Skip to content

Chapter XVII: Part 17

Text size

CARLOS, DON (CHARLES MARIA DE LOS DOLORES JUAN ISIDORE JOSEPH FRANCIS QUIRIN ANTONY MICHAEL GABRIEL RAPHAEL) (1848-1909), prince of Bourbon, claimant, as Don Carlos VII., to the throne of Spain, was born at Laibach on the 30th of March 1848, being the eldest surviving son of Don Juan (John) of Bourbon and of the archduchess Maria Beatrix, daughter of Francis IV., duke of Modena. Don Carlos was the grandson of the first pretender, noticed above. He married in February 1867, at Frohsdorf, Princess Marguerite, daughter of the duke of Parma and niece of the comte de Chambord, who was born on the 1st of January 1847, and who bore him a son, Don Jaime, in 1870, and three daughters. Don Carlos boldly asserted his pretensions to the throne of Spain two years after the revolution of 1868 had driven Queen Isabella II. and the other branch of the Bourbons into exile. His manifesto, addressed to his brother Alphonso, namesake of his rival, Alphonso XII., found an echo in the fanatical priesthood and peasantry of many provinces of the Peninsula, but little support among the more enlightened middle classes, especially in the towns. The first rising was started in Catalonia by the brother of the pretender, who himself entered Spain by way of Vera, in the Basque provinces, on the 21st of May 1872. The troops of King Amadeus under General Moriones, a progressist officer, who was one of Spain's ablest and most popular commanders, surprised and very nearly captured the pretender at Oroquista, sending him a fugitive to France in headlong flight with a few followers. For more than a year he loitered about in the French Pyrenees, the guest of old noble houses who showed him much sympathy, while the French authorities winked at the fact that he was fomenting civil war in Spain, where his guerilla bands, many of them led by priests, committed atrocities, burning, pillaging, shooting prisoners of war, and not unfrequently ill-using even foreign residents and destroying their property. When the Federal Republic was proclaimed on the abdication of King Amadeus, the Carlists had overrun Spain to such an extent that they held all the interior of Navarre, the three Basque provinces, and a great part of Catalonia, Lower Aragon, and Valencia, and had made raids into the provinces of Old Castile and Estremadura. Don Carlos re-entered Spain on the 15th of July 1873, just before the Carlists took Estella, in Navarre, which became, with Tolosa and Durango in the Basque provinces, his favourite residence. He displayed very lax morals and an apathy which displeased his staff and partisans. Don Carlos was present at some fights around Estella, and was in the neighbourhood of Bilbao during its famous siege of three months in 1874 until its relief by Marshals Serrano and Concha on the 2nd of May. He was also present at the battle near Estella on the 27th of June 1874, in which Marshal Concha was killed and the liberals were repulsed with loss. Twice he lost golden opportunities of making a rush for the capital--in 1873, during the Federal Republic, and after Concha's death. From the moment that his cousin Alphonso XII. was proclaimed king at Sagunto, at Valencia, in Madrid, and at Logrono, by General Campos, Daban, Jovellar, Primo de Rivera, and Laserna, the star of the pretender was on the wane. Only once, a few weeks after the Alphonsist restoration, the army of Don Carlos checked the Liberal forces in Navarre, and surprised and made prisoners half a brigade, with guns and colours, at Lacar, almost under the eyes of the new king and his headquarters. This was the last Carlist success. The tide of war set in favour of Alphonso XII., whose armies swept the Carlist bands out of central Spain and Catalonia in 1875, while Marshal Quesada, in the upper Ebro valley, Navarre, and Ulava, prepared by a series of successful operations the final advance of 180,000 men, headed by Quesada and the king, which defeated the Carlists at Estella, Pena Plata, and Elgueta, thus forcing Don Carlos with a few thousand faithful Carlists to retreat and surrender to the French frontier authorities in March 1876.

The pretender went to Pau, and there, singularly enough, issued his proclamations bidding temporary adieu to the nation and to his volunteers from the same chateau where Queen Isabella, also a refugee, had issued hers in 1868. From that date Don Carlos became an exile and a wanderer, travelling much in the Old and New World, and raising some scandal by his mode of life. He fixed his residence for a time in England, then in Paris, from which he was expelled at the request of the Madrid government, and next in Austria, before he took up his abode at Viarreggio in Italy. Like all pretenders, he never gave in, and his pretensions, haughtily reasserted, often troubled the courts and countries whose hospitality he enjoyed. His great disappointment was the coldness towards him of Pope Leo XIII., and the favour shown by that pontiff for Alphonso XII. and his godson, Alphonso XIII. Don Carlos had two splendid chances of testing the power of his party in Spain, but failed to profit by them. The first was when he was invited to unfurl his flag on the death of Alphonso XII., when the perplexities and uncertainties of Castilian politics reached a climax during the first year of a long minority under a foreign queen-regent. The second was at the close of the war with the United States and after the loss of the colonies, when the discontent was so widespread that the Carlists were able to assure their prince that many Spaniards looked upon his cause as the one untried solution of the national difficulties. Don Carlos showed his usual lack of decision; he wavered between the advice of those who told him to unfurl his standard with a view to rally all the discontented and disappointed, and of those who recommended him to wait until a great _pronunciamiento_, chiefly military, should be made in his favour--a day-dream founded upon the coquetting of General Weyler and other officers with the Carlist senators and deputies in Madrid. Afterwards the pretender continued to ask his partisans to go on organizing their forces for action some day, and to push their propaganda and preparations, which was easy enough in view of the indulgence shown them by all the governments of the regency and the open favour exhibited by many of the priesthood, especially in the rural districts, the religious orders, and the Jesuits, swarming all over the kingdom. After the death of his first wife in 1893, Don Carlos married in the following year Princess Marie Bertha of Rohan. He died on the 18th of July 1909. His son by his first wife, Don Jaime, was educated in Austrian and British military schools before he entered the Russian army, in which he became a colonel of dragoons.

