Their's not to make reply,Their's not to reason why,Their's but to do, and die;Into the valley of DeathRode the six hundred.
The horrible blunder at Balaklava was not the only one. One incapable general was followed by another, and routine and red-tape were more deadly than Russian shot and shell.
Food and supplies beyond their utmost power of consumption, were hurried to the army by grateful England. Thousands of tons of wood for huts, shiploads of clothing and profuse provision for health and comfort, reached Balaklava.
While the tall masts of the ships bearing these treasures were visible from the heights of Sebastopol, men there were perishing for lack of food, fuel and clothing. In rags, almost barefoot, half-fed, often without fuel even to cook their food, in that terrible winter on the heights, whole regiments of heroes became extinct, because there was not sufficient administrative ability to convey the supplies to a perishing army!
So wretched was the hospital service, thatto be sent there meant death. Gangrene carried off four out of five. Men were dying at a rate which would have extinguished the entire army in a year and a half. It was Florence Nightingale who redeemed this national disgrace, and brought order, care and healing into the camps.
When England recalls with pride the valor and the victories in the Crimea, let her remember it was themanhood in the rankswhich achieved it. When all was over, war had slain its thousands,—but official incapacity its tens of thousands!
It was a costly victory: Russia was humiliated, was even shut out from the waters of her own Black Sea, where she had hitherto been supreme. To two million Turks was preserved the privilege of oppressing eight million Christians; and for this,—twenty thousand British youth had perished. But—the way to India was unobstructed!
England's career of conquest in India was not altogether of her own seeking. As a neighboring province committed outrages upon its British neighbors, it became necessary in self-defence to punish it; and suchpunishment, invariably led to its subjugation. In this way one province after another was subdued, until finally in the absorption of the Kingdom of Oude (1856) the natural boundary of the Himalaya Mountains had been reached, and the conquest was complete. The little trading company of British merchants had become an Empire, vast and rich beyond the wildest dreams of romance.
The British rule was upon the whole beneficent. The condition of the people was improved, and there was little dissatisfaction except among the deposed native princes, who were naturally filled with hate and bitterness. The large army required to hold such an amount of territory, was to a great extent recruited from the native population, the Sepoys, as they were called, making good soldiers.
In 1857 the King of the Oude and some of the native princes cunningly devised a plan of undermining the British by means of their Sepoys, and circumstances afforded a singular opportunity for carrying out their design.
A new rifle had been adopted, which required a greased cartridge, for which animal grease was used. The Sepoys were told this was a deep-laid plot to overthrow their native religions. The Mussulman was to be eternally lost by defiling his lips with the fat of swine, and the Hindu, by the indignity offered to the venerated Cow. These English had tried to ruin them not alone in this world, but in the next.
Thrilled with horror, terror-stricken, the dusky soldiers were converted into demons. Mutinies arose simultaneously at twenty-two stations; not only officers, but Europeans, were slaughtered without mercy. At Cawnpore was the crowning horror. After a siege of many days the garrison capitulated to Nana Sahib and his Sepoys. The officers were shot, and their wives, daughters, sisters and babes, 206 in number, were shut up in a large apartment which had been used by the ladies for a ballroom.
After eighteen days of captivity, the horrors of which will never be known, five men with sabres, in the twilight, were seen to enter the room and close the door. Therewere wild cries and shrieks and groans. Three times a hacked and a blunted sabre was passed out of a window in exchange for a sharper one. Finally the groans and moans gradually ceased and all was still. The next morning a mass of mutilated remains was thrown into an empty well.
Two days later the avenger came in the person of General Havelock. The Sepoys were conquered and a policy of merciless retribution followed.
In that well at Cawnpore was forever buried sympathy for the mutinous Indian. When we recall that, we can even hear with calmness of Sepoys fired from the cannon's mouth. From that moment it was the cause of men in conflict with demons, civilization in deadly struggle with cruel, treacherous barbarism. We cannot advocate meeting atrocity with atrocity, nor can we forget that it was a Christian nation fighting with one debased and infidel. But terrible surgery is sometimes needed to extirpate disease.
Greed for territory, and wrong, and injustice may have mingled with theacquisition of an Indian Empire, but posterity will see only a majestic uplifting of almost a quarter of the human family from debased barbarism, to a Christian civilization; and all through the instrumentality of a little band of trading settlers from a small far-off island in the northwest of Europe.
But there were other things besides famine and wars taking place in the Kingdom of the young Queen. A greater and a subtler force than steam had entered into the life of the people. A miracle had happened in 1858, when an electric wire threaded its way under the Atlantic, and two continents conversed as friends sitting hand in hand.
Another miracle had then just been achieved in the discovery of certain chemical conditions, by which scenes and objects would imprint themselves in minutest detail upon a prepared surface. A sort of magic seemed to have entered into life, quickening and intensifying all its processes. Enlarged knowledge opened up new theories of disease and created a new Art of healing. Surgery, with its unspeakable anguish, wasrendered painless by anæsthetics. Mechanical invention was so stimulated that all the processes of labor were quickened and improved.
