A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon Part 11

"He repulsed the English by driving them to the Isle of Re, and by besieging La Roch.e.l.le; the Spaniards, by creating beside them the new kingdom of Portugal; and the imperialists, by detaching Bavaria from its alliance, by suspending their treaty with Denmark, and by sowing dissensions in the Catholic league. His measures were cruel, but not uncalled for. Chalais fell, but he had conspired with Lorraine and Spain; Montmorency fell, but he had entered France with arms in his hand; Cinq-Mars fell, but he had invited foreigners into the kingdom.

Bred a simple priest, he became not only a great statesman, but a great general. And when La Roch.e.l.le fell before those measures to which Schomberg and Ba.s.sompierre were compelled to bow, he said to the king, 'Sire, I am no prophet, but I a.s.sure your majesty that if you will condescend to act as I advise you, you will pacificate Italy in the month of May, subjugate Languedoc in the month of July, and be on your return in the month of August.' And each of these prophecies he accomplished in its time and place, and in such wise that, from that moment, Louis XIII. vowed to follow forever the counsels of a man by which he had so well profited. Finally, he died, as Montesquieu a.s.serts, after having made the monarch enact the secondary character in the monarchy, but the first in Europe; after having abased the king, but after having made his reign ill.u.s.trious; and after having mowed down rebellion so close to the soil, that the descendants of those who had composed the league could only form the Fronde, as, after the reign of Napoleon, the successors of the La Vendee of '93 could only execute the Vendee of '32."

Louis XIII. did not long survive this greatest of ministers. Naturally weak, he was still weaker by disease. He was reduced to skin and bone.

In this state, he called a council, nominated his queen, Anne of Austria, regent, during the minority of his son Louis XIV., then four years of age, and shortly after died, in 1643.

[Sidenote: Richelieu's Policy.]

Mazarin, the new minister, followed out the policy of Richelieu. The war with Austria and Spain was continued, which was closed, on the Spanish side, by the victory of Rocroi, in 1643, obtained by the Prince of Conde, and in which battle twenty-three thousand Frenchmen completely routed twenty-six thousand Spaniards, killing eight thousand, and taking six thousand prisoners--one of the bloodiest battles ever fought. The great Conde here obtained those laurels which subsequent disgrace could never take away. The war on the side of Germany was closed, in 1648, by the peace of Westphalia. Turenne first appeared in the latter campaign of this long war, but gained no signal victory.

Cardinal Mazarin, a subtle and intriguing Italian, while he pursued the policy of Richelieu, had not his genius or success. He was soon involved in domestic troubles. The aristocracy rebelled. Had they been united, they would have succeeded; but their rivalries, jealousies, and squabbles divided their strength and distracted their councils.

Their cause was lost, and Mazarin triumphed, more from their divisions than from his own strength.

He first had to oppose a clique of young n.o.bles, full of arrogance and self-conceit, but scions of the greatest families. They hoped to recover the ancient ascendency of their houses. The chief of these were the Dukes of Beaufort, epernon, and Guise. They made use, as their tool, of Madame Chevreuse, the confidential friend of the queen regent. And she demanded of the minister that posts of honor and power should be given to her friends, which would secure that independence which Richelieu had spent his life in restraining. Mazarin tried to amuse her, but, she being inexorable, he was obliged to break with her, and a conspiracy was the result, which, however, was easily suppressed.

[Sidenote: Cardinal de Retz.]

But a more formidable enemy appeared in the person of De Retz, coadjutor archbishop of Paris, and afterwards cardinal, a man of boundless intrigue, unconquerable ambition, and restless discontent.

To detail his plots and intrigues, would be to describe a labyrinth.

He succeeded, however, in keeping the country in perpetual turmoil, now inflaming the minds of the people, then exciting insurrections among the n.o.bles, and then, again, encouraging the parliaments in resistance. He never appeared as an actor, but every movement was directed by his genius. He did not escape suspicion, but committed no overt acts by which he could be punished. He and the celebrated d.u.c.h.ess de Longueville, a woman who had as great a talent for intrigue as himself, were the life and soul of the Fronde--a civil war which ended only in the reestablishment of the monarchy on a firmer foundation. As the Fronde had been commenced by a troop of urchins, who, at the same time, amused themselves with slings, the wits of the court called the insurgents _frondeurs_, or slingers, insinuating that their force was trifling, and their aim mischief.

