by her nominal obedience to the sick boy whom she
openly despised. At seventeen she showed herself a master spirit.
She held her own against the ambitious Catherine de' Medici, whom
she contemptuously nicknamed "the apothecary's daughter." For the
brief period of a year she was actually the ruler of France; but
then her husband died and she was left a widow, restless,
ambitious, and yet no longer having any of the power she loved.

Mary Stuart at this time had become a woman whose fascination was
exerted over all who knew her. She was very tall and very slim,
with chestnut hair, "like a flower of the heat, both lax and
delicate." Her skin was fair and pale, so clear and so transparent
as to make the story plausible that when she drank from a flask of
wine, the red liquid could be seen passing down her slender
throat.

Yet with all this she was not fine in texture, but hardy as a man.
She could endure immense fatigue without yielding to it. Her
supple form had the strength of steel. There was a gleam in her
hazel eyes that showed her to be brimful of an almost fierce
vitality. Young as she was, she was the mistress of a thousand
arts, and she exhaled a sort of atmosphere that turned the heads
of men. The Stuart blood made her impatient of control, careless
of state, and easy-mannered. The French and the Tudor strain gave
her vivacity. She could be submissive in appearance while still
persisting in her aims. She could be languorous and seductive
while cold within. Again, she could assume the haughtiness which
belonged to one who was twice a queen.

Two motives swayed her, and they fought together for supremacy.
One was the love of power, and the other was the love of love. The
first was natural to a girl who was a sovereign in her own right.
The second was inherited, and was then forced into a rank
luxuriance by the sort of life that she had seen about her. At
eighteen she was a strangely amorous creature, given to fondling
and kissing every one about her, with slight discrimination. From
her sense of touch she received emotions that were almost
necessary to her existence. With her slender, graceful hands she
was always stroking the face of some favorite--it might be only
the face of a child, or it might be the face of some courtier or
poet, or one of the four Marys whose names are linked with hers--
Mary Livingstone, Mary Fleming, Mary Beaton, and Mary Seton, the
last of whom remained with her royal mistress until her death.

But one must not be too censorious in thinking of Mary Stuart. She
was surrounded everywhere by enemies. During her stay in France
she was hated by the faction of Catherine de' Medici. When she
returned to Scotland she was hated because of her religion by the
Protestant lords. Her every action was set forth in the worst
possible light. The most sinister meaning was given to everything
she said or did. In truth, we must reject almost all the stories
which accuse her of anything more than a certain levity of
conduct.

She was not a woman to yield herself in love's last surrender
unless her intellect and heart alike had been made captive. She
would listen to the passionate outpourings of poets and courtiers,
and she would plunge her eyes into theirs, and let her hair just
touch their faces, and give them her white hands to kiss--but
that was all. Even in this she was only following the fashion of
the court where she was bred, and she was not unlike her royal
relative, Elizabeth of England, who had the same external
amorousness coupled with the same internal self-control.

Mary Stuart's love life makes a piteous story, for it is the life
of one who was ever seeking--seeking for the man to whom she
could look up, who could be strong and brave and ardent like
herself, and at the same time be more powerful and more steadfast
even than she herself in mind and thought. Whatever may be said of
her, and howsoever the facts may be colored by partisans, this
royal girl, stung though she was by passion and goaded by desire,
cared nothing for any man who could not match her in body and mind
and spirit all at once.

It was in her early widowhood that she first met the man, and when
their union came it brought ruin on them both. In France there
came to her one day one of her own subjects, the Earl of Bothwell.
He was but a few years older than she, and in his presence for the
first time she felt, in her own despite, that profoundly moving,
indescribable, and never-to-be-forgotten thrill which shakes a
woman to the very center of her being, since it is the recognition
of a complete affinity.

Lord Bothwell, like Queen Mary, has been terribly maligned. Unlike
her, he has found only a few defenders. Maurice Hewlett has drawn
a picture of him more favorable than many, and yet it is a picture
that repels. Bothwell, says he, was of a type esteemed by those
who pronounce vice to be their virtue. He was "a galliard, flushed
with rich blood, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, with a laugh so
happy and so prompt that the world, rejoicing to hear it, thought
all must be well wherever he might be. He wore brave clothes, sat
a brave horse, and kept brave company bravely. His high color,
while it betokened high feeding, got him the credit of good
health. His little eyes twinkled so merrily that you did not see
they were like a pig's, sly and greedy at once, and bloodshot. His
tawny beard concealed a jaw underhung, a chin jutting and
dangerous. His mouth had a cruel twist; but his laughing hid that
too. The bridge of his nose had been broken; few observed it, or
guessed at the brawl which must have given it to him. Frankness
was his great charm, careless ease in high places."