In 1851 the Prince Consort conceived the idea of a great Exposition, which should under one roof gather all the fruits of this marvellous advance, and Sydenham Palace, a gigantic structure of glass and iron, was erected.
In literature, Tennyson was preserving English valor in immortal verse. Thackeray and Dickens, in prose as immortal, were picturing the social lights and shadows of the Victorian Age.
In 1861 a crushing blow fell upon the Queen in the death of the Prince Consort. America treasures kindly memory of Prince Albert, on account of his outspoken friendship in the hour of her need. During the war of the Rebellion, while the fate of our country seemed hanging in the balance, we had few friends in England, where people seemed to look with satisfaction upon our probable dismemberment.
We are not likely to forget the three shining exceptions:—Prince Albert—John Bright—and John Stuart Mill.
It was while that astute diplomatist, Disraeli (Lord Beaconsfield) was Prime Minister, that French money, skill and labor opened up the waterway between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. It would never do to have France command such a strategic point on the way to the East. England was alert. She lost not a moment. The impecunious Khedive was offered by telegraph $20,000,000 for his interest in the Suez Canal, nearly one-half of the whole capital stock. The offer was accepted with no less alacrity than it was made. So with the Arabian Port of Aden, which she already possessed, and with a strong enough financial grasp upon impoverished Egypt to secure the right of way, should she need it, England had made the Canal which France had dug, practically her own.
The British in India: A native prince receiving the decoration of the order of the Star of India from Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales. From the painting by Sydney Hall, P.M.A.The British in India: A native prince receiving the decoration of the orderof the Star of India from Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales.From the painting by Sydney Hall, P.M.A.
The British in India: A native prince receiving the decoration of the order of the Star of India from Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales. From the painting by Sydney Hall, P.M.A.The British in India: A native prince receiving the decoration of the orderof the Star of India from Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales.From the painting by Sydney Hall, P.M.A.
Lord Beaconsfield had crowned his dramatic and picturesque Ministerial career by placing a new diadem on the head of thewidowed Queen, who was now Empress of India. His successor, William Ewart Gladstone, the great leader of the Liberal party, was content with a less showy field. He had in 1869 relieved Ireland from the unjust burden of supporting a Church the tenets of which she considered blasphemous; and one which her own, the Roman Catholic, had for three centuries been trying to overthrow. We cannot wonder that the memory of a tyranny so odious is not easily effaced; nor that there is less gratitude for its removal, than bitterness that it should so long have been. It is certainly true that the disestablishment of the English Church in Ireland was one of the most righteous acts of this reign.
The Irish question is such a tangled web of wrong and injustice complicated by folly and outrage, that the wisest and best-intentioned statesmanship is baffled. Whether the conditions would be improved by giving them their own Parliament, could only be determined by experiment; and that experiment England is not yet willing to try.
A fitting companion to the Story of England's Empire in India, is that of her South African Colonial Possessions.
It was about the year 1652, while Oliver Cromwell's star was highest in the heavens, that the Dutch East India Company, needing a resting place on the way to the East, planted the germ of an Empire at the Cape of Good Hope. The Portuguese, those pioneers in exploration had only lightly touched this uninviting spot, and then were away chasing rumors of gold.
But the Hollanders were men of a different sort. They asked no indulgences from Nature; and when their roots had once grappled the soil, however disheartening the conditions, they were not to be lured away by glistening surfaces farther on. All they asked was a place on which togrow. And so with stolid persistence they worked away in a field the least promising ever offered to human endeavor.
But the fates befriended them, and after the Revocation of the "Edict of Nantes," a touch of grace and charm was brought into their sterile life by the arrival of three hundred Huguenot refugees. And there, in that austere land, for more than a century these children from Holland and France patiently toiled, and with mild content watched their grazing cattle as they gradually spread over a huge expanse of territory; their only reward the feeling that this barren resting place on the way to India was all their own, and that they had a sense of independence which answered the deepest craving in their hearts; they were safe, forever safe from the Old-World tyrannies.
But there was another nation which also needed a resting place on the way to India. Great Britain, following closely in the footsteps of Holland, now had a Greater East India Company, and a larger empiregrowing in the East. And clouds began to gather over the Dutch Colonists, as they saw their solitude invaded by Old-World currents. Perhaps the irritation from this made them quarrelsome; for temper and temperament have been two most important factors in the story of the Dutch in South Africa. At all events, there were various outbreaks and insurrections, becoming at last so serious that the English Government felt impelled to aid in their suppression. And this they did so effectually that after a battle with the local forces in 1806, they were virtual rulers of Cape Colony, which, in 1814, upon the payment of six million pounds to the Stadtholder, was formally ceded to Great Britain.
