Part 15

Names that to fear were never known, Bold Norfolk’s Earl de Brotherton And Oxford’s famed De Vere; Ross, Montague, and Manly came, And Courtney’s pride and Percy’s fame, Names known too well in Scotland’s war At Falkirk, Methoven, and Dunbar, Blazed broader yet in after years At Cressy red and fell Poitiers.

Against this terrible force, before which in the succeeding reign the military power of France was compelled to bow, Bruce had to array the scanty troops of a barren land and the divided force of a turbulent nobility. Scotland was in his time fallen low, indeed, from that state of peace and prosperity in which she was found at the first invasion of Edward I, and on which so much light has been thrown by the ingenious research of our own times. The disputed succession had sowed the seeds of inextinguishable jealousies among the nobles. The gold of England had corrupted many to betray their country’s cause; and the fatal ravages of English invasion had desolated the whole plains, from which resources for carrying on the war could be drawn.

All the heroic valor, the devoted patriotism, and the personal prowess of Wallace had been unable to stem the torrent of English invasion; and when he died the whole nation seemed to sink under the load against which his unexampled fortitude had long enabled it to struggle. These unhappy jealousies among the nobles, to which his downfall was owing, still continued and almost rendered hopeless any attempt to combine their forces; while the thinned population and ruined husbandry of the country seemed to prognosticate nothing but utter extirpation from a continuance of the war. Nor was the prospect less melancholy from a consideration of the combats which had taken place. The short spear and light shield of the Scotch had been found utterly unavailing against the iron panoply and powerful horses of the English barons, while the hardy and courageous mountaineers perished in vain under the dreadful tempest of the English archery.

What, then, must have been the courage of the youthful prince, who, after having been driven for shelter to an island on the north of Ireland, could venture with only forty followers to raise the standard of independence in Scotland against the accumulated force of this mighty power! What the resources of that understanding, which, though intimately acquainted from personal service with the tried superiority of the English arms, could foresee in his barren and exhausted country the means of combatting them! What the ability of that political conduct which could reunite the jarring interests and smother the deadly feuds of the Scottish nobles! And what the capacity of that noble warrior who, in the words of the contemporary historian,[22] could “unite the prowess of the first knight to the conduct of the greatest general of his age,” and was able in the space of six years to raise the Scottish arms from the lowest point of depression to such a pitch of glory that even the redoubted archers and haughty chivalry of England fled at the sight of the Scottish banner!

Nor was it only in the field that the great and patriotic conduct of Robert Bruce was displayed. In endeavor to restore the almost ruined fortunes of his country and to heal the wounds which a war of unparalleled severity had brought upon this people he exhibited the same wise and beneficent policy. Under his auspicious rule, husbandry revived, arts were encouraged, and the turbulent barons were awed into subjection. Scotland recovered during his administration in a great measure from the devastation that had preceded it; and the peasants, forgetting the stern warrior in the beneficent monarch, long remembered his sway under the name of the “good King Robert’s reign.”

But the greatness of his character appeared most of all from the events that occurred after his death. When the capacity with which he and his worthy associates Randolph and Douglas had counterbalanced the superiority of English arms was withdrawn, the fabric which they had supported fell to the ground. In the very first battle which was fought after his death at Hamildon Hill, a larger army than that which conquered at Bannockburn was overthrown by the archers of England, without a single knight couching his spear. Never at any subsequent period was Scotland able to stand the more powerful arms of the English yeomanry. Thenceforward her military history is little more than a melancholy catalogue of continued defeats, occasioned rather by treachery on the part of her nobles or incapacity in her generals than any defect of valor in her soldiers; and the independence of the monarchy was maintained rather by the terror which the name of Bruce and the remembrance of Bannockburn had inspired than by the achievements of any of the successors to his throne.

The merits of Robert Bruce as a warrior are very generally acknowledged; and the eyes of Scottish patriotism turn with the greater exultation to his triumphs from the contrast which their splendor affords to the barren annals of the subsequent reigns. But the important consequences of his victories are not sufficiently appreciated. But for his bold and unconquerable spirit, Scotland might have shared with Ireland the severity of English conquest; and instead of exulting now in the prosperity of our country, the energy of our peasantry, and the patriotic spirit of our resident landed proprietors, we might have been deploring with her an absent nobility, an oppressive tenantry, a bigoted and ruined people.

EDWARD III, KING OF ENGLAND.

BY DAVID HUME.

[Son of Edward II of England and Isabella of France, born 1312, crowned 1327, died 1377. Edward achieved the highest renown by his Scotch and French wars, the latter of which he undertook as claimant of the French throne through his mother. Though the latter part of his life was marked by many misfortunes, the achievements of his reign stamp it as among the most important in the earlier English annals. It was not until this period that the English language became universally recognized as the national speech, and the various race elements were thoroughly welded and made homogeneous.]

