“So certainlyAs morn returneth in her radiant lightInfallibly the day of truth shall come”
“So certainlyAs morn returneth in her radiant lightInfallibly the day of truth shall come”
“So certainly
As morn returneth in her radiant light
Infallibly the day of truth shall come”
said the Maid of Orleans.
That day of truth has come. Around Joan of Arc the charmed circle of the Church of Rome is drawn. Let no man dare to call evil that which the Church calls good; let no man dare to attribute imposture, hysterical exaltation, or necromantic might to one whom the Church calls Blessed. Vindicated, rehabilitated, restored, cherished, Blessed is now the Maid who died five hundred years ago burned at the stake as a witch.
Condemned by the University of Paris, an ecclesiastical tribunal? Yes. Hounded to the stake by Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais? Yes. But the Church can shake off and disclaim the clinging hands of her children whose touch pollutes her; and the Church of all ages can outshine the lurid darkness of any one age, and deprecate, and deplore and denounce the deeds done in that lurid darkness. Splendidly, too, and with stern magnanimity, defying apparent self-contradiction, can the Church reverse the decrees of ecclesiastical tribunals, and stoop down to pick up and restore and rehabilitate and bless a strangely foolish child whom kings and courts and the great University of Paris had condemned and cast away.
The Church of the Middle Ages must ever stand darkly enigmatic to the non-Catholic student of history. He cannot rightly appreciate the binding force of spiritual authority. The withering away from fear of Church censure, the clinging claim upon all the powers of the soul in the prayers and ceremonies and sacraments of the Church, the isolating horrors of her excommunications, the abject fear of her spiritual punishments, powerful alike over prince and potentate and peasant—are practically meaningless to the non-Catholic.
That scene in “Richelieu” by Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, well illustrates the power of the Church in the Middle Ages. King Louis XIII. has sent to demand that Julie de Mortemar, Cardinal Richelieu’s orphan ward, shall be immediately sent tothe court subject to the king’s pleasure. The girl clings to the Cardinal for protection. To these messengers Cardinal Richelieu replies,
“To those who sent you!—And say you found the virtue they would slayHere—couched upon this heart, as at an altar,And sheltered by the wings of sacred Rome.Begone!”
“To those who sent you!—And say you found the virtue they would slayHere—couched upon this heart, as at an altar,And sheltered by the wings of sacred Rome.Begone!”
“To those who sent you!—
And say you found the virtue they would slay
Here—couched upon this heart, as at an altar,
And sheltered by the wings of sacred Rome.
Begone!”
They go. But soon again comes Baradas, favorite of the king, First Gentleman of the Chamber, and about to be made premier to succeed the temporarily deposed Cardinal Richelieu. To Baradas’ insolent importunities the eloquent old Cardinal in righteous wrath exclaims:
“Ay, is it so?—Then wakes the power which in the age of ironBurst forth to curb the great and raise the low.Mark where she stands!—around her form I drawThe awful circle of our solemn Church!Set but a foot within that holy ground,And on thy head—yea tho’ it wore a crownI launch the curse of Rome!”
“Ay, is it so?—Then wakes the power which in the age of ironBurst forth to curb the great and raise the low.Mark where she stands!—around her form I drawThe awful circle of our solemn Church!Set but a foot within that holy ground,And on thy head—yea tho’ it wore a crownI launch the curse of Rome!”
“Ay, is it so?—
Then wakes the power which in the age of iron
Burst forth to curb the great and raise the low.
Mark where she stands!—around her form I draw
The awful circle of our solemn Church!
Set but a foot within that holy ground,
And on thy head—yea tho’ it wore a crown
I launch the curse of Rome!”
Baradas abashed retires, the king’s suit ceases; the Church has triumphed.
France is assuredly a genius-mad nation: whether genius or madness shall ultimately prevail is an answerless question. The Republic shall go down in “a slough of mire and blood” is the current prophecy today; but, then, France has gone down in mire and blood many and many a time and, phœnix like, she has risen and soared aloft led onward and upward by some strong Genius-Child.
Joan of Arc and Napoleon Bonaparte stand unique in history; each picked up torn, bleeding, fragmentary France and restored her to her rightful place in the family of nations.That Napoleon Bonaparte, a man, a soldier, and a master of opportune occasion, should have rescued France is not wonderful; but that the Maid of Domremy, a timid girl aged seventeen, who “knew not how to ride or to handle a sword”, whose hand never shed blood, should have, amid most inopportune occasion, prevailed in battle against Talbot, Gladsdale, Falstofe and the flower of the English Army is, past all credence, wonderful.
France as a nation was extinguished by the Treaty of Troyes. Isabeau of Bavaria, wife of Charles VI. deliberately and exultantly aided the trembling hand of the imbecile king as he signed away his kingdom. Henry VI. of England, infant son of Henry V. and Catharine, daughter of Charles VI. of France, was proclaimed heir of the united kingdoms France and England: later, at the death of Henry V. this child was crowned at Paris king of England and of France. Isabeau of Bavaria aided in the coronation ceremony, graciously accepting young Harry Lancaster as king of France to the exclusion of the rightful heir, her own son, Charles the dauphin.
