surrounded him, urging the ruin that might in consequence fall upon his
then prosperous kingdom, Louis made every preparation for his departure.
The warlike nobility were nothing loath; and in the spring of 1270, the
king set sail with an army of sixty thousand men. He was driven by stress
of weather into Sardinia, and while there, a change in his plans took
place. Instead of proceeding to Acre, as he originally intended, he shaped
his course for Tunis, on the African coast. The king of Tunis had some
time previously expressed himself favourably disposed towards the
Christians and their religion, and Louis, it appears, had hopes of
converting him, and securing his aid against the sultan of Egypt. "What
honour would be mine," he used to say, "if I could become godfather to
this Mussulman king!" Filled with this idea he landed in Africa, near the
site of the city of Carthage, but found that he had reckoned without his
host. The king of Tunis had no thoughts of renouncing his religion, nor
intention of aiding the Crusaders in any way. On the contrary, he opposed
their landing with all the forces that could be collected on so sudden an
emergency. The French, however, made good their first position, and
defeated the Moslems with considerable loss. They also gained some
advantage over the reinforcements that were sent to oppose them; but an
infectious flux appeared in the army, and put a stop to all future
victories. The soldiers died at the rate of a hundred in a day. The enemy,
at the same time, made as great havoc as the plague. St. Louis himself was
one of the first attacked by the disease. His constitution had been
weakened by fatigues, and even before he left France he was unable to bear
the full weight of his armour. It was soon evident to his sorrowing
soldiers that their beloved monarch could not long survive. He lingered
for some days, and died in Carthage in the fifty-sixth year of his age,
deeply regretted by his army and his subjects, and leaving behind him one
of the most singular reputations in history. He is the model-king of
ecclesiastical writers, in whose eyes his very defects became virtues,
because they were manifested in furtherance of their cause. More
unprejudiced historians, while they condemn his fanaticism, admit that he
was endowed with many high and rare qualities; that he was in no one point
behind his age, and in many in advance of it.
His brother, Charles of Anjou, in consequence of a revolution in Sicily,
had become king of that country. Before he heard of the death of Louis, he
had sailed from Messina with large reinforcements. On his landing near
Carthage, he advanced at the head of his army, amid the martial music of
drums and trumpets. He was soon informed how inopportune was his
rejoicing, and shed tears before his whole army, such as no warrior would
have been ashamed to shed. A peace was speedily agreed upon with the king
of Tunis, and the armies of France and Sicily returned to their homes.
[Illustration: SEAL OF EDWARD I.]
So little favour had the Crusade found in England, that even the exertions
of the heir to the throne had only collected a small force of fifteen
hundred men. With these few Prince Edward sailed from Dover to Bourdeaux,
in the expectation that he would find the French king in that city. St.
Louis, however, had left a few weeks previously; upon which Edward
followed him to Sardinia, and afterwards to Tunis. Before his arrival in
Africa, St. Louis was no more, and peace had been concluded between France
and Tunis. He determined, however, not to relinquish the Crusade.
Returning to Sicily, he passed the winter in that country, and endeavoured
to augment his little army. In the spring he set sail for Palestine, and
arrived in safety at Acre. The Christians were torn, as usual, by mutual
jealousies and animosities. The two great military orders were as virulent
and as intractable as ever; opposed to each other, and to all the world.
The arrival of Edward had the effect of causing them to lay aside their
unworthy contention, and of uniting heart to heart in one last effort for
the deliverance of their adopted country. A force of six thousand
effective warriors was soon formed to join those of the English prince,
and preparations were made for the renewal of hostilities. The Sultan
Bibars or Bendocdar,[21] a fierce Mamluke, who had been placed on the
throne by a bloody revolution, was at war with all his neighbours, and
unable, for that reason, to concentrate his whole strength against them.
Edward took advantage of this, and marching boldly forward to Nazareth,
defeated the Turks and gained possession of that city. This was the whole
amount of his successes. The hot weather engendered disease among his
troops, and he himself, the life and soul of the expedition, fell sick
among the first. He had been ill for some time, and was slowly recovering,
when a messenger desired to speak with him on important matters, and to
deliver some despatches into his own hand. While the prince was occupied
in examining them, the traitorous messenger drew a dagger from his belt
and stabbed him in the breast. The wound fortunately was not deep, and
Edward had regained a portion of his strength. He struggled with the
assassin, and put him to death with his own dagger, at the same time
calling loudly for assistance.[22] His attendants came at his call, and
found him bleeding profusely, and ascertained on inspection that the
dagger was poisoned. Means were instantly taken to purify the wound, and
an antidote was sent by the Grand Master of the Templars which removed all
danger from the effects of the poison. Camden, in his history, has adopted
the more popular, and certainly more beautiful version of this story,
which says that the Princess Eleonora, in her love for her gallant
husband, sucked the poison from his wound at the risk of her own life: to
use the words of old Fuller, "it is a pity so pretty a story should not be
true; and that so sovereign a remedy as a woman's tongue, anointed with
the virtue of loving affection," should not have performed the good deed.
