Chapter X: Front Matter (10)

This Saturday the French King rose betimes and heard mass in Abbeville in his lodging in the abbey of St. Peter, and he departed after the sun-rising. When he was out of the town two leagues, approaching towards his enemies, some of his lords said to him, "Sir, it were good that ye ordered your battles, and let all your footmen pass somewhat on before, that they be not troubled with the horsemen." Then the King sent four knights, the Moine [of] Bazeilles, the Lord of Noyers, the Lord of Beaujeu, and the Lord d'Aubigny, to ride to aview the English host; and so they rode so near that they might well see part of their dealing. The Englishmen saw them well and knew well how they were come thither to aview them; they let them alone and made no countenance toward them, and let them return as they came. And when the French King saw these four knights return again, he tarried till they came to him and said, "Sirs, what tidings?" These four knights each of them looked on other, for there was none would speak before his companion; finally the King said to [the] Moine, who pertained to the King of Bohemia and had done in his days so much that he was reputed for one of the valiantest knights of the world, "Sir, speak you." Then he said:--"Sir, I shall speak, sith it pleaseth you, under the correction of my fellows. Sir, we have ridden and seen the behaving of your enemies: know ye for truth they are rested in three battles abiding for you. Sir, I will counsel you as for my part, saving your displeasure, that you and all your company rest here and lodge for this night; for or they that be behind of your company be come hither, and or your battles be set in good order, it will be very late, and your people be weary and out of array, and ye shall find your enemies fresh and ready to receive you. Early in the morning ye may order your battles at more leisure and advise your enemies at more deliberation, and to regard well what way ye will assail them; for, sir, surely they will abide you."

Then the King commanded that it should be so done. Then his two marshals one rode before, another behind, saying to every banner, "Tarry and abide here in the name of God and St. Denis." They that were foremost tarried, but they that were behind would not tarry, but rode forth, and said how they would in no wise abide till they were as far forward as the foremost; and when they before saw them come on behind, then they rode forward again, so that the King nor his marshals could not rule them. So they rode without order or good array, till they came in sight of their enemies; and as soon as the foremost saw them they reculed then aback without good array, whereof they behind had marvel and were abashed, and thought that the foremost company had been fighting. Then they might have had leisure and room to have gone forward, if they had list; some went forth, and some abode still. The commons, of whom all the ways between Abbeville and Cressy were full, when they saw that they were near to their enemies, they took their swords and cried, "Down with them! let us slay them all." There is no man, though he were present at the journey, that could imagine or shew the truth of the evil order that was among the French party, and yet they were a marvelous great number. That I write in this book I learned it specially of the Englishmen, who well beheld their dealing; and also certain knights of Sir John of Hainault's, who was always about King Philip, shewed me as they knew.

OF THE BATTLE OF CRESSY, AUGUST 26TH, 1346

The Englishmen, who were in three battles lying on the ground to rest them, as soon as they saw the Frenchmen approach, they rose upon their feet fair and easily without any haste, and arranged their battles. The first, which was the Prince's battle, the archers there stood in manner of a herse and the men of arms in the bottom of the battle. The Earl of Northampton and the Earl of Arundel with the second battle were on a wing in good order, ready to comfort the Prince's battle, if need were.

The lords and knights of France came not to the assembly together in good order, for some came before and some came after, in such haste and evil order that one of them did trouble another. When the French King saw the Englishmen his blood changed, and said to his marshals, "Make the Genoways go on before, and begin the battle, in the name of God and St. Denis." There were of the Genoways' cross-bows about a fifteen thousand, but they were so weary of going afoot that day a six leagues armed with their cross-bows, that they said to their constables, "We be not well ordered to fight this day, for we be not in the case to do any great deed of arms: we have more need of rest." These words came to the Earl of Alencon, who said, "A man is well at ease to be charged with such a sort of rascals, to be faint and fail now at most need." Also the same season there fell a great rain and a clipse with a terrible thunder, and before the rain there came flying over both battles a great number of crows for fear of the tempest coming. Then anon the air began to wax clear, and the sun to shine fair and bright, the which was right in the Frenchmen's eyen and on the Englishmen's backs. When the Genoways were assembled together and began to approach, they made a great leap and cry to abash the Englishmen, but they stood still and stirred not for all that; then the Genoways again the second time made another leap and a fell cry, and stept forward a little, and the Englishmen removed not one foot; thirdly, again they leapt and cried, and went forth till they came within shot; then they shot fiercely with their cross-bows. Then the English archers stept forth one pace and let fly their arrows so wholly [together] and so thick, that it seemed snow. When the Genoways felt the arrows piercing through heads, arms, and breasts, many of them cast down their cross-bows, and did cut their strings and returned discomfited. When the French King saw them fly away, he said, "Slay these rascals, for they shall let and trouble us without reason." Then ye should have seen the men of arms dash in among them and killed a great number of them; and ever still the Englishmen shot whereas they saw thickest press: the sharp arrows ran into the men of arms and into their horses, and many fell, horse and men, among the Genoways, and when they were down, they could not relieve again; the press was so thick that one overthrew another. And also among the Englishmen there were certain rascals that went afoot with great knives, and they went in among the men of arms and slew and murdered many as they lay on the ground, both earls, barons, knights, and squires; whereof the King of England was after displeased, for he had rather they had been taken prisoners.

