The women of Scotland are remarkable for the strength of their domestic sentiments and for their loyalty to the land of the heather. The stream of national life, by its merging and mingling with that of England, has never lost the individuality which has been the pride of the Scotch people in all their periods. Like two rivers meeting in confluence,—the one slow and clear, but steady and strong in its flow, the other, dashing and foaming its turbulent flood over the breakers in its rough channel,—refusing for a long time to do other than divide their common course until after long periods of associated flow they finally merge, still showing in their different shadings the mark of their diverse origin, so was it with England and Scotland. The union is complete, but national characteristics remain.
Not so, however, with unhappy Ireland. Fundamental differences in life, in temperament, in religion, in ideals, have served to perpetuate the alienation of a people whose connection with England might seem to depend on the power of but one principle—that of force. Not strange is it that among a people which considers itself deprived of a future the influence of the past should be predominant, and that in the recital of the mighty deeds of the Irish chieftains of yore should be found the chief delightof those who mingle their tears at the shrine of such a representative of their national defeat as the patriot O'Connell.
With the curious contradiction of nature which infusion of Celtic blood effects, no livelier or more light-hearted race of women exists upon the earth than that of Erin, yet, at the same time, none which can be plunged so deeply into melancholy and feel so profoundly the pangs of sorrow. Not to original contributions of race characteristics, however, is this contradictory temperament solely to be attributed, but to the long years of denationalization which have made Ireland the wailing place of women whose traditions are glorious with the deeds of mighty queens and amazons like Macha, Méave, Dearbhguill and Eva; the dawn of whose cycles of religious glory is marked by the life and deeds of a Bridget.
To write a history of the women of Great Britain and not speak of the differences which the names Scot and Irish connote would be as grave an error as to describe the flora of the islands and omit mention of the shamrock and the thistle. Not that the flora of the island group is essentially distinctive any more than that the differences in society, in manners and customs of the separate peoples, are radical. It is not that there is much of diverse interest in the broad aspects of the life of the women that the recital of the history of the women of Scotland and Ireland is to have separate treatment, but to throw in strong light upon the pages of history the figures of women who belonged not to Great Britain, as such, but to Scotland or to Ireland, and who, if they date after the cementing of the union of the peoples, still perpetuate that which is distinctive in quality of life and of character.
To figure forth the famous women of these peoples will serve as sufficient commentary upon the effect of differenceof life and of customs. All else has entered into the story of the women of Great Britain as it has been told, for, after all, there is a real oneness between them.
The tribal influence in both Ireland and Scotland continued to be the predominant force of patriotic purpose long after the welding of its various elements had eliminated this influence in English life. In the earlier history of both the Scotch and Irish peoples, we have to do with the force in society of this family idea, centred in great chieftains and kings, but none the less a fact of prevailing influence, an idea incarnate that served to quell the strife of warring factions in the face of a common enemy. The patriotism of both peoples has been the patriotism of the family and the fireside. The love of the tartan among the Scotch and the perpetuation of the Irish clans attest this fact to-day.
Many are the pages of British history rendered glorious by the deeds of the women of Scotland. In those early days, when the light of history is too faint to show clearly their characters or their deeds, the women of Caledonia went forth to battle with men at the sound of the pibroch. Some of the noblest of them reigned as queens, were hailed as deliverers, or gave their blood in martyrdom to warm the soil of their country. The Scotch-Irish tribes accorded their women place in the deliberative bodies, and listened to their counsel. The magnificent virility which they displayed was not different from that of British women generally. The noble Boadicea was no more valorous than the Irish Méave. From the dim shadow land of the past must some of the characters of this recital be called up, but the Middle Ages and modern periods will be most largely drawn upon to tell the story of the Celtic woman, as a part of the chronicle of a country where, as we have fully seen, women have always counted as factors.Macha of the Red Tresses is the first of the Irish queens whose figure stands out with sufficient boldness to fix it upon the pages of history. Would one marvel at her beauty or her prowess, let him have recourse to the praises of the early bards and the laudations of the chroniclers. We can well believe that, to her countrymen, she appeared as the incarnation of some divinity as she rode at the head of her body of stalwart warriors; her auburn tresses floating loose in the wind, her mantle flung carelessly over her shoulder, her neck and arms and ankles girdled with massive gold ornaments, her eyes flashing determination as she pointed the advance to the foray with her lance directed toward the foe drawn up in battle line to receive the charge.