CARLOW, a county of Ireland in the province of Leinster, bounded N. by the counties Kildare and Wicklow, E. by Wicklow and Wexford, S. by Wexford, and W. by Queen's county and Kilkenny. Excepting Louth, it is the smallest county in Ireland, having an area of 221,424 acres, or about 346 sq. m. The surface of the county is in general level or gently undulating, and of pleasing appearance, except the elevated tract of land known as the ridge of Old Leighlin (Gallows Hill Bog, 974 ft.), forming the beginning of the coal-measures of Leinster, and the south-eastern portion of the county bordering on Wexford, where the wild and barren granitic elevations of Knockroe (1746 ft.) and Mount Leinster (2610 ft.) present a bolder aspect. Glacial deposits, which overspread the lower grounds, sometimes afford good examples of the ridge-forms known as eskers, as in the neighbourhood of Bagenalstown. There are no lakes nor canals in the county, nor does it contain the source of any important river; but on its western side it is intersected from north to south by the Barrow, which is navigable throughout the county and affords means of communication with the port of Waterford; while on the eastern border the Slaney, which is not navigable in any part of its course through the county, passes out of Carlow into Wexford at Newtownbarry.

Carlow is largely a granite county; but here the Leinster Chain does not form a uniform moorland. The mica-schists and Silurian slates of its eastern flank are seen in the diversified and hilly country on the pass over the shoulder of Mt. Leinster, between Newtownbarry and Borris. The highland drops westward to the valley of the Barrow, Carlow and Bagenalstown lying on Carboniferous Limestone, which here abuts upon the granite. On the west of the hollow, the high edge of the Castle-comer coalfields rises, scarps of limestone, grit, and coal-measures succeeding one another on the ascent. Formerly clay-ironstone was raised from the Upper Carboniferous strata.

The soil is of great natural richness, and the country is among the most generally fertile in the island. Agriculture is the chief occupation of the inhabitants, but is not so fully developed as the capabilities of the land would suggest; in effect, the extent of land under tillage shows a distinctly retrograde movement, being rather more than half that under pasture. The pasture land is of excellent quality, and generally occupied as dairy farms, the butter made in this county maintaining a high reputation in the Dublin market. The farms are frequently large, and care is given to the breeding of cattle. Sheep and poultry, however, receive the greatest attention. The staple trade of the county is in corn, flour, meal, butter and provisions, which are exported in large quantities. There are no manufactures. The sandstone of the county is frequently of such a nature as to split easily into layers, known in commerce as Carlow flags.

Porcelain clay exists in the neighbourhood of Tullow; but no attempt is made to turn this product to use.

The Great Southern & Western railway from Kildare to Wexford follows the river Barrow through the county, with a branch from Bagenalstown to Kilkenny, while another branch from the north terminates at Tullow.

As regards population (41,964 in 1891; 37,748 in 1901), the county shows a decrease among the more serious of Irish counties, and correspondingly heavy emigration returns. Of the total, about 89% are Roman Catholics, and nearly the whole are rural. Carlow (pop. 6513), Bagenalstown (1882), and Tullow (1725) are the only towns. The county is divided into seven baronies, and contains forty-four civil parishes and parts of parishes. It belongs to the Protestant diocese of Dublin and the Roman Catholic diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. The assizes are held at Carlow, and quarter sessions at that town and also at Bagenalstown and Tullow. One member is returned to parliament.

Carlow, under the name of Catherlogh, is among the counties generally considered to have been created in the reign of John. Leinster was confirmed as a liberty to William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, by John, and Carlow, among other counties in this area, had the privileges of a palatinate on descending to one of the earl's heiresses. The relics of antiquity in the county comprise large cromlechs at Browne's Hill near Carlow and at Hacketstown, and a rath near Leighlin Bridge, in which were found several urns of baked earth, containing only small quantities of dust. Some relics of ecclesiastical and monastic buildings exist, and also the remains of several castles built after the English settlement. Old Leighlin, where the 12th century cathedral of St Lazerian is situated, is merely a village, although until the Union it returned two members to the Irish parliament.

CARLOW, the county town of Co. Carlow, Ireland, on the navigable river Barrow. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6513. It is 56 m. S.W. of Dublin by the Great Southern & Western railway. The castle (supposed to have been founded by Hugh de Lacy, appointed governor of Ireland in 1179, but sometimes attributed to King John), situated on an eminence overlooking the river, is still a chief feature of attraction in the general view of the town, although there is not much of the original building left. It consisted of a hollow quadrangle, with a massive round tower at each angle. The principal buildings are the Roman Catholic College of St Patrick (1793), a plain but spacious building in a picturesque park adjoining the Roman Catholic cathedral of the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin; the Protestant parish church, with a handsome steeple of modern erection; the court-house, where the assizes are held, an octagonal stone building with a handsome Ionic portico; and other county buildings. The cathedral, in the Perpendicular style, has a highly ornamented west front, and a monument to Bishop James Doyle (d. 1834). The Wellington Bridge over the river Barrow connects Carlow with the suburb of Graigue. Two m. N.E. of the town is one of the finest cromlechs in Ireland, and 3 m. to the west is the notable church, of Norman and pre-Norman date, of Killeshin in Queen's county. The industries of Carlow consist of brewing and flour-milling, and a considerable trade is carried on in the sale of butter and eggs.