The valiant King of Bohemia called Charles of Luxembourg, son to the noble Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, for all that he was nigh blind, when he understood the order of the battle, he said to them about him, "Where is the Lord Charles my son?" His men said, "Sir, we cannot tell; we think he be fighting." Then he said, "Sirs, ye are my men, my companions and friends in this journey: I require you bring me so far forward that I may strike one stroke with my sword." They said they would do his commandment, and to the intent that they should not lose him in the press, they tied all their reins of their bridles each to other and set the King before to accomplish his desire, and so they went on their enemies. The Lord Charles of Bohemia his son, who wrote himself King of Almaine and bare the arms, he came in good order to the battle; but when he saw that the matter went awry on their party, he departed, I cannot tell you which way. The King his father was so far forward that he strake a stroke with his sword, yea, and more than four, and fought valiantly, and so did his company; and they adventured themselves so forward that they were there all slain, and the next day they were found in the place about the King, and all their horses tied each to other.

The Earl of Alencon came to the battle right ordinately and fought with the Englishmen, and the Earl of Flanders also on his part. These two lords with their companies coasted the English archers and came to the Prince's battle, and there fought valiantly long. The French King would fain have come thither, when he saw their banners, but there was a great hedge of archers before him. The same day the French King had given a great black courser to Sir John of Hainault, and he made the Lord Thierry of Senzeille to ride on him and to bear his banner. The same horse took the bridle in the teeth and brought him through all the currours of the Englishmen, and as he would have returned again, he fell in a great dike and was sore hurt, and had been there dead, an his page had not been, who followed him through all the battles and saw where his master lay in the dike, and had none other let but for his horse; for the Englishmen would not issue out of their battle for taking of any prisoner. Then the page alighted and relieved his master: then he went not back again the same way that they came; there was too many in his way.

This battle between Broye and Cressy this Saturday was right cruel and fell, and many a feat of arms done that came not to my knowledge. In the night divers knights and squires lost their masters, and sometime came on the Englishmen, who received them in such wise that they were ever nigh slain; for there was none taken to mercy nor to ransom, for so the Englishmen were determined.

In the morning the day of the battle certain Frenchmen and Almains perforce opened the archers of the Prince's battle, and came and fought with the men of arms hand to hand. Then the second battle of the Englishmen came to succor the Prince's battle, the which was time, for they had as then much ado; and they with the Prince sent a messenger to the King, who was on a little windmill hill. Then the knight said to the King, "Sir, the Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Oxford, Sir Raynold Cobham and other, such as be about the Prince your son, are fiercely fought withal and are sore handled; wherefore they desire you that you and your battle will come and aid them; for if the Frenchmen increase, as they doubt they will, your son and they shall have much ado." Then the King said, "Is my son dead, or hurt, or on the earth felled?" "No, sir," quoth the knight, "but he is hardly matched; wherefore he hath need of your aid." "Well," said the King, "return to him and to them that sent you hither, and say to them that they send no more to me for any adventure that falleth, as long as my son is alive: and also say to them that they suffer him this day to win his spurs; for if God be pleased, I will this journey be his and the honor thereof, and to them that be about him." Then the knight returned again to them and shewed the King's words, the which greatly encouraged them, and repoined in that they had sent to the King as they did.

Sir Godfrey of Harcourt would gladly that the Earl of Harcourt, his brother, might have been saved; for he heard say by them that saw his banner how that he was there in the field on the French party: but Sir Godfrey could not come to him betimes, for he was slain or he could come at him, and so was also the Earl of Aumale his nephew. In another place the Earl of Alencon and the Earl of Flanders fought valiantly, every lord under his own banner; but finally they could not resist against the puissance of the Englishmen, and so there they were also slain, and divers other knights and squires. Also the Earl Louis of Blois, nephew to the French King, and the Duke of Lorraine, fought under their banners; but at last they were closed in among a company of Englishmen and Welshmen, and there were slain for all their prowess. Also there was slain the Earl of Auxerre, the Earl of Saint-Pol, and many other.