A quarrel as to the succession to the throne or to the headship of the tribe, which was precipitated by the death of her father without posterity excepting this intrepid daughter, was the occasion of her appearance upon the page of national affairs, or rather of tribal history. She gained the victory over her adversaries, and ruled her people for seven years. The romantic annals of this valorous lady relate how she pursued the sons of her adversary to effect their destruction; and the more certainly to accomplish her purpose, she disguised herself as a leper, by rubbing her face with rye dough. Away in the depths of a dense forest she finds them cooking the wild boar they had just slain. Having successfully used her disguise to achieve her end, she rid herself of the leprous-looking splotches. With honeyed words and the judicious flashing of love-light from a pair of wondrous eyes, the supposed leper charms her enemies. One brother follows her into a remote part of the forest, where by guile she effects the binding of him hand and foot. Returning to the camp, she successively lures the remaining brothersinto the woods in the same manner and with the same result. She brought them "tied together" to Emhain. There, in a council of the tribe, womanly sentiment prevailed over sanguinary counsels, and, instead of being condemned to death, the prisoners were given over to slavery in the queen's following; and with the romantic ideas common to her sex, she had them build her a fortress "which shall be forever henceforth the capital city of this province." With her golden brooch she measured the bounds of the future castle, and it received the name "the Palace of Macha's Brooch." So runs the legend, and so is fixed by the brooch of Macha the first date in Irish history, at a period, however, when dates have little significance, for time meant but duration, and not economy or expenditure of force.
The romance of another of Ireland's early queens centres about the possession of a bull whose marvellously good points had awakened the queen's envy; the pastoral relates the contest which arose therefrom. This queen was the daughter of the King of Connaught, Ecohaidh by name, and her mother was the handmaid of his wife, the Lady Edain, who herself was a leader of great beauty and courage. The contest for the throne resulted in the elevation of Méave to the royal dignity. Before this, she had contracted marriage with a prince, with whom she lived unhappily. She returned to her father's court, and, after her coronation, married the powerful chief Ailill. The death of her husband and that of her father, which occurred at about the same time, left her solitary. The queen's misfortune in marriage did not deter her from seeking a further union. One day, the court of Ross-Ruadh, King of Leinster, was thrown into a great stir by the arrival of the heralds of Méave dressed in "yellow silk shirts and grass-green mantles," whoannounced that the famous queen was on a royal progress throughout the land in quest of a husband suited to one of her state and character. She was fêted and catered to in every way, and finally fixed her choice upon the seventeen-year-old son of Ross-Ruadh, whose character promised enough meekness to insure the dominance over him of his much older spouse.
The event which the chroniclers make the prominent one of her reign had its origin in a heated dispute between the queen and her spouse as to their respective possessions. The result of the controversy was an actual inventory of their belongings. "There were compared before them all their wooden and their metal vessels of value; and they were found to be equal. There were brought to them their finger-rings, their clasps, their bracelets, their thumb-rings, their diadems, and their gorgets of gold; and they were found to be equal. There were brought to them their garments of crimson and blue, and black and green, and yellow and mottled, and white and streaked; and they were found to be equal. There were brought before them their great flocks of sheep, from greens and lawns and plains; and they were found to be equal. There were brought before them their steeds and their studs, from pastures and from fields; and they were found to be equal. There were brought before them their great herds of swine, from forest and from deep glens and from solitudes; their herds and their droves of cows were brought before them, from the forests and most remote solitudes of the province; and, on counting and comparing them, they were found to be equal in number and excellence. But there was found among Ailill's herds a young bull, which had been calved by one of Méave's cows, and which, not deeming it honourable to be under a woman's control, went over and attached himself to Ailill's herds."
Deeply chagrined that she had not in all her herds a bull to match this one, which seems to have been a remarkable animal, she asked her chief courier where in all the five provinces of Erin its counterpart might be found. He replied that not only could he direct her to its equal, but to its superior. The possessor of this animal was Daré, son of Fachtna of the Cantred of Cualigné, in the province of Ulster. Its name was the Brown Bull of Cualigné. Straightway was the courier, MacRoth, sent to Daré with an offer of fifty heifers for the animal, and the further assurance that, if he so desired, he and his people might have the best lands of what are now the plains of Roscommon, besides other valuable considerations, which included the permanent friendship of the queen herself.
Swiftly upon his errand sped the courier, accompanied by an impressive train of attendants. A friendly and hospitable reception and entertainment awaited them, and Daré accepted the terms they offered. One of the courtiers expressed admiration for the amiability of the king who thus consented to part from that which, on account of his power, the four other provinces of Erin could not have wrested from him. From this praise a cup-valorous associate dissented, and maintained that it was no credit to him, since, had he refused, Méave of herself could have compelled him to surrender it. The steward of Daré, coming in at this inopportune moment, heard the insulting vaunt, and went out in a rage and bore to his master the remark he had heard. Daré, in a passion of resentment, withdrew his offer, swearing by all the gods that Méave should not have the Brown Bull by either consent or force. Méave, on hearing of his determination, was correspondingly incensed, and without delay gathered together her forces and declared war upon Daré.
In a hotly contested battle, the army of Méave defeated that of her adversary, and the Brown Bull was carried back to her own country. According to the grave narrative of the chronicler, the issue of the bulls had yet to be fought out by the animals themselves, for no sooner did the captive bull come into the province of Connaught than there was precipitated a tremendous conflict with his rival, the bull of Ailill. The tale describes vividly and with much of fabulous admixture the contest, which resulted in the rout of the White-horned. Thus was the honor of Méave doubly sustained by the wage of battle.
