A Book of Golden Deeds

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

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The good Vincent de Paul died in the year 1660, but his brothers of St.
Lazarus, and sisters of charity still tread in the paths he marked out
for them, and his name scarcely needs the saintly epithet that his
church as affixed to it to stand among the most honorable of charitable
men.

The cruel deeds of the African pirates were never wholly checked till
1816, when the united fleets of England and France destroyed the old den
of corsairs at Algiers, which has since become a French colony.

THE HOUSEWIVES OF LOWENBURG

1631

Brave deeds have been done by the burgher dames of some of the German
cities collectively. Without being of the first class of Golden Deeds,
there is something in the exploit of the dames of Weinsberg so quaint
and so touching, that it cannot be omitted here.

It was in the first commencement of the long contest known as the strife
between the Guelfs and Ghibellines--before even these had become the
party words for the Pope's and the Emperor's friends, and when they only
applied to the troops of Bavaria and of Swabia--that, in 1141, Wolf,
Duke of Bavaria, was besieged in his castle of Weinberg by Friedrich,
Duke of Swabia, brother to the reigning emperor, Konrad III.

The siege lasted long, but Wolf was obliged at last to offer to
surrender; and the Emperor granted him permission to depart in safety.
But his wife did not trust to this fair offer. She had reason to believe
that Konrad had a peculiar enmity to her husband; and on his coming to
take possession of the castle, she sent to him to entreat him to give
her a safe conduct for herself and all the other women in the garrison,
that they might come out with as much of their valuables as they could
carry.

This was freely granted, and presently the castle gates opened. From
beneath them came the ladies--but in strange guise. No gold nor jewels
were carried by them, but each one was bending under the weight of her
husband, whom she thus hoped to secure from the vengeance of the
Ghibellines. Konrad, who was really a generous and merciful man, is said
to have been affected to tears by this extraordinary performance; he
hastened to assure the ladies of the perfect safety of their lords, and
that the gentlemen might dismount at once, secure both of life and
freedom. He invited them all to a banquet, and made peace with the Duke
of Bavaria on terms much more favorable to the Guelfs than the rest of
his party had been willing to allow. The castle mount was thenceforth
called no longer the Vine Hill, but the Hill of Weibertreue, or woman's
fidelity. We will not invidiously translate it woman's truth, for there
was in the transaction something of a subterfuge; and it must be owned
that the ladies tried to the utmost the knightly respect for womankind.

The good women of Lowenburg, who were but citizens' wives, seem to us
more worthy of admiration for constancy to their faith, shown at a time
when they had little to aid them. It was such constancy as makes
martyrs; and though the trial stopped short of this, there is something
in the homeliness of the whole scene, and the feminine form of passive
resistance, that makes us so much honor and admire the good women that
we cannot refrain from telling the story.

It was in the year 1631, in the midst of the long Thirty Years' Was
between Roman Catholics and Protestants, which finally decided that each
state should have its own religion, Lowenburg, a city of Silesia,
originally Protestant, had passed into the hands of the Emperor's Roman
Catholic party. It was a fine old German city, standing amid woods and
meadows, fortified with strong walls surrounded by a moat, and with gate
towers to protect the entrance.

In the centre was a large market-place, called the Ring, into which
looked the Council-house and fourteen inns, or places of traffic, for
the cloth that was woven in no less than 300 factories. The houses were
of stone, with gradually projecting stories to the number of four or
five, surmounted with pointed gables. The ground floors had once had
trellised porches, but these had been found inconvenient and were
removed, and the lower story consisted of a large hall, and strong
vault, with a spacious room behind it containing a baking-oven, and a
staircase leading to a wooden gallery, where the family used to dine. It
seems they slept in the room below, though they had upstairs a handsome
wainscoted apartment.

Very rich and flourishing had the Lowenburgers always been, and their
walls were quite sufficient to turn back any robber barons, or even any
invading Poles; but things were different when firearms were in use, and
the bands of mercenary soldiers had succeeded the feudal army. They were
infinitely more formidable during the battle or siege from their
discipline, and yet more dreadful after it for their want of discipline.
The poor Lowneburgers had been greatly misused: their Lutheran pastors
had been expelled; all the superior citizens had either fled or been
imprisoned; 250 families spent the summer in the woods, and of those who
remained in the city, the men had for the most part outwardly conformed
to the Roman Catholic Church. Most of these were of course indifferent
at heart, and they had found places in the town council which had
formerly been filled by more respectable men. However, the wives had
almost all remained staunch to their Lutheran confession; they had
followed their pastors weeping to the gates of the city, loading them
with gifts, and they hastened at every opportunity to hear their
preachings, or obtain baptism for their children at the Lutheran
churches in the neighborhood.