In the evening the French King, who had left about him no more than a threescore persons, one and other, whereof Sir John of Hainault was one, who had remounted once the King, for his horse was slain with an arrow, then he said to the King, "Sir, depart hence, for it is time; lose not yourself willfully: if ye have loss at this time, ye shall recover it again another season." And so he took the King's horse by the bridle and led him away in a manner perforce. Then the King rode till he came to the castle of Broye. The gate was closed, because it was by that time dark: then the King called the captain, who came to the walls and said, "Who is that calleth there this time of night?" Then the King said, "Open your gate quickly, for this is the fortune of France." The captain knew then it was the King, and opened the gate and let down the bridge. Then the King entered, and he had with him but five barons, Sir John of Hainault, Sir Charles of Montmorency, the Lord of Beaujeu, the Lord d'Aubigny, and the Lord of Montsault. The King would not tarry there, but drank and departed thence about midnight, and so rode by such guides as knew the country till he came in the morning to Amiens, and there he rested.

This Saturday the Englishmen never departed from their battles for chasing of any man, but kept still their field, and ever defended themselves against all such as came to assail them. This battle ended about evensong time.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE

(1818-1894)

BY CHARLES FREDERICK JOHNSON

James Anthony Froude, English historian and essayist, was born April 23d, 1818, and died October 20th, 1894. His father was a clergyman, and the son was sent to Westminster School and to Oriel College, Oxford. In 1842 he became a fellow of Exeter, and two years later he was ordained a deacon; an office which he did not formally lay down until many years later, although his earliest publications, 'Shadows of the Clouds' and 'Nemesis of Faith,' showed that he had come to hold--and what perhaps is more to the point, dared to express,--views hardly compatible with the character of a docile and unreasoning neophyte.

These books were severely censured by the authorities, and cost him--to the great benefit of the world--an appointment he had received of teacher in Tasmania. He resigned his fellowship and took up the profession of letters, writing much for Fraser and the Westminster, and becoming for a short period the editor of the former. His _magnum opus_ is his 'History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada,' in twelve volumes, from 1856 to 1870. His other principal publications are--'The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century' (1874); 'Caesar' (1879); 'Bunyan' (1880); 'Thomas Carlyle (first forty years of his life)' (1882); 'Life in London' (1884); 'Short Studies on Great Subjects' (1882, four series); 'The Two Chiefs of Dunboy' (1889); 'The English in the West Indies' (1889); 'The Divorce of Catharine of Aragon' (1892); 'The Life and Letters of Erasmus' (1892); 'English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century' (1892); and 'The Council of Trent.' 'Shadows of the Clouds,' 'The Nemesis of Faith,' and 'The Two Chiefs of Dunboy' are in the form of fiction; and though they--especially the last--contain some charming descriptive passages, and evince some of Froude's power of character sketching, they serve on the whole to prove that he was not a novelist. The fortunes of his group of people are of less absorbing interest to him than questions of social and racial ethics. There is nothing more annoying than to have an essayist stand behind a story-teller and interrupt him from time to time with acute philosophical comments on ultimate causes. The characters of Morty and Sylvester Sullivan are admirably contrasted Celtic types, but both they and the English Colonel Goring are a trifle stagy and stiff in their joints. The murders of the two chiefs, Morty Sullivan and Colonel Goring, are dramatically told; but Froude's deficient sense of humor, at least of that quality of humor which gives a subtle sense of congruity, results in an attempt to combine the elements of the tale and the didactic society in impossible proportions. He is an essayist and historian, not a novel-writer.

Froude stands before the English-reading public prominent in three characteristics: First, as a technical prose artist, in which regard he is entitled to be classed with Ruskin, Newman, and Pater; less enthusiastic and elaborately ornamental than the first, less musically and delicately fallacious than the second, and less self-conscious and phrase-caressing than the third, but carrying a solider burden of thought than all three. Second, as a historian of the modern school, which aims by reading the original records to produce an independent view of historical periods. Third, as the most clear-sighted and broad-minded of those whose position near the centre of the Oxford movement and intimacy with the principal actors gave them an insight into its inner nature.

There can be but one opinion of Froude as a master of English. In some of his early work there are traces of the manner of Macaulay in the succession of short assertive sentences, most of which an ordinary writer would group as limiting clauses about the main assertion. This method gives a false appearance of vigor and definiteness; it makes easy reading by relieving the mind from the necessity of weighing the modifying propositions: but it is entirely unadapted to nice modulations of thought. Froude very soon avoided the vices of Macaulayism, and attained a narrative style which must be regarded as the best in an age which has paid more attention than any other to the art of telling a story. In descriptive historical narrative he is unrivaled, because he is profoundly impressed not only with the dramatic qualities but with the real significance of a scene; unlike Macaulay, to whom the superficial theatrical elements appeal. A reading of Macaulay's description of the trial of Warren Hastings, and Froude's narrative of the killing of Thomas Becket or of the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, will bring out at once Froude's radical superiority in both conception and execution.