The English are apt to consider with peculiar fondness the history of Edward III, and to esteem his reign, as it was one of the longest, the most glorious, also, that occurs in the annals of their nation. The ascendant which they then began to acquire over France, their rival and supposed national enemy, makes them cast their eyes on this period with great complacency, and sanctifies every measure which Edward embraced for that end. But the domestic government of this prince is really more admirable than his foreign victories; and England enjoyed, by the prudence and vigor of his administration, a longer interval of domestic peace and tranquillity than she had been blessed with in any former period, or than she experienced for many ages after. He gained the affections of the great, yet curbed their licentiousness; he made them feel his power, without their daring, or even being inclined, to murmur at it; his affable and obliging behavior, his munificence and generosity, made them submit with pleasure to his dominion; his valor and conduct made them successful in most of their enterprises; and their unquiet spirits, directed against a public enemy, had no leisure to breed those disturbances to which they were naturally so much inclined, and which the frame of the government seemed so much to authorize.

This was the chief benefit which resulted from Edward’s victories and conquests. His foreign wars were in other respects neither founded in justice nor directed to any salutary purpose. His attempt against the King of Scotland, a minor and a brother-in-law, and the revival of his grandfather’s claim of superiority over that kingdom were both unreasonable and ungenerous; and he allowed himself to be too easily seduced, by the glaring prospect of French conquests, from the acquisition of a point which was practicable, and which, if attained, might really have been of lasting utility to his country and his successors. The success which he met with in France, though chiefly owing to his eminent talents, was unexpected; and yet from the very nature of things, not from any unforeseen accidents, was found, even during his lifetime, to have procured him no solid advantages. But the glory of a conqueror is so dazzling to the vulgar, the animosity of nations is so violent, that the fruitless desolation of so fine a part of Europe as France is totally disregarded by us, and is never considered as a blemish in the character or conduct of this prince; and, indeed, from the unfortunate state of human nature, it will commonly happen that a sovereign of genius, such as Edward, who usually finds everything easy in his domestic government, will turn himself toward military enterprises, where alone he meets with opposition, and where he has full exercise for his industry and capacity.

It is remarked by an elegant historian that conquerors, though usually the bane of human kind, proved often, in those feudal times, the most indulgent of sovereigns. They stood most in need of supplies from their people; and not being able to compel them by force to submit to the necessary impositions, they were obliged to make them some compensation by equitable laws and popular concessions. This remark is, in some measure, though imperfectly, justified by the conduct of Edward III. He took no steps of moment without consulting his Parliament and obtaining their approbation, which he afterward pleaded as a reason for their supporting his measures. The Parliament, therefore, rose into greater consideration during his reign, and acquired more regular authority than in any former time; and even the House of Commons, which during turbulent and factious periods, was naturally depressed by the greater power of the crown and barons, began to appear of some weight in the constitution. In the later years of Edward, the king’s ministers were impeached in Parliament, particularly Lord Latimer, who fell a sacrifice to the authority of the Commons; and they even obliged the king to banish his mistress by their remonstrances. Some attention was also paid to the election of their members; and lawyers, in particular, who were at that time men of character somewhat inferior, were totally excluded from the House during several Parliaments.

Edward granted about twenty parliamentary confirmations of the great charter; and these concessions are commonly appealed to as proofs of his great indulgence to the people and his tender regard for their liberties. But the contrary presumption is more natural. If the maxims of Edward’s reign had not been in general somewhat arbitrary, and if the great charter had not been frequently violated, the Parliament would never have applied for these frequent confirmations, which could add no force to a deed regularly observed, and which could serve to no other purpose than to prevent the contrary precedents from turning into a rule, and acquiring authority. It was indeed the effect of the irregular government during those ages that a statute which had been enacted some years, instead of acquiring, was imagined to lose force by time, and needed to be often renewed by recent statutes of the same sense and tenor. Hence, likewise, that general clause, so frequent in old acts of Parliament, that the statutes enacted by the king’s progenitors should be observed--a precaution which, if we do not consider the circumstances of the times, might appear absurd and ridiculous. The frequent confirmations of the privileges of the Church proceeded from the same cause.

There is not a reign among those of the ancient English monarchs which deserves more to be studied than that of Edward III, nor one where the domestic transactions will better discover the true genius of that kind of mixed government which was then established in England. The struggles with regard to the validity and authority of the great charter were now over; the king was acknowledged to lie under some limitations; Edward himself was a prince of great capacity, not governed by favorites, not led astray by any unruly passion, sensible that nothing could be more essential to his interest than to keep on good terms with his people; yet, on the whole, it appears, that the government at best was only a barbarous monarchy, not regulated by any fixed maxims nor bounded by any certain undisputed rights which in practice were regularly observed. The king conducted himself by one set of principles, the barons by another, the Commons by a third, the clergy by a fourth. All these systems of government were opposite and incompatible; each of them prevailed in its turn, as incidents were favorable to it; a great prince rendered the monarchical power predominant; the weakness of a king gave reins to the aristocracy: a superstitious age saw the clergy triumphant; the people, for whom chiefly government was instituted, and who chiefly deserve consideration, were the weakest of the whole. But the Commons, little obnoxious to any other order, though they sunk under the violence of tempests, silently reared their head in more peaceable times; and while the storm was brewing were courted on all sides, and thus received still some accession to their privileges, or at worst some confirmation of them.

RIENZI.

BY EDWARD GIBBON.

[Cola Gabrini Rienzi, the “last of the Roman tribunes,” born about 1312, died by assassination during a popular _emeute_, 1354. Inspired by his patriotic enthusiasm and made powerful by his eloquence, Rienzi, during the troubles in Rome ensuing on the removal of the Papal See to Avignon, organized an insurrection against the turbulent and factious nobles. The latter were crushed and driven from Rome, and Rienzi rose to supreme power under the title of “tribune.” Success, however, corrupted the republican virtues of the _parvenu_ tribune of the new republic; and his arrogance and splendor soon laid heavy burdens of taxation on the people, which provoked a reaction. He was finally driven from power and compelled to seek safety in flight. The return of the barons and their iron oppression, however, paved the way for the successful return of Rienzi to the chief magistracy in 1354. Unwarned by experience he again resumed the pomp and pride of royalty, and was shortly after killed in an insurrection of the citizens of Rome.]

In a quarter of the city which was inhabited only by mechanics and Jews, the marriage of an innkeeper and a washerwoman produced the future deliverer of Rome. From such parents Nicholas Rienzi Gabrini could inherit neither dignity nor fortune; and the gift of a liberal education, which they painfully bestowed, was the cause of his glory and untimely end. The study of history and eloquence, the writings of Cicero, Seneca, Livy, Cæsar, and Valerius Maximus elevated above his equals and contemporaries the genius of the young plebeian; he perused with indefatigable diligence the manuscripts and marbles of antiquity; loved to dispense his knowledge in familiar language; and was often provoked to exclaim: “Where are now these Romans? their virtue, their justice, their power? Why was I not born in those happy times?” When the republic addressed to the throne of Avignon an embassy of the three orders, the spirit and eloquence of Rienzi recommended him to a place among the thirteen deputies of the commons. The orator had the honor of haranguing Pope Clement VI, and the satisfaction of conversing with Petrarch, a congenial mind; but his aspiring hopes were chilled by disgrace and poverty, and the patriot was reduced to a single garment and the charity of the hospital. From this misery he was relieved by the sense of merit or smile of favor; and the employment of apostolic notary afforded him a daily stipend of five gold florins, a more honorable and extensive connection, and the right of contrasting, both in words and actions, his own integrity with the vices of the state. The eloquence of Rienzi was prompt and persuasive; the multitude is always prone to envy and censure; he was stimulated by the loss of a brother and the impunity of the assassins; nor was it possible to excuse or exaggerate the public calamities.

A prophecy, or rather a summons, affixed on the church door of St. George, was the first public evidence of his designs; a nocturnal (May 20, A.D. 1347) assembly of a hundred citizens on Mount Aventine, the first step to their execution. After an oath of secrecy and aid, he represented to the conspirators the importance and facility of their enterprise; that the nobles, without union or resources, were strong only in the fear of their imaginary strength; that all power, as well as right, was in the hands of the people; that the revenues of the apostolical chamber might relieve the public distress; and that the Pope himself would approve their victory over the common enemies of government and freedom. After securing a faithful band to protect his first declaration, he proclaimed through the city, by sound of trumpet, that on the evening of the following day all persons should assemble without arms before the church of St. Angelo to provide for the re-establishment of the good estate. The whole night was employed in the celebration of thirty masses of the Holy Ghost, and in the morning, Rienzi, bareheaded, but in complete armor, issued from the church, encompassed by the hundred conspirators.

The Pope’s vicar, the simple Bishop of Orvieto, who had been persuaded to sustain a part in this singular ceremony, marched on his right hand, and three great standards were borne aloft as the emblems of their design. In the first, the banner of _liberty_, Rome was seated on two lions, with a palm in one hand and a globe in the other; St. Paul, with a drawn sword, was delineated in the banner of _justice_; and in the third, St. Peter held the keys of _concord_ and _peace_. Rienzi was encouraged by the presence and applause of an innumerable crowd, who understood little and hoped much; and the procession slowly rolled forward from the castle of St. Angelo to the Capitol. His triumph was disturbed by some secret emotions which he labored to suppress; he ascended without opposition, and with seeming confidence, the citadel of the republic, harangued the people from the balcony, and received the most flattering confirmation of his acts and laws. The nobles, as if destitute of arms and counsels, beheld in silent consternation this strange revolution; and the moment had been prudently chosen, when the most formidable, Stephen Colonna, was absent from the city. On the first rumor, he returned to his palace, affected to despise this plebeian tumult, and declared to the messenger of Rienzi that at his leisure he would cast the madman from the windows of the Capitol. The great bell instantly rang an alarm, and so rapid was the tide, so urgent was the danger, that Colonna escaped with precipitation to the suburb of St. Laurence; from thence, after a moment’s refreshment, he continued the same speedy career till he reached in safety his castle of Palestrina, lamenting his own imprudence, which had not trampled the spark of this mighty conflagration. A general and peremptory order was issued from the Capitol to all the nobles that they should peaceably retire to their estates; they obeyed, and their departure secured the tranquillity of the free and obedient citizens of Rome.

Never, perhaps, has the energy and effect of a single mind been more remarkably felt than in the sudden though transient reformation of Rome by the tribune Rienzi. A den of robbers was converted to the discipline of a camp or convent; patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and stranger; nor could birth or dignity or the immunities of the Church protect the offender or his accomplices. The privileged houses, the private sanctuaries in Rome, on which no officer of justice would presume to trespass, were abolished; and he applied the timber and iron of their barricades in the fortifications of the Capitol. The venerable father of the Colonna was exposed in his own palace to the double shame of being desirous and of being unable to protect a criminal. A mule, with a jar of oil, had been stolen near Capranica, and the lord of the Ursini family was condemned to restore the damage and to discharge a fine of four hundred florins for his negligence in guarding the highways. Nor were the persons of the barons more inviolate than their lands or houses, and, either from accident or design, the same impartial rigor was exercised against the heads of the adverse factions.

Peter Agapet Colonna, who had himself been senator of Rome, was arrested in the street for injury or debt; and justice was appeased by the tardy execution of Martin Ursini, who, among his various acts of violence and rapine, had pillaged a shipwrecked vessel at the mouth of the Tiber. His name, the purple of two cardinals, his uncles, a recent marriage, and a mortal disease were disregarded by the inflexible tribune, who had chosen his victim. The public officers dragged him from his palace and nuptial bed; his trial was short and satisfactory; the bell of the Capitol convened the people. Stripped of his mantle, on his knees, with his hands bound behind his back, he heard the sentence of death, and, after a brief confession, Ursini was led away to the gallows. After such an example, none who were conscious of guilt could hope for impunity, and the flight of the wicked, the licentious, and the idle soon purified the city and territory of Rome. In this time (says the historian) the woods began to rejoice that they were no longer infested with robbers; the oxen began to plow; the pilgrims visited the sanctuaries; the roads and inns were replenished with travelers; trade, plenty, and good faith were restored in the markets; and a purse of gold might be exposed without danger in the midst of the highway. As soon as the life and property of the subject are secure, the labors and rewards of industry spontaneously revive. Rome was still the metropolis of the Christian world, and the fame and fortunes of the tribune were diffused in every country by the strangers who had enjoyed the blessings of his government.

The deliverance of his country inspired Rienzi with a vast and perhaps visionary idea of uniting Italy in a great federative republic, of which Rome should be the ancient and lawful head, and the free cities and princes the members and associates. His pen was not less eloquent than his tongue, and his numerous epistles were delivered to swift and trusty messengers. On foot, with a white wand in their hand, they traversed the forests and mountains; enjoyed, in the most hostile states, the sacred security of ambassadors; and reported, in the style of flattery or truth, that the highways along their passage were lined with kneeling multitudes, who implored Heaven for the success of their undertaking. Beyond the Alps, more especially at Avignon, the revolution was the theme of curiosity, wonder, and applause. Petrarch had been the private friend, perhaps the secret counselor, of Rienzi; his writings breathe the most ardent spirit of patriotism and joy; and all respect for the Pope, all gratitude for the Colonna, was lost in the superior duties of a Roman citizen. The poet-laureate of the Capitol maintains the act, applauds the hero, and mingles with some apprehension and advice the most lofty hopes of the permanent and rising greatness of the republic.