thousand Hungarian Gold Gulden" is, I have inquired in the likely
quarters without result; and it is probable no man exactly knows. The
latest existing representative of the ancient gold gulden is the ducat,
worth generally a half-sovereign in English. Taking the sum at that
latest rate, it amounts to two hundred thousand pounds; and the reader
can use that as a note of memory for the sale-price of Brandenburg with
all its lands and honors--multiplying it perhaps by four or six to bring
out its effective amount in current coin. Dog cheap, it must be owned,
for size and capability; but in the most waste condition, full of
mutiny, injustice, anarchy, and highway robbery; a purchase that might
have proved dear enough to another man than Burggraf Friedrich.
But so, at any rate, moribund Brandenburg has got its Hohenzollern
Kurfürst, and started on a new career it little dreamt of; and we can
now, right willingly, quit Sigismund and the Reichs-History, leave
Kaiser Sigismund to sink or swim at his own will henceforth. His grand
feat in life, the wonder of his generation, was this same Council of
Constance; which proved entirely a failure; one of the largest wind-eggs
ever dropped with noise and travail in this world. Two hundred thousand
human creatures, reckoned and reckoning themselves the elixir of the
intellect and dignity of Europe. Two hundred thousand--nay some,
counting the lower menials and numerous unfortunate females, say four
hundred thousand--were got congregated into that little Swiss town; and
there as an Ecumenic Council, or solemnly distilled elixir of what pious
intellect and valor could be scraped together in the world, they labored
with all their select might for four years' space. That was the Council
of Constance. And except this transfer of Brandenburg to Friedrich of
Hohenzollern, resulting from said council, in the quite reverse and
involuntary way, one sees not what good result it had.
They did, indeed, burn Huss; but that could not be called a beneficial
incident; that seemed to Sigismund and the council a most small and
insignificant one. And it kindled Bohemia, and kindled Rhinoceros Ziska,
into never-imagined flame of vengeance; brought mere disaster, disgrace,
and defeat on defeat to Sigismund, and kept his hands full for the rest
of his life, however small he had thought it. As for the sublime four
years' deliberations and debates of this Sanhedrim of the
Universe--eloquent debates, conducted, we may say, under such extent of
wig as was never seen before or since--they have fallen wholly to the
domain of Dryasdust; and amount, for mankind at this time, to zero plus
the burning of Huss. On the whole, Burggraf Friedrich's Electorship, and
the first Hohenzollern to Brandenburg, is the one good result.
Burggraf Friedrich, on his first coming to Brandenburg, found but a cool
reception as Statthalter. He came as the representative of law and rule;
and there had been many helping themselves by a ruleless life, of late.
Industry was at a low ebb, violence was rife; plunder, disorder,
everywhere; too much the habit for baronial gentlemen to "live by the
saddle," as they termed it, that is, by highway robbery in modern
phrase.
The towns, harried and plundered to skin and bone, were glad to see a
Statthalter, and did homage to him with all their heart. But the
baronage or squirearchy of the country were of another mind. These, in
the late anarchies, had set up for a kind of kings in their own right.
They had their feuds; made war, made peace, levied tolls, transit dues;
lived much at their own discretion in these solitary countries; rushing
out from their stone towers ("walls fourteen feet thick"), to seize any
herd of "six hundred swine," and convoy of Lübeck or Hamburg merchant
goods, that had not contented them in passing. What were pedlers and
mechanic fellows made for, if not to be plundered when needful?
Arbitrary rule, on the part of these noble robber lords! And then much
of the crown domains had gone to the chief of them--pawned (and the
pawn-ticket lost, so to speak), or sold for what trifle of ready money
was to be had, in Jobst and Company's time. To these gentlemen a
Statthalter coming to inquire into matters was no welcome phenomenon.
Your Edle Herr (noble lord) of Putlitz, noble lords of Quitzow, Rochow,
Maltitz, and others, supreme in their grassy solitudes this long while,
and accustomed to nothing greater than themselves in Brandenburg, how
should they obey a Statthalter?
