The Book of Princes and Princesses

At this news all Normandy was in an uproar, for, as has been said, William's subjects loved him well and grieved for him deeply; and by none was he more sorely mourned than by his cast-off wife Espriota, who had for these few past months been living near her son, and had seen him occasionally. But this was now at an end, for Richard was at once removed by his guardians to the palace of Rouen, there to attend his father's burial and his own coronation, which was in its way as important an event as that of the king of France, who had but little territory or power in comparison with some of his great nobles.

When the young duke reached Rouen he found that his father's body had been removed from the palace whither it had been taken after his murder, and was lying in state in the cathedral of Notre Dame, with the famous long sword, from which he had gained his nickname, on his breast. The grave had been dug close by, opposite to his father Rollo's, the first duke and conqueror of Normandy, and beside it was an empty place, where Richard guessed that he would some day rest. The cathedral was crowded that morning, and many thoughts of love and pity were given, not only to the dead man, but to the fair-haired boy of nine who stood by the bier, not overcome with grief for the father whom he had scarcely seen, but awed and a little bewildered at what would be expected of him. All through the long service Richard stood still, now and then gazing wonderingly at the multitude which filled the body of the cathedral. Then, after the coffin had been lowered into the grave, the great doors were thrown open, and he was led forward by Bernard and presented to his subjects, Normans, Bretons, and Danes, who welcomed him with a shout. The priest next came slowly down the chancel, and Richard, kneeling before him, received his blessing, and swore as far as in him lay to preserve peace to the Church and to the people, to put down tyranny, and to rule justly. Rising to his feet, the ring of sovereignty was put on his finger and the sword of government buckled to his side; then, taking his stand before the sacred shrine, the book of the Gospels being held by a priest on his left hand, and the Holy Rood or Cross by another on his right, he waited for the chiefs and nobles to take the oath of loyalty to him.

Now it was plain to all men that troubles were nigh at hand for the duchy. 'Woe to the land whose king is a child' it is written in Scripture, and Richard's wise councillors knew full well what they might expect from king Louis. They met together the night after the funeral, when the little duke, worn out by all he had gone through, was fast asleep, and consulted together how they could get the better of king Louis, and at last they decided that they would escort Richard without delay to Compiègne, where the king then was, and induce Louis to invest him at once with the duchy. No time was lost in putting this plan into execution; but even Norman cleverness was no match for the wiliness of the king. Blinded by their kind reception and by flattering words, they awoke one day to find that they had taken the oath of fealty to Louis as their immediate overlord, and thus it was he, and not Richard, whom they were bound to obey. Deeply ashamed of themselves, they returned with their charge to Rouen; but during their short absence the Danish party, headed by Thermod, had obtained the upper hand, and soon got possession of Richard himself, even persuading the boy to renounce Christianity and declare himself a pagan. This of course gave the chance for which Louis had been hoping. It was, he said, a duty he owed both to the Church and to Richard to put a stop to such backsliding, and forthwith he marched straight to the capital. After several skirmishes, in one of which Thermod the Dane was killed, Louis entered Rouen as a conqueror, and under pretext of protection took Richard into his own custody, and proceeded to administer the laws.

Perhaps if Louis from Beyond the Seas had been brought up in France he would have known better the sort of people he had to deal with; but when he was a little child his mother had been forced to fly with him to the court of his grandfather Athelstan, where he had grown up, learning many things, but not much of his subjects, several of whom were far more powerful than he. To these Normans, or Northmen of Danish blood, and to the Bretons, who were akin to the Welsh, the king of France, though nominally their sovereign, was really as much a foreigner as Otho of Germany. He was not going to rule them, and that he would soon find out! So one day they appeared before the palace and demanded their duke, and as he was not given up to them they broke into open revolt, and not only gained possession of Richard, but made Louis himself prisoner. In this manner the tables were turned: Richard was once more duke in his own duchy, and Louis was kept in strict confinement till he swore to Bernard the Dane to restore to Normandy the rights which had been forfeited at Compiègne. But even so the boy's guardians had not learned wisdom, for in spite of what had happened before they were persuaded by Louis on some slight pretext to allow him to carry Richard back to the royal town of Laon, and once there he was instantly placed, with Osmond a Norman noble, under arrest in the tower.