And so, when Mary Stuart first met him in her eighteenth year,
Lord Bothwell made her think as she had never thought of any other
man, and as she was not to think of any other man again. She grew
to look eagerly for the frank mockery "in those twinkling eyes, in
that quick mouth"; and to wonder whether it was with him always--
asleep, at prayers, fighting, furious, or in love.

Something more, however, must be said of Bothwell. He was
undoubtedly a roisterer, but he was very much a man. He made easy
love to women. His sword leaped quickly from its sheath. He could
fight, and he could also think. He was no brawling ruffian, no
ordinary rake. Remembering what Scotland was in those days,
Bothwell might well seem in reality a princely figure. He knew
Italian; he was at home in French; he could write fluent Latin. He
was a collector of books and a reader of them also. He was perhaps
the only Scottish noble of his time who had a book-plate of his
own. Here is something more than a mere reveler. Here is a man of
varied accomplishments and of a complex character.

Though he stayed but a short time near the queen in France, he
kindled her imagination, so that when she seriously thought of men
she thought of Bothwell. And yet all the time she was fondling the
young pages in her retinue and kissing her maids of honor with her
scarlet lips, and lying on their knees, while poets like Ronsard
and Chastelard wrote ardent love sonnets to her and sighed and
pined for something more than the privilege of kissing her two
dainty hands.

In 1561, less than a year after her widowhood, Mary set sail for
Scotland, never to return. The great high-decked ships which
escorted her sailed into the harbor of Leith, and she pressed on
to Edinburgh. A depressing change indeed from the sunny terraces
and fields of France! In her own realm were fog and rain and only
a hut to shelter her upon her landing. When she reached her
capital there were few welcoming cheers; but as she rode over the
cobblestones to Holyrood, the squalid wynds vomited forth great
mobs of hard-featured, grim-visaged men and women who stared with
curiosity and a half-contempt at the girl queen and her retinue of
foreigners.

The Scots were Protestants of the most dour sort, and they
distrusted their new ruler because of her religion and because she
loved to surround herself with dainty things and bright colors and
exotic elegance. They feared lest she should try to repeal the law
of Scotland's Parliament which had made the country Protestant.

The very indifference of her subjects stirred up the nobler part
of Mary's nature. For a time she was indeed a queen. She governed
wisely. She respected the religious rights of her Protestant
subjects. She strove to bring order out of the chaos into which
her country had fallen. And she met with some success. The time
came when her people cheered her as she rode among them. Her
subtle fascination was her greatest source of strength. Even John
Knox, that iron-visaged, stentorian preacher, fell for a time
under the charm of her presence. She met him frankly and pleaded
with him as a woman, instead of commanding him as a queen. The
surly ranter became softened for a time, and, though he spoke of
her to others as "Honeypot," he ruled his tongue in public. She
had offers of marriage from Austrian and Spanish princes. The new
King of France, her brother-in-law, would perhaps have wedded her.
It mattered little to Mary that Elizabeth of England was hostile.
She felt that she was strong enough to hold her own and govern
Scotland.

But who could govern a country such as Scotland was? It was a land
of broils and feuds, of clan enmities and fierce vendettas. Its
nobles were half barbarous, and they fought and slashed at one
another with drawn dirks almost in the presence of the queen
herself. No matter whom she favored, there rose up a swarm of
enemies. Here was a Corsica of the north, more savage and untamed
than even the other Corsica.

In her perplexity Mary felt a woman's need of some man on whom she
would have the right to lean, and whom she could make king
consort. She thought that she had found him in the person of her
cousin, Lord Darnley, a Catholic, and by his upbringing half an
Englishman. Darnley came to Scotland, and for the moment Mary
fancied that she had forgotten Bothwell. Here again she was in
love with love, and she idealized the man who came to give it to
her. Darnley seemed, indeed, well worthy to be loved, for he was
tall and handsome, appearing well on horseback and having some of
the accomplishments which Mary valued.

It was a hasty wooing, and the queen herself was first of all the
wooer. Her quick imagination saw in Darnley traits and gifts of
which he really had no share. Therefore, the marriage was soon
concluded, and Scotland had two sovereigns, King Henry and Queen
Mary. So sure was Mary of her indifference to Bothwell that she
urged the earl to marry, and he did marry a girl of the great
house of Gordon.

