Luther Benson - "Fifteen Years in Hell"

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Book Review: C Programming: A Modern Approach by K. N. King
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Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books written by Charles W. Eliot

C >> Charles W. Eliot >> Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books




And now it came to Edward the Fourth's turn (though after many
difficulties) to triumph. For all the plants of Lancaster were rooted
up, one only Earl of Richmond excepted: whom also he had once bought
of the Duke of Brittany, but could not hold him. And yet was not
this of Edward such a plantation, as could any way promise itself
stability. For this Edward the King (to omit more than many of his
other cruelties) beheld and allowed the slaughter which Gloucester,
Dorset, Hastings, and others, made of Edward the Prince in his own
presence; of which tragical actors, there was not one that escaped the
judgment of God in the same kind And he, which (besides the execution
of his brother Clarence, for none other offence than he himself had
formed in his own imagination) instructed Gloucester to kill Henry the
Sixth, his predecessor; taught him also by the same art to kill his
own sons and successors, Edward and Richard. For those kings which
have sold the blood of others at a low rate; have but made the market
for their own enemies, to buy of theirs at the same price.

To Edward the Fourth succeeded Richard the Third, the greatest master
in mischief of all that fore-went him: who although, for the necessity
of his tragedy, he had more parts to play, and more to perform in his
own person, than all the rest; yet he so well fitted every affection
that played with him, as if each of them had but acted his own
interest. For he wrought so cunningly upon the affections of Hastings
and Buckingham, enemies to the Queen and to all her kindred, as he
easily allured them to condescend, that Rivers and Grey, the King's
maternal uncle and half brother, should (for the first) be severed
from him: secondly, he wrought their consent to have them imprisoned:
and lastly (for the avoiding of future inconvenience) to have their
heads severed from their bodies. And having now brought those his
chief instruments to exercise that common precept which the Devil hath
written on every post, namely, to depress those whom they had grieved,
and destroy those whom they had depressed; he urged that argument
so far and so forcibly, as nothing but the death of the young King
himself, and of his brother, could fashion the conclusion. For he
caused it to be hammered into Buckingham's head, that, whensoever the
King or his brother should have able years to exercise their power,
they would take a most severe revenge of that cureless wrong, offered
to their uncle and brother, Rivers and Grey.

But this was not his manner of reasoning with Hastings, whose fidelity
to his master's sons was without suspect: and yet the Devil, who never
dissuades by impossibility, taught him to try him. And so he did. But
when he found by Catesby, who sounded him, that he was not fordable;
he first resolved to kill him sitting in council: wherein having
failed with his sword, he set the hangman upon him, with a weapon
of more weight. And because nothing else could move his appetite,
he caused his head to be stricken off, before he ate his dinner. A
greater judgment of God than this upon Hastings, I have never observed
in any story. For the selfsame day that the Earl Rivers, Grey, and
others, were (without trial of law, of offence given) by Hastings'
advice executed at Pomfret: I say Hastings himself in the same day,
and (as I take it) in the same hour, in the same lawless manner had
his head stricken off in the Tower of London. But Buckingham lived a
while longer; and with an eloquent oration persuaded the Londoners
to elect Richard for their king. And having received the Earldom of
Hereford for reward, besides the high hope of marrying his daughter
to the King's only son; after many grievous vexations of mind, and
unfortunate attempts, being in the end betrayed and delivered up
by his trustiest servant; he had his head severed from his body at
Salisbury, without the trouble of any of his Peers. And what success
had Richard himself after all these mischiefs and murders, policies,
and counter-policies to Christian religion: and after such time
as with a most merciless hand he had pressed out the breath of his
nephews and natural lords; other than the prosperity of so short a
life, as it took end, ere himself could well look over and discern
it? The great outcry of innocent blood, obtained at God's hands the
effusion of his; who became a spectacle of shame and dishonor, both to
his friends and enemies.

This cruel King, Henry the Seventh cut off; and was therein (no doubt)
the immediate instrument of God's justice. A politic Prince he was if
ever there were any, who by the engine of his wisdom, beat down and
overturned as many strong oppositions both before and after he wore
the Crown, as ever King of England did: I say by his wisdom, because
as he ever left the reins of his affections in the hands of his
profit, so he always weighed his undertakings by his abilities,
leaving nothing more to hazard than so much as cannot be denied it in
all human actions. He had well observed the proceedings of Louis the
Eleventh, whom he followed in all that was royal or royal-like, but
he was far more just, and begun not their processes whom he hated or
feared by the execution, as Louis did.