By this time, 944, Richard was eleven years old, and the strange life he had led since his father died had ripened him early. On many occasions when his life had been in peril he had shown not only great courage but self-control beyond his age. Danger he delighted in, it only excited him; but in the tower of Laon time hung heavy on his hands, for he was forbidden to go outside the walls, and he was growing weak and languid from want of exercise. Great, therefore, was his delight when one morning at the hour that Louis sat in judgment on the cases brought by his people, his guardian Osmond came to tell him that he had two horses standing at a small gate at the back of the courtyard, and would take him out for a day's hawking.

'How delicious!' cried Richard, springing up out of the deep seat of the window, from which he had been looking longingly over the country. 'Has the king given leave, then, or shall we go without it?'

'Without it,' answered Osmond with rather an odd smile. 'It may not reach his ears, or if it does he can hardly slay us for it.'

'Oh, never mind!' said Richard again, 'what matters it? I would give twenty lives for a good gallop once more,' and following Osmond down the winding staircase, they reached the postern door unseen. The autumn evening was fast closing in when they returned, Richard full of excitement and pleasure over his day's sport. Osmond, however, was not quite so light-hearted. He knew that he had done wrong in tempting the boy out, and he feared the consequences. Well he might! The wrath of Louis was fearful at finding that his birds had flown, and messengers had been sent in all directions to capture them. In his anger he threatened to kill them both, and his rash words were carried far and wide; but, as Osmond knew, he dared not for his own sake carry out his threat, though he could and did make their captivity even more irksome than before, and much they needed the constant prayers offered up for them in Rouen. Things would have been still worse than they were had not Osmond, fortunately, been a man of some learning, and for some hours every day he taught the young duke all he knew. By and bye the severity of the rule was slightly relaxed, and Richard was bidden to perform the duties of a page, and wait at dinner on Louis and his queen Gerberga. This on the whole pleased Richard, though he felt that he ought to consider it an outrage to his dignity; but at any rate it was a change, and it showed him something of the life of courts, though, as matters were, it did not seem very likely that he would ever govern one!

The weather was very wet, and the rain stood in great pools about the courtyard and in the country outside the castle. The damp told upon Richard's health, which had already been weakened by his long captivity, and at last he was too ill to rise from his bed. Osmond nursed him carefully, and by the king's order better food was given him, so that he soon began to show signs of mending; but his guardian was careful that he should not get well too soon, for he had made a plan of escape, and the more the boy was believed incapable of moving the less he would be watched, and the easier it would be to carry out. So when the seneschal of the castle or the king's steward came to make inquiries for the noble prisoner, Richard would turn his head slowly and languidly, and answer the questions put to him in a soft, tired voice.

'The young duke looks in ill case,' the man would report, 'and I misdoubt me' – and then he would stop and shake his head, while the king nodded in answer. Such was the state of affairs when one day it was announced that a huge banquet would be held in the castle of Laon, at which the queen would be present. Great preparations were made in the courtyard, and cooks and scullions and serving-men kept running to and fro. Richard spent all his time at the window, watching the excitement, but on the morning of the feast, when the seneschal paid his daily visit, he was lying on the bed, hardly able to answer, as it seemed, the questions put to him.

'To-night is our time,' said Osmond when they were once more alone.

'Time for what?' asked Richard, who had obeyed, without knowing why, the orders of his guardian to appear more ill than ever.

'Our time to escape from this den of thieves,' replied Osmond. 'I would not tell you before, for the eyes of Raoul the seneschal are sharp, and I feared lest yours should be brighter than need be. But eat well of what is set before you, for you will want all your strength.'

'But how shall we pass the sentries?' asked Richard again.

'Ah, how?' said Osmond, laughing. 'Never puzzle your brain, but what has been done once can be done twice'; and that was all he would tell him.

Hours were earlier then than now, and by seven o'clock there was not a creature to be seen in the passages or before the gates, for all who had not been bidden to the banquet were amusing themselves in the guard-room, quite safe from any detection by their masters. Then Osmond, wrapped in a thick cloak, beckoned to Richard, and they crept across the courtyard, most of which lay in shadow, till they reached the barn where the hay was kept. There Osmond took down a large truss, and tying it securely round Richard hoisted the bundle on to his back.

'Whatever happens, make no noise,' he whispered hurriedly, and stepped out into the moonlight that lay between the barn and the stables. Here was the only danger, for he might be spied by one of the men in the guardroom, and even be stopped if he or his bundle looked suspicious. A voice from behind gave him such a start that he almost dropped his hay; but the man was too drunk to see clearly, and a timely jest satisfied him that Osmond was an old comrade, and was only doing the work of a friend who was too busy feeding himself to have leisure to think of his horses. His heart still beating high, Osmond reached the stable, and, choosing a lean black horse, he put on it both saddle and bridle, and led it out by a side door, which opened out on a dark muddy street. Rapidly he cut with his hunting knife the rope which had bound the hay, and flung it into a corner.