Mary's self-suggested love for Darnley was extinguished almost on
her wedding-night. The man was a drunkard who came into her
presence befuddled and almost bestial. He had no brains. His
vanity was enormous. He loved no one but himself, and least of all
this queen, whom he regarded as having thrown herself at his empty
head.

The first-fruits of the marriage were uprisings among the
Protestant lords. Mary then showed herself a heroic queen. At the
head of a motley band of soldiery who came at her call--half-
clad, uncouth, and savage--she rode into the west, sleeping at
night upon the bare ground, sharing the camp food, dressed in
plain tartan, but swift and fierce as any eagle. Her spirit ran
like fire through the veins of those who followed her. She crushed
the insurrection, scattered its leaders, and returned in triumph
to her capital.

Now she was really queen, but here came in the other motive which
was interwoven in her character. She had shown herself a man in
courage. Should she not have the pleasures of a woman? To her
court in Holyrood came Bothwell once again, and this time Mary
knew that he was all the world to her. Darnley had shrunk from the
hardships of battle. He was steeped in low intrigues. He roused
the constant irritation of the queen by his folly and utter lack
of sense and decency. Mary felt she owed him nothing, but she
forgot that she owed much to herself.

Her old amorous ways came back to her, and she relapsed into the
joys of sense. The scandal-mongers of the capital saw a lover in
every man with whom she talked. She did, in fact, set convention
at defiance. She dressed in men's clothing. She showed what the
unemotional Scots thought to be unseemly levity. The French poet,
Chastelard, misled by her external signs of favor, believed
himself to be her choice. At the end of one mad revel he was found
secreted beneath her bed, and was driven out by force. A second
time he ventured to secrete himself within the covers of the bed.
Then he was dragged forth, imprisoned, and condemned to death. He
met his fate without a murmur, save at the last when he stood upon
the scaffold and, gazing toward the palace, cried in French:

"Oh, cruel queen! I die for you!"

Another favorite, the Italian, David Rizzio, or Riccio, in like
manner wrote love verses to the queen, and she replied to them in
kind; but there is no evidence that she valued him save for his
ability, which was very great. She made him her foreign secretary,
and the man whom he supplanted worked on the jealousy of Darnley;
so that one night, while Mary and Rizzio were at dinner in a small
private chamber, Darnley and the others broke in upon her. Darnley
held her by the waist while Rizzio was stabbed before her eyes
with a cruelty the greater because the queen was soon to become a
mother.

From that moment she hated Darnley as one would hate a snake. She
tolerated him only that he might acknowledge her child as his son.
This child was the future James VI. of Scotland and James I. of
England. It is recorded of him that never throughout his life
could he bear to look upon drawn steel.

After this Mary summoned Bothwell again and again. It was revealed
to her as in a blaze of light that, after all, he was the one and
only man who could be everything to her. His frankness, his
cynicism, his mockery, his carelessness, his courage, and the
power of his mind matched her moods completely. She threw away all
semblance of concealment. She ignored the fact that he had married
at her wish. She was queen. She desired him. She must have him at
any cost.

"Though I lose Scotland and England both," she cried in a passion
of abandonment, "I shall have him for my own!"

Bothwell, in his turn, was nothing loath, and they leaped at each
other like two flames.

It was then that Mary wrote those letters which were afterward
discovered in a casket and which were used against her when she
was on trial for her life. These so-called Casket Letters, though
we have not now the originals, are among the most extraordinary
letters ever written. All shame, all hesitation, all innocence,
are flung away in them. The writer is so fired with passion that
each sentence is like a cry to a lover in the dark. As De Peyster
says: "In them the animal instincts override and spur and lash the
pen." Mary was committing to paper the frenzied madness of a woman
consumed to her very marrow by the scorching blaze of unedurable
desire.

Events moved quickly. Darnley, convalescent from an attack of
smallpox, was mysteriously destroyed by an explosion of gunpowder.
Bothwell was divorced from his young wife on curious grounds. A
dispensation allowed Mary to wed a Protestant, and she married
Bothwell three months after Darnley's death.

Here one sees the consummation of what had begun many years before
in France. From the moment that she and Bothwell met, their union
was inevitable. Seas could not sunder them. Other loves and other
fancies were as nothing to them. Even the bonds of marriage were
burst asunder so that these two fiery, panting souls could meet.