Carlow was of early importance. In the reign of Edward III. the king's exchequer was removed thither, and L500, a large sum at that period, applied towards surrounding the town with a strong wall. In the early part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the castle was taken, and the town burned by the Irish chieftain, Rory Oge O'More. When summoned to surrender by Ireton, the Commonwealth general, during the war of 1641, Carlow submitted without resistance. In the insurrection of 1798 the castle was attacked by an undisciplined body of insurgents. They were speedily repulsed, and suffered severe loss, no quarter being given; and, in the confusion of their flight, many of the insurgents took refuge in houses, which the king's troops immediately set on fire. Carlow obtained a charter of incorporation as early as the 13th century, and was reincorporated, with enlarged privileges, by James I. The corporation, which was styled "The Sovereign, Free Burgesses and Commonalty of the Borough of Catherlogh," was authorized to return two members to the Irish parliament. The town returned one member to the Imperial parliament until 1885.

CARLSBAD, or KAISER-KARLSBAD (Czech, _Karlovy Vary_), a town and celebrated watering-place of Bohemia, Austria, 116 m. W.N.W. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 14,640. It is situated at an altitude of 1227 ft. and lies in the beautiful narrow and winding valley of the Tepl at its junction with the Eger, being hemmed in by precipitous granite hills, covered with magnificent forests of pine. The town is spread on both banks of the river and in the valley of the Eger, its houses being built up the mountain sides in tier above tier of terraces approached by long flights of steps or steep and tortuous roads. This irregularity of site and plan, together with the varied form and high-pitched roofs of the houses, makes the place very picturesque. Among the principal buildings of Carlsbad are the Catholic parish church, built in 1732-1736 in rococo style; the gorgeous Russian church, finished in 1897; the English church; and a handsome synagogue. In the first rank of the other buildings stands the famous Muhlbrunnen Colonnade, erected between 1871 and 1878, which, with its 103 monolithic granite Corinthian columns, is a fine example of modern classical architecture; the _Kurhaus_ (1865); the magnificent _Kaiserbad_, built in 1895 in the French Renaissance style, and several other bathing establishments; the Sprudel Colonnade, an imposing iron and glass structure, built in 1879, within which rises the Sprudel, the principal spring of Carlsbad; and several hospitals and hospices for poor patients. Both banks of the Tepl are provided with _quais_, planted with trees, which constitute the chief promenades of the centre of the town; and there are, besides, a municipal park and several public gardens.

The mineral springs, to which Carlsbad owes its fame, rise from beneath a very hard kind of rock, known as Sprudelschale or Sprudeldecke, beneath which it is believed that there exists a large common reservoir of the hot mineral water, known as the Sprudelkessel. Several artificial apertures in the rock have been made for the escape of the steam of this subterranean cauldron, which, owing to the incrustations deposited by the water, require to be cleared at regular intervals. Altogether there are seventeen warm springs, with a temperature varying from 164 deg. F. to 107.7 deg. F., and two cold ones. The oldest, best-known, and at the same time the most copious spring is the Sprudel, a hot geyser with a temperature of 164 deg. F., which gushes up in jets of 1-1/2 ft. thick to a height of about 3-1/2 ft., and delivers about 405 gallons of water per minute. Other springs are the Muhlbrunnen, with a temperature of 121 deg. F., which is after the Sprudel the most used spring; the Neubrunnen (138 deg. F.); the Kaiser-Karl-Quelle (112 deg. F.); the Theresienbrunnen (134 deg. F.), &c. The warm springs belong to the class of alkaline-saline waters and have all the same chemical composition, varying only in their degree of temperature. The chemical composition of the Sprudel, taken to a thousand parts of water, is: 2.405 sulphate of soda, 1.298 bicarbonate of soda, 1.042 chloride of soda, 0.186 sulphate of potash, 0.166 bicarbonate of magnesia, 0.012 bicarbonate of lithium, and 0.966 carbonic acid gas. They contain also traces of arsenic, antimony, selenium, rubidium, tin and organic substances. The water is colourless and odourless, with a slightly acidulated and salt taste, and has a specific gravity of 1.0053 at 64.4 deg. F. The waters are used both for drinking and bathing, and are very beneficent in cases of liver affections, biliary and renal calculi, diabetes, gout, rheumatism, and uric acid troubles. They are very powerful in their effect and must not be used except under medical direction, and during the cure, a carefully-regulated diet must be observed, coupled with a moderate amount of exercise in the open air. The number of visitors in 1901 was 51,454; in 1756 it was only 257; in 1828 it was 3713; and it attained 14,182 in 1869, and 34,396 in 1890.

Carlsbad is encircled by mountains, covered with beautiful forests of pine, which are made accessible by well-kept paths. Just above the town towers the Hirschensprung (1620 ft.), a little farther the Freundschaftshohe (1722 ft.); the Franz-Josefs-Hohe (1663 ft.); and the Aberg (1980 ft.). On the opposite bank of the Tepl lies the Rudolfshohe (1379 ft.); the Dreikreuzberg (1805 ft.); the Konig Otto's Hohe (1960 ft); and the Ewiges Leben (2086 ft.), with the Stephaniewarte, a tower, 98 ft. high, built in 1889, which commands a superb view. The town is the centre of the porcelain and stoneware industry of Bohemia, and manufactures a special liqueur (_Karlsbader Bitter_), besides various objects from the Sprudel rock and confectionery. It exported, in 1901, 2-1/4 millions of bottles of mineral water, and 160,000 lb. of Sprudel salt, i.e. salt obtained by evaporation from the water of the Sprudel.

