Chapter VIII: Avowals (5)

While Chatham, with his fiery genius, was holding the reins of government, in concert successively with the dukes of Devonshire, of Newcastle, and of Grafton; while Bute enjoyed the favor of his sovereign, and incurred in an equal degree the odium of the people; while Grenville goaded the American colonists into revolt, and Rockingham vainly endeavored to heal the wounds which his predecessor had inflicted on them; little was thought, and still less was said, in parliament about the emancipation of Catholics. Yet many of the events which occurred, many of the political gladiators who acquired for themselves such renown in the arena of public life, were preparing the way for this happy consummation in the fulness of time. Every blow that was struck for freedom was a gain to the Catholic cause; every check that was put on the arbitrary power of the king or the parliament was in effect a loosening of their bonds. When Chatham declaimed against the use of general warrants, and Wilkes waged war single-handed with the crown, the cabinet, and the commons; when Burke and Rockingham, no less than Chatham, denounced the injustice of the Stamp Act, and the fratricidal cruelty of the war by which it was in principle to be enforced, the arguments by which they clove down menaces, boasts, and blatant sophistry availed more or less against every thing that could be pleaded in support of the bondage and degradation to which Catholics were subjected. Edmund Burke was the burning and shining light of the Rockingham administration. It was scarcely possible for the premier to overrate his importance as an ally. He had the most philosophical mind of any statesman of his age; and the fact of his being chattered against as a wild Irishman and a concealed papist by the Duke of Newcastle, proved that the despised and the detested Catholics of Ireland were likely to find a friend in him. He was more than a great man; he represented a principle. He never shifted his ground, though he sometimes changed his front. He always pleaded for order, and "a manly, moral, regulated liberty." In the outset of his political career, the tide of human thought was setting in new directions. America was declaring her independence; the _Wealth of Nations_ was laying the foundation of political economy; Wesley and Whitefield were stirring up a dormant spirit of sincere though misguided religion in mines, factories, fields, and wolds; Hargreaves's spinning-jenny was well at work; Arkwright's patent had been issued some years; Crompton's mule was seen coming into play; Brindley's canal from the Trent to the Mersey was being cut; and Watt was preparing his third model of the steam-engine. Powerful solvents of old systems were applied, and active germs of new ones sprang up on every side. It was a time, therefore, when thoughtful men were accessible to new ideas, when they would listen to arguments so new, so strange, so extravagant, (for such they had once thought them,) as those which Burke advanced in favor of religious toleration, and of the persecuted Irish. Year after year his convictions gathered strength, till at last "the god within him" burst forth, and he denounced the penal code of Protestant England as "A system full of coherence and consistency; well digested and well composed in all its parts, a machine of wise and elaborate contrivance, and as well fitted for the oppression, impoverishment, and degradation of a people, and the debasement in them of human nature itself, as ever proceeded from the perverted ingenuity of man."[161] As the secretary, the friend, the adviser and colleague of Lord Rockingham, Edmund Burke had some influence in abating the rigor of enactments against "papists;" and though the Rev. James Talbot, brother of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was tried for his life at the Old Bailey for saying mass, so late as the year 1769, yet the spirit of persecution sensibly declined after the fifth year of George III.'s reign. It was rarely, and at long intervals, that it ventured to display itself in the English parliament; and in 1774, the first decided step toward toleration was taken by that prejudiced body. The Catholics of Canada were allowed by law to enjoy free exercise of their religion, subject to the king's supremacy.[162]

Only four years passed before this concession was followed by another of far greater importance and extent.

It was under the ministry of Lord North, and with his concurrence, that Sir George Savile, in 1788, introduced a bill to repeal the atrocious enactments extorted from William of Orange by a relentless parliament. The bigots of his day had often repeated the false reports of Jacobites, who affirmed that William was in secret a favorer of their religion; but now that eighty years had rolled by, the representatives of the nation in parliament, though not the people themselves, were sensible of the injustice their forefathers had wrought, and were willing to make reparation for it. It was already a marvellous change that had come over the minds of the thinking part of the nation; and it is pleasing to reflect that Sir George Savile's healing measure encountered little opposition. The penal statutes which his bill repealed had not, generally speaking, been put into execution, but in some instances they had; and Sir George declared himself cognizant of cases in which Catholics were not merely living in terror, but were obliged to bribe informers not to betray them, in consequence of the powers which the law conferred. Thurlow, the attorney-general, supported the bill, and so did Dundas, the lord-advocate of Scotland. The only whisper of opposition came from a Whig bishop of Peterborough, named Hinchcliffe. By this repeal the priests were secured from persecution, schoolmasters were permitted to teach, Catholics were enabled to purchase and to inherit estates, and many other happy exemptions from pain and penalty were granted to them.[163] Horace Walpole, in one of his letters,[164] called the repeal "the restoration of popery," and "expected soon to see Capuchins trampling about, and Jesuits in high places."

It is needless to recount the excesses which followed this measure. The Lord George Gordon riots are too well known even here to require more than an allusion to be made to them. Gibbon, the historian, was an eye-witness of the scene, and he says, in memorable words, that "the month of June, 1780, will ever be marked by a dark and diabolical fanaticism, which I supposed to be extinct, but which actually subsists in Great Britain _perhaps beyond any other country in Europe_." Impelled by these frantic disturbances, the parliament condescended to explain Sir George Savile's bill to the people, and to show that, though intended to relieve "papists," it was not meant to encourage "popery."