This and many other strange narratives with regard to the undoubtedly historical Méave have vested her with a halo of romance, and so veiled her real personality that it is rather in her mythical than her historical character that she has come down to us; for there is little doubt of her being the original of Queen Mab of fairy fame. Spenser gathered much of his fairy lore in Ireland, and in the section where this famous queen lived and where grew up the mass of tradition and fable which must have appealed strongly to the imagination of the author of theFaërie Queen.
The intense religious character of the Irish people is not to be accredited to the persistence of superstitious influences and beliefs in the new garb of Christian enlightenment; for although their exuberant fancy has always peopled their land with races of malign as well as of amiable spirits, the real impress of religion is that which they received from early Christian sources. Bridget, the saint who heads the calendar of Irish women of sanctity, was born in the first half of the fifth century A.D., and survived until the end of the first quarter of the sixth. She it was who, despite the disadvantages of her sex, performed a work paralleled by but few persons in thereligious history of the country. It was inevitable that there should have grown up about her a fund of story and fable from which it is now difficult to distinguish in order to give her real work its full appreciation without sanctioning stories that have their roots in the soil of the fond fancy of a grateful people.
As one divests a rare parchment of its later writing in order that the original manuscript may be studied, so, when the after-traditions and the excrescences of the supernatural are removed from the character of Bridget, her real worth is seen and the value of the record of her life, which is thereby disclosed, is greatly enhanced. As to her learning, her blameless character, her wisdom, her charity, and her honesty, there is no manner of doubt. To swear by her name was to give to the asseveration the sanctity of inviolable truth.
It must be remembered that in the middle of the fourth century female monasteries upon the continent had aroused among women a great deal of religious enthusiasm. Already had the seeds of religion been sown in Ireland by Patrick, when Bridget came, imbued with the ardor of religious training and stimulation received upon the continent. The religious order for women which she instituted spread in its ramifications to all parts of the country. Many were the widows and young maidens who thronged to her religious houses; indeed, so great was the throng, that it became necessary to form one great central establishment, superior to and controlling the activities of numerous other establishments which were scattered throughout the land. She herself made her abode among the people of Leinster, who became endeared to her as her own people. The monastery she reared amid the green stretches of pasture received the name of Cill Dara, or the Cell of the Oak, from a giant oak whichgrew near by, and which continued down to the twelfth century, "no one daring to touch it with a knife." On account of the monastery and its sacred surroundings, the section became the place of residence of an increasing number of families, and from the settlement thus begun arose the modern town of Kildare.
Such sanctity and devotion to good works as that of Bridget attracted to her monastery many visitors of note. Among those who esteemed it an honor to have her friendship was the chronicler Gildas. The Ey-Bridges,i.e., the Isles of Bridget, or the Hebrides, according to the modern form of their name, claim the honor of holding in loving embrace her mortal remains. In this claim, however, they have a vigorous disputant in the town of Kildare, which claims the renown of her burial.
Passing from the vague borderland between legend and history, we come down to the twelfth century, when mediæval conditions were in full force and the manners and customs already described in connection with the women of the times had full hold upon their lives. As representative of the spirit of the period, the life of the renowned Eva, Princess of Leinster and Countess of Pembroke, may be briefly considered.
The history of the sad princess centres about the struggles of Dermot to regain the throne of Leinster, from which he had been deposed by the federated kings. First he equipped a body of mercenaries from Wales, only to be met with defeat in his endeavor to take Dublin from the enemy. He appealed for aid to the English king, Henry II., who was then engaged in a campaign in France. He did not receive direct help from that monarch, who himself was looking with covetous eyes upon Ireland, but he did receive permission to make recruits from among his Anglo-Norman subjects. His real aid came from the Earl ofPembroke, called Richard Strongbow. With a large fleet, Dermot now set sail for Ireland, bent not only upon the recovery of his possession of Leinster, but the conquest of the whole island.
The consideration offered by Dermot to Pembroke for his services was the hand of his daughter Eva, with the kingdom of Leinster for a dowry. Waterford, a town then of equal importance with Dublin, was successively besieged and sacked; the Danes, who held it, were driven out with great slaughter. Amid all the horror of the sacked city was consummated the union of Eva and Richard, Earl Strongbow. Dublin became the place of their residence. A few years thereafter, the husband's checkered career was closed by a wound in the foot. In Christ Church, Dublin, lies the body of the warrior, and the monument displays the figure of a recumbent knight in armor, with that of his bride at his side.
The national struggles of Scotland are as replete with examples of illustrious women as those of Ireland; the tragedy of the lives of some of Scotia's daughters not only serves to mark the brutal spirit of times which, with all their superficial glorifying of the sex, yet could with good conscience make war upon women, but also serves to illustrate the height of feminine devotion when called forth by some great occasion with its demand for self-abnegation. Among such heroic characters must ever be honorably numbered the fair Isobel, Countess of Buchan, of whom the poet Pratt says:
"Mothers henceforth shall proudly tellHow cag'd and prison'd IsobelDid serve her country's weal."