[Sidenote: Prince of Conde.]

Nevertheless, the Frondeurs kept France in a state of anarchy for six years, and they were headed by some of the most powerful n.o.bles, and even supported by the Parliament of Paris. The people, too, were on the side of the rebels, since they were ground down by taxation, and hoped to gain a relief from their troubles. But the rebels took the side of the oppressed only for their private advantage, and the parliament itself lacked the perseverance and intrepidity necessary to secure its liberty. The civil war of the Fronde, though headed by discontented n.o.bles, and animated by the intrigues of a turbulent ecclesiastic, was really the contest between the parliament and the arbitrary power of the government. And the insurrection would have been fearful and successful, had the people been firm or the n.o.bles faithful to the cause they defended. But the English Revolution, then in progress, and in which a king had been executed, shocked the lovers of const.i.tutional liberty in France, and reacted then, even as the French Revolution afterwards reacted on the English mind. Moreover, the excesses which the people perpetrated at Paris, alarmed the parliament and the n.o.bles who were allied with it, while it urged on the ministers to desperate courses. The prince of Conde, whose victories had given him an immortality, dallied with both parties, as his interests served. Allied with the court, he could overpower the insurgents; but allied with the insurgents, he could control the court. Sometimes he sided with the minister and sometimes with the insurgents, but in neither case unless he exercised a power and enjoyed a remuneration dangerous in any government. Both parties were jealous of him, both feared him, both hated him, both insulted him, and both courted him. At one time, he headed the royal troops to attack Paris, which was generally in the hands of the people and of parliament; and then, at another, he fought like a tiger to defend himself in Paris against the royal troops. He had no sympathy with either the parliament or the people, while he fought for them; and he venerated the throne, while he rebelled against it. His name was Louis de Bourbon, and he was a prince of the blood. He contended against the crown only to wrest from it the ancient power of the great n.o.bles; and to gain this object, he thought to make the parliament and the Parisian mob his tools. The parliament, sincerely devoted to liberty, thought to make the n.o.bles its tools, and only leagued with them to secure their services. The crafty Mazarin quietly beheld these dissensions, and was sure of ultimate success, even though at one time banished to Cologne. And, like a reed, he was ever ready to bend to difficulties he could not control. But he stooped to conquer. He at last got the Prince of Conde, his brother the Prince of Conti, and the Duke of Longueville, in his power. When the Duke of Orleans heard of it, he said, "He has taken a good haul in the net; he has taken a lion, a fox, and a monkey." But the princes escaped from the net, and, leagued with Turenne, Bouillon, La Rochefoucault, and other great n.o.bles reached Paris, and were received with acclamations of joy by the misguided people. Then, again, they obtained the ascendant. But the ascendency was no sooner gained than the victors quarrelled with themselves, and with the parliament, for whose cause they professed to contend. It was in their power, when united, to have deprived the queen regent of her authority, and to have established const.i.tutional liberty in France. But they would not unite. There was no spirit of disinterestedness, nor of patriotism, nor public virtue, without which liberty is impossible, even though there were forces enough to batter down Mount Atlas. Conde, the victor, suffered himself to be again bribed by the court. He would not persevere in his alliance with either n.o.bles or the parliament. He did not unite with the n.o.bles because he felt that he was a prince. He did not continue with the parliament, because he had no sympathy with freedom. The cause of the n.o.bles was lost for want of mutual confidence; that of the parliament for lack of the spirit of perseverance. The parliament, at length, grew weary of war and of popular commotions, and submitted to the court. All parties hated and distrusted each other, more than they did the iron despotism of Mazarin. The power of insurgent n.o.bles declined.