Many interesting places are to be found near Carlsbad. To the north is the village of Dallwitz, with a porcelain factory, a handsome castle and beautiful oaks extolled by Theodor Korner, under which he composed in 1812 his touching elegy on the downfall of Germany. To the east is the watering-place of Giesshubl-Puchstein with celebrated springs, which contain alkaline waters impregnated with carbonic acid gas. To the west in the valley of the Eger, the village of Aich, with a porcelain factory, and a little farther the much-visited Hans Heiling's Rock, a wild and romantic spot, with which a very touching legend is connected. To the south-east the ruined castle of Engelhaus, situated on a rock of phonolite, 2340 ft. high, built probably in the first part of the 13th century and destroyed by the Swedes in 1635. At the foot of the mountain lies the actual village of Engelhaus.

According to legend the springs of Carlsbad were discovered during a hunting expedition by the emperor Charles IV., who built the town, which derives its name from him, on both banks of the Tepl. But the hot springs were already known two centuries before, as is indicated by the name of the river _Tepl_ (warm), under which name the river was known in the 12th century. Besides, on the same spot stood already in the 13th century a place called _Vary_, which means the Sprudel. The truth is, that the emperor Charles IV., after being cured here, built about 1358 a castle in the neighbourhood and accorded many privileges to the town. It obtained its charter as a town in 1370; the fame of the waters spread and it was created a royal free town in 1707 by the emperor Joseph I. The waters were used only for bathing purposes until 1520, when they began to be prescribed also for drinking. The first _Kurhaus_ was erected in 1711 near the Muhlbrunnen, and was replaced by a larger one, built in 1761 by the empress Maria Theresa. Carlsbad was nearly completely destroyed by fire in 1604, and another great fire raged here in 1759. It also suffered much from inundations, especially in 1582 and 1890. In August 1819 a meeting of the ministers of the German courts took place here under the presidency of Prince Metternich, when many reactionary measures, embodied in the so-called "Carlsbad Decrees" (see below), were agreed upon and introduced in the various states of the German Confederation.

Among the extensive literature of the place see Mannl, _Carlsbad and
its Mineral Springs_ (Leipzig, 1850); Cartellieri, _Karlsbad als
Kurort_ (Karlsbad, 1888); Friedenthal, _Der Kurort Karlsbad
Topographisch und Medizinisch_ (Karlsbad, 1895).

CARLSBAD DECREES (_Karlsbader Beschlusse_), the name usually given to a series of resolutions (_Beschlusse_) passed by a conference of the ministers and envoys of the more important German states, held at Carlsbad from the 6th to the 31st of August 1819. The occasion of the meeting was the desire of Prince Metternich to take advantage of the consternation caused by recent revolutionary outrages (especially the murder of the dramatist Kotzebue by Karl Sand) to persuade the German governments to combine in a system for the suppression of the Liberal agitation in Germany. The pretended urgency of the case served as the excuse for only inviting to the conference those states whose ministers happened to be visiting Carlsbad at the time. The conferences were, therefore, actually attended by the representatives of Austria, Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Hanover, Baden, Nassau and Mecklenburg; at the fourth conference (August 9th) Baron von Fritsch, minister of state for Saxe-Weimar, who "happened to be present" at Carlsbad on that day, attended by special invitation. Prince Metternich presided over the conferences, and Friedrich von Gentz acted as secretary.

The business to be discussed, as announced in Metternich's opening address, was twofold: (1) Matters of urgent importance necessitating immediate action; (2) Questions affecting the fundamental constitution of the German Confederation, demanding more careful and prolonged discussion. To the first class belonged (a) the urgent necessity for a uniform system of press regulation in Germany; (b) the most urgent measures in regard to the supervision of universities and schools; (c) measures in view of the already discovered machinations of the political parties. To the second class belonged (a) the more clear definition of article XIII. of the Act of Confederation (_i.e._ state constitutions); (b) the creation of a permanent federal supreme court; (c) the creation of a federal executive organization (_Bundes-Executions Ordnung_) armed with power to make the decrees of the diet and the judgments of the high court effective; (d) the facilitation of commercial intercourse within the confederation in accordance with article XIX. of the Act of Confederation (_Beilage A. zum ersten Protokoll_, Martens, iv. p. 74).

These questions were debated in twenty-three formal conferences. On the issues raised by the first class there was practical unanimity. All were agreed that the state of Germany demanded disciplinary measures, and as the result of the deliberations it was determined to lay before the federal diet definite proposals for (1) a uniform press censorship over all periodical publications; (2) a system of "curators" to supervise the education given in universities and schools, with disciplinary enactments against professors and teachers who should use their position for purposes of political propaganda; (3) the erection of a central commission at Mainz, armed with inquisitorial powers, for the purpose of unmasking the widespread revolutionary conspiracy, the existence of which was assumed.

On the questions raised under the second class there was more fundamental difference of opinion, and by far the greater part of the time of the conference was occupied in discussing the burning question of the due interpretation of article XIII. The controversy raged round the distinction between "assemblies of estates," as laid down in the article, and "representative assemblies," such as had been already established in several German states. Gentz, in an elaborate memorandum (_Nebenbeilage zum siebenten Protokoll_, iv. p. 102), laid down that representation by estates was the only system compatible with the conservative principle, as the "outcome of a well-ordered civil society, in which the relations and rights of the several estates are due to the peculiar position of the classes and corporations on which they are based, which have been from time to time modified by law without detracting from the essentials of the sovereign power"; whereas representative assemblies are based on "the sovereignty of the people." In answer to this, Count Wintzingerode, on behalf of the king of Wurttemberg, placed on record (_Nebenbeilage 2 zum neunten Protokoll_, p. 147) a protest, in which he urged that to insist on the system of estates would be to stereotype caste distinctions foreign to the whole spirit of the age, would alienate public opinion from the governments, and--if enforced by the central power--would violate the sovereign independence of those states which, like Wurttemberg, had already established representative constitutions.