So, by right of conquest, and by right of purchase, England had come into possession (although at the time unaware of it) of the greatest diamond mines, and the richest gold mines in the world. And it had turned out that the Dutch Colonists for a century and a half had been subduing man and nature simply to enrich theEnglish; and in return they were expected to live contentedly and peaceably in the land they had made habitable for human occupation!
Thus two contrasting people had been carelessly and hastily tossed together. The most conservative and the most progressive of nationalities were expected to fuse their uncompromising traits into a harmonious whole. The result should have been easy to foresee. The Dutch, coerced into this union, with embittered hearts and deep sense of injury, after twenty unhappy, stormy years, determined to escape. They would cross the Orange River into the wilderness and there build up another State, which should be forever their own. And so, in the year 1835, there occurred what is known as "The Great Trek," when about thirty thousand men and women, like swarming bees, migrated in a body into the region north of the Orange River, later spreading east as far as the coast in what is now "Natal," the whole region then bearing the significant title: "The Orange Free State."
In the terms of the purchase, in 1814, not a word had been said about thisHinterland, the vast region stretching indefinitely towards the north; and here was the germ of all the trouble that was to come. Through an oversight there existed a serious flaw in the British title, which would severely tax statesmanship, diplomacy, and perhaps strain national morality to the breaking point. Had this people the right, or had they not the right to plant a State bearing a foreign flag, which should effectually bar the path to the north? Should the English Government allow a people fiercely antagonistic to itself to build up an unfriendly State on its border? Such were the questions which arose then, and which have been variously answered since, depending upon the point of view.
If the question had been whatwouldhappen, there would have been greater unanimity in the replies! And, it must be acknowledged, however uncertain the claim to this disputed region, that the interests of civilization were more to be subserved byBritish than by Dutch Sovereignty in South Africa.
The policies of these two people were absolutely opposed; and it was upon the question of the emancipation of the slaves, at the time of the Emancipation Act, in 1835, that the final rupture and secession took place. These slaves constituted a large part of the property of the Boers; and great was their indignation when they were compelled to accept from the British Government a compensation for their property so far below their own appraisal of its value that it seemed to them a confiscation.
Then it was that they resolved to break away from their oppressors, and go where they could make their own laws, and follow their own ideals of right and wrong. And so they turned their backs upon the scene of their long toil.
In this strange exodus not the least important person, though unobserved then, was a sturdy little fellow ten years old, energetically doing his part in rounding up the cattle and flocks as he trudged along beside thehuge oxcarts. His name was Paul Stephanus Kruger. And this little man also took his first lesson in military exploits when one hundred and thirty-five Boer farmers, by ingenious use of horses and rifles, put to flight twelve thousand Metabeli spearsmen. But again the Boer was only clearing the way for British occupation, which, commencing at Natal in 1842, had, by 1848, extended over the entire Orange Free State. And then there was another trek. Again the Boers migrated, this time crossing the River Vaal, and founding a "Transvaal Republic."
In the history of the next thirty years we see not a vacillating, but rather a tentative policy, behind which was always an inflexible purpose to establish British rule in South Africa, peaceably, if possible, or by force, if compelled. The British Government was trying to bring to terms the most intractable race it had ever dealt with in all its colonizing experience. The thing which embarrassed the English was that flaw in their claim; and the trouble withthe Boers was that they were archaic in their ideals, and obstructive to all policies which belonged to a modern civilization. They had stopped growing when they left Holland. The emancipation and the philanthropies forced upon them by a people who were stealing their land, exasperated them, and outraged their sense of justice; and when the English punished them for cruelties to the native savages, by executing four Boers, vitriol was poured upon an open wound, and peace was forever impossible.
In 1852 England, in placating mood, yielded the local control of the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic. But in less than five years the Boers had thrown away their opportunity by strife and discord among themselves, and had separated into four small hostile Republics, which Paul Stephanus Kruger, then President of the Transvaal, was vainly striving to bring together. The only time they were not at war with each other was when they were all fighting the natives, with whom they never established friendly relations. Perhaps itis asking too much of a people so many times emptied from one region into another, to have established internal conditions, economic and political, such as belong to ordinary civilized states. But the condition of disorder had become such that the British Government believed, or at least claimed to believe, that as a measure of safety to their own Colonies, the Transvaal should be annexed to the Colony at the Cape.
The people were cautiously approached upon this subject, and even some of the leaders among the burghers advocated the measure as the best, and, indeed, only thing possible in the present state of demoralization.
So, in 1877, the annexation was effected. The Transvaal Republic was taken under the sovereignty of Queen Victoria.
By a treaty drawn up in 1881, it was declared to be a self-governing, although not an independent State. In all its foreign relations it was subject to the Suzerainty of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. In other words, it was a vassal State.
In that one word Suzerain there lurked the germ of a great war. In a revision of the terms of agreement made by the British, in 1884, this word, which was to play such an important part was omitted; whether by accident or design cannot be said. But the Executive Council of the Republic saw their opportunity, and claimed that the omission of the word was virtually a relinquishment of the claim, and an admission that the South African Republic was an independent and sovereign State.
