“Harbor no such desires, but rather come with me and I will show thee
more attractive things. This very day doth the great emperor go forth
from the City of Peace,(1) to the banks of the Yellow River. Come thou
with me to witness the splendor of his train, and perchance even to see
the great emperor himself and the young Prince Kaou, his son.”
(1) The meaning of Chang-an, the ancient capital of China, is “the City
of Continuous Peace.”
“That I will not then,” cried the girl, more hotly than before. “I hate
this great emperor, as men do wrongfully call him, and I hate the young
Prince Kaou. May Lung Wang, the god of the dragons, dash them both
beneath the Yellow River ere yet they leave its banks this day.”
At this terrible wish on the lips of a girl, the good master very
nearly forgot even his most valuable precept--never to be surprised. He
regarded his defiant young companion in sheer amazement.
“Have a care, have a care, my daughter!” he said at length. “The blessed
Saint James telleth us that the tongue is a little member, but it can
kindle a great fire. How mayst thou hope to say such direful words
against the Son of Heaven(1) and live?”
(1) “The Son of Heaven” is one of the chief titles of the Chinese
emperor.
“The Son of Heaven killed the emperor, my father,” said the child.
“The emperor thy father!” Thomas the Nestorian almost gasped in this
latest surprise. “Is the girl crazed or doth she sport with one who
seeketh her good?” And amazement and perplexity settled upon his face.
“The Princess Woo is neither crazed nor doth she sport with the master,”
said the girl. “I do but speak the truth. Great is Tai-tsung. Whom he
will he slayeth, and whom he will he keepeth alive.” And then she told
the astonished priest that the bannerman of the Dragon Gate was not
her father at all. For, she said, as she had lain awake only the night
before, she had heard enough in talk between the bannerman and his wife
to learn her secret--how that she was the only daughter of the rightful
emperor, the Prince Kung-ti, whose guardian and chief adviser the
present emperor had been; how this trusted protector had made away with
poor Kung-ti in order that he might usurp the throne; and how she, the
Princess Woo, had been flung into the swift Hwang-ho, from the turbid
waters of which she had been rescued by the bannerman of the Dragon
Gate.
“This may or may not be so,” Thomas the Nestorian said, uncertain
whether or not to credit the girl’s surprising story; “but even were it
true, my daughter, how couldst thou right thyself? What can a girl hope
to do?”
The young princess drew up her small form proudly. “Do?” she cried in
brave tones; “I can do much, wise O-lo-pun, girl though I am! Did not
a girl save the divine books of Confucius, when the great Emperor
Chi-Hwang-ti did command the burning of all the books in the empire?
Did not a girl--though but a soothsayer’s daughter--raise the outlaw Liu
Pang straight to the Yellow Throne? And shall I, who am the daughter of
emperors, fail to be as able or as brave as they?”
The wise Nestorian was shrewd enough to see that here was a prize that
might be worth the fostering. By the assumption of mystic knowledge, he
learned from the bannerman of the Dragon Gate, the truth of the girl’s
story, and so worked upon the good bannerman’s native superstition and
awe of superior power as to secure the custody of the young princess,
and to place her in his mission-house at Tung-Chow for teaching and
guidance. Among the early Christians, the Nestorians held peculiarly
helpful and elevating ideas of the worth and proper condition of woman.
Their precepts were full of mutual help, courtesy, and fraternal love.
All these the Princess Woo learned under her preceptor’s guidance.
She grew to be even more assertive and self-reliant, and became, also,
expert in many sports in which, in that woman-despising country, only
boys could hope to excel. One day, when she was about fourteen years
old, the Princess Woo was missing from the Nestorian mission-house, by
the Yellow River. Her troubled guardian, in much anxiety, set out to
find the truant; and, finally, in the course of his search, climbed the
high bluff from which he saw the massive walls, the many gateways,
the gleaming roofs, and porcelain towers of the Imperial city of
Chang-an-the City of Continuous Peace.
But even before he had entered its northern gate, a little maid in loose
silken robe, peaked cap, and embroidered shoes had passed through that
very gateway, and slipping through the thronging streets of the great
city, approached at last the group of picturesque and glittering
buildings that composed the palace of the great Emperor Tai.
Just within the main gateway of the palace rose the walls of the
Imperial Academy, where eight thousand Chinese boys received instruction
under the patronage of the emperor, while, just beyond extended the
long, low range of the archery school, in which even the emperor himself
sometimes came to witness, or take part in, the exciting contests.
