Chapter XII: Part 12

The necessity of an ecclesiastical synod or convocation, to coöperate with the Parliament, had been long felt. Among the articles of the Grand Remonstrance of December, 1641, had been one desiring a convention of "a general synod of the most grave, pious, learned, and judicious divines of this island, assisted by some from foreign parts," to consider of all things relating to the Church and report thereon to Parliament. It is clear, from the wording of this article, that it was contemplated that the synod should contain representatives from the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. Indeed, by that time, the establishment of a uniformity of doctrine, discipline, and worship between the churches of England and Scotland was the fixed idea of those who chiefly desired a synod. There had been express communications on the subject between the leading English Puritan ministers and the chiefs of the Scottish Kirk. Henderson[35] had strongly taken the matter to heart, and in connection with it he had made a "notable motion" in the Scottish General Assembly of August, 1641. Might it not be well, he had urged, that the Scottish Church should employ itself in "drawing up a confession of faith, a catechism, a directory for all the parts of the public worship, and a platform of government, wherein possibly England and we might agree"?

Henderson's notion was that, if such an authoritative exposition of the whole theory and practice of the Kirk of Scotland could be drawn up for the study of the English, and especially if care were taken in it not to be ultra-Scottish in mere minutiæ, the effect would be to facilitate the religious union of the two nations. The Scottish assembly, at any rate, had warmly entertained the notion, and had deputed the difficult and delicate work to Henderson himself. Henderson, however, had, on more mature thoughts, abandoned the project. He had done so for reasons creditable to his considerateness and good-sense. It had occurred to him that the English might like to think out the details of their church reformation for themselves, that it might do more harm than good to thrust an elaborated Scottish system upon them as a perfection already consummate, and that it might even be becoming in the Scots to hold themselves prepared, in the interests of the conformity they desired, to gravitate toward what might be the English conclusions on nonessential points. At all events, he had come to see that the work was too great for the responsibility of any one man. Possibly, too, he knew by that time (April, 1642) that a general synod of English divines would very soon be called.

Actually, in April, 1642, just when Henderson gave up the business as too great for one man's strength, the English House of Commons were making arrangements for a synod of divines. On the 19th of that month it was ordered by the House, in pursuance of previous resolutions on the subject, "that the names of such divines as shall be thought fit to be consulted with concerning the matter of the Church be brought in to-morrow morning," the understood rule being that the knights and burgesses of each English county should name to the House _two_ divines, and those of each Welsh county _one_ divine, for approval. Accordingly, on the 20th, the names were given in; on that day the divines proposed for nine of the English counties were approved of in pairs; and on following days the rest of the English counties--London and the two universities coming in for separate representation--were gone over, pretty much in their alphabetical order, the Welsh counties and the Channel islands coming last, till, on April 25th, the tale of the divines "thought fit to be consulted with" was complete. It included one hundred two divines, generally from the counties for which they were severally named; but by no means always so, for in not a few cases the knights and burgesses of distant counties nominated divines living in London or near it.

In almost all cases the divines named by the knights and burgesses for their several counties were approved of by the House unanimously; but a vote was taken on the eligibility of one of the divines named for Yorkshire, and he was carried by a bare majority of one hundred three to ninety-nine, and exceptions having been taken on the 25th to the two appointed for Cumberland on the 20th, their appointment was cancelled and others were substituted. On the same day on which the list of divines was completed, a committee of twenty-seven members of the House, including Hampden, Selden, and Lord Falkland, was appointed "to consider of the readiest way to put in execution the resolutions of this House in consulting with such divines as they have named." The result was that on May 9th there was brought in a "bill for calling an assembly of godly and learned divines to be consulted with by the Parliament, for the settling of the government and liturgy of the Church, and for the vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the Church of England from false aspersions and interpretations." On that day the bill was read twice in the Commons and committed; and on the 19th it was read a third time and passed. The Lords, having then taken the bill into consideration, proposed (May 26, 1642) the addition of _fourteen_ divines of their own choice to those named by the Commons; and, the Commons having agreed to this amendment, the bill passed both Houses, June 1st, and waited only the King's assent. It was intended that the assembly should meet the next month.

The King had other things to do at that moment than assent to a bill for an assembly of divines. He was at York, gathering his forces for the civil war; and by the time when it was expected the assembly should have been at work the civil war had begun. Nevertheless, the Parliament persevered in their design. Twice again, while the war was in its first stage, bills were introduced to the same effect as that which had been stopped. Bill the second for calling an assembly of divines was in October, and bill the third in December, 1642. In these bills the two houses kept to the one hundred sixteen divines agreed upon under the first bill, with--as far as I have been able to trace the matter through their journals--only one deletion, two substitutions, and three proposed additions.