This is not the place to debate the question of Froude's historical accuracy, further than to remark that he was an industrious reader of historical documents, and by nature a seeker after the truth. If a profound conviction of the harmfulness of ecclesiasticism colored the light with which he illuminated the records of the past, we must remember that history is at best largely the impressions of historians; and that if it be true that Froude does present one side, it is the side on which the warnings to posterity are most distinctly inscribed. A reading of the controversy between Froude and Freeman in the calmer light of the present leads to the conclusion that the _suppressio veri_ with which Froude was charged is not a _suggestio falsi_, but an artistic selection of the characteristic. He felt a certain contempt for the minute and meaningless fidelity to the record, which is not writing history but editing documents. He possessed, too, among his other literary powers, the rare one of being able to individualize the man whose life he studies and of presenting the character so as to be consistent and human. This power fills his history and sketch with rare personalities. Thomas Becket, Henry III., Henry VIII., Queen Catharine, Mary Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth, are more than historical portraits in the ordinary sense: they are conceptions of individuals, vivified by the artistic sense. Whether or not they are true to the originals as reflected in the contemporary documents, they are at least human possibilities, and therefore truer than the distorted automata that lie in state on the pages of some historians. A human character is so exceedingly complex and so delicately balanced with contradictory elements, that it is probable that no two persons ever estimate it exactly alike. Besides, prominent historical personages become in the popular imagination invested with exaggerated attributes, and it is not likely that men will ever agree even as to which of them was the hero and which the villain of the drama. It was to be expected that Froude should be violently assailed by those who accepted a traditional view of Henry VIII. and of Mary. It was inevitable that he should differ from them, because he had more than a view: he had a conception. His historical personages are certainly possibilities, because they are human, and the traditional figures are either monsters or saints; and humanity--at least Teutonic humanity--does not produce unadulterated saints nor unrelieved monsters.

While Froude's historical work has been criticized for lack of minute accuracy in details, his books on Carlyle have been criticized for the opposite fault of quoting too fully and literally; from letters and journals, matter never intended for the public, and of a nature not only to wound living persons but to create an erroneous impression of the writer. The habit of expressing himself in pithy and pungent personalities seems to have been with Carlyle a sort of intellectual exercise, and should not necessarily be taken as an index of morose ill-temper. A very delicate literary tact was necessary to his literary executor, in selecting from the matter put in his hands that which would combine to make a true picture of a crude and powerful genius without making him appear to the ordinary reader a selfish, willful man. Froude's idea of the duty of an editor of contemporary biography seems to have been that it was limited to careful publication of all the available material as _memoires pour servir_. Such miscellaneous printing may in the end serve truth, but at the time it arouses resentment. It resulted, however, in the production of a book far preferable to the non-committal, evasive, destructively laudatory biography of a public man, of which every year brings a new specimen. It is at least honest, if not tactful.

Froude's early connection with the Oxford movement and his work on the Lives of the Saints first called his attention to the study of historical documents, and to the large amount of fiction with which truth is diluted in them. His further researches among the authorities recently made accessible, for the history of the destruction of the monasteries, impressed on him the fact that an assumption of spiritual authority is as dangerous to those who assume it as to those over whom it is assumed, exactly as physical slavery is in the end as harmful to the masters as it is to the slaves. He saw that ecclesiasticism had been profoundly hostile to morals, and he judged the present by the past till he really believed that the precious fruits of the Reformation would be lost if the ritualists obtained control of the Church. He persuaded himself that under such influence--

"Civilization would ebb, the great moral lights be extinguished,
Over the world would creep an unintelligent darkness
Under which men would be portioned anew 'twixt the priest and the
soldier."

It is perhaps too much to expect of a man of the imaginative temperament of Froude, to whom the abominations of the Church from the twelfth to the sixteenth century were as real as if he had witnessed them, to retain judicial calmness under the vituperation with which he was assailed; but his profound distrust of the mediaeval Church certainly does give an air of partisanship to his strictures on its modern ineffectual revival. He forgot that great principles of justice and toleration are now so embodied in law and fixed in the hearts of the English-speaking people that society is protected, and the evils of spiritual tyranny are restricted to the few who are willing to abase their intellects to it; that the corroding evil of conventual life is minimized by healthy outside influences; and that the most advanced modern ritualist would prove too good a Christian to light an _auto da fe_. It was but natural that he should forget this, for he was a strong man in the centre of the conflict, and independence was the core of his being.

This strength of independence is shown by the fact that though young, and profoundly sensitive to the attraction of a character like Newman's, he was from the first able to resist the fascination which that remarkable man exerted over all with whom he came in contact. The pure spiritual nature possesses a mysterious power over young men, so great that they often yield to its counterfeit. Newman was the true priest, and Froude recognized his genius and that his soul was "an adumbration of the Divine." But he felt instinctively the radical unsoundness of Newman's thought, and "would not follow, though an angel led." Others fell off for prudential reasons; but Froude was indifferent to these, and obedient to a conviction the strength of which must be estimated by the depth of his feeling for character.