The coalition ministry, under the Duke of Portland, did not last long enough for Fox, its most distinguished and philanthropic member, to propose measures for the relief of Catholics. But his great rival, Pitt, during his long tenure of office, had means of befriending them which he did not altogether neglect. The Toleration Act[165] received the royal assent in 1791, and many of its provisions did credit to William Pitt's wisdom and humanity. It removed penalties still attached by law to the celebration of Catholic worship, and relieved tutors, schoolmasters, barristers, and peers from some degrading restrictions. Pitt would willingly have gone further, much further. He would gladly have fulfilled the promises made to some of the leaders of the Irish people, and would have cemented the union of England and Ireland by admitting Catholics to a share of political power and by providing a state endowment of the Catholic priesthood. He even resigned his post as premier in 1801 because he found it impossible to obtain the consent of the purblind, bigoted old king to the measures he had planned for the peace of Ireland. It would have been better for his fame if he had persevered in his good intentions. That he did not do so, is a stain on his memory which posterity, however lenient, cannot wash out. His honor was involved in completing the union with Ireland by Catholic emancipation. This he not only failed to do, but, out of regard to his sovereign, he promised in writing that he would never again moot the question, and that he would oppose its being agitated to the day of his death. This was carrying loyalty too far. It prevailed against justice. It cancelled personal honor. An engagement is sacred; and if Pitt had observed his, he would have stood higher in the esteem of thinking men, without driving George III. into lunacy or to Hanover. Considering all the circumstances, we cannot feel surprised at his setting it aside; but we regret that he did not hold to it firmly. Faith in political leaders would then have been more easy, and public virtue less a sham. When the strength of Pitt superseded the weakness of Addington, and the great statesman found himself again prime minister, his tongue was tied in reference to Catholic claims. Nay, even his rival, Fox, when he came once more into office, refrained from advocating emancipation out of deference to the king's weakness and tendency to madness. Indeed, the Grenville ministry, called usually "All the Talents," broke up at last on the question of removing Catholic disabilities, as that of Pitt had done in the year 1801. A puny and pitiable concession had been made to Irish Catholic soldiers in 1793. They had been allowed by law to rise in the army to the rank of colonel, in case of their serving _in Ireland_. Lord Sidmouth and Chancellor Erskine were opposed to Catholic emancipation, yet even they were willing in their boundless generosity to extend this privilege to officers serving in England. The king was alarmed at the proposal, and wrote to Lord Spenser, declaring that it should never gain his consent. It would remove a restriction on Roman Catholics, and it was only part of a system to which he was unchangeably averse. But when two days had passed, his majesty thought better of it. He would not thwart his ministers for such a trifle. He yielded the point, and then discovered than he had been deceived by the liberal members of the cabinet, and that they actually intended to put Catholics and dissenters on exactly the same footing as members of the Anglican church in the army, and to exact from them merely an oath of allegiance. The bill for the purpose had, in fact, been submitted to him, but, being blind, he had let it pass without proper scrutiny. His ministers always affirmed that, if he had been misled, it was not through their fault or intention. The afflicted old man was greatly disturbed by what he heard on the subject from Lord Sidmouth, and he became still more indignant when the bill was fathered on him, introduced into parliament by Lord Howick, (afterward Lord Grey,) opposed stoutly by Mr. Perceval, and read for the first time. He resolved in secret to rid himself of ministers whom he regarded as dangerous and false. He informed them that the bill in question would never be signed by him, that it must be withdrawn, and that he should be satisfied with nothing less than an explicit assurance and promise that no such measures in future should be proposed. This "All the Talents" refused to give, and the king, on hearing that their answer was final, said, "Then I must look about me."[166]

Though the Duke of Portland became prime minister in 1807 with the express intention of defending the sovereign against importunity in favor of Catholics, it is worthy of remark that the College of Maynooth was endowed during his premiership; and this is only one illustration of the remarkable fact which we are endeavoring to exhibit--that the Catholic cause in England has progressed in England under every government since the revolution of 1688, in spite of penal statutes, obstacles, and resistance of king, lords, commons or people.

Mr. Perceval, who succeeded the Duke of Portland in 1809, is described by Madden as "a stupid lawyer, without character or practice, noted only for his bigotry."

There was little done for Catholics in his time; but about two months after he had been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons, Lord Wellesley moved that the Catholic claims should be considered.

The cabinet of Lord Liverpool was formed on the basis of neutrality as regards the Catholic question; in other words, its members were allowed to advocate or oppose emancipation, just as they thought fit. Canning and Castlereagh were its friends; Lord Eldon was its bitterest opponent. The premier himself invariably spoke against it, but he was not virulent. His hostility to it arose from the conviction that Protestant ascendency was the real and proper basis of the British constitution, as revised under William III. To alter that basis was, in his eyes, to effect a revolution; and he predicted, in 1812 and in 1825, that if emancipation were granted, either the Protestant church in Ireland would be disestablished or the Roman Catholic Church there would be established by law. Events have proved, happily, that he was not altogether wrong.

The period of the Liverpool administration was, of course, a dreary one for Catholics. The efforts of Grattan, Wellesley, Sir Henry Parnell, Plunkett, and Canning to obtain for them some redress, ended for the most part in cruel disappointment. Yet in 1817 the government introduced a bill, which passed both houses, opening to them the army and navy, and thus generously bestowed on them the privilege of shedding their blood in the service of their oppressors. By annual acts of indemnity, also, Catholic officers were relieved from the penalty of not taking the oaths of supremacy.

