1308
One of the ladies most admired by the ancient Romans was Arria, the wife
of Caecina Paetus, a Roman who was condemned by the Emperor Claudius to
become his own executioner. Seeing him waver, his wife, who was resolved
to be with him in death as in life, took the dagger from his hand,
plunged it into her own breast, and with her last strength held it out
to him, gasping out, 'It is not painful, my Paetus.'
Such was heathen faithfulness even to death; and where the teaching
of Christianity had not forbidden the taking away of life by one's own
hand, perhaps wifely love could not go higher. Yet Christian women have
endured a yet more fearful ordeal to their tender affection, watching,
supporting, and finding unfailing fortitude to uphold the sufferer in
agonies that must have rent their hearts.
Natalia was the fair young wife of Adrian, an officer at Nicomedia, in
the guards of the Emperor Galerius Maximianus, and only about twenty-
eight years old. Natalia was a Christian, but her husband remained a
pagan, until, when he was charged with the execution of some martyrs,
their constancy, coupled with the testimony of his own wife's virtues,
triumphed over his unbelief, and he confessed himself likewise a
Christian. He was thrown into prison, and sentenced to death, but he
prevailed on his gaoler to permit him to leave the dungeon for a time,
that he might see his wife. The report came to Natalia that he was no
longer in prison, and she threw herself on the ground, lamenting aloud:
'Now will men point at me, and say, 'Behold the wife of the coward and
apostate, who, for fear of death, hath denied his God.'
'Oh, thou noble and strong-hearted woman,' said Adrian's voice at the
door, 'I bless God that I am not unworthy of thee. Open the door that I
may bid thee farewell.'
But this was not the last farewell, though he duly went back to the
prison; for when, the next day, he had been cruelly scourged and
tortured before the tribunal, Natalia, with her hair cut short, and
wearing the disguise of a youth, was there to tend and comfort him. She
took him in her arms saying, 'Oh, light of mine eyes, and husband of
mine heart, blessed art thou, who art chosen to suffer for Christ's
sake.'
On the following day, the tyrant ordered that Adrian's limbs should be
one by one struck off on a blacksmith's anvil, and lastly his head. And
still it was his wife who held him and sustained him through all and,
ere the last stroke of the executioner, had received his last breath.
She took up one of the severed hands, kissed it, and placed it in her
bosom, and escaping to Byzantium, there spent her life in widowhood.
Nor among these devoted wives should we pass by Gertrude, the wife of
Rudolf, Baron von der Wart, a Swabian nobleman, who was so ill-advised
as to join in a conspiracy of Johann of Hapsburg, in 1308, against the
Emperor, Albrecht I, the son of the great and good Rudolf of Hapsburg.
This Johann was the son of the Emperor's brother Rudolf, a brave knight
who had died young, and Johann had been brought up by a Baron called
Walther von Eschenbach, until, at nineteen years old, he went to his
uncle to demand his father's inheritance. Albrecht was a rude and
uncouth man, and refused disdainfully the demand, whereupon the noblemen
of the disputed territory stirred up the young prince to form a plot
against him, all having evidently different views of the lengths to
which they would proceed. This was just at the time that the Swiss,
angry at the overweening and oppressive behaviour of Albrecht's
governors, were first taking up arms to maintain that they owed no duty
to him as Duke of Austria, but merely as Emperor of Germany. He set out
on his way to chastise them as rebels, taking with him a considerable
train, of whom his nephew Johann was one. At Baden, Johann, as a last
experiment, again applied for his inheritance, but by way of answer,
Albrecht held out a wreath of flowers, telling him they better became
his years than did the cares of government. He burst into tears, threw
the wreath upon the ground, and fed his mind upon the savage purpose of
letting his uncle find out what he was fit for.
By and by, the party came to the banks of the Reuss, where there was no
bridge, and only one single boat to carry the whole across. The first to
cross were the Emperor with one attendant, besides his nephew and four
of the secret partisans of Johann. Albrecht's son Leopold was left to
follow with the rest of the suite, and the Emperor rode on towards the
hills of his home, towards the Castle of Hapsburg, where his father's
noble qualities had earned the reputation which was the cause of all the
greatness of the line. Suddenly his nephew rode up to him, and while one
of the conspirators seized the bridle of his horse, exclaimed, 'Will you
now restore my inheritance?' and wounded him in the neck. The attendant
fled; Der Wart, who had never thought murder was to be a part of the
scheme, stood aghast, but the other two fell on the unhappy Albrecht,
and each gave him a mortal wound, and then all five fled in different
directions. The whole horrible affair took place full in view of Leopold
and the army on the other side of the river, and when it became possible
for any of them to cross, they found that the Emperor had just expired,
with his head in the lap of a poor woman.
The murderers escaped into the Swiss mountains, expecting shelter there;
but the stout, honest men of the cantons were resolved not to have any
connection with assassins, and refused to protect them. Johann himself,
after long and miserable wanderings in disguise, bitterly repented,
owned his crime to the Pope, and was received into a convent; Eschenbach
escaped, and lived fifteen years as a cowherd. The others all fell into
the hands of the sons and daughters of Albrecht, and woeful was the
revenge that was taken upon them, and upon their innocent families and
retainers.
That Leopold, who had seen his father slain before his eyes, should
have been deeply incensed, was not wonderful, and his elder brother
Frederick, as Duke of Austria, was charged with the execution of
justice; but both brothers were horribly savage and violent in their
proceedings, and their sister Agnes surpassed them in her atrocious
thirst for vengeance. She was the wife of the King of Hungary, very
clever and discerning, and also supposed to be very religious, but all
better thoughts were swept away by her furious passion. She had nearly
strangled Eschenbach's infant son with her own bare hands, when he was
rescued from her by her own soldiers, and when she was watching the
beheading of sixty-three vassals of another of the murderers, she
repeatedly exclaimed, 'Now I bathe in May dew.' Once, indeed, she met
with a stern rebuke. A hermit, for whom she had offered to build a
convent, answered her, 'Woman, God is not served by shedding innocent
blood and by building convents out of the plunder of families, but by
compassion and forgiveness of injuries.'
Rudolf von der Wart received the horrible sentence of being broken on
the wheel. On his trial the Emperor's attendant declared that Der Wart
had attacked Albert with his dagger, and the cry, 'How long will ye
suffer this carrion to sit on horseback?' but he persisted to the last
that he had been taken by surprise by the murder. However, there was no
mercy for him; and, by the express command of Queen Agnes, after he had
been bound upon one wheel, and his limbs broken by heavy blows from
the executioner, he was fastened to another wheel, which was set upon
a pole, where he was to linger out the remaining hours of his life. His
young wife, Gertrude, who had clung to him through all the trial, was
torn away and carried off to the Castle of Kyburg; but she made her
escape at dusk, and found her way, as night came on, to the spot where
her husband hung still living upon the wheel. That night of agony was
described in a letter ascribed to Gertrude herself. The guard left to
watch fled at her approach, and she prayed beneath the scaffold, and
then, heaping some heavy logs of wood together, was able to climb up
near enough to embrace him and stroke back the hair from his face,
whilst he entreated her to leave him, lest she should be found there,
and fall under the cruel revenge of the Queen, telling her that thus it
would be possible to increase his suffering.
'I will die with you,' she said, 'tis for that I came, and no power
shall force me from you;' and she prayed for the one mercy she hoped
for, speedy death for her husband.