people. But he had enemies at home, and a rival, another great general
named Pompey. The Senate were on the side of Pompey, and at last they
decreed that if Cæsar did not give up his command and dismiss his army
by a certain day, he would be called an enemy of the country. Pompey and
the Senate were against the poorer classes, and Cæsar knew that if he
yielded to this command, the common people, whose friend he was, would
lose their freedom. So instead of disbanding his army he marched it to
the borders of Italy. He stopped on the bank of a little river called
the Rubicon. Anyone who crossed that river with an army was considered
an enemy of Rome. When Cæsar decided to cross the river and advance with
his army against the city, he exclaimed, “The die is cast!” His words
meant that he could no more go back than a die, once thrown out of the
dice-box, can be taken back. Nowadays, when a man decides to do
something which may bring great loss to him if he does not win, and from
which he cannot draw back, once he has begun, he is said to have
“crossed the Rubicon.”
Cæsar’s fortunes, however, did not desert him, and he succeeded in
driving Pompey away and finally conquering him. Within three years,
after many victorious battles in Greece and Egypt and Asia Minor, he
returned to Rome in triumph. By this time the Senate were willing to do
anything for him that he wanted, and the adoring people chose him
Dictator for ten years. That meant that although he was not called king
he had almost the same power as a king.
Two of Cæsar’s sayings are often quoted. Once, when he was pursuing
Pompey, he started on a voyage when a storm seemed to be coming up. The
sailors were afraid to cross the sea, but he said to them, “You carry
Cæsar and his fortunes!” They set sail at once and reached the other
side in safety. At another time he caught an escaping army in Asia. He
announced this victory in three words: “Veni, Vidi, Vici,” the meaning
of which was, “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
By his policy of kindness to the people as dictator, Cæsar so won their
love that they came even to worship him as one of their gods. The month
in the year in which he was born was at this time named in his honor,
for our word July is a shortened form of Julius. He governed Rome well
and made many useful changes. One thing that he did was to arrange the
calendar, which before this time was very clumsy. It was he who divided
the year into months of so many days each, very much as it is divided
now.
The climax of Cæsar’s popularity was reached when he was offered a
crown, to show that the people of Rome wished him to be their king. He
refused this honor three times in public. But not all the men of Rome
shared in this admiration of Cæsar, for one party, some of whom had been
his friends, felt that his growing power was not good for Rome. They
wanted their country to be a republic, and not to be ruled by a king. So
they began to plot against Cæsar.
On the fifteenth of March, 44 B. C., just as Cæsar was about to take his
seat in the presence of the Roman Senate, a group of men gathered round
and began plunging their daggers into his body. Among them was Marcus
Brutus, for whom Cæsar had done many kindnesses. When Cæsar saw Brutus
with his dagger raised to stab him to the heart, he exclaimed with a sad
smile, “And thou too, Brutus!” Then, covering his face with his mantle,
he fell down and died. Of the twenty-three knife wounds that were found
in Cæsar’s body, Shakespeare wrote that the stab of Brutus was “the most
unkindest cut of all.”
Although Cæsar was murdered to keep him from bearing the name of king,
the mightiest monarchs of modern times took the name of Cæsar as the
highest title a king could have--as the “Kaiser” of Germany and the
“C-zar” of Russia. When these two recent Cæsars were put down, there
remained no ruler in Europe who believed in governing by the cruel Roman
law that “Might makes Right.”
HEROES OF THE MIDDLE AGES
THE CHRISTMAS CROWNING OF CHARLEMAGNE
About twelve hundred years ago, thousands of Saracens, who were among
the followers of Mohammed, crossed the narrow strait from Africa into
Spain. The world was then coming out of those centuries of ignorance and
fear which are known as the Dark Ages. The dark-skinned people--Arabs
and Africans--who followed Mohammed, went about converting people by
making them prostrate themselves with their faces turned toward the East
and repeat the Mohammedan creed. Those who refused to bow down and
repeat this creed were killed. Of course everyone was very much afraid
of missionaries who used such methods as these, and large parts of Asia
and Africa had come under Mohammedan control. When they reached the
shores of Spain, they thought they were going to convert and conquer
Europe, too.