"Mothers henceforth shall proudly tellHow cag'd and prison'd IsobelDid serve her country's weal."
"Mothers henceforth shall proudly tell
How cag'd and prison'd Isobel
Did serve her country's weal."
The nine years which saw the struggles of a Wallace and a Bruce, from the appearance of the former as thechampion of Scottish rights to the crowning of the latter at Scone, were years big with the fate of a people full of heroic purpose and undaunted fortitude. The story of the national conquest must be sought elsewhere. In 1305, upon the death of Wallace, the younger Bruce was impelled to abandon the cause of the King of England, who had been pleased to name him in a commission for the direction of the affairs of Scotland. He made his peace with Red Comyn, the leader of the rival Scottish faction, and closed with him a pact on the terms proposed by Bruce: "Support my title to the crown, and I will give you my lands." The story of the perfidy of the treacherous Comyn and of the revolt of Bruce against Edward of England is well-known history. The actual crowning of the Scottish chieftain occurred on March 27, 1306. At that time appeared Isobel, wife of John, Earl of Buchan, who asserted the claim to install the king, which had come down of ancient right in her family.
With great pomp, this illustrious scion of the house of the Earls of Macduff led Bruce to the regal chair. The English chronicler crustily remarks: "She was mad for the beauty of the fool who was crowned." The English king was enraged at the presumption of his vassal, and sent out his soldiers against the Scottish sovereign. In the notable battle which followed, the forces of Bruce were routed and he himself made a fugitive. Other reverses befell the arms of the Scotch, and among those who were carried away captive to gratify the lust for vengeance of the English was the noble lady who had proudly inducted Bruce into the royal power. Isobel of Buchan was carried to Berwick, and condemned to a fate which can best be described in the words of an early chronicler: "Because she has not struck with the sword, she shall not die by the sword, but on account of theunlawful coronation which she performed, let her be closely confined in an abode of stone and iron, made in the shape of a cross, and let her be hung up out of doors in the open air of Berwick, that both in her life and after her death she may be a spectacle and an eternal reproach to travellers." For four years she suffered the imposition of this heinous punishment, which was then mitigated to imprisonment in the monastery of Mount Carmel at Berwick. After three years she was removed to the custody of Henry de Beaumont. Her final fate is unknown, but it is presumable that, if she lived, her release from durance was secured by the victory of Bannockburn.
Amid the misfortunes which pressed thickly upon the house of those whose name, more than that of any other, is linked with Scotland's history—the mighty Douglases—must ever appear the sad-visaged Janet, Lady Glamis. When under the royal ban, remorseless as the will of fate, the house of Douglas was expelled from its native heath, a woman of unusual nobility suffered death in the general disaster to her kin. Gratitude is not a virtue of kings, or else there would have been some remembrance of that earlier lady of the Douglas line, Catherine Douglas, who, when the assassins upon midnight murder bent appeared at the chamber of the queen of James I., opposed to their entrance—fruitlessly, indeed, but none the less nobly—her slender arm, which she thrust into the staple to replace the bar that had been treacherously removed. The ambition of the Douglases, however, knew no bounds, and in actual fact their power often not only rivalled but overtopped that of the crown. The feud, with varying degrees of irritation and occasions of outbreak, had gone on until the time of James V., when the reverses suffered by the Douglases effectually destroyed their power and made them fugitives during the reign of that monarch. Thatking had an undying resentment to the Earl of Angus, who had obtained possession of his person as a child and had continued to be his keeper until he finally slipped the leash to take up the sovereignty unhampered. One of the sisters of the mighty earl, in the flower of her youth, became the wife of Lord Glamis. While her kinsmen were in exile, she secretly did what she could to further their designs against the Scottish throne. Charges were formulated against her, but do not appear to have been pressed. Other actions against her for treason were instituted by her enemies, and she lived under continual harassment and apprehension of danger. All her property was confiscated as that of a fugitive from the law and one tainted with treason. Her enemies were not satisfied with the measure of revenge they had wrought upon her, and were content with nothing short of her life.
The venom of the persecution is shown by the nature of the charge which was trumped up against her to ensure her death. Four years after the death of her husband, she was indicted on the charge of killing him by poison. Three times the majority of those summoned to serve on the jury to hear the charges against her refused to attend, thus showing how little faith the popular mind had in the sincerity of the indictment against her. As it seemed impossible to secure a jury to hear the odious charge against an innocent and high-minded lady, the case was allowed to lapse. Soon after this she again married.
