A Book of Golden Deeds

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> A Book of Golden Deeds

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And Philippe did collect all his forces, a great and noble army, and
came one night to the hill of Sangate, just behind the English army, the
knights' armor glancing and their pennons flying in the moonlight, so as
to be a beautiful sight to the hungry garrison who could see the white
tents pitched upon the hillside. Still there were but two roads by which
the French could reach their friends in the town--one along the
seacoast, the other by a marshy road higher up the country, and there
was but one bridge by which the river could be crossed. The English
King's fleet could prevent any troops from passing along the coast road,
the Earl of Derby guarded the bridge, and there was a great tower,
strongly fortified, close upon Calais. There were a few skirmishes, but
the French King, finding it difficult to force his way to relieve the
town, sent a party of knights with a challenge to King Edward to come
out of his camp and do battle upon a fair field.

To this Edward made answer, that he had been nearly a year before
Calais, and had spent large sums of money on the siege, and that he had
nearly become master of the place, so that he had no intention of coming
out only to gratify his adversary, who must try some other road if he
could not make his way in by that before him.

Three days were spent in parleys, and then, without the slightest effort
to rescue the brave, patient men within the town, away went King
Philippe of France, with all his men, and the garrison saw the host that
had crowded the hill of Sangate melt away like a summer cloud.

August had come again, and they had suffered privation for a whole year
for the sake of the King who deserted them at their utmost need. They
were in so grievous a state of hunger and distress that the hardiest
could endure no more, for ever since Whitsuntide no fresh provisions had
reached them. The Governor, therefore, went to the battlements and made
signs that he wished to hold a parley, and the King appointed Lord
Basset and Sir Walter Mauny to meet him, and appoint the terms of
surrender.

The Governor owned that the garrison was reduced to the greatest
extremity of distress, and requested that the King would be contented
with obtaining the city and fortress, leaving the soldiers and
inhabitants to depart in peace.

But Sir Walter Mauny was forced to make answer that the King, his lord,
was so much enraged at the delay and expense that Calais had cost him,
that he would only consent to receive the whole on unconditional terms,
leaving him free to slay, or to ransom, or make prisoners whomsoever he
pleased, and he was known to consider that there was a heavy reckoning
to pay, both for the trouble the siege had cost him and the damage the
Calesians had previously done to his ships.

The brave answer was: 'These conditions are too hard for us. We are but
a small number of knights and squires, who have loyally served our lord
and master as you would have done, and have suffered much ill and
disquiet, but we will endure far more than any man has done in such a
post, before we consent that the smallest boy in the town shall fare
worse than ourselves. I therefore entreat you, for pity's sake, to
return to the King and beg him to have compassion, for I have such an
opinion of his gallantry that I think he will alter his mind.'

The King's mind seemed, however, sternly made up; and all that Sir
Walter Mauny and the barons of the council could obtain from him was
that he would pardon the garrison and townsmen on condition that six of
the chief citizens should present themselves to him, coming forth with
bare feet and heads, with halters round their necks, carrying the keys
of the town, and becoming absolutely his own to punish for their
obstinacy as he should think fit.

On hearing this reply, Sir Jean de Vienne begged Sir Walter Mauny to
wait till he could consult the citizens, and, repairing to the
marketplace, he caused a great bell to be rung, at sound of which all
the inhabitants came together in the town hall. When he told them of
these hard terms he could not refrain from weeping bitterly, and wailing
and lamentation arose all round him. Should all starve together, or
sacrifice their best and most honored after all suffering in common so
long?

Then a voice was heard; it was that of the richest burgher in the town,
Eustache de St. Pierre. 'Messieurs high and low,' he said, 'it would be
a sad pity to suffer so many people to die through hunger, if it could
be prevented; and to hinder it would be meritorious in the eyes of our
Saviour. I have such faith and trust in finding grace before God, if I
die to save my townsmen, that I name myself as the first of the six.'

As the burgher ceased, his fellow townsmen wept aloud, and many, amid
tears and groans, threw themselves at his feet in a transport of grief
and gratitude. Another citizen, very rich and respected, rose up and
said, 'I will be second to my comrade, Eustache.' His name was Jean
Daire. After him, Jacques Wissant, another very rich man, offered
himself as companion to these, who were both his cousins; and his
brother Pierre would not be left behind: and two more, unnamed, made up
this gallant band of men willing to offer their lives for the rescue of
their fellow townsmen.