'You must sit in front of me,' he said, lifting Richard on to the saddle. Then, jumping up behind him, he wrapt his big cloak round the boy, till nothing could be seen of him. Carefully they went till the town was passed, when Osmond shook the reins, and the horse bounded away in the night.

'Where are we going?' asked Richard at last, after they had ridden for several miles.

'To Couci,' answered Osmond, 'and there I will leave you in safety with a friend of your father's, while I will get a fresh horse and ride on to your great uncle count Bernard at Senlis.'

Fierce was the wrath of the king when the seneschal awoke him early next morning with the news that Richard's room in the tower was empty, and that both Osmond and the horse Fierbras were gone.

'But how – how did he do it?' asked the king, when he had somewhat recovered the power of speech. 'For none could reach the stable without passing first under the windows of the guardroom, and besides the moon was at the full, and a man and a boy would be noted by all the sentries?'

'Yes, my lord, doubtless,' replied the trembling seneschal; 'and truly a man was seen and challenged by one of the soldiers, but no boy was with him. He was going to feed the horses, and he had on his back a truss of hay.'

'Ah!' exclaimed the king, starting to his feet, and fell to silence, for through the years there came to him the remembrance of how his mother Ogiva had borne him out of reach of his enemies in a truss of hay. Truly, what had been done once could be done twice, as Osmond the Norman had said!

Now, as has been told, there were several nobles in France much more powerful than the king, and of these the greatest was Hugh le Grand, father of the celebrated Hugh Capet from whom all the French kings traced their descent. Him Bernard count of Senlis sought, and implored his aid on behalf of Richard, which Hugh readily promised; but the compact did not last long, for when Louis offered him half of Normandy as a bribe, Hugh abandoned Richard's cause, and made ready for the invasion of the duchy. Bernard turned white with rage when he learnt what had happened, but he did not waste words, and after going to Rouen in order to consult with Bernard the Dane, a swift little ship sailed down the Seine and steered for the coast of Denmark. At the same time a messenger was secretly sent to Paris, where Richard was in hiding, and by night he was brought down the Seine and into Rouen. Three weeks later a fleet with Viking prows, commanded by the famous warrior Harold Blue-tooth, appeared off the Norman coasts and lay at anchor in a quiet bay, till the men they carried were needed. Not many hours later a watchman on one of the towers perceived a large army approaching from the north-east. When within a mile of the city, it halted, and a herald was sent out, summoning the duke to surrender, in the name of the king his sovereign lord. Instead of the duke, Bernard the Dane came forth to speak with him, and bade him return to his master and tell him the only conditions on which the gates would be opened. They were not hard, but chief amongst them was the stipulation that Louis should enter attended only by his pages, and that his army should remain outside. So well did Bernard act, that he not only contrived to set at rest Louis' suspicions of himself by paying him all the honour possible, but when he was safe in the palace contrived to instil into his mind doubts of Hugh, till the king agreed to break the alliance between them. After he had accomplished this, Bernard threw off the mask, and bade Harold Blue-tooth march from Cherbourg and join the Normans in an attack on the French, who were easily defeated. Harold's next step was to take possession of the duchy on behalf of Richard, but, instead of remaining in it himself as the real governor, merely assisted the Normans to obtain the freedom of their country from the captive king. At a meeting between Louis, Hugh and Richard on the banks of the Epte, the king was forced to surrender the rights he had illegally assumed, and Normandy was declared independent. Then they all went their ways, Louis to Laon, which had undergone a siege from Hugh, and Harold to Denmark, while grand preparations were made for the state entry of Richard into Rouen.

Crowds lined the streets through which Richard was to pass, and from the city gate to the cathedral the whole multitude was chattering and trembling with excitement. After many false alarms the banner of Normandy was seen in the distance framed in the doorway, while brightly polished armour glittered in the sun. A little in advance of his guardians rode Richard on a white horse, prouder of wearing for the first time a coat of mail and a helmet than even of taking possession of his duchy and receiving the homage of his subjects. He was barely thirteen, tall for his age, handsome, with a kind heart and pleasant manners. He had more book-learning, too, than was common with princes of his time, and on wet days could amuse himself with chess, or in reading some of the scrolls laid up in his palace of Rouen. Young though he was, his life had been passed in a hard school, and already he was skilled in judging men, and cautious how he trusted them.

