SUPERSTITIONS OF ROYALTY

The spirit of the age in which they lived must, in most cases, account for the superstitious turn of mind of many sovereigns in the past. The fact that we are now acquainted with the laws which determine the movements of comets, so that we are able to predict their appearance, has caused us to cease to pray that we may be preserved from their malevolent influence; and no longer now, as happened in the tenth century, would an European army flee in terror before one of them.[170] But from their movements not being understood, and hence regarded of supernatural character, they were a source of fear. They were dreaded as the precursors of calamity, because it was shown that comets had preceded the death of such rulers as CÆsar, or Constantine the Great, or Charles V. It was demonstrated that comets had been seen before the invasion of Greece by Xerxes, before the Peloponnesian War, before the Civil Wars of CÆsar and Pompey, before the fall of Jerusalem, before the invasion of Attila, and before the greatest number of famines and pestilences that have afflicted mankind. Hence it is not surprising that Louis the Debonnaire was frightened by the comet which appeared during Holy Week of 837. The first morning after it had been seen he sent for his astrologer. “Go,” said he, “on to the terrace of the palace, and come back again immediately and tell me what you have noticed, for I have not observed that star before, and you have not shown it to me; but I know that this sign is a comet: it announces a change of reign and the death of a prince.” Nor was this all, for the son of Charlemagne was convinced that the comet was sent for him, and accordingly “he passed his nights in prayer, gave large donations to the monasteries, and finally had a number of masses performed out of fear for himself and forethought for the Church committed to his care.”[171] But, whilst this comet was a source of fear in France, the Chinese were observing it astronomically. It was no other than Halley’s comet, which appeared again in 1066, and was regarded as a presage of the conquest under William of Normandy, a representation of which occurs in Matilda’s Bayeux tapestry. And it has been traditionally said that one of the jewels of the British crown was taken from the tail of this comet. But William neither believed in omens, nor encouraged fortune-telling, and, when he heard how a certain soothsayer—who had thought proper to join himself to the armament—had lost his life, he shrewdly remarked, “Little could he have known of the fate of others who could not foresee his own.”

The same comet made its appearance again in 1456, when Europe was filled with dread of the Turks, who had lately become masters of Constantinople, and a line was then added to the litanies of the Church praying for deliverance from “the Devil, the Turk, and the Comet.” At this time Pope Calixtus III. was engaged in a war with the Saracens, and he declared that the comet “had the form of a cross,” and indicated some great event; whereas Mahomet maintained that the comet, “having the form of a yataghan,” was a blessing of the Prophet’s.

A comet which attained its greatest altitude at the hour of Edward I.’s birth was much discussed, and Eleanor eagerly inquired of the astrologers what it portended to her babe. They replied that the bright flames which preceded it promised brilliant fortunes to her new-born son; but the long train of smoke great calamity to his son and successor. And once, it is said, when Queen Elizabeth’s attendants tried to dissuade her from looking at a comet, which was supposed to predict evil to her, she ordered the window of her apartment to be set open, and pointing to the comet, she exclaimed, “Jacta est alea (the die is cast); my steadfast hope and confidence are too firmly planted in the providence of God to be blasted or affrighted by these beams.” And yet it was Elizabeth who preferred Dr. Dee to the chancellorship of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Another comet which caused some consternation at Court was seen in 1680, and was said to be the same as that which had preceded CÆsar’s death. Hence it is said that when the brother of Louis XIV. saw the courtiers discussing the matter in an unconcerned manner, he sharply rebuked them: “Ah, gentlemen, you may talk at your ease, if you please; you are not princes.” It was this comet which gave rise to a curious story, how at Rome a hen had laid an egg on which was depicted the comet—a fact which was attested by his Holiness, by the Queen of Sweden, and by some of the leading persons in Rome.

But if comets were a source of superstition, other phenomena of the heavens were also supposed to influence the destinies of royalty; and hence Queen Catherine de Medicis, though a woman of strong mind, was deluded with the more ignorant by the vanity of astrological judgments. The professors of the science were so much consulted in her Court that the most trivial act was not done without an appeal to the stars. One of the most noted astrologers under her patronage was Nostradamus, a physician of Provence, who to medicine joined astrology, which soon augmented his income. He was summoned to Paris by Catherine in 1556, and one of his predictions—which turned out hopelessly wrong—was contained in a small book issued in the year 1572, under this title, “Prognostication touching the Marriage of the very honourable and beloved Henry, by the grace of God King of Navarre, and the very illustrious Princess Marguerite of France, calculated by Master Bernard Abbatio, Doctor in Medicine, and Astrologer to the very Christian King of France.” In this astrological calculation he professed to show that the couple would “love one another intensely all their lives,” whereas they always hated each other; and he further declared that they would “approach a hundred years,” but Henry IV. died before he was sixty. Many children were to be the outcome of the marriage, whereas there were none, for the marriage was broken off, and Henry married to Marie de Medicis.