Though the majority of the ministers present favoured the Austrian interpretation of article XIII. as elaborated by Gentz, they were as little prepared as the representative of Wurttemberg to agree to any hasty measures for strengthening the federal government at the expense of the jealously guarded prerogatives of the minor sovereignties. The result was that the constitutional questions falling under the second class were reserved for further discussion at a general conference of German ministers to be summoned at Vienna later in the year. The effective Carlsbad resolutions, subsequently issued as laws by the federal diet, were therefore only those dealing with the curbing of the "revolutionary" agitation. For the results of their operation see GERMANY: _History._

The acts, protocols and resolutions of the conference of Carlsbad are
given in M. de Martens's _Nouveau Recueil general de traites_, &c., t.
4, pp. 8-166 (Gottingen, 1846). An interesting criticism of the
Carlsbad Decrees is appended (p. 166), addressed by Baron Hans von
Gagern, Luxemburg representative in the federal diet, to Baron von
Plessen, Mecklenburg plenipotentiary at the conference of Carlsbad.
(W. A. P.)

CARLSTADT, KARLSTADT or KAROLOSTADT (1480-1541), German reformer, whose real name was Andreas Rudolf Bodenstein, was born at Carlstadt in Bohemia. He entered the university of Erfurt in the winter term of 1499-1500, and remained there till 1503, when he went to Cologne. In the winter term of 1504-1505 he transferred himself to the newly founded university of Wittenberg, where he soon established his reputation as a teacher of philosophy, and a zealous champion of the scholastic system of Thomas Aquinas, against the revised nominalism associated with the name of Occam. In 1508 he was made canon of the _Allerheiligenstift_, a collegiate church incorporated in the university; and in 1510 he became doctor of theology and archdeacon, his duties being to preach, to say mass once a week and to lecture before the university; in 1513 he was appointed ordinary professor of theology. In 1515 he went to Rome, where with a view to becoming provost of the _Allerheiligenstift_ he studied law, taking his degree as _doctor juris utriusque._ His experiences in the papal city produced upon him the same effect as upon Luther, and when in 1516 he returned to Germany it was as an ardent opponent of the Thomist philosophy and as a champion of the Augustinian doctrine of the impotence of the human will and salvation through Divine grace alone. The 151 theses of Carlstadt, dated the 16th of September 1516, discovered by Theodor Kolde ("_Wittenberger Disputationsthesen"_ in _Zeitschrift fur Kirchengeschichte_, xi. p. 448, &c.), prove that, so far from owing his change of view to Luther's influence, he was at this time actually in advance of Luther. The two reformers were, in fact, never friends; though from the end of 1516 onwards the development of each was considerably influenced by the other.

In the spring of 1518, in reply to Eck's _Obelisci_, an attack on Luther's 95 theses, Carlstadt published a series of theses, maintaining the supremacy of the Holy Scriptures (which he regarded as verbally inspired) over ecclesiastical tradition and the authority of the fathers, and asserting the liability of general councils to error. Eck challenged him to a public disputation, in which Luther also took part, and which lasted from the 27th of June to the 15th of July 1519. In this dialectical warfare Carlstadt was no match for Eck; but the dispute only served to confirm him in his revolt from the dominant theology, and in three violent polemical treatises against Eck he proclaimed the doctrine of the exclusive operation of grace in the justification of believers.

This attitude led him in 1520, by a logical development, to an open attack on all those ecclesiastical practices in which the doctrine of justification by works had become crystallized; e.g. indulgences and the abuse of holy water and consecrated salt. At the same time he appeared as the first of modern biblical critics, denying the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and classing the Scriptures into three categories of different value in accordance with the degrees of certainty as to their traditional origin. He still, however, maintained the doctrine of verbal inspiration, and attacked Luther for rejecting the epistle of James. In 1520 Carlstadt's name was included in the papal bull excommunicating Luther; after a momentary hesitation he decided to remain firm in his protestant attitude, published an appeal from the pope to a general council, and attacked the corruptions of the papacy itself in a treatise on "the holiness of the pope" (_Von papstlicher Heiligkeit_, October 17th, 1520).

In May 1521 Carlstadt went to Denmark, on the invitation of King Christian II., to assist in the reform of the church; but his disposition was anything but conciliatory, and, though his influence is traceable in the royal law of the 26th of May 1521 abolishing the celibacy of the clergy, he was forced, by the hostility of nobles and clerics alike, to leave after a few weeks' stay. In June he was back in Wittenberg, busy with tracts on the Holy Sacrament (he still believed in the corporeal presence) and against the celibacy of the clergy (_de coelibatu_). Carlstadt has been unjustly accused of being responsible for the riots against the Mass fomented by the Augustinian friars and the students; as a matter of fact, he did his best to keep the peace, pending a decision by the elector of Saxony and the authorities of the university, and it was not till Christmas day that he himself publicly communicated the laity under both species. The next day he announced his engagement to a young lady of noble family, Anna von Mochau.

From this moment Carlstadt was accepted as the leader of Protestantism in Wittenberg; and, at his instance, auricular confession, the elevation of the Host and the rules for fasting were abolished. On the 19th of January he was married, in the presence of many of the university professors and city magistrates. A few days later the property of the religious corporations was confiscated by the city and, after pensions had been assigned to their former members, was handed over to charitable foundations. A pronouncement of Carlstadt's against pictures and images, supported by the town, also led to iconoclastic excesses.