De Retz, the arch intriguer, was driven from Paris. The d.u.c.h.ess de Longueville sought refuge in the vale of Port Royal; and, in the Jansenist doctrines, sought that happiness which earthly grandeur could not secure. Conde quitted Paris to join the Spanish armies. The rest of the rebellious n.o.bles made humble submission. The people found they had nothing to gain from any dominant party, and resigned themselves to another long period of political and social slavery. The magistrates abandoned, in despair and disgust, their high claims to political rights, while the young king, on his bed of justice, decreed that parliament should no more presume to discuss or meddle with state affairs. The submissive parliament registered, without a murmur, the edict which gave a finis.h.i.+ng stroke to its liberties. The Fronde war was a complete failure, because all parties usurped powers which did not belong to them, and were jealous of the rights of each other. The n.o.bles wished to control the king, and the magistracy put itself forward to represent the commons, when the states general alone was the ancient and true representative of the nation, and the body to which it should have appealed. The Fronde rebellion was a failure, because it did not consult const.i.tutional forms, because it formed unnatural alliances, and because it did not throw itself upon the force of immortal principles, but sought to support itself by mere physical strength rather than by moral power, which alone is the secret and the glory of all great internal changes.

[Sidenote: Power of Mazarin.]

The return of Cardinal Mazarin to power, as the minister of Louis XIV., was the era of his grandeur. His first care was to restore the public finances; his second was to secure his personal aggrandizement. He obtained all the power which Richelieu had enjoyed, and reproved the king, and such a king as Louis XIV., as he would a schoolboy. He enriched and elevated his relatives, married them into the first families of France; and ama.s.sed a fortune of two hundred millions of livres, the largest perhaps that any subject has secured in modern times. He even aspired to the popedom; but this greatest of all human dignities, he was not permitted to obtain. A fatal malady seized him, and the physicians told him he had not two months to live.

Some days after, he was seen in his dressing-gown, among his pictures, of which he was extravagantly fond, and exclaimed, "Must I quit all these? Look at that Correggio, this Venus of t.i.tian, this incomparable deluge of Carracci. Farewell, dear pictures, that I have loved so dearly, and that have cost me so much."

[Sidenote: Death of Mazarin.]

The minister lingered awhile, and amused his last hours with cards. He expired in 1661; and no minister after him was intrusted with such great power. He died unlamented, even by his sovereign, whose throne he had preserved, and whose fortune he had repaired. He had great talents of conversation, was witty, artful, and polite. He completed the work which Richelieu began; and, at his death, his master was the most absolute monarch that ever reigned in France.

REFERENCES.--Louis XIV. et son Siecle. Miss Pardoe's History of Louis XIV. Voltaire's and James's Lives of Louis XIV.

Memoirs of Cardinal Richelieu. Memoirs of Mazarin. Memoires de Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Memoires du Duc de Saint Simon. Life of Cardinal de Retz, in which the Fronde war is well traced. Memoir of the d.u.c.h.ess de Longueville.

Lacretelle's History of France. Rankin's History of France.

Sismondi's History of France. Crowe's History, in Lardner's Cyclopedia. Rowring's History of the Huguenots. Lord Mahon's Life of the Prince of Conde. The above works are the most accessible to the American student.

CHAPTER XII.

THE REIGNS OF JAMES I. AND CHARLES I.

While the Protestants in Germany were struggling for religious liberty, and the Parliaments of France for political privileges, there was a contest going on in England for the attainment of the same great ends. With the accession of James I. a new era commences in English history, marked by the growing importance of the House of Commons, and their struggles for civil and religious liberty. The Commons had not been entirely silent during the long reign of Elizabeth, but members of them occasionally dared to a.s.sert those rights of which Englishmen are proud. The queen was particularly sensitive to any thing which pertained to her prerogative, and generally sent to the Tower any man who boldly expressed his opinion on subjects which she deemed that she and her ministers alone had the right to discuss. These forbidden subjects were those which pertained to the management of religion, to her particular courts, and to her succession to the crown. She never made an attack on what she conceived to be the const.i.tution, but only zealously defended what she considered as her own rights. And she was ever sufficiently wise to yield a point to the commons, after she had a.s.serted her power, so that concession, on her part, had all the appearance of bestowing a favor. She never pushed matters to extremity, but gave way in good time. And in this policy she showed great wisdom; so that, in spite of all her crimes and caprices, she ever retained the affections of the English people.

[Sidenote: Accession of James I.]