But speaking of Catherine de Medicis, there is probably no sovereign in history “of whose persevering addiction to the occult arts so many singular traditions are preserved.” Anecdotes might be told of the amulets and talismans which she wore; of the observatories and laboratories which she fitted up in the Louvre; of the enchanted mirror in which she beheld the fortunes of her descendants; “and, above all, that singular and sudden change in her disposition which history attributes to the cruel insults of her dissolute husband, but which popular superstition ascribed to the malign influence of her supernatural allies.”[172]

Louis XI., than whom no man had less of religion or more of superstition, had an amusing adventure with an astrologer. Having heard that one of these prophets had predicted the death of a woman of whom he was very fond, he sent for him and asked him the question, “You, who know everything, when will you die?” The astrologer, somewhat taken aback, and fearing the monarch’s malicious nature, replied, “Sire, three days before your Majesty.” “Fear and superstition,” it is said, “overcame the monarch’s resentment, and he took special care of the adroit impostor.” But this was only one instance of his contradictory character, for, although there was no God in his heaven, strange to say, he “believed in an invisible world of saints, having exclusive power over the events of this life,” and he was ever seeking to propitiate them in the most childish manner. Louis XI. further attributed great superstitious worth to the ceremony of his coronation, and “adored the holy oil brought down from heaven for the anointment of Clovis, showed the greatest satisfaction at being anointed with it, and enjoyed the sanctity more than the splendour of the ceremony.”

Marie de Medicis and Louis XIII. were both remarkable for the same sort of credulity, and it has been commonly said that the supposed skill of the MarÉchale d’Ancre in the occult sciences was in a great measure the source of her influence over the princess.

Anne of Austria, eager to satisfy herself in advance of the fate of the infant to which she was about to give birth, determined, with the superstition common to that age, to cause its horoscope to be drawn by an able astrologer at the moment it was born. Having expressed her wish to Louis XIII., he confided the care of discovering the required astrologer to Cardinal Richelieu, who, having some previous knowledge of a certain seer named Campanella, he immediately despatched a messenger to command his presence. He was traced to the dungeons of Milan, where he was awaiting his trial as a sorcerer, having been seized by the Italian Inquisition, and whence he was allowed to obtain his release. On the birth of the Dauphin, Campanella was requested to proceed with his task without delay, and to speak the truth fearlessly. Accordingly, he announced that his combinations had informed him that “the infant would be as luxurious as Henry IV., and of conspicuous haughtiness; that his reign would be long and laborious, although not without a certain happiness; but that his end would be miserable, and entail both religious and political confusion upon the kingdom”—which proved a very fair forecast.[173]

The conquest of Spain by the Moors carried the science of astrology into that country, and, before their expulsion, it was more or less naturalised among the Christian savans. No individual contributed more to the advancement of the study of the stars than Alfonso of Castile, whom his friends called “the Wise,” whereas by his foes he was known as “Alfonso the Astrologer.” It appears that he summoned a council of the wisest mathematicians and doctors of the astral science who were convened in the towers of the fabled Alcazar of Galiana, when five years were spent in discussion. Alfonso usually presided in the assembly, and after the tables which pass under his name were completed, many noble privileges were granted to the sages and their issue, and they returned richly rewarded each to his home. But unfortunately Alfonso endangered his orthodoxy by his opinions; for astrology—when employed as a means of forecasting events—was anathematised by the Church as “a vain, lying, and presumptuous art.” But, despite such denunciations, Alfonso was anxious to protect the dignity of his favourite pursuit by giving it such a legal sanction as would distinguish it from deceit and fraud, and he affirmed that the judgments and predictions which are given by this art are discerned in the natural course of the planets, and “are taken from the books of Ptolemy, and the other wise masters, who have laboured therein.” And then he adds, “The other manner of divining is by soothsayers, sorcerers, and wizards; some take their tokens from birds or from the fate-word; others cast lots; others see visions in water, or in crystal, or in a mirror, or the bright sword-blade; others frame amulets; others prognosticate by the hand of a child, or of a maiden. These ribalds, and such as are like them, are wicked men and lewd impostors, and manifold evils arise from their deeds; therefore we will not allow any of them to dwell in our dominions.”

Eric XIV. of Sweden chafed under annoyance of any kind; and, as he had been told that all his difficulties would be owing to the treachery of a man with fair hair, he lost no time in casting his brother John into prison, who happened to be fair-haired, on which account Eric bitterly hated him. Indeed, the King would probably have assassinated his brother in prison, but for the intervention of Charles de Mornay, a French gentleman, whose good counsel prevailed over the fiendish advice of Goran Persson.

Matthias Corvin, King of Hungary, rarely undertook anything without first consulting the astrologers, and the Duke of Milan and Pope Paul were also very largely governed by their advice. Lord Malmesbury in his “Memoirs” speaks of Frederick II.’s superstition and belief in astrology, and on this point we may quote a communication which the King made to his friend Baron von de Horst: “Being convinced that truth is often arrived at by most irrational ways, and that the most specious syllogisms very often lead to the falsest notions, I made inquiries in all sorts of quarters. I caused all those to be consulted who pretended to know anything about astrology, and even all the village prophets. The result was that I never found anything but old women’s tales and absurdity.” But so firmly did the Turkish divan believe in astrology, that they attributed Frederick’s tide of success to the help of that science. Accordingly, the Sultan Mustapha sent Resmi to Berlin with instructions to induce the King to cede three of his most skilful astrologers to the Sultan. But at an audience Frederick led the Turk to a window and pointed out his troops to the ambassador, remarking that “his three advisers in war and peace were experience, discipline, and economy; these and these only,” he concluded, “are my chief three astrologers.”

Even nowadays the royal astrologer is one of the most important officers at the Court of the Shah, and no Persian minister would venture to conclude a political transaction, or even to arrange a State ceremonial, without obtaining the sanction of the stars.

