The story of this claimant's adventures is, perhaps, the most romantic of all our heroes, but unfortunately it is one of the most unreliable. The Mezerays and other ancient writers, however, give the tale as authentic, and as they recount it so it is detailed here; fact and fiction being difficult in such cases to disentangle.
This pretender is styled in history Gondebaud, and would appear to have had some real claims to a royal origin, his mother having educated him from his earliest infancy as the king's son, and carefully preserved from the desecrating shears his flowing locks—a mark of regal birth amongst the ancient Franks.
Clotaire the First, who was then reigning at Soissons, refused to accept the imputed parentage, and the woman accordingly fled with the child to Paris, to claim the protection of Childebert, the king's brother, who was reigning there. Childebert, not having any male children of his own, took a liking to the boy, and was desirous of adopting him as his nephew, and educating him at his court; but when the putative father heard this he was greatly incensed, and wrote to his brother to send Gondebaud to him, as he would take care of him, adding that it was false to call him his son, which he was not; that educating him as a king's son was giving the boy honours to which he was not entitled, and might hereafter afford him an opportunity of deceiving the world. Clotaire's care was the more necessary as illegitimacy did not, amongst the ancient Franks, debar the offspring's right to the crown.
The king of Soissons having obtained possession of his supposed son, had his head shaved and sent him into a monastery. Dying, however, in 561, his eldest son, Cherebert, who succeeded him, took compassion upon Gondebaud, and, during the whole of his reign, treated him with fraternal kindness. Cherebert dying in 570, the crown passed to Sigobert, who ordered our hero to come to his court. He at once obeyed, was seized, his flowing locks again severed from his head, and he once more imprisoned in a monastery. Finding means of escape, the unfortunate youth fled into Italy, and made his way to the camp of Narses, the Emperor Justinian's famous general.
By Narses, Gondebaud was kindly received and promised succour; but just at the moment when he seemed on the point of being enabled to take the field against his presumed relatives, his protector died, and he was left once more a friendless wanderer. In the meantime, the Emperor Justinian had also died, and his successors, Justin the Second and Sophia, determined to give the remains of their renowned warrior, Narses, a superb funeral. Our claimant availed himself of the opportunity to make his court to the imperial couple, and travelled with the body to Constantinople, where he was extremely well received, his handsome figure and courtier-like manner obtaining him no little favour from the empress.
Gondebaud dwelt at the Constantinopolitan court during the reigns of Justin the Second and his successor Tiberius. With Maurice, general and subsequently successor of the latter, he served in several campaigns against the Persians, and apparently with credit. He would probably have ended his days honourably in the Eastern Empire had not a certain conspirator, Boson, tempted him to return to France with the information that his supposed brother Sigobert had been treacherously murdered; that the two infamous queens, Brunechild and Fredegonde, had completely disorganized the country with their crimes and quarrels; adding, that the time was ripe for his return, the people being only too desirous of submitting to his rule, and that the two kings who now divided the country between them, being childless, would not offer any great opposition to his claims. Deceived by these specious arguments, Gondebaud, after a sojourn of twenty years in the Orient, returned to France, taking with him good equipments and a large sum of money, advanced by his friend the Emperor Tiberius.
Landing at Marseilles, he was received by the bishop of that city with great honours, and the news of his arrival having spread abroad, coupled with the rumour that he was accompanied by enormous wealth, the result of having discovered the supposed hoard of Narses, caused large numbers of people, including many of high rank, to come to his camp to pay homage. In addition to their expectation of bountiful gifts from his hands, his visitors found Gondebaud good-looking, and apparently worthy of the warlike reputation he had obtained from having served under Narses and Maurice. The Duke of Toulouse and other independent nobles proffered their alliance; so that after all his tussles with fortune our hero seemed at last nearly certain of a kingdom. But at this critical moment the traitor Boson turned against him, and, seizing his treasures, compelled Gondebaud to fly, and take refuge in an impregnable island at the mouth of the Rhone.
After having thus endured the ups and downs of fickle fortune, this claimant, in hopes of ingratiating himself with the Franks, and at the suggestion of his ally Childebert, king of Metz, took upon himself the pseudo name of Clotaire, thus more distinctly marking his claim to the throne of his putative father Clotaire the First. But all the arts of the pretender were unavailable to obtain the assistance or recognition of Gontran, king of Orleans, who took up arms in defence of the real heir to the throne, the veritable Clotaire the Second, a child of tender years, and who, despite the fact that Gondebaud's forces were commanded by the best generals of the country, by fight or stratagem gradually deprived him of all his treasures, allies, and, finally, of his life. For the pretender's chief adherents finding that Gontran was determined to resist him to the uttermost, and probably seeing little prospect of his ultimately obtaining any permanent power in the country, determined to abandon Gondebaud to his fate; he was, however, so strongly fortified, and so well provided with every necessary of war in his stronghold, that his foes found the only method of dislodging him was by stratagem.