In 1824, Lord Liverpool had so far relaxed his opposition to Catholic claims that he spoke in favor of Lord Lansdowne's two bills for giving the elective franchise to English as it had been given to Irish Catholics, and for throwing open to them magistracies and other inferior offices, besides allowing the Duke of Norfolk to execute his hereditary office of earl marshal. The bills were rejected, but the duke's claim was allowed. In 1826, just two years before his death, Lord Liverpool submitted to the king an important paper, in which he reminded his majesty that the cabinet he had framed in 1812 regarded emancipation from the first as an open question, and declared that he could not now be a party to any other arrangement. He humbly suggested that the king should advert to the actual state of the opinions of public men in the two houses of parliament, particularly of those in the House of Commons, upon the Roman Catholic question, and that he should seriously consider whether it would not be at least as impracticable as in 1812 to form an administration upon the exclusively Protestant principle. Thus Lord Liverpool himself, and his neutral or divided cabinet, prepared the way for emancipation in the year after his death.

Canning succeeded Lord Liverpool in 1827. He had long advocated the redress of Catholic wrongs. It was not his fault that Ireland was duped by the union. It had been his desire and intention that emancipation should seal and complete that measure. He could scarcely venture to speak of it, however, except in vague terms; for the smallest allusion to it on his part would have been sure to call down upon him the vengeance of the treasury benches. Yet he did allude to it in January and April, 1799, and thirteen years after, when, speaking of the Catholic claims, he declared that "expectations had been held out, the disappointment of which involved the moral guilt of an absolute breach of faith."

"Does history," asks Goldwin Smith, in discussing the wrongs of Ireland--"does history afford a parallel to that agony of seven centuries which has not yet reached its close? But England is the favorite of Heaven; and when _she_ commits oppression, it will not recoil on the oppressor!"

If Canning's life had been spared, there is no doubt that he would have signalized his tenure of office by the completion, in some measure at least, of the designs of the Catholic Association. This body, formed by O'Connell in 1823, had infused new life and hope into Irish patriotism. Disappointed and betrayed as the people of Ireland had been by one statesman after another, they could not but expect something from Canning's hands, especially when they saw him rise in April, 1822, and move for leave to bring in a bill which should relieve Roman Catholic peers from the disabilities imposed on them by the Act 30 of Charles II., with regard to the right of sitting and voting in the House of Peers. His brilliant and beautiful speech was crowned with a certain success. His motion was carried by a majority of five; but Peel opposed the measure, and the Lords rejected it by a majority of forty-two. Their policy in such matters has always been one of obstruction. They declined to let noblemen so noble and so pacific, and of families so ancient, as the Dukes of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Lord Petre, and Lord Stourton, sit beside them in their chambers as peers of the realm.

After this failure, Canning's zeal in the Catholic cause is said to have declined; but he doubtless felt his impotence, and waited only till a more favorable opportunity of serving the Catholic interests should arrive.

TO BE CONTINUED.

FOOTNOTES:

[152] 11 and 12 William III., c. 4. Madden's _Penal Statutes against Roman Catholics_, pages 229, 232, 233.

[153] Macaulay, Hist. of England, chap. vii., ann. 1687.

[154] Ibid. chap. xvii.

[155] To Mr. Prior, Jan. 30th, 1714.

[156] 10 Anne c. 2. 12 St. 2, c. 14.

[157] Earl Stanhope, Hist. of England, vol. 1. p. 81.

[158] Craggs to Stanhope, June 30th, 1719.

[159] 9 George I., c. 18.

[160] Madden's _Penal Statutes_, p. 238.

[161] Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe, 1792.

[162] 14 George III. c. 35, § 5.

[163] 18 George III., c. 60.

[164] To Rev. Mr. Cole, May 21, 1778.

[165] 31 George III., c. 32.

[166] English Premiers. No. xii. _Month_, 1867.

CHESS.

I.

It is rather difficult for the spectator at a game of chess (who is not himself a player) to comprehend the pleasure of it, and to believe that those two grave, silent individuals are not only seeking but actually finding amusement and recreation.

Yet no game is more beautiful in its appointments; beautiful in the mathematical precision of its moves; beautiful in its colored, carved, and varied pieces; intellectually beautiful in its very quietude--in the power with which it represses every manifestation of hope or disappointment, in its wordless intensity of thought.

Other games come in some degree within the scope of the most humble capacity; but chess, royal chess, loftier in its requirements, demands the most noble. It has attractions all-absorbing and fascinating as well as profitable unto wisdom; but they stand fully revealed to him only who can widely plan and steadily execute; whose circumspection is never beguiled and whose caution never sleepeth; who is elated not overmuch by success nor despondent under disasters; who keepeth his own counsel and can baffle an opponent's penetration; whose well-schooled eye gives no clue, by a glance, to his intended victim, and whose well-trained finger never hovers in irresolution. Behold the requirements of chess!

It has been justly called in olden English _The Royalle Game_; for not only is a king its hero, but it has afforded amusement to kings and warriors through many a past age, and in countries widely distant from each other.