The son of her rival Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, ascended the throne, (1603,) under the t.i.tle of _James I._, and was the first of the Stuart kings. He had been king of Scotland under the t.i.tle of _James VI._, and had there many difficulties to contend with, chiefly in consequence of the turbulence of the n.o.bles, and the bigotry of the reformers. He was eager to take possession of his English inheritance, but was so poor that he could not begin his journey until Cecil sent him the money. He was crowned, with great ceremony, in Westminster Abbey, on the 25th of June.

The first acts of his reign were unpopular; and it was subsequently disgraced by a continual succession of political blunders. To detail these, or to mention all the acts of this king, or the events of his inglorious reign would fill a volume larger than this History.

Moreover, from this period, modern history becomes very complicated and voluminous, and all that can be attempted in this work is, an allusion to the princ.i.p.al events.

[Sidenote: The Genius of the Reign of James.]

The genius of this reign is the contest between _royal prerogative and popular freedom_. The proceedings in parliament were characterized by a spirit of boldness and resistance never before manifested, while the speeches and acts of the king were marked by an obstinate and stupid pertinacity to those privileges which absolute kings extorted from their subjects in former ages of despotism and darkness. The boldness of the Commons and the bigotry of the king led to incessant disagreement and discontent; and, finally, under Charles I., to open rupture, revolution, and strife.

The progress of this insurrection and contest furnishes one of the most important and instructive chapters in the history of society and the young student cannot make himself too familiar with details, of which our limits forbid a description.

The great Puritan contest here begins, destined not to be closed until after two revolutions, and nearly a century of anxiety, suffering, and strife. Providence raised up, during the whole of the Stuart dynasty, great patriots and statesmen, who had an eye to perceive the true interests and rights of the people, and a heart and a hand to defend them. No period and no nation have ever been more fertile in great men than England was from the accession of James I. to the abdication of James II., a period of eighty-five years. Shakspeare, Raleigh, c.o.ke, Bacon, Cecil, Selden, Pym, Wentworth, Hollis, Leighton, Taylor, Baxter, Howe, Cromwell, Hampden, Blake, Vane, Milton, Clarendon, Burnet, Shaftesbury, are some of the luminaries which have shed a light down to our own times, and will continue to s.h.i.+ne through all future ages. They were not all contemporaneous, but they all took part, more or less, on one side or the other, in the great contest of the seventeenth century. Whether statesmen, warriors, poets, or divines, they alike made their age an epoch, and their little island the moral centre of the world.

But we must first allude to some of the events of the reign of James I., before the struggle between prerogative and liberty attracted the attention of Europe.

[Sidenote: Conspiracy of Sir Walter Raleigh.]

One of the first was the conspiracy against the king, in which Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Raleigh were engaged. We lament that so great a favorite with all readers as Sir Walter Raleigh, so universal a genius, a man so learned, accomplished, and brave, should have even been suspected of a treasonable project, and without the excuse of some traitors, that they wished to deliver their country from tyranny.

But there is no perfection in man. Sir Walter was restless and ambitious, and had an eye mainly to his own advantage. His wit, gallantry, and chivalry were doubtless very pleasing qualities in a courtier, but are not the best qualities of a patriot. He was disappointed because he could not keep pace with Cecil in the favor of his sovereign, and because the king took away the monopolies he had enjoyed. Hence, in conjunction with other disappointed politicians, he was accused of an attempt to seize the king's person, to change the ministry, and to place the Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne. Against Raleigh appeared no less a person than the great c.o.ke, who prosecuted him with such vehemence that Raleigh was found guilty, and condemned to death. But the proofs of his guilt are not so clear as the evidence of his ambition; and much must be attributed to party animosity.

Though condemned, he was not executed; but lived to write many more books, and make many more voyages, to the great delight both of the cultivated and the adventurous. That there was a plot to seize the king is clear, and the conspirators were detected and executed.

Raleigh was suspected of this, and perhaps was privy to it; but the proofs of his crime were not apparent, except to the judges, and to the attorney-general, c.o.ke, who compared the different plots to Samson's foxes, joined in the tails, though their heads were separated.

[Sidenote: Gunpowder Plot.]

[Sidenote: Persecution of the Catholics.]

