Part 9
From June 4, 1520, when Henry first entered Guines, the festivities continued with unabated splendor for twenty days. They were opened by a visit of Wolsey to the French King, and gave the Cardinal an opportunity for displaying his love of magnificence, not unaptly reckoned by poets and philosophers as the nearest virtue to magnanimity. A hundred archers of the guard, followed by fifty gentlemen of his household, clothed in crimson velvet with chains of gold, bareheaded, bonnet in hand, and mounted on magnificent horses richly caparisoned, led the way. After them came fifty gentlemen ushers, also bareheaded, carrying gold maces with knobs as big as a man's head; next a cross-bearer in scarlet, supporting a crucifix adorned with precious stones. Then four lackeys followed, with gilt batons and pole-axes, in paletots of crimson velvet, their bonnets in hand adorned with plumes, their coats ornamented before and behind with the Cardinal's badge in goldsmith's work. Lastly came the Legate himself, mounted on a barded mule trapped in crimson velvet, with gold front-stalls, studs, buckles, and stirrups. Over a chimere of figured crimson velvet he wore a fine linen rochet. Bishops and other ecclesiastics succeeded, and the whole procession was brought up by fifty archers of the King's guard, their bows bent, their quivers at their sides, their jackets of red cloth adorned with a gold rose before and behind.
In this state the procession approached the town of Ardres. Arrived at the King's lodgings Wolsey dismounted, amid the roar of artillery and the sound of drums, trumpets, fifes, and other instruments of music. He was received by the King of France, bonnet in hand, with the greatest demonstrations of affection. The visit was returned next day by the French. These ceremonies were preliminary to the meeting of the two sovereigns on Thursday, June 7th. On that day, the King of England, apparelled in cloth of silver damask, thickly ribbed with cloth of gold, and mounted on a charger arrayed in the most dazzling trappings overlaid with fine gold and curiously wrought in mosaic, advanced toward the valley of Ardres. No man, from personal inclinations or personal qualities, was better calculated to sustain his part in a brilliant ceremonial such as then struck the eyes of the spectators. An admirable horseman, tall and muscular, slightly inclined to corpulence, with a red beard and ruddy countenance, Henry VIII was at this time, by the admission of his rivals, the most comely and commanding prince of his age. Closely attending on the King was Sir Henry Guilford, the master of the horse, leading a spare charger, not less splendidly arrayed in trappings of fine gold wrought in ciphers, with headstall, reins, and saddle of the same material. Nine henchmen followed in cloth of tissue, the harness of their horses covered with gold scales. In front rode the old Marquis of Dorset, bearing the sword of estate before the King; behind came the Cardinal, the Dukes of Buckingham and Suffolk, with the Earl of Shrewsbury and others.
A shot fired from the castle of Guines, and responded to by a shot from the castle of Ardre, gave warning that the two princes were ready to set forward. As Henry advanced toward the valley with all his company in military array, the French King might be descried on the opposite hill with his dazzling company, in dress, deportment, and the splendor of his retinue not less glorious or conspicuous than his rival. Over a short cassock of gold frieze he wore a mantle of cloth of gold covered with jewels. The front and the sleeves were studded with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and large loose-hanging pearls; on his head he wore a velvet bonnet adorned with plumes and precious stones. Far in advance rode the provost-marshal with his archers to clear the ground. Then followed the marshals of the army in cloth of gold, their orders about their necks, mounted on horses covered with gold trappings; next the grand master, the princes of the blood, and the King of Navarre. After them came the Swiss guard on foot, in new liveries, with their drums, flutes, trumpets, clarions, and hautboys; then the gentlemen of the household; and immediately preceding the King was the grand constable, Bourbon, bearing the sword naked, and the _grand ecuyer_, with the sword of France, powdered with gold fleurs-de-lis.
As the two companies approached each other, there was a momentary pause. The French watched with some jealousy the close array of the English footmen, who, stretched in a long line on the King's left, marched step for step with all the solemn gravity of their nation, as if they were rather preparing for battle than pastime, while, on the other side, the superior numbers of the French awakened the national jealousy of the Englishmen. "Sir, ye be my king and sovereign," broke in the lord Abergavenny in breathless haste; "wherefore, above all I am bound to show you truth, and not to let [stop] for none. I have been in the French party, and they may be more in number; double so many as ye be." Then spoke up the Earl of Shrewsbury, "Sire, whatever my lord of Abergavenny sayeth, I myself have been there, and the Frenchmen be more in fear of you and your subjects than your subjects be of them. Wherefore," said the Earl, "if I were worthy to give counsel, your grace should march forward." "So we intend, my lord," replied the King. "On afore, my masters!" shouted the officers of arms; and the whole company halted, face foremost, close by the valley of Ardres.