Still, by the stress of the war, the assembly was postponed. At last, hopeless of a bill that should pass in the regular way by the King's consent, the houses resorted, in this as in other things, to their peremptory plan of ordinance by their own authority. On May 13, 1643, an ordinance for calling an assembly was introduced in the Commons; which ordinance, after due going and coming between the two Houses, came to maturity June 12th, when it was entered at full length in the Lords Journals. "Whereas, among the infinite blessings of Almighty God upon this nation"--so runs the preamble of the ordinance--"none is, or can be, more dear to us than the purity of our religion; and forasmuch as many things yet remain in the discipline, liturgy, and government of the Church which necessarily require a more perfect reformation: and whereas it has been declared and resolved, by the Lords and Commons assembled in parliament, that the present church government by archbishops, bishops, their chancellors, commissaries, deans, deans and chapters, arch-deacons, and other ecclesiastical officers depending on the hierarchy, is evil, and justly offensive and burdensome to the kingdom, and a great impediment to reformation and growth of religion, and very prejudicial to the state and government of this kingdom, and that therefore they are resolved the same shall be taken away, and that such a government shall be settled in the Church as may be agreeable to God's Holy Word, and most apt to procure and preserve the peace of the Church at home, and nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other reformed churches abroad. Be it therefore ordained," etc.

What is ordained is that one hundred forty-nine persons, enumerated by name in the ordinance--ten of them being members of the Lords House, twenty members of the Commons House, and the other one hundred nineteen mainly the divines that had already been fixed upon, most of them a year before--shall meet on July 1st next in King Henry VII's chapel at Westminster; and that these persons, and such others as shall be added to them by Parliament from time to time, shall have power to continue their sittings as long as Parliament may see fit, and "to confer and treat among themselves of _such matters and things_ concerning the liturgy, discipline, and government of the Church of England, or the vindicating and clearing of the doctrine of the same from all false aspersions and misconstructions, _as shall be proposed by either or both houses of Parliament, and no other_." The words in Italics are important. The assembly was not to be an independent national council ranging at its will and settling things by its own authority. It was to be a body advising Parliament on matters referred to it, and on these alone, and its conclusions were to have no validity until they should be reported to Parliament and confirmed there.

Forty members of the assembly were to constitute a quorum, and the proceedings were not to be divulged without consent of Parliament. Four shillings a day were to be allowed to each clerical member for his expenses, with immunity for non-residence in his parish or any neglect of his ordinary duties that might be entailed by his presence at Westminster. William Twisse, D.D., of Newbury, was to be prolocutor, or chairman, of the assembly; and he was to have two "assessors," to supply his place in case of necessary absence. There were to be two "scribes," who should be divines, but not members of the assembly, to take minutes of the proceedings.

Every member of the assembly, on his first entrance, was to make solemn protestation that he would not maintain anything but what he believed to be the truth; no resolution on any question was to be come to on the same day on which it was first propounded; whatever any speaker maintained to be necessary he was to prove out of the Scriptures; all decisions of the major part of the assembly were to be reported to Parliament as the decisions of the assembly; but the dissents of individual members were to be duly registered, if they required it, and also reported to Parliament. The Lords wanted to regulate also that no long speeches should be permitted in the assembly, so that matters might not be carried by "impertinent flourishes"; but the Commons, for reasons that are not far to seek, did not agree to this regulation.

Notwithstanding a royal proclamation from Oxford, dated June 22d, forbidding the assembly and threatening consequences, the first meeting duly took place on the day appointed--Saturday, July 1, 1643; and from that date till February 22, 1648-1649, or for more than five years and a half, the Westminster Assembly is to be borne in mind as a power of institution in the English realm, existing side by side with the Long Parliament, and in constant conference and coöperation with it. The number of its sittings during these five years and a half was one thousand one hundred sixty-three in all; which is at the rate of about four sittings every week for the whole time. The earliest years of the assembly were the most important. All in all, it was an assembly which left remarkable and permanent effects in the British islands, and the history of which ought to be more interesting, in some homely respects, to Britons now, than the history of the Council of Basel, the Council of Trent, or any other of the great ecclesiastical councils, more ancient and ecumenical, about which we hear so much.

Such was the famous Westminster Assembly, called together by the Parliament of England to consider the entire state of the country in matters of religion. The business intrusted to it was vast and complex. It was to revise and redefine the national creed, after its long lapse into so-called Arminianism and semi-popish error, and to advise also as to the new system of church government and the new forms of worship that should come in place of rejected episcopacy and the condemned liturgy. For it was still, be it remembered, the universal notion among English politicians that there must be a national church, and that no man, woman, or child within the land should be permitted to be out of the pale of that church. It was still the notion that it was possible to frame a certain number of propositions respecting God, heaven, angels, hell, devils, the creation of the universe, the soul of man, sin and its remedy, a life beyond death, and all the other most tremendous subjects of human contemplation, that should be absolutely true, or at least so just and sure a compendium of truth that the nation must be tied up to it, and it would be wrong to allow any man, woman, or child, subject to the law of England, to be astray from it in any item. This was the notion, and those one hundred forty-nine persons were appointed to frame the all-important propositions, or find them out by a due revision of the old articles, and to report to Parliament on that subject, as well as on the subjects of church organization and forms of worship.

