Born: Fisher Ames,
American statesman, President of Harvard College,
1758, Dedham, Massachusetts; George Peacock, Dean of
Ely, mathematician, 1791, Denton.
Died: Constantine II,
Roman emperor, assassinated, 340; Zenon, Emperor of
the East, 491; Pope Constantine, 715; Edward IV, King
of England, 1483; Gabrielle d'Estrees ('La Belle
Gabrielle', 1599;
Francis Bacon, 1626, St.
Albans;
William, Earl of Craven, 1697; Simon, Lord Lovat,
beheaded, 1747; Christian Wolf, philosophical writer,
1754, Halle; Jacques Necker, French financial minister
(1788), 1804, Geneva; John Opie, painter, 1807; Dr.
William Prout, scientific writer, 1850, London.
Feast Day: Roman
captives, martyrs in Persia, 362. St. Mary of Egypt,
5th century. Massylitan martyrs in Africa. St.
Eupsychius, martyr. St. Dotto, abbot in Orkney, 6th
century. St. Waltrude, 686. St. Gautier, abbot in
Limousin, 1130.
EDWARD
IV
On this day, in the year 1483,
died Edward IV, a king who makes a figure in history
rather through the circumstances of the period in
which he lived, than from the personal influence he
exercised over them. He was the instrument of a
revolution rather than the hero of it. That revolution
was virtually the overthrow of feudalism, which had,
through its own inherent defects and its increasing
incongruity with the advance in the political and
social condition of the world, been long tending to
its fall. The disastrous government of a weak monarch
on the throne, Henry VI, and the violent animosities
of the feudal nobles, fomented by the intrigues of the
Duke of York, the representative of a rival dynasty
which had been displaced by a former revolution,
brought on the long and furious civil wars known as
the Wars of the Roses, in which the feudal nobles and
great families were occupied much more in the
indulgence of personal hatred and in mutual
destruction than in carrying out any important
political principles.
When the power of the
aristocracy had exhausted itself, the fortunes,
perhaps we may say the accidents of war had left the
party of the house of York the stronger of the two
divisions into which the country had fallen; and to
this circumstance, without any remarkable merits of
his own, Edward owed the throne. His claim on the
score of descent was no doubt according to strict law
better than that of the dynasty he displaced, inasmuch
as he was descended from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the
second son of Edward III, while the branch of
Lancaster was descended only from that monarch's third
son.
In the savage war of feudal rivalry in which the
old aristocracy had almost worn itself out, Edward's
father, Richard, Duke of York, perished at the moment
when the crown of England was within his grasp, in
consequence chiefly of his own want of caution and
foresight in the battle of Wakefield, fought on the
30th of December 1460. Edward, who now succeeded his
father in his claim to the crown, was a brave and able
soldier, with more perseverance and less hesitation in
pursuing his object. After having inflicted a severe
defeat on the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross, on the
northern borders of Herefordshire, he advanced upon
London, to which place Queen Margaret had also
directed her retreat after the defeat and death of the
Duke of York. She had gained a victory over the Yorkists near St. Albans and
delivered her husband
from imprisonment, when consciousness of the
superiority of Edward's forces obliged her to retrace
her steps northward. Edward, who was then only in the
nineteenth year of his age, was proclaimed King of
England on the 2nd of March 1461.
Edward possessed many of the
qualities which then in a prince conciliated the
attachment of the multitude. He was bold and active,
princely in bearing, one of the handsomest men of his
time, and popular in his manners. Even his more
apparent vices were such as were easily pardoned by
popular opinion; but under a brilliant exterior he was
selfish and unscrupulous, eager of pleasure, and at
the same time treacherous and cruel. The precarious
character of the tenure by which he held the throne
was shewn within the first few years of his reign. He
had hardly ascended the throne, before he was obliged
to hurry to the north to meet his opponents, who had
already brought together a very powerful army under
Queen Margaret and the Duke of Somerset.