Such was more or less the universal humor in the squirearchy of
Brandenburg; not of good omen to Burggraf Friedrich. But the chief seat
of contumacy seemed to be among the Quitzows, Putlitzes, above spoken
of; big squires in the district they call the Priegnitz, in the country
of the sluggish Havel River, northwest from Berlin a forty or fifty
miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were
"incorporated with Böhmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to
homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in
discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set;
bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ill habits of long
continuance.
Friedrich was very patient with them; hoped to prevail by gentle
methods. He "invited them to dinner"; "had them often at dinner for a
year or more:" but could make no progress in that way. "Who is this we
have got for a Governor?" said the noble lords privately to each other:
"A Nuremberger Tand" (Nuremberg plaything--wooden image, such as they
make at Nuremberg), said they, grinning, in a thick-skinned way: "If it
rained Burggraves all the year round, none of them would come to luck in
this country;" and continued their feuds, toll-levyings, plunderings,
and other contumacies.
Seeing matters come to this pass after above a year, Burggraf Friedrich
gathered his Frankish men-at-arms; quietly made league with the
neighboring Potentates, Thüringen and others; got some munitions, some
artillery together--especially one huge gun, the biggest ever seen, "a
twenty-four pounder," no less; to which the peasants, dragging her with
difficulty through the clayey roads, gave the name of Faule Grete (Lazy
or Heavy Peg); a remarkable piece of ordnance. Lazy Peg he had got from
the Landgraf of Thüringen, on loan merely; but he turned her to
excellent account of his own. I have often inquired after Lazy Peg's
fate in subsequent times; but could never learn anything distinct; the
German Dryasdust is a dull dog, and seldom carries anything human in
those big wallets of his!
Equipped in this way, Burggraf Friedrich (he was not yet Kurfürst, only
coming to be) marches for the Havel Country (early days of 1414); makes
his appearance before Quitzow's strong house of Friesack, walls fourteen
feet thick: "You, Dietrich von Quitzow, are you prepared to live as a
peaceable subject henceforth? to do homage to the laws and me?" "Never!"
answered Quitzow, and pulled up his drawbridge. Whereupon Heavy Peg
opened upon him, Heavy Peg and other guns; and, in some eight-and-forty
hours, shook Quitzow's impregnable Friesack about his ears. This was in
the month of February, 1414, day not given: Friesack was the name of the
impregnable castle (still discoverable in our time); and it ought to be
memorable and venerable to every Prussian man. Burggraf Friedrich VI,
not yet quite become Kurfürst Friedrich I, but in a year's space to
become so, he in person was the beneficent operator; Heavy Peg and
steady human insight, these were clearly the chief implements.
Quitzow being settled--for the country is in military occupation of
Friedrich and his allies, and except in some stone castle a man has no
chance--straightway Putlitz or another mutineer, with his drawbridge up,
was battered to pieces, and his drawbridge brought slamming down. After
this manner, in an incredibly short period, mutiny was quenched; and it
became apparent to noble lords, and to all men, that here at length was
a man come who would have the laws obeyed again, and could and would
keep mutiny down.
BATTLE OF AGINCOURT
ENGLISH CONQUEST OF FRANCE
A.D. 1415-1420
JAMES GAIRDNER
King Henry V of England, son of Henry IV, was born in 1387,
and two years later was made prince of Wales. In 1401-1408
he was engaged against the Welsh rebels under Owen
Glendower, and in 1410 became captain of Calais. His
youthful period is represented--probably with much
exaggeration, to which Shakespeare, in _Henry IV_,
contributed--as full of wild and dissolute conduct, but as
king he was distinguished for his courage, ability, and
enterprise.
Henry was crowned in 1413, about seventy-five years after
the beginning of the Hundred Years' War between England and
France, which arose from the claim of Edward III to the
French throne. For some years a feud had been raging in
France between the houses of Burgundy and Orleans, the rival
parties being known as Burgundians and Armagnacs. Led by
Simonet Caboche, a butcher, adherents of the Armagnacs rose
with great fury against the Burgundians. This was in the
first year of Henry's reign, and to him and other rulers
Charles VI of France appealed in order to prevent them from
aiding the outbreak, which was soon quelled by the princes
of the blood and the University of Paris. Order in France
was restored by the Duke of Orleans, and the Duke of
Burgundy withdrew to Flanders. But war between the two
factions was soon after renewed, and both sides sought the
alliance of England.