The appointment, among the original one hundred forty-nine or one hundred fifty members of assembly, of such persons as Archbishop Usher, Bishops Brownrigge and Westfield, Featley, Hacket, Hammond, Holdsworth, Morley, Nicolson, Saunderson, and Samuel Ward--all of them defenders of an episcopacy of some kind--seems hardly reconcilable with the very terms of the ordinance calling the assembly. That ordinance implied that episcopacy was condemned and done with, and it convoked the assembly for the express purpose of considering, among other things, what should be put in its stead. It may have been thought, however, that it would impart a more liberal and eclectic character to the assembly to send a sprinkling of known Anglicans into it; or it may have been thought right to give some of the most respected of these an opportunity of retrieving themselves by acquiescing in what they could not prevent. As it chanced, however, the refusal of most of these to appear in the assembly at all, and the all but immediate dropping-off of the one or two who did appear at first, saved the assembly much trouble. It became thus a compact body, fit for its work, and in the main of one mind and way of thinking on some of the problems submitted to it.

In respect of theological doctrine, for example, the assembly, as it was then left, was practically unanimous. They were, almost to a man, Calvinists, or anti-Arminians, pledged by their antecedents to such a revision of the articles as should make the national creed more distinctly Calvinistic than before. Moreover, they were agreed as to their method for determining doctrine. It was to be the rigid application of the Protestant principle that the Bible is the sole rule of faith. The careful interpretation of Scripture--_i.e._, the collecting on any occasion of discussion of all the texts in the Old and New Testaments bearing on the point discussed, and the examination of these texts singly and in their connection and in the original tongues when necessary, so as to ascertain their exact sense--this was the understood rule with them all. Learning was, indeed, in demand, and the chief scholars, especially the chief Hebraists and rabbinists, of the assembly, were much looked up to: there might be references also to the fathers and to councils; no kind of historical lore but would be welcome: only all must subserve the one purpose of interpreting Scripture; and fathers, councils, and whatnot, could be cited, not as authorities, but only as witnesses. This understanding as to the determination of doctrine by the Bible alone, accompanied as it was by a nearly unanimous preconviction that it was the Calvinistic body of doctrines alone that could be reasoned out of the Bible, was to keep the assembly, I repeat, pretty much together from the first in matters of creed and theology. For perplexing questions as to the extent and limits of the inspiration of the Bible had not yet publicly arisen to invalidate the accepted method.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Alexander Henderson, the Scottish ecclesiastic and diplomatist, was at this time most prominent among the Presbyterian leaders.

MASANIELLO'S REVOLT AT NAPLES

A.D. 1647

ALFRED VON REUMONT

Among the various popular insurrections of which Naples has
been the scene, the most memorable in violence and in effective
results is that which Masaniello headed. Naples, with Sicily,
was then subject to Spain, and a Spanish viceroy governed
there. Popular discontent had already shown itself in tumults.
These were provoked by various acts of oppression, but
especially by burdensome taxation and the draining of the
province of men for the Spanish service.

At the same time Naples was subject to French intrigue. It was
the aim of Cardinal Mazarin, the successor of Richelieu as
prime minister of France, to seize the rich Spanish
possessions, Naples and Sicily. He foresaw the coming
insurrection, and prepared to take advantage of it. Although
his schemes added to the Neapolitan complications, he was not
to profit by them as he hoped.

Finally, in Naples the half-smothered spirit of revolt broke
out when Spain imposed a duty on fruits, raising the cost of
productions upon which the majority of the people depended for
subsistence.

Reumont, whose mastery in the field of Italian history is well
known, brings out in full light the circumstances and
consequences of Masaniello's rising.

In May, 1647, a rebellion broke out in Palermo among the lower class of people, which the viceroy, Don Pedro Fajardo Marquis de Los Veles, was not in a condition to resist. The constant increase of the taxes on articles of food, which, especially in the manner in which they were then raised, were the most felt and the most burdensome kind of taxation for the people, excited a tumult which lasted for many months, occasioned serious dissensions between the nobility and the people, and was only subdued by a mixture of firmness and clemency on the part of the Cardinal Trivulzio, the successor of Los Veles. The news of the disturbances in Sicily reached Naples, when everything there was ripe for an insurrection, which had for a long time been fermenting, and agitating men's minds.

On all sides the threatening indications increased. Notices posted upon the walls announced that the people of Naples would follow the example of the inhabitants of Palermo if the _gabelles_ were not taken off, especially the fruit tax, which pressed the hardest upon the populace; the better the season was, the more the poor felt themselves debarred from the enjoyment of a cheap and cooling food. The Viceroy was stopped by a troop of people as he was going to mass at the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine; he extricated himself from his difficulty as well as he could, laid the blame on the nobility who had ordered the tax, and promised what he never intended to perform. The associations of nobles assembled, but they could not agree. Some were of opinion that the tax should be kept, because the change would interfere with their pecuniary interests; others because the money asked for by the government could not otherwise be procured.

Notwithstanding these unfavorable circumstances the Duke of Arcos, the Spanish Viceroy of Naples, allowed most of the Spanish and German troops to march into Lombardy; he was deliberating how to meet the attack of the French in the North of Italy without considering that he was stripping the country of armed forces at a moment when the continuance of the Spanish rule was more than ever in jeopardy.

On the great market-place at Naples, the scene of so many tragedies and so many disturbances, stood a miserable cottage, with nothing to distinguish it from the others but the name and arms of Charles V, which were placed on the front wall. Here a poor fisherman lived, Tommaso Aniello, generally called by the abbreviated name of Masaniello. His father, Francesco or Cicco, came from the coast of Amalfi, and had married in 1620 Antonia Gargano, a Neapolitan woman.