It was the irony of fate that when they had so met it was only to
be parted. Mary's subjects, outraged by her conduct, rose against
her. As she passed through the streets of Edinburgh the women
hurled after her indecent names. Great banners were raised with
execrable daubs representing the murdered Darnley. The short and
dreadful monosyllable which is familiar to us in the pages of the
Bible was hurled after her wherever she went.

With Bothwell by her side she led a wild and ragged horde of
followers against the rebellious nobles, whose forces met her at
Carberry Hill. Her motley followers melted away, and Mary
surrendered to the hostile chieftains, who took her to the castle
at Lochleven. There she became the mother of twins--a fact that is
seldom mentioned by historians. These children were the fruit of
her union with Bothwell. From this time forth she cared but little
for herself, and she signed, without great reluctance, a document
by which she abdicated in favor of her infant son.

Even in this place of imprisonment, however, her fascination had
power to charm. Among those who guarded her, two of the Douglas
family--George Douglas and William Douglas--for love of her,
effected her escape. The first attempt failed. Mary, disguised as
a laundress, was betrayed by the delicacy of her hands. But a
second attempt was successful. The queen passed through a postern
gate and made her way to the lake, where George Douglas met her
with a boat. Crossing the lake, fifty horsemen under Lord Claude
Hamilton gave her their escort and bore her away in safety.

But Mary was sick of Scotland, for Bothwell could not be there.
She had tasted all the bitterness of life, and for a few months
all the sweetness; but she would have no more of this rough and
barbarous country. Of her own free will she crossed the Solway
into England, to find herself at once a prisoner.

Never again did she set eyes on Bothwell. After the battle of
Carberry Hill he escaped to the north, gathered some ships
together, and preyed upon English merchantmen, very much as a
pirate might have done. Ere long, however, when he had learned of
Mary's fate, he set sail for Norway. King Frederick of Denmark
made him a prisoner of state. He was not confined within prison
walls, however, but was allowed to hunt and ride in the vicinity
of Malmo Castle and of Dragsholm. It is probably in Malmo Castle
that he died. In 1858 a coffin which was thought to be the coffin
of the earl was opened, and a Danish artist sketched the head--
which corresponds quite well with the other portraits of the ill-
fated Scottish noble.

It is a sad story. Had Mary been less ambitious when she first met
Bothwell, or had he been a little bolder, they might have reigned
together and lived out their lives in the plenitude of that great
love which held them both in thrall. But a queen is not as other
women; and she found too late that the teaching of her heart was,
after all, the truest teaching. She went to her death as Bothwell
went to his, alone, in a strange, unfriendly land.

Yet, even this, perhaps, was better so. It has at least touched
both their lives with pathos and has made the name of Mary Stuart
one to be remembered throughout all the ages.





QUEEN CHRISTINA OF SWEDEN AND THE MARQUIS MONALDESCHI


Sweden to-day is one of the peaceful kingdoms of the world, whose
people are prosperous, well governed, and somewhat apart from the
clash and turmoil of other states and nations. Even the secession
of Norway, a few years ago, was accomplished without bloodshed,
and now the two kingdoms exist side by side as free from strife as
they are with Denmark, which once domineered and tyrannized over
both.

It is difficult to believe that long ago, in the Middle Ages, the
cities of southern Sweden were among the great commercial centers
of the world. Stockholm and Lund ranked with London and Paris.
They absorbed the commerce of the northern seas, and were the
admiration of thousands of travelers and merchants who passed
through them and trafficked with them.

Much nearer to our own time, Sweden was the great military power
of northern Europe. The ambassadors of the Swedish kings were
received with the utmost deference in every court. Her soldiers
won great battles and ended mighty wars. The England of Cromwell
and Charles II. was unimportant and isolated in comparison with
this northern kingdom, which could pour forth armies of gigantic
blond warriors, headed by generals astute as well as brave.

It was no small matter, then, in 1626, that the loyal Swedes were
hoping that their queen would give birth to a male heir to succeed
his splendid father, Gustavus Adolphus, ranked by military
historians as one of the six great generals whom the world had so
far produced. The queen, a German princess of Brandenburg, had
already borne two daughters, who died in infancy. The expectation
was wide-spread and intense that she should now become the mother
of a son; and the king himself was no less anxious.

When the event occurred, the child was seen to be completely
covered with hair, and for this reason the attendants at first
believed that it was the desired boy. When their mistake was
discovered they were afraid to tell the king, who was waiting in
his study for the announcement to be made. At last, when no one
else would go to him, his sister, the Princess Caroline,
volunteered to break the news.