Sir Jean de Vienne mounted a little horse--for he had been wounded, and
was still lame--and came to the gate with them, followed by all the
people of the town, weeping and wailing, yet, for their own sakes and
their children's not daring to prevent the sacrifice. The gates were
opened, the governor and the six passed out, and the gates were again
shut behind them. Sir Jean then rode up to Sir Walter Mauny, and told
him how these burghers had voluntarily offered themselves, begging him
to do all in his power to save them; and Sir Walter promised with his
whole heart to plead their cause. De Vienne then went back into the
town, full of heaviness and anxiety; and the six citizens were led by
Sir Walter to the presence of the King, in his full Court. They all
knelt down, and the foremost said: 'Most gallant King, you see before
you six burghers of Calais, who have all been capital merchants, and who
bring you the keys of the castle and town. We yield ourselves to your
absolute will and pleasure, in order to save the remainder of the
inhabitants of Calais, who have suffered much distress and misery.
Condescend, therefore, out of your nobleness of mind, to have pity on
us.'

Strong emotion was excited among all the barons and knights who stood
round, as they saw the resigned countenances, pale and thin with
patiently endured hunger, of these venerable men, offering themselves in
the cause of their fellow townsmen. Many tears of pity were shed; but
the King still showed himself implacable, and commanded that they should
be led away, and their heads stricken off. Sir Walter Mauny interceded
for them with all his might, even telling the King that such an
execution would tarnish his honor, and that reprisals would be made on
his own garrisons; and all the nobles joined in entreating pardon for
the citizens, but still without effect; and the headsman had been
actually sent for, when Queen Philippa, her eyes streaming with tears,
threw herself on her knees amongst the captives, and said, 'Ah, gentle
sir, since I have crossed the sea, with much danger, to see you, I have
never asked you one favor; now I beg as a boon to myself, for the sake
of the Son of the Blessed Mary, and for your love to me, that you will
be merciful to these men!'

For some time the King looked at her in silence; then he exclaimed:
'Dame, dame, would that you had been anywhere than here! You have
entreated in such a manner that I cannot refuse you; I therefore give
these men to you, to do as you please with.'

Joyfully did Queen Philippa conduct the six citizens to her own
apartments, where she made them welcome, sent them new garments,
entertained them with a plentiful dinner, and dismissed them each with a
gift of six nobles. After this, Sir Walter Mauny entered the city, and
took possession of it; retaining Sir Jean de Vienne and the other
knights and squires till they should ransom themselves, and sending out
the old French inhabitants; for the King was resolved to people the city
entirely of English, in order to gain a thoroughly strong hold of this
first step in France.

The King and Queen took up their abode in the city; and the houses of
Jean Daire were, it appears, granted to the Queen--perhaps, because she
considered the man himself as her charge, and wished to secure them for
him--and her little daughter Margaret was, shortly after, born in one of
his houses. Eustache de St. Pierre was taken into high favor, and placed
in charge of the new citizens whom the King placed in the city.

Indeed, as this story is told by no chronicler but Froissart, some have
doubted of it, and thought the violent resentment thus imputed to Edward
III inconsistent with his general character; but it is evident that the
men of Calais had given him strong provocation by attacks on his
shipping--piracies which are not easily forgiven--and that he considered
that he had a right to make an example of them. It is not unlikely that
he might, after all, have intended to forgive them, and have given the
Queen the grace of obtaining their pardon, so as to excuse himself from
the fulfillment of some over-hasty threat. But, however this may have
been, nothing can lessen the glory of the six grave and patient men who
went forth, by their own free will, to meet what might be a cruel and
disgraceful death, in order to obtain the safety of their fellow-
townsmen.

Very recently, in the summer of 1864, an instance has occurred of self-
devotion worthy to be recorded with that of Eustache de St. Pierre. The
City of Palmyra, in Tennessee, one of the Southern States of America,
had been occupied by a Federal army. An officer of this army was
assassinated, and, on the cruel and mistaken system of taking reprisals,
the general arrested ten of the principal inhabitants, and condemned
them to be shot, as deeming the city responsible for the lives of his
officers. One of them was the highly respected father of a large family,
and could ill be spared. A young man, not related to him, upon this,
came forward and insisted on being taken in his stead, as a less
valuable life. And great as was the distress of his friend, this
generous substitution was carried out, and not only spared a father to
his children, but showed how the sharpest strokes of barbarity can still
elicit light from the dark stone--light that but for these blows might
have slept unseen.