The most memorable event at this time in the domestic history of the kingdom was the Gunpowder Plot, planned by Catesby and other disappointed and desperate Catholics for the murder of the king, and the destruction of both houses of parliament. Knowing the sympathies of James for their religion, the Catholics had expected toleration, at least. But when persecution continued against them, some reckless and unprincipled men united in a design to blow up the parliament. Percy, a relation of the Earl of Northumberland, was concerned in the plot, and many of the other conspirators were men of good families and fortunes, but were implacable bigots. They hired a cellar, under the parliament house, which had been used for coals; and there they deposited thirty-one barrels of gunpowder, waiting several months for a favorable time to perpetrate one of the most horrid crimes ever projected. It was resolved that Guy Fawkes, one of the number, should set fire to the train. They were all ready, and the 5th of November, 1605, was at hand, the day to which parliament was prorogued; but Percy was anxious to save _his_ kinsman from the impending ruin, Sir Everard Digby wished to warn some of _his_ friends, and Tresham was resolved to give _his_ brother-in-law, Lord Mounteagle, a caution. It seems that this peer received a letter so peculiar, that he carried it to Cecil, who showed it to the king, and the king detected or suspected a plot. The result was, that the cellar was explored by the lord chamberlain, and Guy Fawkes himself was found, with all the materials for striking a light, near the vault in which the coal and the gunpowder were deposited. He was seized, interrogated, tortured, and imprisoned; but the wretch would not reveal the names of his a.s.sociates, although he gloried in the crime he was about to commit, and alleged, as his excuse, that violent diseases required desperate remedies, the maxim of the Jesuits. But most of the conspirators revealed their guilt by flight. They might have escaped, had they fled from the kingdom; but they hastened only into the country to collect their friends, and head an insurrection, which, of course, was easily suppressed. The leaders in this plot were captured and executed, and richly deserved their fate, although it was clear that they were infatuated. But in all crime there is infatuation. It was suspected that the Jesuits were at the bottom of the conspiracy; and the whole Catholic population suffered reproach from the blindness and folly of a few bigots, from whom no sect or party ever yet has been free. But there is no evidence that any of the Catholic clergy were even privy to the intended crime, which was known only to the absolute plotters.

Some Jesuits were indeed suspected, arrested, tortured, and executed; but no evidence of guilt was brought against them sufficient to convict them. But their acquittal was impossible in such a state of national alarm and horror. Nothing ever made a more lasting and profound impression on the English mind than this intended crime; and it strengthened the prejudices against the Catholics even more than the persecutions under Queen Mary. Had the crime been consummated, it would only have proved a blunder. It would have shocked and irritated the nation beyond all self-control; and it is probable that the whole Catholic population would have been a.s.sa.s.sinated, or hunted out, as victims for the scaffold, in every corner of England. It proved, however, a great misfortune, and the severest blow Catholicism ever received in England. Thus G.o.d overrules all human wickedness. There was one person who suffered, in consequence of the excited suspicions of the nation, whose fate we cannot but compa.s.sionate; and this person was the Earl of Northumberland, who was sentenced to pay a fine of thirty thousand pounds, to be deprived of all his offices, and to be imprisoned in the Tower for life, and simply because he was the head of the Catholic party, and a promoter of toleration. Indeed, penal statutes against the Catholics were fearfully multiplied. No Catholic was permitted to appear at court, or live in London, or within ten miles of it, or remove, on any occasion, more than five miles from his home, without especial license. No Catholic recusant was permitted to practise surgery, physic, or law; to act as judge, clerk, or officer of any court or corporation; or perform the office of administrator, executor, or guardian. Every Catholic who refused to have his child baptized by a Protestant, was obliged to pay, for each omission, one hundred pounds. Every person keeping a Catholic servant, was compelled to pay ten pounds a month to government. Moreover, every recusant was outlawed; his house might be broken open; his books and furniture destroyed; and his horses and arms taken from him. Such was the severe treatment with which the Catholics, even those who were good citizens, were treated by our fathers in England; and this persecution was defended by some of the greatest jurists, divines, and statesmen which England has produced. And yet some maintain that there has been no progress in society, except in material civilization!

[Sidenote: Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.]