The person who had the upper hand in the Council was one Julius, who had
been a Franciscan friar, but was a desperate, unscrupulous fellow, not
at all like a monk. Finding that it was considered as a reproach that
the churches of Lowenburg were empty, he called the whole Council
together on the 9th of April, 1631, and informed them that the women
must be brought to conformity, or else there were towers and prisons for
them. The Burgomaster was ill in bed, but the Judge, one Elias Seiler,
spoke up at once. 'If we have been able to bring the men into the right
path, why should not we be able to deal with these little creatures?'

Herr Mesnel, a cloth factor, who had been a widower six weeks, thought
it would be hard to manage, though he quite agreed to the expedient,
saying, 'It would be truly good if man and wife had one Creed and one
Paternoster; as concerns the Ten Commandments it is not so pressing.' (A
sentiment that he could hardly have wished to see put in practice.)

Another councilor, called Schwob Franze, who had lost his wife a few
days before, seems to have had an eye to the future, for he said it
would be a pity to frighten away the many beautiful maidens and widows
there were among the Lutheran women; but on the whole the men without
wives were much bolder and more sanguine of success than the married
ones. And no one would undertake to deal with his own wife privately, so
it ended by a message being sent to the more distinguished ladies to
attend the Council.

But presently up came tidings that not merely these few dames, whom they
might have hoped to overawe, were on their way, but that the Judge's
wife and the Burgomaster's were the first pair in a procession of full
500 housewives, who were walking sedately up the stairs to the Council
Hall below the chamber where the dignitaries were assembled. This was
not by any means what had been expected, and the message was sent down
that only the chief ladies should come up. 'No,' replied the Judge's
wife, 'we will not allow ourselves to be separated,' and to this they
were firm; they said, as one fared all should fare; and the Town Clerk,
going up and down with smooth words, received no better answer than this
from the Judge's wife, who, it must be confessed, was less ladylike in
language than resolute in faith.

'Nay, nay, dear friend, do you think we are so simple as not to perceive
the trick by which you would force us poor women against our conscience
to change our faith? My husband and the priest have not been consorting
together all these days for nothing; they have been joined together
almost day and night; assuredly they have either boiled or baked a
devil, which they may eat up themselves. I shall not enter there! Where
I remain, my train and following will remain also! Women, is this your
will?'

'Yea, yea, let it be so,' they said; 'we will all hold together as one
man.'

His honor the Town Clerk was much affrighted, and went hastily back,
reporting that the Council was in no small danger, since each housewife
had her bunch of keys at her side! These keys were the badge of a wife's
dignity and authority, and moreover they were such ponderous articles
that they sometimes served as weapons. A Scottish virago has been know
to dash out the brains of a wounded enemy with her keys; and the
intelligence that the good dames had come so well furnished, filled the
Council with panic. Dr. Melchior Hubner, who had been a miller's man,
wished for a hundred musketeers to mow them down; but the Town Clerk
proposed that all the Council should creep quietly down the back stairs,
lock the doors on the refractory womankind, and make their escape.
This was effected as silently and quickly as possible, for the whole
Council 'could confess to a state of frightful terror.' Presently the
women peeped out, and saw the stairs bestrewn with hats, gloves, and
handkerchiefs; and perceiving how they had put all the wisdom and
authority of the town to the rout, there was great merriment among them,
though, finding themselves locked up, the more tenderhearted began to
pity their husbands and children. As for themselves, their maids and
children came round the Town Hall, to hand in provisions to them, and
all the men who were not of the Council were seeking the magistrates to
know what their wives had done to be thus locked up.

The Judge sent to assemble the rest of the Council at his house; and
though only four came, the doorkeeper ran to the Town Hall, and called
out to his wife that the Council had reassembled, and they would soon be
let out. To which, however, that very shrewd dame, the Judge's wife,
answered with great composure, 'Yea, we willingly have patience, as we
are quite comfortable here; but tell them they ought to inform us why we
are summoned and confined without trial.'