Through the streets he rode smiling, winning as he went the love which was to stand by him to the end of his long life. At the west door of the cathedral he dismounted, and, unfastening his helmet, walked, amid cries of 'Long live Richard our Duke,' 'Hail to the Duke of Normandy', straight up to the High Altar. There he knelt and prayed, while the shouting multitudes held their peace reverently. Then at length he rose from his knees and turned and faced them.

'Four years ago,' he said, 'you swore oaths of loyalty to me, and now I swear them to you. In war and in peace we will stand together, and with my people by my side I am afraid of nobody. From over the seas the fathers of many of you came with my fathers, but whether you be Bretons, Normans, or Danes, I love you all, and will deal out justice to all of you.'

 
'Bretons, Normans, and Danes are we,
'But of us all Danes in our welcome to thee'
 

was their answer.

FREDERICK AND WILHELMINE

It is often very hard to believe that grown-up people were ever little children who played with dolls or spun tops, and felt that they could never be happy again when the rain came pouring down and prevented them from going to a picnic, or having the row on the lake which had been promised them as a birthday treat.

Frederick the Great, the famous king of Prussia, would have played if he could in his childhood, and if his father would have let him. But, unfortunately for Frederick and his elder sister Wilhelmine, and indeed for all the other little princes and princesses, the king of Prussia thought that time spent in games was time wasted, and when, in 1713, he succeeded his old father, everything in the kingdom was turned upside down. Some of his reforms were very wise, some only very meddlesome, as when he forbade the applewomen to sit at their stalls in the market unless they had knitting in their hands, or created an order of Wig Inspectors, who had leave to snatch the wigs off the heads of the passers-by, so as to make sure they bore the government stamp showing that the wigs had paid duty. Another of the king's fancies was to allow only the plainest food to be cooked in the palace, while he refused to permit even the queen to have any hangings that attracted dust. For this second king of Prussia was very clean, in days when washing was thought dangerous, and all through his life he frequently accuses the crown prince Frederick of being dirty.

'I looked at myself in the mirror,' she writes in her memoirs, 'and decided that they really became me wonderfully well. I next practised moving and walking, so that I might play the part of a great lady. Then I entered the queen's apartments, but unluckily, directly her Majesty saw me she burst out laughing, and exclaimed: "Good gracious, what a figure! Why she looks like a little dwarf."' Perhaps the queen's remarks were true; but, none the less, the little girl's feelings were deeply wounded. The two children were very much afraid of the king, and never scrupled to deceive him whenever it was possible. As they grew older, Wilhelmine encouraged her brother in all kinds of disobedience, especially in playing the flute, which his father hated, and in reading and studying French books, which were likewise forbidden. The king wanted him to be a German and a soldier, and nothing more; but to the end of his life Fritz could neither spell nor write his own language properly. The breach thus early made grew always wider by reason of the vexed question of the marriage of both Fritz and Wilhelmine.

The princess Wilhelmine was still in the long clothes of a tiny baby when her mother, like many mothers, began to dream of her future. She was to be beautiful and clever and charming, and she must marry a prince as beautiful and clever and charming as herself, and who could he be but the queen's own nephew, son of her brother, George, prince of Hanover, a boy just two years older than Wilhelmine, and known to us later as the duke of Gloucester, then as the duke of Edinburgh, and lastly as Frederick prince of Wales? And when, on a snowy January day of 1712, the little crown prince entered the world, there was another child to plan for, and was there not a small princess called Emily or Amelia, a newcomer like himself, who would make a suitable bride, say eighteen years hence, for the king of Prussia one day to be? The princess of Hanover, Caroline of Anspach, was written to, and declared that she was delighted to think that some day the bonds already uniting the two countries should be drawn closer still; so the children sent each other presents and pretty notes, and sometimes messages in their mothers' letters when they were too lazy to write for themselves.

Now, in spite of all this, Fritz did not trouble his head much as to the future; the present, he soon found, was quite difficult enough, and besides, he thought much more about his flute – which he was forbidden to play – than about Amelia. But Wilhelmine, who passed most of her time in the palace of Wustershausen, a big castle twenty miles from Berlin, had plenty of time to brood over her coming greatness. Often she was alone there with her governess; but in the summer Fritz and his tutors spent some months at the castle also, and the boy would remain for hours in the day watching for strangers to cross the bridge that spanned the moat.

