canticles. Luther himself has taken his hymns from the Psalter, and ‘Ein
feste Burg ist unser Gott’ from the Proverbs of Solomon; he has borrowed
the melody from the Graduale Romanum.”
“But we must relegate the law of Moses to the Apocrypha, otherwise
we are Pharisees and Jewish Christians. What have we to do with
circumcision, the paschal lamb, and levitical marriage? Wait till I am
Pope.”
“Must we really wait so long?”
“Hush! The noon-bell is ringing. Do not let us neglect our duties.
The flesh must have its due, in order not to burn. Come with me to
Westminster; then you can go on to Chelsea afterwards.”
* * * * *
Henry VIII was twelve years old when he was engaged to the widow of his
brother Arthur. At fourteen he protested against the marriage, which was
distasteful to him, but at eighteen he married Katherine, the aunt of
the Emperor Charles V. Cardinal Wolsey would have gladly brought about
a divorce, for he wished for a successor to the throne in order to keep
the power in his own hands. This power he had misused to such an extent
that the fact that there was such a thing as Parliament had almost
been forgotten. Wolsey wished to have the King married to a powerful
princess, and thought for a time of Margaret of Valois, but under
no circumstances did he wish to take a wife for him from the English
nobility. But when he aroused the King’s conscience with regard to his
marriage with Katherine, he had let loose a storm which he could not
control, much less guide in the desired direction, for the King’s
passion for Anne Boleyn was now irresistible.
Then the Cardinal had recourse to plotting, and this brought about his
downfall. For six years negotiations went on, and the King was true to
Anne. He wrote letters which can still be read and which display a great
and honourable love. Most of them were signed “Henry Tudor, Rex, your
true and constant servant,” and began “My mistress and friend.” Anne
answered coldly, but her love to Percy was nipt in the bud by a marriage
being arranged for him. After all the learned authorities had been
consulted, and much controversy had taken place regarding the third
and the fifth books of Moses, the Pope sent a Nuncio with secret
instructions to get rid of the whole matter by postponing it. But Henry
did not yield, though his feelings for Katherine, whom he respected,
cost him a terrible struggle. The trial began in the chapter-house of
Blackfriars in the presence of the King and Queen. But Katherine stood
up, threw herself at the King’s feet, and found words which touched the
tyrant. She challenged the right of the court to try her, appealed to
the Pope, and returned to Bridewell. It is there that we find her in
Shakespeare’s _Henry VIII_, singing sorrowfully a beautiful song:
“Orpheus with his lute made trees
And the mountain tops that freeze
Bow themselves when he did sing.”
The divorce proceedings had gone on for some years; people had sided
alternately with the King and with the Queen, and often sympathised with
both, when suddenly rumour announced the outbreak of a pestilence.
It was not the Black Death or the boil-pest, but the English
“sweating-sickness.” This hitherto unknown disease had first broken
out in the same year when the wars of the Roses ended on the field of
Bosworth; but it was entirely confined to England, passing neither to
Scotland nor Ireland. It was so mysteriously connected with English
blood, that in Calais only Englishmen and no Frenchmen were attacked by
it. Since then the sickness had twice appeared among the English. Now it
returned and broke out in London.
The King, who had said that “no one but God could separate him from
Anne,” was alarmed, and did not know what to think--whether it was a
warning or a trial. The symptoms of the sickness were perspiration and a
desire to sleep; but if one yielded to the desire, one might be dead
in three hours. In London the citizens died like flies: Sir Thomas More
lost a daughter; the Cardinal, who had come to preside at Hampton Court,
had his horses put to the carriage again, and hurried away. Finally
one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting was attacked. Then the King lost all
presence of mind, sent Anne home to her father, and fled himself from
place to place, from Waltham to Hunsdon. He reconciled himself to
Katherine, lived in a tower without a servant, prepared his will, and
was ready for death.
Then there came the news that Anne herself had been seized by the
sickness. The King had lost his chamberlain, and now wrote letter after
letter. Then he fled again to Hatfield and Tittenhanger.
But Anne recovered, the pestilence ceased, and Henry resumed the divorce
proceedings. The Cardinal and the Nuncio wavered, and in the seventh
year the King lost patience. He had now found the man he sought for. Sir
Thomas More would not declare Katherine’s marriage null. The new man was
Thomas Cranmer, who hated the Pope and the monks, and dreamt of a free
England--free, that is, from Rome. The King and his new friend worked in
secret at something which Cardinal Wolsey did not know, and one day
the preliminaries were settled, the papers were in order, and the mine
exploded.