As Schiller says:
“Even the murderous bandsOf the Burgundians, at this spectacleEvinced some token of indignant shame.The queen perceived it and addressed the crowds,Exclaiming with loud voice, ‘Be grateful, Frenchmen,That I engraft upon a sickly stockA healthy scion, and redeem you fromThe misbegotten son of a mad sire.’”
“Even the murderous bandsOf the Burgundians, at this spectacleEvinced some token of indignant shame.The queen perceived it and addressed the crowds,Exclaiming with loud voice, ‘Be grateful, Frenchmen,That I engraft upon a sickly stockA healthy scion, and redeem you fromThe misbegotten son of a mad sire.’”
“Even the murderous bands
Of the Burgundians, at this spectacle
Evinced some token of indignant shame.
The queen perceived it and addressed the crowds,
Exclaiming with loud voice, ‘Be grateful, Frenchmen,
That I engraft upon a sickly stock
A healthy scion, and redeem you from
The misbegotten son of a mad sire.’”
Surely the first part of Merlin’s prophecy had been ominously fulfilled: France was lost by a woman. Would a woman save France? And far away—among the wooded hills of Domremy wandered the splendid Dreamer who should, in three bright, bitter years—flame-cut into fame forever—undo what Isabeau had done, throw off the incubus of alien authority, negative the Treaty of Troyes, and save France.
Thank God for the enthusiasts, for those who follow their Voices! Tho’ their way lies thro’ adamantine opposition, they know it not, their eyes are fixed on the goal; and even as one in hypnotic somnambulism leaps on from toppling crag to crag unawed by the sheer depths of yawning destiny o’er which he strides, so do these enthusiasts press on to the goal: and they reach it.
Joan appeared at the camp at Blois, clad in a new suit of brilliant white armor, mounted on a stately black war-horse, and with a lance in her right hand, which she had learned to wield with skill and grace. Her head was unhelmeted; so that all could behold her fair and expressive features, her deep-set and earnest eyes, and her long black hair, which was parted across her forehead and bound by a ribbon behind her back. She wore at her side a small battle-axe, and the consecrated sword marked on the blade with five crosses which had at her bidding been taken for her from the shrine of St. Catharine at Fierbois.
A page carried her banner which she had caused to be made and embroidered as her Voices enjoined. It was white satin, strewn with fleurs-de-lis; and on it were the words “Jhesus Maria”. And thus spectacularly equipped Joan made her appearance at Orleans at the head of an enthusiastic French army. The astounded English soldiers could only stare and glare; and had it not been from their greater fear of their irate commanders, these brave heroes of Agincourt would have promptly run away in panic fright from this dread Maid.
Joan advanced towards the besiegers and solemnly admonished the English generals to desist from their unlawful holding of Orleans, to withdraw at once from France, and to spare further bloodshed. Oaths and imprecations and ribald jests answered her earnest abjuration. Joan returned to her ranks and gave order for battle. Yet she shrank from the fury of thestrife and her heart recoiled and sickened at the sight of suffering and death. Joan’s most trustworthy biographer tells us that her own hand never shed blood.
Joan was wounded at the battle around Orleans; an arrow from a cross-bow penetrated her armor between the neck and shoulder and remained fastened in the wound. Joan grew faint from pain and she suffered La Hire to lead her from the fray. Recovering herself in a little while, she sat up and withdrew the arrow with her own hands, then putting a little oil on the wound, she mounted and galloped back to where the battle was raging. Joan’s presence reinspired her followers; mad dash after dash was made against the fort held by Sir John Gladsdale. The English soldiers, thinking her to have been mortally wounded, were terrified at her abrupt return. Again Joan called out to Gladsdale to surrender and spare further bloodshed. With an oath the infuriated general came out upon the drawbridge shouting orders for a final desperate assault. As he stood thus conspicuous between the two armies, a cannon ball from the town crashed thro’ the drawbridge and Gladsdale fell and perished in the waters. At the sight of this disaster, and also at the attack upon the fort under the leadership of Joan in person, the English army fled. The siege of Orleans was raised. The long imprisoned Orleannais came forth and hailed Joan as their deliverer sent from Heaven.
The raising of the siege of Orleans was quickly followed by the decisive battle of Patay in which Talbot, the English commander, was wounded and taken prisoner together with a large part of the English army. The way now lay open to Rheims. Thither marched the victorious French forces under Joan of Arc carrying with them the perplexed and irresolute Dauphin. In the cathedral at Rheims, July 17, 1429, with allthe solemn ceremonies of the coronation of kings, this weakling was crowned Charles VII. of France.
Perhaps as the son of an imbecile sire and Isabeau of Bavaria, Charles VII. couldn’t help being what he was. So in the shadow of that comfortable Lombrosian theory we leave without reproach the man whom, in the good sunlight of common sense and honest manhood, we should scathingly reproach as dastard and ingrate.
After the crowning of Charles at Rheims, Joan desired to withdraw from the king’s service and go back to Domremy. She declared that her work was done; she, moreover, maintained that her Voices no longer urged her to remain in the field, or pointed out unerringly just what she should do. Du Nois and La Hire prevailed upon her to remain with the army.
Joan was wounded in an unsuccessful attack upon Paris. And the following spring in a sortie at Compeigne Joan was taken prisoner by the Burgundians and subsequently sold to the English.