Gustavus was in truth a chivalrous, high-bred monarch. Though he
must have been disappointed at the advent of a daughter, he showed
no sign of dissatisfaction or even of surprise; but, rising, he
embraced his sister, saying:

"Let us thank God. I hope this girl will be as good as a boy to
me. May God preserve her now that He has sent her!"

It is customary at almost all courts to pay less attention to the
birth of a princess than to that of a prince; but Gustavus
displayed his chivalry toward this little daughter, whom he named
Christina. He ordered that the full royal salute should be fired
in every fortress of his kingdom and that displays of fireworks,
balls of honor, and court functions should take place; "for," as
he said, "this is the heir to my throne." And so from the first he
took his child under his own keeping and treated her as if she
were a much-loved son as well as a successor.

He joked about her looks when she was born, when she was mistaken
for a boy.

"She will be clever," he said, "for she has taken us all in!"

The Swedish people were as delighted with their little princess as
were the people of Holland when the present Queen Wilhelmina was
born, to carry on the succession of the House of Orange. On one
occasion the king and the small Christina, who were inseparable
companions, happened to approach a fortress where they expected to
spend the night. The commander of the castle was bound to fire a
royal salute of fifty cannon in honor of his sovereign; yet he
dreaded the effect upon the princess of such a roaring and
bellowing of artillery. He therefore sent a swift horseman to meet
the royal party at a distance and explain his perplexity. Should
he fire these guns or not? Would the king give an order?

Gustavus thought for a moment, and then replied:

"My daughter is the daughter of a soldier, and she must learn to
lead a soldier's life. Let the guns be fired!"

The procession moved on. Presently fire spurted from the
embrasures of the fort, and its batteries thundered in one great
roar. The king looked down at Christina. Her face was aglow with
pleasure and excitement; she clapped her hands and laughed, and
cried out:

"More bang! More! More! More!"

This is only one of a score of stories that were circulated about
the princess, and the Swedes were more and more delighted with the
girl who was to be their queen.

Somewhat curiously, Christina's mother, Queen Maria, cared little
for the child, and, in fact, came at last to detest her almost as
much as the king loved her. It is hard to explain this dislike.
Perhaps she had a morbid desire for a son and begrudged the honors
given to a daughter. Perhaps she was a little jealous of her own
child, who took so much of the king's attention. Afterward, in
writing of her mother, Christina excuses her, and says quite
frankly:

She could not bear to see me, because I was a girl, and an ugly
girl at that. And she was right enough, for I was as tawny as a
little Turk.

This candid description of herself is hardly just. Christina was
never beautiful, and she had a harsh voice. She was apt to be
overbearing even as a little girl. Yet she was a most interesting
child, with an expressive face, large eyes, an aquiline nose, and
the blond hair of her people. There was nothing in this to account
for her mother's intense dislike for her.

It was currently reported at the time that attempts were made to
maim or seriously injure the little princess. By what was made to
seem an accident, she would be dropped upon the floor, and heavy
articles of furniture would somehow manage to strike her. More
than once a great beam fell mysteriously close to her, either in
the palace or while she was passing through the streets. None of
these things did her serious harm, however. Most of them she
luckily escaped; but when she had grown to be a woman one of her
shoulders was permanently higher than the other.

"I suppose," said Christina, "that I could be straightened if I
would let the surgeons attend to it; but it isn't worth while to
take the trouble."

When Christina was four, Sweden became involved in the great war
that had been raging for a dozen years between the Protestant and
the Catholic states of Germany. Gradually the neighboring powers
had been drawn into the struggle, either to serve their own ends
or to support the faith to which they adhered. Gustavus Adolphus
took up the sword with mixed motives, for he was full of
enthusiasm for the imperiled cause of the Reformation, and at the
same time he deemed it a favorable opportunity to assert his
control over the shores of the Baltic.

The warrior king summoned his army and prepared to invade Germany.
Before departing he took his little daughter by the hand and led
her among the assembled nobles and councilors of state. To them he
intrusted the princess, making them kneel and vow that they would
regard her as his heir, and, if aught should happen to him, as his
successor. Amid the clashing of swords and the clang of armor this
vow was taken, and the king went forth to war.