He could never endure any mediation in rewarding his servants, and
therein exceeding wise; for whatsoever himself gave, he himself
received back the thanks and the love, knowing it well that the
affections of men (purchased by nothing so readily as by benefits)
were trains that better became great kings, than great subjects. On
the contrary, in whatsoever he grieved his subjects, he wisely put it
off on those, that he found fit ministers for such actions. Howsoever
the taking off of Stanley's head, who set the Crown on his, and the
death of the young Earl of Warwick, son to George, Duke of Clarence,
shows, as the success also did, that he held somewhat of the errors
of his ancestors; for his possession in the first line ended in his
grandchildren, as that of Edward the Third and Henry the Fourth had
done.

Now for King Henry the Eighth; if all the pictures and patterns of
a merciless prince were lost in the world, they might all again be
painted to the life, out of the story of this king. For how many
servants did he advance in haste (but for what virtue no man could
suspect) and with the change of his fancy ruined again; no man knowing
for what offence? To how many others of more desert gave he abundant
flowers from whence to gather honey, and in the end of harvest burnt
them in the hive? How many wives did he cut off, and cast off, as his
fancy and affection changed? How many princes of the blood (whereof
some of them for age could hardly crawl towards the block) with a
world of others of all degrees (of whom our common chronicles have
kept the account) did he execute? Yea, in his very death-bed, and when
he was at the point to have given his account to God for the abundance
of blood already spilt, he imprisoned the Duke of Norfolk the father;
and executed the Earl of Surrey the son; the one, whose deservings he
knew not how to value, having never omitted anything that concerned
his own honor, and the King's service; the other never having
committed anything worthy of his least displeasure: the one exceeding
valiant and advised; the other no less valiant than learned, and
of excellent hope. But besides the sorrows which he heaped upon
the fatherless and widows at home: and besides the vain enterprises
abroad, wherein it is thought that he consumed more treasure than all
our victorious kings did in their several conquests; what causeless
and cruel wars did he make upon his own nephew King James the First?
What laws and wills did he devise to cut off, and cut down those
branches, which sprang from the same root that himself did? And in
the end (notwithstanding these his so many irreligious provisions) it
pleased God to take away all his own, without increase; though, for
themselves in their several kinds, all princes of eminent virtue.
For these words of Samuel to Agag King of the Amalekites, have
been verified upon many others: "As thy sword hath made other women
childless, so shall thy mother be childless among other women." And
that blood which the same King Henry affirmed, that the cold air of
Scotland had frozen up in the North, God hath diffused by the sunshine
of his grace: from whence his Majesty now living, and long to live, is
descended. Of whom I may say it truly, "That if all the malice of the
world were infused into one eye: yet could it not discern in his
life, even to this day, any one of these foul spots, by which the
consciences of all the forenamed princes (in effect) have been
defiled; nor any drop of that innocent blood on the sword of his
justice, with which the most that fore-went him have stained both
their hands and fame." And for this Crown of England; it may truly he
avowed: that he hath received it even from the hand of God, and hath
stayed the time of putting it on, howsoever he were provoked to hasten
it: that he never took revenge of any man, that sought to put him
beside it: that he refused the assistance of Her enemies, that wore
it long, with as great glory as ever princess did: that his Majesty
entered not by a breach, nor by blood; but by the ordinary gate,
which his own right set open; and into which, by a general love and
obedience, he was received. And howsoever his Majesty's preceding
title to this Kingdom was preferred by many princes (witness the
Treaty at Cambray in the year 1559) yet he never pleased to dispute
it, during the life of that renowned lady his predecessor; no,
notwithstanding the injury of not being declared heir, in all the time
of her long reign.