Among the illustrious believers in astrology who flourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries must be added the name of Albert von Wallenstein, Duke of Friedland, who was an enthusiast in the cause. Kepler was employed by him in making astrological calculations, and was rewarded by his influence with the Court of Vienna, which procured the settlement of a large demand. Then there was the astrologer John Gadbury, who in the nativity cast for the illustrious Prince of Denmark, informs us that “it is an aphorism nearly as old as astrology itself, that if the lord of the ascendant of a revolution be essentially well placed, it declares the native to be pleasant, healthful, and of a sound constitution of body, and rich in quiet of mind all that year, and that he shall be free from cares, perturbations, and troubles.”

Indeed, the drawers of horoscopes in bygone years had a busy and lucrative time; and one Thurneysser, a famous astrologer, who lived at the electoral Court of Berlin, was at the same time “physician, chemist, drawer of horoscopes, almanack-maker, printer, and librarian.” His reputation was so widespread that scarcely a birth took place in families of any rank in Germany, Poland, Hungary, or England, without his being announced of the precise moment of birth. And it may be remembered how astrologers were consulted on behalf of Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII., who had predicted that great good fortune would befall her in 1503; a circumstance to which Sir Thomas More, in an elegy he wrote for the Queen, alludes, at the same time noticing the folly and vanity of such divinations:—

the Queen dying on her birthday, February 11, 1502-3, the very day when she completed her thirty-seventh year.

Another delusion which excited an extensive and long-continued interest was alchemy, and in the splendid Courts of Almansor and Haroun-al-Raschid the professors of the mystic art found “patronage, disciples, and emolument.” Frederick II., in a letter to his friend Baron von de Horst, thus writes concerning the rage of making gold which has deceived so many: “Fredersdorf firmly believed in it, and was soon connected with all the adepts in Potsdam. Speedily the report spread through the whole garrison, so that there was not an ensign who did not hope to pay his debts by means of the philosopher’s stone. Swindling adepts crowded from all quarters, and under all sorts of characters, to Potsdam. From Saxony came a certain Madame von Pfuel with two very handsome daughters, who did the thing in quite a professional style, so that they were considered great prophetesses. I wished to put it down by authority, but I did not succeed. An offer was made to give in my presence every imaginable proof, so that I might convince myself with my own eyes. Considering this the best means to expose the folly, I made this lady alchemist perform her operations under my strict surveillance. To throw gold in the crucibles, or the like clumsy tricks, would not have done; yet Madame von Pfuel gave the affair such a specious appearance that I could not prove any of the experiments to have failed.” Indeed, the most eminent of the alchemic philosophers were not only the companions of princes, but many of them were even kings themselves, who “chose this royal road to wealth and magnificence.”

But in England the dreams of the alchemists never met with much favour, although there seems reason to believe that Raymond Lully—one of the most illustrious of the alchemists—visited this country about the year 1312, on the invitation of Edward II., and was employed here in refining gold and coining rose nobles. In 1455 Henry VI., by the advice of his council and parliament, issued four patents in succession to “certain knights, London citizens, chemists, monks, mass-priests, and others, with leave and licence to attempt the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, to the great benefit of the realm, and the enabling of the King to pay all the debts of the crown in real gold and silver.” Prynne afterwards satirically remarked upon the issue of this patent to ecclesiastics as well as laymen, that the King included them because they were “such good artists in transubstantiating bread and wine in the Eucharist, and therefore the more likely to be able to effect the transmutation of baser metals into better.”

Elizabeth amused herself with the chimeras of alchemy. Cecil, in his diary, has noted that in January 1567, “Cornelius Lannoy, a Dutchman, was committed to the Tower for abusing the Queen’s Majesty in promising to make the elixir.” This impostor had been permitted to have his laboratory at Somerset House, where he had deceived many by promising to convert any metal into gold. To the Queen a more flattering delusion had been held forth, even the draught of perpetual life and youth, and her strong intellect had been duped into the persuasion that it was in the power of a foreign empiric to confer the boon of immortality upon her. That Elizabeth was a believer in the occult sciences, and an encourager of those who practised the arts of divination and transmutation, is evident from the diary of her conjurer, Dr. Dee. On one occasion she condescended with her whole Court and Privy Council to visit him at Mortlake; but, as his wife had only been buried four hours, she contented herself with a peep into his magic mirror. Dr. Dee flattered Elizabeth with promises of perennial youth and beauty from his anticipated discovery of the elixir of life, and the prospect of unbounded wealth as soon as he had matured his secret of transmuting the baser metals into gold. But the encouragement given by Elizabeth to conjurers and star-gazers was inconsistent with her disbelief in the prevailing superstitions of the age.

Turning to sorcery and magic, Charlemagne, it is said, had a talisman, to which frequent allusion is made in traditional history, and which the late Emperor Napoleon III., when Prince Louis Napoleon, was stated to have in his possession. This curiosity, which was described in the Parisian journals as “la plus belle relique de l’Europe,” has long excited much interest in the archÆological circles on the Continent. It is of fine gold, of a round form, set with gems, and in the centre are two sapphires, and a portion of the Holy Cross. This talisman was found on the neck of Charlemagne when his tomb was opened, and was presented to Bonaparte, and by him to Hortense, the former Queen of Holland, at whose death it descended to her son Prince Louis, late Emperor of the French.