The origin of the game of chess is still an unsettled question. Like some of the oriental monarchs, it might write itself "brother to the sun and moon"--so ancient is its pedigree. Some writers have proved, to their own satisfaction at least, that it was chess which enlivened the tedium of the Greeks encamped about the walls of Troy, and that its inventor was Palamedes, son of Nauplius, King of Euboea. Who can doubt the inventive genius of Palamedes after all the tales told of him?--tales we learn once and then forget. I repeat one. When the Greek heroes were gathering for the mighty Trojan conflict, Palamedes, himself a warrior, was sent to Ithaca, to summon Achilles and Odysseus to join them. The latter, desirous of evading the call, feigned himself insane, and Palamedes, to test his truthfulness, seized his infant child and laid it before him in a furrow which he was ploughing. Odysseus paused, raised the child, and removed it, thus giving evidence of his sanity. Who after this can doubt the inventive powers of Palamedes or his historian, and who can say that either might not have invented chess?

In a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Harleian collection, in the British Museum, is a drawing in which two warriors are represented, evidently Greeks, with a chess-board between them, engaged in play. The author of the MS. traces the game back to Odysseus, and concludes that one of these chiefs is intended for him.

In the great Egyptian collection of the British Museum, specimens are preserved of a kind of chess-men taken from a tomb of one of the Pharaohs, which prove that they had a game similar if not identical with our chess; and some hieroglyphics on the ruins of Luxor, Thebes, and Palmyra have been interpreted as indicating such a game.

Caxton, who printed a _Boke of Chesse_ in 1474, quoting from some other writers, gives a wonderful story, showing that it was devised in the reign of Evil-Merodach, King of Babylon, by a philosopher "whyche was named in Caldee Exerses, and in Greke Philemetor." The Greek cognomen of the philosopher leads somewhat to the belief of such a possibility.

Chaucer, without any proof, gives us in rhyme another candidate for the glory--Athalus. He describes, in a sort of dream, a visionary opponent, Fortune--

"At chesse with me she gan to pleye
With hir fals draughtes dyverse,
She staale on me and toke my ferz, (now queen.)
And when I saugh my ferz awaye,
Alas, I kouthe no longer pleye.
With a powne errante, allas I
Ful craftier to pleye she was
Than Athalus, who made the game
First of the chesse, so was hys name."[167]

A repetition of half the assertions and conjectures on this subject would fill volumes; indeed, volumes have been written on it; for no other thing of pure amusement has ever enlisted in its cause so many learned commentators of all tongues and nations, who unite, however, upon two points--its remote antiquity and its mighty renown.

The most reliable account of the origin of the game is, without doubt, that given by Sir William Jones. His high official rank for many years under the English government in India, and his familiarity with oriental languages, gave him opportunities for oriental research beyond almost any other writer. He asserts, as the result of his inquiries, that it was invented by the Hindoos, and from them (according to a universal Persian tradition) it was brought, in the sixth century, to Persia. Its next step was to Arabia, and from thence it was carried by the Saracenic conquest of Spain to western Europe. He found no mention of it in the classic writings of the Brahmins, although (he continues) they say confidently that Sanscrit books on chess exist.

Who the gifted individual was from whose brain emanated such an ingenious complication of mathematics and strategy, disguised under the mask of amusement, we shall perhaps never know. He might well have exclaimed with Horace,

"Exegi monumentum ære perennius."

But alas! the name of the builder is lost; or perhaps a future Layard, in exhuming the splendors of some ancient city, may find a record on some crumbling stone of the inventor of chess.

To an indefinite number of persons the honor is at present ascribed, evidently in mere conjecture, as in the following extract translated from a Chinese annal on chess; but it has an interest, in showing the antiquity of the game and the high esteem in which it was held:

"Three hundred and seventy-nine years after the time of Confucius,
or 1965 years ago," says the annal, "Hung Cochu, King of Kiangnan,
sent an expedition into the Shense country, under command of a
mandarin named Hansing, to conquer it. After one campaign, the
soldiers went into winter quarters, and they grew homesick and
wanted to return. Then Hansing invented the game of chess. They
were well pleased. In the spring they took the field again, and
soon added the rich country of Shense to the kingdom of Kiangnan."

It is more likely that Hansing only taught the soldiers what he had himself learned elsewhere; but Shense is still the name of a northern province of China, and Chinese soldiers still play chess.

For the name of the game also, as well as its origin, we rely most on Sir W. Jones, who traced it to _Chaturlinga_, signifying in eastern dialect certain parts of an army; and in his time the Malays still called it _Chatur_.

The whole vocabulary of chess--the only sound which breaks the monotonous silence of the game, is the little word _check_; and it is a singular fact, remarked by Mr. F. W. Cronhelm, that, however varied the names of the pieces in different languages, yet the Italians, French, English, Danes, Icelanders, Germans, Poles, and Russians all give the king warning in the same word--_check!_ Somebody traces it to _sheik_, the title of a high ruler in the Arabian dynasty, and supposes that they so named the principal piece, which we call _king_; hence when the adversary placed him in danger, he called out to him "sheik!" or, as we say, "check!" This is certainly plausible; for _mat_ in Arabic, as also in some dialects of Persia and India, signifies _to kill_, _to slay_; hence comes "_sheik-mat_," king-slain, or the modern "_check-mate_."

FOOTNOTE:

[167] Bell's _Chaucer_, vol. vi.

II.

