patriotic nobleman. It was, nevertheless, doomed to end in disaster and
death. In prosecuting further explorations one of Sir Humphrey's vessels
was wrecked and the whole crew perished. The little fleet had struggled
with contrary winds for many days. Eventually the Delight, the largest
vessel, drifted into the breakers on a lee shore and struck upon a rock.
She went rapidly to pieces. Seventeen of the crew got into the longboat,
and, after seven days, fifteen of them reached port. But the captain,
Morris Browne, refused to leave the ship. "Mounting upon the highest
deck," says the ancient chronicler, "he attained imminent death, so
inevitable." The other vessels stood out to sea and saved themselves. As
winter was approaching and provisions getting low, Sir Humphrey deemed
it wise to steer for England. He had planted his flag on board the
Squirrel, a little cockle-shell of ten tons, and though earnestly
entreated to go on board the larger vessel, the Golden Hind, he refused
to abandon his brave comrades. A great storm overtook them near the
Azores. The Golden Hind kept as near the Squirrel as possible; and when
in the midst of the tempest the crew saw the gallant knight sitting
calmly on deck with a book before him, they heard him cry to his
companions, "Cheer up, lads, we are as near heaven at sea as on land!"
When the curtain of night shrouded the little bark, she and her gallant
crew disappeared beneath the dark billows of the Atlantic. Thus perished
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, scholar, soldier, colonizer, philosopher, one of
the noblest of those brave hearts that sought to extend the dominion of
England in the New World.
To Newfoundland this sad loss was irreparable. Had Sir Humphrey lived to
reach home, no doubt he and Sir Walter Raleigh would have renewed their
efforts at colonization, and, profiting by past errors, would have
settled in the island men of the right stamp. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's
failure was the result of a succession of uncontrollable disasters.
Fully appreciating the immense value of the fisheries of Newfoundland,
he seems to have been thoroughly impressed with the idea that the right
way of prosecuting those fisheries was to colonize the country, and
conduct them on the spot, whereby he would have established a resident
population, who would have combined fishing with the cultivation of the
soil. It was a departure from this policy, and a determination, at the
behest of selfish monopolists, to make the island a mere
fishing-station, that postponed for many weary years the prosperity of
the colony, blighting the national enterprise, and paralyzing the
energies of the people.
ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE
DIVISION OF THE NETHERLANDS
A.D. 1584
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY
Throughout the earlier period of the "heroic age of the Netherlands"
William of Orange, the natural leader of his people, displayed
qualities of foresight, prudence, and courage worthy of the position
which he held. Without great generalship, "he knew how to wait and
turn his reverses to account." His life was constantly in danger and
was repeatedly attempted, but his resolution was never disturbed by
fear. While meriting the surname of the "Silent," he expressed
himself effectively in the decisive speech of action.
The Pacification of Ghent (1576)--the union of the seventeen Netherland
provinces, of which William was at the head--was of short duration.
The northern provinces were Protestant, the southern mostly Catholic.
Diverse trade interests also prevented perfect union. Compromise was
attempted without avail. The Southern provinces acknowledged Philip
II, while the seven Northern provinces--Holland, Zealand, Utrecht,
Gelderland, Overyssel, Friesland, and Groningen--formed themselves
(1579) into the Union of Utrecht, a federal republic, with William
of Orange as stadtholder.
A little later the Spanish government published a ban against the
Prince and set a price upon his head. Many attempts against his life
were made by assassins eager for the promised reward. How the
treacherous end was finally compassed is told by Motley with all the
dramatic realism necessary for a faithful description of the scene.
In March, 1583, one Pietro Dordogno was executed in Antwerp for
endeavoring to assassinate the Prince. Before his death he confessed
that he had come from Spain solely for the purpose, and that he had
conferred with La Motte, Governor of Gravelines, as to the best means of
accomplishing his design. In April, 1584, Hans Hanzoon, a merchant of
Flushing, had been executed for attempting to destroy the Prince by
means of gunpowder concealed under his house in that city and under his
seat in the church. He confessed that he had deliberately formed the
intention of performing the deed, and that he had discussed the details
of the enterprise with the Spanish ambassador in Paris.