Joan was cast into prison at Rouen. Here the indignities to which she was subjected, as related by her biographers, are almost incredible. The apathy of the fickle French towards their late “deliverer sent from Heaven”, and the dastardly indifference of Charles VII. during her imprisonment and throughout her trial and death form a conspicuous page in the black book of Human Ingratitude.
Et tu, Brute!(And thou too, O Brutus!) cried Cæsar as he fell pierced, indeed, with twenty-three wounds, but slain at the sight of his beloved Brutus among the murderers. That was death in death.And if my enemy had done this to me, verily, I could have borne it. But thou, my friend and my familiar!—This agonizing cry—shrieked so that all the world may hear by Cæsar, Wolsey, Joan—rises in bitter silence in many a heart. Only those we love have power to wound us; and we stand defenceless, unresenting, dim-wondering, yet loving. Nancy of the slums under the murderous blows of Bill Sykes,Cæsar as he gazes at Brutus, Joan of Arc blessing Charles VII. from her Calvary of flames—shine as radiant silhouettes of human nobility on the somber overshadowing background of human ingratitude.
“This pure, this gentle creature cannot lie!No, if enchantment binds me, ’tis from HeavenMy spirit tells me she is sent from God.”—Schiller.
“This pure, this gentle creature cannot lie!No, if enchantment binds me, ’tis from HeavenMy spirit tells me she is sent from God.”—Schiller.
“This pure, this gentle creature cannot lie!
No, if enchantment binds me, ’tis from Heaven
My spirit tells me she is sent from God.”—Schiller.
Both the French and the English firmly believed that Joan of Arc was aided by some preternatural power; but was she borne upward by “airs from heaven or blasts from hell”? Burned at the stake as a Witch, Relapsed Heretic, Accurst—thus died the Maid whom the Church has raised to her altars.
But ere we too scathingly condemn that scene, disgraceful alike to the Church and to human nature, which was enacted in the Rouen market-place May 31, 1531; it might be well to turn a balancing gaze upon our own Cotton Mather madness which had its orgies upon Gallows Hill, Salem, June-September 1692. Nor are we of the passing day and hour sufficiently washed white of the soot of Occultism that we may conspicuously disclaim the witch-burning at Rouen. In the late Christian Science rupture accusations of “mental assassination” and the use of “malicious animal magnetism” were mutually charged. Just what that may mean in the esoteric circle, I know not; but full meaning and full knowledge would doubtless ramify back to Rouen.
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,Than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,Than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamed of in your philosophy.”
Yes, infinitely more: all that the human eye can see or the ear hear or the intellect know is but as a shore-lapping wave of the infinite ocean of the Seen, the Heard, the Known. And what if some eye be abnormally endowed with vision, or someear be attuned beyond the normal for hearing, or some finely fashioned intellect transcend ordinary knowing—shall it not inevitably see more or hear more or know more of that infinite ocean? and shall it not fearlessly and fully make known what it sees or hears or knows? And then what? Why we gregarious Little People, spitefully content in limitations, will with consenting conscience, condemn the witch to death.
Joan’s Voices spoke to her more especially when the church bells were ringing; they were mild and very kind; they always spoke soothingly. When their music stilled she lay prostrate upon the ground and wept because they had left her behind; because she had not been able to ascend with them and go home to that waiting Heaven. Joan’s Voices urged her to become the saviour of France. And when the child remonstrated that she was only a poor peasant girl and did not know how to ride a horse or handle a sword, the Voices insistently replied, “It is God who commands.” And then the Maid arose and went forth on that mighty mission.
Orleans, Jargeau, Troyes, Patay, Rheims, Laon, Soissons, Compeigne,Beauvais wereher victories. Then came the rapid flame-way of her own emancipation.
As Joan stood bound to the stake, and as the smoke and flames were hiding her from thevulgus profanum, a wild-eyed monk advanced to the pyre. He held aloft a large iron cross having upon it an ivory figure of the tortured Christ. A look of infinite sympathy and love lit up the eyes of Joan as they rested upon the Christ. Her lips parted in prayer. Blessings upon Charles VII., prayerful petitions for her beloved France were heard thro’ the crackling flames. Not once did her eyes turn from the tortured form upon the cross; thence was coming the strength that enabled her to bear the pangs of death, thence, too, the grace which urged her to pray for her murderers.
Round her rolled the fire; her long black hair was blazing,her head, her face, her wondrous eyes were flooded in flame. All was ending. But the monk held aloft the Crucifix. A gust of wind parted the fire, again the charred eyes rested upon the tortured form on the cross, her lips moved in prayer; and again she was lost in flames. Thus perished Joan of Arc, aged nineteen, virgin and martyr.
Take not the ivory Christ away. ’Tis sorrow’s mutual friend; ’tis the strength of strong agony; ’tis the sympathizing consoler of the rack, the stake, the prison house of pain, the dim valley of the Shadow, the Rouen sea of flames. The Crucifix understands.
Pan? Well, yes, for the bright blue Arcadian hour in young-heart Arcady. But for the gray every day and the solemn night; for the hours of pain and loss and parting and change, sickness, old age, sorrow; for the crucial crises of life as they come in bitter pangs to us of a lost Arcady; for the mother whose boy fell at Vera Cruz; for a Joan of Arc in the flames—ah! take your grinning Pan away; we want the Crucifix, we want the thorny crowned Christ who has suffered and understands.