One of the peculiarities of the reign of James was, the ascendency which favorites obtained over him, so often the mark of a weak and vacillating mind. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth had their favorites; but they were ministers of the royal will. Moreover, they, like Wolsey, Cromwell, Burleigh, and Ess.e.x, were great men, and worthy of the trust reposed in them. But James, with all his kingcraft and statecraft, with all his ostentation and boasts of knowledge and of sagacity, reposed his confidence in such a man as Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

It is true he also had great men to serve him; Cecil was his secretary, Bacon was his chancellor, and c.o.ke was his chief justice.

But Carr and Villiers rose above them all in dignity and honor, and were the companions and confidential agents of their royal master.

[Sidenote: Greatness and Fall of Somerset.]

Robert Carr was a Scottish gentleman, poor and cunning, who had early been taught that personal beauty, gay dress, and lively manners, would make his fortune at court. He first attracted the attention of the king at a tilting match, at which he was the esquire to Lord Dingwall.

In presenting his lord's s.h.i.+eld to the king, his horse fell and threw him at James's feet. His leg was broken, but his fortune was made.

James, struck with his beauty and youth, and moved by the accident, sent his own surgeon to him, visited him himself, and even taught him Latin, seeing that the scholastic part of his education had been neglected. Indeed, James would have made a much better schoolmaster than king; and his pedantry and conceit were beyond all bounds, so that Bacon styled him, either in irony or sycophancy, "the Solomon of the age." Carr now became the pet of the learned monarch. He was knighted, rich presents were bestowed on him, all bowed down to him as they would have done to a royal mistress; and Cecil and Suffolk vied with each other in their attempts to secure the favor of his friends.

He gradually eclipsed every great n.o.ble at court, was created Viscount Rochester, received the Order of the Garter, and, when Cecil, then Earl of Salisbury, died, received the post of the Earl of Suffolk as lord chamberlain, he taking Cecil's place as treasurer. Rochester, in effect, became prime minister, as Cecil had been. He was then created Earl of Somerset, in order that he might marry the Countess of Ess.e.x, the most beautiful and fascinating woman at the English court. She was daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and granddaughter of the old Duke of Norfolk, executed in 1572, and, consequently, belonged to the first family in the realm. She was married to Ess.e.x at the age of thirteen, but treated him with contempt and coldness, being already enamored of the handsome favorite. That she might marry Carr she obtained a divorce from her husband on the most frivolous grounds, and through the favor of the king, who would do any thing for the man he delighted to honor. She succeeded in obtaining her end, and caused the ruin of all who opposed her wishes. But she proved a beautiful demon, a fascinating fury, as might be expected from such an unprincipled woman, although enn.o.bled by "the blood of all the Howards." Her reign lasted, however, only during the ascendency of her husband. For a time, "glorious days were succeeded by as glorious nights, when masks and dancings had a continual motion, and when banquetings rapt up the spirit of the sacred king, and kept it from descending to earthly things." But whatever royal favor stamps, royal favor, like fas.h.i.+on, leaves. Carr was supplanted by Villiers, and his doom was sealed. For the murder of his old friend Sir Thomas Overbury, who died in the Tower, as it was then supposed by poison, he and his countess were tried, found guilty, and disgraced. But he was not executed, and, after a few years' imprisonment, retired to the country, with his lady, to reproach and hate each other. Their only child, the Lady Anna Carr, a woman of great honor and virtue, married the first duke of Bedford, and was the mother of Lord Russell who died on the scaffold, a martyr to liberty, in the reign of Charles II. The origin of the n.o.ble families of England is curious. Some few are descended from successful Norman chieftains, who came over with William the Conqueror, and whose merit was in their sword. Others are the descendants of those who, as courtiers, statesmen, or warriors, obtained great position, power, and wealth, during former reigns. Many owe their greatness to the fact that they are the offspring of the illegitimate children of kings, or the descendants of the ign.o.ble minions of kings. Some few are enrolled in the peerage on account of their great wealth; and a still smaller number for the eminent services they have rendered their country like Wellington, Brougham, or Ellenborough. A vast majority can boast only the merit or the successful baseness of their ancestors. But all of them are interlinked by marriages, and therefore share together the glory or the shame of their progenitors, so far as glory and shame can be transmitted from father to son, independently of all individual virtue or vice.

[Sidenote: Duke of Buckingham.]

[Sidenote: Lord Bacon.]