* * * * *
The King’s galley pushed off from the Tower. It did not look so
brilliant as the Cardinal’s had once been. Cranmer sat by the King.
“I shall not sleep in the Tower any more,” said the King. “I am leaving
it now, Thomas; this is my removal. I move to Whitehall, for that will
be the name of York Palace; because I, as a Lancastrian, hate York, and
because my white rose shall dwell in my castle. Now, _you_ will sit
in the Tower, my hell-dog! To think that this Satan of a Cardinal has
deceived me for six years. What troubles his plotting has caused me!
Six years! I have always hated the man, but I needed him, for he was
clever.”
The King glanced at the north side of the Thames. “And I have lived in
the city which has not been my own; Rome possesses a third of it. I have
lived like a beggar, but now--London is mine. The Temple, St. James’s,
Whitehall, Westminster to begin with; then the rest.”
The galley reached York Palace, and the King hastened in with his
body-guard, without giving the password or answering the chamberlain’s
questions. He went straight to the Cardinal’s room, and laid some
letters before him: “Read! you snake! your lying letters behind my
back.”
The Cardinal’s face seemed to shrink to half its size, and resembled
a death’s-head. He did not, however, fall on his knees, but raised his
head for the last time: “I appeal to the Pope.”
“There is no Pope in England! Nay, I am the Pope, and therefore you are
no longer Cardinal! Accordingly, I have granted myself a dispensation,
and married Anne Boleyn yesterday! In a few days I shall have her
crowned. And then we will dwell here! _Here!_ But you will live in the
Tower. Go, or I throw you out.”
Thus England became free; a third part of London, which had belonged
to the monks, reverted to the Crown, and afterwards the whole country
followed.
The King had obtained his beloved Anne, but after three years she was
beheaded, for having dishonoured the King by adultery. After that the
King married four times. Cardinal Wolsey died before he came to the
scaffold; Sir Thomas More was beheaded; and Cromwell, who at first
defended Wolsey, but afterwards became a “_malleus monachorum_,” was
also beheaded. All this seems very confused and tragic, but from this
confusion a free, independent, and powerful England emerged. When the
Germans were preparing to cast off the yoke of Rome in the Thirty Years’
War, England had already completed her task.
THE WHITE MOUNTAIN
While the peace negotiations were being carried on in Osnabrück and
Münster, the Thirty Years’ War still flamed up here and there, more
perhaps to keep the troops in practice, to provide support for the
soldiers, and to have booty at command, than to defend any faith or the
adherents of it.
All talk of religion had ceased, and the powers now played with
their cards exposed. Protestant Saxony, the first State to support
Lutheranism, worked in conjunction with Catholic Austria, and Catholic
France with Protestant Sweden. In the battle of Wolfenbüttel, 1641,
French Catholics fought against German Catholics, the latter of whom,
however, later on carried the body of Johan Baner in their ranks.
The Swedish Generals thought little of peace, but when the negotiations
dragged on to the seventh year, they thought the time had come to have
some regard to it. “He who takes something, has something,” Wrangel
wrote to his son.
Hans Christoph von Königsmarck, who continued Johan Baner’s traditions,
had lately been with him at Zusmarshausen, and was now sent eastward
in the direction of Bohemia. Since, besides cavalry, he had only five
hundred foot-soldiers, he did not know what to do, but wandered about
at random, and looked for booty. But nothing was to be found, for Johan
Baner had already laid the district waste.
“Then they marched farther,” like Xenophon, and found the woods which
bordered the highways’ cut down; the fields were covered with weeds, and
in the trees hung corpses; the churches had been burnt, but watch was
kept in the churchyards in order that the corpses should not be eaten.
One night Königsmarck himself was leading a small detachment in search
of provisions. They rode into a wood where they saw a light burning.
But it was only a red glow as if from a charcoal pile or a smithy. They
dismounted from their horses, and stole on foot to the place. When they
reached it, they heard voices singing a “Miserere” in low tones, and
they saw men, women, and children sitting round an oven, the last
remains of a village.