Ten years after the death of Joan, there was a judicial reversal of her sentence of condemnation. Twenty-five years later the Church instituted a thorough investigation of Joan’s claims, deeds, trial, condemnation, and death. The process and results of this inquiry may be found in detail in the work “Proces de Condemnation et de Rehabilitation de Jeanne D’Arc,” published in five volumes, by theSociété de L’Histoire de France.
Many eminent English authors, besides innumerable French biographers, have written in deep sympathy with Joan of Arc; among them may be mentioned Southey, Hallam, Carlyle, Landor, de Quincy, Lang, and our own Mark Twain. Voltaire’s vulgar burlesque-epic is now generally regarded as an insultto France and a superficial satiric calumny. Schiller in The “Maid of Orleans” distorts well known historical facts.
In 1869 Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans presented at the Vatican his petition and claims for the beatification of Joan of Arc. The trial proceeded slowly, but on April 11, 1909, Pius X., the present reigning pontiff, pronounced the decree which raised Joan to the first step in the process of canonization. She was solemnly declared Blessed. “A Mass and Office of Blessed Joan taken from theCommune Virginumwith ‘proper’ prayers have been approved of by the Holy See for use in the diocese of Orleans.” Joan’s canonization is now under active consideration.
Cross or Crescent! We of the present time can form no adequate idea of the import couched in those words in mediæval time. Strange that rivers of blood should flow in the interests of the cause of the Prince of Peace! Would the Christ,—who, dying upon the Cross prayed for his murderers,—have it so? Perhaps over his friends even more pitifully than over his erring inimical world the sublime impetration unceasingly ascendsFather, forgive them for they know not what they do.
And Allah “the mild, the merciful, the compassionate”—where was he that tragic Sunday morning October 7, 1571, when one hundred thousand of his followers, singularly lacking in his characteristic qualities, stood red-hand in slaughter! Alas for the ideal when fitted to the real: it is shattered; its shimmering iridescence dies down gray and dead.
The Ottoman empire, flushed by a long series of successes under Solyman the Magnificent, had grown insolently aggressive. The memory of Tours and of Belgrade no longer acted as a deterrent to the fierce victors of Constantinople; their eyes were ever turned longingly toward western Europe, and their dreams were of bloodshed and victory.
The island Cyprus belonged to Venice, but its situation made it highly desirable as an Ottoman possession; and upon the old principle that might makes right—a principle unfortunately ever retaliatively new—the Turkish forces besieged Cyprus. Thetown Nicosia, capital of Cyprus, fell an easy prey, and the atrocities committed on the defenceless inhabitants horror-thrilled the Christian world. Later the town Famagosta after a prolonged and obstinate resistance was captured but under circumstances of peculiar malignity. In the words of Prescott: “While lying off Cephalonia Don John received word that Famagosta, the second city of Cyprus, had fallen into the hands of the enemy, and this under circumstances of unparalleled perfidy and cruelty. The place, after a defence that had cost hecatombs of lives to the besiegers, was allowed to capitulate on honorable terms. Mustapha, the Moslem commander, the same fierce chief who had conducted the siege of Malta, requested an interview at his quarters with four of the principal Venetian captains. After a short and angry conference, he ordered them all to execution. Three were beheaded. The other, a noble named Bragadina, he caused to be flayed alive in the market place of the city. The skin of the wretched victim was then stuffed: and with this ghastly trophy dangling from the yard-arm of his galley, the brutal monster sailed back to Constantinople, to receive the reward of his services from Selim (son and successor of Solyman).”
Submit to that? Wait apathetically for the Turks to come to Venice, Rome, Madrid and do in like manner? Well, no; not in the real, whatever may be the ideal. What then? Why,Fight.
Non-resistance: and if thine enemy smite thee upon the cheek, turn to him the other also; and if he take thy coat give to him also thy cloak; love your enemies; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you: and as result, what? Crucifixion. A nation of Christs would be put to death as unjustly as was the Christ of Calvary.
Fortunately or unfortunately—we know not which it may prove to be—only the Tolstoyan few will carry to their logicalconclusions the principles of non-resistance; and few, if any, even of the Tolstoyan few, will abide by these conclusions and stand calm, kind, compassionate, even under the fatal final Injustice. The great body of men, of today as of every other day of the long ages of time, defend their rights; and if that defence means that blood must flow,—then let it flow. And all the more freely will blood flow and all the more sternly indomitable will be the strife when men feel themselves justified as they strike the blow; when they feel themselves called upon to conquer or to die for a cause that they hold just; when they fight elated and fortified with the assurance that they stand as bulwarks warding off the concrete embodiment of all that they hold evil from all that they hold dear and good.
“The bravest are the tenderest,The loving are the daring.”
“The bravest are the tenderest,The loving are the daring.”
“The bravest are the tenderest,
The loving are the daring.”
Some of the bravest and the tenderest of men have trodden knee deep in human blood. There have been wars just and inevitable; and what has been may again be. We hope not; we dream not; the Peace Palace of the Hague looms spectrally on the future horizon; we are looking that way: and at times this Peace Palace seems assertively real—ready to cope with armaments and with red-hot wrongs; but again it rises fancifully and floats evanescently away and fades on a gray sky. Is it Mirage?