In these contentions and appeals for his interference Henry
saw an opportunity for pressing his designs to recover what
he claimed as the French inheritance of his predecessors. In
1414, as the heir of Isabella, mother of his
great-grandfather Edward, he formally demanded the crown of
France. The French princes refused to consider his claim.
Henry modified his demands, but after several months of
negotiation, with no promise of success, he prepared for
renewal of the ancient war.
The claim made by Edward III to the French crown had been questionable
enough. That of Henry was certainly most unreasonable. Edward had
maintained that though the Salic Law, which governed the succession in
France, excluded females from the throne, it did not exclude their male
descendants. On this theory Edward himself was doubtless the true heir
to the French monarchy. But even admitting the claims of Edward, his
rights had certainly not descended to Henry V, seeing that even in
England neither he nor his father was true to the throne by lineal
right. A war with France, however, was sure to be popular with his
subjects, and the weakness of that country from civil discord seemed a
favorable opportunity for urging the most extreme pretensions.
To give a show of fairness and moderation the English ambassadors at
Paris lessened their demands more than once, and appeared willing for
some time to renew negotiations after their terms had been rejected. But
in the end they still insisted on a claim which in point of equity was
altogether preposterous, and rejected a compromise which would have put
Henry in possession of the whole of Guienne and given him the hand of
the French King's daughter Catharine with a marriage portion of eight
hundred thousand crowns. Meanwhile Henry was making active preparations
for war, and at the same time carried on secret negotiations with the
Duke of Burgundy, trusting to have him for an ally in the invasion of
France.
At length, in the summer of 1415, the King had collected an army and was
ready to embark at Southampton. But on the eve of his departure a
conspiracy was discovered, the object of which was to dethrone the King
and set aside the house of Lancaster. The conspirators were Richard,
Earl of Cambridge, Henry, Lord Scrope of Masham, and a knight of
Northumberland named Sir Thomas Grey. The Earl of Cambridge was the
King's cousin-german, and had been recently raised to that dignity by
Henry himself. Lord Scrope was, to all appearance, the King's most
intimate friend and counsellor. The design seems to have been formed
upon the model of similar projects in the preceding reign. Richard II
was to be proclaimed once more, as if he had been still alive; but the
real intention was to procure the crown for Edmund Mortimer, Earl of
March, the true heir of Richard, whom Henry IV had set aside.
At the same time the Earl of March himself seems hardly to have
countenanced the attempt; but the Earl of Cambridge, who had married his
sister, wished, doubtless, to secure the succession for his son Richard,
as the Earl of March had no children. Evidently it was the impression
of some persons that the house of Lancaster was not even yet firmly
seated upon the throne. Perhaps it was not even yet apparent that the
young man who had so recently been a gamesome reveller was capable of
ruling with a firm hand a king.
But all doubt on this point was soon terminated. The commissioners were
tried by a commission hastily issued, and were summarily condemned and
put to death. The Earl of March, it is said, revealed the plot to the
King, sat as one of the judges of his two brother peers, and was taken
into the King's favor. The Earl of Cambridge made a confession of his
guilt. Lord Scrope, though he repudiated the imputation of disloyalty,
admitted having had a guilty knowledge of the plot, which he said it had
been his purpose to defeat. The one nobleman, in consideration of his
royal blood, was simply beheaded; the other was drawn and quartered. We
hear of no more attempts of the kind during Henry's reign.
With a fleet of one thousand five hundred sail Henry crossed the sea and
landed without opposition at Chef de Caux, near Harfleur, at the mouth
of the Seine. The force that he brought with him was about thirty
thousand men, and he immediately employed it in laying siege to
Harfleur. The place was strong, so far as walls and bulwarks could make
it, but it was not well victualled, and after a five-weeks' siege it was
obliged to capitulate. But the forces of the besieged were thinned by
disease as well as actual fighting. Dysentery had broken out in the
camp, and, though it was only September, they suffered bitterly from the
coldness of the nights; so that, when the town had been won and
garrisoned, the force available for further operations amounted to less
than half the original strength of the invading army.