On Palm Sunday, the 29th of
the same month of March 1461, Edward defeated the
Lancastrians with frightful slaughter, at Tow ton, in
Yorkshire; and Queen Margaret, with her husband, Henry
VI, and their son, the young prince Edward, were
obliged to seek safety in Scotland. Queen Margaret
subsequently entered England, and renewed the
struggle, but the only result was the capture of the
deposed king, who was imprisoned in the Tower.
King Edward was at this time
popular among his subjects, but he seems to have given
himself up entirely to his pleasures, and to have
neglected the great feudal chiefs to whom he owed his
throne. Perhaps they, on the other side, were
unreasonable in their wishes to monopolise favour and
power. The great Earl of Warwick had formed a design
for the marriage of his daughter with the Duke of
Clarence, to which Edward refused his consent; and
Warwick is said to have been further offended by the
neglect which the king shewed to him in the
circumstances of his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth
Grey.
The powerful nobleman now
quitted Edward, and became reconciled to Queen
Margaret, and the civil war having recommenced, King
Edward was taken prisoner, but he succeeded in making
his escape, and fled to Holland. During his absence,
Henry VI was restored to the throne, and Edward was
deposed, and proclaimed a traitor. But within a short
time Edward returned with the assistance of the Duke
of Burgundy, landed in Yorkshire in March 1471, and
directing his march south, entered London and
recovered the throne almost without resistance.
On Easter Sunday, the 14th of
April, Edward gained a great victory over the
Lancastrians at Barnet, in which the Earl of Warwick
was slain; and on the 4th of May he defeated Queen
Margaret's army in the battle of Tewkesbury. King
Henry had again become a prisoner at Barnet; and Queen
Margaret and her son Edward, Prince of Wales, were
captured at Tewkesbury, and the young prince was
barbarously murdered in King Edward's presence. King
Henry himself was murdered in the Tower, on the 21st
of May, so that Edward could now enjoy the crown
without a competitor. Queen Margaret was some time
afterwards set at liberty on the payment of a
considerable ransom by her brother the King of France.
Edward, thus relieved from
further uneasiness, now gave himself up to his
pleasures, in which he is said to have indulged
indiscriminately, and not always with dignity. He died
of the results of a surfeit, on the 9th of April 1483,
in the forty-second year of his age. He exercised
little influence on the political or social condition
of his country, although the parliament took the
opportunity of his weakness or inattention to obtain
some concessions which were important for the
strengthening of the national liberty.
It was under
Edward IV that the art of printing was introduced
into England, and it received encouragement from him
personally, and from his ministers. Otherwise King
Edward's reign seems best known, in popular
remembrance, as the age of Jane Shore, his favourite
mistress. The dynasty which Edward had founded was
short-lived, and was soon driven out to give place to
the house of Tudor, which destroyed the feudal power,
only weakened by the successor of the Yorkists.
WILLIAM, EARL OF
CRAVEN
In the latter half of the
sixteenth century, a poor lad, named Craven, trudged
his weary way from Yorkshire to London, with the
laudable design of seeking his fortune. Assisting to
drive a long string of pack-horses, he found
protection and companionship on the road; and when the
carrier was delivering a pack of Yorkshire cloth to a
draper in Watling Street, he recommended the boy to
the service of the citizen. The youth was soon
advanced to be an apprentice; steady industry claiming
its due reward, he in course of time set up for
himself in Leadenhall; and ultimately becoming Lord
Mayor, received the honour of knighthood from King
James. The accession of wealth and honour did not
cause him to forget his native Wharfdale. He
beautified and repaired the church of Burnsall, in
which he had sat when a poor boy; founded and endowed
alms-houses and other charitable institutions for
indigent Yorkshiremen, and when death called him, full
of years, he left an immense fortune to his only son
William.
At that period, wealth alone,
without the addition of a long pedigree, had not the
position which it now enjoys; though military renown
was considered a sufficient cover for any deficiency
of birth. Probably for this reason, William Craven,
the wealthy grandson of a Yorkshire peasant, at an
early age took service in the army of Henry, Prince of
Orange, and acquitted himself with honour and
distinction. Afterwards, being one of the English
volunteers who joined
Gustavus Adolphus, he led
the
forlorn hope at the storming of Creutznach. Though the
first assault was repulsed, Craven, with determined
bravery, led on a second, which proved gloriously
successful. Though smarting under a severe wound, our
hero generously granted quarter to the vanquished
enemy, and Gustavus coming up knighted him as he lay
wounded on the ground.