Gontran accordingly got Queen Brunechild, the mother of his adopted heir, Childebert, to write to our hero, under the pretence of her being secretly in his interest, and advise him to remove with all his treasure to Bordeaux, where he would have the command of both land and sea. Duped by this woman, the unfortunate claimant forsook his refuge, and put himselfen routefor Bordeaux. On the road he fell in with an ambuscade of the enemy's, which succeeded in stripping him of all the treasure he had accumulated, but did not prevent him arriving at his destination.
Bordeaux sustained a siege of some weeks on the pretender's account, but during the whole of that time traitors in and out of the city were bargaining for his betrayal. At last, his chief men, thinking to ransom their lives with his, persuaded the pseudo Clotaire to go outside the city to confer with the foe as to the terms of peace, and as soon as he was without the walls they closed the gates upon him, leaving him to his fate. He was seized by the besiegers and dragged on to a hillock outside their camp, where he was flung down by one of their commanders; and as the unhappy man was still rolling, the traitor Boson beat out his brains with a battle-axe. Thus perished this luckless pretender to the throne of the Franks, whether a son or not of Clotaire the First, equally unfortunate.
When Clotaire the Third came to the French throne he was only five years old; consequently the affairs of the kingdom had to be entrusted to the guidance of a regent. The man selected to fill this post was Ebroin, and the choice appeared in every respect admirable. Ebroin was not only, apparently, fitted by birth and talent to sway the people, but he also possessed the qualification most desirable of all others for the time and clime in which he lived; that is to say, he was a valiant and experienced warrior.
Associated, however, with him in power, was Batilde, the queen dowager, a woman, according to all the priestly chroniclers, of great beauty and discretion, but doubtless much swayed by bigoted ecclesiastics. For some years the country enjoyed considerable prosperity: Batilde ruled with prudence and justice, and by keeping on good terms with the prelates has obtained no little historic fame; whilst Ebroin, having managed to quarrel with the Church, has left a reputation for all that is bad.
The queen dowager, either by compulsion or inclination, having resigned the cares of government, and taken refuge in the convent of Chelles, the chief minister, Ebroin, orMaire du Palais, as he was styled, was enabled to give full vent to all those evil qualities which circumstances had hitherto compelled him to conceal. Taking the entire power into his own hands, he killed and ill-treated, confiscated and exiled, with as much arrogance as a reigning king. In the year 668 the boy Clotaire died, aged about eighteen; and Ebroin, contrary to the wish of the nobles, placed Thierry, the younger brother of the deceased monarch, upon the throne, to the exclusion of the elder brother, Childerick, the next heir. He was induced to act thus in consequence of Thierry's youth, he being but eight, affording him a good opportunity of retaining the governing power in his own hands. In this act, however, he erred; for the nation, or at all events a powerful portion of it, revolted against his authority, overthrew him, and took both him and the prince Thierry prisoners. More merciful than was the wont in those days, the victors put neither of their prisoners to death, but contented themselves with shaving Ebroin's head—then deemed a terrible degradation—and confining him in a monastery, and with placing his youthful protégé under priestly surveillance.
In 973, Childerick the Second, and his wife and child, were assassinated by a gentleman whom he had had brutally beaten for remonstrating with him somewhat freely on the danger of an excessive imposition that he had wished to establish. Taking advantage of the confusion into which the country was thrown by this sudden event, Ebroin made his escape from the monastery in which he had been immured, and, aided by a large number of malcontents, set up the standard of revolt against Thierry the Third, who now, in consequence of his brother's death, became the legitimate king. Ebroin was joined by the Governor of Austrasia, by two deposed bishops, and by many other influential men, all of whom shared with him an intense hatred of Leger, Bishop of Autun, who now held the reins of power. In order to obtain more partisans amongst the people, Ebroin and his comrades brought forward a lad of about twelve or thirteen years of age, and asserted that he was a son of Clotaire the Third, who was believed to have died in 670, in his nineteenth year.