The Saracens marched north through Spain and into the country of the
Franks, whose great-great-great-grandchildren are the French people of
to-day. Here the victory of the invaders ceased to be so easy, for they
were met by a certain Duke Charles, who beat them in a great battle near
Tours and drove them back. For his bravery in saving Europe from these
dark-skinned enemies, Duke Charles was named Martel, the Franks’ word
for “hammer.”
Charles the Hammer had a son, Pepin, who was called the Short, because
he was not a tall man. But though he was small, Pepin had a big, brave
heart. He fought for his country against the Lombards, a savage people
in North Italy, and he was rewarded for his valor and success by being
made king of the Franks.
When Pepin was crowned by the Pope, he had a son Charles, twelve years
old. This Charles was so ambitious that, even while a boy, he began to
dream of conquering other nations, and becoming king not only of France
but of other lands as well. All through his boyhood he dreamed of what
he would do if he were king. It was not many years after his father’s
death, when he became king in fact, before Charles Martel’s grandson had
conquered so many nations in the south and so many savage tribes in the
north of Europe that he became a king of kings, or emperor, and received
the title of Charlemagne, which means Charles the Great.
Perhaps the best thing that Charlemagne ever did was to keep Alcuin, a
scholar from Britain, at his court as a trusted friend and teacher. In
those days such men in other kings’ palaces were merely chaplains or
religious teachers, but Alcuin taught the king, the queen, and the
princes grammar, spelling, arithmetic, and other common branches. This
Palace School proved to be such a good thing that the emperor ordered
that not only any child of a nobleman, but even of the poorest peasant,
could come to it if the boy showed talent for learning. The books in the
Palace School were printed very slowly with a pen, sometimes in bright
inks and gold. As there were no public libraries in those days, Alcuin
searched the world for books for his pupils. These parchments were rare
and very costly. Instead of Charles’s children going to school, the
Palace School went with the children, as the emperor moved from place to
place and from palace to palace.
Charlemagne’s armies were led by brave knights called paladins. The
foremost of these paladins were Roland and Oliver, who fought in combats
and tournaments. They were both of heroic size, eight feet tall, and
performed the same feats, so that one could not be distinguished from
the other. A story is told of these two having fought five days on an
island in the River Rhine without either of them gaining the least
advantage over the other; so now, when two men are equal in some great
struggle, people exclaim--“A Roland for an Oliver!”
Roland, also called Orlando, was the chief hero, and Oliver seems to
have been his reflection or shadow. Roland was a nephew of Charlemagne.
He is described in the “Song of Roland” as having a wonderful horse, a
miraculous saber, and a magic horn, which he blew so that it could be
heard thirty miles. The greatest story told of him is that he commanded
the rear guard of Charlemagne’s army as they were returning from Spain
through a pass in the Pyrenees Mountains. Set upon by 100,000 Saracens,
Roland blew his magic horn so that his uncle the emperor heard it eight
miles away.
In the advancing guard with Charlemagne, however, lurked an evil genius,
who told the anxious emperor that Roland’s horn was not a signal of
distress, but that his nephew was hunting stags in the mountains. Roland
fought until the 100,000 Saracens were slain, and he had only fifty of
his 20,000 soldiers left. Then 50,000 more Saracens came out of the
mountains and killed the brave paladin and his fifty men. While Roland
was dying of his wounds, this legend goes on, he threw his magic sword
into
[Illustration: CHARLEMAGNE IS CROWNED EMPEROR OF THE WESTERN WORLD AT
ROME.
_From an old print_]
a poisoned stream. Another version of the story is that Roland died of
starvation while trying to find his way, wounded and alone, through the
mountains to catch up with the army.
Charlemagne and his valiant paladins rode and fought in all parts of
Europe, beating the savage Germans beyond the Rhine, and conquering
tribes and peoples all over Europe almost as far as Constantinople, the
great capital of the Eastern Empire. At last the dream of the
twelve-year-old lad at his father’s crowning came true, when Charlemagne
himself was crowned at Rome, the city of the Cæsars, as Emperor of the
Western World, on Christmas Day, in the year of our Lord 800.
It is written that the crowning of Charlemagne was prepared as a
surprise to him by the Pope and his people in Rome. While Charles and
his sons were kneeling before a shrine very early on that Christmas
morning, Pope Leo appeared in the great church with a crown of gold set
with many precious gems, and placed it on the head of the kneeling king,
thus proclaiming him Emperor of the Western World. In an instant the
Pope, the cardinals, the priests, and the people rose from their knees
and chanted these words:
“To Charles the Augustus, crowned of God, the great and pacific emperor,
long life and victory!”