Froude was sometimes criticized for writing history under the influence of personal feeling. It is difficult to see how a readable history can be written except by one who at least takes an interest in the story; but whether capacity for feeling makes a man a less trustworthy historian, depends upon how far this emotional susceptibility is controlled by intellectual insight and just views of the laws under which society develops. That Froude was an absolutely perfect historian, no one would claim: he was too intensely human to be perfect. It is safe to say that the perfect historian will not exist until Shakespeare and Bacon reappear combined in one man. For the great historian must be both scholar and artist. As scholar he must possess, too, both the acquisitive and the organizing intellect. He must both gather facts and interpret them. He must have the artistic sense which selects from the vast mass of fact that which is significant. This power of artistic selection is of course influenced by his unconscious ideals, by his conception of the relative importance of the forces which move mankind, and of the ultimate goal of progress. His philosophy directs his art, and his art interprets in the light of his philosophy.

It may be admitted that Froude possesses a larger share of the artistic than of the philosophic qualities necessary to the great historian. At times his hatred of ecclesiasticism becomes almost a prejudice. In his writings on Irish and colonial questions he evinces the Englishman's love of the right, but sometimes, unfortunately, the Englishman's inability to do justice to other races in points which distinguish them from his own. In some expressions he seems to distrust democracy in much the same unreasoning way in which Mr. Ruskin distrusts machinery. He had imbibed something of Mr. Carlyle's belief in the "strong man"; though he, no more than Carlyle, can show how the strong, just ruler can be produced or selected. But a more serious deficiency in Froude's philosophy arises from his imperfect conception of the method of evolution which governs all organizations, civil and religious, so that they continually throw off short-lived varieties and history becomes a continual giving way of the old order to the new. To fear, as Froude seems to, lest a survival may become a governing type, is as unreasonable as to fear that old men will live forever. Certainly he would have taken a juster, saner view of the English Reformation, had he been convinced that all the collisions between the moral laws and the rebellious wills of men, which are the burden of the years, are in the end obliterated in the slow onward movement of the race; but then perhaps his history would have lost in interest what it might have gained in philosophic breadth and balance. For it cannot be denied that feeling has given his narrative that most valuable quality--life.

The general recognition of Froude's power, and the growing conviction that he was far nearer right than the theological school he so cordially detested, was vindicated by his appointment as Professor of History at Oxford to succeed Freeman, one of the severest critics of his historical fairness. He lived to deliver but three courses of lectures, one of which has been published in that delightful volume 'The Life and Letters of Erasmus.' The others, 'English Seamen of the XVIth Century,' 'Lectures on the Council of Trent,' and the very able paper on Job in 'Short Studies on Great Subjects,' even if taken by themselves, would cause us to form a high opinion of the scope and range of Froude's powers. Those to whom brilliancy is synonymous with unsoundness may perhaps continue to call him merely a "brilliant writer"; but the general verdict will be that his brilliancy is the structural adornment of a well-fitted framework of thought.

[Signature: Charles F. Johnson]

THE GROWTH OF ENGLAND'S NAVY

From 'English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century'

Jean Paul the German poet said that God had given to France the empire of the land, to England the empire of the sea, and to his own country the empire of the air. The world has changed since Jean Paul's days. The wings of France have been clipped: the German Empire has become a solid thing: but England still holds her watery dominion; Britannia does still rule the waves, and in this proud position she has spread the English race over the globe; she is peopling new Englands at the Antipodes; she has made her Queen Empress of India; and is in fact the very considerable phenomenon in the social and political world which all acknowledge her to be. And all this she has achieved in the course of three centuries, entirely in consequence of her predominance as an ocean power. Take away her merchant fleets, take away the navy that guards them,--her empire will come to an end, her colonies will fall off like leaves from a withered tree, and Britain will become once more an insignificant island in the North Sea, for the future students in Australian and New Zealand universities to discuss the fate of in their debating societies.

How the English navy came to hold so extraordinary a position is worth reflecting on. Much has been written on it, but little, as it seems to me, which touches the heart of the matter. We are shown the power of our country growing and expanding. But how it grew; why, after a sleep of so many hundred years, the genius of our Scandinavian forefathers suddenly sprang again into life,--of this we are left without explanation.

The beginning was undoubtedly the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Down to that time the sea sovereignty belonged to the Spaniards, and had been fairly won by them. The conquest of Granada had stimulated and elevated the Spanish character. The subjects of Ferdinand and Isabella, of Charles V., and Philip II., were extraordinary men and accomplished extraordinary things. They stretched the limits of the known world; they conquered Mexico and Peru; they planted their colonies over the South-American continent; they took possession of the great West-Indian islands, and with so firm a grasp that Cuba at least will never lose the mark of the hand which seized it. They built their cities as if for eternity. They spread to the Indian Ocean, and gave their monarch's name to the Philippines. All this they accomplished in half a century, and as it were, they did it with a single hand; with the other they were fighting Moors and Turks, and protecting the coasts of the Mediterranean from the corsairs of Tunis and Constantinople.

They had risen on the crest of the wave, and with their proud _Non Sufficit Orbis_ were looking for new worlds to conquer, at a time when the bark of the English water-dogs had scarcely been heard beyond their own fishing grounds, and the largest merchant vessel sailing from the port of London was scarce bigger than a modern coasting collier. And yet within the space of a single ordinary life these insignificant islanders had struck the sceptre from the Spaniards' grasp and placed the ocean crown on the brow of their own sovereign. How did it come about? What Cadmus had sown dragons' teeth in the furrows of the sea, for the race to spring from who manned the ships of Queen Elizabeth, who carried the flag of their own country round the globe, and challenged and fought the Spaniards on their own coasts and in their own harbors?

The English sea power was the legitimate child of the Reformation. It grew, as I shall show you, directly out of the new despised Protestantism. Matthew Parker and Bishop Jewell, the judicious Hooker himself, excellent men as they were, would have written and preached to small purpose without Sir Francis Drake's cannon to play an accompaniment to their teaching. And again, Drake's cannon would not have roared so loudly and so widely, without seamen already trained in heart and hand to work his ships and level his artillery. It was to the superior seamanship, the superior quality of English ships and crews, that the Spaniards attributed their defeat. Where did these ships come from? Where and how did these mariners learn their trade? Historians talk enthusiastically of the national spirit of a people rising with a united heart to repel the invader, and so on. But national spirit could not extemporize a fleet, or produce trained officers and sailors to match the conquerors of Lepanto. One slight observation I must make here at starting, and certainly with no invidious purpose. It has been said confidently,--it has been repeated, I believe, by all modern writers,--that the Spanish invasion suspended in England the quarrels of creed, and united Protestants and Roman Catholics in defense of their Queen and country. They remind us especially that Lord Howard of Effingham, who was Elizabeth's admiral, was himself a Roman Catholic. But was it so? The Earl of Arundel, the head of the House of Howard, was a Roman Catholic, and he was in the Tower praying for the success of Medina Sidonia. Lord Howard of Effingham was no more a Roman Catholic than--I hope I am not taking away their character--than the present Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. He was a Catholic, but an English Catholic, as those reverend prelates are. Roman Catholic he could not possibly have been, nor any one who on that great occasion was found on the side of Elizabeth. A Roman Catholic is one who acknowledges the Roman Bishop's authority. The Pope had excommunicated Elizabeth, had pronounced her deposed, had absolved her subjects from their allegiance and forbidden them to fight for her. No Englishman who fought on that great occasion for English liberty was, or could have been, in communion with Rome. Loose statements of this kind, lightly made, fall in with the modern humor. They are caught up, applauded, repeated, and pass unquestioned into history. It is time to correct them a little.

THE DEATH OF COLONEL GORING

From 'Two Chiefs of Dunboy'

Fatally mistaking what was intended for a friendly warning, the colonel conceived that there was some one in the forge whom the smith wanted to conceal.

"I may return or not," he said; "but I must first have a word with these strangers of yours. We can meet as friends for once, with nothing to dispute over."

Minahan made no further attempt to prevent him from going in. If gentlemen chose to have their quarrels, he muttered between his teeth, it was no business of his.

Goring pushed open the door and entered. By the dim light--for the shutter that had been thrown back had been closed again, and the only light came from a window in the roof--he made out three figures standing together at the further end of the forge, in one of whom, though he tried to conceal himself, he instantly recognized his visitor of the previous evening.

"You here, my man?" he said. "You left my house two hours ago. Why are you not on your way home?"

Sylvester, seeing he was discovered, turned his face full round, and in a voice quietly insolent, replied, "I fell in with some friends of mine on the road. We had a little business together, and it is good luck that has brought your honor to us while we are talking, for the jintlemen here have a word or two they would like to be saying to ye, colonel, before ye leave them."

"To me!" said Goring, turning from Sylvester to the two figures, whose faces were still covered by their cloaks. "If these gentlemen are what I suppose them to be, I am glad to meet them, and will hear willingly what they may have to say."

"Perhaps less willingly than you think, Colonel Goring," said the taller of the two, who rose and stepped behind him to the door, which he closed and barred. Goring, looking at him with some surprise, saw that he was the person whom he had met on the mountains, and had afterwards seen at the funeral at Derreen. The third man rose from a bench on which he had been leaning, lifted his cap, and said:--

"There is an old proverb, sir, that short accounts make long friends. There can be no friendship between you and me, but the account between us is of very old standing. I have returned to Ireland, only for a short stay; I am about to leave it, never to come back. A gentleman and a soldier, like yourself, cannot wish that I should go while that account is still unsettled. Our fortunate meeting here this morning provides us with an opportunity."