A description of her which was penned by a writer in the early part of the seventeenth century represents her as having been reputed in her prime the greatest beauty in Britain. "She was," he says, "of an ordinary stature, not too fat, her mien was majestic, her eyes full, her face was oval, and her complection was delicate and extremely fair. Besides all these perfections, she was a lady ofsingular chastity; as her body was a finished piece, without the least blemish, so Heaven designed that her mind should want none of those perfections a mortal creature can be capable of; her modesty was admirable, her courage was above what could be expected from her sex, her judgment solid, her carriage was gaining and affable to her inferiors, as she knew well how to behave herself to her equals; she was descended from one of the most honorable and wealthy families of Scotland, and of great interest in the kingdom, but at that time eclipsed." This is the testimony of hearsay, but, allowing for exaggeration, the great impression which she made upon her contemporaries is amply shown.
The very nemesis of misfortune seemed to pursue this innocent lady. The next turn of envious fate brought to light a plot for her destruction which was hatched in the dark recesses of a heart burning with passionate resentment over its inability to invade her wifely integrity. William Lyon had been one of the suitors who were disappointed at her acceptance of the son of the Earl of Argyll. After several years had elapsed, this man sought to pass the limits of friendship, and had the baseness to seek to draw her away from the path of honor. Her contemptuous and indignant rebuff rankled in his mind, and led him to lay a deep plot tending to bring Lady Glamis under suspicion of attempting to poison the king. Her former indictment as a poisoner was counted upon to give probability to the charge. She, with all other persons under suspicion as parties to the plot, was arrested and immured in Edinburgh Castle.
So much of political matter entered into the testimony, and so skilfully was it wrought, that the jury found her guilty of the crimes charged, namely, treasonable communication with her relatives, the enemies of the king,and of conspiring to poison her monarch. The sentence was that she should be burned at the stake, and the same day of its delivery it was executed. "She seemed to be the only unconcerned person there, and her beauty and charms never appeared with greater advantage than when she was led to the flames; and her soul being fortified with support from Heaven, and the sense of her own innocence, she outbraved death, and her courage was equal in the fire to what it was before her judges. She suffered those torments without the least noise: only she prayed devoutly for Divine assistance to support her under her sufferings." She died as a burnt offering to the hate which was engendered against her line, but which could be visited only upon her, as all others of her house were out of reach of the royal anger.
Returning to Ireland and leaving behind the atmosphere of political machinations and persecutions, it is pleasant to take up the characters of some women of the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries who for different reasons have written their names lastingly in the memories of their race. To be hailed as the best woman of her times was the happy privilege of Margaret O'Carroll, who died in 1461. McFirbis, the antiquary of Lecan, her contemporary, says of her: "She was the one woman that made most of preparing highways, and erecting bridges, churches and mass-books, and of all manner of things profitable to serve God and her soul." Her life was most celebrated for her pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella in Spain, and her unbounded charity. The pilgrimage followed upon a great revival of religion which seems to have swept over Ireland in 1445. The occasion of the awakening is not known, other than that following upon the signs of religious discontent upon the continent the monks of Ireland roused themselves to earnest andarduous religious labors. The chronicler gives illustration of her practical charity in the account of her two "invitations": twice in the one year did she call upon all persons "Irish and Scottish" to bestow largely of their money and goods as a feast for the poor. Thousands resorted to the place of distribution, and, as each was aided in an orderly manner, they had their names and the amount and nature of their relief entered in a book kept for the purpose. In summing up her life's work, the chronicler says: "While the world lasts, her very many gifts to the Irish and Scottish nations cannot be numbered. God's blessing, the blessing of all saints, and every our blessing from Jerusalem to Innis Glauir be on her going to Heaven, and blessed be he that will reade and will heare this, for the blessing of her soule. Cursed be the sore in her breast that killed Margrett." Such a picture as this serves to offset the more usual idea of the women of Ireland during the Middle Ages as coarse, half-civilized beings. Such a character would lend dignity and worth to any people during any age.
The many benefactions and the public spirit of this great lady make her deserving of mention in any account of the development of charities. The poet D'Arcy McGee has immortalized her in a poem in which, referring to the occasion of her "great Invitation," he says:
In cloth of gold, like a queen new-come out of the royal woodOn the round, proud, white-walled rath Margeret O'Carroll stood;That day came guests to Rath Imayn from afar from beyond the seaBards and Bretons of Albyn and Erin—to feast in Offaly!"
In cloth of gold, like a queen new-come out of the royal woodOn the round, proud, white-walled rath Margeret O'Carroll stood;That day came guests to Rath Imayn from afar from beyond the seaBards and Bretons of Albyn and Erin—to feast in Offaly!"
In cloth of gold, like a queen new-come out of the royal wood
On the round, proud, white-walled rath Margeret O'Carroll stood;
That day came guests to Rath Imayn from afar from beyond the sea
Bards and Bretons of Albyn and Erin—to feast in Offaly!"