Charlemagne was a wise and good emperor who did many things to help his
people. He built a lighthouse at Boulogne to guide ships to port,
encouraged farming and made wise laws. He was kind to scholars and his
favorite recreation was talking to them. He spoke several languages very
well and wrote a great deal. Among his writings were a grammar, poems in
Latin and many letters.
ALFRED, THE GREATEST OF THE SAXON KINGS
Over one thousand years ago, the king of the West Saxons on the island
of Britain, now England, had four sons. Alfred, the youngest of these,
was his father’s favorite. When this boy was only five, his royal father
sent him to Rome to be confirmed by the Pope. After Alfred came back his
queen-mother died, and the father made a pilgrimage, or religious
journey, to Rome, taking young Prince Alfred, with many court gentlemen,
soldiers, and servants.
On their way the king and his train were given a royal welcome by the
king of France. Alfred’s father fell in love with the beautiful young
daughter of the French king, and asked her hand in marriage. Her father
consented, so the royal wedding took place on the Saxon king’s return
from Rome.
Alfred’s new mother soon became very fond of him. Young as he was, he
had learned to play the harp. But when he was twelve years old, Alfred
had not been taught to read. Saxon kings and princes thought most kinds
of learning were for priests and lawyers. When gentlemen made contracts
or signed law papers, they did not write their names, but “set their
signs and seals thereunto,” as is done to-day in legal documents. All
the books were written on parchments in Latin.
One day Alfred saw his French stepmother reading a roll of parchment on
which Latin words were printed by hand in many colors. As the lad
admired it, the queen told him she would make him a present of the
scroll as soon as he learned to read and understand it. He went right
out and coaxed a monk, or priest, to teach him Latin, and he soon became
the happy owner of the beautiful parchment.
Learning to read opened a new world to Prince Alfred. He wrote verses
and songs for his harp, and began to compose both words and music of
hymns to be sung in the cathedral near his father’s palace.
When Alfred was fourteen his father died. Each of his three older
brothers became king, one after another, and died within a few years.
Alfred was twenty-two when the last brother died and left him to be
king. Some rough people, called Danes, from the north countries across
the sea, had landed on the island of Britain, and the Saxons were
compelled to give battle to them so as not to be killed or made slaves
to those rough Northmen. So Alfred had to fight to keep on being king.
When he began to reign, he ruled like all the other kings he had known.
His father and brothers had treated the people as if they were made only
to work and pay their way, like cattle; so Alfred did the same at first.
The fierce Danes kept coming over in larger numbers. In a hard-fought
battle, Alfred was defeated and most of his army was slain. Flying for
his life, the young king found a hiding place in the hut of a swineherd,
a man who tends hogs. This man knew who Alfred was, but kept the king’s
secret from his wife, who thought the stranger was a poor soldier from
the Saxon army.
Many stories are told of what the king did while he lived in the hut of
this swineherd. These tales have changed so much, all the hundreds of
years which have passed since Alfred’s time, that they are called
legends. The best known of these is the story of the king and the cakes.
Once when the housewife was going out to do some work, she asked him,
while he was fixing his bow and arrows, to mind the cakes she had left
baking in the ashes of the fireplace. The distracted king’s mind was on
higher things than coarse meal cakes. When the woman came in she found
them burning. She was so angry that she called Alfred a good-for-nothing
beggar, and added that if he could not pay for what she gave him to eat,
he ought at least to look after her cakes a little while.
[Illustration: KING ALFRED DIVIDES HIS LAST LOAF OF BREAD WITH THE POOR
BEGGAR.]
Alfred had the good sense to see his own conduct through the poor
woman’s eyes. So, instead of being angry or telling her who he was, he
said gently, “I am sorry I was so careless. I will try not to forget
again.”
“A soft answer turneth away wrath,” Alfred had read in the roll of
Proverbs in his Latin Bible. It may have been during the long months he
spent in the home of this shepherd that the humbled king decided to
translate the best parts of the Bible into the Saxon language so that
the people could read it.