Next in moral excellence to the Christian martyr is undoubtedly the Christian knight.
Chivalry—fair flower of Feudalism, night blooming cereus wide opening in white splendor exuding fragrance in somber mediæval midnight! King Arthur and his Table Round; knights errant done to death by Don Quixote and yet victors even over the smile; Chevalier Bayard, the knight without fearand without reproach; Richard Cœur de Lion, the Black Prince, Lohengren, Parsifal, Siegfried, Don John of Austria—are flowerets of that Flower caught wax-white in amber and fixed fadelessly.
In all the sweep of history from Egypt to the hour, there is nothing nobler than the ideal Christian knight. To stand in awe of the omnipotent God; to go about the world redressing human wrongs; to love with young-world love bashfully reverent, constrained to win the world and lay it humbly atherfeet; to reverence truth and to scorn with scorn unutterable all the thousand and one manifestations of the lie; to be loyal to king and country and God; to be gentle, courteous, kind to all life from highest to lowest; to stand face-front to the oncoming forces of evil and in that fight grimly to conquer or die: there is nothing nobler.
And yet not for all the glory of DonJohn, ideal Christianknight and hero of Lepanto, would I have one little stain of human blood on my white hands.
“New occasions teach new duties;Time makes ancient good uncouth.”—Lowell.
“New occasions teach new duties;Time makes ancient good uncouth.”—Lowell.
“New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth.”—Lowell.
Nevertheless he who would sympathetically and justly depict the past should be capable of entering into and all round estimating that ancient good now grown uncouth. And whatever the best men of any given age or time or clime unanimously hold as best must, in the deep heart of things, be best for that age or time or clime. The knight, the hero, the Crusader, the victor over the Saracens seemed best to the best men of the Middle Age.
Pope Pius V. earnestly advocated the cause of Venice. He appealed to the Christian monarchs of Europe to join with the Holy See in a League having for its object the total overthrow of the Ottoman empire. He urged the aggressive policy of theTurks under Solyman the Magnificent and his unworthy son and successor Selim II.; he vividly portrayed the atrocities of Turkish conquest and the blight upon civilization that ever unerringly followed in the wake of the Crescent; and he endeavored by all means in his power to arouse in the hearts of the children of the Church the spirit that had made possible the First Crusade.
All Europe at this time mourned its Christian captives who were languishing in Turkish dungeons or wasting away as galley slaves. Twelve thousand of these Christian captives were chained to the oars as galley slaves on the Moslem ships while the fight Lepanto was raging; their liberation and restoration to freedom formed the purest joy-pearl in the gem casket of that joyous victory.
Cyprus had just fallen into the hands of the Turks amid scenes of unparalleled barbarity: and against the Turk as the destroyer of civilization and the menace of Christendom all eyes were directed, all hearts beat with desire to avenge, slay, destroy: and all these feelings found outlet, and culmination and gratification in the battle of Lepanto, under Don John of Austria, the Christian knight.
Ocean instability, ocean vastness, ocean majestic indifference to the pigmy life and death struggles of men throw a magnetic glow over sea fights.
When the bay of Salamis changed gradually from greenish gray to red; when the Ionian sea slowly purpled off Actium, crimsoning the frightened barge of Cleopatra and of love maddened Anthony; when the waters at the entrance of the gulf Lepanto grew blood-red fed by trickling streams from five hundred galleys: did ocean care? The Titanic sinks and the billowsdash high in foam play, they descend sportively with her into her grave hole, they arise and roll on: the Volturno blazes on a background of black sky, a foreground of flame-lit angry rolling waves: and does ocean care?
Don John arranged his battle line in a semi-circular stretch of about one mile embracing the entrance to the gulf of Lepanto (now Gulf Corinth). The Turkish fleet lay concealed somewhere on the water of the gulf and must come out at the entrance and fight openly or remain bottled up in the gulf until forced out by starvation. Don John knew his adversary, Ali Pasha, too well to dream that the latter alternative would be accepted by the sturdy Moslem.
Early Sunday morning (Oct. 7, 1571) Don John sighted a line of ships far in the gulf but making steadily for the opening. Battle was at hand. Don John, in his flagship, the Real, passed from vessel to vessel encouraging and animating his soldiers. “You have come,” he said, “to fight the battle of the Cross; to conquer or to die. But whether you are to die or conquer, do your duty this day and you will secure a glorious immortality.” He then returned to his position in the center of the semi-circle, and in that conspicuous position seen by all, he knelt in prayer under the far floating banner of the League. His example was followed by all, and the priests of whom there was at least one if not more on each galley, went around giving the last absolution to the men as they knelt in prayer.
The Ottoman shouts now filled the air as the long line of three hundred galleys arranged as a crescent, paused for a moment at the opening of the gulf. The center of the Christian fleet following Don John advanced to the Ottoman center commanded by Ali Pasha; the left wing under Barbarigo, the Venetian admiral, sought as adversary the opposing wing under Mahomet Sirocco; the right wing under Andrew Doria grappled with the opposing Mohammedan left under Ulrich Ali, deyof Algiers. For four hours the battle raged. So dense was the canopy of smoke enveloping the combatants that neither side knew for a certainty which was winning until the drawing down of the Ottoman banner and the hasty hauling up of the Banner of the League on board the flagship of Ali Pasha made known the result decisively. Shouts then rent the air and groans.