THE BATTLE OF SEMPACH

1397

Nothing in history has been more remarkable than the union of the
cantons and cities of the little republic of Switzerland. Of differing
races, languages, and, latterly, even religions--unlike in habits,
tastes, opinions and costumes--they have, however, been held together,
as it were, by pressure from without, and one spirit of patriotism has
kept the little mountain republic complete for five hundred years.

Originally the lands were fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire, the city
municipalities owning the Emperor for their lord, and the great family
of Hapsburg, in whom the Empire became at length hereditary, was in
reality Swiss, the county that gave them title lying in the canton of
Aargau. Rodolf of Hapsburg was elected leader of the burghers of Zurich,
long before he was chosen to the Empire; and he continued a Swiss in
heart, retaining his mountaineer's open simplicity and honesty to the
end of his life. Privileges were granted by him to the cities and the
nobles, and the country was loyal and prosperous in his reign.

His son Albert, the same who was slain by his nephew Johann, as before-
mentioned, permitted those tyrannies of his bailiffs which goaded the
Swiss to their celebrated revolt, and commenced the long series of wars
with the House of Hapsburgor, as it was now termed, of Austria--which
finally established their independence.

On the one side, the Dukes of Austria and their ponderous German
chivalry wanted to reduce the cantons and cities to vassalage, not to
the Imperial Crown, a distant and scarcely felt obligation, but to the
Duchy of Austria; on the other, the hardy mountain peasants and stout
burghers well knew their true position, and were aware that to admit the
Austrian usurpation would expose their young men to be drawn upon for
the Duke's wars, cause their property to be subject to perpetual
rapacious exactions, and fill their hills with castles for ducal
bailiffs, who would be little better than licensed robbers. No wonder,
then, that the generations of William Tell and Arnold Melchthal
bequeathed a resolute purpose of resistance to their descendants.

It was in 1397, ninety years since the first assertion of Swiss
independence, when Leopold the Handsome, Duke of Austria, a bold but
misproud and violent prince, involved himself in one of the constant
quarrels with the Swiss that were always arising on account of the
insulting exactions of toll and tribute in the Austrian border cities. A
sharp war broke out, and the Swiss city of Lucerne took the opportunity
of destroying the Austrian castle of Rothemburg, where the tolls had
been particularly vexatious, and of admitting to their league the cities
of Sempach and Richensee.

Leopold and all the neighboring nobles united their forces. Hatred and
contempt of the Swiss, as low-born and presumptuous, spurred them on;
and twenty messengers reached the Duke in one day, with promises of
support, in his march against Sempach and Lucerne. He had sent a large
force in the direction of Zurich with Johann Bonstetten, and advanced
himself with 4,000 horse and 1,400 foot upon Sempach. Zurich undertook
its own defense, and the Forest cantons sent their brave peasants to the
support of Lucerne and Sempach, but only to the number of 1,300, who, on
the 9th of July, took post in the woods around the little lake of
Sempach.

Meanwhile, Leopold's troops rode round the walls of the little city,
insulting the inhabitants, one holding up a halter, which he said was
for the chief magistrate; and another, pointing to the reckless waste
that his comrades were perpetrating on the fields, shouted, 'Send a
breakfast to the reapers.' The burgomaster pointed to the wood where his
allies lay hid, and answered, 'My masters of Lucerne and their friends
will bring it.'

The story of that day was told by one of the burghers who fought in the
ranks of Lucerne, a shoemaker, named Albert Tchudi, who was both a brave
warrior and a master-singer; and as his ballad was translated by another
master-singer, Sir Walter Scott, and is the spirited record of an
eyewitness, we will quote from him some of his descriptions of the
battle and its golden deed.

The Duke's wiser friends proposed to wait till he could be joined by
Bonstetten and the troops who had gone towards Zurich, and the Baron von
Hasenburg (i.e. hare-rock) strongly urged this prudent counsel; but--

'O, Hare-Castle, thou heart of hare!'
Fierce Oxenstiern he cried,
'Shalt see then how the game will fare,'
The taunted knight replied.'

'This very noon,' said the younger knight to the Duke, 'we will deliver
up to you this handful of villains.'