Another story is that Alfred stayed in the hut alone while the family
were away fishing. He had only a loaf of bread to last until their
return. A beggar came and asked for bread. Alfred broke his little loaf
in two, gave the man half, and ate his half with the beggar. The
swineherd returned that day with fish enough for a family feast. In the
night the beggar of the day before appeared, as an angel, to the captive
king, and said that God had seen how Alfred had humbled his heart so
that he was now fitted to rule his people wisely and well.
The Danish army was now encamped not far from the king’s hiding place.
Encouraged by the vision of the shining pilgrim, Alfred started out to
see for himself how strong the enemy were and what they were going to
do. So he disguised himself as a wandering musician, playing a harp. He
played and sang for the Danish soldiers, and was soon taken before their
fierce leader, like David, with his harp, before King Saul. The Danes
were so pleased with him and his music that they asked him to stay with
them. As soon as he had found out all he wanted to know, he took up his
harp and left the camp of the enemy. The Danes invited him to come
again.
Hurrying back to the swineherd’s hut, Alfred sent word to the leaders
among his people that he was alive and ready to go on with the war
against the Danes. The people had been in despair, for they had believed
that their brave young king was dead.
The Saxon chiefs came at once and knelt to King Alfred. When the poor
woman realized who her guest was, she fell on her knees and begged him
to forgive all she had said to him. Alfred lifted her tenderly from the
ground, and told her he would reward her and her loyal husband when he
was safe on his throne again.
The Danish army was astonished, early one morning, to hear three trumpet
blasts, and to see a great army of Saxon soldiers marching to meet them,
led by that wandering minstrel! Of course, the Saxons gained the victory
and made the Danes promise not to come and attack them again. They
agreed, but did not keep their word long. After that, instead of waiting
for the Danes to land in Britain, King Alfred fitted up a fleet of ships
so that he could go out and fight them on the sea. This has been called
“the beginning of the British navy.”
Then Alfred improved the years of peace by making laws which allowed the
people more rights and privileges. He invented a simple clock of
candles, by which the people could tell the time of day. He rebuilt the
towns that had been destroyed in the war and trained his people not only
to fight but to till their farms. He made wise laws and did much to
educate his subjects by having books translated from the Latin into
Anglo-Saxon, the language of the Saxons. Best of all, he translated the
Bible into the language of the people. Because of all the acts which
taught the people how to make their lives better and happier he is known
in history as Alfred the Great. In one of his histories, King Alfred
wrote what he tried to do in his own life:
“My will was to live worthily as long as I lived and, after my life, to
leave to them that should come after, my memory in good works.”
HOW WILLIAM OF NORMANDY CONQUERED A KINGDOM
When the first son was born to Robert, Duke of Normandy, and Arlette,
the daughter of a tanner, the nurse laid the day-old baby on the straw
carpet of the castle. In those days most of the floors of the houses,
whether huts or castles, were of earth or stone, covered with straw
which could be cleared out, as from a modern stable, to allow fresh
straw to be laid down. When placed on the floor in his little blanket,
Baby William reached out and clutched some of the straws so tightly in
his small pink fists that one of those who noticed smiled and said, “He
will take fast hold on everything he lays his hands on when he grows
up.”
When William was seven, Duke Robert, his father, being about to make the
voyage to the Holy Land, called some of his nobles together and said, “I
am resolved to journey to the place where our Lord Christ died and was
buried. But because I know this journey is full of dangers, I would have
it settled who should be duke if I should die.”
The nobles and knights took an oath that they would stand by his son
William and not let any one keep him from being duke of Normandy. Then
Duke Robert sailed away and died during the long voyage.
William was away hunting in a Norman forest when his faithful fool (as
they called a sort of clown kept by a king to amuse the court) broke in
where he lay asleep and shouted, “Fly, or you will never leave here a
living man!” The young duke jumped up, dressed in haste, and mounted his
horse, riding through the forest in the moonlight and fording rivers
till he came to the castle of a friend who was sure to be faithful to
him. This knight and his three sons rode with William to his own castle.
It turned out that a number of the Norman lords who had taken the oath
to satisfy Duke Robert were now declaring that they would not serve
under the low-born grandson of a tanner. The fool had learned that they
were plotting rebellion and the death of his young master.