There was just a possibility of this boy having been Clotaire's son, although an illegitimate one, no proof of the deceased monarch's marriage ever having been adduced; and as illegitimacy was not in those days deemed a bar to the crown, the claim of little Clovis the Third, as Ebroin had him styled, may have been as valid as that of his competitors. Be that as it may, historians have also termed this youthful pretender, or rather tool of the conspirators, thefalseClovis. The lad was attired in royal robes, and taught to affect a majesty of deportment towards all those who came to render him homage, whilst all those who refused to acknowledge him as king were maltreated, and their goods seized by his followers. His reign, however, was of short duration. Bishop Leger having been captured, deprived of sight, and thrown into prison, the great nobles and chieftains succumbed at once, and Ebroin found the whole power of the country in his own hands; he, therefore, deemed it better to make terms with Thierry, who willingly replaced him in his post ofMaire du Palais, conditionally upon being left in nominal possession of the sovereignty.
Having thus attained his purpose, Ebroin had no longer any need of his puppet, and at once relinquished the imposture; but what afterwards became of the boy king history does not relate. As regards the originator of the scheme, his cruelties and tyranny increased daily, so that when in 683, or three or four years after the re-establishment of his power, he was assassinated by a noble named Bermenfroy, whose property he had seized, and whose life he had menaced, it must have been a real relief to his country. Through Ebroin's death it was that a way was opened for the family of Pepin, the founder of the Carlovingian race, to acquire the dignity ofMaire du Palais, and subsequently the monarchy of France.
To many casual readers it may seem a singular circumstance that nearly every claimant to regal paternity has found authors, more or less numerous, to espouse his cause, and assert his identity with the monarch whose name he laid claim to. On inspection the singularity vanishes. Putting on one side the difficulties of investigation which ancient annalists had to encounter, and as a rule the defective evidence they had to judge by, the undeniable fact is arrived at that not a few of the so-called historians often wilfully misrepresented, falsified, omitted, and even inventedfactsto suit their own party views.
Many of these forgeries the acumen and research of later ages have exposed; many more will doubtless, in course of time, be discovered, but a still larger number in all probability linger undetected in the pages of history, and will ever remain so. It is unfortunate that the class of men to whom we are compelled to resort chiefly for historic and social information prior to the invention of printing, are the very men whose writings it is necessary to hold in greatest doubt; and it is, beyond dispute, well ascertained that history which had to filter through a priest's brains, as a rule descended to posterity deeply tinged, to say the best of it, with the hue its author wished it to have in the eyes of the world.
Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, better known as Pius the Second, amongst his numerous works left aHistory of Bohemia, and the thirteenth chapter of that history details the events which have caused us to insert amongst the claimants to royalty the name of Suatocopius, leaving the reader to decide for himself as to the credibility of the aspirant's claim to the name and title of the supposed slain monarch.
The Marcomanni, or Moravians, are asserted to have been converted to Christianity about the middle of the ninth century by Methodius and Cyril, two Greek monks. These two men, noted in history for having implanted the Christian faith in Russia, Bulgaria, and the adjacent lands, were brothers, members of an illustrious Thessalonican family, and distinguished for their learning and the purity of their lives. About the year 860 these missionaries are stated to have appeared at the court of Suatocopius, a king whose sway was more or less acknowledged, not only by the Moravians, but also, according to priestly authority, by the Hungarians, Bohemians, Poles, and inhabitants of Black Russia, but who, notwithstanding the extent of his territories and the number of his subjects, was tributary to the Emperor of Germany, as had been his predecessors since the days of Charlemagne.
Converted by the Greek brothers to the Christian religion, Suatocopius is stated for many years to have set a good example to his subjects of all the virtues called royal; but finally, emboldened by the continuous prosperity of a long reign and the representations of his courtiers, he declined paying any more tribute into the imperial exchequer. This refusal at once involved him in warfare with the Emperor Arnulph, and in a battle which ensued the Moravians were defeated, and, so it was universally believed, their monarch slain. The body of Suatocopius could not be discovered, declares our chief authority, but the fact of his death was deemed indisputable, and his son was permitted by his godfather, the victor, to ascend the vacant throne.
Many years elapsed, and Suatocopius was probably forgotten, when some monks brought his son the astounding information that his father, the king, had only just expired, in the distant and mean hermitage whence they came. The tale which they told, and which their hearer placed entire credence in, according to the history of Pope Pius, was to the effect that for several years they had housed and fed a wanderer who one day had besought their hospitality; during the whole time he had lived with them he had cheerfully and patiently endured all the hardships of their rough and indigent life, but finding his end approaching, the unknown had summoned them to his side and said:—
"Until the present moment you have not known who I am. Know then that I am the King of Moravia, who, having lost a battle, took refuge amongst you. I die, after having tasted the joys of reigning and of private life. The royal state is certainly not preferable to the repose of solitude. Here I sleep without fear and without disquietude, enjoying the calm and pleasures of life, tasting fruits and the purest water, which is far more agreeable than the most precious beverages the courts of kings afford. I have spent with you happily the remainder of the life God has granted me, and the time which I passed upon the throne now seems to me to have been a continual death.... When I am dead inter my body in this place, but go, I beg you, and inform my son, if he be still alive, what I have told you."