Similarly, Henry VIII. had so great a superstitious veneration for the traditional virtues of a jewel which had for ages decked the shrine of Thomas À Becket at Canterbury, that he had it set in a ring, which he constantly wore on his thumb. The jewel was known as the “royal of France,” having been presented to the shrine of the murdered archbishop by Louis VII. in the year 1179. Indeed, amulets in one form or another have from early times been used by royalty; and we read in the old French chronicles how Gondebaud, King of Burgundy, in the fifth century sought as a talisman the aid of St. Sergius’s thumb—which, fastened to the right arm of a certain Eastern king, had always made him victorious—and how, when his request was not granted, he took by force a piece of the saint’s finger. And, likewise, on the death of Tippoo Saib, in the assault on his capital by the English troops, an English officer who was present at the discovery of his body among the slain, by permission of General Baird, took from the Sultan’s right arm the talisman which contained—sewed upon pieces of fine flowered silk—an amulet of a brittle, metallic substance of the colour of silver, and some magic words in Arabic and Persian characters. And, as a further instance of the superstitious tendency of Queen Elizabeth, Lady Southwell relates, “that the Queen, not being in very good health one day, Sir John Stanhope, Vice-Chamberlain, came and presented her Majesty with a piece of gold of the bigness of an angel, full of characters, which he said an old woman in Wales had bequeathed to her—the Queen—on her deathbed; and thereupon he discoursed how the said testatrix, by virtue of that piece of gold, had lived to the age of 120 years, and at that age, having all her body withered and consumed, she died, commanding the said piece of gold to be sent to her Majesty, alleging, further, that so long as she wore it on her body she could not die. The Queen, in confidence, took the gold and hung it round her neck.”

And it may be remembered how, after the battle of Culloden, the baggage of Prince Charles Edward fell into the hands of the Duke of Cumberland’s army, when many private and curious articles came into the possession of General Bedford—amongst others a stone set in silver attached to a ring which, it has been suggested, “the superstitious prince may have obtained on the Continent as a charm, and carried as a protection in the hazardous enterprise in which he was engaged.” It was a ruby bloodstone, having on one face the figure of Mars, and on the other face was a female naked figure, probably Isis.[174]

And speaking of ring superstitions in connection with royalty, there were the famous “cramp rings” which, when blessed by the sovereign, were regarded as preservatives against the cramp or against epilepsy—the earliest mention of which usage occurs in the reign of Edward II., the ceremonial having been discontinued by Edward VI. These rings were of various kinds—sometimes they were made of silver and of gold; and a MS. copy of the Orders of the King of England’s Household—13th Henry VIII., 1521-1522—preserved in the National Library at Paris, contains “the Order of the Kinges of England, touching his coming to service, hallowing of cramp rings, and offering and creeping to the Cross.”[175] On April 4, 1529, Anne Boleyn sent to Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who had been despatched to Rome to plead for the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, a present of cramp rings; and the late Cardinal Wiseman had in his possession a manuscript containing both the ceremony for the blessing of the cramp rings, and that for the touching for the king’s evil. At the commencement of the MS. are emblazoned the arms of Philip and Mary, and there is an illumination representing the Queen kneeling, with a dish containing the rings to be blessed on each side of her. It appears that Queen Mary intended to revive the practice, and from this manuscript she probably did so.

Closely allied with the “royal cramp rings” was the practice of “touching for the evil,” which is said to have commenced with Edward the Confessor, and was more or less continued to the reign of Queen Anne, for in Lent 1712 we find Dr. Johnson among the persons actually touched. The custom seems to have been at its height in the reign of Charles II., as in the four first years of his restoration he “touched” nearly 24,000 persons. Pepys, in his “Diary,” under June 23, 1666, records how he waited at Whitehall, “to see the King touch people for the king’s evil.” He did not come, but kept the poor persons waiting all the morning in the rain in the garden; but afterwards he touched them in the banqueting-house. And Evelyn records the fact that in the reign of Charles II. several persons were pressed to death in the crowd that surrounded the doors of the Court surgeon, where individuals applied for tickets in order to present their children for cure to the King. William III., says Macaulay, “had too much sense to be duped, and too much honesty to bear a part in what he knew to be an imposture.” “It is a silly superstition,” he exclaimed, when he heard that at the close of Lent his palace was besieged by a crowd of the sick; “give the poor creatures some money and send them away.” On one occasion he was importuned into laying his hand on a patient. “God give you better health,” he said, “and more sense.” But Queen Anne revived the superstition, and performed the healing-office during her progresses whenever she rested at any provincial city.

At a late period the use of certain coins, known as “royal touch-pieces,” was in common vogue, which, being touched by the King, were supposed to ward off evil or scrofula, several of which are preserved in the British Museum; and Mrs. Bray speaks of a “Queen Anne’s farthing” being a charm for curing the king’s evil in Devonshire.

The belief prevailed in France so lately as the coronation of Louis XVI., who is reported to have touched 2000 persons afflicted with scrofula. Indeed, this gift of healing was dispensed by the early French kings, and Laurentius, first physician to Henry IV. of France, asserts the power to have commenced with Clovis I. Bishop Elphinston, the founder of King’s College, Aberdeen, before his elevation to the episcopal dignity, while on an embassy from James III., King of Scots, to Louis XI., in a complimentary speech to the French monarch, congratulated him as the only prince to whom God had granted the peculiar gift of healing by the touch.

Evil omens with regard to rings have been occasionally the source of alarm to royalty. Thus Atkinson, in his “Memoirs of the Queen of Prussia,” writes: “The betrothal of the young couple—Frederick and Sophia Charlotte, King and Queen of Prussia—speedily followed. I believe it was during the festivities attendant upon this occasion that a ring worn by Frederick, in memory of his deceased wife, with the device of clasped hands, and the motto ‘À jamais,’ suddenly broke, which was looked upon as an omen that this union was to be of short duration.” And Queen Elizabeth’s coronation ring, which she had worn constantly since her inauguration, having grown into her finger, necessitated the ring being filed off, an incident which was regarded as an unfavourable omen by many. Few, too, were more credulous in such matters than Elizabeth herself, who appears to have been a firm believer in the popular superstition of “good luck.”

