April 3rd
Born:
Richard II, King of England, 1366, Bordeaux; Rev.
George Herbert (religious poetry), 1593, Montgomery
Castle; Roger Rabutin, Count de Bussy, 1618, Epiry;
Washington Irving, American
miscellaneous writer,
1783, New York; Rev. Dionysius Lardner, scientific and
miscellaneous writer, 1793, Dublin.
Died: Prince Arthur,
Duke of Brittany, English prince, murdered, 1203,
Rouen; John Napier of Merchiston, inventor of
logarithms, 1617, Merchiston; Edward, Marquis of
Worcester, 1667, Raglan; Jacques Ozanam, French
mathematical writer, 1717, Paris; Dr. John Berkenhout
(medical and scientific writings), 1791.
Feast Day: Sts Agape,
Chionia, and Irene, martyrs, 304. St. Ulpian, of Tyre,
martyr. St. Nicetias, abbot, 824. St. Richard, 1253,
Dover.
PRINCE ARTHUR
A peculiar interest seems to
attach itself to the fate of most of the princes known
in history by the name of Arthur, and none of them has
attracted more general sympathy than the youthful
nephew of Richard Coeur de Lion, the manner of whose
death is itself a subject of mysterious doubt. This
sympathy is probably in some measure owing to the
touching scene in which he has been introduced by Shakspeare.
In the order of succession of
the five sons of King Henry II, Geoffrey Duke of
Brittany intervened between Richard and John. Geoffrey
was accidentally slain in a tournament, leaving his
wife Constance advanced in pregnancy, and she
subsequently, in 1187, gave birth to Prince Arthur,
who was acknowledged as the successor to his father as
Duke of Brittany. On the death of King Richard, in
1199, Arthur, then twelve years of age, was no doubt
his rightful heir, but John, as is well known, seized
at once upon the crown of England, and people in
general seem to have preferred, according to
principles which were strictly constitutional, the
prince who could govern to the one who was for the
time incapacitated by his age. But the barons of
Anjou, Touraine, and Maine espoused the cause of
Arthur, and took the oath of allegiance to him and to
his mother Constance as his guardian.
Coeur de Lion, at the time of
his death, had just signed a truce with the King of
France,
Philippe Augustus,
and it was to this monarch
that Constance carried her young son when the
territories of the barons who supported him were
invaded and barbarously ravaged by King John and his
mercenary troops. Philippe, who was waiting eagerly
for the opportunity of depriving the King of England
of his continental possessions, embraced the cause of
Arthur with the utmost zeal, and not only sent troops
to assist the barons of Anjou and Brittany, but
invaded Normandy. It was soon, however, evident that
Philippe was fighting for himself and not for Arthur,
and the barons of Arthur's party became so certain of
his designs, that their leader,
Guillaume des Roches,
seneschal of Anjou, effected a reconciliation with
King John, and succeeded in carrying the young prince
away from the court of France. This was hardly done,
when the seneschal learnt from secret information that
John was acting treacherously, and only sought to gain
possession of his nephew in order to poison him; and
he carried Arthur by night to Angers, and placed
himself again under the protection of Philippe. The
latter made peace with the king of England at the
beginning of the year 1200, when Arthur was induced by
the French king to remain contented with the Duchy of
Brittany, and renounce all claims to the crown of
England, as well as to the continental provinces of
Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Touraine, and Poitou.
Affairs remained in this
position until the beginning of the year 1202, when
Philippe Auguste resumed his hostile designs against
Normandy, and again put forward the claims of Arthur,
who was now fifteen years old. As the continental
barons were nearly all ready to rise against King
John, Philippe immediately invested Arthur with the
counties of Poitou, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, and
sent him with an escort into Poitou to head the
insurrection there; but, unfortunately, the young
prince was persuaded to make an attempt upon Mirabeau,
and he was there surprised by King John, on the 1st of
August 1202, and captured with all the barons who
accompanied him. Arthur was carried a prisoner to Falaise, from whence he was
subsequently transferred
to Rouen, and nothing further is satisfactorily known
of him, although there is no doubt that he was
murdered.