At about the same time one Le Goth, a captive French officer, had been
applied to by the Marquis de Richebourg, on the part of Alexander of
Parma, to attempt the murder of the Prince. Le Goth had consented,
saying that nothing could be more easily done, and that he would
undertake to poison him in a dish of eels, of which he knew him to be
particularly fond. The Frenchman was liberated with this understanding,
but, being very much the friend of Orange, straightway told him the
whole story and remained ever afterward a faithful servant of the
states. It is to be presumed that he excused the treachery to which he
owed his escape from prison on the ground that faith was no more to be
kept with murderers than with heretics.
Within two years there had been five distinct attempts to assassinate
the Prince, all of them with the privity of the Spanish government. A
sixth was soon to follow. In the summer of 1584 William of Orange was
residing at Delft, where his wife, Louisa de Coligny, had given birth,
in the preceding winter, to a son, afterward the celebrated stadtholder
Frederick Henry. The child had received these names from his two
godfathers, the kings of Denmark and of Navarre, and his baptism had
been celebrated with much rejoicing on June 12th, in the place of his
birth.
It was a quiet, cheerful, yet somewhat drowsy little city, that ancient
burgh of Delft. The placid canals by which it was intersected in every
direction were all planted with whispering, umbrageous rows of limes and
poplars, and along these watery highways the traffic of the place glided
so noiselessly that the town seemed the abode of silence and
tranquillity. The streets were clean and airy, the houses well built,
the whole aspect of the place thriving.
One of the principal thoroughfares was called the Old Delft Street. It
was shaded on both sides by lime-trees, which in that midsummer season
covered the surface of the canal which flowed between them with their
light and fragrant blossoms. On one side of this street was the "Old
Kirk," a plain, antique structure of brick, with lancet windows, and
with a tall, slender tower, which inclined, at a very considerable
angle, toward a house upon the other side of the canal. That house was
the mansion of William the Silent. It stood directly opposite the
church, being separated by a spacious court-yard from the street, while
the stables and other offices in the rear extended to the city wall. A
narrow lane, opening out of Delft Street, ran along the side of the
house and court in the direction of the ramparts. The house was a plain,
two-storied edifice of brick, with red-tiled roof, and had formerly been
a cloister dedicated to St. Agatha, the last prior of which had been
hanged by the furious Lumey de la Marck.[1]
[1] Francis, Duke of Anjou, the French accomplice of Catherine de'
Medici in persecution of the Protestants, is elsewhere described
by Motley as "the most despicable personage who had ever entered
the Netherlands."
The news of Anjou's death had been brought to Delft by a special
messenger from the French court. On Sunday morning, July 8, 1584, the
Prince of Orange, having read the despatches before leaving his bed,
caused the man who had brought them to be summoned, that he might give
some particular details by word of mouth concerning the last illness of
the Duke. The courier was accordingly admitted to the Prince's
bedchamber, and proved to be one Francis Guion, as he called himself.
This man had, early in the spring, claimed and received the protection
of Orange, on the ground of being the son of a Protestant at Besançon
who had suffered death for his religion and of his own ardent attachment
to the reformed faith. A pious, psalm-singing, thoroughly Calvinistic
youth he seemed to be, having a Bible or a hymn-book under his arm
whenever he walked the street, and most exemplary in his attendance at
sermon and lecture. For the rest, a singularly unobtrusive personage,
twenty-seven years of age, low of stature, meagre, mean-visaged,
muddy-complexioned, and altogether a man of no account--quite
insignificant in the eyes of all who looked upon him. If there were one
opinion, in which the few who had taken the trouble to think of the
puny, somewhat shambling stranger from Burgundy at all, coincided, it
was that he was inoffensive, but quite incapable of any important
business. He seemed well educated, claimed to be of respectable
parentage, and had considerable facility of speech when any person could
be found who thought it worth while to listen to him; but on the whole
he attracted little attention.