Königsmark went forward alone, and, hidden behind a young fir-tree, he
beheld a spectacle.... He had seen such sights before, but not under
such circumstances. In an iron scoop on the oven some game was being
roasted; it might have been an enormous hare, but was not. Like a hare,
it was very spindle-shanked and lean over back and breast; only the
hinder-parts seemed well developed; the head was placed, between the two
fore-paws.... No! they were not fore-paws, but two five-fingered hands,
and round the neck a charred rope was knotted. It was a man who had been
hung, and whom they had cut down in order to eat him.
The General was not squeamish by nature, and had in his life passed
through many experiences, but this went beyond all bounds. He was at
first angry, and wished to interrupt the cannibals’ meal, but when he
saw the little children sitting on their mothers’ knees with tufts of
grass in their mouths, he was seized with compassion. The cannibals
themselves looked like corpses or madmen, and the eyes and expectations
of all were fastened on the oven. At the same time they sang “Lord,
have mercy,” and prayed for pardon for the grievous sin which they were
obliged to commit. “What does it really matter to me?” said the General
to himself; “I only wish I had not seen it.” He returned to his men, and
they marched on.
The wood became thinner, and they came to an open place where was
something resembling a heap of stones, out of which there arose a
single pillar. In the half-twilight which reigned they could not
see distinctly, but on the pillar something seemed to be moving. The
“something” resembled a man, but had only one arm.
“It is not a man, for he would have two arms,” said one of the soldiers.
“It would be strange, if a man could not have an arm missing.”
“Strange indeed! Perhaps it is a pillar-saint.”
“Give him a charge of powder, and we shall soon see.”
At the rattle of arms which was now heard there, rose a howl so terrible
and multitudinous, that no one thought it came from the pillar-saint.
At the same time the apparent heap of stones moved and became a living
mass.
“They are wolves! Aim! Fire!”
A volley was fired, and the wolves fled. Königsmarck rode through the
smoke, and now saw a one-armed Imperialist standing on the chimney,
which was all that was left of a burnt cottage. “Come down, and let us
look at you,” he said.
The maimed man clambered down with his single arm, showing incredible
agility. “We ought to have him to scale the wall with a storming-party,”
said the General to himself.
Then the examination commenced.
“Are you alone?”
“Alone _now_--thanks to your grace, for the wolves have been round me
for six hours.”
“What is your name? Where do you come from? Whither do you wish to go?”
“My name is Odowalsky; I come from Vienna; and I shall go to hell, if I
don’t get help.”
“Will you go with us?”
“Yes, as sure as I live! With anybody, if only I can live. I have lost
my arm; I was given a house; they burnt it, and threw me out on the
highway--with wife and child, of course!”
“Listen; do you know the way to Prague?”
“I can find the way to Prague, to the Hradschin and the Imperial
treasure-house, Wallenstein’s palace, the royal castle, Wallenstein’s
dancing-hall, and the Loretto Convent. There there is _multum plus
Plurimum_.”
“What is your rank in the army?”
“First Lieutenant.”
“That is something different. Come with me, and you shall have a horse,
Mr. First Lieutenant, and then let us see what you are good for.”
Odowalsky received a horse, and the General bade him ride beside him. He
talked confidentially with him the whole night till they again rejoined
the main body of the army.
* * * * *
Some days later Königsmarck stood with his little troop on the White
Mountain left of Prague--“Golden Prague,” as it was called. It was late
in the evening of the fifteenth of June. He had Odowalsky at his side,
and seemed to be particularly good friends with him. But the troop knew
nothing of the General’s designs, and, as they saw that he went towards
Prague, his officers were astounded, for the town was well fortified,
and defended by a strong body of armed citizens.
“One can at any rate look at the show,” Königsmarck answered to all
objections; “that costs nothing.”
They halted on the White Mountain, without, however, pitching a camp.
They saw nothing of the beautiful town, for it was dark, but they heard
the church and convent bells.
“This, then, is the White Mountain, where the war broke out just thirty
years ago,” said Königsmarck to Odowalsky.
“Yes,” answered the Austrian. “It was then the Bohemian revolt broke
out, your King Frederick V of the Palatinate was slain here, and there
was great rejoicing at his death.”
“If you forget who you are, forget not who I am.”
“We will not quarrel about something that happened so long ago! But,
as a matter of fact, the revolt was crushed, and the Protestants had
to withdraw. What did they get by their trouble--the poor Bohemians?
