Book: The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 20

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[Illustration: Murder of the favorite, Rizzio, at the feet of Mary
Stuart, by her husband and associate conspirators

Painting by Eug. Siberdt.]




THE GREAT EVENTS

BY

FAMOUS HISTORIANS


A COMPREHENSIVE AND READABLE ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY, EMPHASIZING
THE MORE IMPORTANT EVENTS, AND PRESENTING THESE AS COMPLETE NARRATIVES
IN THE MASTER-WORDS OF THE MOST EMINENT HISTORIANS


NON-SECTARIAN NON-PARTISAN NON-SECTIONAL


ON THE PLAN EVOLVED FROM A CONSENSUS OF OPINIONS GATHERED FROM THE
MOST DISTINGUISHED SCHOLARS OF AMERICA AND EUROPE, INCLUDING BRIEF
INTRODUCTIONS BY SPECIALISTS TO CONNECT AND EXPLAIN THE CELEBRATED
NARRATIVES. ARRANGED CHRONOLOGICALLY, WITH THOROUGH INDICES,
BIBLIOGRAPHIES, CHRONOLOGIES, AND COURSES OF READING


EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

ROSSITER JOHNSON, LL.D.


ASSOCIATE EDITORS

CHARLES F. HORNE, Ph.D.
JOHN RUDD, LL.D.

_With a staff of specialists_



_VOLUME X_

The National Alumni


COPYRIGHT, 1905,

By THE NATIONAL ALUMNI




CONTENTS

VOLUME X


PAGE

_An Outline Narrative of the Great Events_, xiii
CHARLES F. HORNE

_England Loses Her Last French Territory (A.D. 1558)
Battle of St. Quentin_, 1
CHARLES KNIGHT

_Reign of Elizabeth (A.D. 1558-1603)_, 8
HENRY R. CLEVELAND

_John Knox Heads the Scottish Reformers (A.D. 1558)_, 21
P. HUME BROWN
THOMAS CARLYLE

_Mary Stuart: Her Reign and Execution (A.D. 1561-1587)_, 51
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE

_Founding of St. Augustine (A.D. 1565)
Massacre of the Huguenots in America_, 70
GEORGE R. FAIRBANKS

_Revolt of the Netherlands against Spain
Rise of the Gueux or Beggars (A.D. 1566)_, 81
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLER

_Lepanto: Destruction of the Turkish Naval Power
(A.D. 1571)_, 100
SIR WILLIAM STIRLING-MAXWELL

_Massacre of St. Bartholomew (A.D. 1572)_, 119
HENRY WHITE
ISAAC D'ISRAELI
JNO. RUDD

_Heroic Age of the Netherlands (A.D. 1573)
Siege of Leyden_, 145
THOMAS HENRY DYER

_Search for the Northwest Passage by Frobisher (A.D. 1576)_, 156
GEORGE BEST

_Building of the First Theatre in England (A.D. 1576)_ 163
KARL MANTZIUS

_Cossack Conquest of Siberia (A.D. 1581)_, 181
NIKOLAI M. KARAMZIN

_First Colony of England Beyond Seas (A.D. 1583)_, 198
MOSES HARVEY

_Assassination of William of Orange (A.D. 1584)
Division of the Netherlands_, 202
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY

_Naming of Virginia: First Description of the Indians
The Lost Colony (A.D. 1584)_, 211
ARTHUR BARLOW
R. R. HOWISON

_Drake Captures Cartagena
He "Singes the King of Spain's Beard" at Cadiz
(A.D. 1586-1587)_, 230
JULIAN CORBETT

_Defeat of the Spanish Armada (A.D. 1588)_, 251
SIR EDWARD SHEPHERD CREASY

_Henry of Navarre Accepts Catholicism
He is Acknowledged King of France (A.D. 1593)_, 276
MAXIMILIEN DE BETHUNE, DUC DE SULLY

_Culmination of Dramatic Literature in Hamlet (A.D. 1601)_, 287
JAMES O. HALLIWELL-PHILLIPPS

_Downfall of Irish Liberty
"Flight of the Earls" (A.D. 1603)_, 299
JUSTIN M'CARTHY

_The Gunpowder Plot (A.D. 1605)_, 310
SAMUEL R. GARDINER

_Cervantes' Don Quixote Reforms Literature (A.D. 1605)_, 325
HENRY EDWARD WATTS

_Earliest Positive Discovery of Australia (A.D. 1606)_, 340
LOUIS BECKE
WALTER JEFFERY

_Settlement of Virginia (A.D. 1607)
Charter under which America was Colonized_, 350
R. R. HOWISON

_Founding of Quebec (A.D. 1608)
Champlain Establishes French Power in Canada_, 366
H. H. MILES

_Universal Chronology (A.D. 1558-1608)_, 387
JOHN RUDD




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOLUME X


PAGE

_Murder of the favorite, Rizzio, at the feet of Mary
Stuart, by her husband and associate conspirators
(page 56)_, Frontispiece
Painting by Eug. Siberdt.