The return of Luther early in March, however, ended Carlstadt's supremacy. The elector Frederick the Wise was strenuously opposed to any alteration in the traditional services, and at his command Luther restored communion in one kind and the elevation of the Host. Carlstadt himself, though still professor, was deprived of all influence in practical affairs, and devoted himself entirely to theological speculation, which led him ever nearer to the position of the mystics. He now denied the necessity for a clerical order at all, called himself "a new layman," doffed his ecclesiastical dress, and lived for a while as a peasant with his wife's relations at Segrena. In the middle of 1523, however, he went to Orlamunde, a living held by him with his canonry, and there in the parish church reformed the services according to his ideas, abolishing the Mass and even preaching against the necessity for sacraments at all. He still continued occasionally to lecture at Wittenberg and to fulminate against Luther's policy of compromise.

All this brought him into violent conflict with the elector, the university and Luther himself. His professorship and living were confiscated and, in September 1524, he went into exile with his wife and child. He was now exposed to great privations and hardships, but found opportunity for polemical writing, proclaiming for the first time his disbelief in the "Real Presence." He preached wherever he could gain a hearing, and visited Strassburg, Heidelberg, Zurich, Basel, Schweinfurth, Kitzingen and Nordlingen, before he found a more permanent resting-place at Rothenburg on the Tauber. He was here when the Peasants' War broke out, and was sent as a delegate to reason with the insurgents. His admonitions were unsuccessful, and he only succeeded in bringing himself under suspicion of being in part responsible for their excesses. When Rothenburg was taken by the margrave of Anspach (28th June 1525) Carlstadt had to fly for his life. His spirit was now broken, and from Frankfort he wrote to Luther humbly praying him to intercede for him with the elector. Luther agreed to do so, on receiving from Carlstadt a recantation of his heterodox views on the Lord's Supper, and as the result the latter was permitted to return to Wittenberg (1525). He was not, however, allowed to lecture, and he lived as a peasant, first at Segrena and afterwards at Bergwitz, cultivating small properties, in which he had invested the remnant of his fortune, with such poor success that at the end of 1526 he had to eke out a living as a pedlar in the little town of Kemberg. This was endurable; but not so the demand presently made upon him to take up the cudgels against Zwingli and Oecolampadius. Once more he revolted; to agree with "Dr Martin's opinions on the sacrament" was as difficult as flying like a bird; he appealed to the elector to allow him to leave Saxony; but the elector's conscience was in Luther's keeping, and Carlstadt had to fly ignominiously in order to avoid imprisonment. He escaped to Holstein, where in March 1529 he stayed with the Anabaptist Melchior Hofmann. Expelled by the authorities, he took refuge in East Friesland, where he remained till the beginning of 1530 under the protection of a nobleman in sympathy with the Helvetic reformers. His preaching gave him great influence, but towards the close of the year persecution again sent him on his travels. He ultimately reached Zurich, where the recommendations of Bucer and Oecolampadius secured him a friendly reception by Zwingli, who procured him employment. After Zwingli's death he remained in close intercourse with the Zurich preachers, who defended him against renewed attacks on Luther's part; and finally, in 1534, on Bullinger's recommendation, he was called to Basel as preacher at the church of St Peter and professor at the university. Here he remained till his death on the 24th of December 1541.

During these latter years Carlstadt's attitude became more moderate. His championship of the town council against the theocratic claims of Antistes Myconius and the ecclesiastical council, in the matter of the control of the university, was perhaps in consonance with his earlier views on the relations of clergy and laity. He was, however, also instrumental in restoring the abolished doctorate of theology and other degrees; and, despatched on a mission to Strassburg in 1536, to take part in a discussion on a proposed compromise in the matter of the Lord's Supper between the theologians of Strassburg and Wittenberg, he displayed a conciliatory attitude which earned him the praise of Bucer. Carlstadt's historical significance lies in the fact that he was one of the pioneers of the Reformation. But he was a thinker and dreamer rather than a man of affairs, and though he had the moral and physical courage to carry his principles to their logical conclusions (he was the first priest to write against celibacy, and the first to take a wife), he lacked the balance of mind and sturdy common sense that inspired Luther's policy of consideration for "the weaker brethren" and built up the Evangelical Church on a conservative basis. But though Carlstadt was on friendly terms, and corresponded with Munzer and other Anabaptists, he did not share their antinomian views, nor was he responsible for their excesses. His opinion as to the relation of faith and "good works" was practically that expressed in articles XI. and XII. of the Church of England. In reply to Luther's violent onslaught on him in his _Wider die himmlischen Propheten_ he issued from Rothenburg his _Anzeig etlicher Hauptartikel christlicher Lehre_, a compendious exposition of his views, in which he says: "Those who urge to good works do so, not that the conscience may be justified by works, but that their freedom may redound to God's glory and that their neighbours may be fired to praise God."

See C.F. Jaeger, _Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt_ (Stuttgart, 1856);
Hermann Barge, _Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt_, vol. i. (Leipzig,
1905).

CARLYLE, ALEXANDER (1722-1805), Scottish divine, was born on the 26th of January 1722, in Dumfriesshire, and passed his youth and early manhood at Prestonpans, where he witnessed the battle of 1745. He was educated at Edinburgh (M.A. 1743), Glasgow and Leiden. From 1748 until his death on the 28th of August 1805 he was minister at Inveresk in Midlothian, and during this long career rose to high eminence in his church not only as leader of the moderate or "broad" Church section, but as moderator of the General Assembly 1770 and dean of the Chapel Royal in 1789. His influence was enhanced by his personal appearance, which was so striking as to earn him the name of "Jupiter Carlyle"; and his autobiography (published 1860), though written in his closing years and not extending beyond the year 1770, is abundantly interesting as a picture of Scottish life, social and ecclesiastical, in the 18th century. Carlyle's memory recalled the Porteous Riots of 1736, and less remotely his friendship with Adam Smith, David Hume, and John Home, the dramatist, for witnessing the performance of whose tragedy _Douglas_ he was censured in 1757. He was distinctly a _bon vivant_, but withal an upright, conscientious and capable minister.

