In approaching “The Historical Nights' Entertainment” I set myself the
task of reconstructing, in the fullest possible detail and with all the
colour available from surviving records, a group of more or less famous
events. I would select for my purpose those which were in themselves
bizarre and resulting from the interplay of human passions, and whilst
relating each of these events in the form of a story, I would compel
that story scrupulously to follow the actual, recorded facts without
owing anything to fiction, and I would draw upon my imagination, if at
all, merely as one might employ colour to fill in the outlines which
history leaves grey, taking care that my colour should be as true to
nature as possible. For dialogue I would depend upon such scraps
of actual speech as were chronicled in each case, amplifying it by
translating into terms of speech the paraphrases of contemporary
chroniclers.
Such was the task I set myself. I am aware that it has been attempted
once or twice already, beginning, perhaps, with the “Crimes Celebres”
of Alexandre Dumas. I am not aware that the attempt has ever succeeded.
This is not to say that I claim success in the essays that follow. How
nearly I may have approached success--judged by the standard I had set
myself--how far I may have fallen short, my readers will discern. I
am conscious, however, of having in the main dutifully resisted the
temptation to take the easier road, to break away from restricting fact
for the sake of achieving a more intriguing narrative. In one instance,
however, I have quite deliberately failed, and in some others I have
permitted myself certain speculations to resolve mysteries of which no
explanation has been discovered. Of these it is necessary that I should
make a full confession.
My deliberate failure is “The Night of Nuptials.” I discovered an
allusion to the case of Charles the Bold and Sapphira Danvelt in
Macaulay's “History of England”--quoted from an old number of the
“Spectator”--whilst I was working upon the case of Lady Alice Lisle.
There a similar episode is mentioned as being related of Colonel Kirke,
but discredited because known for a story that has a trick of springing
up to attach itself to unscrupulous captains. I set out to track it to
its source, and having found its first appearance to be in connection
with Charles the Bold's German captain Rhynsault, I attempted to
reconstruct the event as it might have happened, setting it at least in
surroundings of solid fact.
My most flagrant speculation occurs in “The Night of Hate.” But in
defence of it I can honestly say that it is at least no more flagrant
than the speculations on this subject that have become enshrined in
history as facts. In other words, I claim for my reconstruction of the
circumstances attending the mysterious death of Giovanni Borgia, Duke of
Gandia, that it no more lacks historical authority than do any other
of the explanatory narratives adopted by history to assign the guilt to
Gandia's brother, Cesare Borgia.
In the “Cambridge Modern History” our most authoritative writers on this
epoch have definitely pronounced that there is no evidence acceptable
to historians to support the view current for four centuries that Cesare
Borgia was the murderer.
Elsewhere I have dealt with this at length. Here let it suffice to say
that it was not until nine months after the deed that the name of Cesare
Borgia was first associated with it; that public opinion had in the mean
time assigned the guilt to a half-dozen others in succession; that no
motive for the crime is discoverable in the case of Cesare; that the
motives advanced will not bear examination, and that they bear on the
face of them the stamp of having been put forward hastily to support
an accusation unscrupulously political in purpose; that the first men
accused by the popular voice were the Cardinal Vice-Chancellor Ascanio
Sforza and his nephew Giovanni Sforza, Tyrant of Pesaro; and, finally,
that in Matarazzo's “Chronicles of Perugia” there is a fairly detailed
account of how the murder was perpetrated by the latter.
Matarazzo, I confess, is worthy of no more credit than any other of the
contemporary reporters of common gossip. But at least he is worthy of no
less. And it is undeniable that in Sforza's case a strong motive for the
murder was not lacking.
My narrative in “The Night of Hate” is admittedly a purely theoretical
account of the crime. But it is closely based upon all the known facts
of incidence and of character; and if there is nothing in the surviving
records that will absolutely support it, neither is there anything that
can absolutely refute it.
In “The Night of Masquerade” I am guilty of quite arbitrarily
discovering a reason to explain the mystery of Baron Bjelke's sudden
change from the devoted friend and servant of Gustavus III of Sweden
into his most bitter enemy. That speculation is quite indefensible,
although affording a possible explanation of that mystery. In the case
of “The Night of Kirk o' Field,” on the other hand, I do not think any
apology is necessary for my reconstruction of the precise manner in
which Darnley met his death. The event has long been looked upon as one
of the mysteries of history--the mystery lying in the fact that whilst
the house at Kirk o' Field was destroyed by an explosion, Darnley's body
was found at some distance away, together with that of his page, bearing
every evidence of death by strangulation. The explanation I adopt seems
to me to owe little to speculation.
In the story of Antonio Perez--“The Night of Betrayal”--I have permitted
myself fewer liberties with actual facts than might appear. I have
closely followed his own “Relacion,” which, whilst admittedly a piece
of special pleading, must remain the most authoritative document of the
events with which it deals. All that I have done has been to reverse
the values as Perez presents them, throwing the personal elements into
higher relief than the political ones, and laying particular stress upon
the matter of his relations with the Princess of Eboli. “The Night of
Betrayal” is presented in the form of a story within a story. Of the
containing story let me say that whilst to some extent it is fictitious,
it is by no means entirely so. There is enough to justify most of it in
the “Relaciori” itself.
The exceptions mentioned being made, I hope it may be found that I have
adhered rigorously to my purpose of owing nothing to invention in my
attempt to flesh and clothe these few bones of history.
I should add, perhaps, that where authorities differ as to motives,
where there is a conflict of evidence as to the facts themselves, or
where the facts admit of more than one interpretation, I have permitted
myself to be selective, and confined myself to a point of view adopted
at the outset.