_Catharine de' Medici, accompanied by her suite, issues
from the gate of the Louvre the morning after the Massacre
of St. Bartholomew_, 142
Painting by Ed. Debat-Ponsan.




AN OUTLINE NARRATIVE

TRACING BRIEFLY THE CAUSES, CONNECTIONS, AND CONSEQUENCES

OF THE GREAT EVENTS

(AGE OF ELIZABETH AND PHILIP II)


CHARLES F. HORNE


Philip II succeeded his father Charles V on the throne of Spain. The
vast extent of his domains, the absoluteness of his authority, and,
above all, the enormous wealth that poured into his coffers from the
Spanish conquests in America, made him the most powerful monarch of his
time, the central figure of the age. It was largely because of Philip's
personal character that the great religious struggle of the Reformation
entered upon a new phase, became far more sinister, more black and
deadly, extended over all Europe, and bathed the civilized world in
blood. England stood forth as the centre of opposition against Philip,
and under the unwilling leadership of Elizabeth entered on its epic
period of heroism, was stimulated to that remarkable outburst of energy
and intellect and power which we call the Elizabethan age.

Philip, with a tenacity of purpose from which no fortune good or bad
could lure him for a moment, pursued two objects throughout his reign
(1555-1598), the reestablishment of Catholicism over all Europe, and the
extension so far as might be of his own personal authority. If we
consider his personal ambition, we must count his reign a failure; for
at his death his country had already fallen from its foremost rank in
Europe and started on that process of decay which in later centuries has
become so marked. If, however, we look to Philip's religious purpose, it
is undeniable that during his reign Catholicism revived. Philip II, the
Jesuits, the Council of Trent--these three were the powers by means of
which the Roman Church beat back its foes, saved itself from what for a
time had seemed a threatened extinction, and so far reestablished its
power that for over a century it appeared not improbable that Philip's
purpose of reuniting Europe might be accomplished.

Before the beginning of this reactionary wave, the North had become
wholly Protestant. It has been estimated that nine-tenths of the people
of Germany were of the new faith; half the population of France had
adopted it; even in Italy protest and disbelief were widespread and
active. Only in Spain did the Inquisition with firmest cruelty trample
down each vestige of revolt.


SPAIN AND GREAT BRITAIN

The Inquisition was established in Italy, which, as we have seen, was
really a Spanish possession. It was introduced into the Netherlands by
Charles V (1550), but remained feebly merciful there until Philip, to
whom we must at least give the credit of having been a sincere fanatic,
insisted on its rigorous enforcement. Over England also Philip sought to
extend his hand. There the eagerly Protestant Edward VI had died in
1553, and his Catholic sister Mary succeeded to the throne. Philip was
wedded to her in 1554, even before he became King of Spain, and both he
and she did their utmost to restore the kingdom to the Roman faith. So
many Protestants were burned at the stake that England remembers the
queen as "bloody Mary"; and so recklessly did she antagonize the spirit
of her people that even her husband counselled her to a caution which
she despised. He had no love for his cold, pale, embittered English
wife, except as an instrument in his policy; and when he found that it
was impossible for him, as her husband, to become King of England, he
practically abandoned her, and returned to Spain.

When his father's abdication gave him power in 1555, Philip's first
active movement was against France. He sought to avenge his father's
loss of Metz, and persuaded his English wife to join him in war against
young Henry II. With his splendid Spanish troops Philip won a great
victory at St. Quentin.[1] "Has he yet taken Paris?" cried his father
eagerly when the news reached his secluded monastery. But Philip had
not, he had erred from over-caution and given France time to recover.
Two able generals, the great Protestant leader Coligny, and the dashing
Catholic hero of Metz, Francis of Guise, held the Spaniards in check.
Guise even seized Calais, and so snatched from England her last
territory in France (1558). Its loss filled full the measure of poor
Mary's unpopularity with her subjects and also of her own unhappiness.
She had sacrificed everything for love of a husband who had no love for
her. She died the same year. "They will find 'Calais,'" she said,
"engraven on my heart."[2]

[1] See _Battle of St. Quentin_, page 1.