It was Morty's voice that he heard, and Morty's face that he saw as he became accustomed to the gloom. He looked again at the pretended messenger from the carded curate, and he then remembered the old Sylvester who had brought the note from Lord Fitzmaurice to the agent from Kenmare. In an instant the meaning of the whole situation flashed across him. It was no casual re-encounter. He had been enticed into the place where he found himself, with some sinister and perhaps deadly purpose. A strange fatality had forced him again and again into collision with the man of whose ancestral lands he had come into possession. Once more, by a deliberate and treacherous contrivance, he and the chief of the O'Sullivans had been brought face to face together, and he was alone, without a friend within call of him; unless his tenant, who as he could now see had intended to give him warning, would interfere further in his defense. And of this he knew Ireland well enough to be aware that there was little hope.

He supposed that they intended to murder him. The door, at which he involuntarily glanced, was fastened by this time with iron bolts. He was a man of great personal strength and activity, but in such a situation neither would be likely to avail him. Long inured to danger, and ready at all moments to meet whatever peril might threaten him, he calmly faced his adversary and said:--

"This meeting is not accidental, as you would have me believe. You have contrived it. Explain yourself further."

"Colonel Goring," said Morty Sullivan, "you will recall the circumstances under which we last parted. Enemy as you are and always have been to me and mine, I will do you the justice to say that on that occasion you behaved like a gentleman and a man of courage. But our quarrel was not fought out. Persons present interfered between us. We are now alone, and can complete what was then left unfinished."

"Whether I did well or ill, sir," the colonel answered, "in giving you the satisfaction which you demanded of me at the time you speak of, I will not now say. But I tell you that the only relations which can exist between us at present are those between a magistrate and a criminal who has forfeited his life. If you mean to murder me, you can do it; you have me at advantage. You can thus add one more to the list of villainies with which you have stained an honorable name. If you mean that I owe you a reparation for personal injuries, such as the customs of Ireland allow one gentleman to require from another, this, as you well know, is not the way to ask for it. But I acknowledge no such right. When I last encountered you I but partly knew you. I now know you altogether. You have been a pirate on the high seas. Your letters of marque do not cover you, for you are a subject of the King, and have broken your allegiance. Such as you are, you stand outside the pale of honorable men, and I should degrade the uniform I wear if I were to stoop to measure arms with you."

The sallow olive of Morty's cheek turned livid. He clutched the bench before him, till the muscles of his hands stood out like knots of rope.

"You are in my power, colonel," he said: "do not tempt me too far. If my sins have been many, my wrongs are more. It must be this or worse. One word from me, and you are a dead man."

He laid four pistols on the smith's tool-chest. "Take a pair of them," he said. "They are loaded alike. Take which you please. Let us stand on the opposite sides of this hovel, and so make an end. If I fall, I swear on my soul you shall have no hurt from any of my people. My friend Connell is an officer of mine, but he holds a commission besides in the Irish Brigade. There is no better-born gentleman in Kerry. His presence here is your sufficient security. You shall return to Dunboy as safe from harm as if you had the Viceroy's body-guard about you, or your own boat's crew that shot down my poor fellows at Glengariff. To this I pledge you my honor."

"Your honor!" said Goring; "your honor! And you tempted me here by a lying tale, sent by the lips of yonder skulking rascal. That alone, sir, were there nothing else, would have sufficed to show what you are."

A significant click caught the ear of both the speakers. Looking round, they saw Sylvester had cocked a pistol.

"Drop that," said Morty, "or by God! kinsman of mine though you be, I will drive a bullet through the brain of you. Enough of this, sir," he said, turning to Goring. "Time passes, and this scene must end. I would have arranged it otherwise, but you yourself know that by this way alone I could have brought you to the meeting. Take the pistols, I say, or by the bones of my ancestors that lie buried under Dunboy Castle yonder, I will call in my men from outside, and they shall strip you bare, and score such marks on you as the quartermaster leaves on the slaves that you hire to fight your battles. Prince Charles will laugh when I tell him in Paris how I served one at least of the hounds that chased him at Culloden."

The forge in which this scene was going on was perfectly familiar to Goring, for he had himself designed it and built it. There was the ordinary broad open front to the road, constructed of timber, which was completely shut. The rest of the building was of stone, and in the wall at the back there was a small door leading into a field, and thence into the country. Could this door be opened, there was a chance, though but a faint one, of escape. A bar lay across, but of no great thickness. The staple into which it ran was slight. A vigorous blow might shatter both.

Sylvester caught the direction of Goring's eye, caught its meaning, and threw himself in the way. The colonel snatched a heavy hammer which stood against the wall. With the suddenness of an electric flash he struck Sylvester on the shoulder, broke his collar-bone, and hurled him back senseless, doubled over the anvil. A second stroke, catching the bar in the middle, shattered it in two, and the door hung upon the latch. Morty and Connell, neither of whom had intended foul play, hesitated, and in another moment Goring would have been free and away. Connell, recovering himself, sprang forward and closed with him. The colonel, who had been the most accomplished wrestler of his regiment, whirled him round, flung him with a heavy fall on the floor, and had his hand on the latch when, half stunned as he was, Connell recovered his feet, drew a skene, and rushed at Colonel Goring again. So sudden it all was, so swift the struggle, and so dim the light, that from the other end it was hard to see what was happening. Wrenching the skene out of Connell's hands, and with the hot spirit of battle in him, Colonel Goring was on the point of driving it into his assailant's side.