A minute's pause--a breathless silence, followed by a slight stir on both sides. Then from the dense array of cloth of gold, silver, and jewelry, of white plumes and waving pennons, amid the acclamations of myriads of spectators on the surrounding hills, and the shrill burst of pipes, trumpets, and clarions, two horsemen were seen to emerge, and, in the sight of both nations, slowly descend into the valley from opposite sides. These were the two sovereigns. As they approached nearer they spurred their horses to a gallop; then, uncovering, embraced each other on horseback, and, after dismounting, embraced again. While the two sovereigns proceeded arm in arm to a rich pavilion--which no one else was allowed to enter, except Wolsey on one side and the Admiral of France on the other--the officers on both sides, intermingling their ranks, made good cheer, and toasted each other in broken French and English, "Bons amys, French and English!"
Friday and Saturday were occupied in preparing the field for the tournament. The lists, nine hundred feet in length and three hundred twenty feet broad, were pitched on a rising ground in the territory of Guines, about half way between Guines and Ardres. Galleries hung with tapestry surrounded the enclosure, and on the right side, in the place of honor, were two glazed chambers for the two Queens. A deep foss served to keep off the crowd. The entrances were guarded by twelve French and twelve English archers; and at the foot of the lists, under a triumphal arch, stood the _perron_, or tree of nobility, from which the shields of the two Kings were suspended on a higher line than those of the other challengers and answerers. The perron for Henry VIII was formed of a hawthorn; and for Francis I a raspberry (_framboisier_), in supposed allusion to his name. Cloth of gold served for the trunk and dried leaves; the foliage was of green silk; the flowers and fruits of silver and Venetian gold. Under the tree, which measured in compass not less than one hundred twenty-nine feet, the heralds took their stand on an artificial mound, surrounded by railings of green damask.
On Sunday, while the French King dined at Guines with the Queen of England, the English King dined with the French Queen and the Duchess of Alencon at Ardres. On arriving at the Queen's lodgings, Henry was received by Louis of Savoy and a bevy of ladies magnificently dressed. Passing slowly through their ranks, in leisurely admiration of their charms, he reached the apartment where the Queen attended his coming. As he made his reverence to the Queen, she rose from her chair of state to meet him. Kneeling with one knee on the ground, his bonnet in his hand, he first kissed the Queen, next Madame, then the Duchess of Alencon, and finally all the princesses and ladies of the company. This done, dinner was announced. At the third service, Mountjoy's herald entered with a great golden goblet, crying in the name of the King of England, "Largess to the most high, mighty, and excellent prince, Henry, King of England, etc. Largess, largess!" The banquet ended at five in the evening, when the King took his leave. To display his skill before the ladies, he set spurs to his horse, making it bound and curvet "as valiantly as any man could do."
The jousts commenced on Monday, the 11th. The rules adopted to secure fair play and guard against accidents may be read by those curious in such matters in the original black-letter _Ordonnance_, printed at the time.
On the first day the Kings of England and France, with their aids, held the lists against all comers; and, with the exception of Wednesday, when the wind was too high, the jousts continued without interruption throughout the week. On Sunday, the two Kings exchanged hospitality as before. On this occasion, Francis, dropping all reserve, visited the King of England before eight in the morning, attended by four companions only, and, entering his apartment without ceremony, embraced him as he was seated at breakfast. The jousts were concluded in the following week, with a solemn mass sung by the Cardinal in a chapel erected on the field. The arrangements observed on this occasion, not less elaborate than those by which the feats of arms were regulated, may be read in the same volume as the _Ordonnance_. Here, as in the ceremonial of the lists, the spirit of chivalry reigned triumphant. When the Cardinal of Bourbon, according to the usages of the time, presented the Gospel to the French King to kiss, Francis, declining, commanded it to be offered to the King of England, who was too well bred to accept the honor. When the _Pax_ was presented at the _Agnus Dei_, the two sovereigns repeated the same mannerly breeding. The two Queens were equally ceremonious. After a polite altercation of some minutes, when neither would decide who should be the first to kiss the _Pax_, woman-like they kissed each other instead. A sermon in Latin, enlarging on the blessings of peace, was delivered by Pace at the close of the service; and a salamander was sent up in the air in the direction of Guines, to the astonishment and terror of the beholders. The whole was concluded with a banquet, at which the royal ladies, too polite to eat, spent their time in conversation; but the legates, cardinals, and prelates dined, drank, and ate _sans fiction_ in another room by themselves.
On Sunday, June 24th, the Kings met in the lists to interchange gifts and bid each other farewell. Henry and his court left for Calais; Francis returned to Abbeville.