Soon after this confession the supposed king died; his body was duly interred by his fellow monks, and information of his decease sent to the reigning monarch. He, with all diligence, had the body disinterred and brought to Volgrade, the capital of Moravia, and, notwithstanding the years that had elapsed since the disappearance of Suatocopius, and the length of time the corpse had been buried, recognized the body as his father's, and had it deposited, with all due pomp and ceremony, in the royal sepulchre, to moulder, royal or plebeian, amid the ashes of his predecessors.
Henry the Fifth of Germany, like so many other monarchs of the middle ages, had wrested the imperial crown from the head of his unfortunate father, Henry the Fourth. This latter emperor, having been dethroned by his unnatural son, took refuge with the Bishop of Liege, in whose city he died of grief.
The fifth Henry was fully recompensed for his undutiful conduct by the continual rebellion of his subjects in different portions of the imperial dominions, by the bitter hostility of his former friend, Archbishop Albert, of Mainz, and by the unceasing persecution of the Papacy. Henry the Fifth died childless in 1125, worn out with strife, and the sceptre passed into the hands of Lothaire the Second. Five years after the Emperor's death, a Benedictine monk of the Abbey of Cluny, in Burgundy, startled his brother recluses by the assertion that he was the supposed deceased monarch, Henry the Fifth of Germany. He declared that being desirous of abdicating the crown which he had forced his unhappy parent to resign to him, he had spread the false intelligence of his own decease, and then had set out, in pilgrim garb, for the Holy Land. He narrated a pitiful tale of the indignities heaped upon his imperial head during the years of his pilgrimage; how he had narrowly escaped drowning through a man having brutally pushed him into the sea when he was on the point of embarkation; how he had been compelled by the Knights Templars, at Acre, to assist as a labourer at the construction of fortifications there; and many other equally edifying stories of his adventures. The monks appear to have believed in his identity, and some authors assert that by the express commands of Pope Innocent the Second, a firm friend of the Emperor Lothaire the Second, he was never permitted to pass beyond the precincts of the abbey.
The historian Mezerai remarks that Henry was believed to have eventually retired to Angers, and to have ended his days as a servitor to the hospital there; having, however, previous to his death, acknowledged his rank to his confessor, and been seen and recognized by his wife Maud, daughter of Henry the Second of England, who had taken another consort in the person of Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou.
In Gibbon's grand work there is, probably, no episode more graphically and characteristically described than the story of Andronicus Comnenus; and no more hapless a fate than that which the unfortunate young Emperor Alexis received at the hands of the miscreant. The whole narrative comes to us originally from the pen of the historian Nicetas, who, being Secretary of State at the time, was not only a competent recorder, but also a veritable eyewitness of many of the startling incidents he relates. Gibbon merely carries his account of the youthful monarch up to the period of his death, but Nicetas favours his readers with a record of the still more wonderful events which were associated with the name of Alexis, long after his real or alleged murder.
Upon the death of the renowned Alexis, Emperor of the Eastern Empire, his nephew, bearing the same name, was called to the throne. The young monarch being only thirteen years of age, was placed under the guardianship of his mother Xene, and of his cousin Andronicus, a man of great audacity and courage, but who, despite his royal birth, had suffered innumerable vicissitudes of fortune. Her coadjutor speedily contrived to get the empress mother banished, forcing her own son to sign the warrant of exile; and then, still fearful of the poor woman's influence in the state, had her strangled. By these criminal proceedings having got all the real power of the empire into his own hands, Andronicus determined to secure himself against the probable future competition of his nephew, whom he had already compelled to accept him as a colleague in the government, by having him murdered.
It is surprising how readily the usurper appeared to find men of high position ready to execute his nefarious schemes. Amongst the names of the five wretches who are recorded to have assassinated their youthful sovereign, is that of John Camaterus, who subsequently became Patriarch of Bulgaria, and that of a Secretary of State. Three of the murderers are said to have strangled the boy with a bowstring, and to have been subsequently assisted by two others to fling the body into the sea. After the assassination had been completed, Andronicus wished to view the body of his deceased relative, who was only fifteen at the date of his murder. Upon the corpse being brought into his presence, the inhuman monster is recorded to have spurned it with his foot, and to have used opprobrious language to it, and of its dead parents. The head, it is averred, was then severed from the body, and, after having been mutilated and stamped with the imperial seal, was flung out of doors, whilst the rest of the poor lad's remains were enclosed in a leaden chest, and were, as above remarked, flung into the sea.