"Shoot, Morty! shoot, or I am a dead man!" Connell cried.

Morty, startled and uncertain what to do, had mechanically snatched up a pistol when Sylvester was struck down. He raised his hand at Connell's cry. It shook from excitement, and locked together as the two figures were, he was as likely to hit friend as foe. Again Connell called, and Morty fired and missed; and the mark of the bullet is still shown in the wall of the smithy as a sacred reminiscence of a fight for Irish liberty. The second shot went true to its mark. Connell had been beaten down, though unwounded, and Goring's tall form stood out above him in clear view. This time Morty's hand did not fail him. A shiver passed through Goring's limbs. His arms dropped. He staggered back against the door, and the door yielded, and he fell upon the ground outside. But it was not to rise and fly. The ball had struck him clean above the ear, and buried itself in the brain. He was dead.

SCIENTIFIC METHOD APPLIED TO HISTORY

From 'Short Studies on Great Subjects'

Historical facts can only be verified by the skeptical and the inquiring, and skepticism and inquiry nip like a black frost the eager credulity in which legendary biographies took their rise. You can watch such stories as they grew in the congenial soil of belief. The great saints of the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, who converted Europe to Christianity, were as modest and unpretending as true, genuine men always are. They claimed no miraculous powers for themselves. Miracles might have been worked in the days of their fathers. They for their own parts relied on nothing but the natural powers of persuasion and example. Their companions, who knew them personally in life, were only a little more extravagant. Miracles and portents vary in an inverse ratio with the distance of time. St. Patrick is absolutely silent about his own conjuring performances. He told his followers, perhaps, that he had been moved by his good angel to devote himself to the conversion of Ireland. The angel of metaphor becomes in the next generation an actual seraph. On a rock in the county of Down there is, or was, a singular mark, representing rudely the outline of a foot. From that rock, where the young Patrick was feeding his master's sheep, a writer of the sixth century tells us that the angel Victor sprang back to heaven after delivering his message, and left behind him the imprinted witness of his august visit. Another hundred years pass, and legends from Hegesippus are imported into the life of the Irish apostle. St. Patrick and the Druid enchanter contend before King Leogaire on Tara Hill, as Simon Magus and St. Peter contended before the Emperor Nero. Again a century, and we are in a world of wonders where every human lineament is lost. St. Patrick, when a boy of twelve, lights a fire with icicles; when he comes to Ireland he floats thither upon an altar-stone which Pope Celestine had blessed for him. He conjures a Welsh marauder into a wolf, makes a goat cry out in the stomach of a thief who had stolen him, and restores dead men to life, not once or twice but twenty times. The wonders with which the atmosphere is charged gravitate towards the largest concrete figure which is moving in the middle of them, till at last, as Gibbon says, the sixty-six lives of St. Patrick which were extant in the twelfth century must have contained at least as many thousand lies. And yet of conscious lying there was very little; perhaps nothing at all. The biographers wrote in good faith and were industrious collectors of material, only their notions of probability were radically different from ours. The more marvelous a story, the less credit we give to it; warned by experience of carelessness, credulity, and fraud, we disbelieve everything for which we cannot find contemporary evidence, and from the value of that evidence we subtract whatever may be due to prevalent opinion or superstition. To the mediaeval writer, the more stupendous the miracle the more likely it was to be true; he believed everything which he could not prove to be false, and proof was not external testimony, but inherent fitness.

So much for the second period of what is called human history. In the first or mythological there is no historical groundwork at all. In the next or heroic we have accounts of real persons, but handed down to us by writers to whom the past was a world of marvels, whose delight was to dwell upon the mighty works which had been done in the old times, whose object was to elevate into superhuman proportions the figures of the illustrious men who had distinguished themselves as apostles or warriors. They thus appear to us like their portraits in stained-glass windows, represented rather in a transcendental condition of beatitude than in the modest and checkered colors of real life. We see them not as they were, but as they appeared to an adoring imagination, and in a costume of which we can only affirm with certainty that it was never worn by any child of Adam on this plain, prosaic earth. For facts as facts there is as yet no appreciation; they are shifted to and fro, dropped out of sight, or magnified, or transferred from owner to owner,--manipulated to suit or decorate a preconceived and brilliant idea. We are still in the domain of poetry, where the canons of the art require fidelity to general principles, and allow free play to fancy in details. The Virgins of Raphael are no less beautiful as paintings, no less masterpieces of workmanship, though in no single feature either of face or form or costume they resemble the historical mother of Christ, or even resemble one another.