He met the ablest generals of his enemies, and the fortunes of
battle swayed hither and thither; but the climax came when his
soldiers encountered those of Wallenstein--that strange,
overbearing, arrogant, mysterious creature whom many regarded with
a sort of awe. The clash came at Lutzen, in Saxony. The Swedish
king fought long and hard, and so did his mighty opponent; but at
last, in the very midst of a tremendous onset that swept all
before him, Gustavus received a mortal wound and died, even while
Wallenstein was fleeing from the field of battle.

The battle of Lutzen made Christina Queen of Sweden at the age of
six. Of course, she could not yet be crowned, but a council of
able ministers continued the policy of the late king and taught
the young queen her first lessons in statecraft. Her intellect
soon showed itself as more than that of a child. She understood
all that was taking place, and all that was planned and arranged.
Her tact was unusual. Her discretion was admired by every one; and
after a while she had the advice and training of the great Swedish
chancellor, Oxenstierna, whose wisdom she shared to a remarkable
degree.

Before she was sixteen she had so approved herself to her
counselors, and especially to the people at large, that there was
a wide-spread clamor that she should take the throne and govern in
her own person. To this she gave no heed, but said:

"I am not yet ready."

All this time she bore herself like a king. There was nothing
distinctly feminine about her. She took but slight interest in her
appearance. She wore sword and armor in the presence of her
troops, and often she dressed entirely in men's clothes. She would
take long, lonely gallops through the forests, brooding over
problems of state and feeling no fatigue or fear. And indeed why
should she fear, who was beloved by all her subjects?

When her eighteenth year arrived, the demand for her coronation
was impossible to resist. All Sweden wished to see a ruling queen,
who might marry and have children to succeed her through the royal
line of her great father. Christina consented to be crowned, but
she absolutely refused all thought of marriage. She had more
suitors from all parts of Europe than even Elizabeth of England;
but, unlike Elizabeth, she did not dally with them, give them
false hopes, or use them for the political advantage of her
kingdom.

At that time Sweden was stronger than England, and was so situated
as to be independent of alliances. So Christina said, in her
harsh, peremptory voice:

"I shall never marry; and why should you speak of my having
children! I am just as likely to give birth to a Nero as to an
Augustus."

Having assumed the throne, she ruled with a strictness of
government such as Sweden had not known before. She took the reins
of state into her own hands and carried out a foreign policy of
her own, over the heads of her ministers, and even against the
wishes of her people. The fighting upon the Continent had dragged
out to a weary length, but the Swedes, on the whole, had scored a
marked advantage. For this reason the war was popular, and every
one wished it to go on; but Christina, of her own will, decided
that it must stop, that mere glory was not to be considered
against material advantages. Sweden had had enough of glory; she
must now look to her enrichment and prosperity through the
channels of peace.

Therefore, in 1648, against Oxenstierna, against her generals, and
against her people, she exercised her royal power and brought the
Thirty Years' War to an end by the so-called Peace of Westphalia.
At this time she was twenty-two, and by her personal influence she
had ended one of the greatest struggles of history. Nor had she
done it to her country's loss. Denmark yielded up rich provinces,
while Germany was compelled to grant Sweden membership in the
German diet.

Then came a period of immense prosperity through commerce, through
economies in government, through the improvement of agriculture
and the opening of mines. This girl queen, without intrigue,
without descending from her native nobility to peep and whisper
with shady diplomats, showed herself in reality a great monarch, a
true Semiramis of the north, more worthy of respect and reverence
than Elizabeth of England. She was highly trained in many arts.
She was fond of study, spoke Latin fluently, and could argue with
Salmasius, Descartes, and other accomplished scholars without
showing any inferiority to them.

She gathered at her court distinguished persons from all
countries. She repelled those who sought her hand, and she was
pure and truthful and worthy of all men's admiration. Had she died
at this time history would rank her with the greatest of women
sovereigns. Naude, the librarian of Cardinal Mazarin, wrote of her
to the scientist Gassendi in these words:

To say truth, I am sometimes afraid lest the common saying should
be verified in her, that short is the life and rare the old age of
those who surpass the common limits. Do not imagine that she is
learned only in books, for she is equally so in painting,
architecture, sculpture, medals, antiquities, and all curiosities.
There is not a cunning workman in these arts but she has him
fetched. There are as good workers in wax and in enamel,
engravers, singers, players, dancers here as will be found
anywhere.

She has a gallery of statues, bronze and marble, medals of gold,
silver, and bronze, pieces of ivory, amber, coral, worked crystal,
steel mirrors, clocks and tables, bas-reliefs and other things of
the kind; richer I have never seen even in Italy; finally, a great
quantity of pictures. In short, her mind is open to all
impressions.