This almost incredible tale of horror is but one out of the many terrible crimes imputed to Andronicus, who amongst other deeds is alleged to have obtained forcible possession of Agnes, daughter of Louis the Seventh of France, the wife, or rather the betrothed, of the murdered Alexis. In a little while, and the cup of his enormity was full. Before the third year of his tyranny had expired the discovery of his intention to have Isaac Angelus, a person of great popularity, assassinated, drove that nobleman into open rebellion; the populace espoused his cause, placed him on the throne, and having discovered and seized Andronicus, put him to death by means of tortures too horrible to detail.
Some two years or so elapsed, during which time Isaac Angelus remained in unopposed possession of the imperial throne, when suddenly a most unexpected claimant appeared in the person of a handsome young man of about twenty years of age, who proclaimed himself to be the Emperor Alexis, supposed to have been murdered some years before. Travelling from land to land in order to obtain armed assistance for the recovery of his alleged rights, he ultimately arrived in Armenia, then under the dominion of the old Sultan Saladin. The Mohammedan sovereign was only too pleased at the prospect of a war with his Christian neighbours; he at once promised the needed assistance, asserting that it should not be said of him that he allowed so noble and accomplished a prince (who was, moreover, the son of his old friend, the Emperor Emanuel), to go wandering about the earth, despoiled of his fine empire by a relative's cruelty.
As soon as it was known that Saladin was raising troops with a view of assisting the claimant to make war upon the empire, Isaac sent an ambassador to beg him not to allow an impostor to deceive him into supporting so bad a cause. The Sultan caused the ambassador to be introduced to the pseudo Alexis, who regarded the envoy with great hauteur, and reproached him fiercely for undertaking the commission of the man who was withholding from his legitimate monarch the rights which Heaven had given him; indeed, to such an extent did his real or simulated rage carry him, that had he not been withheld he would have torn the ambassador's beard.
Whereupon Saladin stopped the interview, dismissing the ambassador with the assurance that he was resolved to support the cause of his guest unto the utmost.
Aided by the Sultan, the pretended Alexis set to work to raise troops, and, in a short time, found himself at the head of eight thousand well-equipped and determined men. He soon became the idol of his little host, which, gradually swelling by the incorporation of several bands of redoubtable warriors, speedily assumed the proportions of a regal army. Having many able officers and experienced soldiers with him, he was enabled to assume the offensive with great success, and in a short time took several cities and fortified places by assault. In Halone his victorious arms met with great resistance, which so enraged him that he put everybody to the sword, and destroyed the towns by fire. His success doubtless procured him many adherents, but there is every reason to believe numbers flocked to his banners in the belief that he was the veritable person he pretended to be; he bore a strong resemblance to the deceased prince, especially in the colour and beauty of his hair, and the hesitation or stutter in his voice.
Prince Alexis, brother of the Emperor Isaac, who commanded the army sent to oppose his progress, hesitated to give him battle, preferring stratagem to open warfare. At last a priest, who was in the service of the pretender, was suborned to relieve the imperialists of their powerful foe. Waiting his opportunity, he one night surprised his master, sleeping soundly after the day's exertions, and with his own sabre severed his head from the body. The traitor carried his ghastly spoil to the Emperor's brother, who was surprised at the remarkable resemblance which it bore to the hair and features of the unfortunate Alexis. Parting, says Nicetas, the fair locks of the severed head with his whip-handle, the imperial prince remarked that it was not without reason that several towns had received the impostor as their lawful sovereign; but, he added, "he is now punished for his crimes."
It is strange, but not unparalleled, that soon after the death of this claimant to the name and title of the young Emperor, another impostor appeared in Paphlagonia, and collected a very large number of partisans together; but after a short course of rapine and murder, he was defeated and slain by the imperial general.
In 1205 the recently elected Emperor of Constantinople, Baldwin, Hereditary Count of Flanders and Hainault, was defeated and taken prisoner by Joannice, King of Bulgaria. The release of the illustrious captive was demanded by Pope Innocent the Third, but the barbarian victor contented himself with replying that Baldwin had died in prison. He did not condescend to furnish any particulars of his decease, but rumour supplied the omission by inventing and retailing all kinds of terrible tales of his murder, the most noteworthy of which the curious reader may find upon referring to the pages of Gibbon. The real circumstances of his death never came to light, but there does not appear to be the slightest reason for doubting the fact itself; the intelligence was credited by his allies and subjects, and nothing plausible has been advanced to account for Joannice asserting it if untrue. His brother Henry, however, who, upon the news of Baldwin's defeat and capture, had been appointed Regent, would not consent to receive the imperial crown until the lapse of a twelvemonth after the fatal intelligence; and the mystery with which the barbarian victor's prisons was enshrouded would appear to have inspired the Latins with a belief in the prolonged existence of their monarch.