Many accounts of the
circumstances of the murder, probably all more or less
apocryphal, were afterwards current, and some of them
have been preserved by the old chroniclers. According
to that given by Ralph of Coggeshall, John, at the
suggestion of some of his evil councillors, resolved
on putting out Arthur's eyes, and sent some of his
creatures to Falaise, to execute this barbarous design
in his prison; but it was prevented by
Hubert de Burgh, then
governor of Falaise, who took time to communicate
personally with the king. In consequence of Hubert's
humanity, Arthur was removed from Falaise to Rouen,
where, on the 3rd of April 1203, he was taken from the
tower in which he was confined, placed in a boat where
King John with his esquire,
Peter de Maulac, waited for him, and there
murdered by the latter at the king's command.
According to another version,
Maulac shrunk from the deed, and John murdered his
nephew with his own hand. This account is evidently
the foundation of part of the story adapted by
Shakspeare, who, however, strangely lays the scene at
Northampton. Roger de
Wendover, who is quite as good authority as the
abbot of Coggeshall, gives an entirely different
explanation of the cause of the prisoner's removal
from Falaise to Rouen. He says that 'after some lapse
of time, King John came to the castle of Falaise, and
ordered his nephew Arthur to be brought into his
presence. When he appeared, the King addressed him
kindly, and promised him many honours, requiring him
to separate himself from the French king, and to
adhere to the party of himself, as his lord and uncle.
But Arthur ill-advisedly replied with indignation and
threats, and demanded of the King that he should give
up to him the kingdom of' England, with all the
territories which King Richard possessed at the time
of his death; and, inasmuch as all those possessions
belonged to him by hereditary right, he affirmed with
an oath that unless King John immediately restored the
territories aforesaid to him, he should never enjoy
peace for any length of time. The King was much
troubled at hearing these words, and gave orders that
Arthur should be sent to Rouen, to be imprisoned in
the new tower there, and placed under close guard; but
shortly afterwards the said Arthur suddenly
disappeared.' Popular tradition was from a rather
early period almost unanimous in representing the
murder as having been perpetrated by the king's own
hand; but this perhaps arose more out of hatred to
John's memory than from any accurate knowledge of the
truth. Arthur was sixteen years of age at the time of
his death.
LORD WORCESTER AND HIS 'CENTURY OF INVENTIONS'
In respect of his pursuits and
tastes, Edward, Marquis of Worcester, stands much
isolated in the British peerage, being a speculative
mechanical inventor. His little book, called A
Century of Inventions, is one of the most curious
in English literature. It appears to have been written
in 1655, and strictly consists of descriptions of a
hundred projects, as its title imports; none of them,
however, so explicit as to enable a modern adventurer
to carry them out in practice. The objects in view
were very multifarious. Secret writing, by cipher, or
by peculiar inks; telegraphs or semaphores; explosive
projectiles that would sink any ship; ships that would
resist any explosive projectiles; floating gardens for
English rivers; automaton figures; machines for
dredging harbours; an engine to raise ships for
repair; an instrument for teaching perspective; a
method of fixing shifting sands on the seashore; a
cross-bow that will discharge two arrows at once; an
endless watch, that never wants winding up; a key that
will fasten all the drawers of a cabinet by one
locking; a large cannon that could be shot six times
in a minute; flying machines; a brass mould to cast
candles; hollow-handled pocket-combs, knives, forks,
and spoons, for carrying secret papers; calculating
machines for addition and subtraction; a pistol to
discharge a dozen times with once loading; an
apparatus for lighting its own fire and candle at any
predetermined hour of the night; a complete portable
ladder, which, taken out of the pocket, may be
fastened to a point a hundred feet high; a way to make
a boat work against wind and tide; nothing came amiss
to the mechanical Marquis. Knowing to how
extraordinary a degree many of those projects
foreshadow inventions which. have brought renown to
other men in later days, it is tantalizing to be
unable to discover how far he had really proceeded in
any one of them. It is a generally accepted fact,
however, that he had worked out in his mind a clear
conception of a steam-engine (as we should now call
it); indeed he is believed to have set a model of a
steam-engine at work shortly before his death. He
employed, too, a German artizan, Casper Kaltoff, for
many years in constructing models and new machines of
various kinds.