Lord Derby, Minister of Foreign Affairs, replied that no such significance could be attached to the omission in the amended treaty; that the word Suzerain was not employed simply because it was vague and indefinite in its meaning; whereas, the rights claimed by the British were not vague, but precise and definite. These distinctly forbade the South African Republic from concluding any treaty with a foreign power. And as such powerwasvested in the Queen, as a matter of course it followed that the South AfricanRepublic wasnot a sovereign and independent State.
While this diplomatic controversy was proceeding, other and less formal agencies were at work. The Transvaal, rich in resources beyond all expectation, was being developed by British capital, without which nothing could have been done. TheUitlanders, (or "Outlanders"), as these English-born men were called, complained that, instead of coöperating with them in this labor, which must result in the common good, everything possible was done to embarrass and paralyze their efforts. Chief among the long list of grievances was the claim that, while they were the principal taxpayers, they were denied representation, and that as they furnished the capital for all the financial enterprises, it was but fair that they should have the franchise which was stubbornly withheld from them.
Out of these conditions came the "Jameson Raid," the most discreditable incident in the whole South African story; an incident which cast a cloud of suspicion overthe entire British attitude, and enlisted wide-spread sympathy for the Boers. Under the leadership of Dr. Jameson, a gentleman closely associated with Cecil Rhodes in the South African Chartered Company, an attempt was made to overthrow the Kruger Government, and, to obtain by force the redress denied by peaceable means.
When a revolt rises to the plane of a revolution it becomes respectable. The "Jameson Raid" never reached that elevation. In less than four days the entire force had surrendered and the leaders were under arrest. The attempt upon Johannesburg, and the acts of violence attending it, were denounced in unmeasured terms by the British Government. Dr. Jameson and his chief abettors were tried in England, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment; four other prominent leaders—one of them an American—had sentence of death passed upon them by a judge from the Orange Free State, which was finally remitted upon the payment of a large sum to the South African Republic. Englanddid her best to rehabilitate her name in the estimation of the world; and when the deplorable affair was over, it had done immense injury to the English cause, and benefited not a little that of the Republic.
Diplomatic negotiations were then resumed; Sir Alfred Milner presenting the British view, urged the propriety of granting to foreign-born residents the franchise; also the abolishment of certain monopolies which pressed heavily upon the miners, and last, but not least, that the sovereignty of Great Britain over the Transvaal, receive official recognition.
This latter President Kruger flatly rejected, upon the ground that the question of sovereignty had already been disposed of in 1884, when Great Britain virtually abandoned the claim by omitting the wordSuzerain, or any reference to what it implied, from the amended agreement; offering at the same time to submit the other demands to arbitration.
On October 9, 1899, while Mr. Chamberlain was preparing new proposals, anultimatum was received from President Kruger, demanding an affirmative answer within forty-eight hours; failing in which, it would be considered a virtual declaration of war. Sir Alfred Milner replied: "You will inform your Government that the conditions demanded are such as Her Majesty's Government deem it impossible to discuss."
On the afternoon of October 11th, the war had commenced, with General Buller in command of the British forces, and General Joubert, aided by General Cronje, commanding the Boers.
Before November 2d three serious engagements had taken place, and the English had been compelled to fall back upon their base of supplies at Ladysmith, where, after an ineffectual sortie on October 30th, they were surrounded and their communications cut off.
The campaign continued to be a story of humiliating defeats until December, when Lord Roberts assumed supreme command, with Lord Kitchener as his chief of staff.England thoroughly aroused was sending men and supplies in unstinted measure for the great emergency, and the world looked on in amazement as 200,000 British soldiers under the greatest British commanders were kept at bay for something less than three years by 30,000 untrained Boers. The British Government had forgotten that these South African colonists were the children of a French Huguenot ancestry which had defied Louis XIV., and of the men who cut the dykes when the Netherlands were invaded by that same tyrant. Some one had wittily said that no member of the Cabinet should be allowed to cast his vote for the war, until he had read Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic." And, indeed, it appeared to many that the view of the Government was focussed upon one single point, the establishing of British authority at any cost in South Africa. At the same time many eminent Englishmen believed it was not to be expected that a community so long established in a home of its ownchoosing, should upon demand be ready to bestow upon foreigners all the rights of citizenship; and many also believed that the grievances of the "Outlanders" were not greater than ordinarily existed when a mass of foreign immigrants were pressing in upon a people who suspected and disliked them. The sympathy of foreign states was strongly with the Boers; and in England itself the cause evoked a languid enthusiasm, until aroused by disaster, and until the pride of the nation was touched by loss of prestige. The danger, the enormous difficulties to be overcome, the privations and suffering of their boys, these were the things which awoke the dormant enthusiasm in the heart of the nation. And when the only son of Lord Roberts had been offered as a sacrifice, and then a son of Lord Dufferin, and then, Prince Victor, October 29, 1900, grandson of the Queen herself, the cause had become sacred, and one for which any loyal Briton would be willing to die.