It has oftentimes been a matter of surprise that a person of so strong a mind as Charles V. of Spain should have yielded to the popular superstition of his day as to put faith in amulets and talismans. But that he did so is evident, writes Prescott,[176] “from the care with which he preserved certain amulets, and from his sending one of them—a bezoar stone—to his Chamberlain, Van Male, when supposed to be ill of the plague.” In his jewelled coffers were stones set in gold, sure styptics for stopping blood; nine English rings, a specific against cramp; a blue stone richly chased, for expelling the gout; four bezoar stones in gold settings, of singular efficacy in curing the plague; and other charms of the same kind. He also collected certain relics, among which was a bit of the true Cross, which was afterwards passed as a precious legacy to Philip, as also did the contents of a casket, and a crucifix which his mother, the Empress Isabella, had in her hands at the hour of death, and which was afterwards to solace the last moments of her husband and her son.

In days gone by the unicorn’s horn was considered an amulet of singular virtue, although it is now known that the object shown as such in various museums is the horn of the rhinoceros. Such an amulet was sold at six thousand ducats, and was thought to be an infallible test of poison, like Venetian glass and certain sorts of jewels. The Dukes of Burgundy kept pieces of them in their wine jugs, and used others to touch the meat they tasted. And Holinshed tells us how King John, observing a moisture on some precious stones he wore, thought that to be an indication “of some pears he was about to eat containing poison.”

Again, in the dark ages, when magic was publicly professed in the universities, we read of a sovereign who entered boldly into the cheat. Eric XIV. of Sweden, surnamed “Windy Cap,” had his enchanted cap, and pretended by the additional assistance of some magical jargon to be able to command spirits to trouble the air, and to turn the winds themselves; so that, when a great storm arose, his ignorant subjects believed that the King had got his conjuring cap on; and from this fact, it is said, originated the custom of mountebanks and conjurers playing their tricks in a conjuring cap. But it would seem that this strange and eccentric monarch, who looked upon every man with suspicion, and “interpreted the most natural and insignificant of gestures as some dreadful telegraphing of hideous treason,” rarely appeared in public, and never without a superstitious dread of impending calamity.

The Emperor Basil, who was originally a Macedonian groom, and whose fortune had been assured by the prophecy of crafty and acute monks, anticipated one of the foolish superstitions of later times by applying to the spirit of a deceased son to know how it went with him after death.

Indeed, under a variety of forms, the history of most countries affords many a curious instance of monarchs seeking, or deriving, information by supernatural agency. Thus Louis, eldest son of King Philip III. of France by his first wife, Isabel of Aragon, having died somewhat suddenly, his death was attributed to poison. Peter de la Brosse, whom the King had made a confidant, advancing him to high dignities, did not shrink from insinuating that the Queen—Maria of Brabant—was guilty of this act, and that she was capable of inflicting the same fate upon all the King’s children by Isabel. Accordingly, the King resolved to consult a soothsayer, and of the two or three persons who were mentioned to him as possessing the gift of what nowadays is popularly designated clairvoyance, a kind of beguine, or begging nun, from Flanders was selected as having most reputation. Philip sent the Abbot of St. Denis to question her, but her answers he considered too serious to repeat, excusing himself that what he had heard was under the secret of the confessional. The King, in a fit of anger, sent further messengers, who informed the beguine that they came from the King of France, and they received from her the best possible character of the Queen. The King was satisfied, and lost much of his trust and friendship for Peter de la Brosse. Some time was allowed to elapse, when the grandees, who were bent on his ruin, discovered, or pretended to discover, a treasonable correspondence of his which caused him to be hanged.[177]

The astonishing success of Baptiste Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, who was selected as heir-presumptive to the crown of Sweden, which he wore—not without dignity—as Charles XIV., is said to have been foretold to him by the same celebrated fortune-teller who predicted that of Bonaparte, and who so fully possessed the superstitious confidence of the Empress Josephine. In a biography of his life, published at Pau, we are told that Bernadotte believed in his special and independent destiny, and in a kind of tutelar divinity, who vouchsafed to him a special protection. An ancient traditionary chronicle is reported to have contained the prediction of a certain fairy, who had married one of his ancestors, that an illustrious king should spring from her race. Bernadotte never forgot this legend, which had charmed his early days, and possibly it was not without its influence on his future destiny. And how greatly the supernatural guided him is illustrated by the following event. Wishing to overcome the difficulties he encountered in Norway by means of the sword, he proposed to despatch his son Oscar at the head of an army, for the purpose of reducing the rebels, a proceeding which was strongly opposed by the Council of State. One day, after an animated discussion on the subject, he mounted his horse and galloped some distance from the capital, when suddenly he beheld an old woman, strangely clad. “What do you want?” asked the King. To which the apparition replied, “If Oscar goes to the war you meditate, he will not give but receive the first blow.” The next day, bearing in his countenance the traces of a sleepless night, he presented himself at the Council, and said, “I have changed my mind; we will negotiate for peace, but I must have honourable terms.”