[2] See _England Loses Her Last French Territory_, page 1.

Her Protestant sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, succeeded to
the throne, and England with a cry of relief threw off the hated Spanish
alliance. She was free again. Free, but in infinite danger. The Catholic
Pope and Catholic Philip, remembering that the divorce under which Henry
VIII married Anne Boleyn had never been admitted by the Church, declared
Elizabeth illegitimate, and pointed to her cousin Mary Stuart of
Scotland as the lawful ruler of England. Mary had been married to the
French prince Francis II, who at this moment succeeded his father Henry
II as king of France. Here was a chance indeed for Spain and France and
Scotland all three to unite against Elizabeth and place a second
Catholic Mary on England's throne. Many Englishmen themselves were still
Catholic, and might easily have been persuaded to approve the change.
That Elizabeth, by her cool and cunning diplomacy, managed to evade the
threatened danger, has ever been held as little short of providential by
the Protestants of the world.[3] In truth, however, each of the powers
which might have assailed Elizabeth, had religious difficulties of its
own to encounter.

[3] See _Reign of Elizabeth_, page 8.

In Scotland there was civil war. The Protestant faith had been slow of
introduction there, but under the leadership of John Knox it had become
at length supreme.[4] The Regent, mother of the young queen, Mary
Stuart, had French troops to aid her against the reformers, but had been
compelled to yield to their demands. When Queen Mary herself returned to
rule Scotland after the death of her French husband, King Francis, she
found her path anything but easy. A sovereign of one faith and a nation
of another had not yet learned to endure each other, and there were
queer doings in Scotland, wild nobles running off with the Queen, wilder
fanatics lecturing at her in her own court, her French favorite
assassinated, a new husband, a Scotch one, sent the same dark road, more
civil war, imprisonments, romantic escapes. It ended in Mary's secret
flight to England. She who had so nearly marched into the land a
conqueror, entered it a fugitive supplicating Elizabeth's protection.
The remainder of her life she passed in an English prison, and eighteen
years later was executed on an only half-proven charge of conspiring
against the rival who had kept her in such dreary durance.[5]

[4] See _John Knox Heads the Scottish Reformers_, page 21.

[5] See _Mary Stuart: Her Reign and Execution_, page 51.

Let us not, however, judge Elizabeth too harshly. In reading only
English history we are apt to do so, to fail in realizing the atmosphere
that surrounded her, the spirit of the age throughout Europe.
Statecraft, which had been grasping under Charles V and false under
Francis I, seemed now to have adopted fully the maxims of Machiavelli,
and pursued its ends by means wholly base, by subtle treacheries, secret
murders and open massacre. The gloomy spirit of Philip II hung like
blackest night over all the world. He hesitated at no crime which should
advance his purposes. Where he might next strike, no man knew, until the
blow had fallen. His dark secrecy and enormous power weighed as a
nightmare upon the imaginations of men. We enter an age of plots.
Elizabeth was unquestionably surrounded by them; and where so many
existed, a thousand more were naturally suspected--leading on all sides
to counterplots. Scotland had seen several assassinations. England
guarded herself desperately against them. France, nearest to Spain's
borders, suffered worst of all. Five times in succession did the chief
leader of the state fall by sudden murder. In some of these crimes
Philip had no part; in others he was plainly implicated.


RELIGIOUS WARS OF FRANCE

The early and unexpected death of Henry II of France (1559) had left the
throne to one after another of his young and feeble sons. The first of
these, Francis II, the husband of Mary Stuart, ruled only a year. He was
completely under the control of the great Catholic family, the Guises,
who began a vigorous attempt to suppress the Protestants of France, the
Huguenots as they were called. But these Huguenots included many of the
highest and ablest of the French nobility and did not yield easily to
suppression. Francis II died, and the Queen-mother, Catherine de'
Medici, became regent for her second son, Charles IX. At first Catherine
feared the power of the Guises and encouraged the Huguenots; but Philip
of Spain interfered here as everywhere in the Catholic behalf. A civil
war broke out in 1562; and for over a generation France, divided against
herself, became the theatre of repeated conflicts and savage massacres.
She had no thought to give to other lands.