CARLYLE, JOSEPH DACRE (1759-1804), British orientalist, was born in 1759 at Carlisle, where his father was a physician. He went in 1775 to Cambridge, was elected a fellow of Queens' College in 1779, taking the degree of B.D. in 1793. With the assistance of a native of Bagdad known in England as David Zamio, then resident at Cambridge, he attained great proficiency in Arabic literature; and after succeeding Dr Paley in the chancellorship of Carlisle, he was appointed, in 1795, professor of Arabic in Cambridge University. His translation from the Arabic of Yusuf ibn Taghri Birdi, the _Rerum Egypticarum Annales_, appeared in 1792, and in 1796 a volume of _Specimens of Arabic Poetry_, from the earliest times to the fall of the Caliphate, with some account of the authors. Carlyle was appointed chaplain by Lord Elgin to the embassy at Constantinople in 1799, and prosecuted his researches in Eastern literature in a tour through Asia Minor, Palestine, Greece and Italy, collecting in his travels several valuable Greek and Syriac MSS. for a projected critical edition of the New Testament, collated with the Syriac and other versions--a work, however, which he did not live to complete. On his return to England in 1801 he was presented by the bishop of Carlisle to the living of Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he died on the 12th of April 1804. After his death there appeared a volume of poems descriptive of the scenes of his travels, with prefaces extracted from his journal. Among other works which he left unfinished was an edition of the Bible in Arabic, completed by H. Ford and published in 1811.

CARLYLE, THOMAS (1795-1881), British essayist, historian and philosopher, born on the 4th of December 1795 at Ecclefechan, in Annandale, was the eldest of the nine children of James Carlyle by his second wife, Janet Aitken. The father was by trade a mason, and afterwards a small farmer. He had joined a sect of seceders from the kirk, and had all the characteristics of the typical Scottish Calvinist. He was respected for his integrity and independence, and a stern outside covered warm affections. The family tie between all the Carlyles was unusually strong, and Thomas regarded his father with a reverence which found forcible expression in his _Reminiscences_. He always showed the tenderest love for his mother, and was the best of brothers. The narrow means of his parents were made sufficient by strict frugality. He was sent to the parish school when seven, and to Annan grammar-school when ten years old. His pugnacity brought him into troubles with his fellows at Annan; but he soon showed an appetite for learning which induced his father to educate him for the ministry. He walked to Edinburgh in November 1809, and entered the university. He cared little for any of the professors, except Sir John Leslie, from whom he learned some mathematics. He acquired a little classical knowledge, but the most valuable influence was that of his contemporaries. A few lads in positions similar to his own began to look up to him as an intellectual leader, and their correspondence with him shows remarkable interest in literary matters. In 1814 Carlyle, still looking forward to the career of a minister, obtained the mathematical mastership at Annan. The salary of L60 or L70 a year enabled him to save a little money. He went to Edinburgh once or twice, to deliver the discourses required from students of divinity. He does not seem, however, to have taken to his profession very earnestly. He was too shy and proud to see many of the Annan people, and found his chief solace in reading such books as he could get. In 1816 he was appointed, through the recommendation of Leslie, to a school at Kirkcaldy, where Edward Irving, Carlyle's senior by three years, was also master of a school. Irving's severity as a teacher had offended some of the parents, who set up Carlyle to be his rival. A previous meeting with Irving, also a native of Annan, had led to a little passage of arms, but Irving now welcomed Carlyle with a generosity which entirely won his heart, and the rivals soon became the closest of friends. The intimacy, affectionately commemorated in the _Reminiscences_, was of great importance to Carlyle's whole career. "But for Irving," he says, "I had never known what the communion of man with man means." Irving had a library, in which Carlyle devoured Gibbon and much French literature, and they made various excursions together. Carlyle did his duties as a schoolmaster punctiliously, but found the life thoroughly uncongenial. No man was less fitted by temperament for the necessary drudgery and worry. A passing admiration for a Miss Gordon is supposed to have suggested the "Blumine" of _Sartor Resartus_; but he made no new friendships, and when Irving left at the end of 1818 Carlyle also resigned his post.

He had by this time resolved to give up the ministry. He has given no details of the intellectual change which alienated him from the church. He had, however, been led, by whatever process, to abandon the dogmatic system of his forefathers, though he was and always remained in profound sympathy with the spirit of their teaching. A period of severe struggle followed. He studied law for a time, but liked it no better than schoolmastering. He took a pupil or two, and wrote articles for the _Edinburgh Encyclopaedia_ under the editorship of Brewster. He occasionally visited his family, and their unfailing confidence helped to keep up his courage. Meanwhile he was going through a spiritual crisis. Atheism seemed for a time to be the only alternative to his old creed. It was, however, profoundly repugnant to him. At last, one day in June 1821, after three weeks' total sleeplessness, he went through the crisis afterwards described quite "literally" in _Sartor Resartus_. He cast out the spirit of negation, and henceforth the temper of his misery was changed to one, not of "whining," but of "indignation and grim fire-eyed defiance." That, he says, was his spiritual new-birth, though certainly not into a life of serenity. The conversion was coincident with Carlyle's submission to a new and very potent influence. In 1819 he had begun to study German, with which he soon acquired a very remarkable familiarity. Many of his contemporaries were awakening to the importance of German thought, and Carlyle's knowledge enabled him before long to take a conspicuous part in diffusing the new intellectual light. The chief object of his reverence was Goethe. In many most important respects no two men could be more unlike; but, for the present, Carlyle seems to have seen in Goethe a proof that it was possible to reject outworn dogmas without sinking into materialism. Goethe, by singularly different methods, had emerged from a merely negative position into a lofty and coherent conception of the universe. Meanwhile, Carlyle's various anxieties were beginning to be complicated by physical derangement. A rat, he declared, was gnawing at the pit of his stomach. He was already suffering from the ailments, whatever their precise nature, from which he never escaped. He gave vent to his irritability by lamentations so grotesquely exaggerated as to make it difficult to estimate the real extent of the evil.