The two Kings parted on the best of terms, as the world thought, and with mutual feelings of regret. Yet Henry had already arranged to meet the Emperor at Gravelines, there settle the terms of a new convention, to the disadvantage of the French King. The imperial envoy, the Marquis d'Arschot, arrived at Calais on July 4th, and was received by the Duke of Buckingham. On the 5th the King visited Gravelines, and returned with the Emperor to Calais three days after. The interview, graced by the presence of Charles, his brother Ferdinand, Herman, the Archbishop of Cologne, and the Lord Chievres, though less splendid, was more cordial than the interview with the French King, and was meant for business.
Frugal and reserved, the Emperor contrived, by his simple and unostentatious habits, to render himself more agreeable to his English guests than even Francis had been able to do with all his profuse and expensive civilities. Not, as some may condemn us, in consequence of our national fickleness; nor, as others may excuse us, because Englishmen preferred the plainer manners of the German or the Fleming; but because in the interview with Francis, in spite of appearances, there was no real cordiality. A tournament, in fact, was the least eligible method of promoting friendly feeling; it was more likely to engender unpleasant disputes and jealousies. To enforce the rules laid down for preserving order and fair play among the combatants was not an easy or a popular task. National rivalry was apt to break out, and it was hard for the judges to escape the imputation of partiality. Nor did the English, it must be admitted, return from the field in much good humor. With a feeling of complacency engendered by their insular position and their long isolation from the Continent, they had been wont to consider themselves as far superior to the French in all exercises of strength and agility. The French knights had shown themselves fully equal to their English opponents; the French King was not inferior in personal courage and activity to his English rival. Then rumors, such as spring up like the dragon's teeth in vast and motley multitudes, evidently fanned and fostered by Flemish emissaries, continually represented the French as engaged in contriving some act of treachery against the English King and nation. Among the nobles, also, the Dukes of Suffolk and Buckingham, the lord Abergavenny, and others were glad of any pretext for maligning a pageant of which Wolsey had the prime direction.
Francis still hovered on the frontier in the fruitless hope of being invited to take part in this interview with the Emperor. The day before Charles left Ghent, the Lady Vendome and the Duchess her daughter-in-law contrived to have business in that town, but their artifice was not successful. Francis was obliged to content himself with the assurance that the visage and countenance of his English ally appeared "not to be so replenished with joy" as at the valley of Ardres, and that he had given proofs of undiminished affection by riding a courser that Francis had given him. With an impressiveness intended to be candid, he told Sir Richard Wingfield, who had succeeded as English resident at the French court, that "if the King Catholic were a prince of like faith unto the King his brother [Henry], and that he might perceive from Wolsey that his coming thither [to Calais] might be the cause of any good conclusion between them" (that is, between himself and the Emperor), "he would not fail to come in post, and not to have looked for rank and place to him belonging, but would have put him into the King's chamber as one of the number of the same." But neither his extreme humility nor his flattering proposal that Henry and himself, "the chief pillars of Christendom," should handle the Pope, whom Francis knew "to be at some season the fearfulest creature of the world, and at some other to be as brave," nor the schemes and blandishments of the ladies, availed. He chafed under disappointment; still more at his ill-success in counteracting the growing intimacy of Henry and the Emperor. He had exhausted, to little purpose, "that liberal and unsuspicious confidence" which too credulous historians are apt to think characterized his proceedings at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, to the disadvantage of his less attractive and engaging contemporary. He could neither prevent the meetings of his two rivals nor penetrate their secrets. He was utterly foiled, yet dared not show his resentment. While the Pope and the Spaniards, unable to penetrate beneath the surface or read the signs of the times, were puzzled and scandalized at the Emperor's condescension, the world looked on with astonishment, as well it might, to see the two monarchs of the West thus anxiously soliciting the Cardinal's good graces. What could there be in the son of a butcher to command such deference?
Of the projects discussed at this interview we are not precisely informed. The English version, intended for the meridian of the French court, and to lull the suspicions of Francis, is the only account we possess. If any credit be due to a statement prepared under such circumstances and calculated to alienate the French King irrecoverably from the Emperor, we are to believe that the imperial ambassadors had already proposed to Henry to break off his matrimonial engagement with France, and transfer the hand of the princess Mary to the Emperor. As an inducement for the King to coincide in this arrangement, the Emperor undertook to make war on France by sea and land, and not desist until Henry "had recovered his right and title in the same." The King, according to the same document, rejected such a treacherous overture with the utmost horror, vehemently protesting against its immorality and perfidiousness. That such a proposal was made, though probably not by Chievres, to whom it is attributed--that it was accepted by England, but with none of the indignation described in the document--is clear beyond dispute. Long before any interruption had occurred in the amicable relations between the two countries, before even the landing of Charles at Canterbury, or in the interview in the valley of Ardres, it had been secretly proposed that the French engagement should be set aside, and the hand of Mary be transferred to the Emperor. The King's horror at this act of faithlessness--if it had any existence beyond the paper on which it was written--must have been tardy and gratuitous, seeing that the chief purpose of the meeting at Calais was to settle the basis of this matrimonial alliance, and obtain the solemn ratification of the Emperor.