Hussites, Taborites, Utraquists sacrificed their lives, but Bohemia is
still Catholic! It was all folly!”
“Do you belong to the Roman Church, First Lieutenant?”
“I don’t belong to any Church at all; I belong to the army. And now we
will take Prague with a _coup de main_.”
So it fell out. At midnight the foot-soldiers clambered over the wall,
threw the sentinels into the moat, cut down the guards at the gates, and
took that side of the town.
For three days the part of the city which lay on the left bank of the
Moldau was plundered, and Königsmarck is said to have sent five waggons
laden with gold and silver to the north-west through Germany, as his
own share of the spoil. Odowalsky received six thousand thalers for his
trouble, and later on was raised to the Swedish House of Peers with the
title of “Von Streitberg.”
But the right bank had not been captured. It was defended by ten
thousand citizens, assisted by students, monks, and Jews. From ancient
times there had been a large Jewish colony in Prague; the Jews were said
to have escaped thither direct from Jerusalem during the last German
crusade, and for that reason the island in the Moldau is still called
Jerusalem. On this occasion the Jews so distinguished themselves that
they received as a token of honour from the Emperor Ferdinand III a
great flag, which can be still seen in their synagogue. Königsmarck
could not take the Old Town, but had to send for help to Wittenberg. The
latter actually plundered Tabor and Budweis, but Prague, which had been
plundered, did not attract him. Then the Count Palatine Karl Gustav had
to come, and formally besieged the eastern portion of the town.
Königsmarck dwelt in the Castle, where he could see the old hall of
the States-General, from the window of which Count Thurn had thrown the
Imperial governors Martiniz and Slavata; the Protestants say that
they fell on a dungheap, but the Catholics maintain that it was an
elder-bush.
Meanwhile Count Karl Gustav, who was a cousin of Frederick V, had as
little success before Prague as the former. He became ill, and was
sure that he had been poisoned. But he recovered, and was about to be
reinforced by Wrangel, when news arrived that the Peace of Westphalia
had been concluded.
With that the Thirty Years’ War was at an end. Sweden received two
million thalers and some places of importance; these were enfeoffed to
Germany, and in exchange Sweden had three votes in the German Reichstag.
But Germany’s population was only a quarter of what it had been, and,
while it had formerly been one State under the Emperor, it was now
split up into three hundred little States. However, the liberty of
faith affirmed in the Confession of Augsburg, 1555, was recovered, and
extended to the reformed districts. It was dearly bought, but with it
North Germany had also obtained freedom from Rome, and that could not be
too dearly purchased.
Out of chaos comes creation and new creation. From the Germanic chaos
emerged North Germany, the seed of which was Brandenberg, later on
developing into Prussia, and finally the German Empire, which received
the imperial crown at Versailles, but not from the hands of Rome.
THE GREAT CZAR
On the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland lay the little village
Strelna, halfway between Petersburg and the half-completed Peterhof.
At the end of the village, on the edge of the Strelka stream, stood a
simple country-house under oaks and pines. It was painted green and
red, and the window-shutters were still fastened, for it was only four
o’clock on a summer morning.
The Gulf of Finland lay smooth under the rays of the rising sun. A Dutch
trading vessel, which had wished to enter the harbour and reach the
Admiralty House, now furled its sails and dropped anchor. It carried a
flag at its main-top which hung down idly.
Near the red and green country-house stood an ancient lime-tree with
a split trunk; in the cleft a wooden platform with a railing had been
fitted, and a flight of steps led up to this arbour. In this early
morning hour there sat a man in the tree at an unpainted, unsteady
table, writing letters. The table was covered with papers, but there
was still room for a clock without a glass, a compass, a case of drawing
instruments, and a large bell of bronze.
The man sat in his shirt-sleeves; he wore darned stockings which were
turned down, and large shoes; his head seemed incredibly large, but was
not so in reality; his neck was like that of an ox, and his body that
of a giant; the hand which was now writing was coarse, and stained with
tar; he wrote carelessly, with lines somewhat slanting, but quickly.
The letters were short and to the point, with no introductions and no
conclusions, merely signed “Pe ter,” the name divided in two, as though
it had been split by the heavy hand which wrote it.
There were probably about a million men bearing that name in Russia; but
this Peter was the only one of importance, and everyone recognised the
signature.