A brave, loyal, and worthy man
was the Marquis of Worcester. Like many other noble
cavaliers, he impoverished himself in befriending
Charles the First; and, like them again, he failed in
obtaining any recompense from Charles the Second. He
was the owner and occupier of Raglan Castle during the
troubles of the Civil War; and it is to him that the
incident relates (carefully told ever since to
visitors to the Castle), concerning the practical aid
given by his ingenuity to his loyalty. He had
constructed some hydraulic engines and wheels for
conveying water from the moat to the top of the great
tower. Some of the Roundheads approaching, the Marquis
resolved to startle them by a display of his
engineering powers. He gave private orders to set the
water works in play. 'There was such a roaring,' he
afterwards wrote, 'that the poor silly men stood so
amazed as if they had been half dead; and yet they saw
nothing. At last, as the plot was laid, up comes a man
staring and running, crying out before he came to
them, "Look to yourselves, my masters, for the lions
are got loose." Whereupon the searchers gave us such a
loose, that they tumbled so over one another down the
stairs, that it was thought one half of them had broke
their necks: never looking behind them till they were
sure they had got out of the Castle.'
THE POET LAUREATESHIP
On April 3rd, 1843, we find
Sir Robert Peel writing to Wordsworth, kindly urging
him to overcome his reluctance, and become
poet-laureate. The bard of Rydal Mount being
seventy-four, feared he might be unfit to undertake
the tasks expected of him; but on being assured it
would be a sinecure as far as he chose, he accepted
the office. We are most of us aware that this office
was, in no remote times, one of real duty, an ode
being expected on the king's birthday and other
occasions. According to modern conceptions, a genuine
poet conferred as much honour on the office, as the
office upon him. Originally, the title inferred a
great public honour to some special bard, placing him
high above his fellows. Among the ancients, as late as
the Emperor Theodosius, the ceremony of crowning with
the laurel wreath was actually performed; even in
modern times, from so far back as the thirteenth
century, Abb� Resnel conjectures the custom was
revived and retained in Italy and Germany. In England
and France it does not seem to have been at any time
regularly established.
Petrarch, in Italy, wore his
laurel with true dignity. The curious formula used at
his coronation has been preserved.
'We, count and
senator, for us and our college, declare Francis Petrarch great poet and
historian; and for a special
mark of his quality of poet, we have placed with our
hands on his head a crown of laurel, granting to him
by the tenor of these presents, and by the authority
of King Robert, of the senate, and the people of Rome,
in the poetic as well as in the historic art, and
generally in whatsoever relates to the said arts, as
well in this holy city as elsewhere, our free and
entire power of reading, disputing, and interpreting
all ancient books, to make new ones, and compose
poems, which God assisting, shall endure from age to
age.'
It was not all Francis
Petrarch's successors who composed such poems. Mad
Querno, 'Antichrist of wit,' laureate of Leo X, wrote
twenty thousand verses, but no god assisted, save
Bacchus, and the wits twisted slily among the laurels
vine-leaf and cabbage-leaf.
Chaucer is often called
poet-laureate. He held sundry appointments under
Edward III, Richard II, and Henry IV, and several
curious grants were made to him, among which was a
pipe of wine. Edward III made him comptroller of the
custom of wool, but not in the way of sine-cure: on
the contrary, we find it enjoined that the said Geffrey write with his own hand
his rolls touching the
said office, and continually reside there, and do and
execute all things pertaining to the said office in
his own proper person, and not by his substitute.'
The Reverend 'Master Skelton,
poet laureate,' as he terms himself, figured in Henry VIII's time as a most hearty
reviler of bad customs
and worse clergy. To wit:
Salt-fish, stock-fish, nor
herring,
It is not for your wearing,
Nor in holy Lenten season
Ye will neither beanes ne peasou,
But ye looke to be let loose
To a pygge or to a goose,
Your george not endewed,
Without a capon stewed.'
And much more, equally
scurrilous, till at last Wolsey punished him for
alluding to his (Wolsey's) 'greasy genealogy.'
The office of laureate should
never be more than an honour; or, at least, it should
never impose task work. Only so far as the laureate
feels, let him speak. If the true poet endeavour to
offer such a sacrifice on the altar of public taste,
as to sing of unheroic or unpoetic events, the spirit
of inspiration will go up from him in the smoke, like
the angel at Manoah's offering. Let any one read
through Warton's Birthday
Odes, for June 4, in
regular succession, and he will discover the
difficulties of this jobbing. Of many national
effusions, practically imposed or prompted by his
office, Tennyson cannot shew one,�nor even the ode to
the Duke,�worthy to stand by the side of his other
noble poems.
April 4th
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