Under the circumstances it was hopeless to expect to do much before the
winter set in, and many counselled the King to return to England. But
Henry could not tolerate the idea of retreat or even of apparent
inaction. He sent a challenge to the Dauphin, offering to refer their
differences to single combat; and when no notice was taken of this
proposal, he determined to cut his way, if possible, through the country
to Calais, along with the remainder of his forces.
It was a difficult and hazardous march. Hunger, dysentery, and fever had
already reduced the little band to less than nine thousand men, or, as
good authorities say, to little more than six thousand. The country
people were unfriendly, their supplies were cut off on all sides, and
the scanty stock of provisions with which they set out was soon
exhausted. For want of bread, many were driven to feed on nuts, while
the enemy harassed them upon the way and broke down the bridges in
advance of them. On one or two occasions, having repulsed an attack from
a garrison town, Henry demanded and obtained from the governor a
safe-conduct and a certain quantity of bread and wine, under threat of
setting fire to the place if refused.
In this manner he and his army gradually approached the river Somme at
Blanche Tache, where there was a ford by which King Edward III had
crossed before the battle of Crécy. But while yet some distance from it,
they received information from a prisoner that the ford was guarded by
six thousand fighting men, and, though the intelligence was untrue, it
deterred him from attempting the passage. They accordingly turned to the
right and went up the river as far as Amiens, but were still unable to
cross, till, after following the course of the river about fifty miles
farther, they fortunately came upon an undefended ford and passed over
before their enemies were aware.
Hitherto their progress had not been without adventures and skirmishes
in many places. But the main army of the French only overtook them when
they had arrived within about forty-five miles of Calais. On the night
of October 24th they were posted at the village of Maisoncelles, with an
enemy before them five or six times their number, who had resolved to
stop their further progress. Both sides prepared for battle on the
following morning. The English, besides being so much inferior in
numbers, were wasted by disease and famine, while their adversaries were
fresh and vigorous, with a plentiful commissariat. But the latter were
overconfident. They spent the evening in dice-playing and making wagers
about the prisoners they should take; while the English, on the
contrary, confessed themselves and received the sacrament.
Heavy rain fell during the night, from which both armies suffered; but
Henry availed himself of a brief period of moonlight to have the
ground thoroughly surveyed. His position was an admirable one. His
forces occupied a narrow field hemmed in on either side by hedges and
thickets, so that they could only be attacked in front, and were in no
fear of being surrounded. Early on the following morning Henry arose and
heard mass; but the two armies stood facing each other for some hours,
each waiting for the other to begin. The English archers were drawn up
in front in form of a wedge, and each man was provided with a stake shod
with iron at both ends, which being fixed into the ground before him,
the whole line formed a kind of hedge bristling with sharp points, to
defend them from being ridden down by the enemy's cavalry.
At length, however, Henry gave orders to commence the attack, and the
archers advanced, leaving their stakes behind them fixed in the ground.
The French cavalry on either side endeavored to close them in, but were
soon obliged to retire before the thick showers of arrows poured in upon
them, which destroyed four-fifths of their numbers. Their horses then
became unmanageable, being plagued with a multitude of wounds, and the
whole army was thrown into confusion. Never was a more brilliant victory
won against more overwhelming odds.
One sad piece of cruelty alone tarnished the glory of that day's action,
but it seems to have been dictated by fear as a means of
self-preservation. After the enemy had been completely routed in front,
and a multitude of prisoners taken, the King, hearing that some
detachments had got round to his rear, and were endeavoring to plunder
his baggage, gave orders to the whole army to put their prisoners to
death. The order was executed in the most relentless fashion. One or two
distinguished prisoners afterward were taken from under heaps of slain,
among whom were the dukes of Orleans and Bourbon. Altogether, the
slaughter of the French was enormous. There is a general agreement that
it was upward of ten thousand men, and among them were the flower of the
French nobility. That of the English was disproportionately small. Their
own writers reckon it not more than one hundred altogether, some
absurdly stating it as low as twenty or thirty, while the French
authorities estimate it variously from three hundred to one thousand six
hundred.