She well knew how much better off she was than her husband without her.
He paced about in great perturbation, and at last called for something
to eat. The maid served up a dish of crab, some white bread, and butter;
but, in his fury, he threw all the food about the room and out the
window, away from the poor children, who had had nothing to eat all day,
and at last he threw all the dishes and saucepans out of window. At last
the Town Clerk and two others were sent to do their best to persuade the
women that they had misunderstood--they were in no danger, and were only
invited to the preachings of Holy Week: and, as Master Daniel, the
joiner, added, 'It was only a friendly conference. It is not customary
with my masters and the very wise Council to hang a man before they have
caught him.'

This opprobrious illustration raised a considerable clamor of abuse from
the ruder women; but the Judge's and Burgomaster's ladies silenced them,
and repeated their resolution never to give up their faith against their
conscience. Seeing that no impression was made on them, and that nobody
knew what to do without them at home, the magistracy decided that they
should be released, and they went quietly home; but the Judge Seiler,
either because he had been foremost in the business, or else perhaps
because of the devastation he had made at home among the pots and pans,
durst not meet his wife, but sneaked out of the town, and left her with
the house to herself.

The priest now tried getting the three chief ladies alone together, and
most politely begged them to conform; but instead of arguing, they
simply answered; 'No; we were otherwise instructed by our parents and
former preachers.'

Then he begged them at least to tell the other women that they had asked
for fourteen days for consideration.

'No, dear sir,' they replied: 'we were not taught by our parents to tell
falsehoods, and we will not learn it from you.'

Meanwhile Schwob Franze rushed to the Burgomaster's bedside, and begged
him, for Heaven's sake, to prevent the priest from meddling with the
women; for the whole bevy, hearing that their three leaders were called
before the priest, were collecting in the marketplace, keys, bundles,
and all; and the panic of the worthy magistrates was renewed. The
Burgomaster sent for the priest, and told him plainly, that if any harm
befel him from the women, the fault would be his own; and thereupon he
gave way, the ladies went quietly home, and their stout champions laid
aside their bundles and keys--not out of reach, however, in case of
another summons.

However, the priest was obliged, next year, to leave Lowenburg in
disgrace, for he was a man of notoriously bad character; and Dr.
Melchior became a soldier, and was hanged at Prague.

After all, such a confession as this is a mere trifle, not only compared
with martyrdoms of old, but with the constancy with which, after the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the Huguenots endured persecution---
as, for instance, the large number of women who were imprisoned for
thirty-eight years at Aigues Mortes; or again, with the steady
resolution of the persecuted nuns of Port Royal against signing the
condemnation of the works of Jansen. Yet, in its own way, the feminine
resistance of these good citizens' wives, without being equally high-
toned, is worthy of record, and far too full of character to be passed
over.

FATHERS AND SONS

219--1642--1798

One of the noblest characters in old Roman history is the first Scipio
Africanus, and his first appearance is in a most pleasing light, at the
battle of the River Ticinus, B.C. 219, when the Carthaginians, under
Hannibal, had just completed their wonderful march across the Alps, and
surprised the Romans in Italy itself.

Young Scipio was then only seventeen years of age, and had gone to his
first battle under the eagles of his father, the Consul, Publius
Cornelius Scipio. It was an unfortunate battle; the Romans, when
exhausted by long resistance to the Spanish horse in Hannibal's army,
were taken in flank by the Numidian calvary, and entirely broken. The
Consul rode in front of the few equites he could keep together, striving
by voice and example to rally his forces, until he was pierced by one of
the long Numidian javelins, and fell senseless from his horse. The
Romans, thinking him dead, entirely gave way; but his young son would
not leave him, and, lifting him on his horse, succeeded in bringing him
safe into the camp, where he recovered, and his after days retrieved the
honor of the Roman arms.