By September 1, 1900, the Orange FreeState and the Transvaal had been formally proclaimed by Lord Roberts, "Colonies of the British Empire."
This was the beginning of the end, and when the victorious commander (December 2, 1900) arrived in England amid the plaudits of a grateful nation, the victory was practically won, and the time was at hand when not far from twenty thousand British soldiers would be lying under the sod six thousand miles away, in a land, which no longer disputed the sovereignty of England!
We have yet to see whether the South African colonial possessions have been paid for too dearly, with nine fierce Kaffir wars (another threatening as this is written), and the blood of princes, peers, and commoners poured as if it were water into the African soil. Is England richer or poorer for this outpouring of blood and treasure? Has she risen or fallen in the estimation of the world, as she uncovers her stores of gold and diamonds among those valiant but defeated Boers, sullenlybrooding over the past, with no love in their hearts.
Not the least pitiful incident in the whole story was the voluntary exile of the man who had been the brain and soul of the South African Republics. Indeed, the life of Paul Kruger, from the day when he trudged beside the bullocks at the time of the great northward trek, until he died a disappointed, embittered old man, a fugitive and an exile, seems an epitome of the cause to which his life was devoted.
No story of this war, however brief, can omit the name of De Wet, the most distinguished of the Boer generals, and perhaps the one genius, certainly the most romantic figure in the whole drama. It was De Wet's faculty for disappearing and reappearing at unexpected place and moment which prolonged the war even after the end was inevitable, thus justifying the title "Three Years' War," which he gave to a subsequent history of the conflict.
The dedication to this book bears pathetic testimony to the character of theman: "This work is dedicated to my fellow-subjects of the British Empire." When one reflects what these words meant for De Wet, one is inclined to believe that his highest heroism was not attained on the battle field!
In less than three weeks after the return of Lord Roberts, and the agitating interview for which she had been impatiently waiting, England's beloved Queen succumbed to a brief illness, and died January 22, 1901.
Her son Albert Edward was immediately proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland.
The change of Sovereigns has not materially altered the course of events in the Empire. The King, with much dignity and seriousness, assumed the responsibilities of his great inheritance, and England seems to be in safekeeping. The terms finally agreed upon at the Peace Conference, in May, 1902, bear the signature of EdwardRex, instead of VictoriaRegina—asignature that peace-loving Sovereign would so gladly have affixed.
In the year 1904 a British military force entered the hitherto sacred domain of Tibet with the avowed purpose of obtaining redress from Tibetan authorities for having violated a commercial agreement made between China and British India in 1893; which convention was binding upon Tibet as a vassal State to China. In addition to this, a letter from the Viceroy of India to the Grand Lama, had been returned unopened, which, it was claimed, was an insult to the King he represents.
The time selected for this hostile demonstration, when the Russo-Japanese War fully engaged the attention of the nations chiefly interested, was, to say the least, significant; and some were so unkind as to insinuate that the recently discovered mineral wealth of this lofty plateau—"this Roof of the World"—was, like that of the Transvaal in South Africa, a factor in this sudden romantic adventure.
Nature has guarded well this home ofmystery; a vast plateau, from 10,000 to 15,000 feet above the sea-level is held aloft upon the giant shoulders of the Himalaya, surrounded by deep valleys filled in with the detritus of an older world. This inaccessible spot is the home of the Grand Lama, the earthly representative of Buddha, and Lhassa is the Holy City where this sacred being resides, a city never profaned by infidel feet until the morning of August 4, 1904, when it fell, and was desecrated by the presence of red-coated soldiers, and the blare of military bands, and still worse the plundering of treasure-houses and monasteries.
It was a rude awakening from the slumber of centuries! The Western mind can scarcely realize how seriously this has wounded the sensibilities of millions of people throughout the East; and the question arises whether England may not some day have to pay more dearly than now appears for the concessions she has obtained.
The treaty in its early form throws light upon the results expected when theexpedition was planned. It bound the Tibetan authorities to establish British markets at certain designated points; and stipulated that, without the consent of Great Britain, no Tibetan territory could be leased to any foreign power. Of course many people could see in this the ultimate purpose of a British occupation of Tibet, and an open way to the Yangtse Valley!
But with the Russo-Japanese War over, and Russia free to exert her control over China, a stand was taken by the Chinese Government which has resulted in modifying the terms of the treaty, which has recently been signed at Pekin, by which Great Britain affirms that she does not seek for herself any privileges which are denied to any other state or the subjects thereof.
Two very important measures have been under consideration during the new reign; one of these seeming to have afforded a solution for the Land-problem in Ireland, which has for so long been the nightmare of British politics. Further details of thiswill be found in the "History of Ireland," separately treated in this volume.