The Moslem left wing under the brave sea captain Ulrich Ali was engaged in a fierce grappling fight with Doria, and the advantage seemed to be with the Moslems. Don John seeing this, hastened to Doria’s aid.Ulrich Ali, seeingthat all was lost, ordered his men at the oars to make all possible speed for escape round the promontory. The Christian vessels gave chase, but the Moslem galleys sped with the speed of the wind and were soon lost to sight. About forty vessels were thus saved out of the three hundred that had taken part in the engagement. Of these one hundred and thirtywere seized asprizes by the Christian forces, the rest having been sunk or burned in the fight.
The Ottoman loss is estimated between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand; that of the Christians at eight thousand. The superior marksmanship of the allies and their use exclusively of firearms, while the Turks used in part bows and arrows; the better make and equipment of the Christian galleys—are among the causes to which human reason may attribute the incredible disparity between the Turkish loss and that of the Christians in this engagement. But there are many circumstances peculiar to this battle for which human reason can assign no cause.
It is related on good authority that as the Christian soldiers arose from prayer the wind which had hitherto been blowing steadily from the gulf, suddenly veered around and blew right into the faces of the enemy. In the course of the engagementthe sun, too, reached the point where its rays shot into the eyes of the Turkish marksmen and caused them to err in their aim. Pope Pius V. who, while the battle was in progress, was closeted in consultation with a number of cardinals, in the Vatican, suddenly arose from his seat and approaching the window and casting up his eyes to the heavens exclaimed as tears of joy rolled down his cheeks, “A truce to business; our great task at present is to thank God for the victory He has just given the Christians.”
The struggle between The Real, Don John’s flagship, and the galley bearing Ali Pasha was of course pivotal. Each commander felt that upon him and his ship depended the issue of the combat. Both were brave men, both must conquer or die: Don John conquered, Ali Pasha died.
The ships had grappled and a hand to hand conflict was raging upon the decks. Blood slowly trickled down the sides of the galleys and the waters were incarnadined.
In the heat of the engagement a musket ball struck the head of the Moslem commander. He fell prone and lay for some time unconscious upon a heap of the dying and the dead. But suddenly regaining consciousness he attempted to rise and was at once recognized by the surrounding Spanish soldiers. They were about to despatch him with their swords when the wily Moslem appealing to their natural cupidity made known to them the secret hiding place of his ship’s treasure. The lure of gold led the soldiers to hasten below leaving their victim to chance life or death on the deck. But just as dear life seemed secured from the ruthless thrust of death, the wounded commander was confronted by a strangely savage figure with uplifted sword. It was one of the Christian galley slaves longchained on Ali’s vessel and but that hour given freedom from the hated oar. In vain did Ali Pasha appeal to this soldier’s cupidity; nothing seemed quite so desirable to him as the death of the man who had so long chained him a galley slave. The threatening sword fell unerringly upon the wounded Moslem chief and buried itself in his heart. With this retributive blow the tide of victory turned decisively in favor of the Christians.
There are few characters upon the historic page more full in promise and yet futile in attainment than Don John of Austria. The idol of all Europe, the knightsans peur et sans reproche, the hero of Lepanto—at the age of twenty-four; he died seven years later in comparative obscurity; a rude hut hastily erected to receive the dying commander served as his last resting place upon earth.
As Don John lay in the agony of death, a terrific storm suddenly broke over the camp; and as in the case of Napoleon under somewhatsimilar circumstances, Don John partly arose, muttered incoherently of battle and victory, then sank back and died. Did the rattle of the storm suggest the din of battle? Or did vague visions of another storm arise associatively in memory? History relates that tho’ that battle Sunday, Oct. 7, 1571, was a day of ideal autumn brightness, yet when the strife was fairly over and the battered galleys with their dead and wounded and sorely wearied men were heavily entering port, a storm suddenly arose: the skies darkened ominously, lightning flashed from the lowering clouds, thunder reverberated, and torrential rains poured down. For twenty-four hours the storm continued. Was nature indignantly weeping over the errors and sufferings of her children? Was she striving to wash out from old ocean—the rugged, primal, favorite work of her hands—those awful stains of blood?
As Don John had hastened to port under the gathering storm he gave orders that the Moslem galleys rendered worthless by the battle should be stripped of everything of value and then set on fire. And so it was that when safe in port the Christian conquerors looking out thro’ the storm saw the burning ships. They luridly lit up the darkness and blazed wildly down to the waves—mutely eloquent witnesses of the horror and desolation of war.
Did the dulling senses of the hero of Lepanto see that scene, hear that storm—as the winds raged round his temporary shelter and death in blasting splendor closed over all? Or did the fair “castles in Spain” rise again spectrally with light upon them from beyond the grave as the dreamer of royal dreams sank down to the real? That wonderful African empire so near, so far: that beauteous bride, Mary Queen of Scots, liberated, released, restored by his own good sword; wooed and won and with her the throne of that imperious usurper Elizabeth Tudor: that smile of pontiffs, that commendation of Catholic Europe, that proud praise from the lips of his father’s son, Philip II. of Spain—as he, the hero of Lepanto, the champion of Christendom, returned fresh-laureled from new combats and victories, a king, a crowned lover, an Emperor—Dreams!