Amongst some of the cases recorded in this country of royalty consulting supposed prophets, or being brought into their contact, may be mentioned that of Matilda of Flanders, who, hearing that a German hermit was possessed of the gift of prophecy, requested his prayers for the reconciliation of her jarring son and husband, and his opinion as to what would be the result of their feud. But William was just as sceptical in such matters, and, when he accidentally put on his hauberk the hind part before, he quickly changed it, and said to those who stood by, “I never believed in omens, nor have I ever put my faith in fortune-tellers, or divinations of any kind, for my trust is in God.” And he added, “Let not this mischance discourage you,” knowing full well how easily frightened even the bravest of his followers were by ill-omens.

Richard I. was hunting in one of his Norman forests when he was met by a hermit, who prophesied that, unless he repented, his end was close at hand. The King made light of the warning and went his way, but ere long he was seized with an illness which threatened to prove fatal, when, remembering the words of the hermit-prophet, he made public confession of his sins, and vowed to be reconciled to his queen Berengaria.

Edward IV. had a passion for astrology, divination, and every kind of fortune-telling, in which he imitated the pursuits of Henry V.; and Elizabeth of York relates how “her father, being one day studying a book of magic in the palace of Westminster, was extremely agitated, even to tears, and, though earls and lords were present, none durst speak to him but herself. She came and knelt before him for his blessing, upon which he threw his arms around her, and lifted her into a high window; and when he had set her there, he gave her the reason or horoscope he had drawn, and bade her show it to no one but Lord Stanley, for he had plainly calculated that no son of his should wear the crown after him. He predicted that she should be queen, and the crown would rest with her descendants.”

In Wyatt’s “Memorials of Anne Boleyn” the following incident is related as having happened previous to her marriage with Henry: A book, assuming to be of a prophetic character, and of a similar class with the oracular hieroglyphic almanacs of succeeding centuries, was mysteriously placed in her chamber one day, on seeing which she called her principal attendant, Anne Saville.

“Come hither, Nan,” said she. “See, here is a book of prophecies; this is the King, this is the Queen, and this is myself, with my head cut off.”

Anne Saville answered, “If I thought it true, I would not myself have him were he an emperor.”

“Tut! Nan,” replied Anne Boleyn, “I think the book a bauble, and I am resolved to have him, that my issue may be royal, whatever may become of me.”

But such a forecast of the future was at this period of common occurrence, and was no doubt occasionally adopted as a device for deterring the sovereign from some design which his opponents desired to frustrate.

Another anecdote is told of Catherine Parr, illustrative of her power of retort when quite young. It seems that some one skilled in prognostications, casting her nativity, said that “she was born to sit in the highest seat of imperial majesty, having all the eminent stars and planets in her house.” This forecast of her life she did not forget, and, when her mother used at times to call her to work, she would reply, “My hands are ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, and not spindles and needles.”

But fortune-tellers have sometimes told uncomfortable things to royalty. There is a singular anecdote of Charles I. traditional at Hampton Court Palace. The story runs that one day he was standing at a window of the palace, when a gipsy came up and asked for charity. Her appearance and attitude excited ridicule, which so infuriated and enraged the gipsy, that she took out of her basket a looking-glass and presented it to the King, who saw therein his own head decollated.

Another tradition of a similar nature—of which there is more than one version—is connected with the mode of divination known as the Sortes VirgilianÆ. According to one account, King Charles when at Oxford was shown a magnificent Virgil, and when induced by Lord Falkland to make a trial of his fortune by the Sortes VirgilianÆ, he opened the volume at the Fourth Book of the Æneid (615 et seq.), which contained the following passage:—

Wellwood adds, “It is said that King Charles seemed concerned at the accident, and that the Lord Falkland, observing it, would also try his own fortune in the same way, hoping that he might fall on some passage that could have no relation to his case, and thereby divert the King’s thoughts from any impression that the other had made on him; but the place that Lord Falkland stumbled upon was yet more suited to his destiny than the other had been to the King’s, being the expression of Evander upon the untimely death of his son Pallas, as thus translated by Dryden:—

It is generally admitted, however, that Charles was very superstitious; and we are told by Lilly, the astrologer, that the King on more than one occasion sent to consult him during his misfortunes. It may be remembered, too, that Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I., consulted a prophetess—Lady Eleanor, daughter of the Earl of Castlehaven, and married to Sir John Davys, the King’s Attorney-General. The idea that she was a prophetess arose from the discovery that the letters of her name, twisted into an anagram, might thus be read: “Reveal, O Daniel.” But her prophetic pride had on one occasion a rebuff; for one of the King’s Privy Council attacked her with her own weapons, maintaining that the real anagram should be read thus: “Dame Eleanor Davys—Never so mad a lady.”

But the strange conversation that passed between her Majesty Henrietta Maria and the prophetess is thus given in the latter’s own words: “About two years after the marriage of King Charles I., I was waiting on the Queen as she came from mass or evening service, to know what service she was pleased to require from me. Her first question was ‘Whether she should ever have a son?’ I answered, ‘In a short time.’ The Queen was next desirous to know what would be the destiny of the Duke of Buckingham and the English fleet, which had sailed to attack her brother’s realm, and relieve the siege of Rochelle.

“I answered that the Duke of Buckingham would bring home little honour, but his person would return safely, and that speedily. The Queen then returned to her hopes of a son, and I showed that she would have one, and that for a long time she should be happy.

“‘But for how long?’ asked the Queen. ‘For sixteen years,’ was my reply. King Charles coming in at that moment, our discourse was interrupted by him. ‘How now, Lady Eleanor,’ said the King, ‘are not you the person who foretold your husband’s death three days before it happened?’ to which his Majesty thought fit to add, ‘that it was the next to breaking his heart.’”