It may be supposed, then, following the dates of Sir W. Jones, that the game of chess made its entrance into Arabia in her most glorious era; and it is easy to believe that a recreation so purely intellectual, so entirely reliant on skill and removed from chance, and which called into action all the higher powers of mind, would speedily find favor with the refined and cultivated Arabians in the golden days of her history. It is easy to picture Haroun-al-Raschid, who "never built a mosque without attaching to it a school," and who taught his subjects that "the most noble homage of a creature is to cultivate the faculties bestowed on him by his Creator"--it is easy to imagine him seeking relaxation from the cares of government in a game of chess; and not he alone--but that, from the universal diffusion of learning and refinement among the people, under him and his immediate successors, it would meet universal acceptance, and be engrafted, as it were, on their nationality. And thus we find it was; and so entirely adopted that it was the most cherished pleasure which they carried with them to (what was to them) the _far-off_ land of Spain.

To the Arabians then, the west of Europe, at least, if not the whole of it, is indebted for chess; and it is pleasant to believe that its present perfections may have been wrought out by some modifications of it, in those famous old universities and schools of learning which history tells us were scattered over every land where the Arabians held sway, but more especially over Arabia proper.

Chess, looked upon in this connection, wears a mantle of romance; there is a spell upon it of that departed glory! It is redolent of orange-groves, and jasmines, and thickets of roses; of sculptured halls, and gorgeous tapestry, and marble pavements; of learned men and beautiful women. All around it in that land breathed an impassioned poetry and an enchaining eloquence; the language of passion, and inspired thoughts, and bold imagery, of whose power to sway mankind our rule-bound brains can form no conception.

It speaks to us of the days when Bagdad was the gathering-place, under Al-Mamoun, (Mahomet-aben-Amer,) of the wise men of all nations; when her universities and schools of science were the boast of her rulers; when long trains of camels were daily seen entering her gates laden with precious manuscripts for her libraries; when medicine, law, mathematics, astronomy, counted among her citizens their most renowned professors, and when all these sciences were made accessible to the people by colleges and academies in every town. Nor were Bassora, Kaffa, Samarcand, and numerous other cities much less famous; Alexandria possessed more than twenty schools for philosophy alone; and Fez and Larace held in their immense libraries works of rare value nowhere else to be found. In every department of science and art they seem to have labored with success. They had dictionaries, geographical, critical, and biographical; the universal history of the world by Aboul-Feda, and the great historical dictionary of Prince Abdel Malek. Al-Assacher wrote commentaries on the first inventors of the arts; and Al-Gazel, a learned work on Arabian antiquities. Nor were their researches confined to the schools; after forty years of travel in studying mineralogy, Abou-ryan-al-Byrony produced his treatise on precious stones--rich in facts and observations. With equal zeal, at a later period, Aben-al-Beither traversed the mountains and plains of Europe, the sands of Africa, and the most remote countries of Asia, to gather every thing rare and worthy of record in the vegetable and animal world. Chemistry they applied to the arts of life; and Al-Farabi, who spoke seventy languages, spent his life in making a compend of all known sciences in one immense encyclopædia.

They had invented gunpowder although the honor is often falsely given to a German chemist--and they were familiar with the compass, long before either was named in Europe; and our sciences of calculation are indebted to them for numerals. The mass of their poetry and fiction exceeds that of all other nations put together. One, at least, we all know; for who cannot recall many--yes, how _many_ happy hours of boyhood, beguiled with the gorgeous impossibilities of _Arabian Nights_?

Amidst all these royal students, these accomplished scholars, the chess-board had its place; it was the pleasure, the recreation--the field whereon wit encountered wit in sharp and pleasant tilt. And while from all that land the light of science has departed; while the glories of the past are, with the mass of its people, not even a tradition, travellers tell us that, after the day's journeying is done, the dusky Arab "spreads out on the ground a checkered cloth, and plays on it a game similar to our chess."

III.

Although Spain, and the adjacent nations through her, received chess from Arabia, the game not only existed but was wide-spread in the north of Europe at a period so early (and under a slight modification) that we are led to believe they derived it from some other source. Indeed, nothing would seem more likely than that some of the many tribes who were constantly migrating thither from Asia would carry it with them. Major C. F. de Jaenish, a Russian writer, is of opinion that Russia received it direct from the east through her ancient conquerors, the Moguls; and in proof of this, he notes two pieces changed in the chess of southern Europe, but retained in their original form in Russia. These are, first, the commander of the army, or _biser_, called in Persia _ferz_; and second, the _elephant_, called in Russia, _Slone_. But it doubtless existed in Russia long before the Moguls held sway, which was not until the thirteenth century; and long before that time there are records of it as an amusement among the Northmen of the neighboring kingdoms. Besides this, in the ninth century the descendants of Ruric the Norman, who then ruled Russia, had extended their conquests to the Black Sea, and, in the language of the old historian, "greatly infested its waters;" one of them had even married the sister of the Greek emperor. It is, therefore, more than probable that through some of these channels chess was introduced into the northern part of Europe at a very early date.