CORTES CAPTURES THE CITY OF MEXICO
A.D. 1521
WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT
Spain had already begun to conquer and colonize the New World when in 1519 Hernando Cortes, with about 700 men, landed in Mexico, having previously served in Espanola (Haiti) and Cuba. He was born in Medellin, Estremadura, Spain, in 1485, and was therefore now about thirty-four years of age. To make the retreat of his force impossible, he destroyed his ships and marched into the interior and established himself in the capital city, Tenochtitlan, on the site of the present city of Mexico.
Cortes found Southern Mexico under the rule of the Aztecs (more correctly Aztecas), a partly civilized and powerful branch of Nahuatl Indians of Central Mexico. They had formed a confederacy with other tribes, and now maintained a formidable empire in the Mexican valley plateau. Their emperor was Montezuma II, who sent messengers to remonstrate against the advance of Cortes. The Spaniard continued his march, entered the city, and soon made Montezuma his prisoner, holding him as a hostage. In June, 1520, the Spaniards were besieged in the city; during a parley Montezuma was killed; on the night of the 30th the Spaniards, while trying to leave the city, lost half their men in a severe fight, and only after another battle (July 7th) escaped into Tlascala.
Reorganizing his force, strengthened by Indian allies and by ships which he built on the lakes, Cortes, in May, 1521, began the siege of Mexico, as historians call the Aztec capital. Guatemotzin, the last of the Aztec emperors, made a desperate defence, and before its capture the city was almost destroyed. On August 12th the Spaniards made a strong assault, which so weakened the defenders that the following day was to be the last of the once flourishing empire. Cortes' chief lieutenants were Pedro de Alvarado, Gonzalo de Sandoval, and Olid, famous Spanish soldiers.
After taking the capital city, Cortes, being empowered by Guatemotzin, conquered the whole of Mexico, which was called New Spain, and in 1523 he was appointed governor.
On the morning of August 13, 1521, the Spanish commander again mustered his forces, having decided to follow up the blow of the preceding day before the enemy should have time to rally, and at once to put an end to the war. He had arranged with Alvarado, on the evening previous, to occupy the market-place of Tlatelolco; and the discharge of an arquebuse was to be the signal for a simultaneous assault. Sandoval was to hold the northern causeway, and, with the fleet, to watch the movements of the Indian Emperor and to intercept the flight to the mainland, which Cortes knew he meditated. To allow him to effect this would be to leave a formidable enemy in his own neighborhood, who might at any time kindle the flame of insurrection throughout the country. He ordered Sandoval, however, to do no harm to the royal person, and not to fire on the enemy at all except in self-defence.
It was the day of St. Hippolytus--from this circumstance selected as the patron saint of modern Mexico--that Cortes led his warlike array for the last time across the black and blasted environs which lay around the Indian capital. On entering the Aztec precincts he paused, willing to afford its wretched inmates one more chance of escape before striking the fatal blow. He obtained an interview with some of the principal chiefs, and expostulated with them on the conduct of their Prince. "He surely will not," said the general, "see you all perish, when he can easily save you." He then urged them to prevail on Guatemotzin to hold a conference with him, repeating the assurances of his personal safety.
The messengers went on their mission, and soon returned with the Cihuacoatl at their head, a magistrate of high authority among the Mexicans. He said, with a melancholy air, in which his own disappointment was visible, that "Guatemotzin was ready to die where he was, but would hold no interview with the Spanish commander"; adding in a tone of resignation, "It is for you to work your pleasure." "Go, then," replied the stern conqueror, "and prepare your countrymen for death. Their hour is come."
He still postponed the assault for several hours. But the impatience of his troops at this delay was heightened by the rumor that Guatemotzin and his nobles were preparing to escape with their effects in the periaguas and canoes which were moored on the margin of the lake. Convinced of the fruitlessness and impolicy of further procrastination, Cortes made his final dispositions for the attack, and took his own station on an azotea which commanded the theatre of operations.
When the assailants came into the presence of the enemy, they found them huddled together in the utmost confusion, all ages and both sexes, in masses so dense that they nearly forced one another over the brink of the causeways into the water below. Some had climbed on the terraces, others feebly supported themselves against the walls of the buildings. Their squalid and tattered garments gave a wildness to their appearance which still further heightened the ferocity of their expression, as they glared on their enemy with eyes in which hate was mingled with despair. When the Spaniards had approached within bow-shot, the Aztecs let off a flight of impotent missiles, showing to the last the resolute spirit, though they had lost the strength, of their better days. The fatal signal was then given by the discharge of an arquebuse--speedily followed by peals of heavy ordnance, the rattle of fire-arms, and the hellish shouts of the confederates as they sprang upon their victims.