Mary II., having heard that a Mrs. Wise, a noted fortune-teller, had prophesied that James II. would be restored, and that the Duke of Norfolk would lose his head, went in person to her to hear what she had to say regarding her own future destiny. But this witch-woman was a perverse Jacobite, and positively refused to read futurity for her Majesty.

George I. had been warned by a French prophetess to take care of his wife, as it was fated that he would not survive her more than a year. Such an effect, it is said, had the prediction on his mind, that shortly after his wife’s death, on taking leave of his son and the Princess of Wales, when on the eve of his departure for Hanover, he told them that he should never see them again. “At the same time,” adds Mr. Jesse,[178] “with a contempt of all laws, human and divine, he gave directions that his wife’s will should be burnt, and this for the mere purpose, it seems, of depriving his own son of some valuable legacies bequeathed to him by his unfortunate mother”—his wife and his only son having, it would appear, been the two persons whom he most disliked.

Divination by cards was in the seventeenth century a fashionable amusement at the Court of France. A well-known anecdote tells of the ominous gloom which was on one occasion cast over the circle of Anne of Austria by the obstinacy with which the knave of spades—the sure emblem of a speedy death—persisted in falling to the lot of the young and brilliant Duc de Candale: a prediction which was shortly afterwards verified.

The superstitious fancy of the “divinity that hedges in a king,” and made CÆsar encourage his alarmed boatman, “Fear nothing, you carry CÆsar and the fortune of CÆsar in your boat,” is told of Rufus, who, when the sailors pointed out the danger of putting to sea, exclaimed: “I have never heard of a king who was shipwrecked; weigh anchor, and you will see that the winds will be with us.”

The immunity of an anointed king had its influence on the strong-minded German Emperor, William I. A young married couple visited the island of Meinau, where the Emperor was residing with his son-in-law, the Grand Duke of Baden. On their departure, so violent a storm came on that their boatman found it impossible to proceed, and they were forced to return to the island. The Emperor, seeing their plight, met them on the beach, and ordering steam to be got up in a small iron steam launch, placed it at their service. But the lady, alarmed at her first encounter with the waves, demurred somewhat to trusting herself again to their mercies. “Do not be alarmed,” said the Emperor, “the steamer bears my name, and that ought to reassure you.”

But Henry I. does not seem to have been of this opinion, for when in June 1131 he had embarked from Normandy for England, he was so dismayed by the bursting of a water-spout over the vessel and the fury of the wind and waves, that, believing his last hour was at hand, he made a penitent acknowledgment of his sins, promising to lead a new life if God should preserve him from the peril of death.

Dreams have occasionally exerted a disquieting influence on royalty, two or three instances of which may be quoted. Thus Bossuet, in his funeral oration on the Princess Palatine, Anne of Gonzaga, attributes her conversion to a mysterious dream. “This,” says he, “was a marvellous dream; one of those which God himself produces through the ministry of his angels; one in which the images are clearly and orderly arranged, and we are permitted to obtain a glimpse of celestial things. The princess fancied she was walking alone in a forest, when she found a blind man in a small cottage. She approached him, and inquired if he had been blind from his birth, or whether it was the result of an accident. He told her that he was born blind. ‘You are ignorant then,’ she said, ‘of the effect of light, how beautiful and pleasant it is; nor can you conceive the glory and beauty of the sun.’ ‘I have never,’ he replied, ‘enjoyed the sight of that beautiful object, nor can I form any idea of it, nevertheless I believe it to be surpassing glorious.’ The blind man then seemed to change his voice and manner, and assuming a tone of authority, ‘My example,’ he continued, ‘should teach you there are excellent things which escape your notice, and which are not less true or less desirable, although you can neither comprehend nor imagine them.’”

Again, a few nights before the fatal day on which Henry IV. of France was assassinated by Ravaillac—Friday, May 14, 1610—the Queen dreamed that all the jewels in her crown were changed into pearls, and that she was told pearls were significant of tears. Another night she started and cried out in her sleep, and waked the King, who, asking her what was the matter, she answered, “I have had a frightful dream, but I know that dreams are mere illusions.”

“I was always of the same opinion,” said Henry; “however, tell me what your dream was.”

“I dreamed,” continued the Queen, “that you were stabbed with a knife under the short ribs.”

“Thank God,” added the King, “it was but a dream.”

On the morning of the fatal day the King more than once said to those about him, “Something or other hangs very heavy on my heart.” Before he entered his carriage he took leave of the Queen no fewer than three times, and had not driven long ere Ravaillac gave him the deadly thrust which deprived France of one of the most humane sovereigns she ever had.

A strange illustration of ignorance and superstition was that afforded by the Emperor Romanus, who on the night of the death of his son Constantine had a dream, in which he beheld him falling into hell. In a state of alarm he despatched messengers to Jerusalem and Rome to solicit the prayers of the faithful, and he summoned the monks of all the adjacent monasteries to assemble around him, three hundred of whom obeyed the invitation. The day was Holy Thursday, and, “at the moment of the elevation of the Host, he divested himself of his upper garments and stood in the midst of the assembly with nothing on but his shirt. With a loud voice he read his general confession,” at the conclusion of which he knelt before each monk in turn and received absolution. His humiliation followed, for the whole assembly then retired to partake of the ordinary repast, during which Romanus, still in his shirt, stood in a corner apart, and a little hired boy was occupied in whipping his naked legs, exclaiming, “Get to table, you wicked old fellow! get to table!” That the whole ceremony had divine sanction is proved by the numerous miracles which are said to have taken place, but “of which no ocular witness ever made deposition.”