But after she began to make her court a sort of home for art and
letters it ceased to be the sort of court that Sweden was prepared
for. Christina's subjects were still rude and lacking in
accomplishments; therefore she had to summon men of genius from
other countries, especially from France and Italy. Many of these
were illustrious artists or scholars, but among them were also
some who used their mental gifts for harm.

Among these latter was a French physician named Bourdelot--a man
of keen intellect, of winning manners, and of a profound cynicism,
which was not apparent on the surface, but the effect of which
last lasting. To Bourdelot we must chiefly ascribe the mysterious
change which gradually came over Queen Christina. With his
associates he taught her a distaste for the simple and healthy
life that she had been accustomed to lead. She ceased to think of
the welfare of the state and began to look down with scorn upon
her unsophisticated Swedes. Foreign luxury displayed itself at
Stockholm, and her palaces overflowed with beautiful things.

By subtle means Bourdelot undermined her principles. Having been a
Stoic, she now became an Epicurean. She was by nature devoid of
sentiment. She would not spend her time in the niceties of love-
making, as did Elizabeth; but beneath the surface she had a sort
of tigerish, passionate nature, which would break forth at
intervals, and which demanded satisfaction from a series of
favorites. It is probable that Bourdelot was her first lover, but
there were many others whose names are recorded in the annals of
the time.

When she threw aside her virtue Christina ceased to care about
appearances. She squandered her revenues upon her favorites. What
she retained of her former self was a carelessness that braved the
opinion of her subjects. She dressed almost without thought, and
it is said that she combed her hair not more than twice a month.
She caroused with male companions to the scandal of her people,
and she swore like a trooper when displeased.

Christina's philosophy of life appears to have been compounded of
an almost brutal licentiousness, a strong love of power, and a
strange, freakish longing for something new. Her political
ambitions were checked by the rising discontent of her people, who
began to look down upon her and to feel ashamed of her shame.
Knowing herself as she did, she did not care to marry.

Yet Sweden must have an heir. Therefore she chose out her cousin
Charles, declared that he was to be her successor, and finally
caused him to be proclaimed as such before the assembled estates
of the realm. She even had him crowned; and finally, in her
twenty-eighth year, she abdicated altogether and prepared to leave
Sweden. When asked whither she would go, she replied in a Latin
quotation:

"The Fates will show the way."

In her act of abdication she reserved to herself the revenues of
some of the richest provinces in Sweden and absolute power over
such of her subjects as should accompany her. They were to be her
subjects until the end.

The Swedes remembered that Christina was the daughter of their
greatest king, and that, apart from personal scandals, she had
ruled them well; and so they let her go regretfully and accepted
her cousin as their king. Christina, on her side, went joyfully
and in the spirit of a grand adventuress. With a numerous suite
she entered Germany, and then stayed for a year at Brussels, where
she renounced Lutheranism. After this she traveled slowly into
Italy, where she entered Borne on horseback, and was received by
the Pope, Alexander VII., who lodged her in a magnificent palace,
accepted her conversion, and baptized her, giving her a new name,
Alexandra.

In Rome she was a brilliant but erratic personage, living
sumptuously, even though her revenues from Sweden came in slowly,
partly because the Swedes disliked her change of religion. She was
surrounded by men of letters, with whom she amused herself, and
she took to herself a lover, the Marquis Monaldeschi. She thought
that at last she had really found her true affinity, while
Monaldeschi believed that he could count on the queen's fidelity.

He was in attendance upon her daily, and they were almost
inseparable. He swore allegiance to her and thereby made himself
one of the subjects over whom she had absolute power. For a time
he was the master of those intense emotions which, in her,
alternated with moods of coldness and even cruelty.

Monaldeschi was a handsome Italian, who bore himself with a fine
air of breeding. He understood the art of charming, but he did not
know that beyond a certain time no one could hold the affections
of Christina.

However, after she had quarreled with various cardinals and
decided to leave Rome for a while, Monaldeschi accompanied her to
France, where she had an immense vogue at the court of Louis XIV.
She attracted wide attention because of her eccentricity and utter
lack of manners. It gave her the greatest delight to criticize the
ladies of the French court--their looks, their gowns, and their
jewels. They, in return, would speak of Christina's deformed
shoulder and skinny frame; but the king was very gracious to her
and invited her to his hunting-palace at Fontainebleau.