[21] Mills, in his history, gives the name of this chief as "Al
Malek al Dhaker Rok neddin Abulfeth Bibars al Ali al
Bundokdari al Salehi."
[22] The reader will recognise the incident which Sir Walter Scott
has introduced into his beautiful romance, _The Talisman_,
and which, with the license claimed by poets and romancers,
he represents as having befallen King Richard I.
Edward suspected, and doubtless not without reason, that the assassin was
employed by the sultan of Egypt. But it amounted to suspicion only; and by
the sudden death of the assassin the principal clue to the discovery of
the truth was lost for ever. Edward, on his recovery, prepared to resume
the offensive; but the sultan, embarrassed by the defence of interests
which, for the time being, he considered of more importance, made offers
of peace to the Crusaders. This proof of weakness on the part of the enemy
was calculated to render a man of Edward's temperament more anxious to
prosecute the war; but he had also other interests to defend. News arrived
in Palestine of the death of his father, King Henry III.; and his presence
being necessary in England, he agreed to the terms of the sultan. These
were, that the Christians should be allowed to retain their possessions in
the Holy Land, and that a truce of ten years should be proclaimed. Edward
then set sail for England; and thus ended the last Crusade.
The after-fate of the Holy Land may be told in a few words. The
Christians, unmindful of their past sufferings and of the jealous
neighbours they had to deal with, first broke the truce by plundering some
Egyptian traders near Margat. The sultan immediately revenged the outrage
by taking possession of Margat, and war once more raged between the
nations. Margat made a gallant defence, but no reinforcements arrived from
Europe to prevent its fall. Tripoli was the next, and other cities in
succession, until at last Acre was the only city of Palestine that
remained in possession of the Christians.
[Illustration: TOMB OF QUEEN ELEANOR.]
The Grand Master of the Templars collected together his small and devoted
band, and, with the trifling aid afforded by the King of Cyprus, prepared
to defend to the death the last possession of his order. Europe was deaf
to his cry for aid, the numbers of the foe were overwhelming, and devoted
bravery was of no avail. In that disastrous siege the Christians were all
but exterminated. The king of Cyprus fled when he saw that resistance was
vain, and the Grand Master fell at the head of his knights, pierced with a
hundred wounds. Seven Templars, and as many Hospitallers, alone escaped
from the dreadful carnage. The victorious Moslems then set fire to the
city, and the rule of the Christians in Palestine was brought to a close
for ever.
This intelligence spread alarm and sorrow among the clergy of Europe, who
endeavoured to rouse once more the energy and enthusiasm of the nations in
the cause of the Holy Land. But the popular mania had run its career; the
spark of zeal had burned its appointed time, and was never again to be
re-illumined. Here and there a solitary knight announced his determination
to take up arms, and now and then a king gave cold encouragement to the
scheme; but it dropped almost as soon as spoken of, to be renewed again,
still more feebly, at some longer interval.
Now what was the grand result of all these struggles? Europe expended
millions of her treasures, and the blood of two millions of her children;
and a handful of quarrelsome knights retained possession of Palestine for
about one hundred years! Even had Christendom retained it to this day, the
advantage, if confined to that, would have been too dearly purchased. But
notwithstanding the fanaticism that originated, and the folly that
conducted them, the Crusades were not productive of unmitigated evil. The
feudal chiefs became better members of society by coming in contact, in
Asia, with a civilisation superior to their own; the people secured some
small instalments of their rights; kings, no longer at war with their
nobility, had time to pass some good laws; the human mind learned some
little wisdom from hard experience, and, casting off the slough of
superstition in which the Roman clergy had so long enveloped it, became
prepared to receive the seeds of the approaching Reformation. Thus did the
all-wise Disposer of events bring good out of evil, and advance the
civilisation and ultimate happiness of the nations of the West by means of
the very fanaticism that had led them against the East. But the whole
subject is one of absorbing interest, and, if carried fully out in all its
bearings, would consume more space than the plan of this work will allow.
The philosophic student will draw his own conclusions; and he can have no
better field for the exercise of his powers than this European
madness--its advantages and disadvantages, its causes and results.
[Illustration: ARRAS.]
THE WITCH MANIA.
What wrath of gods, or wicked influence
Of tears, conspiring wretched men t' afflict,
Hath pour'd on earth this noyous pestilence
That mortal minds doth inwardly infect
With love of blindness and of ignorance?
_Spencer's Tears of the Muses_.
_Countrymen._ Hang her! beat her! kill her!
_Justice._ How now? Forbear this violence!
_Mother Sawyer._ A crew of villains--a knot of bloody hangmen! set
to torment me! I know not why.
_Justice._ Alas, neighbour Banks! are you a ringleader in
mischief? Fie! to abuse an aged woman!
_Banks._ Woman! a she hell-cat, a witch! To prove her one, we no
sooner set fire on the thatch of her house, but in she came
running, as if the devil had sent her in a barrel of gunpowder.
_Ford's Witch of Edmonton_.
The belief that disembodied spirits may be permitted to revisit this world
has its foundation upon that sublime hope of immortality which is at once
the chief solace and greatest triumph of our reason. Even if revelation
did not teach us, we feel that we have that within us which shall never
die; and all our experience of this life but makes us cling the more
fondly to that one repaying hope. But in the early days of "little
knowledge" this grand belief became the source of a whole train of
superstitions, which, in their turn, became the fount from whence flowed a
deluge of blood and horror. Europe, for a period of two centuries and a
half, brooded upon the idea, not only that parted spirits walked the earth
to meddle in the affairs of men, but that men had power to summon evil
spirits to their aid to work woe upon their fellows. An epidemic terror
seized upon the nations; no man thought himself secure, either in his
person or possessions, from the machinations of the devil and his agents.
Every calamity that befell him he attributed to a witch. If a storm arose
and blew down his barn, it was witchcraft; if his cattle died of a
murrain--if disease fastened upon his limbs, or death entered suddenly and
snatched a beloved face from his hearth--they were not visitations of
Providence, but the works of some neighbouring hag, whose wretchedness or
insanity caused the ignorant to raise their finger and point at her as a
witch. The word was upon every body's tongue. France, Italy, Germany,
England, Scotland, and the far north successively ran mad upon this
subject, and for a long series of years furnished their tribunals with so
many trials for witchcraft, that other crimes were seldom or never spoken
of. Thousands upon thousands of unhappy persons fell victims to this cruel
and absurd delusion. In many cities of Germany, as will be shewn more
fully in its due place hereafter, the average number of executions for
this pretended crime was six hundred annually, or two every day, if we
leave out the Sundays, when it is to be supposed that even this madness
refrained from its work.
A misunderstanding of the famous text of the Mosaic law, "Thou shalt not
suffer a witch to live," no doubt led many conscientious men astray, whose
superstition, warm enough before, wanted but a little corroboration to
blaze out with desolating fury. In all ages of the world men have tried to
hold converse with superior beings, and to pierce by their means the
secrets of futurity. In the time of Moses, it is evident that there were
impostors who trafficked upon the credulity of mankind, and insulted the
supreme majesty of the true God by pretending to the power of divination.
Hence the law which Moses, by Divine command, promulgated against these
criminals; but it did not follow, as the superstitious monomaniacs of the
middle ages imagined, that the Bible established the existence of the
power of divination by its edicts against those who pretended to it. From
the best authorities, it appears that the Hebrew word, which has been
rendered _venefica_ and _witch_, means a poisoner and divineress, a
dabbler in spells, or fortune-teller. The modern witch was a very
different character, and joined to her pretended power of foretelling
future events that of working evil upon the life, limbs, and possessions
of mankind. This power was only to be acquired by an express compact,
signed in blood, with the devil himself, by which the wizard or witch
renounced baptism, and sold his or her immortal soul to the evil one,
without any saving clause of redemption.
There are so many wondrous appearances in nature for which science and
philosophy cannot even now account, that it is not surprising that, when
natural laws were still less understood, men should have attributed to
supernatural agency every appearance which they could not otherwise
explain. The merest tyro now understands various phenomena which the
wisest of old could not fathom. The schoolboy knows why, upon high
mountains, there should on certain occasions appear three or four suns in
the firmament at once, and why the figure of a traveller upon one eminence
should be reproduced, inverted and of a gigantic stature, upon another. We
all know the strange pranks which imagination can play in certain
diseases; that the hypochondriac can see visions and spectres; and that
there have been cases in which men were perfectly persuaded that they were
teapots. Science has lifted up the veil, and rolled away all the fantastic
horrors in which our forefathers shrouded these and similar cases. The man
who now imagines himself a wolf is sent to the hospital instead of to the
stake, as in the days of the witch mania; and earth, air, and sea are
unpeopled of the grotesque spirits that were once believed to haunt them.
Before entering further into the history of Witchcraft, it may be as well
if we consider the absurd impersonation of the evil principle formed by
the monks in their legends. We must make acquaintance with the _primum
mobile_, and understand what sort of a personage it was who gave the
witches, in exchange for their souls, the power to torment their
fellow-creatures. The popular notion of the devil was, that he was a
large, ill-formed, hairy sprite, with horns, a long tail, cloven feet, and
dragon's wings. In this shape he was constantly brought on the stage by
the monks in their early "miracles" and "mysteries." In these
representations he was an important personage, and answered the purpose of
the clown in the modern pantomime. The great fun for the people was to see
him well belaboured by the saints with clubs or cudgels, and to hear him
howl with pain as he limped off, maimed by the blow of some vigorous
anchorite. St. Dunstan generally served him the glorious trick for which
he is renowned, catching hold of his nose with a pair of red-hot pincers,
till
"Rocks and distant dells resounded with his cries."
Some of the saints spat in his face, to his very great annoyance; and
others chopped pieces off of his tail, which, however, always grew on
again. This was paying him in his own coin, and amused the populace
mightily, for they all remembered the scurvy tricks he had played them and
their forefathers. It was believed that he endeavoured to trip people up
by laying his long invisible tail in their way, and giving it a sudden
whisk when their legs were over it;--that he used to get drunk, and swear
like a trooper, and be so mischievous in his cups as to raise tempests and
earthquakes, to destroy the fruits of the earth, and the barns and
homesteads of true believers;--that he used to run invisible spits into
people by way of amusing himself in the long winter evenings, and to
proceed to taverns and regale himself with the best, offering in payment
pieces of gold which, on the dawn of the following morning, invariably
turned into slates. Sometimes, disguised as a large drake, he used to lurk
among the bulrushes, and frighten the weary traveller out of his wits by
his awful quack. The reader will remember the lines of Burns in his
address to the "De'il," which so well express the popular notion on this
point:
"Ae dreary, windy, winter night,
The stars shot down wi' sklentin light,
Wi' you mysel, I got a fright
Ayont the lough;
Ye, like a rash-bush, stood in sight
Wi' waving sough.
The cudgel in my nieve did shake,
Each bristled hair stood like a stake,
When wi' an eldritch stour, 'quaick! quaick!'
Among the springs
Awa' ye squattered, like a drake,
On whistling wings."
In all the stories circulated and believed about him, he was represented
as an ugly, petty, mischievous spirit, who rejoiced in playing off all
manner of fantastic tricks upon poor humanity. Milton seems to have been
the first who succeeded in giving any but a ludicrous description of him.
The sublime pride, which is the quintessence of evil, was unconceived
before his time. All other limners made him merely grotesque, but Milton
made him awful. In this the monks shewed themselves but miserable
romancers; for their object undoubtedly was to represent the fiend as
terrible as possible. But there was nothing grand about their Satan; on
the contrary, he was a low, mean devil, whom it was easy to circumvent,
and fine fun to play tricks with. But, as is well and eloquently remarked
by a modern writer,[23] the subject has also its serious side. An Indian
deity, with its wild distorted shape and grotesque attitude, appears
merely ridiculous when separated from its accessories and viewed by
daylight in a museum; but restore it to the darkness of its own hideous
temple, bring back to our recollection the victims that have bled upon its
altar or been crushed beneath its car, and our sense of the ridiculous
subsides into aversion and horror. So, while the superstitious dreams of
former times are regarded as mere speculative insanities, we may be for a
moment amused with the wild incoherencies of the patients; but when we
reflect that out of these hideous misconceptions of the principle of evil
arose the belief in witchcraft--that this was no dead faith, but one
operating on the whole being of society, urging on the wisest and the
mildest to deeds of murder, or cruelties scarcely less than murder--that
the learned and the beautiful, young and old, male and female, were
devoted by its influence to the stake and the scaffold--every feeling
disappears, except that of astonishment that such things could be, and
humiliation at the thought that the delusion was as lasting as it was
universal.
[23] See article on "Demonology" in the sixth volume of the
_Foreign Quarterly Review_.
Besides this chief personage, there was an infinite number of inferior
demons, who played conspicuous parts in the creed of witchcraft. The pages
of Bekker, Leloyer, Bodin, Delrio, and De Lancre, abound with descriptions
of the qualities of these imps, and the functions which were assigned
them. From these authors,--three of whom were commissioners for the trial
of witches, and who wrote from the confessions made by the supposed
criminals and the evidence delivered against them,--and from the more
recent work of M. Jules Garinet, the following summary of the creed has
been, with great pains, extracted. The student who is desirous of knowing
more is referred to the works in question; he will find enough in every
leaf to make his blood curdle with shame and horror: but the purity of
these pages shall not be soiled by any thing so ineffably humiliating and
disgusting as a complete exposition of them; what is here culled will be a
sufficient sample of the popular belief, and the reader would but lose
time who should seek in the writings of the demonologists for more ample
details. He will gain nothing by lifting the veil which covers their
unutterable obscenities, unless, like Sterne, he wishes to gather fresh
evidence of "what a beast man is." In that case, he will find plenty there
to convince him that the beast would be libelled by the comparison.