The first of her chiefs to be assassinated was Francis of Guise, the
great Catholic leader and general, shot by a Huguenot. Next the
Catholics attempted the murder of Coligny. They failed at first, and
Catherine de' Medici, who by this time had embraced fully the Catholic
cause, planned the awful massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572). A marriage
was arranged between the highest Huguenot in rank, the young prince
Henry of Navarre, and a royal princess. This was supposed to mark the
amicable ending of all disputes, and the chief Huguenots gathered gladly
to Paris for the ceremony. Suddenly an army of assassins were let loose
on them. Young Henry was spared, but Coligny and more than twenty
thousand Huguenots were slain.[6]

[6] See _Massacre of St. Bartholomew_, page 119.

The massacre spread over all France. The Protestants rallied, stern and
desperate, for defence and for revenge. The civil war was resumed again
and again, with false peaces patched in between. Philip might well
triumph at the utter anarchy into which he had helped to throw the
kingdom which had been his father's rival.

The feeble French king, Charles IX, died, in remorse and madness it is
said, for having permitted the great massacre. Henry III, last of the
sons of Catherine, ascended the throne, and was also guided by the dark
genius of his Italian mother. He found the new Duke of Guise, head of
the Catholic party, far more powerful than he, so caused his
assassination. That roused the Catholics to war on the King; the
Huguenots were also in arms under Henry of Navarre; there were now three
parties to the strife. Queen Catherine died, worn out and despairing.
King Henry was murdered in his turn, and with him perished the direct
line of the royal house. Henry of Navarre was the nearest heir to the
throne.

Of course the Catholics would not consent to be ruled by this champion
of the Huguenots; so again the strife went on. Henry proved himself a
dashing and heroic leader, winning splendid battles. Spanish forces
invaded the country, and he beat them, too. Though Protestant, he was
recognized even by his foes as the national hero. At last he took that
much-debated resolve, than which was never act more statesmanly. He
became a Catholic. His opponents gladly laid down their arms; even
fanatic Paris hailed him with extravagant delight. In 1598 he proclaimed
the Edict of Nantes, granting safety and religious freedom to his former
comrades, the Huguenots. The religious wars of France ended; the wisdom
and power of one man had healed what seemed a hopeless confusion.[7]

[7] See _Henry of Navarre Accepts Catholicism_, page 276.

Under this great monarch, Henry IV, France resumed her former place of
power in Europe. Her chief began planning grim revenge on Spain for all
her injuries. And then he, too, fell by the assassin's knife (1610).


REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS

We have traced the French tumults to the end of the present period; let
us go back to see why, with his chief foe so helpless, Philip II
accomplished no more in extending his own power. It is one of the most
amazing tales in history. Where he had thought himself most secure,
there he failed. The foe which had seemed most helpless, proved his
undoing. He had insisted on the enforcement of the Inquisition in the
Netherlands. It is said that thirty thousand people perished there in
its flames. Yet even with thirty thousand of their bravest gone, the
Protestants refused submission. Gradually the temper of the oppressed
people grew more and more bitter, till in 1566 they flared into open
revolt. "The beggars," they were contemptuously called by the Spaniards,
and they adopted the name as a badge of honor. Penniless, helpless they
might be, yet they would fight.[8]

[8] See _Rise of the Gueux or Beggars_, page 81.

The cruel Alva was sent by Philip to suppress them, and for six years
(1567-1573) his savagery and that of his brutal Spanish soldiers made
the Netherlands a theatre of horror--and of heroism. The revolt in the
southern provinces, now Belgium, was finally put down. The inhabitants
there were mostly Catholics, and their strife was only against the
general despotism and cruelty of Spain. But the North would never yield.
The terrific siege of Leyden, with its accompanying horrors of
starvation and defiance, is world-famed.[9] In 1581 Holland finally
proclaimed its complete independence of Spain.

[9] See _Siege of Leyden_, page 145.

At enormous expense and waste of his American treasure, Philip II
continued to pour troops and troops into the rebellious provinces. Their
leader throughout had been the highest of their nobles, William of
Orange, called "the silent." Philip openly proclaimed an enormous reward
to the man who could reach and assassinate this obstacle in his path;
and at last after repeated attempts the reward was earned (1584).[10] The
fall of William ended all chance of the union of the northern and
southern provinces; he had been the only man all trusted. But Holland
under his son Maurice continued the strife even more bitterly. No
sacrifice was too great for the heroic Dutch. Spain was exhausted at
last; Philip II died a disappointed man. His son, Philip III, in 1609
consented sullenly to a truce--peace he would not call it--and it was
many years before Spain formally acknowledged the independence of her
defiant provinces.

[10] See _Assassination of William of Orange_, page 202.