In the Vico Rotto, by the great market, which is only inhabited by the poorest people, and where the pestilence began in the year 1656, four months later, the son was born who was destined to act so remarkable a part. Tommaso Aniello was baptized in the parish church of Sta. Catherina in Foro on June 20, 1620. On April 25, 1641, he married Bernardina Pisa, a maiden from the neighborhood of that town. Their poverty was so great that often Masaniello could not even follow up his trade of a fisherman, but earned a scanty livelihood by selling paper for the fish to be carried in. He was of middle height, well made and active; his brilliant dark, black eyes and his sunburnt face contrasted singularly with his long, curly, fair hair hanging down his back. Thus his cheerful, lively conversation agreed but little with his grave countenance. His dress was that of a fisherman, but as he is, in general, considered a remarkable person--whatever may be thought of the part he performed--so he understood, in spite of the meanness of his attire, by his arrangement and his choice of colors, to give it a peculiarity that stamped it in the memory of his contemporaries. The life of this remarkable man--a nine-days' history--clearly shows us that he possessed wonderful presence of mind and a spirit that knew not fear.

It happened, once, in the midst of the discontent which was everywhere excited by the exorbitant increase of taxation, that Masaniello's wife was detained by the keepers of the gate while she was endeavoring to creep into the town with a bundle of flour done up in cloths to look like a child in swaddling-clothes. She was imprisoned, and her husband, who loved her much, only succeeded in obtaining her liberation after eight days. Almost the whole of his miserable goods went to pay the fine which had been imposed upon her. Thus hatred was smouldering in the mind of Masaniello, and the flame was stirred when he--it is not known how--quarrelled with the Duke of Maddaloni's people and was ill used by them in an unusual manner. Then the idea seems to have occurred to him to avenge himself by the aid of the people.

Many have related that instigators were not wanting. Giulio Genuino is named, formerly the favorite of the Duke of Ossuna, who, after he had encountered the strangest fate, and after wearing the chain of a galley slave at Oran on the coast of Barbary, had returned an aged man, in the habit of an ecclesiastic to his native country, meditating upon new intrigues as the old ones had failed; also a captain of banditti and a lay brother of the Carmine, who gave Masaniello money, were among the conspirators. Perhaps all this was only an attempt to explain the extraordinary fact. This much only is known with certainty, that Masaniello sought to collect a troop of boys and young people, who, among the numerous vagrant population, thronged the market and its neighborhood from the adjacent districts, as whose leader he intended to appear, as had often been done before, at the feast of the Madonna of Carmel, which takes place in the middle of July.

At that festival it was the custom to build a castle of wood and canvas in the middle of the market-place, close to which, as already has been described, was the church and convent of the Carmelites, and this castle was besieged and defended by troops of the people. The great mass of the assailants was formed out of a band of lads of the lowest class, about four hundred in number, who painted the greatest part of their bodies and their faces black and red; their tattered clothes gave them an oriental appearance. They were armed with sticks, and called the company of the Alarbes, perhaps an Arabian name. They were drilled by Masaniello, and considered him as their chief.

It is easy to conceive how ill the people spoke of the tax-gatherers, who, by their severity and roughness in their daily treatment, kept up perpetual quarrels and ill-will with the equally rough populace, who therefore tried to deceive them. On one beautiful summer night the custom-house in the great market-place flew up into the air. A quantity of powder had been conveyed into it by unknown hands, and in the morning nothing remained but the blackened ruins. It had been intended by this action to oblige the Viceroy to take off the taxes; but, without loss of time, in an opposite building, a new custom-house was established. The collectors were only the more angry and unmerciful, and every day seemed to bring the outbreak nearer.

Thus the morning of July 7, 1647, approached. It was Sunday, and a number of fruit-sellers, with carts and donkeys and full baskets, came into the town very early from Pozzuoli, and went as usual to the great market. Scarcely had they reached it when the dispute began. The question was not so much whether the tax should be paid, as who was to pay it. The men of Pozzuoli maintained that the Neapolitan dealers in fruit were to pay five _carlins_ on a hundredweight; the others said it was not their business: thus the disturbance began.

Some respectable people who foresaw the evil hastened to the Viceroy, who commissioned Andrea Naclerio, the deputy of the people, to go immediately to the market-place and restore peace. Naclerio was getting into a boat to sail to Posilipo, where he intended to spend the day with his colleagues belonging to the association of nobles, when he received the order. He turned back, coasted along the shore of the Marinella, and got out by the tanner's gate, near the fort which takes its name from the church of the Carmelites. Here a different Sunday scene awaited him from that which he had promised himself in the fragrant and shady gardens.

The market was filled with riotous people, and the uproar was so much the worse because Masaniello, with his troop of Alarbes, had met them in the morning for a grand review. The people of Pozzuoli, of bad fame since the days of Don Pedro de Toledo, quarrelled and protested; the Neapolitans were not a whit behind them in fluency of speech. The tax-gatherers would listen to no remonstrances and insisted upon the payment.

