Read Ebook: A Short History of Germany by Parmele Mary Platt

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Ebook has 398 lines and 62120 words, and 8 pages

"Tush," answered the other, "I defame no peer, for he is none. The true peer is Gerald St. Amande, the younger, now the Lord Viscount St. Amande since his father's death."

"Thou fool," bellowed Considine, "he is dead long since. 'Tis well known."

"Is it so? Well, let us see. But first answer me, Wolfe Considine, deserter from the colours of Her Majesty Queen Anne's 1st Royal Scots' Regiment, panderer and creature of the usurper Robert St. Amande, purloiner of the body of the present Lord St. Amande--said I not you were a thief?--instigator of murder to the villain, O'Rourke, who would have slain the child or, at least, have shipped him off a slave to the Virginian plantations; traducer of an honest lady's fame who, so far from favouring thee, would not have spat upon thee. Answer me, I say, and tell me if you would know that dead child again were you to set your eyes upon it?"

He hurled forth these accusations against the wretch shivering on his horse with so terrible a voice, accompanied by fierce looks, that the other could do naught but writhe under them and set to work to bawl loudly for the watch as he did so, and to offer a gibing beggar who stood near a crown to run and fetch them, which the beggar refused, so that at last the servant started to find them. But, meanwhile, the butcher again began:

"He is dead long since, is he? Well, we will see." Then beckoning to the lad in rags still standing on the steps of the French Church, he said, "Lord St. Amande, come hither and prove to this perjured villain that thou art no more dead than he who would have had thee so."

Slowly, therefore, I descended--for I who write these lines was that most unhappy child, Lord St. Amande, as perhaps you who read them may have guessed--and slowly in my tatters I went down and stood by him who had succoured me, and fixed my eyes on that most dreadful villain, Wolfe Considine.

Now, the effect upon him was wonderful to witness, for verily I thought he would have had a fit and fallen from his horse. His eyes seemed to be starting forth from his head, his cadaverous face became empurpled, his hands twitched, and all the while he muttered, "Alive! Alive! yet O'Rourke swore that he was safe at the bottom of the Liffey--the traitor! Alive!"

He spoke so low and muttered so hoarsely to himself that I have ever doubted if any other but I and Oliver Quin, the butcher, heard his self-condemnatory words--by which he most plainly acknowledged his guilt and the part he had played in endeavouring to get me made away with. But, ere he could say more, he received support from the woman, Ba?er, or "Madam," as she was generally called, who, descending now from her hackney carriage, thrust aside the beggars around it and advanced towards me.

That she was a woman of courage need not be doubted, for, although these miserable gutter-birds had hitherto been jeering at her to even such an extent as remarking on the redness of her face and the probable cause thereof, she at this time awed them by her manner. Her eyes flaming, her great white teeth gleaming like those of a hunted wolf as it turns to tear its pursuers, she thrust them all aside and exclaiming, "Out you wretches, away you kennel dogs, stand back, I say, you Irish curs," made her way to me.

"Let me see," she said, seizing me roughly by the collar, "the brat who is to be palmed upon us as the dead child. Let me see him." And then, as she gazed in my face, she burst into a loud, strident laugh, while in her harsh voice and her German accent she exclaimed, "So this is the beggar's brat who is to be thrust in before us as a son of this dead lord," pointing to my father's coffiendom than Charlemagne, the great conqueror of men and defender of the Holy Faith?

The coronation of Charlemagne, King of France and Germany, at Rome, in the year 800, was a revolt of the West against the sluggard Emperors at Byzantium; just as his father Pepin's had been, fifty years before, a revolt against the sluggard Kings of France.

Not for 800 years had there been such a commanding personality on the earth; not since Caesar hurled his legions into Gaul and Britain had there been such a display of military genius and valor, and perhaps never before such a breadth of intelligence in controlling a vast and heterogeneous empire.

Thenceforth, Charlemagne and his successors were the successors of the Caesars and the temporal heads of the Holy Roman Empire. Excepting in name the once great empire had ceased to be Roman. The rude barbarian race which, in the time of Julius Caesar, was buried in the forests of Central Europe, was at the head of Christendom; and under Charlemagne, a map of the German Empire was a map of Europe.

Charlemagne acknowledged the Pope who crowned him as his spiritual sovereign, while, on the other hand, the Pope bowed before the Emperor who appointed him as his temporal sovereign. It was a magnificent, all-embracing scheme of empire, of which the spiritual head was at Rome, and the temporal at Aix-la-Chapelle.

It seemed as if, by this dual supremacy, Charlemagne had provided for all possible exigencies of human government. He rested content, no doubt thinking he had embodied a perfect ideal in creating a system which should thus co-ordinate and embrace both the spiritual and temporal needs of an empire. But as soon as his controlling hand was removed unexpected dangers assailed his work.

In less than fifty years from his coronation his three grandsons had quarreled and torn the empire into as many parts. With this event France commenced a separate existence as a kingdom and the Imperial title belonged alone to Germany .

It was the strong, rough arm of the Goth which had hammered in pieces the Roman Empire and brought these tremendous results for the Teuton race; but it was the Frank which had survived as the governing power.

These Franks established a new system of land tenure, which combined the two opposing systems prevailing in North and South Germany. They proclaimed that the land belonged to the Crown. But the Crown, upon certain conditions, bestowed it upon landholders who were called barons. These barons might hold their land from generation to generation, so long as these conditions were fulfilled. They, in like manner, parceled out their lands into farms, which were held by the class below them upon like conditions of submission and fealty to them. The people bound themselves to furnish military service and food, and to work for their barons a specified number of days in the year, and to receive in return a certain protection, and a refuge within the castle of their chief. The baron was responsible to the count who was his superior, and the count to the King.

This was the feudal system, which was a net-work of reciprocal duties. No man, be he peasant or count, could call anything his own unless he discharged his obligations and responsibilities.

The system met great opposition for a time in South Germany; especially from Welf, Count of Bavaria, from whom the historic Guelphs are descended. But it survived, as we know, increasing in oppressive weight and rigidity, until for centuries it crushed the life out of Europe.

One century after Charlemagne, the kingship of Germany ceased to be hereditary. The great nobles, or vassals as they were called, elected the King, who was crowned at Aix. And then, after the Pope had crowned him at Rome , he was also King of Italy and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

So, in the tenth year, when the Hungarians insolently demanded their tribute, Henry threw a dead dog at their messengers' feet, and told them that was his tribute in the future.

The Hungarians in a fury poured into Germany. But--lo! instead of collections of helpless villages lying at their mercy, there were walled towns which defied all their efforts to capture, and after some futile attempts the Hungarians troubled Germany no more.

Another important development of this period was an eventful one for Europe. There was a large class of young men, younger sons of nobles, for whom there was no suitable classification. They were proud and by necessity were idle.

This same Saxon King Henry invited these young men to serve the empire in a new and peculiar way. They must be men of honor and truth; they must be devoted and loyal to the Holy Roman Empire; never have injured a weak woman nor run away in battle; they must be gentle and courteous and brave, and faithful to the Church.

The great Charlemagne, in accepting the crown of the Holy Roman Empire in 800, unconsciously inflicted a deep injury upon the future Germany. That glittering bauble, the crown of the Caesars, was very costly, and retarded the development of Germany for centuries.

That country needed all her resources and energies at home, to solidify and develop a great nation during its formative period.

Instead of that, for seven hundred years the ambitions of the Kings of Germany were diverted from what should have been their first care--the unity and prosperity of their own nation; and were chasing a phantom--the re-establishment of the great old empire, with Rome as its heart and center.

Another mistake made by Charlemagne was far-reaching in its consequences.

He little suspected the nature and the latent power existing in that spiritual kingdom with which he formed so close an alliance. He feared not the Church, but the ambitious and scheming nobles. So, in order to create a friendly bulwark about the throne, he made some of the archbishops and bishops secular princes, and bestowed upon them dominions over which they might reign as sovereigns.

The Church, which had not been growing any too spiritual since it was adopted by Rome, was more and more secularized when it had Primates ravenous for wealth and power.

The Pope and Emperor, instead of close allies as Charlemagne had intended, had finally become jealous and angry rivals. In the open warfare which in time developed two political parties came into being--the Guelphs and the Ghibellines, which represented the adherents of the Pope and the Emperor.

It was a part of the settled policy of the Popes to stir up strife in Italy, and thus, by compelling the Emperor to pour his revenues and his energies into that land, to weaken and undermine him at home.

Had Henry stood his ground as he might, for he would have had ample support from his people, it would have been a gain of centuries for Europe.. But the ban of excommunication, with its attendant horrors here, and still worse hereafter--it was more than he could bear. Affrighted, trembling, penitent, he crossed the Alps in dead of winter, crept to the castle of Canossa, near Parma, where Hildebrand had taken refuge; and there this successor to Charlemagne, this ruler of all Christendom, standing barefoot and clad in sackcloth shirt, humbly begged admittance. The Pope's triumph was complete. So he let him shiver for three days in cold and rain before he opened the gates and gave him forgiveness and the kiss of peace.

The Church had never scored so tremendous a victory. She was supreme over every earthly authority, and the hands on the face of time were set back for centuries. Let Guelph and Ghibelline storm and struggle as they might, there was no question of supremacy now between temporal and spiritual heads. All the lines of power, all the threads of human destiny led to Rome, and were found at last in the papal hand.

The Duke of Swabia then built himself a castle on a high plateau of land called Hohenstaufen. But this fortunate duke had also another great estate called Waiblingen. So he was Frederick of Hohenstaufen, and of Waiblingen as well. The last name had a very conspicuous destiny awaiting it.

The dukes of Bavaria had been a great power in Germany, ever since that first stormy Welf, who tried to put down the new-fangled system of land-tenure which we know as feudalism!

These Welfs were evidently not progressive; they seem in fact to have been the Tories of ancient Germany. And when Conrad, grandson ily to outwit thy uncle. Unfortunately my lord did go about the city saying that you were dead and that, therefore, he and his brother were at liberty to dispose of the property, and, thus, there is a terrible amount of evidence to contend against."

"With submission, sir," Oliver said, "surely all that should make in the young lord's favour. For who shall doubt that his mother can swear to him as their child? Then there are the peasants with whom he was placed as an infant at New Ross, and, again, the tutors he was with, both there and here and in England, to say nothing of many servants. While, to add to all, his uncle has made himself a criminal by seconding his father in the false reports of his death and obtaining money thereby. With my lady's evidence and yours and mine alone, to say nothing of aught else, we should surely be able to move the King-at-Arms to enregister him as his father's heir."

Yet, oh, untoward fate! my mother could not come, but in her place sent a letter which, being of much importance as affecting all that afterwards occurred, I here set down, fairly copied.

Honoured Sir,

But, sir, if the news which you give me of the grievous state in which my lord lies is enough to wring my heart, what comfort and joy shall not that heart also receive in learning that my beloved child, whom I thought dead and slain by his father's cruelty, is still alive, and that he, whom I have mourned as gone from me for ever, should live to be restored to his mother's arms? Yet, alas! I cannot come to him as I fain would and fold him in my arms, for I am sorely stricken with the palsy which creepeth ever on me, though, strange to relate, there are moments, nay hours, when I am free from it, so that sometimes my physician doth prophesy a recovery, which, however, I cannot bring myself to hope or believe. And, moreover, honoured sir, I am without the means to travel to Dublin. My uncle, when he rescued me from my unhappy husband's hands, provided me with one hundred guineas a year, which, at his death last year, he also willed, should be continued to me while parted from my husband. But if he dies that ceases also, since my uncle, the Duke, did naturally suppose that I by settlement shall be well provided for, tho' now I doubt if such is likely to prove the case.

Yet, though well I know my brother-in-law to be a most uncommon bad man and one who will halt at nothing to further his own gains, I cannot believe that the law will allow him to falsely possess himself either of my child's rank and title, or of aught else that may be his inheritance, though I fear there is but little property left, short of his succession to the Marquisate of Amesbury. But, honoured sir, since it is not possible that I can come to my boy, could he not come to me? He would assuredly be as safe in London, if not safer, under the protection of his mother, as in Dublin where, you say, he lurketh, and where, I cannot doubt, his uncle will take steps to bring about harm to him. Here he would be with me and, since my uncle is now dead, it may be that the Marquis will be more kindly disposed towards him and, even at the worst, he cannot refuse to recognise him. Therefore, sir, if the wherewithal could be found for bringing or sending him to London, I would see the cost defrayed out of my small means, on which you may rely.

So, honoured sir, I now conclude, begging you to believe that I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you have done for my child, and that also I thank the honest man, Mr. Quin, of whom you speak, and I do most earnestly pray that the God of the fatherless and the orphan may reward you for all. And, sir, with my greatest consideration to you, and a mother's fondest love to my child, whom I pray to see ere long, I remain your much obliged and grateful,

Louise St. Amande.

"Gerald," said Mr. Kinchella, when he had concluded reading this letter to me, over which, boy-like, I shed many tears, "her ladyship speaks well. Dublin is no place for thee. If in his lordship's lifetime you were not safe, how shall you be so when now you alone stand between your uncle and two peerages?"

"Yet," I exclaimed, while in my heart there had arisen a wild desire to once more see the dear mother from whom I had been so ruthlessly torn, "yet how could it be accomplished? Surely the cost of a journey to London would be great!"

"I have still a guinea or two in my locker," said Mr. Kinchella, "if that would avail--though I misdoubt it."

"I have a better plan, sir," exclaimed Quin, who was also of the party again on this occasion. "If his young lordship would not object to voyaging to London entirely by sea, there are many cattle-ships pass between that port and this by which he might proceed. Or, again, he might pass from here to Chester, there being many boats to Park Gate, or he might proceed to Milford."

"Yet he is over-young for such a journey," said kind Mr. Kinchella; he being, as ever, thoughtful for me. But I replied:

"Sir, have I not had to endure worse when I was even younger? The deck of a cattle-boat is of a certainty no worse than O'Rourke's cellar, and, however long the passage, of a surety there will be as much provision as was ever to be found in wandering about these streets ere I fell in with you and Oliver. I pray you, therefore, assist me to reach London if it be in your power."

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