'And thus they to each other said,
'Yon handful down to hew
Will be no boastful tale to tell
The peasants are so few.'

Characteristically enough, the doughty cobbler describes how the first
execution that took place was the lopping off the long-peaked toes of
the boots that the gentlemen wore chained to their knees, and which
would have impeded them on foot; since it had been decided that the
horses were too much tired to be serviceable in the action.

'There was lacing then of helmets bright,
And closing ranks amain,
The peaks they hewed from their boot points
Might well nigh load a wain.'

They were drawn up in a solid compact body, presenting an unbroken line
of spears, projecting beyond the wall of gay shields and polished
impenetrable armor.

The Swiss were not only few in number, but armor was scarce among them;
some had only boards fastened on their arms by way of shields, some had
halberts, which had been used by their fathers at the battle of
Morgarten, others two-handed swords and battleaxes. They drew themselves
up in the form of a wedge and

'The gallant Swiss confederates then
They prayed to God aloud,
And He displayed His rainbow fair,
Against a swarthy cloud.'

Then they rushed upon the serried spears, but in vain. 'The game was
nothing sweet.'

The banner of Lucerne was in the utmost danger, the Landamman was slain,
and sixty of his men, and not an Austrian had been wounded. The flanks
of the Austrian host began to advance so as to enclose the small peasant
force, and involve it in irremediable destruction. A moment of dismay
and stillness ensued. Then Arnold von Winkelried of Unterwalden, with an
eagle glance saw the only means of saving his country, and, with the
decision of a man who dares by dying to do all things, shouted aloud: 'I
will open a passage.'

'I have a virtuous wife at home,
A wife and infant son:
I leave them to my country's care,
The field shall yet be won!'
He rushed against the Austrian band
In desperate career,
And with his body, breast, and hand,
Bore down each hostile spear;
Four lances splintered on his crest,
Six shivered in his side,
Still on the serried files he pressed,
He broke their ranks and died!'

The very weight of the desperate charge of this self-devoted man opened
a breach in the line of spears. In rushed the Swiss wedge, and the
weight of the nobles' armor and length of their spears was only
encumbering. They began to fall before the Swiss blows, and Duke Leopold
was urged to fly. 'I had rather die honorably than live with dishonor,'
he said. He saw his standard bearer struck to the ground, and seizing
his banner from his hand, waved it over his head, and threw himself
among the thickest of the foe. His corpse was found amid a heap of
slain, and no less then 2000 of his companions perished with him, of
whom a third are said to have been counts, barons and knights.

'Then lost was banner, spear and shield
At Sempach in the flight;
The cloister vaults at Konigsfeldt
Hold many an Austrian knight.'

The Swiss only lost 200; but, as they were spent with the excessive heat
of the July sun, they did not pursue their enemies. They gave thanks on
the battlefield to the God of victories, and the next day buried the
dead, carrying Duke Leopold and twenty-seven of his most illustrious
companions to the Abbey of Konigsfeldt, where they buried him in the old
tomb of his forefathers, the lords of Aargau, who had been laid there in
the good old times, before the house of Hapsburg had grown arrogant with
success.

As to the master-singer, he tells us of himself that

'A merry man was he, I wot,
The night he made the lay,
Returning from the bloody spot,
Where God had judged the day.'

On every 9th of July subsequently, the people of the country have been
wont to assemble on the battlefield, around four stone crosses which
mark the spot. A priest from a pulpit in the open air gives a
thanksgiving sermon on the victory that ensured the freedom of
Switzerland, and another reads the narrative of the battle, and the roll
of the brave 200, who, after Winkelried's example, gave their lives in
the cause. All this is in the face of the mountains and the lake now
lying in summer stillness, and the harvest fields whose crops are secure
from marauders, and the congregation then proceed to the small chapel,
the walls of which are painted with the deed of Arnold von Winkelried,
and the other distinguished achievements of the confederates, and masses
are sung for the souls of those who were slain. No wonder that men thus
nurtured in the memory of such actions were, even to the fall of the
French monarchy, among the most trustworthy soldiery of Europe.

THE CONSTANT PRINCE

1433

The illustrious days of Portugal were during the century and a half of
the dynasty termed the House of Aviz, because its founder, Dom Joao I.
had been grand master of the military order of Aviz.

His right to the throne was questionable, or more truly null, and he had
only obtained the crown from the desire of the nation to be independent
of Castile, and by the assistance of our own John of Gaunt, whose
daughter, Philippa of Lancaster, became his wife, thus connecting the
glories of his line with our own house of Plantagenet.

Philippa was greatly beloved in Portugal, and was a most noble-minded
woman, who infused her own spirit into her children. She had five sons,
and when they all had attained an age to be admitted to the order of
knighthood, their father proposed to give a grand tournament in which
they might evince their prowess. This, however, seemed but play to the
high-spirited youths, who had no doubt fed upon the story of the manner
in which their uncle, the Black Prince, whose name was borne by the
eldest, had won his spurs at Crecy. Their entreaty was, not to be
carpet--knights dubbed in time of peace, and King Joao on the other hand
objected to entering on a war merely for the sake of knighting his sons.
At last Dom Fernando, the youngest of the brothers, a lad of fourteen,
proposed that their knighthood should be earned by an expedition to take
Ceuta from the Moors. A war with the infidel never came amiss, and was
in fact regarded as a sacred duty; moreover, Ceuta was a nest of
corsairs who infested the whole Mediterranean coast. Up to the
nineteenth century the seaports along the African coast of the
Mediterranean were the hives of pirates, whose small rapid vessels were
the terror of every unarmed ship that sailed in those waters, and whose
descents upon the coasts of Spain, France, and Italy rendered life and
property constantly insecure. A regular system of kidnapping prevailed;
prisoners had their fixed price, and were carried off to labour in the
African dockyards, or to be chained to the benches of the Moorish ships
which their oars propelled, until either a ransom could be procured from
their friends, or they could be persuaded to become renegades, or death
put an end to their sufferings. A captivity among the Moors was by no
means an uncommon circumstance even in the lives of Englishmen down to
the eighteenth century, and pious persons frequently bequeathed sums of
money for the ransom of the poorer captives.

Ceuta, perched upon the southern Pillar of Hercules, was one of the most
perilous of these dens of robbery, and to seize it might well appear a
worthy action, not only to the fiery princes, but to their cautious
father. He kept his designs absolutely secret, and contrived to obtain a
plan of the town by causing one of his vessels to put in there as in
quest of provisions, while, to cover his preparations for war, he sent a
public challenge to the Count of Holland, and a secret message at the
same time, with the assurance that it was only a blind. These
proceedings were certainly underhand, and partook of treachery; but they
were probably excused in the King's own mind by the notion, that no
faith was to be kept with unbelievers, and, moreover, such people as the
Ceutans were likely never to be wanting in the supply of pretexts for
attack.

Just as all was ready, the plague broke out in Lisbon, and the Queen
fell sick of it. Her husband would not leave her, and just before her
death she sent for all her sons, and gave to each a sword, charging them
to defend the widow and orphan, and to fight against the infidel. In the
full freshness of their sorrow, the King and his sons set sail from the
Bay of Lagos, in the August of 1415, with 59 galleys, 33 ships of war,
and 120 transports; the largest fleet ever yet sent forth by the little
kingdom, and the first that had left a Peninsular port with the banners
and streamers of which the more northern armaments were so profuse.

The governor of Ceuta, Zala ben Zala, was not unprepared for the attack,
and had collected 5,000 allies to resist the Christians; but a great
storm having dispersed the fleet on the first day of its appearance, he
thought the danger over, and dismissed his friends On the 14th August,
however, the whole fleet again appeared, and the King, in a little boat,
directed the landing of his men, led by his sons, the Infantes Duarte
and Henrique. The Moors gave way before them, and they entered the city
with 500 men, among the flying enemy, and there, after a period of much
danger, were joined by their brother Pedro. The three fought their way
to a mosque, where they defended themselves till the King with the rest
of his army made their way in. Zala ben Zala fled to the citadel, but,
after one assault, quitted it in the night.

The Christian captives were released, the mosque purified and
consecrated as a cathedral, a bishop was appointed, and the King gave
the government of the place to Dom Pedro de Menezes, a knight of such
known fidelity that the King would not suffer him to take the oath of
allegiance. An attempt was made by the Moors four years later to recover
the place; but the Infantes Pedro and Henrique hurried from Portugal to
succor Menezes, and drove back the besiegers; whereupon the Moors
murdered their King, Abu Sayd, on whom they laid the blame of the
disaster.

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