“Take, fortune, whatever you chooseYou gave and may take again;I’ve nothing ’twould pain me to lose,For I own no more castles in Spain.”
“Take, fortune, whatever you chooseYou gave and may take again;I’ve nothing ’twould pain me to lose,For I own no more castles in Spain.”
“Take, fortune, whatever you choose
You gave and may take again;
I’ve nothing ’twould pain me to lose,
For I own no more castles in Spain.”
Don John is buried in the Escorial. His name and fame are inseparably associated with the decisive victory of the Cross over the Crescent off the entrance to the gulf Lepanto.
An admirable painting of this battleThe Victory of the Leagueby Titian still adorns the walls of the Museo, Madrid.
The petitionMary, Help of Christiansinserted on this occasion in the litany of Loretto bears evidence even today of thegratitude felt by Pius V. and with him all Christendom for deliverance from the unspeakable Turk.
The historian Ranke speaking of the effects of this battle says: “The Turks lost all their old confidence after the battle of Lepanto. They had no equal to oppose to Don John of Austria. The day of Lepanto broke down the Ottoman supremacy.”
Spain’s proudly invincible Armada left Lisbon, May 20, 1588 with one hundred and forty ships and thirty thousand four hundred and ninety-seven men; fifty-three shattered vessels, and ten thousand men, vincible and humbled, returned to port Santander, Sept. 13, 1588. This disaster led to the decadence of Spainas a maritimepower, and indirectly to the decline of Spanish dominance both in the old and in the new world.
The effects of any great event are not immediately discernible nor are its causes ever fully revealed. When Philip II. of Spain received with courteous equanimity his defeated admiral, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and to his words,
“And you see here, great King,All that remains of the Armada’s mightAnd of the flower of Spain.”
“And you see here, great King,All that remains of the Armada’s mightAnd of the flower of Spain.”
“And you see here, great King,
All that remains of the Armada’s might
And of the flower of Spain.”
made answer,
“God rules above us!I sent you to contend with men and notWith rocks and storms. You’re welcome to Madrid.”—Schiller.
“God rules above us!I sent you to contend with men and notWith rocks and storms. You’re welcome to Madrid.”—Schiller.
“God rules above us!
I sent you to contend with men and not
With rocks and storms. You’re welcome to Madrid.”—Schiller.
did the great King see then either the causes or the consequences of the vincibility of his Invincible Armada!
The character of Philip II. is portrayed upon the historic page in colors of sharp contrast. To the Spaniards he was their Solomon, their “prudent king”; to Motley and the Netherlands he was “the demon of the South.”
Philip II. was the finished product of his age and nation. Pride, intolerance, absolutism combined with excellent administrativeability, deep tho’ narrow religious convictions, and rigorous sincerity, characterized both the man and the monarch. To a victim of anAuto da Fehe said with stern truthfulness, “If my own son were guilty like you I should lead him with my own hands to the stake.”
As to Philip’s really having delivered his son, Don Carlos, into the hands of the Grand Inquisitor as tragically told in Schiller’s “Don Carlos”, well that is drama, not history. But when a noted name and its suggested personality—for good or for evil and unfortunately less frequently for good than for evil—are once fascinatingly fixed in drama or story or song, not all the tomes of contradictory evidence, not all the living archives of dead centuries, not Truth itself, can shatter the crystal charm or make it cease shining. Alexander the Great, world conqueror; Socrates, the Wise; Plato, poet-philosopher;Aristotle, masterof them that know; Julius Cæsar, deplored of all nations; Mark Anthony, Cleopatra’s lover; Nero, monster; Caligula-Commodus-Heliogabalus, crowned madmen; Marcus Aurelius, Emperor-philosopher; Charlemagne, the Good; Louis IX., the Saint; Louis XI., hypocrite; John of England, child murderer; Richard III., deformed devil; Henry VIII., wife-killer; Machiavelli, serpent-sophist; Louis XIV., despot,Arbiter Elegantiarum; Elizabeth, Good Queen Bess; Mary, Queen of Scots, the lovely unfortunate; Philip II. of Spain, bigot: thus are they fixed in the charmed circle of literature and thus shall they glitter forever.
Is history itself any more reliable than drama? As to facts, Yes; as to motives, intentions, cumulative causes, results, all round truth, No. “Histories are as perfect as the historian is wise, and is gifted with an eye and a soul,” says the astute Carlyle; and every honest author feels at deepest heart the truth of these words. The soft art of omission is known to every artist of the pen. And condemnation euphemisticallybalanced by excusing comment may, in one artistic sentence, satisfy at once a writer’s conscience, his subjectivity, and the claims of his peculiar environment. Can any one doubt that it was thus Macaulay wrote his brilliant history of England? And even granted almost the impossible—that an historian be ruggedly truthful and fearlessly sincere; he is not thereby rendered wise, nor is he necessarily gifted with an eye and a soul.
So in colors of sharp contrast upon the historic page will Philip II. ever be portrayed; but both can’t be right. Perhaps tho’ they may be as sundered extremes of a prismatic ray which, when complementary coloring shall have been added, will become white light.