It may have been carried thither by those maritime marauders, called the sea-kings, even before it was heard of in Spain. The first movement of the Arabians against Spain is generally fixed in the year seven hundred and ten; when Taric-ben-Zeyed, with some galleys disguised as merchantmen, cruised along the coasts of Andalusia and Lusitania, to see what temptation the Christian land offered to the followers of the prophet. That his survey was satisfactory, we know by what followed. But long before this, the Northmen in their ships had made themselves famous and feared. An Icelandic chronicle tells us "they were on every sea, and more numerous on water than on land." In the eighth and ninth centuries, they were to be found not only repeatedly ravaging England, Scotland, and Ireland, but sailing up the Somme, the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, and the Rhone; they had pillaged and burnt Paris, Amiens, Orleans, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nantes, and Tours; and laid waste Provence and Dauphiny. More than once they landed in Spain; and they had coasted the Mediterranean, to the terror of Greece and Italy. These expeditions were always predatory; and they may not only have acquired in their Mediterranean voyages some hints of the game of chess, but chess-men and chess-boards may have made a trifle in the booty with which they always returned laden to their northern homes.

Mons. Mallet, the antiquarian, in seeking to account for the great quantity of foreign coin found about that time in the northern kingdoms, thinks it less probable that it was the honest gains of commerce than "relics of the plunder collected by these ravagers." In like manner, perhaps, they appropriated chess. In whatever way obtained, it must have been to them particularly attractive; for what was it but that for which they lived--battle and victory? Nothing could have been better adapted, in the long nights of their northern winters, both to divert them from that restlessness which seems to have possessed the whole of their existence not spent in the tumults of war and the chase, or in preparations for them--and also as a pastime at their frequent and magnificent feasts; occasions upon which they infused into it their own fierce and vindictive spirit, for we know that their chess games ended very frequently not in the check-mate of the king, but in breaking each other's heads with the chess-board. Some such instances on record are tragic and revolting. Similar manners extended along the middle ages. An old writer thus explains the feud which existed between Charlemagne and Ogier the Dane:

"At one of the festivals at the court of Charlemagne, the
emperor's son Charles, and Bauduin, son of Ogier, went to play
together. They took a chess-board and sat down to play for
pastime. They arranged their chess-men on the board. The emperor's
son first moved his pawn, and young Bauduin moved his _aufin_,
(bishop.) Then Charles thought to press him very hard, and he
moves his knight upon the other _aufin_. The one moves forward and
the other backward so long that Bauduin said _mate_ to him in the
corner. Then the young prince was furious at his defeat, and not
only assailed the son of Ogier with the most insulting language,
but seized the chess-board and dealt him such a violent blow on
his forehead that he split his head and scattered his brains on
the floor!"

King John of England, in his youth, at the court of his father Henry II., played sometimes with Fulk Fitz Warine, a lad like himself, and as often it ended in a quarrel. A curious old history of the Fitz Warines gives the following story:

"Young Fulk was bred at the court of King Henry, and was much
beloved by all his sons except John; for he used often to quarrel
with John. It happened that John and Fulk were sitting all alone
in a chamber playing at chess. John took the chess-board and hit
Fulk a great blow. Fulk felt hurt, raised his foot and struck
John so that his head went against the wall, and he grew weak and
faint. Fulk was in consternation, but he was glad they were alone.
Then he rubbed John's ears, and he recovered and went to the king
his father to complain."

His majesty bestowed upon him little sympathy, for he punished him for being quarrelsome. Considering that John began the affray, this might pass for justice; but he did not forget the matter when he came to the throne. Fulk was the famous outlaw.

In many old manuscripts incidental mention is made of chess as a favorite amusement for heroes. When Regner Lodbrog, the warrior-poet, was killed, the messenger who carried the news to his sons found two of them--Sigued (snake-eye) and Hurtish (the bold)--playing chess; the third one, Biorn, was mending his lance. Regner Lodbrog died about the close of the eighth century.

Snorro Sturleson relates that, in 1028, Canute, King of Denmark, rode to Roskild to visit Earl Ulft, the husband of his sister. The king was very dull and scarcely spoke, and to enliven him, Earl Ulft proposed a game of chess. So they sat down to it, and played until Ulft took a knight; this the king would not allow.

"Are you a coward?" he exclaimed.

"You did not call me coward when I shielded you in battle," replied the earl; but for this reminder he lost his head.

An early metrical romance tells us that when Witikind, king of the pagan Saxons, received information that Charlemagne was marching on his dominions, the messenger found him in his palace at Tremoigne, playing chess with Escorsaus de Lutise; and his queen, Sebile, who also understood the game, was looking on. Witikind was so indignant at the news that he "seized the chess-board and smashed it to pieces, and his face grew as red as a cherry."

There is a droll story told of a kindred spirit of more modern date. A choleric Scottish nobleman, a former Earl of Stair, frequently played with a friend of his, Colonel Stewart. Not contented with bestowing very expressive invectives on the colonel's occasional superior play, he sometimes, when goaded by a _check-mate_, flung at his head any object possible within reach; so at last the colonel, for prudence' sake, when about to make his last move, always rose hastily and retreating behind some door, called out, "_Check-mate_, my lord!"

While the general manners of an age are gathered from its grave historians, we can learn them more in detail from its romances. In all the early romances left to us, wherever chess is mentioned--and it is constantly introduced as a pastime of knights, princes, and courtly dames--it is almost always an occasion or implement of some fierce dispute.

In the romance of _Quatre fils d'Aymon_, the agents of Regnault go to arrest Richard, Duke of Normandy, and find him playing chess. The result is thus quaintly told in an old English version, printed by Copeland.

"When Duke Richarde saw these sergeauntes hed him by the arm, he
helde in his hande a lady of ivery, wherewith he would have given
_mate_ to Younet. Then he withdrew his arm, and gave to one of the
sergeauntes such a stroke with it into the forehead that he made
him tumble over and over at his feete; and then he tooke a rooke
and smote another withal upon his head, so that he all to-brost it
to the brayne."