The story of a brave and devoted son comes to us to light up the sadness
of our civil wars between Cavaliers and Roundheads in the middle of the
seventeenth century. It was soon after King Charles had raised his
standard at Nottingham, and set forth on his march for London, that it
became evident that the Parliamentary army, under the Earl of Essex,
intended to intercept his march. The King himself was with the army,
with his two boys, Charles and James; but the General-in-chief was
Robert Bertie, Earl of Lindsay, a brave and experienced old soldier,
sixty years of age, godson to Queen Elizabeth, and to her two favorite
Earls, whose Christian name he bore. He had been in her Essex's
expedition to Cambridge, and had afterwards served in the Low Countries,
under Prince Maurice of Nassau; for the long Continental wars had
throughout King James' peaceful reign been treated by the English
nobility as schools of arms, and a few campaigns were considered as a
graceful finish to a gentleman's education. As soon as Lord Lindsay had
begun to fear that the disputes between the King and Parliament must end
in war, he had begun to exercise and train his tenantry in Lincolnshire
and Northamptonshire, of whom he had formed a regiment of infantry. With
him was his son Montagu Bertie, Lord Willoughby, a noble-looking man of
thirty-two, of whom it was said, that he was 'as excellent in reality as
others in pretence,' and that, thinking 'that the cross was an ornament
to the crown, and much more to the coronet, he satisfied not himself
with the mere exercise of virtue, but sublimated it, and made it grace.'
He had likewise seen some service against the Spaniards in the
Netherlands, and after his return had been made a captain in the
Lifeguards, and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Vandyke has left
portraits of the father and the son; the one a bald-headed, alert,
precise-looking old warrior, with the cuirass and gauntlets of elder
warfare; the other, the very model of a cavalier, tall, easy, and
graceful, with a gentle reflecting face, and wearing the long lovelocks
and deep point lace collar and cuffs characteristic of Queen Henrietta's
Court. Lindsay was called General-in-chief, but the King had imprudently
exempted the cavalry from his command, its general, Prince Rupert of the
Rhine, taking orders only from himself. Rupert was only three-and-
twenty, and his education in the wild school of the Thirty Years' War
had not taught him to lay aside his arrogance and opinionativeness;
indeed, he had shown great petulance at receiving orders from the King
through Lord Falkland.

At eight o'clock, on the morning of the 23rd of October, King Charles
was riding along the ridge of Edgehill, and looking down into the Vale
of Red Horse, a fair meadow land, here and there broken by hedges and
copses. His troops were mustering around him, and in the valley he could
see with his telescope the various Parliamentary regiments, as they
poured out of the town of Keinton, and took up their positions in three
lines. 'I never saw the rebels in a body before,' he said, as he gazed
sadly at the subjects arrayed against him. 'I shall give them battle.
God, and the prayers of good men to Him, assist the justice of my
cause.' The whole of his forces, about 11,000 in number, were not
assembled till two o'clock in the afternoon, for the gentlemen who had
become officers found it no easy matter to call their farmers and
retainers together, and marshal them into any sort of order. But while
one troop after another came trampling, clanking, and shouting in,
trying to find and take their proper place, there were hot words round
the royal standard.

Lord Lindsay, who was an old comrade of the Earl of Essex, the commander
of the rebel forces, knew that he would follow the tactics they had both
together studied in Holland, little thinking that one day they should be
arrayed one against the other in their own native England. He had a high
opinion of Essex's generalship, and insisted that the situation of the
Royal army required the utmost caution. Rupert, on the other hand, had
seen the swift fiery charges of the fierce troopers of the Thirty Years'
war, and was backed up by Patrick, Lord Ruthven, one of the many Scots
who had won honor under the great Swedish King, Gustavus Adolphus. A
sudden charge of the Royal horse would, Rupert argued, sweep the
Roundheads from the field, and the foot would have nothing to do but to
follow up the victory. The great portrait at Windsor shows us exactly
how the King must have stood, with his charger by his side, and his
grave, melancholy face, sad enough at having to fight at all with his
subjects, and never having seen a battle, entirely bewildered between
the ardent words of his spirited nephew and the grave replies of the
well-seasoned old Earl. At last, as time went on, and some decision was
necessary, the perplexed King, willing at least not to irritate Rupert,
desired that Ruthven should array the troops in the Swedish fashion.

It was a greater affront to the General-in-chief than the king was
likely to understand, but it could not shake the old soldier's loyalty.
He gravely resigned the empty title of General, which only made
confusion worse confounded, and rode away to act as colonel of his own
Lincoln regiment, pitying his master's perplexity, and resolved that no
private pique should hinder him from doing his duty. His regiment was of
foot soldiers, and was just opposite to the standard of the Earl of
Essex.

The church bell was ringing for afternoon service when the Royal forces
marched down the hill. The last hurried prayer before the charge was
stout old Sir Jacob Astley's, 'O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be
this day; if I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me;' then, rising, he
said, 'March on, boys.' And, amid prayer and exhortation, the other side
awaited the shock, as men whom a strong and deeply embittered sense of
wrong had roused to take up arms. Prince Rupert's charge was, however,
fully successful. No one even waited to cross swords with his troopers,
but all the Roundhead horse galloped headlong off the field, hotly
pursued by the Royalists. But the main body of the army stood firm, and
for some time the battle was nearly equal, until a large troop of the
enemy's cavalry who had been kept in reserve, wheeled round and fell
upon the Royal forces just when their scanty supply of ammunition was
exhausted.

Step by step, however, they retreated bravely, and Rupert, who had
returned from his charge, sought in vain to collect his scattered
troopers, so as to fall again on the rebels; but some were plundering,
some chasing the enemy, and none could be got together. Lord Lindsay was
shot through the thigh bone, and fell. He was instantly surrounded by
the rebels on horseback; but his son, Lord Willoughby, seeing his
danger, flung himself alone among the enemy, and forcing his way
forward, raised his father in his arms thinking of nothing else, and
unheeding his own peril. The throng of enemy around called to him to
surrender, and, hastily giving up his sword, he carried the Earl into
the nearest shed, and laid him on a heap of straw, vainly striving to
staunch the blood. It was a bitterly cold night, and the frosty wind
came howling through the darkness. Far above, on the ridge of the hill,
the fires of the King's army shone with red light, and some way off on
the other side twinkled those of the Parliamentary forces. Glimmering
lanterns or torches moved about the battlefield, those of the savage
plunderers who crept about to despoil the dead. Whether the battle were
won or lost, the father and son knew not, and the guard who watched them
knew as little. Lord Lindsay himself murmured, 'If it please God I
should survive, I never will fight in the same field with boys again!'--
no doubt deeming that young Rupert had wrought all the mischief. His
thoughts were all on the cause, his son's all on him; and piteous was
that night, as the blood continued to flow, and nothing availed to check
it, nor was any aid near to restore the old man's ebbing strength.

Toward midnight the Earl's old comrade Essex had time to understand his
condition, and sent some officers to enquire for him, and promise speedy
surgical attendance. Lindsay was still full of spirit, and spoke to them
so strongly of their broken faith, and of the sin of disloyalty and
rebellion, that they slunk away one by one out of the hut, and dissuaded
Essex from coming himself to see his old friend, as he had intended. The
surgeon, however, arrived, but too late, Lindsay was already so much
exhausted by cold and loss of blood, that he died early in the morning
of the 24th, all his son's gallant devotion having failed to save him.

The sorrowing son received an affectionate note the next day from the
King, full of regret for his father and esteem for himself. Charles made
every effort to obtain his exchange, but could not succeed for a whole
year. He was afterwards one of the four noblemen who, seven years later,
followed the King's white, silent, snowy funeral in the dismantled St.
George's Chapel; and from first to last he was one of the bravest,
purest, and most devoted of those who did honor to the Cavalier cause.

We have still another brave son to describe, and for him we must return
away from these sad pages of our history, when we were a house divided
against itself, to one of the hours of our brightest glory, when the
cause we fought in was the cause of all the oppressed, and nearly alone
we upheld the rights of oppressed countries against the invader. And
thus it is that the battle of the Nile is one of the exploits to which
we look back with the greatest exultation, when we think of the triumph
of the British flag.

Let us think of all that was at stake. Napoleon Bonaparte was climbing
to power in France, by directing her successful arms against the world.
He had beaten Germany and conquered Italy; he had threatened England,
and his dream was of the conquest of the East. Like another Alexander,
he hoped to subdue Asia, and overthrow the hated British power by
depriving it of India. Hitherto, his dreams had become earnest by the
force of his marvelous genius, and by the ardor which he breathed into
the whole French nation; and when he set sail from Toulon, with 40,000
tried and victorious soldiers and a magnificent fleet, all were filled
with vague and unbounded expectations of almost fabulous glories. He
swept away as it were the degenerate Knights of St. john from their rock
of Malta, and sailed for Alexandria in Egypt, in the latter end of June,
1798.

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