To be celebrated for beauty alone is the prerogative of a few of the women of the ages. What nation is there that does not hold in as cherished regard the women who have represented its noblest physical possibilities as theirwomen of unusual sanctity or those who have glorified their literature or ennobled their arts? A beautiful woman—a woman whose beauty is not alone flawless in feature and full of the instinctive intellectuality of a soul mirrored in a countenance, but also typical of the expression of racial characteristics, is as much a product of ages, as much a climax of evolution at the point of perfection, as the saint, the artist, the dramatist who marks a period and exalts a people. To pass down in history as an exceptional beauty is to inspire art ideals and to furnish a theme for the lyricist. Frailty is often found united with such exceptional beauty, so is it with exceptional genius; alas! that predominating gifts should be so often inimical to balance. To find such beauty in the way of virtue is as grateful as to find an orchid exhaling perfume.
In the tales of fair women, the Fair Geraldine, who was born in the first half of the sixteenth century, must always be celebrated, not only as a typical Irish beauty, but as a woman whose virtues were of a similar order to her physical charms. She was the second daughter of the Earl of Kildare by his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Grey, and inherited from both sides of this union, which was most auspicious, the high breeding and gentle graces which fitted well her gracious carriage and great beauty and served, by enhancing her physical charms, to attract to her a wide circle of friends and to secure for her the knightly attendance of a band of distinguished suitors. She was taken to England to be educated, and at court received the polish which perfected the jewel of her beauty. She made her home with a second cousin of her mother, Lady Mary, who was afterward England's queen. While quite young she was appointed maid of honor to her kinswoman. Already her charms had ripened to the point ofeliciting from the poet, soldier, and politician, Henry, Earl of Surrey, the high praise of the following sonnet:
"From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race,Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat.The western isle, whose pleasant shore doth faceWild Cambor's cliffs, did give her lively heat.Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast;Her sire an Earl, her dame of Princes' blood,From tender years in Britain doth she rest,With King's child; where she tasteth costly food.Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyes;Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight.Hampton me taught to wish her first as mine,And Windsor, alas! doth chase her from my sight.Her beauty of kind; her virtues from above,Happy is he that can attain her love."
"From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race,Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat.The western isle, whose pleasant shore doth faceWild Cambor's cliffs, did give her lively heat.Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast;Her sire an Earl, her dame of Princes' blood,From tender years in Britain doth she rest,With King's child; where she tasteth costly food.Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyes;Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight.Hampton me taught to wish her first as mine,And Windsor, alas! doth chase her from my sight.Her beauty of kind; her virtues from above,Happy is he that can attain her love."
"From Tuscane came my lady's worthy race,
Fair Florence was sometime her ancient seat.
The western isle, whose pleasant shore doth face
Wild Cambor's cliffs, did give her lively heat.
Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast;
Her sire an Earl, her dame of Princes' blood,
From tender years in Britain doth she rest,
With King's child; where she tasteth costly food.
Hunsdon did first present her to mine eyes;
Bright is her hue, and Geraldine she hight.
Hampton me taught to wish her first as mine,
And Windsor, alas! doth chase her from my sight.
Her beauty of kind; her virtues from above,
Happy is he that can attain her love."
The noble earl who lamented that Windsor chased her from his sight was suffering incarceration in Windsor Castle for eating meat in Lent. That the Fair Geraldine had made full conquest of his heart is shown by his conduct at a tournament at Florence, where he defied the world to produce her equal. He was victorious, and the palm was awarded the Irish beauty. Again, he is found resorting to a famous alchemist of the day to enable him to peer into the future, that he might know what disposition of her heart would be made by the lady of his affections. The only satisfaction he obtained was the seeing of Geraldine recumbent upon a couch reading one of his sonnets. This must have stirred his blood and have strengthened his faith in the ultimate success of his wooing. Had he obtained the revelation he sought, he would have seen the adored beauty, with that curious inconsistency of her sex, bestowing herself upon Sir Anthony Brown, a man sixty years of age, and who was forty-four years her senior. After his death she married the Earl of Lincoln, whom she also survived. There is no further record of the beautywhose fame extended over England and Ireland. The circumstance of Surrey's visit to the alchemist has been preserved in Scott'sLay of the Last Minstrel:
"Fair all the pageant—but how passing fairThe slender form that lay on couch of Ind!O'er her white bosom strayed her hazel hair,Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pined;All in her night-robe loose she lay reclinedAnd, pensive, read from tablet eburineSome strain that seemed her inmost soul to find;That favored strain was Surrey's raptured line,That fair and lovely form, the Ladye Geraldine."
"Fair all the pageant—but how passing fairThe slender form that lay on couch of Ind!O'er her white bosom strayed her hazel hair,Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pined;All in her night-robe loose she lay reclinedAnd, pensive, read from tablet eburineSome strain that seemed her inmost soul to find;That favored strain was Surrey's raptured line,That fair and lovely form, the Ladye Geraldine."
"Fair all the pageant—but how passing fair
The slender form that lay on couch of Ind!
O'er her white bosom strayed her hazel hair,
Pale her dear cheek, as if for love she pined;
All in her night-robe loose she lay reclined
And, pensive, read from tablet eburine
Some strain that seemed her inmost soul to find;
That favored strain was Surrey's raptured line,
That fair and lovely form, the Ladye Geraldine."