In the romance of _Parise la Duchesse_, her young son, brought up at the court of Hungary, becomes an object of jealousy to some of the nobles, and four of them conspire to murder him. In order to accomplish their object with safety to themselves, they invite him to play chess with them in a retired cellar. "Hughes," said they, "will you come with us to play at chess? For you can teach us chess and dice; for certainly you know the games better than we do." Hughes seemed suspicious of their advances, and it was not until they promised him to avoid all disputes that he accepted their invitation. He began to play with the son of Duke Granier; but while he in kindness was about showing them in what manner to move, they drew their knives upon him, and outrageously insulted him. He killed the foremost of them with a blow of his fist, and seizing the chess-board for a weapon, for he was unarmed, he "_brained_ the other three with it."

In Spain and Italy, about the same time, the game is mentioned under more gentle guise. An interesting letter is preserved, written by Damianus, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, to Pope Alexander II., who was elected pope in 1061. Damianus tells the pope how he was travelling with a bishop of Florence, when,

"having arrived at a hotel, I withdrew into the cell of a priest,
while he remained with a crowd of travellers in the spacious
house. In the morning I was informed by my servant that the bishop
had been playing chess; which information like an arrow pierced my
heart. At a convenient hour I sent for him, and said, in a tone
of reproof, 'The hand is stretched out, the rod is ready for
the offender.' 'Let the fault be proved,' said he, 'and penance
shall not be refused.' 'Was it well,' I rejoined, 'was it worthy
of the character you bear, to spend the evening in the vanity
of chess-play, and defile the hands and tongue which ought to
be the mediator between man and the Deity? Are you aware that,
by the canonical law, bishops who are dice-players are ordered
to be deposed?' He, however, making himself a shield of defence
from the difference of names, said that dice was one thing, and
chess another; consequently, that the canon only forbade dice, but
tacitly allowed chess. To which I replied, 'Chess is not named in
the text, but the general term of dice comprehends both games;
wherefore, since dice is forbidden and chess is not named, it
follows without doubt that both are equally condemned.'"

It is safe to conclude from this that the cardinal himself was not familiar with the game.

Females are represented on many illuminated manuscripts, as well as in early romances, as playing chess together or with knights. In one called _Blonde of Oxford_, Jean, a young French nobleman, comes to England and enters the household service of the Earl of Oxford. It was a part of Jean's duty to attend on the Lady Blonde, daughter of the earl, and serve her at table; after dinner, he goes hawking and hunting with them, and also teaches the ladies French. "Then he entertains the Ladye Blonde, and teaches her chess, and he often says _check_ and _mate_ to her."

Similar scenes are in _Ipomydon_, as in the following quoted by Strutt:

"When theye had dyned, as you saye,
Lords and ladys yede to playe,
Some to tables, some to chesse,
And other gamys more or less."

"The writers immediately after the conquest," says a distinguished
antiquarian, "speak of the Saxons as playing at chess; and pretend
that they learned the game of the Danes. Gaimar, who gives an
interesting story of the deceit practised on King Edgar (A.D. 973)
by Ethelwold, when sent to visit the beautiful Elfthrida, daughter
of Orgar of Devonshire, describes the young lady and her noble
father passing the day at chess." (_Wright._)

Such examples might be multiplied to tediousness; but one more notice of it among the Northmen is worth giving, because it is found in one of the grandest of modern epics, by the Swedish poet, Tegner, founded on events in the life of one of their most renowned heroes--_The Legend of Frithiof_.

The fortunes of the valiant Frithiof, who was the son of a thane, seem to have been ruled by his love for the fair Ingeborn, daughter of a king, and the scorn with which her two brothers spurned his proposal for her hand. A day of retaliation, however, soon came. Helgé and Halfdan, the brothers, were threatened by a neighboring foe, and sent to Frithiof--certainly with a sublime forgetfulness of what had passed--to ask his aid. When the messenger arrived, he was playing chess with his friend, Bjorn, the Bear. Frithiof refuses very decidedly. His heart still pines for Ingeborn; and, like a true Viking, he betakes himself for consolation to the sea, which he vows shall be "his home in life and his grave in death." The chess-board beside which Frithiof doubtless forgot his griefs for a brief space is described as magnificent--

"Beside a chess-board's checkered frame
Frithiof and Bjorn pursued their game;
Silver was each alternate plane,
And each alternate plane of gold."[168]

Perhaps some reader will be glad to learn that, after a few years, "he is weary of sea-fights and of hewing men in twain," and returns home to marry Ingeborn.

Such was one of the early chess-players.

FOOTNOTE:

[168] Strong's Translation.

IV.

It is remarkable in the history of chess how very trifling the variations which have ever been made in it. The lapse of time, which has swept away cities and their inhabitants, which has so blotted from human speech the words of those who once held converse around it that their inscriptions on stone are unintelligible, has left it almost unaltered.

Coming close to that domestic life of nations of which chess made one pleasure, what has not changed? Modes of dress, construction of dwellings, fashions of entertainment--all have had their mutations. Yet the game, as far back as the earliest accounts of it, has been almost literally such as we see it. One feature has always marked it, _chess_; there has always been a sovereign to be attacked and defended, and inferior pieces to accomplish these ends in combination, yet by different means. The board of sixty-four squares has also almost invariably been maintained.