Nevertheless this insignificant frame locked up a desperate and daring
character; this mild and inoffensive nature had gone pregnant seven
years with a terrible crime, whose birth could not much longer be
retarded. Francis Guion, the Calvinist, son of a martyred Calvinist, was
in reality Balthazar Gérard, a fanatical Catholic, whose father and
mother were still living at Villefans in Burgundy. Before reaching man's
estate he had formed the design of murdering the Prince of Orange, "who,
so long as he lived, seemed like to remain a rebel against the Catholic
King, and to make every effort to disturb the repose of the Roman
Catholic apostolic religion."
When but twenty years of age he had struck his dagger with all his might
into a door, exclaiming as he did so, "Would that the blow had been in
the heart of Orange!" For this he was rebuked by a bystander, who told
him it was not for him to kill princes, and that it was not desirable to
destroy so good a captain as the Prince, who, after all, might one day
reconcile himself with the King.
The "inveterate deliberation," thus thoroughly matured, Gérard now
proceeded to carry into effect. He came to Delft, obtained a hearing of
Villers, the clergyman and intimate friend of Orange, and was somewhat
against his will sent to France, to Maréchal Biron, who, it was thought,
was soon to be appointed governor of Cambray. Through Orange's
recommendation the Burgundian was received into the suite of Noel de
Caron, Seigneur de Schoneval, then setting forth on a special mission to
the Duke of Anjou. While in France Gérard could rest neither by day nor
night, so tormented was he by the desire of accomplishing his project,
and at length he obtained permission, upon the death of the Duke, to
carry this important intelligence to the Prince of Orange. The
despatches having been intrusted to him, he travelled post-haste to
Delft, and, to his astonishment, the letters had hardly been delivered
before he was summoned in person to the chamber of the Prince. Here was
an opportunity such as he had never dared to hope for. The arch-enemy to
the Church and to the human race, whose death would confer upon his
destroyer wealth and nobility in this world, besides a crown of glory in
the next, lay unarmed, alone, in bed, before the man who had thirsted
seven long years for his blood.
Balthazar could scarcely control his emotions sufficiently to answer the
questions which the Prince addressed to him concerning the death of
Anjou, but Orange, deeply engaged with the despatches, and with the
reflections which their deeply important contents suggested, did not
observe the countenance of the humble Calvinist exile, who had been
recently recommended to his patronage by Villers. Gérard had, moreover,
made no preparation for an interview so entirely unexpected, had come
unarmed, and had formed no plan for escape. He was obliged to forego his
prey when most within his reach, and, after communicating all the
information which the Prince required, he was dismissed from the
chamber.
It was Sunday morning, and the bells were tolling for church. Upon
leaving the house he loitered about the court-yard, furtively examining
the premises, so that a sergeant of halberdiers asked him why he was
waiting there. Balthazar meekly replied that he was desirous of
attending divine worship in the church opposite, but added, pointing to
his shabby and travel-stained attire, that, without at least a new pair
of shoes and stockings, he was unfit to join the congregation.
Insignificant as ever, the small, pious, dusty stranger excited no
suspicion in the mind of the good-natured sergeant. He forthwith spoke
of the wants of Gérard to an officer, by whom they were communicated to
Orange himself, and the Prince instantly ordered a sum of money to be
given him. Thus Balthazar obtained from William's charity what Parma's
thrift had denied--a fund for carrying out his purpose.
Next morning, with the money thus procured, he purchased a pair of
pistols, or small carabines, from a soldier, chaffering long about the
price because the vender could not supply a particular kind of chopped
bullets or slugs which he desired. Before the sunset of the following
day, that soldier had stabbed himself to the heart, and died despairing,
on hearing for what purpose the pistols had been bought.
On Tuesday, July 10, 1584, at about half-past twelve, the Prince, with
his wife on his arm, and followed by the ladies and gentlemen of his
family, was going to the dining-room. William the Silent was dressed
upon that day, according to his usual custom, in very plain fashion. He
wore a wide-leaved, loosely shaped hat of dark felt, with a silken cord
round the crown--such as had been worn by the Beggars in the early days
of the revolt. A high ruff encircled his neck, from which also depended
one of the Beggars' medals, with the motto, "_Fidèles au roy jusqu'à
la besace_," while a loose surcoat of gray frieze cloth, over a tawny
leather doublet, with wide, slashed underclothes, completed his costume.