Be this as it may, twenty years passed away without any one appearing to question the fact of Baldwin's death. At the expiration of that period, when the sovereignty of Flanders and Hainault had devolved upon the Emperor-Count's eldest daughter Jean, a claimant appeared to assert his identity with the lost monarch. He maintained that after his capture at Adrianople he had been kindly treated by his Bulgarian captors, who, after a lapse of years, so far relaxed their watchfulness that he was enabled to effect his escape from custody; taken prisoner, however, by another barbarous tribe, unacquainted with his rank, he had been treated by them as a slave, and finally taken into Syria and sold. There for two years he had been compelled to toil as a common labourer. Enabled, by accident, to make himself known to some German merchants, who were permitted to trade in the vicinity, they had ransomed him for a small amount; and as by the death of his brother the throne of Constantinople had reverted to another, and probably hostile, branch of the family, he had deemed the recovery of his hereditary dominions an easier task than that of his Eastern empire.
The Countess Jean was at this time harassed by different feuds, domestic and foreign, and a portion of her more martially disposed subjects, wearied of female rule, received the impostor very favourably. His pretensions, however, were rejectedin totoby the Countess, who refused to see him. Advised to have him interrogated in order to prove his imposture, she consented, and her chief counsellors had a long and wearisome interview with the pseudo monarch, who assumed a great gravity of mien and comported himself with much dignity; he paid all due observance to the questions asked him, and replied to everything with considerable plausibility. He spoke at great length, and bitterly reproached the counsellors present for not at once acknowledging him as their rightful sovereign. He was permitted uninterruptedly to address the assembly, and his words would appear to have made some impression upon the council, the president of which broke up the meeting, alleging that it would not be lawful for them to decide upon matters of such importance without learning the good will and pleasure of the Countess.
His tale now gained eager credence with the Flemings, and his claims were seconded by many noblemen, although, according to native historians, Jean had received conclusive proofs of her father's death from the hands of two envoys whom she had sent into Greece purposely to obtain information. Mezeray, the French chronicler, declares that the impostor was not only recognized by a large portion of the Flemish aristocracy, with whose genealogies, ancestors' deeds, and family names he displayed a perfect knowledge, but was also put in possession of the whole of Flanders by an enthusiastic people. To impress the populace he appeared in a scarlet garb, and carrying a white baton in his hand; and his imposture was all the more successful because of his really bearing no little resemblance to the veritable Baldwin.
Finding himself so well supported, he attempted to obtain possession of the Countess Jean, but she fled into France, and besought the protection of her cousin, Louis the Eighth, king of that country. Louis came to Compiegne, whither also, under promise of a safe conduct, came the pseudo Baldwin to meet him. The pretender was accompanied in a manner suited to his assumed rank, and upon being introduced to the king saluted him proudly. According to some annalists, Louis, after a long discourse, in which he asked the claimant to produce some document, or other authentic proof of his identity, was prompted by his counsellor, the Bishop of Beauvais, to put three test questions, which were: "Firstly, In what place he had rendered homage to Philip Augustus, King of France, for his Countship of Flanders? Secondly, By whom, and in what place, had he been invested with knighthood? Thirdly, In what place, and on what day, was he married to his wife Marguerite, daughter of the Count of Champagne?"
Taken by surprise, the impostor requested three days in order to prepare replies to these questions; and, as it was pointed out, as the lapse of twenty years might have impaired his memory, this demand was not, after all, so unreasonable. King Louis, however, found his answers so contradictory, and so generally unsatisfactory, that he commanded him to leave France within three days, not being enabled, in consequence of the safe conduct granted to him, to have him punished for his deception.
The pseudo Baldwin, being thus deprived of all hopes of the French king's aid or countenance, hastened to Valenciennes, where fresh disappointments awaited him. His allies, who from various reasons had espoused his cause, now began rapidly to desert him, and in far less time than it had taken him to attain his transient grandeur, he beheld himself divested of his borrowed plumes, and forced to fly in disguise. He attempted to get into Burgundy, where he had expectations of support, but his disguise was penetrated, his path discovered, and he himself captured by a Burgundian named Erard Castenac, who sold him to the Countess Jean for four hundred silver marks. The Countess at once adopted the prevalent method of obtaining information by putting him to the torture, and under it he is alleged to have confessed that he was Bertrand de Rans, a native of Champagne, and had been led to attempt his imposition whilst living as a hermit in a forest near Valenciennes. An old Belgian chronicle, recording his confession at full length, alleges that he had frequently heard the citizens bewailing the sad fate of Flanders in having to submit to the rule of a woman, the Countess Jean's husband being in perpetual imprisonment in France, and how they praised their late ruler Baldwin, often exclaiming, "Ah! if our dear prince could only return once more to Flanders, what a change there would be!"