Andrea Naclerio tried in all ways to obtain a hearing and to appease the tumult. He said to the Pozzuolans that they ought to pay, that the money would be returned to them. They would not. He demanded to have the fruit weighed; he would pay the tax out of his own purse: this also they refused. The tax-gatherers and _sbirri_ now lost all patience. They fetched the great scales, and wanted to weigh the fruit by force. Then the venders pushed down the baskets, so that the fruit rolled along the ground, and called out to the people: "Take what you can get, and taste it; it is the last time that we shall come here to the market."

From all sides boys and men flung themselves upon the baskets and the fruit. The signal was given for an insurrection. The tax-gatherers drove the people back; the people made use of the fruit as their weapons. Andrea Naclerio rushed into the thickest of the crowd; the captain of the sbirri and some of the respectable inhabitants of the adjacent tan quarter hastened hither, and bore him in their arms out of the knot of men who in one moment had increased to a large mass; for idle people had flocked thither from the neighboring street, from the dirty and populous Lavinaro, as well as from the coast. The deputy was rejoiced to reach his boat, and made the rowers ply vigorously that he might bring the noise of the tumult to the palace. But the populace proceeded from fruit to stones, put to flight the tax-gatherers and sbirri, crowded into the custom-house, destroyed the table and chairs, set fire to the ruins as well as the account-books, so that soon a bright flame rose up amid the loud rejoicings of the bystanders.

Meanwhile Andrea Naclerio had reached the palace. He related the whole proceeding to the Viceroy, and pointed out to him at the same time that only the abolition of the fruit tax could appease the people. The Duke of Arcos resolved to try mildness. Two men of illustrious birth, who were more beloved by the crowd than the others, Tiberio Carafa, Prince of Bisignano, and Ettore Ravaschieri, Prince of Satriano, repaired to the market-place as peacemakers. Naclerio was not satisfied with this; he feared that Don Tiberio would, in his kindness, promise more than could be performed, and so only make matters worse. What he had foreseen happened. When Bisignano reached the market and found the crowd still wild with rage, he announced that the Viceroy would not only abolish the fruit tax, but all the other gabelles: they might make merry and be satisfied.

The rioters listened. A promise from the viceroy of the abolition of all the gabelles--that was worth hearing. Masaniello had kept quiet during the assault upon the deputy and tax-gatherers, and to a certain degree had acted as mediator. "Now," he exclaimed, "we will march to the palace." The great mass of the people followed him; another troop surrounded Bisignano, who would gladly have freed himself from his wild escort, and trotted his horse when he came to the King's gate; but they soon reached him again, and so much forgot the respect due to his rank that they laid their hands on him and compelled him to accompany them to San Lorenzo, the residence of the superior town magistrate.

Arrived here, they cried out for the privileges of Charles V, an idea instilled into them by Giulio Genuino, who, disguised and with a long beard, made one of the procession, and was the soul of all the intrigues that were hidden under the wild impulses of the masses. Don Tiberio Carafa esteemed himself fortunate to escape from his oppressors; he crept into a cell and went to Castelnuovo, from whence he repaired to Rome, so exhausted from the scene he had witnessed that he died mad not long afterward.

Meanwhile, the far more numerous band was on its way to the palace. Drummers marched in advance. Masaniello had mounted a horse and held up a banner, some of his followers were provided with sticks, and others armed with poles. They had, in their haste, seized upon any implements that they could find; numerous lads, old guards of the leader, accompanied the strange procession. Whistling and making a blustering noise, most of them in rags and barefooted--a genuine mob, who soon became aware how much was left to their will and discretion. The Duke was in the palace, and with him many of the nobles belonging to the town, who advised him to strengthen his Spanish guard immediately, but he would not, whether from fear of irritating the people, or because he did not consider the danger so imminent. The grand master of the horse, Don Carlo Caracciolo, with Don Luis Ponce de Leone, a cousin of the Viceroy's, and governor of the vicarial court, were standing on one of the balconies at the moment when the crowd reached the square before the palace, and Masaniello, waving his banner three times before the guard, called out, "Long life to the King of Spain! Down with the gabelles!"--a cry which was repeated by thousands of the people.

Caracciolo went down and began to talk to the people. They remained standing; they complained of the oppressive taxes; they complained of the bad bread; they held him out pieces of it; he might judge himself whether it was food for men or dogs. They urged upon all the deposition of the _Eletto_, on whom, as usual, the blame was laid that things were not more prosperous.

At first affairs went on tolerably well. With great dexterity Don Carlo kept the crowd away from the entrances, while he corresponded by means of his vassals with the Viceroy, who consented to Naclerio's deposition--to the abolition of the duties on fruit and on wine. Now the audacity of the crowd increased. Why not ask for more when everything was granted to them? The flour tax also! Caracciolo objected; things could not go on so. But in the same moment new masses of many thousand men crowded into the square, uttering wild noises. The negotiator was obliged to give way, and had only time to inform the Viceroy that he might withdraw into Castelnuovo.