The other measure deals with the question of Education, and is an attempt to solve to the satisfaction of Nonconformists, Catholics, Church-of-England people, and people of no church at all, whether there shall be any religious instruction in the schools for which all are taxed, and if so what shall be its nature and restrictions.
The tendency since 1870 has been steadily toward the method adopted by the United States,i.e., a severance of the civil community from all responsibility for religious teaching. And such is the tendency of the Bill now before the House of Lords. But it is believed that that conservative body will hesitate long before giving up such a cherished and time-encrusted principle as is involved.
So many Parliamentary reforms have been accomplished since the time they commenced in 1832, the time seems not far distant when there will be little more for Liberals to urge, or for Conservatives and theHouse of Lords to obstruct. Monarchy is absolutely shorn of its dangers. The House of Commons, which is the actual ruling power of the Kingdom, is only the expression of the popular will.
We are accustomed to regard American freedom as the one supreme type. But it is not. The popular will in England reaches the springs of Government more freely, more swiftly, and more imperiously, than it does in Republican America. It comes as a stern mandate, which must be obeyed on the instant. The King of England has less power than the President of the United States. The President can form a definite policy, select his own Ministry to carry it out, and to some extent have his own way for four years, whether the people like it or not. The King cannot do this for a day. His Ministry cannot stand an hour, with a policy disapproved by the Commons. Not since Anne has a sovereign refused signature to an Act of Parliament. The Georges, and William IV., continued to exercise the power of dismissing Ministers at theirpleasure. But since Victoria, an unwritten law forbids it, and with this vanishes the lastremnant of a personal Government. The end long sought is attained.
The history of no other people affords such an illustration of a steadily progressive national development from seed to blossom, compelled by one persistent force. Freedom in England has not been wrought by cataclysm as in France, but has unfolded like a plant from a life within; impeded and arrested sometimes, but patiently biding its time, and then steadily and irresistibly pressing outward; one leaf after another freeing itself from the detaining force. Only a few more remain to be unclosed, and we shall behold the consummate flower of fourteen centuries;—centuries in which the most practical nation in the world has steadily pursued anideal—the ideal of individual freedom subordinated only to the good of the whole!
The history of prehistoric Ireland as told in ancient chronicles, easily proves the Irish to be the oldest nation in Europe, mingling their story with those not alone of Egypt, Troy, Greece, and Rome, but with that of Noah and the antediluvian world. Who was the Lady Cæsair, who fled with her household to Ireland from the coming deluge after being refused shelter by Noah? and who Nemehd, the next colonist from the East, who heads the royal procession of one hundred and eighteen kings? and who, above all, is Milesius, who comes fresh from the lingual disaster at Shinar, the divinely appointed ruler, bringing with him his Egyptian wife Scota (Pharaoh's daughter) and her son Gael? and who that other son Heber, whose name was given to the originallingua humana(the Hebrew), in honor of his efforts to prevent the blasphemous building ofBabel? For what do these shadowy figures stand, looming out of formless mist and chaos, and bestowing their names as imperishable memorials?—Scotia, Scots, Gaelic,—the word Gaelic in its true significance including Ireland and Scotland. Even the name Fenian takes on a venerable dignity when we learn that Fenius, the Scythian King, and father of Milesius, established the first university—a sort of school of languages—for the study of the seventy-two new varieties of human speech, appointing seventy-two wise men to master this new and troublesome branch of human knowledge! We are told that Heber and Heremon, the sons of Milesius, finally divided the island between them, and then, after the fashion of Romulus, Heber drove the factious Heremon over the sea into the land of the Picts, and reigned alone over the Scots in Ireland.
The sober truth seems to be that Ireland, at a very early period, was known to the Greeks as Ierne (from which comes Erin), and later to the Romans as Hibernia. At a very remote time it seems to have been colonized by Greek and other Eastern peoples, who left a deep impress upon the Celtic racealready inhabiting the island; but an impress upon the mind, not the life, of the Celts, for no vestige of Greek or other civilization, except in language and in ideals, has ever been found in Ireland. The only archæological remains are cromlechs, which tell of a Druidical worship, and the round towers, belonging to a much later period, whose purpose is only conjectured.
Ireland's Aryan parentage is plainly indicated in its primitive social organization and system of laws. The family was the social unit, and the clan orseptwas only a larger family. Pre-Christian Ireland was divided into five septs: Munster, Connaught, Ulster, Leinster, and Meath. Each of these tribal divisions was governed by a chief or king, who was the head of the clan (or family). Among these, the chief-king, orArd Reagh, resided at Tara in Meath, and received allegiance from the other four, with no jurisdiction, however, over the internal affairs of the other kingdoms. There was a perpetual strife between the clans. Outside of one's own tribal limits was the enemy's country. The business of life was marauding and plundering, and the greatest herowas he who could accomplish these things by deeds of the greatest daring.