Drawing about her shoulders the yellow sash that denoted alliance
with royalty, the Princess Woo, without a moment’s hesitation, walked
straight through the palace gateway, past the wondering guards, and into
the boundaries of the archery court.
Here the young Prince Kaou, an indolent and lazy lad of about her own
age, was cruelly goading on his trained crickets to a ferocious fight
within their gilded bamboo cage, while, just at hand, the slaves were
preparing his bow and arrows for his daily archery practice.
Now, among the rulers of China there are three classes of privileged
targets--the skin of the bear for the emperor himself, the skin of the
deer for the princes of the blood, and the skin of the tiger for the
nobles of the court; and thus, side by side, in the Imperial Archery
School at Chang-an, hung the three targets.
The girl with the royal sash and the determined face walked straight up
to the Prince Kaou. The boy left off goading his fighting crickets, and
looked in astonishment at this strange and highly audacious girl, who
dared to enter a place from which all women were excluded. Before the
guards could interfere, she spoke.
“Are the arrows of the great Prince Kaou so well fitted to the cord,”
she said, “that he dares to try his skill with one who, although a girl,
hath yet the wit and right to test his skill?”
The guards laid hands upon the intruder to drag her away, but the
prince, nettled at her tone, yet glad to welcome any thing that promised
novelty or amusement, bade them hold off their hands.
“No girl speaketh thus to the Prince Kaou and liveth,” he said
insolently. “Give me instant test of thy boast, or the wooden collar(1)
in the palace torture-house, shall be thy fate.”
(1) The “wooden collar” was the “kia” or “cangue,”--a terrible
instrument of torture used in China for the punishment of criminals.
“Give me the arrows, Prince,” the girl said, bravely, “and I will make
good my words.”
At a sign, the slaves handed her a bow and arrows. But, as she tried the
cord and glanced along the polished shaft, the prince said:
“Yet, stay, girl; here is no target set for thee. Let the slaves set up
the people’s target. These are not for such as thou.”
“Nay, Prince, fret not thyself,” the girl coolly replied. “My target
is here!” and while all looked on in wonder, the undaunted girl
deliberately toed the practice line, twanged her bow, and with a sudden
whiz, sent her well-aimed shaft quivering straight into the small white
centre of the great bearskin--the imperial target itself!
With a cry of horror and of rage at such sacrilege, the guards pounced
upon the girl archer, and would have dragged her away. But with the same
quick motion that had saved her from the Tartar robbers, she sprang
from their grasp and, standing full before the royal target, she said
commandingly:
“Hands off, slaves; nor dare to question my right to the bearskin
target. I am the Empress!”
It needed but this to cap the climax. Prince, guards, and slaves
looked at this extraordinary girl in open-mouthed wonder. But ere their
speechless amazement could change to instant seizure, a loud laugh rang
from the imperial doorway and a hearty voice exclaimed: “Braved, and
by a girl! Who is thy Empress, Prince? Let me, too, salute the
Tsih-tien!”(1) Then a portly figure, clad in yellow robes, strode down
to the targets, while all within the archery lists prostrated themselves
in homage before one of China’s greatest monarchs--the Emperor
Tai-tsung, Wun-woo-ti.(2)
(1) “The Sovereign Divine”--an imperial title.
(2) “Our Exalted Ancestor--the Literary-Martial Emperor.”
But before even the emperor could reach the girl, the bamboo screen
was swept hurriedly aside, and into the archery lists came the anxious
priest, Thomas the Nestorian. He had traced his missing charge even to
the imperial palace, and now found her in the very presence of those he
deemed her mortal enemies. Prostrate at the emperor’s feet, he told the
young girl’s story, and then pleaded for her life, promising to keep her
safe and secluded in his mission-home at Tung-Chow.
The Emperor Tai laughed a mighty laugh, for the bold front of this only
daughter of his former master and rival, suited his warlike humor. But
he was a wise and clement monarch withal.
“Nay, wise O-lo-pun,” he said. “Such rivals to our throne may not be
at large, even though sheltered in the temples of the hung-mao.(1)
The royal blood of the house of Sui(2) flows safely only within palace
walls. Let the proper decree be registered, and let the gifts be
exchanged; for to-morrow thy ward, the Princess Woo, becometh one of our
most noble queens.”
(1) The “light-haired ones”--an old Chinese term for the western
Christians.
(2) The name of the former dynasty.
And so at fourteen, even as the records show, this strong-willed young
girl of the Yellow River became one of the wives of the great Emperor
Tai. She proved a very gracious and acceptable stepmother to young
Prince Kaou, who, as the records also tell us, grew so fond of the girl
queen that, within a year from the death of his great father, and when
he himself had succeeded to the Yellow Throne, as Emperor Supreme,
he recalled the Queen Woo from her retirement in the mission-house at
Tung-Chow and made her one of his royal wives. Five years after, in the
year 655, she was declared Empress, and during the reign of her lazy and
indolent husband she was “the power behind the throne.” And when, in
the year 683, Kaou-tsung died, she boldly assumed the direction of
the government, and, ascending the throne, declared herself Woo How
Tsih-tien--Woo the Empress Supreme and Sovereign Divine.
History records that this Zenobia of China proved equal to the great
task. She “governed the empire with discretion,” extended its borders,
and was acknowledged as empress from the shores of the Pacific to the
borders of Persia, of India, and of the Caspian Sea.
Her reign was one of the longest and most successful in that period
known in history as the Golden Age of China. Because of the relentless
native prejudice against a successful woman, in a country where girl
babies are ruthlessly drowned, as the quickest way of ridding the world
of useless incumbrances, Chinese historians have endeavored to blacken
her character and undervalue her services. But later scholars now see
that she was a powerful and successful queen, who did great good to her
native land, and strove to maintain its power and glory.
She never forgot her good friend and protector, Thomas the Nestorian.
During her long reign of almost fifty years, Christianity strengthened
in the kingdom, and obtained a footing that only the great Mahometan
conquests of five centuries later entirely destroyed; and the Empress
Woo, so the chronicles declare, herself “offered sacrifices to the great
God of all.” When, hundreds of years after, the Jesuit missionaries
penetrated into this most exclusive of all the nations of the earth,
they found near the palace at Chang-an the ruins of the Nestorian
mission church, with the cross still standing, and, preserved through
all the changes of dynasties, an abstract in Syriac characters of the
Christian law, and with it the names of seventy-two attendant priests
who had served the church established by O-lo-pun.
Thus, in a land in which, from the earliest ages, women have been
regarded as little else but slaves, did a self-possessed and wise young
girl triumph over all difficulties, and rule over her many millions of
subjects “in a manner becoming a great prince.” This, even her enemies
admit. “Lessening the miseries of her subjects,” so the historians
declare, she governed the wide Empire of China wisely, discreetly, and
peacefully; and she displayed upon the throne all the daring, wit, and
wisdom that had marked her actions when, years before, she was nothing
but a sprightly and determined little Chinese maiden, on the banks of
the turbid Yellow River.
EDITH OF SCOTLAND.: THE GIRL OF THE NORMAN ABBEY.
(Afterward known as the “Good Queen Maud” of England.) A.D. 1093.
On a broad and deep window-seat in the old Abbey guest-house at
Gloucester, sat two young girls of thirteen and ten; before them,
brave-looking enough in his old-time costume, stood a manly young fellow
of sixteen. The three were in earnest conversation, all unmindful of
the noise about them--the romp and riot of a throng of young folk,
attendants, or followers of the knights and barons of King William’s
court.
For William Rufus, son of the Conqueror and second Norman king of
England, held his Whitsuntide gemot, or summer council of his lords and
lieges, in the curious old Roman-Saxon-Norman town of Gloucester, in the
fair vale through which flows the noble Severn. The city is known to the
young folk of to-day as the one in which good Robert Raikes started the
first Sunday-school more than a hundred years ago. But the gemot of
King William the Red, which was a far different gathering from good Mr.
Raikes’ Sunday-school, was held in the great chapter-house of the old
Benedictine Abbey, while the court was lodged in the Abbey guest-houses,
in the grim and fortress-like Gloucester Castle, and in the houses of
the quaint old town itself.
The boy was shaking his head rather doubtfully as he stood, looking down
upon the two girls on the broad window-seat.
“Nay, nay, beausire(1); shake not your head like that,” exclaimed the
younger of the girls. “We did escape that way, trust me we did; Edith
here can tell you I do speak the truth--for sure, ‘t was her device.”
(1) “Fair sir”: an ancient style of address, used especially toward
those high in rank in Norman times.
Thirteen-year-old Edith laughed merrily enough at her sister’s
perplexity, and said gayly as the lad turned questioningly to her:
“Sure, then, beausire, ‘t is plain to see that you are Southron-born and
know not the complexion of a Scottish mist. Yet ‘t is even as Mary said.
For, as we have told you, the Maiden’s Castle standeth high-placed on
the crag in Edwin’s Burgh, and hath many and devious pathways to the
lower gate, So when the Red Donald’s men were swarming up the steep, my
uncle, the Atheling, did guide us, by ways we knew well, and by twists
and turnings that none knew better, straight through Red Donald’s array,
and all unseen and unnoted of them, because of the blessed thickness of
the gathering mist.”
“And this was YOUR device?” asked the boy, admiringly.
“Ay, but any one might have devised it too,” replied young Edith,
modestly. “Sure, ‘t was no great device to use a Scotch mist for
our safety, and ‘t were wiser to chance it than stay and be stupidly
murdered by Red Donald’s men. And so it was, good Robert, even as Mary
did say, that we came forth unharmed, from amidst them and fled here to
King William’s court, where we at last are safe.”
“Safe, say you, safe?” exclaimed the lad, impulsively. “Ay, as safe as
is a mouse’s nest in a cat’s ear--as safe as is a rabbit in a ferret’s
hutch. But that I know you to be a brave and dauntless maid, I should
say to you----”
But, ere Edith could know what he would say, their conference was rudely
broken in upon. For a royal page, dashing up to the three, with scant
courtesy seized the arm of the elder girl, and said hurriedly:
“Haste ye, haste ye, my lady! Our lord king is even now calling for you
to come before him in the banquet-hall.”
Edith knew too well the rough manners of those dangerous days. She freed
herself from the grasp of the page, and said:
“Nay, that may I not, master page. ‘T is neither safe nor seemly for a
maid to show herself in baron’s hall or in king’s banquet-room.”
“Safe and seemly it may not be, but come you must,” said the page,
rudely. “The king demands it, and your nay is naught.”
And so, hurried along whether she would or no, while her friend, Robert
Fitz Godwine, accompanied her as far as he dared, the young Princess
Edith was speedily brought into the presence of the king of England,
William H., called, from the color of his hair and from his fiery
temper, Rufus, or “the Red.”
For Edith and Mary were both princesses of Scotland, with a history,
even before they had reached their teens, as romantic as it was
exciting. Their mother, an exiled Saxon princess, had, after the
conquest of Saxon England by the stern Duke William the Norman, found
refuge in Scotland, and had there married King Malcolm Canmore, the son
of that King Duncan whom Macbeth had slain. But when King Malcolm
had fallen beneath the walls of Alnwick Castle, a victim to English
treachery, and when his fierce brother Donald Bane, or Donald the Red,
had usurped the throne of Scotland, then the good Queen Margaret died in
the gray castle on the rock of Edinburgh, and the five orphaned children
were only saved from the vengeance of their bad uncle Donald by the
shrewd and daring device of the young Princess Edith, who bade their
good uncle Edgar, the Atheling, guide them, under cover of the mist,
straight through the Red Donald’s knights and spearmen to England and
safety.
You would naturally suppose that the worst possible place for the
fugitives to seek safety was in Norman England; for Edgar the Atheling,
a Saxon prince, had twice been declared king of England by the Saxon
enemies of the Norman conquerors, and the children of King Malcolm and
Queen Margaret--half Scotch, half Saxon--were, by blood and birth, of
the two races most hateful to the conquerors. But the Red King in his
rough sort of way--hot to-day and cold to-morrow--had shown something
almost like friendship, for this Saxon Atheling, or royal prince, who
might have been king of England had he not wisely submitted to the
greater power of Duke William the Conqueror and to the Red William, his
son. More than this, it had been rumored that some two years before,
when there was truce between the kings of England and of Scotland, this
harsh and headstrong English king, who was as rough and repelling as a
chestnut burr, had seen, noticed, and expressed a particular interest
in the eleven-year-old Scottish girl--this very Princess Edith who now
sought his protection.
So, when this wandering uncle boldly threw himself upon Norman courtesy,
and came with his homeless nephews and nieces straight to the Norman
court for safety, King William Rufus not only received these children
of his hereditary foeman with favor and royal welcome, but gave them
comfortable lodgment in quaint old Gloucester town, where he held his
court.
But even when the royal fugitives deemed themselves safest were they in
the greatest danger.
Among the attendant knights and nobles of King William’s court was
a Saxon knight known as Sir Ordgar, a “thegn,” (1) or baronet, of
Oxfordshire; and because those who change their opinions--political
or otherwise--often prove the most unrelenting enemies of their former
associates, it came to pass that Sir Ordgar, the Saxon, conceived a
strong dislike for these orphaned descendants of the Saxon kings, and
convinced himself that the best way to secure himself in the good graces
of the Norman King William was to slander and accuse the children of the
Saxon Queen Margaret.
(1) Pronounced thane.
And so that very day, in the great hall, when wine was flowing and
passions were strong, this false knight, raising his glass, bade them
all drink: “Confusion to the enemies of our liege the king, from the
base Philip of France to the baser Edgar the Atheling and his Scottish
brats!”
This was an insult that even the heavy and peace-loving nature of Edgar
the Atheling could not brook. He sprang to his feet and denounced the
charge:
“None here is truer or more leal to you, lord king,” he said, “than am
I, Edgar the Atheling, and my charges, your guests.”
But King William Rufus was of that changing, temper that goes with
jealousy and suspicion. His flushed face grew still more red, and,
turning away from the Saxon prince, he demanded:
“Why make you this charge, Sir Ordgar?
“Because of its truth, beausire,” said the faithless knight. “For what
other cause hath this false Atheling sought sanctuary here, save to use
his own descent from the ancient kings of this realm to make head and
force among your lieges? And, his eldest kinsgirl here, the Princess
Edith, hath she not been spreading a trumpery story among the younger
folk, of how some old wyrd-wif(1) hath said that she who is the daughter
of kings shall be the wife and mother of kings? And is it not further
true that when her aunt, the Abbess of Romsey, bade her wear the holy
veil, she hath again and yet again torn it off, and affirmed that she,
who was to be a queen, could never be made a nun? Children and fools,
‘t is said, do speak the truth, beausire; and in all this do I see the
malice and device of this false Atheling, the friend of your rebellious
brother, Duke Robert, as you do know him to be; and I do brand him here,
in this presence, as traitor and recreant to you, his lord.”
(1) Witch-wife or seeress.
The anger of the jealous king grew more unreasoning as Sir Ordgar went
on.
“Enough!” he cried. “Seize the traitor,----or, stay; children and fools,
as you have said, Sir Ordgar, do indeed speak the truth. Have in the
girl and let us hear the truth. ‘Not seemly’? Sir Atheling,” he broke
out in reply to some protest of Edith’s uncle. “Aught is seemly that the
king doth wish. Holo! Raoul! Damian! sirrah pages! Run, one of you, and
seek the Princess Edith, and bring her here forthwith!”
And while Edgar the Atheling, realizing that this was the gravest of
all his dangers, strove, though without effect, to reason with the angry
king, Damian, the page, as we have seen, hurried after the Princess
Edith.
“How now, mistress!” broke out the Red King, as the young girl was
ushered into the banquet-hall, where the disordered tables, strewn with
fragments of the feast, showed the ungentle manners of those brutal
days. “How now, mistress! do you prate of kings and queens and of your
own designs--you, who are but a beggar guest? Is it seemly or wise
to talk,--nay, keep you quiet, Sir Atheling; we will have naught from
you,--to talk of thrones and crowns as if you did even now hope to win
the realm from me--from me, your only protector?”
The Princess Edith was a very high-spirited maiden, as all the stories
of her girlhood show. And this unexpected accusation, instead of
frightening her, only served to embolden her. She looked the angry
monarch full in the face.
“‘T is a false and lying charge, lord king,” she said, “from whomsoever
it may come. Naught have I said but praise of you and your courtesy to
us motherless folk. ‘T is a false and lying charge; and I am ready to
stand test of its proving, come what may.”
“Even to the judgment of God, girl?” demanded the king.
And the brave girl made instant reply: “Even to the judgment of God,
lord king.” Then, skilled in all the curious customs of those warlike
times, she drew off her glove. “Whosoever my accuser be, lord king,”
she said, “I do denounce him as foresworn and false, and thus do I throw
myself upon God’s good mercy, if it shall please him to raise me up a
champion.” And she flung her glove upon the floor of the hall, in face
of the king and all his barons.