SUCCESSES OF PHILIP

Philip II had met also an even heavier defeat from Protestant England.
But before speaking of this, let us look to his few successes. In 1580
he added Portugal to his dominions and so, temporarily at least, united
the entire Spanish peninsula as one state. This gave him control over
the vast Portuguese colonial possessions and over the rich trade with
India and the isles beyond. Australia was probably touched more than
once by his ships, though not definitely discovered until 1606.[11]

[11] See _Earliest Positive Discovery of Australia_, page 340.

It was under Philip that in 1564 the Spaniards extended their American
settlements northward and founded St. Augustine, the first town within
the present mainland of the United States. The French had attempted to
plant a colony even earlier. At the first outbreak of their civil wars,
some Huguenots had fled from persecution to the coast of Florida (1562).
The Spaniards regarded this as an encroachment on their territories.
Moreover, the intruders were heretics. They were attacked and massacred.
It was partly to keep further Frenchmen off the coast that St. Augustine
was founded.[12]

[12] See _Founding of St. Augustine_, page 70.

An even more important triumph came to Philip in 1571, when his ships,
united with those of Venice and other states, gained a great naval
victory over the Turks. This battle of Lepanto stands among the
turning-points of history. It marks the checking of the Turkish power
which for over two centuries had been rising steadily against Europe.
Lepanto crushed the naval supremacy which the followers of Mahomet had
more than once asserted over the Mediterranean. For another century and
more they remained formidable on land, but at sea they never recovered
their ascendency.[13]

[13] See _Lepanto: Destruction of the Turkish Naval Power_,
page 100.

At Lepanto as a common soldier, fought Miguel de Cervantes, a Spaniard,
who, toward the close of a roving life, settled down to literature in
his native land, and after Philip's death wrote what was in many ways a
satire upon that monarch's rule in Spain. Cervantes' _Don Quixote_
altered the taste of the whole literary world. Its influence spread from
Spain to France and over all Europe. It was the death-song of ancient
chivalry, the first book since the days of Dante to alter markedly the
literary thought of man.[14]

[14] See _Cervantes'_ Don Quixote _Reforms Literature_, page 325.

Of the world farther eastward during this period we need say little. The
fortunes of Germany, luckily for herself, had been separated from those
of Spain at the abdication of Charles V. The Hapsburg possessions in
Austria had been bequeathed to his brother Ferdinand; and both Ferdinand
and his next successor as emperor of Germany abided by the conditions of
that remarkable religious peace of Augsburg which had allowed every
prince to settle the religion of his own domains. Although themselves
Catholic, the Emperors were not strict in enforcing Catholicism even in
their own Austrian domains. They reserved all their effort for the
struggle against the Turks. Disputes between the leaders of the
differing faiths did of course occur, but none reached an active stage
until a later generation.

Sweden rose greatly in importance. Poland declined. Russia was almost
conquered by one or the other, a prey, like France, to civil wars. Yet
some Cossacks in her service, wandering plunderers really, invaded
Siberia, defeated the few scattered Tartar tribes, and annexed the
entire waste of Northern Asia to the Russian crown. Never again was this
to be a secretly growing, unknown world from which vast hordes might
suddenly burst forth on Europe.[15]

[15] See _Cossack Conquest of Siberia_, page 181.


THE ELIZABETHAN AGE

Turn now to England, emerging at last from the exhaustion of the Wars of
the Roses to assert her place among the great powers of the world.
Philip and Elizabeth, restrained by other anxieties, might maintain a
hollow peace at home: they could not control the rising spirits of the
English nation. English sailors, the most daring in the world,
penetrated all seas. Spanish and Portuguese ships had been almost
everywhere before them. The North was still half a century behind the
South in progress. Yet the difference is worth noting. On the southern
ships a few gallant, aristocratic leaders headed a crowd of trembling
peasants, ever begging to be taken home, sometimes mutinying through
very frenzy of fear. On England's ships each sailor was as stubborn and
dauntless as his chief, differing from him only in the intellect to
command.

Such men as these were little like to accept Spanish claims to all the
wealth of all the new lands of the world. They cruised at will, and
fought the Spaniards successfully wherever found. Frobisher began the
long and dreary search for the "northwest passage," by which the
northern countries of Europe might send ships to round America and reach
Asia as Magellan had done to southward.[16] Gilbert raised his country's
standard over Newfoundland, England's first clearly established
possession beyond seas.[17] The memory of the Cabots' voyages was
revived, and in their name England claimed the North American coast. Sir
Walter Raleigh attempted to plant a colony, and called the new land
Virginia in honor of the Virgin Queen.[18]

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