When the people found the outer gate of the palace unguarded, they rushed into the court and forced their way up the great stairs. At the end of it, at the entrance of the hall, stood the German bodyguard. They crossed their halberds to ward off the crowd, but the pressure was too violent. After a short struggle their arms were wrenched from them; ill-treated and bleeding, they could no longer defend the entrance against the assailants. Meanwhile the Duke of Arcos had made his appearance at one of the balconies, and told the crowd in the Spanish language to compose themselves; he would do their will. But they did not understand him, and cried out that he must keep to what he had promised them by the Prince of Bisignano. The Viceroy saw that he was losing time. Already the foremost of the assailants stormed at the doors of the first saloon, which had been locked in haste. Now every moment was precious. In vain did Don Carlo Caracciolo try once more to appease the people: a blow from an iron staff wounded him in the arm, and he was hit by two stones. The doors of the first saloon fell with a loud crash to the ground. Now the crowd saw no further impediment. Everything remaining in the palace was torn asunder. The Viceroy, causing the various doors to be bolted behind him, hastened to the gallery, that he might reach the spiral staircase leading into the court-yard. Now he repented that he had not followed Caracciolo's advice, who had desired him to make his escape to the castle. Andrea Naclerio concealed himself in the apartments of the Vice-queen, let himself down by a rope into the garden, and fortunately reached the fortress. But the mob broke everything that they found in the royal apartments, the panes of the high windows clattered upon the ground, and in the midst of wild rejoicings and laughter all the valuable household furniture was flung down from the balconies into the streets, including the chairs, the great parasol of the governor of the Collateral Council, and the mangled papers of the secretary. Even the balustrades of the balconies did not escape the vandal fury of the populace, and with heavy iron poles and hammers they dashed in pieces the beautifully polished works of sculpture.

The Duke of Arcos had descended the spiral staircase, when he perceived that the bridges of the castle were already drawn up, the portcullis let down. He believed that he could save himself by crossing the square to the opposite convent of the Minimi, as he imagined that the rebels were too much occupied with plundering the palace to attend to him. But he miscalculated. Scarcely had he reached the square when he was recognized and surrounded. A knight of St. Jago, Don Antonio Taboada, was accidentally passing by; he succeeded in penetrating through the crowd to the Viceroy and lifted him into his carriage. The rescue of the Duke of Arcos turned upon a hair. One of the people, it is said Masaniello himself, wanted to thrust his sword into him, but the blow was parried by Don Emanuel Vaez. A runaway Augustinian monk seized him by the hair and screamed, "Abolish the taxes!" The carriage could not go on. The horses pranced; some of the people seized the reins; the coachman was on the ground. Then many of the nobles pressed through the crowd, making themselves a passage partly by violence, partly by fair words--the Count of Conversano, the Marquises of Torrecuso and Brienza, the Duke of Castile Airola, the prior of Rocella Carafa, Don Antonio Enriquez, and Carlo Caracciolo. The Viceroy was indebted to them for his rescue.

They surrounded the carriage with drawn swords. The rebels had already taken the harness off the horses; two noblemen took possession of it, put it on as well as they could, and Caracciolo jumped upon the coach-box, fastened in the loose horses, while the other nobles remained at the door. But there was no getting further--the cries, the uproar, the mass of men increased every instant. So few against so many--if there was any delay no exit would remain. Don Carlos' mind was quickly made up; he opened the doors of the carriage, dragged out the half-dead Viceroy, seized him by the arm, while the rest of the nobles surrounded them, raising high their swords and warding off the pressure of the mob. With the cry, "Make room for the King!" they got through the crowd.

Thus they reached the gates of the convent; it was shut up. The populace yelled and threatened the monks with a thousand maledictions if they opened it. The general and the provincial of the order were present, both Spaniards. They ordered the gate to be half opened to admit the Viceroy. Thus it was accomplished. Caracciolo gave the Duke a push, and he was saved. But the noblemen to whom he was indebted for his safety remained without, exposed to the fury of the mob, now become so much the more savage as they saw that their victim had escaped. Carlo Caracciolo saved himself with difficulty. A stone wounded the Marquis of Brienza in the neck. The people tried to break open the gates of the convent, which the monks had barricaded in haste. "Long life to the King of Spain! Down with the bad government!" This was the cry, echoed from a thousand voices. The Duke of Arcos showed himself at the window--he repeated that he would grant what was desired--he threw down a declaration signed by himself. Nothing was of any avail. The rebels tried to get into the convent through the church; they threatened to drag the Viceroy to the market. The alarm spread through the town.

The night came--what a night! A hundred thousand men marched with loud cries through the town. The churches were open, and resounded with prayers for the restoration of peace. The Theatines and Jesuits left their convents and arranged themselves in processions, singing litanies to the Madonna and the saints, but the _Ora pro nobis_ was overpowered by the fury of the crowd. Although the first forced their way down the Toledo to the palace, and the others penetrated to the great market-place, they were obliged nevertheless to withdraw without having accomplished their object. All the highwaymen and murderers, of which Naples was full, left their hiding-places.

The first thing done was to break open the prisons and set the prisoners at liberty--all, excepting those confined in the prisons of the vicarial court, for the castle of Capuano inspired the rebels with respect, whether because of a very large imperial eagle of Charles V fixed over the portal, or because the garrison of the old fortress, together with the sbirri, stood with lighted matches behind the crossbars, and threatened the assailants with a bloody welcome.