In the picturesque annals of the piracy of the sixteenth century, when England was getting that sea training which was to make her the undisputed naval power of the world, when the Turkish corsair spread the terror of his savage brutality through the hearts of the brave seamen who manned the craft of legitimate commerce, at a time when the trade routes of the sea were the paths of piracy, and the sabre, the cutlass, and the newly invented gunpowder were depended upon to establish the right of way for the ships of the nations, there appears no more daring character than Grainne O'Malley. Many stories of her prowess are still current in the west of Ireland, and the political ballads of her time make frequent allusion to the sea queen. For the greater part of the sixteenth century she lived, an example of that splendid virility which is yet characteristic of the hardy Irish peasantry, when not under the shadow of famine.
She came of right by her seafaring proclivities, for from the earliest period the O'Malleys have been celebrated as rivalling the Vikings in their love of the sea. In the fourteenth century a bard is found singing:
"A good man never was thereOf the O'Mailly's but a mariner;The prophets of the weather are ye,A tribe of affection and brotherly love."
"A good man never was thereOf the O'Mailly's but a mariner;The prophets of the weather are ye,A tribe of affection and brotherly love."
"A good man never was there
Of the O'Mailly's but a mariner;
The prophets of the weather are ye,
A tribe of affection and brotherly love."
Grainne O'Malley, with all her depredations upon the sea, was no common pirate; through her veins ran the royal blood of the line of Connaught, and, despite her serviceability to the English as a freebooting ally upon the western coasts of the island, she acknowledged no higher power than her own. Her title of dignity was regarded as inviolable. Quite worthy of the brush of an artist was the scene presented by the reception at court of the wild Irish chieftainess. Disdaining land travel, she performed the whole trip to London by water, sailing up the Thames to the Tower Gate. The little son who was born upon this voyage was fittingly called Theobald of the Ship. There has come down to us no account of the meeting of the two queens, but one may readily imagine the scene—the blonde Elizabeth, thin, unbeautiful, her scant features lined by petulance, but with indomitable will shown in the turn of her mouth and the strength of her chin, and the large-limbed, full-bodied Irish woman, dressed in the semi-wild attire of her race and of her calling, her arms, her wrists, her ankles, gleaming with circlets of gold, a fillet of massive metal binding her hair, her mantle caught up at the shoulder by an immense, ornately wrought brooch. Courteously, but with no sign of inferiority in her demeanor, her swarthy skin showing the dash of Spanish blood in her veins, and her eyes flashing with the light of an unconquered spirit, stood the female buccaneer before the woman who had rule of England. The best tradition of the results of the interview tell us that a treaty was effected between the two, but that the Irish chieftainess did not yield an iota of her royal claims.
Thus was cemented a union between the English throne and the piratical leader. It must be borne in mind, however, that piracy was not then the despicable vice that it afterward came to be regarded. The commerce of theenemy was always lawful spoil, and, even when there was not actually a state of hostilities existing between countries, preying upon one another's commerce was often regarded as a semi-legitimate industry; and if the freebooter kept out of reach of the enemy, he was not likely to be seriously sought out for punishment by the authorities of his own country. The exploiters of the New World, under the title of merchant-adventurers, were for the most part pirates; the Spanish galleons were always lawful spoil for the English merchantman, who knew the trick of painting out the name of his craft, giving it a garb of piratical black, using a false flag, spoiling the enemy after some swift, hard fighting, and then resuming again his real or assumed pacific character. In the light of her times must Grainne O'Malley be regarded.
As a sea queen she is without parallel in any time; and if the stain of their piracy does not attach to her English contemporaries, Drake, Raleigh, and Gilbert, no more should it to her. By force of a powerful individuality, she ruled a race of men who were noted as the most lawless of all Ireland, men among whom women as a class were so little esteemed that they were not allowed to hold property. An early traditional account of this woman of the waves, which is preserved in manuscript at the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin, describes her as follows:
"She was a great pirate and plunderer from her youth. It is Transcended to us by Tradition that the very Day she was brought to bed of her first Child that a Turkish Corsair attacked her ships, and that they were Getting the Better of her Men, she got up, put her Quilt about her and a string about her neck, took two Blunder Bushes in her hands, came on deck, began damming and Capering about, her monstrous size and odd figure surprised the Turks, their officers gathered themselves talking of her; thiswas what she wanted, stretched both her hands, fired the two Blunder Bushes at them and Destroyed the officers." Many are the deeds of prowess ascribed to her, and so widespread was her fame that desperate characters came from all parts to enroll themselves under her standard. Her serviceability to the English, to whose extending power she had the good sense not to put herself in opposition, secured to her the right to continue her depredations.