While she had been winning triumphs of sarcasm the infatuated
Monaldeschi had gradually come to suspect, and then to know, that
his royal mistress was no longer true to him. He had been
supplanted in her favor by another Italian, one Sentanelli, who
was the captain of her guard.

Monaldeschi took a tortuous and roundabout revenge. He did not let
the queen know of his discovery; nor did he, like a man, send a
challenge to Sentanelli. Instead he began by betraying her secrets
to Oliver Cromwell, with whom she had tried to establish a
correspondence. Again, imitating the hand and seal of Sentanelli,
he set in circulation a series of the most scandalous and
insulting letters about Christina. By this treacherous trick he
hoped to end the relations between his rival and the queen; but
when the letters were carried to Christina she instantly
recognized their true source. She saw that she was betrayed by her
former favorite and that he had taken a revenge which might
seriously compromise her.

This led to a tragedy, of which the facts were long obscure. They
were carefully recorded, however, by the queen's household
chaplain, Father Le Bel; and there is also a narrative written by
one Marco Antonio Conti, which confirms the story. Both were
published privately in 1865, with notes by Louis Lacour.

The narration of the priest is dreadful in its simplicity and
minuteness of detail. It may be summed up briefly here, because it
is the testimony of an eye-witness who knew Christina.

Christina, with the marquis and a large retinue, was at
Fontainebleau in November, 1657. A little after midnight, when all
was still, the priest, Father Le Bel, was aroused and ordered to
go at once to the Galerie des Cerfs, or Hall of Stags, in another
part of the palace. When he asked why, he was told:

"It is by the order of her majesty the Swedish queen."

The priest, wondering, hurried on his garments. On reaching the
gloomy hall he saw the Marquis Monaldeschi, evidently in great
agitation, and at the end of the corridor the queen in somber
robes. Beside the queen, as if awaiting orders, stood three
figures, who could with some difficulty be made out as three
soldiers of her guard.

The queen motioned to Father Le Bel and asked him for a packet
which she had given him for safe-keeping some little time before.
He gave it to her, and she opened it. In it were letters and other
documents, which, with a steely glance, she displayed to
Monaldeschi. He was confused by the sight of them and by the
incisive words in which Christina showed how he had both insulted
her and had tried to shift the blame upon Sentanelli.

Monaldeschi broke down completely. He fell at the queen's feet and
wept piteously, begging for pardon, only to be met by the cold
answer:

"You are my subject and a traitor to me. Marquis, you must prepare
to die!"

Then she turned away and left the hall, in spite of the cries of
Monaldeschi, to whom she merely added the advice that he should
make his peace with God by confessing to Father Le Bel.

After she had gone the marquis fell into a torrent of self-
exculpation and cried for mercy. The three armed men drew near and
urged him to confess for the good of his soul. They seemed to have
no malice against him, but to feel that they must obey the orders
given them. At the frantic urging of the marquis their leader even
went to the queen to ask whether she would relent; but he returned
shaking his head, and said:

"Marquis, you must die."

Father Le Bel undertook a like mission, but returned with the
message that there was no hope. So the marquis made his confession
in French and Latin, but even then he hoped; for he did not wait
to receive absolution, but begged still further for delay or
pardon.

Then the three armed men approached, having drawn their swords.
The absolution was pronounced; and, following it, one of the
guards slashed the marquis across the forehead. He stumbled and
fell forward, making signs as if to ask that he might have his
throat cut. But his throat was partly protected by a coat of mail,
so that three or four strokes delivered there had slight effect.
Finally, however, a long, narrow sword was thrust into his side,
after which the marquis made no sound.

Father Le Bel at once left the Galerie des Cerfs and went into the
queen's apartment, with the smell of blood in his nostrils. He
found her calm and ready to justify herself. Was she not still
queen over all who had voluntarily become members of her suite?
This had been agreed to in her act of abdication. Wherever she set
her foot, there, over her own, she was still a monarch, with full
power to punish traitors at her will. This power she had
exercised, and with justice. What mattered it that she was in
France? She was queen as truly as Louis XIV. was king.

The story was not long in getting out, but the truth was not
wholly known until a much later day. It was said that Sentanelli
had slapped the marquis in a fit of jealousy, though some added
that it was done with the connivance of the queen. King Louis, the
incarnation of absolutism, knew the truth, but he was slow to act.
He sympathized with the theory of Christina's sovereignty. It was
only after a time that word was sent to Christina that she must
leave Fontaineb
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