Fortune never appears in a more extravagant humour than when she reduces
monarchs to become mendicants. Half a century ago it was not imagined
that our own times should have to record many such instances. After
having contemplated _kings_ raised into _divinities_, we see them now
depressed as _beggars_. Our own times, in two opposite senses, may
emphatically be distinguished as the _age of kings_.
In Candide, or the Optimist, there is an admirable stroke of Voltaire's.
Eight travellers meet in an obscure inn, and some of them with not
sufficient money to pay for a scurvy dinner. In the course of
conversation, they are discovered to be _eight monarchs_ in Europe, who
had been deprived of their crowns!
What added to this exquisite satire was, that there were eight living
monarchs at that moment wanderers on the earth;--a circumstance which
has since occurred!
Adelaide, the widow of Lothario, king of Italy, one of the most
beautiful women in her age, was besieged in Pavia by Berenger, who
resolved to constrain her to marry his son after Pavia was taken; she
escaped from her prison with her almoner. The archbishop of Reggio had
offered her an asylum: to reach it, she and her almoner travelled on
foot through the country by night, concealing herself in the day-time
among the corn, while the almoner begged for alms and food through the
villages.
The emperor Henry IV. after having been deposed and imprisoned by his
son, Henry V., escaped from prison; poor, vagrant, and without aid, he
entreated the bishop of Spires to grant him a lay prebend in his church.
"I have studied," said he, "and have learned to sing, and may therefore
be of some service to you." The request was denied, and he died
miserably and obscurely at Liege, after having drawn the attention of
Europe to his victories and his grandeur!
Mary of Medicis, the widow of Henry the Great, mother of Louis XIII.,
mother-in-law of three sovereigns, and regent of France, frequently
wanted the necessaries of life, and died at Cologne in the utmost
misery. The intrigues of Richelieu compelled her to exile herself, and
live an unhappy fugitive. Her petition exists, with this supplicatory
opening: "Supplie Marie, Reine de France et de Navarre, disant, que
depuis le 23 Février elle aurait été arrêtée prisonnière au château de
Compiègne, sans être ni accusée ni soupçonné," &c. Lilly, the
astrologer, in his Life and Death of King Charles the First, presents us
with a melancholy picture of this unfortunate monarch. He has also
described the person of the old queen-mother of France:--
"In the month of August, 1641, I beheld the old queen-mother of France
departing from London, in company of Thomas, Earl of Arundel. A sad
spectacle of mortality it was, and produced tears from mine eyes and
many other beholders, to see an aged, lean, decrepit, poor queen, ready
for her grave, necessitated to depart hence, having no place of
residence in this world left her, but where the courtesy of her hard
fortune assigned it. She had been the only stately and magnificent woman
of Europe: wife to the greatest king that ever lived in France; mother
unto one king and unto two queens."
In the year 1595, died at Paris, Antonio, king of Portugal. His body is
interred at the Cordeliers, and his heart deposited at the Ave-Maria.
Nothing on earth could compel this prince to renounce his crown. He
passed over to England, and Elizabeth assisted him with troops; but at
length he died in France in great poverty. This dethroned monarch was
happy in one thing, which is indeed rare: in all his miseries he had a
servant, who proved a tender and faithful friend, and who only desired
to participate in his misfortunes, and to soften his miseries; and for
the recompense of his services he only wished to be buried at the feet
of his dear master. This hero in loyalty, to whom the ancient Romans
would have raised altars, was Don Diego Bothei, one of the greatest
lords of the court of Portugal, and who drew his origin from the kings
of Bohemia.
Hume supplies an anecdote of singular royal distress. The queen of
England, with her son Charles, "had a moderate pension assigned her; but
it was so ill paid, and her credit ran so low, that one morning when the
Cardinal de Retz waited on her, she informed him that her daughter, the
Princess Henrietta, was obliged to lie a-bed for want of a fire to warm
her. To such a condition was reduced, in the midst of Paris, a queen of
England, and a daughter of Henry IV. of France!" We find another proof
of her extreme poverty. Salmasius, after publishing his celebrated
political book, in favour of Charles I., the _Defensio Regia_, was much
blamed by a friend for not having sent a copy to the widowed queen of
Charles, who, he writes, "though poor, would yet have paid the bearer."
The daughter of James the First, who married the Elector Palatine, in
her attempts to get her husband crowned, was reduced to the utmost
distress, and wandered frequently in disguise.
A strange anecdote is related of Charles VII. of France. Our Henry V.
had shrunk his kingdom into the town of Bourges. It is said that having
told a shoemaker, after he had just tried a pair of his boots, that he
had no money to pay for them, Crispin had such callous feelings that he
refused his majesty the boots. "It is for this reason," says Comines, "I
praise those princes who are on good terms with the lowest of their
people; for they know not at what hour they may want them."
Many monarchs of this day have experienced more than once the truth of
the reflection of Comines.
We may add here, that in all conquered countries the descendants of
royal families have been found among the dregs of the populace. An Irish
prince has been discovered in the person of a miserable peasant; and in
Mexico, its faithful historian Clavigero notices, that he has known a
locksmith, who was a descendant of its ancient kings, and a tailor, the
representative of one of its noblest families.