All alike lived under a simple code of laws administered by a hereditary class of jurists called Brehons. All offences were punishable by a system of fines called erics. The land was owned by the clan. Primogeniture was unknown, and the succession to the office of chief was determined by the clan, which had power to select any one within the family lines as Tanist or successor. This in "Brehon Law" is known as the "law of Tanistry," and was closely interwoven with the later history of Ireland. But the class more exalted than kings or brehons was the Bards. These were inspired singers, before whom Brehons quailed and kings meekly bowed their heads.
During the Roman occupation of Britain in which that country was Christianized, pagan Ireland heard nothing of the new evangel almost at her door. But in 432, after Britain had relapsed into paganism, St. Patrick came into the darkened isle. If ever Pentecostal fires descended upon a nation it was in those sixty years during which one saintly man transformed a people frombrutish paganism to Christianity, and converted Ireland into the torch-bearer and nourisher of intellectual and spiritual life, so that as the gothic night was settling upon Europe, the centre of illumination seemed to be passing from Rome to Ireland. Their missionaries were in Britain, Germany, Gaul; and students from Charlemagne's dominions, and the sons of kings from other lands, flocked to those stone monasteries, the remains of which are still to be seen upon the Irish coast, and which were then the acknowledged centres of learning in Europe. It was not until late in the ninth century that Ireland played a truly great part in European history. Rome became jealous of these fiery Christians; they had never worn her yoke, and concerned themselves little about the Pope. They had their own views about the shape of the tonsure, and also their own time for celebrating Easter, which was heretical and contumacious, and there began a struggle between Roman and Western Christianity. The passion for art and letters which accompanied this spiritual birth makes this, indeed, a Golden Age. But the painting of missals, and study of Greek poetry and philosophy,brought no change in the life of the people. It was for the learned, and a subject for just pride in retrospect. But the Christianized septs fought each other as before, and life was no less wild and disordered than it had always been.
In the eighth century the first viking appeared. It was then that a master-spirit arose, a man of the clan of O'Brien—Brian Boru. He drove out the Danes, usurped the place of Chief-King, and reigned in the Halls of Tara for a few years, then left his land to lapse once more into a chaos of fighting clans. But it was Dermot, the King of Leinster, whose fatal quarrel led to the subjugation of the land to England. The Irish epic, like that of Troy, has its Paris and Helen. If that fierce old man had not fallen in love with the wife of the Lord of Brefny and carried her away, there might have been a different story to tell. The injured husband made war upon him, in which the Chief-King took part, and so hot was it made for the wife-stealer, that he offered to place Leinster at the feet of Henry II. in return for assistance. A party of adventurous barons, led by Strongbow, the Earl of Pembroke,rushed to Dermot's rescue, defeated the Chief-King, drove the Danes out of Dublin, which they had founded, and took possession of that city themselves. Henry II. followed up the unauthorized raid of his barons with a well-equipped army, which he himself led, landing upon the Irish coast in 1171.
The conquest was soon complete, and Henry proceeded to organize his new territory, dividing it into counties, and setting up law-courts at Dublin, which was chosen as the Seat of his Lord-Deputy. The system of English law was established for the use of the Norman barons and English settlers, the natives being allowed to live under their old system of Brehon laws. Henry gave huge grants of land with feudal rights to his barons, then returned to his own troubled kingdom, leaving them to establish their claims and settle accounts with the Irish chieftains as best they could. The sword was the argument used on both sides, and a conflict between the brehon and feudal systems had commenced which still continues in Ireland. If Henry had expected to convert Irishmen into Englishmen, he hadmiscalculated; it was the reverse which happened—the Norman-English were slowly but surely converted into Irishmen, and two elements were thereafter side by side, the Old Irish and the Anglo-Irish, who, however antagonistic, had always a certain community of interest which drew them together in great emergencies.
It is an easy task to describe a storm which has one centre. But how is one to describe the confused play of forces in a cyclone which has centres within centres? Irish chieftains at war with Irish chieftains, jealous Norman barons with Norman barons, all at the same time in deadly struggle with O'Neills, O'Connells, and O'Briens, who would never cease to fight for the territory which had been torn from them; and yet each and all of these ready in a desperate crisis to combine for the preservation of Ireland. In this chaos the territorial barons were the framework of the structure. The grants bestowed by Henry II. had created, in fact, a group of small principalities. These were called Palatinates, and the power of the Lords Palatine was almost without limit. Each was a king in his own littlekingdom—could make war upon his neighbors, and recruit his army from his own vassals. It was the Geraldines who played the most historic part among these Palatines, the houses of Kildare and Desmond both being branches of this famous Norman family, which was always in high favor with the English sovereign, and always at war with the rival house of Ormond, the next most powerful Anglo-Norman family, descended from Thomas à Becket. These barons, or "Lords of the Pale," were, of course, supposed to be the intermediaries for the King's authority. But the Geraldines seem to have found plenty of time to build up their own fortunes, and as peace with their neighbors was sometimes more conducive to that pursuit, alliances with native chiefs and marriages with their daughters had in time made of them pretty good Irishmen.