Thus incited, the idea gradually formed in the Champagner's mind to personate the absent monarch, so that one day when some of these citizens were bemoaning their loss in the usual style, he startled them by exclaiming, "How do you know that your prince, after escaping from captivity, did not at once return to his country?" These words seemed to coincide with some suspicions his visitors had formed, probably from hints he had already dropped; and when they retired, although they did not dare say anything to him personally, they took good care to let everybody know what they had seen, heard, and suspected. The intelligence was rapidly disseminated all over Flanders, and was heard in all ranks, both high and low. Multitudes, including many of the higher classes, visited the hermit, and were received with an assumption of majesty that fully confirmed them in their belief. In the meanwhile Bertrand played his game so skilfully that it really appeared as if he were desirous of not being recognized as the long-lost Baldwin. At last, one day, one of his visitors had the courage or the impudence to say, "It is believed that you are Baldwin disguised in this hermit's garb;" whereupon he, thinking that the favourable opportunity for airing his pretensions had now arrived, responded sharply, "Those who imagine this do not deceive themselves, for besides me there never has been any Baldwin, Emperor of the Greeks, Count of Flanders and Hainault."
Upon hearing this declaration, all present, both high and low, saluted him as their sovereign, and furnished him with such money as they could raise; in a little while he attained to the height of his short-lived prosperity, whence, as has been seen, he as quickly fell.
After this confession had been obtained from the pretender he was condemned to death, but previously to the carrying out of the capital sentence was bound to a horse, and in that ignominious manner publicly exhibited in all the chief cities of the Netherlands. Finally he was hanged at Lille.
His execution did not dissipate the belief in the justness of his claim; the populace, says Mezeray, the French historian, preferring to believe that rather than resign her sovereignty, the Countess had had her father hanged. Matthew Paris, in his brief account of this imposture, declares that he was Baldwin, and that all his misfortunes arose from him having murdered an Eastern maiden, whom he had promised to marry and baptize; punishment overtaking him not because of the murder, but for "the uncanonical omission of baptism before its perpetration."
The Lilleois were fully confirmed in their belief of the hanged man's identity with Baldwin from the somewhat singular circumstance that after the execution the Countess Jean founded a great hospital in their city, and had placed upon everything in and about the building the bizarre design of a gibbet.
Take it for all in all, the case of this claimant is certainly the most wonderful one on record. For thirty-eight years Frederick the Second had nominally ruled Germany, but his foreign wars and Italian States had occupied so much of his time that only seven years of his long reign were really spent in his imperial dominions. He died at Férentino, in 1250, in the fifty-fifth year of his age; and in a little while the enormously extended empire which he had obtained for his family had passed from their hands, and his many sons, and even his grandsons, were despoiled of their crowns, and lost their lives by violence.
Warfare and contention in the various states succeeded Frederick's decease. In Germany a long interregnum of misery ensued, and it was not until 1273, when Rudolph of Hapsburgh was elected to the imperial crown, that the nation could obtain either the administration of justice or respite from hostilities, foreign and intestine. Rudolph's long reign proved very beneficial to the distracted empire, and for several years Germany enjoyed an unwonted amount of prosperity, when, in 1284, the people were startled by the report that Frederick the Second, whom for thirty-four years everybody had believed dead and buried, was still alive, and, although nearly ninety years old, seeking to recover the imperial crown.
And true it was that an aged man, claiming to be the supposed defunct monarch, had appeared, giving so plausible an account of his lengthy seclusion, and displaying so remarkable a knowledge of Frederick's most private transactions, that multitudes, including the Landgrave of Thuringia and other important personages, believed his story and afforded him support.