With all her daring and the romance with which tradition has surrounded her, she was not, nor does the report of her times represent her as having been, handsome. In fact, notwithstanding that the Anglicized form of her given name is Grace, its real meaning is "the ugly." Her first husband was an O'Flaherty, the terror of which name is preserved in the litany of the Anglo-Norman, recalling the capture of the city of Galway and the surrounding country: "From the ferocious O'Flaherties,—Good Lord, deliver us." The same words, as a talisman, were inscribed over the gate of the city. We know little of the representative of this family who became the husband of Grainne O'Malley. Her second husband was Sir Richard Bourke, of the Mayo division of a great Norman-Irish clan. It was after contracting this alliance that Grainne O'Malley put herself under the protection of the English rule in Connaught. Sidney, the lord-deputy, referring to his visit to Galway in 1576, says: "There came to me a most famous female sea-captain, called Granny-I-Mallye, and offered her services to me, wheresoever I would command her, with three galleys and two hundred fighting men, either in Ireland or Scotland. She brought with her her husband, for she was, as well by sea as by land, more than master's mate with him. He was of the nether Bourkes, and now, as I hear, MacWilliam Euter, and called by the nickname 'Richard in Iron.' This was a notorious woman in all thecoasts of Ireland. This woman did Sir Philip see and speak with: he can more at large inform you of her."
The personal character of this female buccaneer was never called into question; saving only her piratical proclivities, she seems to have been exemplary. The circumstances of her life at the death of her first husband forced her, a daughter of a pirate, to the seas as a "thrade of maintenance," as she apologetically put it to Queen Elizabeth. She founded and endowed religious houses, and the attitude she maintained toward the powers higher than she was in the furtherance of the peace of her country. Yet her good deeds have not been borne in the same remembrance as her piratical performances. With this account of the adventurous Irish woman, we may turn to a very different picture, taken from Scotland.
The annals of the Scottish border are replete with stories of cruel warfare and of savage vengeance. The wars of England with the valorous Scots present hardly more instances of heroism and of brutality than do the accounts of the feuds which arose between the clans themselves. Of the first sort was the expedition which Bluff King Hal sent out to punish the Scots for becoming incensed at the insolent tone and the humiliating conditions he imposed on the negotiations looking to the marriage of his young son, afterward Edward VI., and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots.
The English conducted a series of savage forays across the Scottish border. Their success led the leaders of the invading army to represent to Henry that, owing to the distracted condition of Scotland on account of the internal disorders, the time was peculiarly auspicious for a permanent conquest of a large part of the border. Under commission of the English king to effect such a conquest, they returned and renewed their attack. The tower of Broomhouse, held by an aged woman and her family, was consignedto the flames, and she and her children perished in the conflagration. Melrose Abbey was wantonly plundered and ruined, and the bones of the Douglases were taken from their tombs and scattered about. Next, the little village of Maxton was burned. All its inhabitants had made good their escape excepting a maiden of high courage and deep devotion, who remained with her bed-ridden parents. The approach of the enemy meant their destruction. The village maid had a lover, who, on finding that she was not with the refugees, returned to the town and forcibly carried her off, although he was grievously wounded in the act of doing so. After he had effected her rescue, the brave savior, breathing with his expiring breath a prayer of thankfulness that he had been permitted to yield up his life for her who was more than life to him, died of exhaustion and of his wounds. The measure of iniquity was complete, and, although many other bloody deeds were perpetrated in this warfare, the instrument of vengeance was at hand; when the hour came that marked a turn in the tide:
"Ancrum MoorRan red with English blood;Where the Douglas true and the bold Buccleuch'Gainst keen Lord Evers stood."
"Ancrum MoorRan red with English blood;Where the Douglas true and the bold Buccleuch'Gainst keen Lord Evers stood."
"Ancrum Moor
Ran red with English blood;
Where the Douglas true and the bold Buccleuch
'Gainst keen Lord Evers stood."
When the battle was over and the English had been driven with great slaughter from the field, the body of the English general was found near that of a young Scottish soldier with flowing yellow tresses, who was mangled by many wounds. The delicacy of feature soon led to the discovery that the slayer of the English leader was a woman, and her identification as the maiden Liliard of the hamlet of Maxton followed. So had she avenged the cruel slaughter of her aged and helpless parents and that of the devoted lover who had laid down his life in her behalf. In a borrowedsuit of armor and weapons she had arrayed herself under the Red Douglas, that she might seek out him who was the author of her calamities, to visit upon him the vengeance of her desolation, and yield up the life she no longer valued.
ASSASSINATION OF RIZZIOAfter the painting Mrs. E. Siberdt________Romantic adventure, however, best describe the life of MaryQueen of Scots. She was beset with suiters and pestered withintrigue for her favor. The most popularly known story in connectionwith her life is that of her relation to Rizzio, her Italian confidant.He it was who arranged Mary's marriage to Darnley, and it washis influence over her that finally led to his own assassination byDarnley and his companions in Holywood Palalace in 1566.
Upon the bloody field her compatriots interred her who was thereafter to be held in dear regard as one of Scotland's noblest daughters. Above the head of "Liliard of Ancrum" was erected a gravestone with the following inscription to commemorate her valor: