Almost the first act of the Commons was the impeachment and trial of Strafford and Laud, as the most prominent instruments of the king’s tyranny and usurpation. Both were finally brought to the block. The three iniquitous and illegal courts of which we have spoken (see p. 607) were abolished. And the Commons, to secure themselves against dissolution before their work was done, enacted a law which provided that they should not be adjourned or dissolved without their own consent.
CHARLES’S ATTEMPT TO SEIZE THE FIVE MEMBERS.–An act of violence on the part of Charles now precipitated the nation into the gulf of civil war, towards which events had been so rapidly drifting. With the design of overawing the Commons, the king made a charge of treason against five of the leading members, among whom were Hampden and Pym, and sent officers to effect their arrest; but the accused were not to be found. The next day Charles himself, accompanied to the door of the chamber by armed attendants, went to the House, for the purpose of seizing the five members; but, having been forewarned of the king’s intention, they had withdrawn from the hall. The king was not long in realizing the state of affairs, and with the observation, “I see the birds have flown,” withdrew from the chamber.
Charles had taken a fatal step. The nation could not forgive the insult offered to its representatives. All London rose in arms. The king, frightened by the storm which he had raised, fled from the city to York. From this flight of Charles from London, may be dated the beginning of the Civil War (Jan. 10, 1642).
Having now traced the events which led up to this open strife between the king and his people, we shall pass very lightly over the incidents of the struggle itself, and hasten to speak of the Commonwealth, to the establishment of which the struggle led.
3. _The Civil War_ (1642-1649).
THE BEGINNING.–After the flight of the king, negotiations were entered into between him and Parliament with a view to a reconciliation. The demands of Parliament were that the militia, the services of the Church, the education and marriage of the king’s children, and many other matters should be subject to the control of the two Houses. In making all these demands Parliament had manifestly gone to unreasonable and unconstitutional lengths; but their distrust of Charles was so profound, that they were unwilling to leave in his hands any power or prerogative that might be perverted or abused. Charles refused, as might have been and was expected, to accede to the propositions of Parliament, and unfurling the royal standard at Nottingham, called upon all loyal subjects to rally to the support of their king (Aug. 22, 1642).
THE TWO PARTIES.–The country was now divided into two great parties. Those that enlisted under the king’s standard–on whose side rallied, for the most part, the nobility, the gentry, and the clergy–were known as Royalists, or Cavaliers; while those that gathered about the Parliamentary banner were called Parliamentarians, or Roundheads, the latter term being applied to them because many of their number cropped their hair close to the head, simply for the reason that the Cavaliers affected long and flowing locks. The Cavaliers, in the main, favored the Established Church, while the Roundheads were, in general, Puritans. During the progress of the struggle the Puritans split into two parties, or sects, known as Presbyterians and Independents.
For six years England now suffered even greater evils than those that marked that earlier civil strife known as the Wars of the Roses.
OLIVER CROMWELL AND HIS “IRONSIDES.”–The war had continued about three years when there came into prominence among the officers of the Parliamentary forces a man of destiny, one of the great characters of history,–Oliver Cromwell. During the early campaigns of the war, as colonel of a regiment of cavalry, he had exhibited his rare genius as an organizer and disciplinarian. His regiment became famous under the name of “Cromwell’s Ironsides.” It was composed entirely of “men of religion.” Swearing, drinking, and the usual vices of the camp were unknown among them. They advanced to the charge singing psalms. During all the war the regiment was never once beaten.
THE SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE (1645).–In the course of the war the Puritans, as has been said, became divided into two parties, the Presbyterians and the Independents. The former desired to reestablish a limited monarchy; the latter wished to sweep aside the old constitution and form a republic.
In the third year of the war there arose a struggle as to which party should have control of the army. By means of what was called the “Self- denying Ordinance,” which declared that no member of either House should hold a position in the army, the Independents effected the removal from their command of several conservative noblemen. Cromwell, as he was a member of the House of Commons, should also have given up his command; but the ordinance was suspended in his case, so that he might retain his place as lieutenant-general. Sir Thomas Fairfax was made commander-in-chief. Though Cromwell was nominally second in command, he was now really at the head of the army.
THE “NEW MODEL.”–Cromwell at once set about to effect the entire remodelling of the army on the plan of his favorite Ironsides. His idea was that “the chivalry of the Cavalier must be met by the religious enthusiasm of the Puritan.” The army was reduced to 20,000 men–all honest, fervent, God-fearing, psalm-singing Puritans. When not fighting, they studied the Bible, prayed and sung hymns. Since Godfrey led his crusaders to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, the world had not beheld another such army of religious enthusiasts. From Cromwell down to the lowest soldier of the “New Model,” every man felt called of the Lord to strike down all forms of tyranny in Church and State.
THE BATTLE OF NASEBY (1645).–The temper of the “New Model” was soon tried in the battle of Naseby, the decisive engagement of the war. The Royalists were scattered to the winds, and their cause was irretrievably lost. Charles escaped from the field, and ultimately fled into Scotland, thinking that he might rely upon the loyalty of the Scots to the House of Stuart; but on his refusing to sign the Covenant and certain other articles, they gave him up to the English Parliament.
“PRIDE’S PURGE” (1648).–Now, there were many in the Parliament who were in favor of restoring the king unconditionally to his throne, that is, without requiring from him any guaranties that he would in the future rule in accordance with the constitution and the laws of the land. The Independents, which means Cromwell and the army, saw in this possibility the threatened ruin of all their hopes, and the loss of all the fruits of victory. A high-handed measure was resolved upon,–the exclusion from the House of Commons of all those members who favored the restoration of Charles.
Accordingly, an officer by the name of Pride was stationed at the door of the hall, to arrest the members obnoxious to the army. One hundred and forty members were thus kept from their seats, and the Commons thereby reduced to about fifty representatives, all of whom of course were Independents. This performance was appropriately called “Pride’s Purge.” It was simply an act of military usurpation.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE KING.–The Commons thus “purged” of the king’s friends now passed a resolution for the immediate trial of Charles for treason. A High Court of Justice, comprising 150 members, was organized, before which Charles was summoned. Before the close of a week he was condemned to be executed “as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and enemy of his country.”
II. THE COMMONWEALTH (1649-1660).
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH.–A few weeks after the execution of Charles, the Commons voted to abolish the Monarchy and the House of Lords, and to establish a republic, under the name of “The Commonwealth.” The executive power was lodged in a Council of State, composed of forty-one persons. Of this body Bradshaw, an eminent lawyer, was the nominal, but Cromwell the real, head.
TROUBLES OF THE COMMONWEALTH.–The republic thus born of mingled religious and political enthusiasm was beset with dangers from the very first. The execution of Charles had alarmed every sovereign in Europe. Russia, France, and Holland, all refused to have any communication with the ambassadors of the Commonwealth. The Scots, who too late repented of having surrendered their native sovereign into the hands of his enemies, now hastened to wipe out the stain of their disloyalty by proclaiming his son their king, with the title of Charles the Second. The impulsive Irish also declared for the Prince; while the Dutch began active preparations to assist him in regaining the throne of his unfortunate father. In England itself the Royalists were active and threatening.
WAR WITH IRELAND.–The Commonwealth, like the ancient republic of Rome, seemed to gather strength and energy from the very multitude of surrounding dangers. Cromwell was made Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and sent into that country to crush a rising of the Royalists there. With his Ironsides he made quick and terrible work of the conquest of the island. Having taken by storm the town of Drogheda (1649), he massacred the entire garrison, consisting of three thousand men. About a thousand who had sought asylum in a church were butchered there without mercy. The capture of other towns was accompanied by massacres little less terrible. The conqueror’s march through the island was the devastating march of an Attila or a Zinghis Khan. The following is his own account of the manner in which he dealt with the captured garrisons: “When they submitted, their officers were knocked on the head, and every tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest shipped for Barbadoes [to be sold into slavery].”
WAR WITH SCOTLAND.–Cromwell was called out of Ireland by the Council to lead an army into Scotland. The terror of his name went before him, and the people fled as he approached. At Dunbar he met the Scotch army. Before the terrible onset of the fanatic Roundheads the Scots were scattered like chaff before the wind (1650).
The following year, on the anniversary of the Battle of Dunbar, Cromwell gained another great victory over the Scottish army at Worcester, and all Scotland was soon after forced to submit to the authority of the Commonwealth. Prince Charles, after many adventurous experiences, escaped across the Channel into Normandy.
CROMWELL EJECTS THE LONG PARLIAMENT (1653).–The war in Scotland was followed by one with the Dutch. While this war was in progress Parliament came to an open quarrel with the army. Cromwell demanded of Parliament their dissolution, and the calling of a new body. This they refused; whereupon, taking with him a body of soldiers, Cromwell went to the House, and after listening impatiently for a while to the debate, suddenly sprang to his feet, and, with bitter reproaches, exclaimed: “I will put an end to your prating. Get you gone; give place to better men. You are no Parliament. The Lord has done with you.” The soldiers rushing in at a preconcerted signal, the hall was cleared, and the doors locked (1653).
In such summary manner the Long Parliament, or the “Rump Parliament,” as it was called in derision after Pride’s Purge, was dissolved, after having sat for twelve years. So completely had the body lost the confidence and respect of all parties, that scarcely a murmur was heard against the illegal and arbitrary mode of its dissolution.
THE LITTLE PARLIAMENT.–Cromwell now called a new Parliament, or more properly a convention, summoning, so far as he might, only religious, God- fearing men. The “Little Parliament,” as generally called, consisted of 156 members, mainly religious persons, who spent much of their time in Scripture exegesis, prayer, and exhortation. Among them was a London leather-merchant, named Praise-God Barebone, who was especially given to these exercises. The name amused the people, and they nicknamed the Convention the “Praise-God Barebone Parliament.”
The Little Parliament sat only a few months, during which time, however, it really did some excellent work, particularly in the way of suggesting important reforms. It at length resigned all its powers into the hands of Cromwell; and shortly afterwards his council of army officers, fearing the country would fall into anarchy, persuaded him–though manifesting reluctance, he probably was quite willing to be persuaded–to accept the title of “Lord Protector of the Commonwealth.”
[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL]
THE PROTECTORATE (1653-1659).–Cromwell’s power was now almost unlimited. He was virtually a dictator. His administration was harsh and despotic. He summoned, prorogued, and dissolved parliaments. The nation was really under martial law. Royalists and active Roman Catholics were treated with the utmost rigor. A censorship of the Press was established. Scotland was overawed by strong garrisons. The Irish Royalists, rising against the “usurper,” were crushed with remorseless severity. Thousands were massacred, and thousands more were transported to the West Indies to be sold as slaves.
While the resolute and despotic character of Cromwell’s government secured obedience at home, its strength and vigor awakened the fear as well as the admiration of foreign nations. He gave England the strongest, and in many respects the best, government she had had since the days of Henry VIII and Elizabeth.
CROMWELL’S DEATH.–Notwithstanding Cromwell was a man of immovable resolution and iron spirit, he felt sorely the burdens of his government, and was deeply troubled by the perplexities of his position. With his constitution undermined by overwork and anxiety, fever attacked him, and with gloomy apprehensions as to the terrible dangers into which England might drift after his hand had fallen from the helm of affairs, he lay down to die, passing away on the day which he had always called his “fortunate day”–the anniversary of his birth, and also the anniversary of his great victories of Dunbar and Worcester (Sept. 3, 1658).
RICHARD CROMWELL (1658-1659).–Cromwell with his dying breath had designated his son Richard as his successor in the office of the Protectorate. Richard was exactly the opposite of his father,–timid, irresolute, and irreligious. The control of affairs that had taxed to the utmost the genius and resources of the father was altogether too great an undertaking for the incapacity and inexperience of the son. No one was quicker to realize this than Richard himself, and after a rule of a few months, yielding to the pressure of the army, whose displeasure he had incurred, he resigned the Protectorate. Had he possessed one-half the energy and practical genius that characterized his father, the crown would probably have become hereditary in the family of the Cromwells, and their house might have been numbered among the royal houses of England.
THE RESTORATION (1660).–For some months after the fall of the Protectorate the country trembled on the verge of anarchy. The gloomy outlook into the future, and the unsatisfactory experiment of the Commonwealth, caused the great mass of the English people earnestly to desire the restoration of the Monarchy. Prince Charles, towards whom the tide of returning royalty was running, was now in Holland. A race was actually run between Monk, the leader of the army, and Parliament, to see which should first present him with the invitation to return to his people, and take his place upon the throne of his ancestors. Amid the wildest demonstrations of joy, Charles stepped ashore on the island from which he had been for nine years an exile. As he observed the preparations made for his reception, and received from all parties the warmest congratulations, he remarked with pleasant satire, “It is my own fault that I did not come back sooner, for I find nobody who does not tell me he has always longed for my return.”
1. _Puritan Literature_.
IT LIGHTS UP THE RELIGIOUS SIDE OF THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION.–No epoch in history receives a fresher illustration from the study of its literature than that of the Puritan Commonwealth. To neglect this, and yet hope to gain a true conception of that wonderful episode in the life of the English people by an examination of its outer events and incidents alone, would, as Green declares, be like trying to form an idea of the life and work of ancient Israel from the _Kings_ and the _Chronicles_, without the _Psalms_ and the _Prophets_. The true character of the English Revolution, especially upon its religious side, must be sought in the magnificent Epic of Milton and the unequalled Allegory of Bunyan.
Both of these great works, it is true, were written after the Restoration, but they were both inspired by the same spirit that had struck down Despotism and set up the Commonwealth. The Epic was the work of a lonely, disappointed Republican; the Allegory, of a captive Puritan.
Milton (1608-1674) stands as the grandest representative of Puritanism. He was the greatest statesman of the Revolution, the stoutest champion of English liberties against the tyranny of the House of Stuart. After the beheading of Charles I. he wrote a famous work in Latin, entitled _The Defence of the English People_, in which he justified the execution of the king.
The Restoration forced Milton into retirement, and the last fourteen years of his life were passed apart from the world. It was during these years that, in loneliness and blindness, he composed the immortal poems _Paradise Lost_ and _Paradise Regained_. The former is the “Epic of Puritanism.” All that was truest and grandest in the Puritan character found expression in the moral elevation and religious fervor of this the greatest of Christian poems.
John Bunyan (1628-1688) was a Puritan non-conformist. After the Restoration, he was imprisoned for twelve years in Bedford jail, on account of non-conformity to the established worship. It was during this dreary confinement that he wrote his _Pilgrim’s Progress_, the most admirable allegory in English literature. The habit of the Puritan, from constant study of the Bible, to employ in all forms of discourse its language and imagery, is best illustrated in the pages of this remarkable work.
III. THE RESTORED STUARTS.
1. _Reign of Charles the Second_ (1660-1685).
PUNISHMENT OF THE REGICIDES.–The monarchy having been restored in the person of Charles II, Parliament extended a general pardon to all who had taken part in the late rebellion, save most of the judges who had condemned Charles I. to the block. Thirteen of these were executed with the revolting cruelty with which treason was then punished, their hearts and bowels being cut out of their living bodies. Others of the regicides were condemned to imprisonment for life. Death had already removed the great leaders of the rebellion, Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, beyond the reach of Royalist hate; so vengeance was taken upon their bodies. These were dragged from their tombs in Westminster Abbey, hauled to Tyburn in London, and there, on the anniversary of Charles’s execution, were hanged, and afterwards beheaded (1661).
THE “NEW MODEL” IS DISBANDED.–This same Parliament, mindful of how the army had ruled preceding ones, took care to disband, as soon as possible, the “New Model.” “With them,” in the words of the historian Green, “Puritanism laid down the sword. It ceased from the long attempt to build up a kingdom of God by force and violence, and fell back on its truer work of building up a kingdom of righteousness in the hearts and consciences of men.”
On the pretext, however, that the disturbed state of the realm demanded special precautions on the part of the government, Charles retained in his service three carefully chosen regiments, to which he gave the name of Guards. These, very soon augmented in number, formed the nucleus of the present standing army of England.
THE CONVENTICLE AND FIVE-MILE ACTS.–Early in the reign the services of the Anglican Church were restored by Parliament, and harsh laws were enacted against all non-conformists. Thus the Conventicle Act made it a crime punishable by imprisonment or transportation for more than five persons besides the household to gather in any house or in any place for worship, unless the service was conducted according to the forms of the Established Church.
The Five-Mile Act forbade any non-conformist minister who refused to swear that it is unlawful to take arms against the king _under any circumstance_, and that he never would attempt to make any change in Church or State government, to approach within five miles of any city, corporate town, or borough sending members to Parliament. This harsh act forced hundreds to give up their homes in the towns, and, with great inconvenience and loss, to seek new ones in out-of-the-way country places.
PERSECUTION OF THE COVENANTERS.–In Scotland the attempt to suppress conventicles and introduce Episcopacy was stubbornly resisted by the Covenanters, who insisted on their right to worship God in their own way. They were therefore subjected to most cruel and unrelenting persecution. They were hunted by English troopers over their native moors and among the wild recesses of their mountains, whither they secretly retired for prayer and worship. The tales of the suffering of the Scotch Covenanters at the hands of the English Protestants form a most harrowing chapter of the records of the ages of religious persecution.
THE FIRE, THE PLAGUE, AND THE DUTCH WAR.–The years from 1664 to 1667 were crowded with calamities,–with war, plague, and fire. The poet Dryden not inaptly calls the year 1666, in which the Great Fire at London added its horrors to those of pestilence and war, the _Annus Mirabilis_, or “Year of Wonders.”
The war alluded to was a struggle between the English and the Dutch, which grew out of commercial rivalries (1664-1667). Just before the war began, the English treacherously seized the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam in America, and changed its name to New York in honor of the king’s brother, the Duke of York.
Early in the summer of 1665 the city of London was swept by a woeful plague, the most terrible visitation the city had known since the Black Death in the Middle Ages (see p. 485). Within six months 100,000 of the population perished.
The plague was followed, the next year, by the great fire, which destroyed 13,000 houses, and a vast number of churches and public buildings. The fire was afterwards acknowledged to be, like the Great Fire at Rome in Nero’s reign, a blessing in disguise. The burnt districts were rebuilt in a more substantial way, with broader streets and more airy residences, so that London became a more beautiful and healthful city than would have been possible without the fire.
CHARLES’S INTRIGUES WITH LOUIS XIV.–Charles inclined to the Catholic worship, and wished to reestablish the Roman Catholic Church, because he thought it more favorable than the Anglican to such a scheme of government as he aimed to set up in England. In the year 1670 he made a secret treaty with the French king, the terms and objects of which were most scandalous. In return for aid which he was to render Louis in an attack upon Holland, he was to receive from him a large sum of money; and in case his proposed declaration in favor of the restoration of the Catholic Church produced any trouble in the island, the aid of French troops. The scheme was never consummated; but these clandestine negotiations, however, becoming an open secret, made the people very uneasy and suspicious. This state of the public mind led to a serious delusion and panic.
THE “POPISH PLOT” (1678).–A rumor was started that the Catholics had planned for England a St. Bartholomew massacre. The king, the members of Parliament, and all Protestants were to be massacred, the Catholic Church was to be reestablished, and the king’s brother James, the Duke of York, a zealous Catholic, was to be placed on the throne. Each day the reports of the conspiracy grew more exaggerated and wild. Informers sprang up on every hand, each with a more terrifying story than the preceding. One of these witnesses, Titus Oates by name, a most infamous person, gained an extraordinary notoriety in exposing the imaginary plot. Many Catholics, convicted solely on the testimony of perjured witnesses, became victims of the delusion and fraud.
The excitement produced by the supposed plot led Parliament to pass what was called the Test Act, which excluded Catholics from the House of Lords. (They had already been shut out from the House of Commons by the oath of Supremacy, which was required of commoners, though not of peers.) The disability created by this statute was not removed from them until the present century,–in the reign of George the Fourth.
ORIGIN OF THE WHIG AND TORY PARTIES.–Besides shutting Catholic peers out of Parliament, there were many in both houses who were determined to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. Those in favor of the measure of exclusion were called Whigs, those who opposed it Tories. [Footnote: For the meaning of the names Whig and Tory, see _Glossary_.] We cannot, perhaps, form a better general idea of the maxims and principles of these two parties than by calling the Whigs the political descendants of the Roundheads, and the Tories of the Cavaliers. Later, they became known respectively as Liberals and Conservatives.
THE KING’S DEATH.–After a reign of just a quarter of a century, Charles died in 1685, and was followed by his brother James, whose rule was destined to be short and troubled.
2. _Reign of James the Second_ (1685-1688).
JAMES’S DESPOTIC COURSE. [Footnote: James was barely seated upon the throne before the Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II., who had been in exile in the Netherlands, asserted his right to the crown, and at the head of a hundred men invaded England. Thousands flocked to his standard, but in the battle of Sedgemoor (1685) he was utterly defeated by the royal troops. Terrible vengeance was wreaked upon all in any way connected with the rebellion. The notorious Chief Justice Jeffries, in what were called the “Bloody Assizes,” condemned to death 320 persons, and sentenced 841 to transportation. Jeffries conducted the so-called trials with incredible brutality.]–James, like all the other Stuarts, held exalted notions of the divine right of kings to rule as they please, and at once set about carrying out these ideas in a most imprudent and reckless manner. Notwithstanding he had given most solemn assurances that he would uphold the Anglican Church, he straightway set about the reestablishment of the Roman Catholic worship. He arbitrarily prorogued and dissolved Parliament. The standing army, which Charles had raised to 10,000 men, he increased to 20,000, and placed Catholics in many of its most important offices. He formed a league against his own subjects with Louis XIV. The High Commission Court of Elizabeth, which had been abolished by Parliament, he practically restored in a new ecclesiastical tribunal presided over by the infamous Jeffries (see note, below).
The despotic course of the king raised up enemies on all sides. No party or sect, save the most zealous Catholics, stood by him. The Tory gentry were in favor of royalty, indeed, but not of tyranny. Thinking to make friends of the Protestant dissenters, James issued a decree known as the Declaration of Indulgence, whereby he suspended all the laws against non- conformists. This edict all the clergy were ordered to read from their pulpits. Almost to a man they refused to do so. Seven bishops even dared to send the king a petition and remonstrance against his unconstitutional proceedings.
The petitioners were thrust into the Tower, and soon brought to trial on the charge of “seditious libel.” The nation was now thoroughly aroused, and the greatest excitement prevailed while the trial was progressing. Judges and jury were overawed by the popular demonstration, and the bishops were acquitted. The news of the result of the trial was received not only by the people, but by the army as well, with shouts of joy, which did not fail to reach even the dull ears of the king.
THE REVOLUTION OF 1688.–The crisis which it was easy to see was impending was hastened by the birth of a prince, as this cut off the hope of the nation that the crown upon James’s death would descend to his daughter Mary, now wife of the Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland. The prospect of the accession in the near future of a Protestant and freedom loving Prince and Princess had reconciled the people to the misgovernment of their present despotic and Catholic sovereign. The appearance upon the stage of an infant prince gave a wholly different look to affairs, and, as we have said, destroyed all hope of matters being righted by the ordinary course of events.
This led the most active of the king’s opponents to resolve to bring about at once what they had been inclined to wait to have accomplished by his death. They sent an invitation to the Prince of Orange to come over with such force as he could muster and take possession of the government, pledging him the united and hearty support of the English nation. William accepted the invitation, and straightway began to gather his fleet and army for the enterprise.
Meanwhile King James, in his blind and obstinate way, was rushing on headlong upon his own destruction. He seemed absolutely blind to the steady and rapid drift of the nation towards the point of open resistance and revolution. At last, when the sails of the Dutch fleet were spread for a descent upon the English shores, then the infatuated despot suddenly realized that absolute ruin was impending over his throne. He now adopted every expedient to avert the threatened evil. He restored to cities the charters he had wrongfully taken from them, reinstated magistrates in the positions from which they had been unjustly deposed, attempted to make friends with the bishops, and promised to sustain the Anglican Church and rule in accordance with the constitution of the realm.
All concessions and promises, however, were in vain. They came too late. The king was absolutely deserted; army and people went over in a body to the Prince of Orange, whose fleet had now touched the shores of the island. Flight alone was left him. The queen with her infant child secretly embarked for France, where the king soon after joined her. The last act of the king before leaving England was to disband the army, and fling the Great Seal into the Thames, in order that no parliament might be legally convened.
The first act of the Prince of Orange was to issue a call for a Convention to provide for the permanent settlement of the crown. This body met January 22, 1689, and after a violent debate declared the throne to be vacant through James’s misconduct and flight. They then resolved to confer the royal dignity upon William and his wife Mary as joint sovereigns of the realm.
But this Convention did not repeat the error of the Parliament that restored Charles II., and give the crown to the Prince and Princess without proper safeguards and guaranties for the conduct of the government according to the ancient laws of the kingdom. They drew up the celebrated Declaration of Rights, which plainly rehearsed all the old rights and liberties of Englishmen; denied the right of the king to lay taxes or maintain an army without the consent of Parliament; and asserted that freedom of debate was the inviolable privilege of both the Lords and the Commons. William and Mary were required to accept this declaration, and to agree to rule in accordance with its provisions, whereupon they were declared King and Queen of England. In such manner was effected what is known in history as the Revolution of 1688.
3. _Literature of the Restoration_.
IT REFLECTS THE IMMORALITY OF THE AGE.–The reigns of the restored Stuarts mark the most corrupt period in the history of English society. The low standard of morals, and the general prodigacy in manners, especially among the higher classes, are in part attributable to the demoralizing example of a shockingly licentious and shameless court; but in a larger measure, perhaps, should be viewed as the natural reaction from the over-stern, repellent Puritanism of the preceding period. The Puritans undoubtedly erred in their indiscriminate and wholesale denunciation of all forms of harmless amusement and innocent pleasure. They not only rebuked gaming, drinking, and profanity, and stopped bear-baiting, but they closed all the theatres, forbade the Maypole dances of the people, condemned as paganish the observance of Christmas, frowned upon sculpture as idolatrous and indecent, and considered any bright color in dress as utterly incompatible with a proper sense of the seriousness of life.
Now all this was laying too heavy a burden upon human nature. The revolt and reaction came, as come they must. Upon the Restoration, society swung to the opposite extreme. In place of the solemn-visaged, psalm-singing Roundhead, we have the gay, roistering Cavalier. Faith gives place to infidelity, sobriety to drunkenness, purity to profligacy, economy to extravagance, Bible-study, psalm-singing and exhorting to theatre-going, profanity, and carousing.
The literature of the age is a perfect record of this revolt against the “sour severity” of Puritanism, and a faithful reflection of the unblushing immorality of the times.
The book most read and praised by Charles II, and his court, and the one that best represents the spirit of the victorious party, is the satirical poem of _Hudibras_ by Samuel Butler. The object of the work is to satirize the cant and excesses of Puritanism, just as the _Don Quixote_ of Cervantes burlesques the extravagances and follies of Chivalry.
So immoral and indecent are the works of the writers for the stage of this period that they have acquired the designation of “the corrupt dramatists.” Among the authors of this species of literature was the poet Dryden.
IV. THE ORANGE-STUARTS.
1. _Reign of William and Mary_ (1689-1702).
THE BILL OF RIGHTS.–The Revolution of 1688, and the new settlement of the crown upon William and Mary, marks an epoch in the constitutional history of England. It settled forever the long dispute between king and Parliament–and settled it in favor of the latter. The Bill of Rights,– the articles of the Declaration of Rights (see p. 624) framed into a law, –which was one of the earliest acts of the first Parliament under William and Mary, in effect “transferred sovereignty from the king to the House of Commons.” It asserted plainly that the kings of England derive their right and title to rule, not from the accident of birth, but from the will of the people, and declared that Parliament might depose any king, exclude his heirs from the throne, and settle the crown anew in another family. This uprooted thoroughly the pernicious doctrine that princes have a divine and inalienable right to the throne of their ancestors, and when once seated on that throne rule simply as the vicegerents of God, above all human censure and control. We shall hear but little more in England of this monstrous theory, which for so long a time overshadowed and threatened the freedom of the English people.
Mindful of Charles’s attempt to reestablish the Roman Catholic worship, the framers of this same famous Bill of Rights further declared that all persons holding communion with the Church of Rome or uniting in marriage with a Roman Catholic, should be “forever incapable to possess, inherit, or enjoy the crown and government of the realm.” Since the Revolution of 1688 no one of that faith has worn the English crown.
The other provisions of the bill, following closely the language of the Declaration, forbade the king to levy taxes or keep an army in time of peace without the consent of Parliament; demanded that Parliament should be frequently assembled; reaffirmed, as one of the ancient privileges of both Houses, perfect freedom of debate; and positively denied the dispensing power of the crown, that is, the authority claimed by the Stuarts of exempting certain persons from the penalty of the law by a royal edict.
All of these provisions now became inwrought into the English Constitution, and from this time forward were recognized as part of the fundamental law of the realm.
SETTLEMENT OF THE REVENUE.–The articles of the Bill of Rights were made effectual by appropriate legislation. One thing which had enabled the Tudors and Stuarts to be so independent of Parliament was the custom which prevailed of granting to each king, at the beginning of his reign, the ordinary revenue of the kingdom during his life. This income, with what could be raised by gifts, benevolences, monopolies, and similar expedients, had enabled despotic sovereigns to administer the government, wage war, and engage in any wild enterprise just as his own individual caprice or passion might dictate. All this was now changed. Parliament, instead of granting William the revenue for life, restricted the grant to a single year, and made it a penal offence for the officers of the treasury to pay out money otherwise than ordered by Parliament.
We cannot overestimate the importance of this change in the English Constitution. It is this control of the purse of the nation which has made the Commons–for all money bills must originate in the Lower House–the actual seat of government, constituting them the arbiters of peace and war. By simply refusing to vote supplies, they can paralyze instantly the arm of the king. [Footnote: For the _Mutiny Bill_, enacted at this time, see _Glossary_.]
JAMES ATTEMPTS TO RECOVER THE THRONE: BATTLE OF THE BOYNE (1690).–The first years of William’s reign were disturbed by the efforts of James to regain the throne which he had abandoned. In these attempts he was aided by Louis XIV., and by the Jacobites (from _Jacobus_, Latin for James), the name given to the adherents of the exiled king. The Irish gave William the most trouble, but in the decisive battle of the Boyne he gained a great victory over them, and soon all Ireland acknowledged his authority.
PLANS AND DEATH OF WILLIAM.–The motive which had most strongly urged William to respond to the invitation of the English revolutionists to assume the crown of England, was his desire to turn the arms and resources of that country against the great champion of despotism, and the dangerous neighbor of his own native country, Louis XIV. of France.
The conduct of Louis in lending aid to James in his attempts to regain his crown had so inflamed the English that they were quite ready to support William in his wars against him, and so the English and Dutch sailors fought side by side against the common enemy in the War of the Palatinate (see p. 595).
A short time after the Peace of Ryswick, broke out the War of the Spanish Succession (see p. 596). William, as the uncompromising foe of the ambitious French king, urged the English to enter the war against France. An insolent and perfidious act on the part of Louis caused the English people to support their king in this plan with great unanimity and heartiness. The matter to which we refer was this. James II. having died at just this juncture of affairs, Louis, disregarding his solemn promises, at once acknowledged his son, known in history as the “Pretender,” as “King of Great Britain and Ireland.”
Preparations were now made for the war thus provoked by the double sense of danger and insult. In the midst of these preparations William was fatally hurt by being thrown from his horse (1702). Mary had died in 1694, and as they left no children, the crown descended to the Princess Anne, Mary’s sister, who had married Prince George of Denmark.
2. _Reign of Queen Anne_ (1702-1714).
WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION (1701-1714).–The War of the Spanish Succession covered the whole of the reign of Queen Anne. Of the causes and results of this war, and of England’s part in it, we have spoken in connection with the reign of Louis XIV. (see p. 596); and so, referring the reader to the account of the contest there given, we shall pass to speak of another event of a domestic character which signalized the reign of Queen Anne.
UNION OF THE PARLIAMENTS OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND (1707).–We refer to the union of England and Scotland into a single kingdom, under the name of Great Britain (1707). It was only the two _crowns_ that were united when James I. came to the English throne: now the two _Parliaments_ were united. From this time forward the two countries were represented by one Parliament, and in time the name “British” becomes the common designation of the inhabitants of England, Wales, and Scotland. The union was advantageous to both countries; for it was a union not simply of hands, but of hearts.
DEATH OF QUEEN ANNE: THE SUCCESSION.–Queen Anne died in the year 1714, leaving no heirs. In the reign of William a statute known as the Act of Settlement had provided that the crown, in default of heirs of William and Anne, should descend to the Electress Sophia of Hanover (grandchild of James I.), or her heirs, “being Protestants.” The Electress died only a short time before the death of Queen Anne; so, upon that event, the crown descended upon the head of the Electress’s eldest son George, who thus became the founder of a new line of English sovereigns, the House of Hanover, or Brunswick, the family in whose hands the royal sceptre still remains.
LITERATURE UNDER QUEEN ANNE.–The reign of Queen Anne is an illustrious one in English literature. Under her began to write a group of brilliant authors, whose activity continued on into the reign of her successor, George I. Their productions are, many of them, of special interest to the historian, because during this period there was an unusually close connection between literature and politics. Literature was forced into the service of party. A large portion of the writings of the era is in the form of political pamphlets, wherein all the resources of wit, satire, and literary skill are exhausted in defending or ridiculing the opposing principles and policies of Whig and Tory.
The four most prominent and representative authors of the times were Alexander Pope (1688-1744), Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Joseph Addison (1672-1719), and Daniel Defoe (1661-1731).
In the scientific annals of the period the name of Sir Isaac Newton (1642- 1727) is most prominent. As the discoverer of the law of gravitation and the author of the _Principia_, his name will ever retain a high place among the few who belong through their genius or achievements to no single nation or age, but to the world.
V. ENGLAND UNDER THE EARLIER HANOVERIANS. [Footnote: The sovereigns of the House of Hanover are George I. (1714- 1727); George II. (1727-1760); George III. (1760-1820); George IV. (1820- 1830); William IV. (1830-1837); Victoria.(1837-).]
THE SOVEREIGN’S LOSS OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE.–The new Hanoverian king, George I. (1714-1727), was utterly ignorant of the language and the affairs of the people over whom he had been called to rule. He was not loved by the English, but he was tolerated by them for the reason that he represented Protestantism and those principles of political liberty for which they had so long battled with their Stuart kings. On account of his ignorance of English affairs the king was obliged to intrust to his ministers the practical administration of the government. The same was true in the case of George II. (1727-1760). George III. (1760-1820), having been born and educated in England, regained some of the old influence of former kings. But he was the last English sovereign who had any large personal influence in shaping governmental policies. Since his time the English government has been carried on in the name of the king by a prime minister, dependent upon the will of the House of Commons. This marks an important step in the process by which sovereignty has been transferred from the Crown to the People. (For later steps, see Chap. LXIII.)
ENGLAND AND CONTINENTAL AFFAIRS.–It must be borne in mind that the Georges, while kings of England, were also Electors of Hanover in Germany. These German dominions of theirs caused England to become involved in continental quarrels which really did not concern her. Thus she was drawn into the War of the Austrian Succession (see p. 644) in which she had no national interest, and which resulted in no advantage to the English people. Hence these matters may be passed over by us without further notice here.
THE PRETENDERS.–Several times during the eighteenth century the exiled Stuarts attempted to get back the throne they had lost. The last of these attempts was made in 1745, when the “Young Pretender” (grandson of James II.) landed in Scotland, effected a rising of the Scotch Highlanders, worsted the English at Preston Pans, and marched upon London. Forced to retreat into Scotland, he was pursued by the English, and utterly defeated at the battle of Culloden Moor,–and the Stuart cause was ruined forever.
OLD FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR (1756-1763).–Just after the middle of the eighteenth century there broke out between the French and the English colonists in America the so-called Old French and Indian War. The struggle became blended with what in Europe is known as the Seven Years’ War (see p. 645). At first the war went disastrously against the English,– Braddock’s attempt against Fort Du Quesne, upon the march to which he suffered his memorable defeat in the wilderness, being but one of several ill-starred English undertakings. But in the year 1757, the elder William Pitt (afterwards Earl of Chatham), known as “the Great Commoner,” came to the head of affairs in England. Straightway every department of the government was infused with new vigor. His own indomitable will and persistent energy seemed to pass into every subordinate to whom he intrusted the execution of his plans. The war in America was brought to a speedy and triumphant close, the contest being virtually ended by the great victory gained by the English under the youthful Major-General Wolfe over the French under Montcalm upon the Heights of Quebec (1759). By the Treaty of Paris (1763) France ceded to England Canada and all her possessions in North America east of the Mississippi River, save New Orleans and a little adjoining land (which, along with the French territory west of the Mississippi, had already been given to Spain), and two little islands in the neighborhood of Newfoundland, which she was allowed to retain to dry fish on.
THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (1775-1783).–By a violation of one of the principles which the English people had so stoutly maintained against the Stuarts, the ruling powers in England now drove the American colonies to revolt. A majority in Parliament insisted upon taxing the colonists; the colonists maintained that taxation without representation is tyranny,– that they could be justly taxed only through their own legislative assemblies. The Government refusing to acknowledge this principle, the colonists took up arms in defence of those liberties which their fathers had won with so hard a struggle from English kings on English soil. The result of the war was the separation from the mother-land of the thirteen colonies that had grown up along the Atlantic seaboard,–and a Greater England began its independent career in the New World.
LEGISLATIVE INDEPENDENCE OF IRELAND (1782).–While the American War of Independence was going on, the Irish, taking advantage of the embarrassment of the English government, demanded legislative independence. Ireland had had a Parliament of her own since the time of the conquest of the island by the English, but this Irish Parliament was dependent upon the English Parliament, which claimed the power to bind Ireland by its laws. This the Irish patriots strenuously denied, and now, under the lead of the eloquent Henry Grattan, drew up a Declaration of Rights, wherein they demanded the legislative independence of Ireland. The principle here involved was the same as that for which the English colonists in America were at this time contending with arms in their hands. Fear of a revolt led England to grant the demands of the Irish, and to acknowledge the independence of the Irish Parliament.
Thus both in America and in Ireland the principles of the Political Revolution triumphed. In Ireland, however, the legislative independence gained was soon lost (see Chap. LXIII.).
CHAPTER LVI.
THE RISE OF RUSSIA: PETER THE GREAT. (1682-1725.)
GENERAL REMARKS.–The second great struggle between the principles of Liberalism and of Despotism, as represented by the opposing parties in the English Revolution, took place in France. But before proceeding to speak of the French Revolution, we shall first trace the rise of Russia and of Prussia, as these two great monarchies were destined to play prominent parts in that tremendous conflict. We left Russia at the close of the Middle Ages a semi-savage, semi-Asiatic power, so hemmed in by barbarian lands and hostile races as to be almost entirely cut off from intercourse with the civilized world (see p. 508). In the present chapter we wish to tell how she pushed her lines out to the seas on every side,–to the Caspian, the Euxine, and the Baltic. The main interest of our story gathers about Peter the Great, whose almost superhuman strength and energy lifted the great barbarian nation to a prominent place among the powers of Europe.
ACCESSION OF PETER THE GREAT (1682).–The royal line established in Russia by the old Norseman Ruric (see p. 508), ended in 1589. Then followed a period of confusion and of foreign invasion, known as the Troublous Times, after which a prince of the celebrated house of Romanoff came to the throne. For more than half a century after the accession of the Romanoffs, there is little either in the genius or the deeds of any of the line calculated to draw our special attention. But towards the close of the seventeenth century there ascended the Russian throne a man whose capacity and energy and achievements instantly drew the gaze of his contemporaries, and who has elicited the admiration and wonder of all succeeding generations. This was Peter I., universally known as Peter the Great, one of the remarkable characters of history. He was but seventeen years of age when he assumed the full responsibilities of government.
THE CONQUEST OF AZOF (1696).–At this time Russia possessed only one sea- port, Archangel, on the White Sea, which harbor for a large part of the year was sealed against vessels by the extreme cold of that high latitude. Russia, consequently, had no marine commerce; there was no word for _fleet_ in the Russian language. Peter saw clearly that the most urgent need of his empire was outlets upon the sea. Hence, his first aim was to wrest the Baltic shore from the grasp of Sweden, and the Euxine from the hands of the Turks.
In 1695 Peter sailed down the Don and made an attack upon Azof; the key to the Black Sea, but was unsuccessful. The next year, however, repeating the attempt, he succeeded, and thus gained his first harbor on the south.
[Illustration: PETER THE GREAT. (After a painting at Hampton Court, by G. Kneller, 1698.)]
PETER’S FIRST VISIT TO THE WEST (1697-1698).–With a view to advancing his naval projects, Peter about this time sent a large number of young Russian nobles to Italy, Holland, and England to acquire in those countries a knowledge of naval affairs, forbidding them to return before they had become good sailors.
Not satisfied with thus sending to foreign parts his young nobility, Peter formed the somewhat startling resolution of going abroad himself, and learning the art of ship-building by personal experience in the dockyards of Holland. Accordingly, in the year 1697, leaving the government in the hands of three nobles, he set out _incognito_ for the Netherlands. Upon arriving there he proceeded to Zaandam, a place a short distance from Amsterdam, and there hired out as a common laborer to a Dutch shipbuilder.
Notwithstanding his disguise it was well enough known who the stranger was. Indeed there was but little chance of Peter’s being mistaken for a Dutchman. The way in which he flew about, and the terrible energy with which he did everything, set him quite apart from the easy-going, phlegmatic Hollanders.
To escape the annoyance of the crowds at Zaandam, Peter left the place, and went to the docks of the East India Company in Amsterdam, who set about building a frigate that he might see the whole process of constructing a vessel from the beginning. Here he worked for four months, being known among his fellow-workmen as Baas or Master Peter.
It was not alone the art of naval architecture in which Peter interested himself; he attended lectures on anatomy, studied surgery, gaining some skill in pulling teeth and bleeding, inspected paper-mills, flour-mills, printing-presses, and factories, and visited cabinets, hospitals, and museums, thus acquainting himself with every industry and art that he thought might be advantageously introduced into his own country.
From Holland Master Peter went to England to study her superior naval establishment. Here he was fittingly received by King William III., who had presented Peter while in Holland with a splendid yacht fully armed, and who now made his guest extremely happy by getting up for him a sham sea-fight.
Returning from England to Holland, Peter went thence to Vienna, intending to visit Italy; but hearing of an insurrection at home, he set out in haste for Moscow.
PETER’S REFORMS.–The revolt which had hastened Peter’s return from the West was an uprising among the Strelitzes, a body of soldiers numbering 20,000 or 30,000, organized by Ivan the Terrible as a sort of imperial body-guard. In their ungovernable turbulence, they remind us of the Prætorians of Rome. The mutiny settled Peter in his determination to rid himself altogether of the insolent and refractory body. Its place was taken by a well-disciplined force trained according to the tactics of the Western nations.
The disbanding of the seditious guards was only one of the many reforms effected by Peter. So intent was he upon thoroughly Europeanizing his country, that he resolved that his subjects should literally clothe themselves in the “garments of Western Civilization.” Accordingly he abolished the long-sleeved, long-skirted Oriental robes that were at this time worn, and decreed that everybody save the clergy should shave, or pay a tax on his beard. We are told that Peter stationed tailors and barbers at the gates of Moscow to cut off the skirts and to train the beards of those who had not conformed to the royal regulations, and that he himself sheared off with his own hands the offending sleeves and beards of his reluctant courtiers. The law was gradually relaxed, but the reform became so general that in the best society in Russia at the present day one sees only smooth faces and the Western style of dress.
As additional outgrowths of what he had seen, or heard, or had suggested to him on his foreign tour, Peter issued a new coinage, introduced schools, built factories, constructed roads and canals, established a postal system, opened mines, framed laws modelled after those of the West, and reformed the government of the towns in such a way as to give the citizens some voice in the management of their local affairs, as he had observed was done in the Netherlands and in England.
CHARLES XII. OF SWEDEN.–Peter’s history now becomes intertwined with that of a man quite as remarkable as himself, Charles XII. of Sweden, the “Madman of the North.” Charles was but fifteen years of age when, in 1697, the death of his father called him to the Swedish throne. The dominions which came under his sway embraced not only Sweden, but Finland, and large possessions along the Southern Baltic,–territory that had been won by the arms of his ancestors.
[Illustration: Map of the BALTIC ISLANDS]
Taking advantage of Charles’s extreme youth, three sovereigns, Frederick IV. of Denmark, Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Peter the Great of Prussia, leagued against him (1700), for the purpose of appropriating such portions of his dominions as they severally desired to annex to their own.
THE BATTLE OF NARVA (1700).–But the conspirators had formed a wrong estimate of the young Swedish monarch. Notwithstanding the insane follies in which he was accustomed to indulge, he possessed talent; he had especially a remarkable aptitude for military affairs. With a well-trained force–a veteran army that had not yet forgotten the discipline of the hero Gustavus Adolphus–Charles now threw himself first upon the Danes, and in two weeks forced the Danish king to sue for peace; then he turned his little army of 8,000 men upon the Russian forces of 20,000, which were besieging the city of Narva, on the Gulf of Finland, and inflicted upon them a most ignominious defeat. The only comment of the imperturbable Peter upon the disaster was, “The Swedes will have the advantage of us at first, but they will teach us how to beat them.”
THE FOUNDING OF ST. PETERSBURG (1703).–After chastising the Czar [Footnote: Czar is probably a contraction of _Cæsar_. The title was adopted by the rulers of Russia because they regarded themselves as the successors and heirs of the Cæsars of Rome and Constantinople.] at Narva, the Swedish king turned south and marched into Poland to punish Augustus for the part he had taken in the conspiracy against him. While Charles was busied in this quarter, Peter was gradually making himself master of the Swedish lands on the Baltic, and upon a marshy island at the mouth of the Neva was laying the foundations of the great city of St. Petersburg, which he proposed to make the western gateway of his empire.
The spot selected by Peter as the site of his new capital was low and subject to inundation, so that the labor requisite to make it fit for building purposes was simply enormous. But difficulties never dismayed Peter. In spite of difficulties the work was done, and the splendid city stands to-day one of the most impressive monuments of the indomitable and despotic energy of Peter.
INVASION OF RUSSIA BY CHARLES XII.–Meanwhile Charles was doing very much as he pleased with the king of Poland. He defeated his forces, overran his dominions, and forced him to surrender the Polish crown in favor of Stanislaus Lesczinski (1706). With sufficient punishment meted out to Frederick Augustus, Charles was ready to turn his attention once more to the Czar. So marvellous had been the success attendant upon his arms for the past few years, nothing now seemed impossible to him. Deluded by this belief, he resolved to march into Russia and dethrone the Czar, even as he had dethroned the king of Poland.
In 1708, with an army of barely 40,000 men, Charles marched boldly across the Russian frontier. At Pultowa the two armies met in decisive combat (1709). It was Charles’s Waterloo. The Swedish army was virtually annihilated. Escaping with a few soldiers from the field, Charles fled southward, and found an asylum in Turkey. [Footnote: After spending five years in Turkey, Charles returned to Sweden, and shortly afterwards was killed at the siege of Frederickshall, in Norway (1718). At the moment of his death he was only thirty-six years of age. He was the strangest character of the eighteenth century. Perhaps we can understand him best by regarding him, as his biographer Voltaire says we must regard him, as an old Norse sea-king, born ten centuries after his time.]
CLOSE OF PETER’S REIGN.–In 1721 the Swedish wars which had so long disturbed Europe were brought to an end by the Peace of Nystadt, which confirmed Russia’s title to all the Southern Baltic lands that Peter had wrested from the Swedes. The undisputed possession of so large a strip of the Baltic seaboard vastly increased the importance and influence of Russia, which now assumed a place among the leading European powers.
In 1723 troubles in Persia that resulted in the massacre of some Russians afforded Peter a pretext for sailing down the Volga and seizing the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, which now became virtually a Russian lake. This ended Peter’s conquests. The Russian colossus now “stood astride, with one foot on the Baltic and the other upon the Caspian.”
Two years later, being then in his fifty-fourth year, Peter died of a fever brought on by exposure while aiding in the rescue of some sailors in distress, in the Gulf of Finland (1725).
PETER’S CHARACTER AND WORK.–Peter’s character stands revealed in the light of his splendid achievements. Like Charlemagne he was a despotic reformer. His theory of government was a rough, brutal one, yet the exclamation which broke from him as he stood by the tomb of Richelieu [Footnote: In 1716 Peter made a second journey to the West, visiting France, Denmark, and Holland.] discloses his profound desire to rule well: “Thou great man,” he exclaimed, “I would have given thee half of my dominion to have learned of thee how to govern the other half.” He planted throughout his vast empire the seeds of Western civilization, and by his giant strength lifted the great nation which destiny had placed in his hands out of Asiatic barbarism into the society of the European peoples.
The influence of Peter’s life and work upon the government of Russia was very different from what he intended. It is true that his aggressive, arbitrary rule strengthened temporarily autocratic government in Russia. He destroyed all checks, ecclesiastical and military, upon the absolute power of the crown. But in bringing into his dominions Western civilization, he introduced influences which were destined in time to neutralize all he had done in the way of strengthening the basis of despotism. He introduced a civilization which fosters popular liberties, and undermines personal, despotic government.
REIGN OF CATHERINE THE GREAT (1762-1796).–From the death of Peter on to the close of the eighteenth century the Russian throne was held, the most of the time, by women, the most noted of whom was Catherine II., the Great, “the greatest woman probably,” according to the admission of an English historian (McCarthy), “who ever sat on a throne, Elizabeth of England not even excepted.” But while a woman of great genius, she had most serious faults of character, being incredibly profligate and unscrupulous.
Carrying out ably the policy of Peter the Great, Catherine extended vastly the limits of Russian dominion, and opened the country even more thoroughly than he had done to the entrance of Western influences. The most noteworthy matters of her reign were the conquest of the Crimea and the dismemberment of Poland.
[Illustration: CATHERINE II. OF RUSSIA, IN HUSSAR UNIFORM. (After a painting by Schebanow.) ]
It was in the year 1783 that Catherine effected the subjugation of the Crimea. The possession of this peninsula gave Russia dominion on the Black Sea, which once virtually secured by Peter the Great had been again lost through his misfortunes. Catherine greatly extended the limits of her dominion on the west at the expense of Poland, the partition of which state she planned in connection with Frederick the Great of Prussia and Maria Theresa of Austria. On the first division, which was made in 1772, the imperial robbers each took a portion of the spoils. In 1793 a second partition was made, this time between Russia and Prussia; and then, in 1795, after the suppression of a determined revolt of the Poles under the lead of the patriot Kosciusko, a third and final division among the three powers completed the dismemberment of the unhappy state, and erased its name from the roll of the nations. The territory gained by Russia in these transactions brought her western frontier close alongside the civilization of Central Europe. In Catherine’s phrase, Poland had become her “door mat,” upon which she stepped when visiting the West.
Besides thus widening her empire, Catherine labored to reform its institutions and to civilize her subjects. Her labors in bettering the laws and improving the administration of the government, have caused her to be likened to Solon and to Lycurgus; while her enthusiasm for learning and her patronage of letters led Voltaire to say, “Light now comes from the North.”
By the close of Catherine’s reign Russia was beyond question one of the foremost powers of Europe, the weight of her influence being quite equal to that of any other nation of the continent.
CHAPTER LVII.
THE RISE OF PRUSSIA: FREDERICK THE GREAT. (1740-1786.)
THE BEGINNINGS OF PRUSSIA.–The foundation of the Prussian Kingdom was laid in the beginning of the seventeenth century (1611) by the union of two small states in the North of Germany. These were the Mark, or Electorate, of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia. Brandenburg had been gradually growing into prominence since the tenth century. Its ruler at this time was a prince of the now noted House of Hohenzollern, and was one of the seven princes to whom belonged the right of electing the emperor.
THE GREAT ELECTOR, FREDERICK WILLIAM (1640-1688).–Although this new Prussian power was destined to become the champion of German Protestantism, it acted a very unworthy and vacillating part in the Thirty Years’ War. But just before the close of that struggle a strong man came to the throne, Frederick William, better known as the Great Elector. He infused vigor and strength into every department of the State, and acquired such a position for his government that at the Peace of Westphalia he was able to secure new territory, which greatly enhanced his power and prominence among the German princes.
[Illustration: THE GREAT ELECTOR. (From a battle-piece.)]
The Great Elector ruled for nearly half a century. He laid the basis of the military power of Prussia by the formation of a standing army, and transmitted to his son and successor a strongly centralized and despotic authority.
HOW THE ELECTOR OF BRANDENBURG ACQUIRED THE TITLE OF KING.–Frederick III. (1688-1713), son of the Great Elector, was ambitious for the title of king, a dignity that the weight and influence won for the Prussian state by his father fairly justified him in seeking. He saw about him other princes less powerful than himself enjoying this dignity, and he too “would be a king and wear a crown.” The recent elevation of William of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, to royal honors in England (see p. 624), stimulated the Elector’s ambition.
It was necessary of course for Frederick to secure the consent of the emperor, a matter of some difficulty, for the Catholic advisers of the Austrian court were bitterly opposed to having an heretical prince thus honored and advanced, while the emperor himself was not at all pleased with the idea. But the War of the Spanish Succession was just about to open, and the emperor was extremely anxious to secure Frederick’s assistance in the coming struggle. Therefore, on condition of his furnishing him aid in the war, the emperor consented to Frederick’s assuming the new title and dignity _in the Duchy of Prussia_, which, unlike Brandenburg, did not form part of the empire.
Accordingly, early in the year 1701, Frederick, amidst imposing ceremonies, was crowned and hailed as king at Königsberg. Hitherto he had been Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia; now he is Elector of Brandenburg and King of Prussia.
Thus was a new king born among the kings of Europe. Thus did the house of Austria invest with royal dignity the rival house of Hohenzollern. The event is a landmark in German, and even in European history. The cue of German history from this on is the growth of the power of the Prussian kings, and their steady advance to imperial honors, and to the control of the affairs of the German race.
FREDERICK WILLIAM I. (1713-1740).-The son and successor of the first Prussian king, known as Frederick William I., was one of the most extraordinary characters in history. He was a strong, violent, brutal man, full of the strangest freaks, yet in many respects just the man for the times. He would tolerate no idlers. He carried a heavy cane, which he laid upon the back of every unoccupied person he chanced to find, whether man, woman, or child.
Frederick William had a mania for big soldiers. With infinite expense and trouble he gathered a regiment of the biggest men he could find, which was known as the “Potsdam Giants,”–a regiment numbering 2400 men, some of whom were eight feet in height. Not only were the Goliaths of his own dominions impressed into the service, but big men in all parts of Europe were coaxed, bribed, or kidnapped by Frederick’s recruiting officers. No present was so acceptable to him as a giant, and by the gift of a six- footer more than one prince bought his everlasting favor.
Rough, brutal tyrant though he was, Frederick William was an able and energetic ruler. He did much to consolidate the power of Prussia, and at his death in 1740 left to his successor a considerably extended dominion, and a splendid army of 80,000 men.
FREDERICK THE GREAT (1740-1786).–Frederick William was followed by his son Frederick II., to whom the world has agreed to give the title of “Great.” Frederick had a genius for war, and his father had prepared to his hand one of the most efficient instruments of the art since the time of the Roman legions. The two great wars in which he was engaged, and which raised Prussia to the first rank among the military powers of Europe, were the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War.
WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION (1740-1748).–Through the death of Charles VI. the Imperial office became vacant on the very year that Frederick II. ascended the Prussian throne. Charles was the last of the direct male line of the Hapsburgs, and disputes straightway arose respecting the possessions of the House of Austria, which resulted in the long struggle known as the War of the Austrian Succession.
Now, not long before the death of Charles, he had bound all the leading powers of Europe in a sort of agreement called the Pragmatic Sanction, by the terms of which, in case he should leave no son, all his hereditary dominions–that is, the kingdom of Hungary, the kingdom of Bohemia, the archduchy of Austria, and the other possessions of the House of Austria– should be bestowed upon his daughter Maria Theresa. But no sooner was Charles dead than a number of princes immediately laid claim to greater or lesser portions of these territories. Prominent among these claimants was Frederick of Prussia, who claimed Silesia. [Footnote: Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, set up a claim to the Austrian States. France, ever the sworn enemy of the House of Austria, lent her armies to aid the Elector in making good his pretensions] Before Maria Theresa could arm in defence of her dominions, Frederick pushed his army into Silesia and took forcible possession of it.
Queen Theresa, thus stripped of a large part of her dominions, fled into Hungary, and with all of a beautiful woman’s art of persuasion appealed to her Hungarian subjects to avenge her wrongs. Her unmerited sufferings, her beauty, her tears, the little princess in her arms, stirred the resentment and kindled the ardent loyalty of the Hungarian nobles, and with one voice, as they rang their swords in their scabbards, they swore to support the cause of their queen with their estates and their lives. England and Sardinia also threw themselves into the contest on Maria Theresa’s side. The war lasted until 1748, when it was closed by the Peace of Aix-la- Chapelle, which left Silesia in the hands of Frederick.
THE SEVEN YEARS’ WAR (1756-1763).–The eight years of peace which followed the war of the Austrian Succession were improved by Frederick in developing the resources of his kingdom and perfecting the organization and discipline of his army, and by Maria Theresa in forming a league of the chief European powers against the unscrupulous despoiler of her dominions. France, Russia, Poland, Saxony, and Sweden, all entered into an alliance with the queen. Frederick could at first find no ally save England,–towards the close of the struggle Russia came to his side,–so that he was left almost alone to fight the combined armies of the Continent.
At first the fortunes of the war were all on Frederick’s side. In the celebrated battles of Rossbach, Leuthen, and Zorndorf, he defeated successively the French, the Austrians, and the Russians, and startled all Europe into an acknowledgment of the fact that the armies of Prussia had at their head one of the greatest commanders of the world. His name became a household word, and everybody coupled with it the admiring epithet of “Great.”
But fortune finally deserted him. In sustaining the unequal contest, his dominions became drained of men. England withdrew her aid, and inevitable ruin seemed to impend over his throne and kingdom. A change by death in the government of Russia now put a new face upon Frederick’s affairs. In 1762 Elizabeth of that country died, and Peter III., an ardent admirer of Frederick, came to the throne, and immediately transferred the armies of Russia from the side of the allies to that of Prussia. The alliance lasted only a few months, Peter being deposed and murdered by his wife, who now came to the throne as Catherine II. She reversed once more the policy of the Government; but the temporary alliance had given Frederick a decisive advantage, and the year following Peter’s act, England and France were glad to give over the struggle and sign the Peace of Paris (1763). Shortly after this another peace (the Treaty of Hubertsburg) was arranged between Austria and Prussia, and one of the most terrible wars that had ever disturbed Europe was over. The most noteworthy result of the war was the exalting of the Prussian kingdom to a most commanding position among the European powers.
FREDERICK’S WORK: PRUSSIA MADE A NEW CENTRE OF GERMAN CRYSTALLIZATION.– The all-important result of Frederick the Great’s strong reign was the making of Prussia the equal of Austria, and thereby the laying of the basis of German unity. Hitherto Germany had been trying unsuccessfully to concentrate about Austria; now there is a new centre of crystallization, one that will draw to itself all the various elements of German nationality. The history of Germany from this on is the story of the rivalry of these two powers, with the final triumph of the kingdom of the North, and the unification of Germany under her leadership, Austria being pushed out as entitled to no part in the affairs of the Fatherland. This story we shall tell in a subsequent chapter (see Chap. LXL).
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. (1789-1799.)
1. CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION: THE STATES-GENERAL OF 1789.
INTRODUCTORY.–The French Revolution is in political what the German Reformation is in ecclesiastical history. It was the revolt of the French people against royal despotism and class privilege. “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” was the motto of the Revolution. In the name of these principles the most atrocious crimes were indeed committed; but these excesses of the Revolution are not to be confounded with its true spirit and aims. The French people in 1789 contended for those same principles that the English Puritans defended in 1640, and that our fathers maintained in 1776. It is only as we view them in this light that we can feel a sympathetic interest in the men and events of this tumultuous period of French history.
CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION.–Chief among the causes of the French Revolution were the abuses and extravagances of the Bourbon monarchy; the unjust privileges enjoyed by the nobility and clergy; the wretched condition of the great mass of the people; and the revolutionary character and spirit of French philosophy and literature. To these must be added, as a proximate cause, the influence of the American Revolution. We shall speak briefly of these several matters.
THE BOURBON MONARCHY.–We simply repeat what we have already learned, when we say that the authority of the French crown under the Bourbons had become unbearably despotic and oppressive. The life of every person in the realm was at the arbitrary disposal of the king. Persons were thrown into prison without even knowing the offence for which they were arrested. The royal decrees were laws. The taxes imposed by the king were simply robberies and confiscations. The public money, thus gathered, was squandered in maintaining a court the scandalous extravagances and debaucheries of which would shame a Turkish Sultan.
THE NOBILITY.–The French nobility, in the time of the Bourbons, numbered about 80,000 families. The order was simply the remains of the once powerful but now broken-down feudal aristocracy of the Middle Ages. Its members were chiefly the pensioners of the king, the ornaments of his court, living in riotous luxury at Paris or Versailles. Stripped of their ancient power, they still retained all the old pride and arrogance of their order, and clung tenaciously to all their feudal privileges. Although holding one-fifth of the lands of France, they paid scarcely any taxes.
THE CLERGY.–The clergy formed a decayed feudal hierarchy. They possessed enormous wealth, the gift of piety through many centuries. Over a third of the lands of the country was in their hands, and yet this immense property was almost wholly exempt from taxation. The bishops and abbots were usually drawn from the families of the nobles, being too often attracted to the service of the Church rather by its princely revenues and the social distinction conferred by its offices, than by the inducements of piety. These “patrician prelates” were hated alike by the humbler clergy and the people.
THE COMMONS.–Below the two privileged orders of the State stood the commons, who constituted the chief bulk of the nation, and who numbered, at the commencement of the Revolution, probably about 25,000,000. It is quite impossible to give any adequate idea of the pitiable condition of the poorer classes of the commons throughout the century preceding the Revolution. The peasants particularly suffered the most intolerable wrongs. They were vexed by burdensome feudal regulations. Thus they were forbidden to fence their fields for the protection of their crops, as the fences interfered with the lord’s progress in the hunt; and they were even prohibited from cultivating their fields at certain seasons, as this disturbed the partridges and other game. Being kept in a state of abject poverty, a failure of crops reduced them to absolute starvation. It was not an unusual thing to find women and children dead along the roadways. In a word, to use the language of one (Fénelon) who saw all this misery, France had become “simply a great hospital full of woe and empty of food.”
REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF FRENCH PHILOSOPHY.–French philosophy in the eighteenth century was sceptical and revolutionary. The names of the great writers Rousseau (1712-1778) and Voltaire (1694-1778) suggest at once its prevalent tone and spirit. Rousseau declared that all the evils which afflict humanity arise from vicious, artificial arrangements, such as the Family, the Church, and the State. Accordingly he would do away with these things, and have men return to a state of nature–that is, to simplicity. Savages, he declared, were happier than civilized men.
The tendency and effect of this sceptical philosophy was to create hatred and contempt for the institutions of both State and Church, to foster discontent with the established order of things, to stir up an uncontrollable passion for innovation and change.
INFLUENCE OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.–Not one of the least potent of the proximate causes of the French Revolution was the successful establishment of the American republic. The French people sympathized deeply with the English colonists in their struggle for independence. Many of the nobility, like Lafayette, offered to the patriots the service of their swords; and the popular feeling at length compelled Louis XVI to extend to them openly the aid of the armies of France.
The final triumph of the cause of liberty awakened scarcely less enthusiasm and rejoicing in France than in America. In this young republic of the Western world the French people saw realized the Arcadia of their philosophers. It was no longer a dream. They themselves had helped to make it real. Here the Rights of Man had been recovered and vindicated. And now this liberty which the French people had helped the American colonists to secure, they were impatient to see France herself enjoy.
“AFTER US, THE DELUGE.”–The long-gathering tempest is now ready to break over France. Louis XV. died in 1774. In the early part of his reign his subjects had affectionately called him the “Well-beloved,” but long before he laid down the sceptre, all their early love and admiration had been turned into hatred and contempt. Besides being overbearing and despotic, the king was indolent, rapacious, and scandalously profligate. During twenty years of his reign the king was wholly under the influence of the notorious Madame de Pompadour.
The inevitable issue of this orgy of crime and folly seems to have been clearly enough perceived by the chief actors in it, as is shown by that reckless phrase so often on the lips of the king and his favorite–“After us, the Deluge.” And after them, the Deluge indeed did come. The near thunders of the approaching tempest could already be heard when Louis XV. lay down to die.
CALLING OF THE STATES-GENERAL (1789).–Louis XV. left the tottering throne to his grandson, Louis XVI., then only twenty years of age. He had recently been married to the fair and brilliant Marie Antoinette, archduchess of Austria.
The king called to his side successively the most eminent financiers and statesmen (Maurepas, Turgot, Necker, and Calonne) as his ministers and advisers; but their policies and remedies availed little or nothing. The disease which had fastened itself upon the nation was too deep-seated. The traditions of the court, the rigidity of long-established customs, and the heartless selfishness of the privileged classes, rendered reform and efficient retrenchment impossible.
In 1787 the king summoned the Notables, a body composed chiefly of great lords and prelates, who had not been called to advise with the king since the reign of Henry IV. But miserable counsellors were they all. Refusing to give up any of their feudal privileges, or to tax the property of their own orders that the enormous public burdens which were crushing the commons might be lightened, their coming together resulted in nothing.
As a last resort it was resolved to summon the united wisdom of the nation,–to call together the States-General, the almost-forgotten assembly, composed of representatives of the three estates,–the nobility, the clergy, and the commons, the latter being known as the Tiers État, or Third Estate. On the 5th of May, 1789, a memorable date, this assembly met at Versailles. It was the first time it had been summoned to deliberate upon the affairs of the nation in the space of 175 years. It was now composed of 1,200 representatives, more than one-half of whom were deputies of the commons. The eyes of the nation were turned in hope and expectancy towards Versailles. Surely if the redemption of France could be worked out by human wisdom, it would now be effected.
2. THE NATIONAL, OR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY (June 17, 1789-Sept. 30, 1791).
THE STATE-GENERAL CHANGED INTO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY.–At the very outset a dispute arose in the States-General assembly between the privileged orders and the commons, respecting the manner of voting. It had been the ancient custom of the body to vote upon all questions by orders; and thinking that this custom would prevail in the present assembly, the king and his counsellors had yielded to the popular demand and allowed the Third Estate to send to Versailles more representatives than both the other orders. The commons now demanded that the voting should be by individuals; for, should the vote be taken by orders, the clergy and nobility by combining could always outvote them. For five weeks the quarrel kept everything at a standstill.
Finally the commons, emboldened by the tone of public opinion without, took a decisive, revolutionary step. They declared themselves the National Assembly, and then invited the other two orders to join them in their deliberations, giving them to understand that if they did not choose to do so, they should proceed to the consideration of public affairs without them.
Shut out from the palace, the Third Estate met in one of the churches of Versailles. Many of the clergy had already joined the body. Two days later the nobility came. The eloquent Bailly, President of the Assembly, in receiving them, exclaimed, “This day will be illustrious in our annals; it renders the family complete.” The States-General had now become in reality the _National Assembly_.
STORMING OF THE BASTILE (July 14, 1789).–During the opening weeks of the National Assembly, Paris was in a state of great excitement. The Bastile was the old state prison, the emblem, in the eyes of the people, of despotism. A report came that its guns were trained on the city; that provoked a popular outbreak. “Let us storm the Bastile,” rang through the streets. The mob straightway proceeded to lay siege to the grim old dungeon. In a few hours the prison fortress was in their hands. The walls of the hated state prison were razed to the ground, and the people danced on the spot. The key of the fortress was sent as a “trophy of the spoils of despotism” to Washington by Lafayette.
The destruction by the Paris mob of the Bastile is in the French Revolution what the burning of the papal bull by Luther was to the Reformation. It was the death-knell not only of Bourbon despotism in France, but of royal tyranny everywhere. When the news reached England, the great statesman Fox, perceiving its significance for liberty, exclaimed, “How much is this the greatest event that ever happened in the world, and how much the best!”
THE EMIGRATION OF THE NOBLES.–The fall of the Bastile left Paris in the hands of a triumphant mob. Those suspected of sympathizing with the royal party were massacred without mercy. The peasantry in many districts, following the example set them by the capital, rose against the nobles, sacked and burned their castles, and either killed the occupants or dragged them off to prison. This terrorism caused the beginning of what is known as the emigration of the nobles, their flight beyond the frontiers of France.
“TO VERSAILLES.”–An imprudent act on the part of the king and his friends at Versailles brought about the next episode in the progress of the Revolution. The arrival there of a body of troops was made the occasion of a banquet to the officers of the regiment. While heated with wine, the young nobles had trampled under foot the national tri-colored cockades, and substituted for them white cockades, the emblem of the Bourbons. The report of these proceedings caused in Paris the wildest excitement. Other rumors of the intended flight of the king to Metz, and of plots against the national cause, added fuel to the flames. Besides, bread had failed, and the poorer classes were savage from hunger.
October 5th a mob of desperate women, terrible in aspect as furies, and armed with clubs and knives, collected in the streets of Paris, determined upon going to Versailles, and demanding relief from the king himself. All efforts to dissuade them from their purpose were unavailing, and soon the Parisian rabble was in motion. A horrible multitude, savage as the hordes that followed Attila, streamed out of the city towards Versailles, about twelve miles distant. The National Guards, infected with the delirium of the moment, forced Lafayette to lead them in the same direction. Thus all day Paris emptied itself into the royal suburbs.
The mob encamped in the streets of Versailles for the night. Early the following morning they broke into the palace, killed two of the guards, and battering down doors with axes, forced their way to the chamber of the queen, who barely escaped with her life to the king’s apartments. The timely arrival of Lafayette alone saved the entire royal family from being massacred.
THE ROYAL FAMILY TAKEN TO PARIS–The mob now demanded that the king should return with them to Paris. Their object in this was to have him under their eye, and prevent his conspiring with the privileged orders to thwart the plans of the revolutionists. Louis was forced to yield to the demands of the people.
The procession arrived at Paris in the evening. The royal family were placed in the Palace of the Tuileries, and Lafayette was charged with the duty of guarding the king, who was to be held as a sort of hostage for the good conduct of the nobles and foreign sovereigns while a constitution was being prepared by the Assembly.
Such was what was called the “Joyous Entry” of October 6th. The palace at Versailles, thus stripped of royalty and left bespattered with blood, was never again to be occupied as the residence of a king of France.
THE FLIGHT OF THE KING (June 20, 1791).–For two years following the Joyous Entry there was a comparative lull in the storm of the Revolution, The king was kept a sort of prisoner in the Tuileries. The National Assembly were making sweeping reforms both in Church and State, and busying themselves in framing a new constitution. The emigrant nobles watched the course of events from beyond the frontiers, not daring to make a move for fear the excitable Parisian mob, upon any hostile step taken by them, would massacre the entire royal family. Could the king only escape from the hands of his captors and make his way to the borders of France, then he could place himself at the head of the emigrant nobles, and, with foreign aid, overturn the National Assembly and crush the revolutionists. The flight was resolved upon and carefully planned. Under cover of night the entire royal family, in disguise, escaped from the Tuileries, and by post conveyance fled towards the frontier. When just another hour would have placed the fugitives in safety among friends, the Bourbon features of the king betrayed him, and the entire party was arrested and carried back to Paris.
The attempted flight of the royal family was a fatal blow to the Monarchy. Many affected to regard it as equivalent to an act of abdication on the part of the king. The people now began to talk of a republic.
THE CLUBS: JACOBINS AND CORDELIERS.–In order to render intelligible the further course of the Revolution we must here speak of two clubs, or organizations, which came into prominence about this time, and which were destined to become more powerful than the Assembly itself, and to be the chief instruments in inaugurating the Reign of Terror. These were the societies of the Jacobins and Cordeliers, so called from certain old convents in which they were accustomed to meet. The purpose of these clubs was to watch for conspiracies of the royalists, and by constant agitation to keep alive the flame of the Revolution.
THE NEW CONSTITUTION.–The work of the National Assembly was now drawing to a close. On the 14th of September, 1791, the new constitution framed by that body, and which made the government of France a constitutional monarchy, was solemnly ratified by the king. The National Assembly, having sat nearly three years, then adjourned (Sept, 30, 1791). The first scene in the drama of the French Revolution was ended.
3. THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY (Oct. 1, 1791-Sept. 21, 1792).
THE THREE PARTIES.–The new constitution provided for a national legislature to be called the Legislative Assembly. This body, comprising 745 members, was divided into three parties: the Constitutionalists, the Girondists, and the Mountainists. The Constitutionalists of course supported the new constitution, being in favor of a limited monarchy. The Girondists, so called from the name (_La Gironde_) of the department whence came the most noted of its members, wished to establish in France such a republic as the American colonists had just set up in the New World. The Mountainists, who took their name from their lofty seats in the assembly, were radical republicans, or levellers. Many of them were members of the Jacobin club or that of the Cordeliers. The leaders of this faction were Marat, Danton, and Robespierre,–names of terror in the subsequent records of the Revolution.
WAR WITH THE OLD MONARCHIES.–The kings of Europe were watching with the utmost anxiety the course of events in France. They regarded the cause of Louis XVI. as their own. If the French people should be allowed to overturn the throne of their hereditary sovereign, who would then respect the divine rights of kings? The old monarchies of Europe therefore resolved that the revolutionary movement in France, a movement threatening all aristocratical and monarchical institutions, should be crushed, and that these heretical French doctrines respecting the Sovereignty of the People and the Rights of Man should be proved false by the power of royal armies.
The warlike preparations of Frederick William III. of Prussia and the Emperor Francis II., awakened the apprehensions of the revolutionists, and led the Legislative Assembly to declare war against them (April 20, 1792). A little later, the allied armies of the Austrians and Prussians, numbering more than 100,000 men, and made up in part of the French emigrant nobles, passed the frontiers of France. Thus were taken the first steps in a series of wars which were destined to last nearly a quarter of a century, and in which France almost single-handed was to struggle against the leagued powers of Europe, and to illustrate the miracles possible to enthusiasm and genius.
THE MASSACRE OF THE SWISS GUARDS (Aug. 10, 1792).–The allies at first gained easy victories over the ill-disciplined forces of the Legislative Assembly, and the Duke of Brunswick, at the head of an immense army, advanced rapidly upon Paris. An insolent proclamation which this commander now issued, wherein he ordered the French nation to submit to their king, and threatened the Parisians with the destruction of their city should any harm be done the royal family, drove the French people frantic with indignation and rage. The Palace of the Tuileries, defended by a few hundred Swiss soldiers, the remnant of the royal guard, was assaulted. A terrible struggle followed in the corridors and upon the grand stairways of the palace. The Swiss stood “steadfast as the granite of their Alps.” But they were overwhelmed at last, and all were murdered, either in the building itself or in the surrounding courts and streets.
THE MASSACRE OF SEPTEMBER (“JAIL DELIVERY”).–The army of the allies hurried on towards Paris to avenge the slaughter of the royal guards and to rescue the king. The capital was all excitement. “We must stop the enemy,” cried Danton, “by striking terror into the royalists.” To this end the most atrocious measures were now adopted by the Extremists. It was resolved that all the royalists confined in the jails of the capital should be murdered. A hundred or more assassins were hired to butcher the prisoners. The murderers first entered the churches of the city, and the unfortunate priests who had refused to take oath to support the new constitution, were butchered in heaps about the altars. The jails were next visited, one after another, the persons confined within slaughtered, and their bodies thrown out to the brutal hordes that followed the butchers to enjoy the carnival of blood.
The victims of this terrible “September Massacre,” as it is called, are estimated at from six to fourteen thousand. Europe had never before known such a “jail delivery.” It was the greatest crime of the French Revolution.
DEFEAT OF THE ALLIES.–Meanwhile, in the open field, the fortunes of war inclined to the side of the revolutionists. The French generals were successful in checking the advance of the allies, and finally at Valmy (Sept. 20, 1792) succeeded in inflicting upon them a decisive defeat, which caused their hasty retreat beyond the frontiers of France. The day after this victory the Legislative Assembly came to an end, and the following day the National Convention assembled.
4. THE NATIONAL CONVENTION (Sept. 21, 1792-Oct. 26, 1795).
PARTIES IN THE CONVENTION.–The Convention, consisting of seven hundred and forty-nine deputies, among whom was the celebrated freethinker, Thomas Paine, was divided into two parties, the Girondists and the Mountainists. There were no monarchists; all were republicans. No one dared to speak of a monarchy. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REPUBLIC (Sept. 21, 1792).–The very first act of the Convention on its opening day was to abolish the Monarchy and proclaim France a Republic. The motion for the abolition of Royalty was not even discussed. “What need is there for discussion,” exclaimed a delegate, “where all are agreed? Courts are the hot-bed of crime, the focus of corruption; the history of kings is the martyrology of nations.”
All titles of nobility were also abolished. Every one was to be addressed simply as _citizen_. In the debates of the Convention, the king was alluded to as Citizen Capet, and on the street the shoeblack was called Citizen Shoeblack.
The day following the Proclamation of the republic (Sept. 22, 1792) was made the beginning of a new era, the first day of the YEAR 1. That was to be regarded as the natal day of Liberty. A little later, excited by the success of the French armies,–the Austrians and Prussians had been beaten, and Belgium had been overrun and occupied,–the Convention called upon all nations to rise against despotism, and pledged the aid of France to any people wishing to secure freedom.
TRIAL AND EXECUTION OF THE KING (Jan. 21, 1793).–The next work of the Convention was the trial and execution of the king. On the 11th of December, 1792, he was brought before the bar of that body, charged with having conspired with the enemies of France, of having opposed the will of the people, and of having caused the massacre of the 10th of August. The sentence of the Convention was immediate death. On Jan. 21, 1793, the unfortunate monarch was conducted to the scaffold.
COALITION AGAINST FRANCE.–The regicide awakened the most bitter hostility against the French revolutionists, among all the old monarchies of Europe. The act was interpreted as a threat against all kings. A grand coalition, embracing Prussia, Austria, England, Sweden, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Piedmont, Naples, the Holy See, and later, Russia, was formed to crush the republican movement. Armies aggregating more than a quarter of a million of men threatened France at once on every frontier.
While thus beset with foes without, the republic was threatened with even more dangerous enemies within. The people of La Vendee, in Western France, who still retained their simple reverence for Royalty, Nobility, and the Church, rose in revolt against the sweeping innovations of the revolutionists.
To meet all these dangers which threatened the life of the new-born republic, the Convention ordered a levy, which placed 300,000 men in the field. The stirring Marseillaise Hymn, sung by the marching bands, awakened everywhere a martial fervor.
THE FALL OF THE GIRONDISTS (June 2, 1793).–Gloomy tidings came from every quarter,–news of reverses to the armies of the republic in front of the allies, and of successes of the counter-revolutionists in La Vendée and other provinces. The Mountainists in the Convention, supported by the rabble of Paris, urged the most extreme measures. They proposed that the carriages of the wealthy should be seized and used for carrying soldiers to the seat of war, and that the expenses of the government should be met by forced contributions from the rich.
The Girondists opposing these communistic measures, a mob, 80,000 strong, it is asserted, surrounded the Convention, and demanded that the Girondists be given up as enemies of the Republic. They were surrendered and placed under arrest, a preliminary step to the speedy execution of many of them during the opening days of the Reign of Terror, which had now begun.
Thus did the Parisian mob purge the National Convention of France, as the army purged Parliament in the English Revolution (see p. 612). That mob were now masters, not only of the capital, but of France as well. There is nothing before France now but anarchy, and the dictator to whom anarchy always gives birth.
_The Reign of Terror_ (June 2, 1793-July 27, 1794).
OPENING OF THE REIGN OF TERROR.–As soon as the expulsion of the Moderates had given the Extremists control of the Convention, they proceeded to carry out their policy of terrorism. Supreme power was vested in the so- called Committee of Public Safety, which became a terrific engine of tyranny and cruelty. Marat was president of the Committee, and Danton and Robespierre were both members.
The scenes which now followed are only feebly illustrated by the proscriptions of Sulla in ancient Rome (see p. 283). All aristocrats, all persons suspected of lukewarmness in the cause of liberty, were ordered to the guillotine. Hundreds were murdered simply because their wealth was wanted. Others fell, not because they were guilty of any political offence, but on account of having in some way incurred the personal displeasure of the dictators.
CHARLOTTE CORDAY: ASSASSINATION OF MARAT (July 13,1793).–At this moment appeared the Joan of Arc of the Revolution. A maiden of Normandy, Charlotte Corday by name, conceived the idea of delivering France from the terrors of proscription and civil war, by going to Paris and killing Marat, whom she regarded as the head of the tyranny. On pretence of wishing to reveal to him something of importance, she gained admission to his rooms and stabbed him to the heart. She atoned for the deed under the knife of the guillotine.
EVENTS AFTER THE DEATH OF MARAT.–The enthusiasm of Charlotte Corday had led her to believe that the death of Marat would be a fatal blow to the power of the Mountainists. But it only served to drive them to still greater excesses, under the lead of Danton and Robespierre. She died to stanch the flow of her country’s blood; but, as Lamartine says, “her poniard appeared to have opened the veins of France.” The flame of insurrection in the departments was quenched in deluges of blood. Some of the cities that had been prominent centres of the counter-revolution were made a terrible example of the vengeance of the revolutionists. Lyons was an object of special hatred to the tyrants. Respecting this place the Convention passed the following decree: “The city of Lyons shall be destroyed: every house occupied by a rich man shall be demolished; only the dwellings of the poor shall remain, with edifices specially devoted to industry, and monuments consecrated to humanity and public education.” So thousands of men were set to work to pull down the city. The Convention further decreed that a monument should be erected upon the ruins of Lyons with this inscription: “Lyons opposed Liberty! Lyons is no more!”
EXECUTION OF THE QUEEN AND OF THE GIRONDISTS.–The rage of the revolutionists was at this moment turned anew against the remaining members of the royal family, by the European powers proclaiming the Dauphin King of France. The queen, who had now borne nine months’ imprisonment in a close dungeon, was brought before the terrible Revolutionary Tribunal, a sort of court organized to take cognizance of conspiracies against the republic, condemned to the guillotine, and straightway beheaded.
Two weeks after the execution of the queen, twenty-one of the chiefs of the Girondists, who had been kept in confinement since their arrest in the Convention, were pushed beneath the knife. Hundreds of others followed. Day after day the carnival of death went on. Seats were arranged for the people, who crowded to the spectacle as to a theatre. The women busied their hands with their knitting, while their eyes feasted upon the swiftly changing scenes of the horrid drama.
Most illustrious of all the victims after the queen was Madame Roland, who was accused of being the friend of the Girondists. Woman has always acted a prominent part in the great events of French history, because the grand ideas and sentiments which have worked so powerfully upon the imaginative and impulsive temperament of the men of France, have appealed with a still more fatal attraction to her more romantic and generously enthusiastic nature.
SWEEPING CHANGES AND REFORMS.–While clearing away the enemies of France and of liberty, the revolutionists were also busy making the most sweeping changes in the ancient institutions and customs of the land. They hated these as having been established by kings and aristocrats to enhance their own importance and power, and to enthrall the masses. They proposed to sweep these things all aside, and give the world a fresh start.
A new system of weights and measures, known as the metrical, was planned, and a new mode of reckoning time was introduced. The names of the months were altered, titles being given them expressive of the character of each. Each month was divided into three periods of ten days each, called decades, and each day into ten parts. The tenth day of each decade took the place of Sunday. The five odd days not provided for in the arrangement were made festival days.
ABOLITION OF CHRISTIANITY.–With these reforms effected, the revolutionists next proceeded to the more difficult task of subverting the ancient institutions of religion. Some of the chiefs of the Commune of Paris declared that the Revolution should not rest until it had “dethroned the King of Heaven as well as the kings of earth.”
An attempt was made by the Extremists to have Christianity abolished by a decree of the National Convention; but that body, fearing such an act might alienate many who were still attached to the Church, resolved that all matters of creed should be left to the decision of the people themselves.
[Illustration: THE GUILLOTINE ]
The atheistic chiefs of the Commune of the capital now determined to effect their purpose through the Church itself. They persuaded the Bishop of Paris to abdicate his office; and his example was followed by many of the clergy throughout the country. The churches of Paris and of other cities were now closed, and the treasures of their altars and shrines confiscated to the State, Even the bells were melted down into cannon. The images of the Virgin and of the Christ were torn down, and the busts of Marat and other patriots set up in their stead. And as the emancipation of the world was now to be wrought, not by the Cross, but by the guillotine, that instrument took the place of the crucifix, and was called the Holy Guillotine. All the visible symbols of the ancient religion were destroyed. All emblems of hope in the cemeteries were obliterated, and over their gates were inscribed the words, “Death is eternal sleep.”
The madness of the Parisian people culminated in the worship of what was called the Goddess of Reason. A celebrated beauty, personating the Goddess, was set upon the altar of Notre Dame as the object of homage and adoration. The example of Paris was followed in many places throughout France. Churches were everywhere converted into temples of the new worship. The Sabbath having been abolished, the services of the temple were held only upon every tenth day. On that day the mayor or some popular leader mounted the altar and harangued the people, dwelling upon the news of the moment, the triumphs of the armies of the republic, the glorious achievements of the Revolution, and the privilege of living in an era when one was oppressed neither by kings on earth or by a King in heaven.
FALL OF HÉBERT AND DANTON (March and April, 1794).–Not quite one year of the Reign of Terror had passed before the revolutionists, having destroyed or driven into obscurity their common enemy, the Girondists, turned upon one another with the ferocity of beasts whose appetite has been whetted by the taste of blood.
During the progress of events the Jacobins had become divided into three factions, headed respectively by Danton, Robespierre, and Hébert. Danton, though he had been a bold and audacious leader, was now adopting a more conservative tone, and was condemning the extravagances and cruelties of the Committee of Public Safety, of which he had ceased to be a member.
Hébert was one of the worst demagogues of the Commune, the chief and instigator of the Parisian rabble. He and his followers, the sans-culottes of the capital, would overturn everything and refound society upon communism and atheism.
[Illustration: ROBESPIERRE]
Robespierre occupied a position midway between these two, condemning alike the moderatism of Danton and the atheistic communism of Hebert. To make his own power supreme, he resolved to crush both.
Hébert and his party were the first to fall, Danton and his adherents working with Robespierre to bring about their ruin, for the Moderates and Anarchists were naturally at bitter enmity.
Danton and his friends were the next to follow. Little more than a week had passed since the execution of Hébert before Robespierre had effected their destruction, on the charge of conspiring with and encouraging the counter-revolutionists.
With the Anarchists and Moderates both destroyed, Robespierre was now supreme. His ambition was attained. “He stood alone on the awful eminence of the Holy Mountain.” But his turn was soon to come.
WORSHIP OF THE SUPREME BEING.–One of the first acts of the dictator was to give France a new religion in place, of the worship of Reason. Robespierre wished to sweep away Christianity as a superstition, but he would stop at deism. He did not believe that a state could be founded on atheism. “Atheism,” said he, “is aristocratic. The idea of a great being who watches over oppressed innocence, and who punishes triumphant guilt, is and always will be popular. If God did not exist, it would behoove man to invent him.” Accordingly Robespierre offered in the Convention the following resolution: “The French people acknowledge the existence of the Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul.” The decree was adopted, and the churches that had been converted into temples of the Goddess of Reason were now consecrated to the worship of the Supreme Being.
THE TERROR AT PARIS.–At the very same time that Robespierre was establishing the new worship, he was desolating France with massacres of incredible atrocity, and ruling by a terrorism unparalleled since the most frightful days of Rome. With all power gathered in his hands, he overawed all opposition and dissent by the wholesale slaughters of the guillotine. The prisons of Paris and of the departments were filled with suspected persons, until 200,000 prisoners were crowded within these republican Bastiles. At Paris the dungeons were emptied of their victims and room made for fresh ones, by the swift processes of the Revolutionary Tribunal, which in mockery of justice caused the prisoners to be brought before its bar in companies of ten or fifty. Rank or talent was an inexpiable crime. “Were you not a noble?” asks the president of the court of one of the accused. “Yes,” was the reply. “Enough; another,” was the judge’s verdict. And so on through the long list each day brought before the tribunal.
The scenes about the guillotine were simply infernal. Benches were arranged around the scaffold and rented to spectators, like seats in a theatre. A special sewer had to be constructed to carry off the blood of the victims. In the space of a little over a month (from June 10th to July 17th) the number of persons guillotined at Paris was 1285, an average of 34 a day.
MASSACRES IN THE PROVINCES.–While such was the terrible state of things at the capital, matters were even worse in many of the other leading cities of France. The scenes at Nantes, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Toulon suggested, in their varied elements of horror, the awful conceptions of the “Inferno” of Dante. At Nantes the victims were at first shot singly or guillotined; but these methods being found too slow, more expeditious modes of execution were devised. To these were playfully given the names of “Republican Baptisms,” “Republican Marriages,” and “Battues.”
The “Republican Baptism” consisted in crowding a hundred or more persons into a vessel, which was then towed out into the Loire and scuttled. In the “Republican Marriages” a man and woman were bound together, and then thrown into the river. The “Battues” consisted in ranging the victims in long ranks, and mowing them down with discharges of cannon and musket.
By these various methods fifteen thousand victims were destroyed in the course of a single month. The entire number massacred at Nantes during the Reign of Terror is estimated at thirty thousand. What renders these murders the more horrible is the fact that a considerable number of the victims were women and children. Nantes was at this time crowded with the orphaned children of the Vendéan counter-revolutionists. Upon a single night three hundred of these innocents were taken from the city prisons and drowned in the Loire.
THE FALL OF ROBESPIERRE (July, 1794).–By such terrorism did Robespierre and his creatures rule France for a little more than three months. The awful suspense and dread drove many into insanity and to suicide. The strain was too great for human nature to bear. A reaction came. The successes of the armies of the republic, and the establishment of the authority of the Convention throughout the departments, caused the people to look upon the massacres that were daily taking place as unnecessary and cruel. They began to turn with horror and pity from the scenes of the guillotine.
The first blow at the power of the dictator was struck in the Convention. A member dared to denounce him, upon the floor of the assembly, as a tyrant. The spell was broken. He was arrested and sent to the guillotine, with a large number of his confederates. The people greeted the fall of the tyrant’s head with demonstrations of unbounded joy. The delirium was over. “France had awakened from the ghastly dream of the Reign of Terror (July 28, 1794).”
THE REACTION.–The reaction which had swept away Robespierre and his associates continued after their ruin. The clubs of the Jacobins were closed, and that infamous society which had rallied and directed the hideous rabbles of the great cities was broken up. The deputies that had been driven from their seats in the Convention were invited to resume their places and the Christian worship was reestablished.
NAPOLEON DEFENDS THE CONVENTION (Oct. 5, 1795).–These and other measures of the Convention did not fail of arousing the bitter opposition of the scattered forces of the Terrorists, as they were called; and on the 5th of October, 1795, a mob of 40,000 men advanced to the attack of the Tuileries, where the Convention was sitting. As the mob came on they were met by a storm of grape shot, which sent them flying back in wild disorder. The man who trained the guns was a young artillery officer, a native of the island of Corsica,–Napoleon Bonaparte. The Revolution had at last brought forth a man of genius capable of controlling and directing its tremendous energies. 5. THE DIRECTORY (Oct. 27, 1795-Nov. 9, 1799).