Gérard presented himself at the doorway and demanded a passport. The
Princess, struck with the pale and agitated countenance of the man,
anxiously questioned her husband concerning the stranger. The Prince
carelessly observed that "it was merely a person who came for a
passport," ordering, at the same time, a secretary forthwith to prepare
one. The Princess, still not relieved, observed in an undertone that
"she had never seen so villanous a countenance." Orange, however, not at
all impressed with the appearance of Gérard, conducted himself at table
with his usual cheerfulness, conversing much with the burgomaster of
Leewarden, the only guest present at the family dinner, concerning the
political and religious aspects of Friesland.
At two o'clock the company rose from table. The Prince led the way,
intending to pass to his private apartments above. The dining-room,
which was on the ground floor, opened into a little square vestibule,
which communicated, through an arched passageway, with the main entrance
into the court-yard. This vestibule was also directly at the foot of the
wooden staircase leading to the next floor, and was scarcely six feet in
width. Upon its left side, as one approached the stairway, was an
obscure arch, sunk deep in the wall, and completely in the shadow of the
door. Behind this arch a portal opened to the narrow lane at the side of
the house. The stairs themselves were completely lighted by a large
window, half way up the flight. The Prince came from the dining-room,
and began leisurely to ascend. He had only reached the second stair,
when a man emerged from the sunken arch, and, standing within a foot or
two of him, discharged a pistol full at his heart. Three balls entered
his body, one of which, passing quite through him, struck with violence
against the wall beyond. The Prince exclaimed in French, as he felt the
wound: "O my God, have mercy upon my soul! O my God, have mercy upon
this poor people!"
These were the last words he ever spoke, save that, when his sister,
Catherine of Schwarzburg, immediately afterward asked him if he
commended his soul to Jesus Christ, he faintly answered, "Yes." His
master of the horse, Jacob van Maldere, had caught him in his arms as
the fatal shot was fired. The Prince was then placed on the stairs for
an instant, when he immediately began to swoon. He was afterward laid
upon a couch in the dining-room, where in a few minutes he breathed his
last in the arms of his wife and sister.
The murderer succeeded in making his escape through the side door, and
sped swiftly up the narrow lane. He had almost reached the ramparts,
from which he intended to spring into the moat, when he stumbled over a
heap of rubbish. As he rose he was seized by several pages and
halberdiers, who had pursued him from the house. He had dropped his
pistols upon the spot where he had committed the crime, and upon his
person were found a couple of bladders, provided with a piece of pipe,
with which he had intended to assist himself across the moat, beyond
which a horse was waiting for him. He made no effort to deny his
identity, but boldly avowed himself and his deed. He was brought back to
the house, where he immediately underwent a preliminary examination
before the city magistrates. He was afterward subjected to excruciating
tortures; for the fury against the wretch who had destroyed the "father
of the country" was uncontrollable, and William the Silent was no longer
alive to intercede--as he had often done before--in behalf of those who
assailed his life.
The sentence pronounced against the assassin was execrable--a crime
against the memory of the great man whom it professed to avenge. It was
decreed that the right hand of Gérard should be burned off with a
red-hot iron, that his flesh should be torn from his bones with pincers
in six different places, that he should be quartered and disembowelled
alive, that his heart should be torn from his bosom and flung in his
face, and that, finally, his head should be taken off. Not even his
horrible crime, with its endless consequences, not the natural frenzy of
indignation which it had excited, could justify this savage decree, to
rebuke which the murdered hero might have almost risen from the sleep of
death. The sentence was literally executed on July 14th, the criminal
supporting its horrors with the same astonishing fortitude. So calm were
his nerves, crippled and half roasted as he was ere he mounted the
scaffold, that, when one of the executioners was slightly injured in the
ear by the flying from the handle of the hammer with which he was
breaking the fatal pistol in pieces, as the first step in the
execution--a circumstance which produced a general laugh in the crowd--a
smile was observed upon Balthazar's face in sympathy with the general
hilarity. His lips were seen to move up to the moment when his heart was
thrown in his face. "Then," said a looker-on, "he gave up the ghost."