William, who was now twenty years old, gathered an army of loyal knights
and men, and waged fierce warfare against the traitors, who retreated
within the walls of a Norman town. The young duke soon captured the
town, and proved to these rebels, as well as to the men of the
neighboring kingdom of France, that the grandson of a tanner might be a
greater general than the son of a king. At the beginning of a great
battle of brave knights against braver knights, a champion of heroic
size came out from the ranks of the enemy and threw down his gauntlet,
or glove, challenging any knight of Normandy to come and fight him with
the sword. William himself took up the gauntlet, and drove his sword
through an open place in the big knight’s armor, so that he fell from
his horse dead.
Then, like the Philistines of old when David slew their giant, the
Duke’s enemies fled in all directions. Many of them were slain in
battle, others while running away were cut down by the battle-axes of
Norman knights, and many more perished in the flooded river.
Those were brutal days, when people thought that whatever a great king
or noble might do was all right if he only had the power to put it
through. An example of such high-handed dealing is William’s conquest of
England. He had once paid a visit to Edward the Confessor, the priestly
king of England. The duke claimed, on his return to Normandy, that
Edward had promised to leave the kingdom to him, as a relative. It
happened that Harold, an English earl, was shipwrecked on the coast of
Normandy. William seized Harold, shut him up in prison, and kept him
there until he promised to do his best to make William King of England
at the death of Edward.
Two years later, when Edward the Confessor died, it was found that in
spite of his promise to William he had advised in his will that Harold
be elected king by the witan, an assembly of English freemen. This body
of men took the good old king’s advice, chose Harold king, and saw that
he was crowned at once. Harold excused himself for breaking his word to
William because King Edward had decided in his favor instead of
William’s, and because the oath he had made had been forced from him
while he was a prisoner.
William, however, was very angry when he heard that Harold had allowed
himself to be crowned king of England. Getting together as large an army
as he could in Normandy, he sailed across the Channel. In leaping ashore
from his boat he tripped and fell forward with his hands upon the
ground. Realizing that his soldiers would think this a bad sign, he
clutched both hands full of earth, and rising he held them up,
exclaiming, “See, I have taken possession of this land of England.”
The Normans took position in the village of Hastings. Harold went into
camp on top of Senlac hill, now called Battle, about six miles from
Hastings, and dug trenches around. Here a great battle began at four
o’clock in the morning of the 14th of October, 1066. In advance of the
Norman lines rode a knight in armor, bearing the duke’s colors, singing
the Song of Roland, the great paladin in the army of Charlemagne, who
had lived and fought nearly three hundred years before. It was a brave
combat, with many knights and nobles on each side. The Norman found the
Englishman a foeman worthy of his steel.
[Illustration: THE ELDEST SON OF KING WILLIAM REBELLED AGAINST HIS
FATHER’S AUTHORITY AND FLED TO THE CASTLE OF GERBEROI. KING WILLIAM
PURSUED HIM AND BESIEGED THE CASTLE. DURING THE SIEGE THE KING WAS
WOUNDED BY HIS SON IN SINGLE COMBAT, BUT THEY WERE AFTERWARDS
RECONCILED.]
The Saxons, entrenched on Battle Hill, held their ground so well that
William saw he could not gain the day unless he drew them away from that
point of vantage. So he ordered a retreat, and the honest Saxons chased
the flying Normans, expecting to catch and slay them. But to their great
surprise, the Normans turned and fought harder than before. Harold was
killed by an arrow shot into his eyes. The Saxon army, without a
commander, was thrown into confusion, and thus the day was won by
strategy. William, Duke of Normandy, became William the Conqueror of
England.
No one now had a better claim to the throne of England than William; so,
in the new Westminster Abbey, on Christmas Day, 1066, he was crowned,
and took his proud place in history as William the First of England. He
had to fight four years longer to break down all opposition from the
northern counties. In rewarding the Norman knights and nobles who had
helped him gain possession of England, the king gave them great estates
scattered over the kingdom. William brought to the island many scholars
and bishops, and did much to establish the Church of England. Though he
had been rough and cruel, he was both shrewd and wise in proving his own
rights and in strengthening his kingdom.
William ruled England with a strong hand for twenty-one years. He
forbade the buying and selling of slaves; yet he reduced the Saxon
farmers to serfs almost as low as slaves. He ordered a record like a
census made, and a survey of the kingdom which was recorded in what is
called the Domesday Book.