Neither ought we to forget, or neglect our thankfulness to God for
the uniting of the northern parts of Britain to the south, to wit,
of Scotland to England, which though they were severed but by small
brooks and banks, yet by reason of the long continued war, and the
cruelties exercised upon each other, in the affections of the nations,
they were infinitely severed. This I say is not the least of God's
blessings which his Majesty hath brought with him unto this land:
no, put all our petty grievances together, and heap them up to their
height, they will appear but as a molehill compared with the
mountain of this concord. And if all the historians since then have
acknowledged the uniting of the Red Rose, and the White, for the
greatest happiness (Christian Religion excepted), that ever this
kingdom received from God, certainly the peace between the two lions
of gold and gules, and the making them one, doth by many degrees
exceed the former; for by it, besides the sparing of our British
blood, heretofore and during the difference, so often and abundantly
shed, the state of England is more assured, the kingdom more
enabled to recover her ancient honor and rights, and by it made more
invincible, than by all our former alliances, practises, policies, and
conquests. It is true that hereof we do not yet find the effect.
But had the Duke of Parma in the year 1588, joined the army which he
commanded, with that of Spain, and landed it on the south coast; and
had his Majesty at the same time declared himself against us in the
North: it is easy to divine what had become of the liberty of England,
certainly we would then without murmur have bought this union at far
greater price than it hath since cost us. It is true, that there was
never any common weal or kingdom in the world, wherein no man had
cause to lament. Kings live in the world, and not above it. They are
not infinite to examine every man's cause, or to relieve every man's
wants. And yet in the latter (though to his own prejudice), his
Majesty hath had more comparison of other men's necessities, than of
his own coffers. Of whom it may he said, as of Solomon,[6] "Dedit Deus
Solomon! latitudinem cordis": Which if other men do not understand
with Pineda, to be meant by liberality, but by "latitude of
knowledge"; yet may it be better spoken of His Majesty, than of
any king that ever England had; who as well in divine, as human
understanding, hath exceeded all that fore-went him, by many degrees.

I could say much more of the King's majesty, without flattery: did I
not fear the imputation of presumption, and withal suspect, that it
might befall these papers of mine (though the loss were little) as
it did the pictures of Queen Elizabeth, made by unskilful and common
painters, which by her own commandment were knocked in pieces and
cast into the fire. For ill artists, in setting out the beauty of the
external; and weak writers, in describing the virtues of the internal;
do often leave to posterity, of well formed faces a deformed
memory; and of the most perfect and princely minds, a most defective
representation. It may suffice, and there needs no other discourse; if
the honest reader but compare the cruel and turbulent passages of our
former kings, and of other their neighbor-princes (of whom for that
purpose I have inserted this brief discourse) with his Majesty's
temperate, revengeless and liberal disposition: I say, that if the
honest reader weigh them justly, and with an even hand; and withal but
bestow every deformed child on his true parent; he shall find, that
there is no man that hath so just cause to complain, as the King
himself hath. Now as we have told the success of the trumperies and
cruelties of our own kings, and other great personages: so we find,
that God is everywhere the same God. And as it pleased him to punish
the usurpation, and unnatural cruelty of Henry the First, and of our
third Edward, in their children for many generations: so dealt He
with the sons of Louis Debonnaire, the son of Charles the Great, or
Charlemagne. For after such time as Debonnaire of France, had torn
out the eyes of Bernard his nephew, the son of Pepin the eldest son
of Charlemagne, and heir of the Empire, and then caused him to die in
prison, as did our Henry to Robert his eldest brother: there followed
nothing but murders upon murders, poisoning, imprisonments, and civil
war; till the whole race of that famous Emperor was extinguished. And
though Debonnaire, after he had rid himself of his nephew by a violent
death; and of his bastard brothers by a civil death (having inclosed
them with sure guard, all the days of their lives, within a monastery)
held himself secure from all opposition: yet God raised up against him
(which he suspected not) his own sons, to vex him, to invade him,
to take him prisoner, and to depose him; his own sons, with whom
(to satisfy their ambition) he had shared his estate, and given them
crowns to wear, and kingdoms to govern, during his own life. Yea his
eldest son, Lothair (for he had four, three by his first wife, and one
by his second; to wit, Lothair, Pepin, Louis, and Charles), made it
the cause of his deposition, that he had used violence towards his
brothers and kinsmen; and that he had suffered his nephew (whom he
might have delivered) to be slain. "Eo quod," saith the text,[7]
"fratribus, et propinquis violentiam intulerit, et nepotem suum,
quern ipse liberate poterat, interfici permiserit": "Because he used
violence to his brothers and kinsmen, and suffered his nephew to be
slain whom he might have delivered."