The reward promised by Philip to the man who should murder Orange was
paid to the heirs of Gérard. Parma informed his sovereign that the "poor
man" had been executed, but that his father and mother were still
living, to whom he recommended the payment of that "merced" which "the
laudable and generous deed had so well deserved." This was accordingly
done, and the excellent parents, ennobled and enriched by the crime of
their son, received, instead of the twenty-five thousand crowns promised
in the Ban, the three seigniories of Livermont, Hostal, and Dampmartin,
in the Franche Comté, and took their place at once among the landed
aristocracy. Thus the bounty of the Prince had furnished the weapon by
which his life was destroyed, and his estates supplied the fund out of
which the assassin's family received the price of blood. At a later day,
when the unfortunate eldest son of Orange returned from Spain after
twenty-seven years' absence, a changeling and a Spaniard, the
restoration of those very estates was offered to him by Philip II
provided he would continue to pay a fixed proportion of their rents to
the family of his father's murderer. The education which Philip William
had received, under the King's auspices, had, however, not entirely
destroyed all his human feelings and he rejected the proposal with
scorn. The estates remained with the Gérard family, and the patents of
nobility which they had received were used to justify their exemption
from certain taxes, until the union of Franche-Comté with France, when a
French governor tore the documents in pieces and trampled them under
foot.
The life and labors of Orange had established the emancipated
commonwealth upon a secure foundation, but his death rendered the union
of all the Netherlands into one republic hopeless. The efforts of the
malcontent nobles, the religious discord, the consummate ability, both
political and military, of Parma, all combined with the lamentable loss
of William the Silent to separate forever the Southern and Catholic
provinces from the Northern confederacy. So long as the Prince remained
alive, he was the father of the whole country, the Netherlands--saving
only two Walloon provinces--constituting a whole. Notwithstanding the
spirit of faction and the blight of the long civil war, there was at
least one country, or the hope of a country, one strong heart, one
guiding head, for the patriotic party throughout the land. Philip and
Granvella were right in their estimate of the advantage to be derived
from the Prince's death; in believing that an assassin's hand could
achieve more than all the wiles which Spanish or Italian statesmanship
could teach, or all the armies which Spain or Italy could muster. The
pistol of the insignificant Gérard destroyed the possibility of a united
Netherland state, while during the life of William there was union in
the policy, unity in the history of the country.
NAMING OF VIRGINIA: FIRST DESCRIPTION OF THE INDIANS
THE LOST COLONY
A.D. 1584
ARTHUR BARLOW R. R. HOWISON
At the age of thirty-two Sir Walter Raleigh had already been
connected with navigating and colonizing expeditions to North
America. He was associated with the enterprise of his elder
half-brother, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who in 1583 established at St.
John's, Newfoundland, the first English colony beyond seas. Upon the
death of Gilbert, in that year, Raleigh succeeded to his enterprise,
and obtained from Queen Elizabeth, whose favorite he was, a charter
of colonization.
When next year he sent out his first expedition to find some
suitable spot for a colony on the North American coast, Raleigh took
warning from the unfortunate experiences of Gilbert in the northern
latitudes, and directed his two commanders, Philip Amidas and Arthur
Barlow, to take another route. They accordingly took the old way by
the Canary Islands.
History is fortunate in possessing Barlow's account of this voyage.
It has, as one writer says, "all the freshness and gayety of an
idyl. His description of the sweet smell wafted to the voyagers from
the American shore, as from some delicate garden abounding with all
kinds of odoriferous flowers, was noticed by Bacon, and utilized by
Dryden to flatter one of his patrons."
Howison's story of the ill-starred colony and the conjectural refuge
of its remnants among the Croatan Indians of Virginia--as Raleigh
named the whole region, including the present North Carolina--fittingly
completes the history of Sir Walter's American enterprise. The
failure of the colony has been freely charged to his own neglect,
occasioned by the turning of his mind to more brilliant prospects
presented by the illusory "El Dorado," whereby so many other
adventurers were misled.
ARTHUR BARLOW