Henry called his victory the battle of Agincourt, from the name of a
neighboring castle. The army proceeded in excellent order to Calais,
where they were triumphantly received, and after resting there awhile
recrossed to England. The news of such a splendid victory caused them to
be welcomed with an enthusiasm that knew no bounds. At Dover the people
rushed into the sea to meet the conquerors, and carried the King in
their arms in triumph from his vessel to the shore. From thence to
London his progress was like one continued triumphal procession, and the
capital itself received him with every demonstration of joy.
The progress of the English arms in France did not, for a long time,
induce the rival factions in that country to suspend the civil war among
themselves. But at length some feeble efforts were made toward a
reconciliation. The Council of Constance having healed the divisions in
the Church by the election of Martin V as pope in place of the three
rival popes deposed, the new Pontiff despatched two cardinals to France
to aid in this important object. By their mediation a treaty was
concluded between the Queen, the Duke of Burgundy, and the Dauphin; but
it was no sooner published than the Count of Armagnac and his partisans
made a vehement protest against it and accused of treason all who had
promoted it.
On this, Paris rose in anger, took part with the Burgundians, fell upon
all the leading Armagnacs, put them in prison, and destroyed their
houses. The Dauphin was only saved by one of Armagnac's principal
adherents, Tannegui du Châtel, who carried him to the Bastille. The
Bastille, however, was a few days after stormed by the populace, and Du
Châtel was forced to withdraw his charge to Melun. The Armagnac party,
except those in prison, were entirely driven out of Paris. But even this
did not satisfy the rage of the multitude. Riots continued from day to
day, and, a report being spread that the King was willing to ransom the
captives, the people broke open the prisons and massacred every one of
the prisoners. The Count of Armagnac, his chancellor, and several
bishops and officers of state were the principal victims; but no one,
man or woman, was spared. State prisoners, criminals, and debtors, even
women great with child, perished in this indiscriminate slaughter.
Almost the whole of Normandy was by this time in possession of the
English; but Rouen, the capital of the duchy, still held out. It was a
large city, strongly fortified, but Henry closed it in on every side
until it was reduced to capitulate by hunger. At the beginning of the
siege the authorities took measures to expel the destitute class of the
inhabitants, and several thousands of poor people were thus thrown into
the hands of the besiegers, who endeavored to drive them back into the
town. But the gates being absolutely shut against them, they remained
between the walls and the trenches, pitifully crying for help and
perishing for want of food and shelter, until, on Christmas Day, when
the siege had continued nearly five months, Henry ordered food to be
distributed to them "in the honor of Christ's nativity."
Those within the town, meanwhile, were reduced to no less extremities.
Enormous prices were given for bread and even for the bodies of dogs,
cats, and rats. The garrison at length were induced to offer terms, but
Henry for some time insisted on their surrendering at discretion.
Hearing, however, that a desperate project was entertained of
undermining the wall and suddenly rushing out upon the besiegers, he
consented to grant them conditions, and the city capitulated on January
19th. The few places that remained unconquered in Normandy then opened
their gates to Henry; others in Maine and the Isle of France did the
same, and the English troops entered Picardy on a further career of
conquest.
Both the rival factions were now seriously anxious to stop the progress
of the English, either by coming at once to terms with Henry or by
uniting together against him; and each in turn first tried the former
course. The Dauphin offered to treat with the King of England; but Henry
demanding the whole of those large possessions in the north and south of
France which had been secured to Edward III by the treaty of Bretigni,
he felt that it was impossible to prolong the negotiation. The Duke of
Burgundy then arranged a personal interview at Meulan between Henry on
the one side and himself and the French Queen on behalf of Charles, at
which terms of peace were to be adjusted. The Queen brought with her the
princess Catharine, her daughter, whose hand Henry himself had formerly
demanded as one of the conditions on which he would have consented to
forbear from invading France. It was now hoped that if he would take her
in marriage he would moderate his other demands. But Henry, for his
part, was altogether unyielding. He insisted on the terms of the treaty
of Bretigni, and on keeping his own conquests besides, with Anjou,
Maine, Touraine, and the sovereignty over Brittany.