Yet did he that which few kings do; namely, repent him of his cruelty.
For, among many other things which he performed in the General
Assembly of the States, it follows: "Post haec autem palam se errasse
confessus, et imitatus Imperatoris Theodosii exemplum, poenitentiam
spontaneam suscepit, tarn de his, quam quae in Bernardum proprium
nepotem gesserat": "After this he did openly confess himself to
have erred, and following the example of the Emperor Theodosius, he
underwent voluntary penance, as well for his other offences, as for
that which he had done against Bernard his own nephew."

This he did; and it was praise-worthy. But the blood that is unjustly
spilt, is not again gathered up from the ground by repentance. These
medicines, ministered to the dead, have but dead rewards.

This king, as I have said, had four sons. To Lothair his eldest he
gave the Kingdom of Italy; as Charlemagne, his father, had done to
Pepin, the father of Bernard, who was to succeed him in the Empire. To
Pepin the second son he gave the Kingdom of Aquitaine: to Louis,
the Kingdom of Bavaria: and to Charles, whom he had by a second wife
called Judith, the remainder of the Kingdom of France. But this second
wife, being a mother-in-law[8] to the rest, persuaded Debonnaire
to cast his son Pepin out of Aquitaine, thereby to greaten Charles,
which, after the death of his son Pepin, he prosecuted to effect,
against his grandchild bearing the same name. In the meanwhile, being
invaded by his son Louis of Bavaria, he dies for grief.

Debonnaire dead, Louis of Bavaria, and Charles afterwards called the
Bald, and their nephew Pepin, of Aquitaine, join in league against the
Emperor Lothair their eldest brother. They fight near to Auxerre the
most bloody battle that ever was stroken in France: in which, the
marvellous loss of nobility, and men of war, gave courage to the
Saracens to invade Italy; to the Huns to fall upon Almaine; and the
Danes to enter upon Normandy. Charles the Bald by treason seizeth upon
his nephew Pepin, kills him in a cloister: Carloman rebels against
his father Charles the Bald, the father burns out the eyes of his son
Carloman; Bavaria invades the Emperor Lothair his brother, Lothair
quits the Empire, he is assailed and wounded to the heart by his own
conscience, for his rebellion against his father, and for his other
cruelties, and dies in a monastery. Charles the Bald, the uncle,
oppresseth his nephews the sons of Lothair, he usurpeth the Empire to
the prejudice of Louis of Bavaria his elder brother; Bavaria's armies
and his son Carloman are beaten, he dies of grief, and the usurper
Charles is poisoned by Zedechias a Jew, his physician, his son Louis
le Begue dies of the same drink. Begue had Charles the Simple and two
bastards, Louis and Carloman; they rebel against their brother, but
the eldest breaks his neck, the younger is slain by a wild boar; the
son of Bavaria had the same ill destiny, and brake his neck by a fall
out of a window in sporting with his companions. Charles the Gross
becomes lord of all that the sons of Debonnaire held in Germany;
wherewith not contented, he invades Charles the Simple: but
being-forsaken of his nobility, of his wife, and of his understanding,
he dies a distracted beggar. Charles the Simple is held in wardship by
Eudes, Mayor of the Palace, then by Robert the brother of Eudes: and
lastly, being taken by the Earl of Vermandois; he is forced to die in
the prison of Peron, Louis the son of Charles the Simple breaks his
neck in chasing a wolf, and of the two sons of this Louis, the one
dies of poison, the other dies in the prison of Orleans; after whom
Hugh Capet, of another race, and a stranger to the French, makes
himself king.

These miserable ends had the issues of Debonnaire, who after he had
once apparelled injustice with authority, his sons and successors took
up the fashion, and wore that garment so long without other provision,
as when the same was torn from their shoulders, every man despised
them as miserable and naked beggars. The wretched success they had
(saith a learned Frenchman) shows, "que en ceste mort il y avait plus
du fait des homines que de Pieu, ou de la justice": "that in the death
of that Prince, to wit, of Bernard the son of Pepin, the true heir of
Charlemagne, men had more meddling than either God or justice had."