The prisoners in the vicarial court now sought to set themselves free, and began by destroying the crossbars with heavy beams; but some shots, which laid two of them dead on the ground, warned them to desist from their attempt. All the other prisons were cleared, and the archives and everything that could be found in them was burned; the toll-booths throughout the town were demolished. The mob went from one gate to another. Everywhere the toll-gatherers had escaped--nobody thought of making any resistance, and as there were no more prisons to be broken open, no more custom-houses to be destroyed, the populace began to attack the houses of those who they knew had, by farming tolls or in any other way, become rich at the expense of the people. There was no mention of defence--the proprietors were glad to save their bare lives. Many rewarded with gold the services of the rowers who conveyed them to a villa at Posilipo or to any other place beyond the town.

But the houses were emptied; first that of the cashier of taxes, Alphonso Vagliano. Beautiful household furniture, plate, pictures, everything that could be found was dragged into the streets, thrown together in a heap and burned; and when one of the people wanted to conceal a jewel, he was violently upbraided by the rest.

Hitherto but few, comparatively, of the rebels had been armed; they felt this deficiency and wanted to procure themselves arms and artillery. With this view they attacked the convent and belfry of San Lorenzo, but the small Spanish garrison received them with sharp firing, and they were obliged to retire; they only committed the more acts of wanton cruelty. The most fearful confusion prevailed; first in one place and then in another the sky was red with the conflagration. Suddenly a lurid light illumined the towers and projecting buildings. The market-place was the principal quarter of the insurgents, who still wanted a leader. There, toward midnight, four men, masked, wearing the habit of one of the holy brotherhoods, entered a circle of men composed of the dregs of the populace--among them was Masaniello. Giulio Genuino, one of the four men, took off his mask. He had excited and fanned the flame the whole day, and now he sought, in the darkness of the night, to complete what he had begun.

They had done right, he said, to let the King of Spain live, for it was not a question of taking the crown of Spain off his head, but to put an end to the oppression of the people by his covetous ministers. They must not rest till they had obtained this; but to obtain it, it was necessary above all things to procure themselves arms, and, by the choice of a leader, to give union and steadiness to their undertaking. They all agreed with him, and that very same night they followed his advice and provided themselves with arms. They stormed the shops of the sword-cutlers, and took possession of five pieces of light artillery belonging to the proprietor of a ship, and even during this first night the name of Masaniello passed from mouth to mouth.

The morning came, but it brought neither assistance nor repose. When the day dawned there was a beating of drums, a ringing of bells, and country people pouring in from all sides. The discontented vassals of the barons in the neighborhood, the banditti, and vagabonds of all kinds increased the masses of the populace of the capital, who were augmented by troops of horrible women, and children more than half naked, making the most dreadful uproar. Arms of all kinds were in the hands of the insurgents; some of them made use of household and agricultural implements both for attack and defence. Unfortunately, various powder-magazines fell into their hands.

At Little Molo they stormed a house in which ammunition had been placed; it caught fire and blew up; about forty persons were killed and double the number wounded, most of them severely. The exasperation only increased. It was soon observed that it was not blind fury alone which conducted the rebellion--clever management was evident. The Count of Monterey had given the people a sort of military constitution, as he divided them into companies according to the quarters of the town, which resembled those _Hermandades_ which the Archbishop of Tortosa, afterward Pope Adrian VI, formed in the time of Charles V in Spain, and that afterward caused an insurrection of the Communeros. This practice in the forms of war was now of use to the insurgents, and when on the second morning some of the working classes and mechanics, and persons indeed that belonged to a higher class of citizens, joined themselves to the actual mob, thinking to obtain a better government in consequence of the insurrection, the danger increased. The two principal leaders were Domenico Perrone, formerly a captain of sbirri, and Masaniello, whom the people about the market-place and the Lavinaro and its vicinity had chosen: but Giulio Genuino conducted the whole affair by his counsel.

A formal council of war was held in Castelnuovo. The Viceroy was quite aware that the utmost he could do with his few troops would be to defend these fortresses of the town against the people, but that he could not subdue them. He was, moreover, reluctant to make use of fire-arms, as the insurgents proclaimed aloud everywhere their loyalty to the King. So he resolved to open a negotiation, to regain his lost ground, or at least to gain time.

The Duke of Arcos has been accused of having, even in these early moments, conceived the plan to push the nobles forward, with the view to make them more hateful than ever to the populace, and thus to annihilate their influence completely, a policy that was so much the more knavish the more faithfully the nobles had stood by him during these last eventful twenty-four hours, at the peril of their own lives. Whatever his plan may have been, the result was the same; whether the idea proceeded from the Duke of Arcos, or his successor, the Count of Onate, the insurrection of 1647 caused the ruin of the aristocracy.