But our main purpose is not to follow the fortunes of these picturesque and romantic robbers who considered all Ireland their legitimate prey, but rather those of the hapless native population, dispossessed of their homes, hiding in forests and morasses, and whom it was the policy of the EnglishGovernment to efface in their own country. These pages will tell of many efforts to compel loyalty, but not one effort towinthe loyalty of the Irish people is recorded in history! No race in the world is more susceptible to kindness and more easily reached by personal influences, and there are none of whom a passionate loyalty is more characteristic. What might have been the effect of a policy of kindness instead of exasperation, we can only guess. But we can all see plainly enough the disastrous results which have come from pouring vitriol upon open wounds, and from treating a nation as if they were not only intruders but outlaws in their own land.
Listen to the Statutes of Kilkenny, passed by an obedient Parliament at a time when Edward III. was depending upon sinewy, clean-limbed young Irishmen to fight his battles in France and help him to winCrécy. (Which they did.) These are some of the provisions of the statute: Marriage between English and Irish is punishable by death in most terrible form. It is high treason to give horses, goods, or weapons of any sort to the Irish. War with the nativesis binding upon good colonists. To speak the language of the country is a penal offence, and the killing of an Irishman is not to be reckoned as a crime.
But in spite of the ferocity of her purpose, England grew lax. She had great wars on her hands, and more important interests to look after. Things were left to the Geraldines, and to the Irish Parliament, which was controlled by the Lords of the Pale. Intermarriages, against which horrible penalties had once been enforced, had become frequent, and many dispossessed chiefs, notably the O'Neills, had recovered their own lands. So, when Henry VII. came to the throne, although the Norman banners had for three centuries floated over Ireland, the English territory, "the Pale," was really reduced to a small area about Dublin.
Henry VII. determined to change all this. Sir Edward Poynings came charged with a mission, and Parliament passed an Act calledPoynings Act, by which English laws were made operative in Ireland as in England. When Henry VIII. succeeded his father, the astute Wolsey soon doubted the fidelity of the Geraldines. Of what usewere the Statutes of Kilkenny and the Poynings Act, when the ruling Anglo-Irish house acted as if they did not exist! He planned their downfall. The great Earl of Kildare was summoned to London, and six of the doomed house were beheaded in the Tower. The Reformation had given a new aspect to the troubles in Ireland. Henry's attack upon the Church drew together the native Irish and the Anglo-Irish. The struggle had been hitherto only one over territory, between these naturally hostile classes; now they were drawn together by a common peril to their Church, and when, in 1560, Queen Elizabeth had passed the famous Act of Uniformity, making the Protestant liturgy compulsory, the exasperation had reached an acute stage, and the sense of former wrongs was intensified by this new oppression. Ireland was filled with hatred and burning with desire for vengeance, and there was one proud family in Ulster, the O'Neills, which was preparing to defy all England. They scornfully threw away the title "Earl of Tyrone," bestowed upon the head of their house by Henry VIII,, and declared that by virtueof the old Irish law of Tanistry, Shane O'Neill was King of Ulster! It was a test case of the validity of Irish or English laws. "Shane the Proud," the King of Ulster, at the invitation of Elizabeth, appeared with his wild followers at her Court, wearing their saffron shirts and battle-axes. The tactful Queen patched up a peace with her rival, and then made sure that his head should in a few weeks adorn the walls of Dublin Castle. His forfeited kingdom was thickly planted with English and Scotch settlers, who, when they tried to settle, were usually killed by the O'Neills. The only thing to be done was to exterminate this troublesome tribe. This grew into the larger purpose of extirpating the whole of the obnoxious native population. The Geraldines were not all dead, and this atrocious plan led to the famous Geraldine League, and that to the Desmond Rebellion. The league which was to be the avenger of centuries of wrong, was a Catholic one. The Earl of Desmond had long been in communication with Rome and with Spain, enlisting their sympathies for their co-religionists in Ireland. A recent eventhelped to steel the hearts of the natives against pity should they succeed. A rising in Connaught had, at the suggestion of Sir Francis Crosby, been put down in the following way. The chiefs and their kinsmen, four hundred in number, were invited to a banquet in the fort of Mullaghmast. But one man escaped alive from that feast of death! One hundred and eighty from the clan of O'Moore alone were slaughtered. It was "Rory O'Moore" who did not attend the banquet, who kept alive the memory of the awful event for many a year by his battle-cry, "Remember Mullaghmast!" Now the long-impending battle was on, with a Geraldine for a standard-bearer. But it was in vain. Another Earl of Kildare perished in the Tower, and another Desmond head was sent there as a warning against disloyalty! Those who escaped the slaughter fell by the executioner, and the remnant, hiding from both, perished by famine. But Munster was "pacified." The enormous Desmond estate, a hundred miles in territory, was confiscated and planted with settlers who would undertake the doubtful task of settling.