Irving's friendship now became serviceable. Carlyle's confession of the radical difference of religious opinion had not alienated his friend, who was settling in London, and used his opportunities for promoting Carlyle's interest. In January 1822 Carlyle, through Irving's recommendation, became tutor to Charles and Arthur Buller, who were to be students at Edinburgh. Carlyle's salary was L200 a year, and this, with the proceeds of some literary work, enabled him at once to help his brother John to study medicine and his brother Alexander to take up a farm. Carlyle spent some time with the elder Bullers, but found a life of dependence upon fashionable people humiliating and unsatisfactory. He employed himself at intervals upon a life of Schiller and a translation of _Wilhelm Meister_. He received L50 for a translation of Legendre's _Geometry_; and an introduction, explaining the theory of proportion, is said by De Morgan to show that he could have gained distinction as an expounder of mathematical principles. He finally gave up his tutorship in July 1824, and for a time tried to find employment in London. The impressions made upon him by London men of letters were most unfavourable. Carlyle felt by this time conscious of having a message to deliver to mankind, and his comrades, he thought, were making literature a trade instead of a vocation, and prostituting their talents to frivolous journalism. He went once to see Coleridge, who was then delivering his oracular utterances at Highgate, and the only result was the singularly vivid portrait given in a famous chapter in his life of Sterling. Coleridge seemed to him to be ineffectual as a philosopher, and personally to be a melancholy instance of genius running to waste. Carlyle, conscious of great abilities, and impressed by such instances of the deleterious effects of the social atmosphere of London, resolved to settle in his native district. There he could live frugally and achieve some real work. He could, for one thing, be the interpreter of Germany to England. A friendly letter from Goethe, acknowledging the translation of _Wilhelm Meister_, reached him at the end of 1824 and greatly encouraged him. Goethe afterwards spoke warmly of the life of Schiller, and desired it to be translated into German. Letters occasionally passed between them in later years, which were edited by Professor Charles Eliot Norton in 1887. Goethe received Carlyle's homage with kind complacency. The gift of a seal to Goethe on his birthday in 1831 "from fifteen English friends," including Scott and Wordsworth, was suggested and carried out by Carlyle. The interest in German, which Carlyle did so much to promote, suggested to him other translations and reviews during the next few years, and he made some preparations for a history of German literature. British curiosity, however, about such matters seems to have been soon satisfied, and the demand for such work slackened.

Carlyle was meanwhile passing through the most important crisis of his personal history. Jane Baillie Welsh, born 1801, was the only child of Dr Welsh of Haddington. She had shown precocious talent, and was sent to the school at Haddington where Edward Irving (q.v.) was a master. After her father's death in 1819 she lived with her mother, and her wit and beauty attracted many admirers. Her old tutor, Irving, was now at Kirkcaldy, where he became engaged to a Miss Martin. He visited Haddington occasionally in the following years, and a strong mutual regard arose between him and Miss Welsh. They contemplated a marriage, and Irving endeavoured to obtain a release from his previous engagement. The Martin family held him to his word, and he took a final leave of Miss Welsh in 1822. Meanwhile he had brought Carlyle from Edinburgh and introduced him to the Welshes. Carlyle was attracted by the brilliant abilities of the young lady, procured books for her and wrote letters to her as an intellectual guide. The two were to perform a new variation upon the theme of Abelard and Heloise. [A good deal of uncertainty long covered the precise character of their relations. Until 1909, when Mr. Alexander Carlyle published his edition of the "love-letters," the full material was not accessible; they had been read by Carlyle's biographer, Froude, and also by Professor Charles Norton, and Norton (in his edition of Carlyle's _Early Letters_, 1886) declared that Froude had distorted the significance of this correspondence in a sense injurious to the writers. The publication of the letters certainly seems to justify Norton's view.] Miss Welsh's previous affair with Irving had far less importance than Froude ascribes to it; and she soon came to regard her past love as a childish fancy. She recognized Carlyle's vast intellectual superiority, and the respect gradually deepened into genuine love. The process, however, took some time. Her father had bequeathed to her his whole property (L200 to L300 a year). In 1823 she made it over to her mother, but left the whole to Carlyle in the event of her own and her mother's death. She still declared that she did not love him well enough to become his wife. In 1824 she gradually relented so far as to say that she would marry if he could achieve independence. She had been brought up in a station superior to that of the Carlyles, and could not accept the life of hardship which would be necessary in his present circumstances. Carlyle, accustomed to his father's household, was less frightened by the prospect of poverty. He was determined not to abandon his vocation as a man of genius by following the lower though more profitable paths to literary success, and expected that his wife should partake the necessary sacrifice of comfort. The natural result of such discussions followed. The attraction became stronger on both sides, in spite of occasional spasms of doubt. An odd incident precipitated the result. A friend of Irving's, Mrs Basil Montague, wrote to Miss Welsh, to exhort her to suppress her love for Irving, who had married Miss Martin in 1823. Miss Welsh replied by announcing her intention to marry Carlyle; and then told him the whole story, of which he had previously been ignorant. He properly begged her not to yield to the impulse without due consideration. She answered by coming at once to his father's house, where he was staying; and the marriage was finally settled. It took place on the 17th of October 1826.

Comments

Log in to leave a comment.

Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Capefigue" to "Carneades"Chapter XVII: Part 17

0%37 min left in chapter