The lime-tree was alive with bees, the little Strelka brook bubbled and
fretted like a tea-kettle, and the sun rose gloriously; its rays fell
between the leaves of the lime-tree, and threw patches of light on the
strange face of one of the strangest and most incomprehensible men who
have ever lived.
Just now this handsome head, with its short hair, looked like that of a
wild boar; and when the writer licked his goose-quill like a school-boy,
he showed teeth and a tongue like those of a memorial lion. Sometimes
his features were convulsed with pain, as though he were being tortured
or crucified. But then he took a new sheet, and began a new letter; his
pen ran on; his mouth smiled till his eyes disappeared, and the terrible
man looked roguish. Still another sheet, and a little note which was
certainly directed to a lady; now the face changed to that of a satyr,
melted so to speak, into harmonious lines, and finally exploded in a
loud laugh which was simply cynical.
His morning correspondence was now ended. The Czar had written fifty
letters. He left them unsealed. Kathia, his wife, would collect and
fasten them.
The giant stretched himself, rose with difficulty, and cast a glance
over the bay. With his spy-glass he saw Petersburg and his fleet, the
Fort of Kronstadt, which had been commenced, and finally discovered the
trading-vessel. “How did that come in without saluting?” he thought,
“and dare to anchor immediately before my house!”
He rang, and a valet-de-chambre came at once, running from the row
of tents which stood concealed behind the pines-trees, and where both
soldiers and servants lodged.
“Take five men in a boat,” he ordered, “and hail that brig! Can you see
what country it belongs to?”
“It is Dutch, your Majesty!”
“Dutch! Bring the captain here, dead or alive. At once! On the spot! But
first my tea!”
“The household is asleep, most gracious lord.”
“Then wake it up, you ass! Knock at the shutters! Break the door in!
Asleep in broad daylight!”
He rang again. A second servant appeared. “Tea! and brandy--plenty of
brandy!”
The servants ran, the household was aroused, and the Czar occupied the
interval by making notes on slate tablets. When he became impatient, he
got down, and knocked at all the shutters with his stick. Then a voice
was heard from within: “Wait a moment.”
“No! that I won’t; I am not born to wait. Hurry! or I will set the house
on fire!”
He went into his gardens, cast a glance at his medicinal plants,
plucked up some weeds, and watered here and there. He went into the
cattle-sheds, and looked at some merino sheep which he himself had
introduced. Here he found a trave which had been broken; he took a
saw and plane, and mended it. He threw some oats in the manger of his
favourite trotting-horse. He drove for the most part, when he did not
go on foot; riding seemed to him unworthy of a seaman, and it was as a
seaman that the Czar chiefly wished to be regarded. Then he went into
the lathe-shop, sat for a while on the turning-bench, and worked. At
the window stood a table with a copper-engraver’s tools; with the
graving-tool he drew some lines which were wanting in the map plate.
He was about to proceed to the smithy, when a woman’s voice called him
under the lime-tree.
On the platform stood his wife the Czarina, in her morning dress. She
had massive limbs and large feet; her face was stout and plain, her eyes
were not level, but had a steady expression.
“How early you are up this morning, Little Father?” she said.
“Is it early? It is six at any rate!”
“It is only just five.”
“Five? Then it shall be six.”
He pushed the hand of the clock an hour forward. His wife smiled a
little superciliously, but took care not to irritate him, for she knew
how dangerous it was to do so. Then she gave him his tea.
“There is some occupation for you,” said Peter, pointing to his letters.
“But how many there are!”
“If there are too many I can get help.”
The Czarina, did not answer, but began to look through the letters. The
Czar liked that, for then there would be occasion for quarrelling; and
he always wished for a quarrel in order to keep his energies active.
“Pardon me, Peter,” said his wife, “but is it right that you should
apply to the Swedish Government about the Dutch ships?”
“Yes, it is! All that I do is right!”
“I don’t understand it. Our Russians fired by mistake at friendly Dutch
vessels, and you demand indemnity from the Swedes because the mischance
occurred in Swedish waters.”
“Yes, according to Roman law, the injury must be made good in the land
where it happened....”
“Yes, but....”
“It is all the same anyhow: he who can pay, pays; I cannot, and the
Dutch will not, therefore the Swedes must! Do you understand?”
“No.”
“The Swedes have incited the Turks against me; they must pay for that.”
“May be! But why do you write so harshly to the Dutch Government since
you like the Dutch?”