The Prince of Montesarchio was the first whom the Viceroy sent as a messenger of peace. The name of D'Avalos was through Pescara and Del Vasto closely associated with the warlike fame of the times of Charles V. His reputation had been brilliant from the period of the Moorish wars until now. Great possessions secured him great influence in many parts of the kingdom. Montesarchio rode to the market-place provided with a written promise of the Viceroy's touching the abolition of the taxes. He took an oath in the church of the Carmelites that the promise should be kept; the people refused to believe him. Then the Duke of Arcos resolved upon sending others. The general of the Franciscans, Fra Giovanni Mistanza, who was in the castle, directed his attention to the Duke of Maddaloni.

Diomed Carafa had been for some time again a prisoner in Castelnuovo. Transactions with the banditti and arbitrary conduct toward the people had brought him to captivity, which was shared by his brother Don Giuseppe. For what reason he was selected for this work of peace, who had so heavily oppressed the lower classes, and had committed such acts of violence that he had the credit of being the leader of the most licentious cavaliers, is uncertain. It was said to be because he, as a patrician of the Seggio del Nido, had most counteracted the mischief of the tax, and therefore the populace was better inclined toward him than the members of the other _sedeles_.

But others said, and indeed with more justice, that the acquaintance which he had with Domenico Perrone was the real cause of it; for this man had been first a leader of sbirri and then of banditti, and Diomed Carafa had had a great deal to do with both. However this might be, the Viceroy summoned him: he was to go to the great market-place and try to conclude a peace with the leaders of the people. There should be no further mention of his crimes or of punishment: Don Giuseppe Carafa was also received again into favor.

The Duke mounted his horse and rode with several noblemen to the market-place. Arrived there, he employed all his eloquence. In the name of the Viceroy he promised free trade in all articles of food, and a general pardon. At first Maddaloni was well received. He was but too well known to many of the insurgents, and his mad conduct had procured him followers as well as enemies; but as he only repeated the same promises which had been made by the others, the crowd were out of humor. "No deceitful promises!" screamed a thousand voices; "the privileges, the privileges of Charles V."

These privileges had long possessed the minds of the people. During the disturbances under the Duke of Ossuna many fabulous tales had been told about them. Genuino had then, as now, brought them forward. Not only freedom from taxes was contained in them, but an equality of power between the people and the nobility in the affairs of the town, by increasing the votes of the first, and by conceding a right of veto on resolutions affecting the people through the intervention of their deputies. This privilege they would have. This the Viceroy should confirm to them. They all screamed at the same time, but at last Maddaloni obtained a hearing. He promised to bring them the document--he would ask the Viceroy for it without delay. He was glad to escape the crowd, who prevented either himself or his horse from moving.

Negotiations for peace could not check the fury of the people or its mania for destruction. As on the day before they had demolished the custom-houses, now the houses of all who had lately become rich were destroyed. They had already begun on the previous evening, but this was only a prelude. Masaniello, who had not left the market-place the whole day, drew up a catalogue, in concert with his associates, of all the houses and palaces the effects of which were to be destroyed. Many noblemen who believed that they might have some influence with the mob, had ridden and driven to the market-place, but they returned home without accomplishing anything, or went again to Castelnuovo, where numbers of them took refuge from the pressure of necessity.

In the evening the flames burst forth in all parts of the town; much valuable property was sacrificed amid the rejoicings of the frantic populace, who screamed: "That is our blood; so may those burn in hell who have sucked it out of us!" As on Sunday the Jesuits and Theatines, now the Dominicans tried to appease the people. Their long processions were to be seen in the square of the obelisk, moving on to the houses of Sangro, Saluzzo, and Carafa, with burning torches; but the populace interrupted their prayers and litanies with angry words and many reproaches, and sent them home. Till late in the night the brilliantly lighted churches were filled with agonized supplicants.

Early on the morning of July 9th, a more dreadful scene took place than on either of the earlier days. The destruction began at daybreak. All the property of the counsellor Antonio Miroballo, in the Borgo de' Vergini, was burning before his palace. Andrea Naclerio had caused the best furniture to be removed. The people traced it, destroyed it, dashed to pieces everything in the house and in the adjoining beautiful garden. At Alphonso Valenzano's everything that he possessed was ruined. In a place of concealment two small casks were found full of sequins, a box containing precious pearls, and a small packet of bills of exchange--it was all thrown into the fire. All the rich and noble persons who were concerned in the farming of tolls, as well as all members of the government, saw their houses demolished. Five palaces of the secretary-general of the kingdom, the Duke of Caivano, together with those of his sons, were burned. In one of them at Santa Chiara the valuable pictures which that noble, a lover of the fine arts, had collected, were destroyed--the carpets of silk-stuff interwoven with gold, the sumptuous silver vessels, and every sort of work of art, the worth of which was valued at more than fifty thousand ducats. The mob had already become so brutal that they stabbed the beautiful horses in their stalls and threw the lapdogs into the flames, while they trampled down the rare plants in the gardens and heaped up the trees for funeral piles. Above forty palaces and houses were consumed by the flames on this day, or were razed to the ground, while the unhappy possessors looked on from the forts and watchtowers of Castelnuovo upon the rapid conflagration, heard the threatening of the alarm-bells and drums, and the howlings of the unbridled populace, among which many thieves were pursuing their business and filling their pockets with plunder. News came out of the neighborhood that the peasants were rising on all sides, and that many beautiful castles belonging to illustrious noblemen were already in flames.