But to come nearer home; it is certain that Francis the First, one of
the worthiest kings (except for that fact) that ever Frenchmen had,
did never enjoy himself, after he had commended the destruction of the
Protestants of Mirandol and Cabrieres, to the Parliament of Provence,
which poor people were thereupon burnt and murdered; men, women, and
children. It is true that the said King Francis repented himself of
the fact, and gave charge to Henry his son, to do justice upon the
murderers, threatening his son with God's judgments, if he neglected
it. But this unseasonable care of his, God was not pleased to accept
for payment. For after Henry himself was slain in sport by Montgomery,
we all may remember what became of his four sons, Francis, Charles,
Henry, and Hercules. Of which although three of them became kings,
and were married to beautiful and virtuous ladies: yet were they,
one after another, cast out of the world, without stock or seed. And
notwithstanding their subtility, and breach of faith; with all their
massacres upon those of the religion,[9] and great effusion of blood,
the crown was set on his head, whom they all labored to dissolve; the
Protestants remain more in number than ever they were, and hold to
this day more strong cities than ever they had.

Let us now see if God be not the same God in Spain, as in England and
France. Towards whom we will look no further back than to Don Pedro
of Castile: in respect of which Prince, all the tyrants of Sicil, our
Richard the Third, and the great Ivan Vasilowich of Moscow, were but
petty ones: this Castilian, of all Christian and heathen kings, having
been the most merciless. For, besides those of his own blood and
nobility, which he caused to be slain in his own court and chamber,
as Sancho Ruis, the great master of Calatrava, Ruis Gonsales, Alphonso
Tello, and Don John of Arragon, whom he cut in pieces and cast into
the streets, denying him Christian burial: I say, besides these, and
the slaughter of Gomes Mauriques, Diego Peres, Alphonso Gomes, and the
great commander of Castile; he made away the two infants of Arragon
his cousin germans, his brother Don Frederick, Don John de la Cerde,
Albuquergues, Nugnes de Guzman, Cornel, Cabrera, Tenorio, Mendes de
Toledo, Guttiere his great treasurer and all his kindred; and a world
of others. Neither did he spare his two youngest brothers, innocent
princes: whom after he had kept in close prison from their cradles,
till one of them had lived sixteen years, and the other fourteen, he
murdered them there. Nay, he spared not his mother, nor his wife
the Lady Blanche of Bourbon. Lastly, as he caused the Archbishop of
Toledo, and the Dean to be killed of purpose to enjoy their treasures;
so did he put to death Mahomet Aben Alhamar, King of Barbary, with
thirty-seven of his nobility, that came unto him for succor, with a
great sum of money, to levy (by his favor) some companies of soldiers
to return withal. Yea, he would needs assist the hangman with his
own hand, in the execution of the old king; in so much as Pope Urban
declareth him an enemy both to God and man. But what was his end?
Having been formerly beaten out of his kingdom, and reestablished by
the valor of the English nation, led by the famous Duke of Lancaster:
he was stabbed to death by his younger brother the Earl of Astramara,
who dispossessed all his children of their inheritance; which, but for
the father's injustice and cruelty, had never been in danger of any
such thing.

If we can parallel any man with this king, it must be Duke John of
Burgogne, who, after his traitorous murder of the Duke of Orleans,
caused the Constable of Armagnac, the Chancellor of France, the
Bishops of Constance, Bayeux, Eureux, Senlis, Saintes, and other
religious and reverend Churchmen, the Earl of Gran Pre, Hector of
Chartres, and (in effect) all the officers of justice, of the Chamber
of Accounts, Treasury, and Request, (with sixteen hundred others to
accompany them) to be suddenly and violently slain. Hereby, while he
hoped to govern, and to have mastered France, he was soon after struck
with an axe in the face, in the presence of the Dauphin; and, without
any leisure to repent his misdeeds, presently[10] slain. _These were
the lovers of other men's miseries: and misery found them out_.

Now for the kings of Spain, which lived both with Henry the Seventh,
Henry the Eighth, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth; Ferdinand of
Arragon was the first: and the first that laid the foundation of the
present Austrian greatness. For this King did not content himself
to hold Arragon by the usurpation of his ancestor; and to fasten
thereunto the Kingdom of Castile and Leon, which Isabel his wife held
by strong hand, and his assistance, from her own niece the daughter
of the last Henry: but most cruelly and craftily, without all color
or pretence of right, he also cast his own niece out of the Kingdom
of Navarre, and, contrary to faith, and the promise that he made to
restore it, fortified the best places, and so wasted the rest, as
there was no means left for any army to invade it. This King, I say,
that betrayed also Ferdinand and Frederick, Kings of Naples, princes
of his own blood, and by double alliance tied unto him; sold them
to the French: and with the same army, sent for their succor under
Gonsalvo, cast them out; and shared their kingdom with the French,
whom afterwards he most shamefully betrayed.