It was a dream—so asserted the Sultan Bajazet II.—that directed this ruler when, on the 25th of April 1512, his son Selim appeared in front of the palace at the head of an irresistible force, exclaiming, “If you will not yield, we will not touch your life, but we will drag you by your robes on the points of our javelins from the throne.” On the following morning he acceded to their demands, acknowledging that a dream of the night had taught him the course he was to take. “This was my dream,” said the monarch, who was extricating himself from disgrace, to follow the instructions imparted in a dream—“I saw my crown placed by my soldiers on my son Selim’s head. It would be injurious to resist such a sign.”

Numerous further illustrations might be added to show how great an influence dreams, at different times, have exerted over the minds of sovereigns, causing them occasionally to forego undertaking certain acts, as being divine interpositions for their special guidance.

At the age of the Reformation, Scotland was sunk into barbarism and ignorance, and on this account never did the witch-mania enter a country better suited for its reception. James VI. of Scotland, before he became the First of England, had taken an active part in several witch-trials, but especially in the inquisition directed to discover the guilt of Dr. Fian and others, to whom he had ascribed his stormy passage with his Norwegian consort from Denmark. It is unnecessary to enter on a recital of the horrible tortures inflicted upon the accused, for all the torments known to the Scottish law were successively applied. But it is evident that a monarch who had participated in such horrors, and had further committed himself by the publication of his notable work, the “DÆmonology,” must have come to the English throne decidedly predisposed to foster the popular delusions respecting witchcraft. Indeed, as Mr. Lecky observes, James “was continually haunted by the subject,” and “boasted that the devil regarded him as the most formidable of opponents.” The earliest statute against witchcraft appears to have been enacted in the reign of Henry VI., and additional penal laws were passed by Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. But there can be no doubt that in many cases witchcraft was a convenient excuse for carrying out a wicked policy. To this cause, as Sir Walter Scott says, we may impute the trial of the Duchess of Gloucester, wife of the good Duke Humphrey, accused of consulting witches concerning the mode of compassing the death of her husband’s nephew, Henry VI. The Duchess was condemned to do penance, and then banished to the Isle of Man. But the alleged witchcraft “was the only ostensible cause of a procedure which had its real source in the deep hatred between the Duke of Gloucester and Cardinal Beaufort, his half-brother.” The same pretext was used by Richard III. when he brought the charge of sorcery against the Queen-Dowager, Jane Shore, and the Queen’s kinsmen. The accusation in each case “was only chosen as a charge easily made and difficult to be eluded or repelled.”

In the same way Charles, Count of Valois, uncle of Louis X., had much influence over him. Charles believed, or pretended to believe, in sorcery. By making a waxen image of a foe, which was pricked and tortured, the person represented was supposed to pine away and die. It was a belief of the age, and a fearful belief, for who could be secure against an act of malice that might be perpetrated in the most profound secrecy?[179]

And on the Continent we find royalty tacitly in times past pandering to the superstitious spirit of their age, by sanctioning and upholding the cruelties to which supposed witches were subjected. And the most terrible scenes occurred in France, till happily the edict of Louis XIV. discharged all future persecutions for witchcraft, after which the crime was heard of no more.

The quarrel of Sancho I. of Portugal with the Bishop of Coimbra is, too, another evidence of the superstitious disposition of even a crusading monarch in those times, for it arose about a so-called witch, whom the King insisted on keeping in his palace.

And, turning to another phase of superstition of a less gloomy nature, may be briefly noticed the strong predilection displayed by some monarchs for a particular number or day of the year or week. Thus Dubois, in his MÉmoire FidÈle, relates how Louis XIII. a few hours before his death—Thursday, May 14, 1643—summoned his physicians, and asked them if they thought he would live until the following day, saying that Friday had always been for him a fortunate day; that all the undertakings he had begun on that day had proved successful; that in all the battles fought on that day he had been victorious; that it was his fortunate day, and on that day he would wish to die.

Napoleon’s favourite and lucky day, like that of his nephew, Napoleon III., was the 2nd of the month. He was made consul for life on August 2, 1802; was crowned December 2, 1804; won his greatest battle, that of Austerlitz, for which he obtained the title of “Great,” December 2, 1805; and he married the Archduchess of Austria, April 2, 1810.

And going back to earlier days, according to BrantÔme, Charles V. was partial to St. Matthias’s Day—February 24—because on that day he was elected emperor, on that day crowned, and on that day Francis I. was taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia. Henry IV. of France, again, considered Friday his lucky day, and began his undertakings by preference on that day.

The Prince of Orange—heir-apparent of the King of Holland—who died somewhat suddenly at Paris, June 11, 1879, was, it is said, very superstitious with regard to the numbers 6 and 11. As a sporting man, he always withdrew his horses when they were classed under the one or the other; and, by a curious coincidence, the Prince died on the eleventh day of the sixth month of the year, and at 11 o’clock. But, according to Fuller, Edward VI. was the exact opposite in point of superstition, for when it was remarked to him that Christ College, Cambridge, was a superstitious foundation, consisting of a master and twelve fellows, in imitation of Christ and His twelve apostles, he was advised by a covetous courtier to take away one or two fellowships so as to break that mystic number. “Oh no,” replied the King, “I have a far better way than that to mar their conceit; I will add a thirteenth fellowship to them”—which he accordingly did, to the disgust of the credulous and the approval of the wise.