One of the avowed objects of
Gustavus was the reinstatement of the Count-Palatine
Frederick in the palatinate. The character of
Frederick was not of a description to excite the
respect or admiration of bold and politic men; but his
wife, the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I,
was endowed with all the romantic qualities of a true
heroine, as certainly as she was the heroine of a sad
but true romance. The days of chivalry had not then
quite passed away. Harte tells us that the courage and
presence of mind of the princess were so conspicuous,
and her figure and manners so attractive�though not to
be termed a consummate beauty�that half the army of
Gustavus was in love with her. The ferocious
Christian, Duke of Brunswick, was her most tractable
slave; so was young Thurm, and so was Sir William
Craven. But the death of Gustavus destroyed the last
hope of recovering the palatinate, and Sir William
Craven entered the service of the States of Holland,
and continued in their army till the Restoration.
Though Sir William took no
part in the civil war of England, yet from his great
wealth, combined with his exceedingly simple,
soldier-like habits of life, he was enabled to afford
the exiled royal family very considerable pecuniary
supplies. As a single instance of his liberality in
this respect, he gave Charles II. no less than fifty
thousand pounds in one sum and at one time. On this
account the Parliament confiscated his estates, and
though the States-General interfered through their
ambassador, no effect ensued from the mediation. At
the Restoration he regained his estates, and Charles
conferred upon him the title of Earl.
On returning to England,
Craven's first care was to purchase a grand old
edifice called Drury House, from its having belonged
to the knightly family of that name, and from which
also the street called Drury-lane derives its
appellation. This building, part of which was in
existence within the memory of persons now living,
stood on the site of the Olympic Theatre and the
adjoining tavern called the "Craven Arms." After he
had fitted up this house in a style of regal
magnificence, the Princess Elizabeth, then twelve
years a widow, came to reside in it with Lord Craven.
Whether any stronger tie than pure friendship existed
between them, it is not our place to inquire. When she
came to live in Drury House, Craven was fifty-three
years of age, and the Princess was sixty-five. It has
been said, however, that they had previously been
privately married on the Continent, and that the fifty
thousand pounds given to Charles II was the price of
his consent to the marriage of his unfortunate aunt.
When the Princess arrived in
England, Earl Craven began to build a magnificent
palace for her, on his estate of Hampstead Marshall,
in Berkshire; but Elizabeth scarcely lived a year after her return from the
Continent, and this house, intended to rival the
castle of Heidelberg, was burned to the ground ere its
completion. During the great plague of 1665, Lord Craven
remained
in London to succour the wretched, encourage the timid,
and preserve order. On the death of Monk, he received
the colonelcy of the Coldstream Guards, and during the
latter part of the seventeenth century, the stout old
Earl was one of the most conspicuous characters in
London. Whenever a fire took place, he was sure to be
present, to render assistance and preserve order; so
it became a common saying that his horse could smell a
fire ere it happened. His city birth, warlike fame,
and romantic connection with a queen�for Elizabeth was
always styled in England by her fatal title of Queen
of Bohemia�rendered him the most popular man in
London, and his quiet remonstrances would disperse a
riotous mob more effectively than a regiment of
soldiers. He died in 1696, at the advanced age of
eighty-eight years.
Across the end of Craven
Buildings in Drury-lane, there will be observed a
wall, on which is inscribed, at the present day, the
name and business of a neighbouring tradesman. There
was formerly a fresco painting on this wall,
representing Lord Craven on a white charger, with a
marshal's baton in his hand. This portrait was
frequently repainted in oil, and down to the present
century was considered one of the sights of London;
but it is now completely obliterated.
LA BELLE GABRIELLE
The gallant, chivalrous,
favourite French monarch, Henri Quatre, when starting
on one of his warlike exploits in 1590, sojourned for
a night at the Chateau de Cauvers, belonging to an
artillery officer whom he had much befriended, the
Chevalier D'Estrees. The daughter of the house,
Gabrielle, a gentle, beautiful creature, about
nineteen, had long honoured the king secretly, as
belonging to the type of heroes whom women love. Her
enthusiasm gave a warmth to the grace that naturally
belonged to her; and she fairly captured the heart of
Henri, without, so far as appears, any predetermined
design of so doing.
The king could not then delay his
military proceedings; but he carried away with him
recollections that were not likely to die. He found
opportunities to see her again, and to work both upon
her love and her gratitude. The state of court morals
in those days in France, as in many other countries,
points to what followed�how that she was married to
Damerval de Liancourt, as a means of
appeasing or
blinding her father; how that the king procured a
divorce for her on some pretext, well or ill founded;
and how that she then lived with Henri during the
remainder of her brief life, ennobled as a duchess, in
order to give her station at court.
Abating the one fact that she was his mistress and not his
wife, all other parts of her career have met with the general encomiums of
French writers. She was exceedingly beautiful, and was known everywhere as 'La
Belle Gabrielle.' She spent her life
royally, almost as a queen; yet she was without haughtiness or arrogance. She
never abused the favour she received, and withal was so affable, gentle, and
benevolent, that she won the good-will of courtiers and people alike. The king
loved her deeply; once, when engaged in
a military enterprise of which the issue was doubtful, he wrote to her:
'If I am
defeated, you know me well enough to be certain I
shall not flee; my last thought will be of God�my last
but one, of thee.'
Her only quarrels were with the
great minister, Sully, who disapproved of some of the
persons promoted or rewarded through her means. The
king well knew what an inestimable servant or friend
he had in his unyielding minister; and once, when
Gabrielle appealed to him, he told her honestly that
he would rather lose her than Sully, if one must be
lost. Her good sense came to the aid of her other
qualities, and she no longer opposed Sully's views.
Gabrielle's end was a sad one. On the 9th of April
1599, a fit of apoplexy carried her off, accompanied
by such frightful contortions as to induce a suspicion
that she had been poisoned; but no proof of such a
crime ever came to light. The king mourned for her as
he would for a princess of the blood royal, and felt
her loss deeply. French song and poem, drama and
opera, have had much to say concerning Henri Quatre
and La Belle Gabrielle.
THE PONY EXPRESS
The Pacific States, as they
are called, of America, being separated from the rest
by the wide sierra of the Rocky Mountains,�canal,
railway, or even good roads not yet being practicable
in that region,�communication necessarily becomes a
difficulty. Even to convey letters over two thousand
miles of prairie, mountain, and forest, was a task of
a sufficiently formidable character. This difficulty
was, however, overcome in 1860, by the enterprise of a
private firm. Messrs. Russell, Major, and Waddell, who
had been engaged as contractors for the conveyance of
government stores, determined to establish a kind of
express mail, by which letters should be conveyed in
about a week between the two extreme points; depending
partly on the commercial public and partly on the
government for an adequate return.
The contractors
first built stations along the line of route, at
convenient intervals, stocking them plentifully; then
purchased six hundred ponies, or strong service-able
horses; then engaged a corps of fearless and
trustworthy riders; and finally provided an equipment
of riding-dress, letter-bags, revolvers, and rifles
for the men. On the 9th of April 1860, the service
commenced. Two pony-couriers started on the same day;
one from St. Francisco, to come east; the other from
St. Joseph on the Missouri, to go west. When a pony
had done his stage, at twelve miles an hour, he was
replaced by another; and when a courier had done as
many stages as he could accomplish without rest,
another took his place. Thus the mail-bags were travelling incessantly at the
rate of twelve miles an
hour. Each mail accomplished the nineteen hundred
miles of distance in about seven days and a half. The
system very soon became comparatively consolidated.
The men suffered from fatigue, hunger, cold, heat, and
especially from the attacks of Indians, but they
persevered undauntedly; and the Pony Express might be
considered as an established fact, so to remain till
something better could be devised.