Two pieces were modified when it passed from Arabia to Spain, or rather, from the Saracen to the Christian. In Arabia and Persia, there was no female on the board; what we call "queen" was, with them, "vizier or counsellor," and called _pherz_, _ferz_, or _fers_. This was retained in Europe until about the eleventh century, when it was supplanted by our queen. But wherefore a queen? We shall see.

Several events combined to make this period the age of poetry and of a peculiar deference to womankind. It will be remembered that in the eleventh century, 1095, was preached the first Crusade, a thing of romance and poetry itself. However different the motives which actuated that crowd of nobles and warriors who joined in creating the mighty army whose advance-guard was led by the monk Peter, to all appearance each one was a hero. Country and kingdom, home and love, happiness of wife or maiden, was the sacrifice professedly offered at the shrine of a holy enthusiasm enkindled by faith. Every earthly interest, every tie of affection, all consideration of self, was to be accounted nothing, compared with the sacred obligations involved in the expedition.

The means of expressing all these delicate sentiments and deep emotions, and furthermore of expressing them in poetry, was happily opened to them at this era in the language of the troubadours--the _Langue d'Oc_. The polish which poetry had received from the Arabians in Spain had elevated it to an art, and made it so attractive to the more refined classes that the highest born, even kings and princes, did not think it beneath them to cultivate it; and he added greatly to his renown who had qualified himself to express in it the two ruling passions of his soul--his martial ardor and his devotion to his _ladye-love_. Every knight, almost, was a troubadour, and the homage rendered to woman seems almost fabulous. A French writer says of this period:

"Love had assumed a new character.... It was not more tender and
passionate than among the Romans; but it was more respectful,
and something of a mystery was mingled with its sentiment. Women
were considered rather as angelic beings than as dependents and
inferiors. The task of serving and protecting them was considered
honorable, as though they were the representatives of the divinity
upon earth; and to this worship was added an ardor of feeling,
passion, and desire, peculiar to the people of the south, and the
expression of which was borrowed from the Arabians."[169]

Woman was not slow in extending her influence to more prosaic matters than _Les Cours d'Amour_ and the inspirations of poetry; and history furnishes an abundance of examples where female interference was permitted and female decision respected in the gravest affairs of life. After Alphonso VI. of Castile had driven the Moors from Toledo, he granted to such of them as chose to return the use of a cathedral to serve as a mosque; but, says history, "he soon broke his promise, and deprived them of it, at the instigation of and in order to please his wife."

Who, then, but a woman could have routed the grand-vizier from the chess-board and taken his place?

The other piece altered is the bishop, which of course was not so called by the orientals. This piece with the Arabians and Persians was represented by an elephant, and named _pil_ or _phil_. In southern Europe, the name was modified into _alfil_ and _aufin_, and is found so in old writers; but at a very early period the bishop seems to have been generally adopted. In northern Europe, it was not so; the Russians and Swedes still retain the elephant. What we now call castle, and sometimes _rook_, was also called by the Saracens _roc_, and by the Persians _rokh_, signifying champion or foot-soldier, and shaped accordingly. This form is seen in some ancient chess-men in the British Museum, supposed to be of Icelandic manufacture; the Icelanders called this piece _hrokr_. These chess-men, many in number and carved in ivory--that is, the tusk of the walrus--were found in the year 1831, on the coast of the Isle of Lewes, and are referred by antiquaries back to the twelfth century. They are the remnants of seven or eight distinct sets, and are therefore supposed to have belonged to some dealer who was shipwrecked there. The carving on them, and the costumes, bear traces of being Scandinavian. The _king_ is in a sitting posture, crowned, and has a sword in his hand, which he rests crossing his lap; the _queen_ also is crowned, and holds a drinking-horn, such as the northern women used in serving mead and ale to their guests; one of them represents a _bishop_ with mitre and crozier; the _knights_ are on horseback, and are covered with armor; and here is the _roc_ of the Saracens in its original form, a kind of foot-soldier, in place of the castle--which, however, is yet called _rook_. The remainder are pawns. Thus they are nearly identical with any set of modern chess-men, although fabricated more than seven hundred years ago.

The largest king in this collection, in his sitting posture, is more than four inches in height and near seven in circumference. The other pieces are smaller, but correspond. The chess-board which accommodated such pieces must have been a formidable weapon in a strong hand, and quite likely to "break heads and scatter brains."

Many old books are to be found in public and private libraries which contain descriptions of chess-men, rules for playing, etc. In the twelfth century, such a manual was composed by some devotee of the game in Latin verse. A little later, a volume was written in Latin by Jacques de Cessolas; it was translated into French by Jean de Vigny, and entitled _Moralization of Chess_. It may be seen in English in Caxton's _Boke of Chesse_, published in London, 1474.

Damiano, a Portuguese, in the fifteenth century compiled a book of directions for playing, with examples of eighty-eight games.

A little volume, very amusing in its quaint old English, was published in London in the reign of Elizabeth; it is dedicated to Lord Robert Dudley, afterward the celebrated Earl of Leicester. It is entitled, _The Pleasaunt and Wittie Playe of the Cheasts, reviewed with Instructions both to Learn it Easily and to Play it Well_. _Lately translated out of Italian into French, and now set forthe in Englishe by James Rowbotham._

In it, among many other things, the author describes the chess-men: