To Drake, greatest of all these wild adventurers, was it lef_The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 10

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[Illustration: Murder of the favorite, Rizzio, at the feet of Mary

Stuart, by her husband and associate conspirators

Painting by Eug. Siberdt.]

THE GREAT EVENTS

FAMOUS HISTORIANS

A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING

THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES

IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS

NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL

ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE

MOST DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF

INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED

NARRATIVES. ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES,

BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.

ASSOCIATE EDITORS

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.

JOHN RUDD, LL.D.

_With a staff of specialists_

_VOLUME X_

The National Alumni

By THE NATIONAL ALUMNI

CONTENTS

VOLUME X

PAGE

_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_, xiii

CHARLES F. HORNE

_England Loses Her Last French Territory (A.D. 1558)

Battle of St. Quentin_, 1

CHARLES KNIGHT

_Reign of Elizabeth (A.D. 1558-1603)_, 8

HENRY R. CLEVELAND

_John Knox Heads the Scottish Reformers (A.D. 1558)_, 21

P. HUME BROWN

THOMAS CARLYLE

_Mary Stuart: Her Reign and Execution (A.D. 1561-1587)_, 51

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

_Founding of St. Augustine (A.D. 1565)

Massacre of the Huguenots in America_, 70

GEORGE R. FAIRBANKS

_Revolt of the Netherlands against Spain

Rise of the Gueux or Beggars (A.D. 1566)_, 81

FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

_Lepanto: Destruction of the Turkish Naval Power

(A.D. 1571)_, 100

SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL

_Massacre of St. Bartholomew (A.D. 1572)_, 119

HENRY WHITE

ISAAC D'ISRAELI

JNO. RUDD

_Heroic Age of the Netherlands (A.D. 1573)

Siege of Leyden_, 145

THOMAS HENRY DYER

_Search for the Northwest Passage by Frobisher (A.D. 1576)_, 156

GEORGE BEST

_Building of the First Theatre in England (A.D. 1576)_ 163

KARL MANTZIUS

_Cossack Conquest of Siberia (A.D. 1581)_, 181

NIKOLAI M. KARAMZIN

_First Colony of England Beyond Seas (A.D. 1583)_, 198

MOSES HARVEY

_Assassination of William of Orange (A.D. 1584)

Division of the Netherlands_, 202

JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY

_Naming of Virginia: First Description of the Indians

The Lost Colony (A.D. 1584)_, 211

ARTHUR BARLOW

R. R. HOWISON

_Drake Captures Cartagena

He "Singes the King of Spain's Beard" at Cadiz

(A.D. 1586-1587)_, 230

JULIAN CORBETT

_Defeat of the Spanish Armada (A.D. 1588)_, 251

SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

_Henry of Navarre Accepts Catholicism

He is Acknowledged King of France (A.D. 1593)_, 276

MAXIMILIEN DE BÉTHUNE, DUC DE SULLY

_Culmination of Dramatic Literature in Hamlet (A.D. 1601)_, 287

JAMES O. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS

_Downfall of Irish Liberty

"Flight of the Earls" (A.D. 1603)_, 299

JUSTIN M'CARTHY

_The Gunpowder Plot (A.D. 1605)_, 310

SAMUEL R. GARDINER

_Cervantes' Don Quixote Reforms Literature (A.D. 1605)_, 325

HENRY EDWARD WATTS

_Earliest Positive Discovery of Australia (A.D. 1606)_, 340

LOUIS BECKE

WALTER JEFFERY

_Settlement of Virginia (A.D. 1607)

Charter under which America was Colonized_, 350

R. R. HOWISON

_Founding of Quebec (A.D. 1608)

Champlain Establishes French Power in Canada_, 366

H. H. MILES

_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1558-1608)_, 387

JOHN RUDD

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME X

PAGE

_Murder of the favorite, Rizzio, at the feet of Mary

Stuart, by her husband and associate conspirators

(page 56)_, Frontispiece

Painting by Eug. Siberdt.

_Catharine de' Medici, accompanied by her suite, issues

from the gate of the Louvre the morning after the Massacre

of St. Bartholomew_, 142

Painting by Ed. Debat-Ponsan.

AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES

OF THE GREAT EVENTS

(AGE OF ELIZABETH AND PHILIP II)

CHARLES F. HORNE

Philip II succeeded his father Charles V on the throne of Spain. The

vast extent of his domains, the absoluteness of his authority, and,

above all, the enormous wealth that poured into his coffers from the

Spanish conquests in America, made him the most powerful monarch of his

time, the central figure of the age. It was largely because of Philip's

personal character that the great religious struggle of the Reformation

entered upon a new phase, became far more sinister, more black and

deadly, extended over all Europe, and bathed the civilized world in

blood. England stood forth as the centre of opposition against Philip,

and under the unwilling leadership of Elizabeth entered on its epic

period of heroism, was stimulated to that remarkable outburst of energy

and intellect and power which we call the Elizabethan age.

Philip, with a tenacity of purpose from which no fortune good or bad

could lure him for a moment, pursued two objects throughout his reign

(1555-1598), the reëstablishment of Catholicism over all Europe, and the

extension so far as might be of his own personal authority. If we

consider his personal ambition, we must count his reign a failure; for

at his death his country had already fallen from its foremost rank in

Europe and started on that process of decay which in later centuries has

become so marked. If, however, we look to Philip's religious purpose, it

is undeniable that during his reign Catholicism revived. Philip II, the

Jesuits, the Council of Trent--these three were the powers by means of

which the Roman Church beat back its foes, saved itself from what for a

time had seemed a threatened extinction, and so far reëstablished its

power that for over a century it appeared not improbable that Philip's

purpose of reuniting Europe might be accomplished.

Before the beginning of this reactionary wave, the North had become

wholly Protestant. It has been estimated that nine-tenths of the people

of Germany were of the new faith; half the population of France had

adopted it; even in Italy protest and disbelief were widespread and

active. Only in Spain did the Inquisition with firmest cruelty trample

down each vestige of revolt.

SPAIN AND GREAT BRITAIN

The Inquisition was established in Italy, which, as we have seen, was

really a Spanish possession. It was introduced into the Netherlands by

Charles V (1550), but remained feebly merciful there until Philip, to

whom we must at least give the credit of having been a sincere fanatic,

insisted on its rigorous enforcement. Over England also Philip sought to

extend his hand. There the eagerly Protestant Edward VI had died in

1553, and his Catholic sister Mary succeeded to the throne. Philip was

wedded to her in 1554, even before he became King of Spain, and both he

and she did their utmost to restore the kingdom to the Roman faith. So

many Protestants were burned at the stake that England remembers the

queen as "bloody Mary"; and so recklessly did she antagonize the spirit

of her people that even her husband counselled her to a caution which

she despised. He had no love for his cold, pale, embittered English

wife, except as an instrument in his policy; and when he found that it

was impossible for him, as her husband, to become King of England, he

practically abandoned her, and returned to Spain.

When his father's abdication gave him power in 1555, Philip's first

active movement was against France. He sought to avenge his father's

loss of Metz, and persuaded his English wife to join him in war against

young Henry II. With his splendid Spanish troops Philip won a great

victory at St. Quentin.[1] "Has he yet taken Paris?" cried his father

eagerly when the news reached his secluded monastery. But Philip had

not, he had erred from over-caution and given France time to recover.

Two able generals, the great Protestant leader Coligny, and the dashing

Catholic hero of Metz, Francis of Guise, held the Spaniards in check.

Guise even seized Calais, and so snatched from England her last

territory in France (1558). Its loss filled full the measure of poor

Mary's unpopularity with her subjects and also of her own unhappiness.

She had sacrificed everything for love of a husband who had no love for

her. She died the same year. "They will find 'Calais,'" she said,

"engraven on my heart."[2]

[1] See _Battle of St. Quentin_, page 1.

[2] See _England Loses Her Last French Territory_, page 1.

Her Protestant sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, succeeded to

the throne, and England with a cry of relief threw off the hated Spanish

alliance. She was free again. Free, but in infinite danger. The Catholic

Pope and Catholic Philip, remembering that the divorce under which Henry

VIII married Anne Boleyn had never been admitted by the Church, declared

Elizabeth illegitimate, and pointed to her cousin Mary Stuart of

Scotland as the lawful ruler of England. Mary had been married to the

French prince Francis II, who at this moment succeeded his father Henry

II as king of France. Here was a chance indeed for Spain and France and

Scotland all three to unite against Elizabeth and place a second

Catholic Mary on England's throne. Many Englishmen themselves were still

Catholic, and might easily have been persuaded to approve the change.

That Elizabeth, by her cool and cunning diplomacy, managed to evade the

threatened danger, has ever been held as little short of providential by

the Protestants of the world.[3] In truth, however, each of the powers

which might have assailed Elizabeth, had religious difficulties of its

own to encounter.

[3] See _Reign of Elizabeth_, page 8.

In Scotland there was civil war. The Protestant faith had been slow of

introduction there, but under the leadership of John Knox it had become

at length supreme.[4] The Regent, mother of the young queen, Mary

Stuart, had French troops to aid her against the reformers, but had been

compelled to yield to their demands. When Queen Mary herself returned to

rule Scotland after the death of her French husband, King Francis, she

found her path anything but easy. A sovereign of one faith and a nation

of another had not yet learned to endure each other, and there were

queer doings in Scotland, wild nobles running off with the Queen, wilder

fanatics lecturing at her in her own court, her French favorite

assassinated, a new husband, a Scotch one, sent the same dark road, more

civil war, imprisonments, romantic escapes. It ended in Mary's secret

flight to England. She who had so nearly marched into the land a

conqueror, entered it a fugitive supplicating Elizabeth's protection.

The remainder of her life she passed in an English prison, and eighteen

years later was executed on an only half-proven charge of conspiring

against the rival who had kept her in such dreary durance.[5]

[4] See _John Knox Heads the Scottish Reformers_, page 21.

[5] See _Mary Stuart: Her Reign and Execution_, page 51.

Let us not, however, judge Elizabeth too harshly. In reading only

English history we are apt to do so, to fail in realizing the atmosphere

that surrounded her, the spirit of the age throughout Europe.

Statecraft, which had been grasping under Charles V and false under

Francis I, seemed now to have adopted fully the maxims of Machiavelli,

and pursued its ends by means wholly base, by subtle treacheries, secret

murders and open massacre. The gloomy spirit of Philip II hung like

blackest night over all the world. He hesitated at no crime which should

advance his purposes. Where he might next strike, no man knew, until the

blow had fallen. His dark secrecy and enormous power weighed as a

nightmare upon the imaginations of men. We enter an age of plots.

Elizabeth was unquestionably surrounded by them; and where so many

existed, a thousand more were naturally suspected--leading on all sides

to counterplots. Scotland had seen several assassinations. England

guarded herself desperately against them. France, nearest to Spain's

borders, suffered worst of all. Five times in succession did the chief

leader of the state fall by sudden murder. In some of these crimes

Philip had no part; in others he was plainly implicated.

RELIGIOUS WARS OF FRANCE

The early and unexpected death of Henry II of France (1559) had left the

throne to one after another of his young and feeble sons. The first of

these, Francis II, the husband of Mary Stuart, ruled only a year. He was

completely under the control of the great Catholic family, the Guises,

who began a vigorous attempt to suppress the Protestants of France, the

Huguenots as they were called. But these Huguenots included many of the

highest and ablest of the French nobility and did not yield easily to

suppression. Francis II died, and the Queen-mother, Catherine de'

Medici, became regent for her second son, Charles IX. At first Catherine

feared the power of the Guises and encouraged the Huguenots; but Philip

of Spain interfered here as everywhere in the Catholic behalf. A civil

war broke out in 1562; and for over a generation France, divided against

herself, became the theatre of repeated conflicts and savage massacres.

She had no thought to give to other lands.

The first of her chiefs to be assassinated was Francis of Guise, the

great Catholic leader and general, shot by a Huguenot. Next the

Catholics attempted the murder of Coligny. They failed at first, and

Catherine de' Medici, who by this time had embraced fully the Catholic

cause, planned the awful massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572). A marriage

was arranged between the highest Huguenot in rank, the young prince

Henry of Navarre, and a royal princess. This was supposed to mark the

amicable ending of all disputes, and the chief Huguenots gathered gladly

to Paris for the ceremony. Suddenly an army of assassins were let loose

on them. Young Henry was spared, but Coligny and more than twenty

thousand Huguenots were slain.[6]

[6] See _Massacre of St. Bartholomew_, page 119.

The massacre spread over all France. The Protestants rallied, stern and

desperate, for defence and for revenge. The civil war was resumed again

and again, with false peaces patched in between. Philip might well

triumph at the utter anarchy into which he had helped to throw the

kingdom which had been his father's rival.

The feeble French king, Charles IX, died, in remorse and madness it is

said, for having permitted the great massacre. Henry III, last of the

sons of Catherine, ascended the throne, and was also guided by the dark

genius of his Italian mother. He found the new Duke of Guise, head of

the Catholic party, far more powerful than he, so caused his

assassination. That roused the Catholics to war on the King; the

Huguenots were also in arms under Henry of Navarre; there were now three

parties to the strife. Queen Catherine died, worn out and despairing.

King Henry was murdered in his turn, and with him perished the direct

line of the royal house. Henry of Navarre was the nearest heir to the

throne.

Of course the Catholics would not consent to be ruled by this champion

of the Huguenots; so again the strife went on. Henry proved himself a

dashing and heroic leader, winning splendid battles. Spanish forces

invaded the country, and he beat them, too. Though Protestant, he was

recognized even by his foes as the national hero. At last he took that

much-debated resolve, than which was never act more statesmanly. He

became a Catholic. His opponents gladly laid down their arms; even

fanatic Paris hailed him with extravagant delight. In 1598 he proclaimed

the Edict of Nantes, granting safety and religious freedom to his former

comrades, the Huguenots. The religious wars of France ended; the wisdom

and power of one man had healed what seemed a hopeless confusion.[7]

[7] See _Henry of Navarre Accepts Catholicism_, page 276.

Under this great monarch, Henry IV, France resumed her former place of

power in Europe. Her chief began planning grim revenge on Spain for all

her injuries. And then he, too, fell by the assassin's knife (1610).

REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS

We have traced the French tumults to the end of the present period; let

us go back to see why, with his chief foe so helpless, Philip II

accomplished no more in extending his own power. It is one of the most

amazing tales in history. Where he had thought himself most secure,

there he failed. The foe which had seemed most helpless, proved his

undoing. He had insisted on the enforcement of the Inquisition in the

Netherlands. It is said that thirty thousand people perished there in

its flames. Yet even with thirty thousand of their bravest gone, the

Protestants refused submission. Gradually the temper of the oppressed

people grew more and more bitter, till in 1566 they flared into open

revolt. "The beggars," they were contemptuously called by the Spaniards,

and they adopted the name as a badge of honor. Penniless, helpless they

might be, yet they would fight.[8]

[8] See _Rise of the Gueux or Beggars_, page 81.

The cruel Alva was sent by Philip to suppress them, and for six years

(1567-1573) his savagery and that of his brutal Spanish soldiers made

the Netherlands a theatre of horror--and of heroism. The revolt in the

southern provinces, now Belgium, was finally put down. The inhabitants

there were mostly Catholics, and their strife was only against the

general despotism and cruelty of Spain. But the North would never yield.

The terrific siege of Leyden, with its accompanying horrors of

starvation and defiance, is world-famed.[9] In 1581 Holland finally

proclaimed its complete independence of Spain.

[9] See _Siege of Leyden_, page 145.

At enormous expense and waste of his American treasure, Philip II

continued to pour troops and troops into the rebellious provinces. Their

leader throughout had been the highest of their nobles, William of

Orange, called "the silent." Philip openly proclaimed an enormous reward

to the man who could reach and assassinate this obstacle in his path;

and at last after repeated attempts the reward was earned (1584).[10] The

fall of William ended all chance of the union of the northern and

southern provinces; he had been the only man all trusted. But Holland

under his son Maurice continued the strife even more bitterly. No

sacrifice was too great for the heroic Dutch. Spain was exhausted at

last; Philip II died a disappointed man. His son, Philip III, in 1609

consented sullenly to a truce--peace he would not call it--and it was

many years before Spain formally acknowledged the independence of her

defiant provinces.

[10] See _Assassination of William of Orange_, page 202.

SUCCESSES OF PHILIP

Philip II had met also an even heavier defeat from Protestant England.

But before speaking of this, let us look to his few successes. In 1580

he added Portugal to his dominions and so, temporarily at least, united

the entire Spanish peninsula as one state. This gave him control over

the vast Portuguese colonial possessions and over the rich trade with

India and the isles beyond. Australia was probably touched more than

once by his ships, though not definitely discovered until 1606.[11]

[11] See _Earliest Positive Discovery of Australia_, page 340.

It was under Philip that in 1564 the Spaniards extended their American

settlements northward and founded St. Augustine, the first town within

the present mainland of the United States. The French had attempted to

plant a colony even earlier. At the first outbreak of their civil wars,

some Huguenots had fled from persecution to the coast of Florida (1562).

The Spaniards regarded this as an encroachment on their territories.

Moreover, the intruders were heretics. They were attacked and massacred.

It was partly to keep further Frenchmen off the coast that St. Augustine

was founded.[12]

[12] See _Founding of St. Augustine_, page 70.

An even more important triumph came to Philip in 1571, when his ships,

united with those of Venice and other states, gained a great naval

victory over the Turks. This battle of Lepanto stands among the

turning-points of history. It marks the checking of the Turkish power

which for over two centuries had been rising steadily against Europe.

Lepanto crushed the naval supremacy which the followers of Mahomet had

more than once asserted over the Mediterranean. For another century and

more they remained formidable on land, but at sea they never recovered

their ascendency.[13]

[13] See _Lepanto: Destruction of the Turkish Naval Power_,

page 100.

At Lepanto as a common soldier, fought Miguel de Cervantes, a Spaniard,

who, toward the close of a roving life, settled down to literature in

his native land, and after Philip's death wrote what was in many ways a

satire upon that monarch's rule in Spain. Cervantes' _Don Quixote_

altered the taste of the whole literary world. Its influence spread from

Spain to France and over all Europe. It was the death-song of ancient

chivalry, the first book since the days of Dante to alter markedly the

literary thought of man.[14]

[14] See _Cervantes'_ Don Quixote _Reforms Literature_, page 325.

Of the world farther eastward during this period we need say little. The

fortunes of Germany, luckily for herself, had been separated from those

of Spain at the abdication of Charles V. The Hapsburg possessions in

Austria had been bequeathed to his brother Ferdinand; and both Ferdinand

and his next successor as emperor of Germany abided by the conditions of

that remarkable religious peace of Augsburg which had allowed every

prince to settle the religion of his own domains. Although themselves

Catholic, the Emperors were not strict in enforcing Catholicism even in

their own Austrian domains. They reserved all their effort for the

struggle against the Turks. Disputes between the leaders of the

differing faiths did of course occur, but none reached an active stage

until a later generation.

Sweden rose greatly in importance. Poland declined. Russia was almost

conquered by one or the other, a prey, like France, to civil wars. Yet

some Cossacks in her service, wandering plunderers really, invaded

Siberia, defeated the few scattered Tartar tribes, and annexed the

entire waste of Northern Asia to the Russian crown. Never again was this

to be a secretly growing, unknown world from which vast hordes might

suddenly burst forth on Europe.[15]

[15] See _Cossack Conquest of Siberia_, page 181.

THE ELIZABETHAN AGE

Turn now to England, emerging at last from the exhaustion of the Wars of

the Roses to assert her place among the great powers of the world.

Philip and Elizabeth, restrained by other anxieties, might maintain a

hollow peace at home: they could not control the rising spirits of the

English nation. English sailors, the most daring in the world,

penetrated all seas. Spanish and Portuguese ships had been almost

everywhere before them. The North was still half a century behind the

South in progress. Yet the difference is worth noting. On the southern

ships a few gallant, aristocratic leaders headed a crowd of trembling

peasants, ever begging to be taken home, sometimes mutinying through

very frenzy of fear. On England's ships each sailor was as stubborn and

dauntless as his chief, differing from him only in the intellect to

command.

Such men as these were little like to accept Spanish claims to all the

wealth of all the new lands of the world. They cruised at will, and

fought the Spaniards successfully wherever found. Frobisher began the

long and dreary search for the "northwest passage," by which the

northern countries of Europe might send ships to round America and reach

Asia as Magellan had done to southward.[16] Gilbert raised his country's

standard over Newfoundland, England's first clearly established

possession beyond seas.[17] The memory of the Cabots' voyages was

revived, and in their name England claimed the North American coast. Sir

Walter Raleigh attempted to plant a colony, and called the new land

Virginia in honor of the Virgin Queen.[18]

[16] See _Search for the Northwest Passage by Frobisher_, page 156.

[17] See _First Colony of England beyond Seas_, page 198.

[18] See _Naming of Virginia: The Lost Colony_, page 211.

To Drake, greatest of all these wild adventurers, was it left to embroil

his country utterly with Spain. He followed Magellan in circumnavigating

the globe, and wherever he went he left a track of plundered Spanish

settlements behind. Elizabeth was in despair; she alternately knighted

him and threatened to hang him as a pirate. The Spaniards, re-reading

his name, called him the Dragon. He was the terror of their seas.

At last the long accumulating quarrel of religious and commercial

motives reached a head. Philip began gathering in all his ports that

vast "Invincible Armada," which was to assert his supremacy on sea as

upon land, to crush England and Protestantism forever. This was the

supreme effort of his life. There was no question as to where the blow

would fall. Elizabeth knew it coming, not to be evaded by any policy or

concessions. Drake knew it coming, and, taking time by the forelock,

sailed boldly into the harbor of Cadiz to "singe the King of Spain's

beard," destroyed all the ships and stores accumulated there.[19] But

Cadiz was only one port among several where preparations were being

hurried forward; there were others the hardy Dragon could not penetrate.

The next year (1588) the "Invincible Armada" sailed for England.

[19] See _Drake Captures Cartagena: He "Singes the King of Spain's

Beard" at Cadiz_, page 230.

The story of its destruction is too well known for repetition. This was

England's proudest achievement. Philip accepted the terrific downfall of

all his scheming and ambitions with a gallant calm. He had truly

believed that Heaven wished him to reassert Catholicism. He accepted the

storms which partly destroyed his fleet as the divine refusal of his

aid. "You could not strive against the will of Heaven," he said kindly

to his defeated admiral.[20]

[20] See _Defeat of the Spanish Armada_, page 251.

In England, the repeated plunderings of Spanish ships, and now this

final victory, flooded the land with wealth and triumph. The internal

improvement, the intellectual advance of the people, were prodigious.

The "Elizabethan Age" is the most famed in English literature. The first

English theatre was built in 1570, a crude and queer affair for cruder,

queerer plays.[21] Yet, in perhaps that very armada year of 1588,

Shakespeare began writing his remarkable plays. In 1601 the drama rose to

its perfection in his _Hamlet_, the flower of English literary genius,

accredited by some as the grandest new creation that ever came from the

hand of man.[22]

[21] See _Building of First Theatre in England_, page 163.

[22] See _Culmination of Dramatic Literature in_ Hamlet, page 287.

Elizabeth died in 1603. Her reign had seen also the final suppression of

the Irish Catholics and their subjugation to the English crown. In the

year of her death came the "Flight of the Earls," the mournful

abandonment of Ireland by the last of the great lords who had fought for

and now despaired of her independence.[23]

[23] See _Downfall of Irish Liberty: "Flight of the Earls_," page

299.

The age of Elizabeth can scarcely, however, be said to cease at her

death. The English people had grown greater than their sovereign, and

upon them the influences of their Spanish victory continued. Shakespeare

is even more the Elizabethan age than Elizabeth, and his writings

continued until 1611. Drake had died in 1596; Raleigh lived till 1618.

Since Elizabeth was childless, she was succeeded on the throne by the

Scotch king James VI (James I of England), son of the Mary Stuart whose

claims had caused such trouble. James, removed from his mother's care,

had been educated by his subjects as a Protestant, so he was welcome to

England. The first step toward uniting the two halves of the island was

made when they thus came under a common sovereign. The same atmosphere

of plot and treachery which had surrounded Elizabeth reached also to her

successor. In 1605 was unearthed the "Gunpowder Plot," a scheme to blow

up James with all his chief ministers and subjects in the House of

Parliament. The date of its discovery is still kept as a national

holiday in England.[24]

[24] See _The Gunpowder Plot_, page 310.

Then in 1607 came the fruition of Raleigh's efforts and those of Drake,

the beginning surely of a new era. Spain being no longer able to oppose,

a new colony was sent out from England to Virginia. It settled at

Jamestown, and began the successful colonization of the United

States.[25] The next year, the French, supported by their great king

Henry IV, made a similar beginning. Quebec was founded by them on the

St. Lawrence.[26] The era of American discovery was over, and that of

American settlement was come.

[25] See _Settlement of Virginia_, page 350.

[26] See _Founding of Quebec_, page 366.

[FOR THE NEXT SECTION OF THIS GENERAL SURVEY SEE VOLUME XI]

ENGLAND LOSES HER LAST FRENCH TERRITORY

BATTLE OF ST. QUENTIN

A.D. 1558

CHARLES KNIGHT

From 1347, when it was taken by Edward III, Calais remained a

stronghold of England until it was retaken for France by the Duke

of Guise (François de Lorraine), in 1558. With the surrender of

Calais the English lost their last foothold in French territory.

Weary with the long tumults and wars of his reign, Charles V in

1555 resigned all his crowns to his son, Philip II of Spain, and

his brother Ferdinand, King of Bohemia and Hungary. Pope Paul IV,

wishing to subvert the Spanish power, entered into a league

with Henry II of France against Philip. Guise, who had warred

successfully with Charles V, against whom he defended Metz when it

was won for France (1553), now espoused the papal cause. His main

object was to recover Naples to his own family. Thus he became a

leading actor in the events culminating in the capture of Calais.

Throughout the reign of Philip II his chief aim was to restore the

Roman Catholic religion in Protestant countries and to establish a

uniform despotism over his dominions. In 1554 he had married Queen

Mary of England, and after a short sojourn in that country, whose

crown he vainly tried to obtain, and to whose people he was

obnoxious, he returned to the Continent. Soon after "he was called

to a destiny more suited to his proud and ambitious nature than to

be the unequal partaker of sovereign power over a jealous insular

people."

In March, 1557, Philip returned to England. He came, not out of

affection for his wife or of regard for his turbulent insular subjects,

but to stir up the old English hatred of France and to drag the nation

into a war for his personal advantage. The fiery Pope, Paul IV, panted

for the freedom of Italy as it existed in the fifteenth century; he

wanted to accomplish his wishes by an alliance with France; he would

place French princes on the thrones of Milan and Naples. The Spaniards

he pronounced as the spawn of Jews and Moors, the dregs of the earth.

When there was a question of temporal dominion to be fought out, the

Pope did not hesitate to wage war against that faithful son of the

Church, King Philip; nor did King Philip hesitate to send the Duke of

Alva, the exterminator of Protestants, to enter the Roman states and lay

waste the territories of the Pope. Frane and Spain were upon the brank

of open war when Philip arrived in England. He urged a declaration of

war against France. There were grievances in the alleged encouragement

which had been given in Wyat's rebellion, and in the lukewarmness with

which Henry II met Queen Mary's desire that he should afford her the

means of vengeance upon the exiles for religion who took shelter in

France.

The most recent complaint was that France had connived at the equipment

of a force by Thomas Stafford, a refugee, who had invaded England with

thirty-two followers and had surprised Scarborough castle. This

adventurer claimed to be the house and blood of the Duke of Buckingham,

who was beheaded in the times of Henry VIII. The proclamation which he

issued from his castle of Scarborough, which he held only two days, was

addressed to the English hatred of the Spaniards, rather than directed

against the ecclesiastical persecution under which the country was

suffering: "As the duke of Buckingham, our forefathers and predecessors,

have always been defenders of the poor commonalty against the tyranny of

princes, so should you have us at this juncture, most dearly beloved

friends, your protector, governor, and defender against all your

adversaries and enemies; minding earnestly to die rather, presently, and

personally before you in the field, than to suffer you to be overrun so

miserably with strangers, and made most sorrowful slaves and careful

captives to such a naughty nation as Spaniards." Stafford and his band

were soon made prisoners; and he was beheaded on Tower Hill, and three

of his followers hanged, on May 25th. Seizing upon this absurd attempt

as a ground of quarrel, war was declared against France on June 7th; and

Philip quitted the country on July 6th, never to return.

An English force of four thousand infantry, a thousand cavalry, and two

thousand pioneers joined the Spanish army on the Flemish frontier. The

army was partly composed of German mercenaries; the _lanzknechts_ and

_reiters_, the pikemen and cavalry, who, at the command of the best

paymaster, were the most formidable soldiers of the time. But the Spanish

cavaliers were there, leading their native infantry; and there were the

Burgundian lances. The army was commanded by Emanuel Philibert, Duke of

Savoy, who had aspired to the hand of Elizabeth. Philip earnestly

seconded his suit, but Mary, wisely and kindly, would not put a

constraint upon her sister's inclinations. The wary Princess saw that the

crown would probably be hers at no distant day; and she would not risk

the loss of the people's affection by marrying a foreign Catholic. She

had sensible advisers about her, who seconded her own prudence; and thus

she kept safe amid the manifold dangers by which she was surrounded.

The Duke of Savoy, though young, was an experienced soldier, and he

determined to commence the campaign by investing St. Quentin, a frontier

town of Picardy. The defence of this fortress was undertaken by Coligny,

the Admiral of France, afterward so famous for his mournful death.

Montmorency, the Constable, had the command of the French army. The

garrison was almost reduced to extremity--when Montmorency, on August

10th, arrived with his whole force, and halted on the bank of the Somme.

On the opposite bank lay the Spanish, the English, the Flemish, and the

German host. The arrival of the French was a surprise, and the Duke of

Savoy had to take up a new position. He determined on battle. The issue

was the most unfortunate for France since the fatal day of Agincourt.

The French slain amounted, according to some accounts, to six thousand;

and the prisoners were equally numerous. Among them was the veteran

Montmorency.

On August 10th Philip came to the camp. Bold advisers counselled a march

to Paris. The cautious King was satisfied to press on the siege of St.

Quentin. The defence which Coligny made was such as might have been

expected from his firmness and bravery. The place was taken by storm,

amid horrors which belong to such scenes at all times, but which were

doubled by the rapacity of troops who fought even with each other for the

greatest share of the pillage. After a few trifling successes, the army

of Philip was broken up. The German mercenaries; the _lanzknechts_ and

_reiters_, the pikemen and cavalry, who, at the command of the best

paymaster, were the most formidable soldiers of the time. But the Spanish

cavaliers were there, leading their native infantry; and there were the

Burgundian lances. The army was commanded by Emanuel Philibert, Duke of

Savoy, who had aspired to the hand of Elizabeth. Philip earnestly

seconded his suit, but Mary, wisely and kindly, would not put a constraint

upon her sister's inclinations. The wary Princess saw that the crown

would probably be hers at no distant day; and she would not risk the

loss of the people's affection by marrying a foreign Catholic. She had

sensible advisers about her, who seconded her own prudence; and thus she

kept safe amid the manifold dangers by which she was surrounded.