The narration which he gave to account for his long silence, and abstention from the exercise of his imperial functions, was as follows: Declaring himself persistently to be Frederick the Second, Emperor of Germany, King of Naples and Sicily, the old man traced the story of his life back to A.D. 1250, when, as he truly stated, the last of the Swabian emperors, worn out with his ceaseless conflicts with the Papacy, disheartened by his own reverses and the capture by the Bolognese of his illegitimate son Encius, King of Sardinia, retired to his castle of Férentino, in the Capitanate of Naples. Here, according to historical records, Frederick died of dysentery, but, according to the tale put forward by the aged claimant, no such event took place. Wearied with the world, troubled by the bane of excommunication, and sickened by the fatality which overtook his progeny one after the other, he, Frederick, determined to forsake the pomp of royalty and seek an undiscoverable retreat. Feigning illness, he sent for one of his former retainers, a man who had long since left his service, and whose brother was Prior of the Carthusian Monastery of Squillace, in Calabria. To this old servitor he communicated his purpose, and besought him to accompany his former master to this frightfully secluded place, which St. Bruno, institutor of the Carthusian Monks, had founded. He consented to Frederick's wish. A very faithful valet, by the Emperor's order, now set to work to disinter the body of a man of about fifty years of age, who, conveniently for the purpose, had died the preceding day, and had, in accordance with southern custom, been buried a few hours after his death. Luckily for the success of the scheme, the night was very obscure, so that the man was enabled unobserved to bring his ghastly burden under the Emperor's window, where, by means of a rope, the confederates succeeded in drawing it up into the chamber. The dead body was dressed in the Emperor's attire and placed in the imperial bed, whereupon Frederick and his follower descended by the rope into the garden, and, quite unnoticed by the guards, made good their retreat.
By easy stages the Chartreuse was reached, and the Emperor, after rewarding the Sicilian valet with diamonds of sufficient value to keep him in comfort for the rest of his days, made rich offerings to the Prior, and then, without revealing his real name or condition, was received into the monastery as a simple brother, and as such was employed in the cultivation of the adjacent garden.
In this healthy occupation, ran the pretender's story, he continued until 1268, when his unfortunate young grandson Conradrin was atrociously beheaded by order of Charles of Anjou. He then changed his abode to another Carthusian monastery in Champagne, near the town of Luni, and thence he passed into Germany once more, and as all his male descendants were deceased, asserted his right to reclaim the imperial crown.
Many persons believed, or appeared to believe, this strange story. The Landgrave of Thuringia, and others of less note, publicly proffered their allegiance. The people of West Friesland, then at war with Florentius, Count of Holland, sent deputies to him to complain of the perpetual raids which the Dutch made into their lands, and to beg him to protect them as vassals of the empire against the insults and vexations of their enemies. The pseudo Frederick, only too glad of the opportunity of airing his pretensions, wrote to Count Florentius to the effect that unless he at once desisted from this warfare, he would put him under the ban of the empire, and attack him with the imperial forces; moreover, if he had, as he asserted, any right to Friesland, let him come to him, Frederick, at Misina, to produce his evidence and receive the Imperial decision.
The Count of Holland was greatly enraged at this affront, but, as recorded by Vossius in his History of Holland, condescended to reply, to the effect that his correspondent had plenty of assurance to take upon himself the name of the Emperor Frederick the Second, thirty-four years after that monarch's death. There were, however, he reminded the claimant, yet living persons who had beheld Frederick's dead body; whilst, as he pointed out, not only were the Emperor's affairs at the time of his death far from desperate enough to cause him to conceal himself, but also the impossibility for such an illustrious personage to have remained for so long a time in obscurity. He then strongly advised the pretender to quietly return to his proper station in society, adding that he could not have any dread of his armaments, seeing that he possessed none, not even being master of Misina, where he resided.
Not satisfied with this exhibition of his claims, the pseudo Frederick now wrote to the Emperor Rudolph commanding him to resign the imperial dignity, and unattended, and simply as a tributary prince, to come and do homage to him, his sovereign. This was too much for the patience of Rudolph, who soon determined to dispose of this competitor for his crown. Historians differ somewhat as to how he obtained possession of the claimant, but according to the most reliable accounts he would appear to have been taken prisoner at Wetzlaer, in Hesse, after that town had sustained a cruel siege on his account; thence he was taken to Nuz, in the Electorate of Cologne, and, after having been subjected to torture, confessed, so it was declared, that his real name was Tilon Colup, and that the many private details of Frederick's life, of which he had displayed such an intimate knowledge, were learnt whilst he was in the Emperor's service as a domestic. Contemporary records aver that he bore great resemblance to Frederick, that he was perfectly acquainted with the most minute particulars of that monarch's life, both public and private, and that he simulated the deceased sovereign so well in conversation that he convinced all with whom he conversed.
Ultimately, he was sentenced to death as a necromancer, and, together with two of his chief adherents, burnt to death in Nuz. The inhabitants of Colmar, a large town in the hereditary dominions of Frederick, who had embraced the claimant's cause with great zeal, were inflicted with a heavy pecuniary fine in lieu of death, to which punishment they were, at first, sentenced.