Truly it was against storms and rocks as well as against such rough sea-dogs as Drake and Hawkins and Raleigh and Frobisher and Howard that the Invincible Armada contended. In the beginning of the northward cruise as the Armada was rounding the corner of Spain, off Corunna, a violent tempest arose. The frail caravels, andgalleons and galleassesof 1588 were not so independent of wave and wind as are the Dreadnoughts of 1914. Yet ocean is still master of man; and man’s most titan-like Titanic is but a puny plaything in old Neptune’s hand.
Several vessels were lost in the storm, and the fleet was so badly damaged that in consequence the Spanish Admiral was obliged to stop off at Corunna for repairs. July 12th, after so inauspicious a beginning, the fleet was again on its way northward.
Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, captain general of all the Spanish armies, was at Dunkirk with a flotilla of large flat-bottomed barges awaiting the Armada to convoy him and hisarmy across the channel. His plan was to invade England by way of the Thames and land his veteran forces in London.
“Alexander Farnese, prince of Parma, captain general of the Spanish armies, and governor of the Spanish possessions in the Netherlands, was beyond all comparison the greatest military genius of his age. He was also highly distinguished for political wisdom and sagacity, and for his great administrative talents. He was idolized by his troops, whose affection he knew how to win without relaxing their discipline or diminishing his own authority. Pre-eminently cool and circumspect in his plans, but swift and energetic when the moment arrived for striking a decisive blow, neglecting no risk that caution could provide against, conciliating even the populations of the districts which he attacked by his scrupulous good faith; his moderation, and his address; Farnese was one of the most formidable generals that ever could be placed at the head of an army designed not only to win battles, but to effect conquests. Happy it is for England and the world that this island was saved from becoming an arena for the exhibition of his powers.” Creasy.
As in 1588 Alexander Farnese with a chosen army awaited at Dunkirk the assistance of the Armada both to clear the seas of Dutch and English war ships and to convoy in safety his flotilla to the coast of England: so, too, in 1805 Napoleon Bonaparte awaited at Boulogne for Villeneuve to do him a like service; and in both cases the English fleet took the offensive and destroyed at one blow both the protective war boats of the enemy and the hopeful plans of the man who waited. The sea fights at Calais Roads and at Trafalgar are perhaps negatively momentous in history but not the less momentous.
The Spanish fleet after some disastrous fighting with the English cruisers off the coast of Plymouth succeeded in reaching Calais Roads (July 27). Here they were quickly semi-circled by the combined Dutch and English fleet under LordCharles Howard, high admiral of England. The Spanish ships were far greater in bulk than those of the opposing force and in the harbor of Calais they were huddled together “like strong castles fearing no assault, the lesser placed in the middle ward.” The lighter English ships, no longer able to use their two best assets, nimbleness and advantage of the wind, clung doggedly around these ocean leviathans awaiting the hour of opportunity. At length early on the morning of the 29th the English Admiral succeeded in thrusting eight Greek fire-ships in among the compact wooden war vessels. The effect was electrical. The Spanish ships cut their cables and were dispersed and the fight ship to ship was soon in full progress. All day long from early dawn till dark this battle raged. The Spaniards were driven out from Calais Roads and past the Flemish ports and far out beyond Dunkirk where the Prince of Parma waited. The English then ceased pursuit. Lord Henry Seymour with an able squadron was left to maintain the blockade of the Flemish port and to render ineffectual the activities of the Prince of Parma.
Northward sped the vincible Armada farther and farther from sunny Spain. She had many wounded men on board ships, her provisions were failing, the channel filled with victorious Dutch and English war boats offered no hope of a way of return, and at last in desperation the Spanish admiral directed the course of his ships around the northern coast of Scotland and Ireland. What a long and cruel way home for wounded soldiers, starving sailors, and disheartened generals! But even here ill luck pursued them. A storm arose as they were passing thro’ the Orkneys; their vessels were dispersed, many were lost. About thirty ships were afterwards wrecked on the west coast of Ireland, and those of the crews who succeeded in reaching the shore were immediately put to death. It is estimated that fourteen thousand thus perished.
And in September of that memorable year there came stragglingship by ship into the port Santander all that were left of the gallant fleet that had sailed away five months ago to subdue England and so win all Europe for Spain.
Nor was that plan at all chimerical, nor its realization improbable. Spain was at that time in possession of Portugal, Naples, Sicily, Milan, Franche-Compte, and the Netherlands; in Africa she controlled Tunis, Oran, the Cape Verde and the Canary islands; in Asia, the Philippine and Sunda Islands and part of the Moluccas; in the New World, the empire of Peru, and of Mexico, New Spain, Chili, Hispaniola and Cuba. Only England held out against the power of Spain and stood adamantine to all her threats, cajolery, caresses. Only England stood between Philip II. of Spain and Spanish dominance in the old and in the New World. Englishbuccaneers seized upon his galleonson their return gem-laden from Peru and Mexico. Drake the “master robber of the New World” had signally dishonored Philip of Spain and had in requital been honored by the English queen with the titleSir Francis. England must be destroyed (Britannia delenda est.) Spain seemed powerful enough by land and by sea to be as a new Rome to old Carthage: but winds and waves and rocky coasts and adamantine Englishmen reversed the Roman story (Britannia non deleta est.)