'You never can tell,' he said to Wilhelmine, 'whether they will be most frightened at the four eagles' (there were two black and two white) 'swirling about their heads, or at the black bears which come tumbling towards them! It is always one or the other, and sometimes it is both; and, anyhow, it is great fun.'

But in the year 1727, when Fritz was fifteen, these pleasant things came to an end. No more Wustershausen or Berlin; no more talks with his sister in the childish language they had invented for themselves, no more fishing expeditions to the ponds in the sandy moor that surrounded the palace. The crown prince was major now of the Potsdam Grenadiers, and we may be quite sure that the king never suffered him to neglect his work. Dressed in a smart uniform covered with gold lace, he was to be seen at every muster and every review, leading his men; but, even now, the boy who, thirty years later, was to prove one of the three greatest generals of his century, had no love for war, and would hurry back to Potsdam to exchange his uniform for a loose dressing-gown, and the duties of drilling for a practice on the flute. In this year, too, an event happened which had a great influence on the home life of both Fritz and his sister. This was the sudden death of George I. on his way to Hanover, without his having obtained the consent of Parliament to the Double-Marriage Treaty, which the queen of Prussia, Sophia Dorothea, had hoped to have obtained four years earlier. The new king of England, George II., had no particular love for his brother-in-law of Prussia, and for his part Frederick William, though at that time he desired the marriages quite as much as his wife, amply returned his feelings. At length the repeated delays drove him nearly out of his mind with fury, and he vented his anger on the queen (who would have suffered any humiliation rather than give up her project) and on the prince and princess. Henceforth the life of the royal family was made up of violence on the one part and deceit on the other. People began to take 'sides,' and the quarrel between father and son grew worse daily.

It was to keep him under his own eye, and not in the least to give him pleasure, that, in 1728, Frederick William bade Fritz accompany him to Dresden on a visit to August the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, and even gave him leave to order a blue coat trimmed with gold lace for himself, and six new liveries for his attendants. The crown prince, who was only now sixteen, must have felt that he had indeed entered into another world, when he contrasted the Saxon court, with its splendid surroundings and incessant amusements, with the bare rooms and coarse food of the palace of Berlin. Other comparisons might be made, and Fritz did not fail to make them. Here he was treated as a welcome guest, and as a person of importance, while at home he was scolded and worried from morning till night. So, instead of the silent, sulky boy Frederick William was accustomed to see about him, there appeared a gracious, smiling young prince, with a pleasant word for everyone, enjoying all the pleasures provided for him, the opera most of all.

On his return to Berlin, Fritz fell suddenly ill, and for a while there seemed to be a chance of reconciliation between him and his father. But this reconciliation did not last, and the prince had, or pretended to have, a relapse, in order to avoid going with his father on a tour through Prussia. But, ill or well, he could not escape from the rules the king laid down for him, and they were as strict now as they had been nine years before. A lesson on tactics was to occupy two hours every morning, after which, at noon, he was to dine in company with his tutors major Senning and Colonel von Kalkstein, and the master of the kitchen as well, which sounds rather strange to us. He might, however, invite six friends of his own, and dine or have supper with them in return; but he was always to sleep in the palace, and 'to go to bed the instant the retreat sounded.' Then the king went away, sure that everything would go on to his liking.

But no sooner had he turned his back on Berlin than a sort of holiday spirit took possession of the palace. 'We were perfectly happy,' writes Wilhelmine, in her memoirs, and there was no reason that they should ever have been anything else, as the 'happiness' mainly consisted in hearing as much music as they wished for, and for Fritz in also playing the flute. From this instrument, which was fated to bring him into so much trouble, the crown prince never parted, and even when hunting with his father he would contrive to lose himself, and hiding behind a large tree or crouching in a thicket, he would play some of the tunes which so delighted his soul. During this memorable month, when the 'days passed quietly,' the queen gave concerts, aided by famous musicians, Bufardin, the flutist, and Quantz, who was not only a performer but a composer, and others who were celebrated at the Saxon court (whence they came at the queen's request) for their skill on spinet or violin. All this, however, ceased on the reappearance of the king at Wustershausen, and matters fell back into their old grooves: on one side there was suspicion and tyranny, on the other lies and intrigues. Fritz tried to break away from it all by persuading Kalkstein to ask his father's permission to travel in foreign countries. But Frederick William absolutely refused to let his son quit Prussia, and things were worse than they need have been, owing to the smallness of the house where they were all shut up together. Certainly never had a father and son more different tastes.

'To-morrow I am obliged to hunt, and on Monday I am obliged to hunt again,' writes Fritz. He is bored by the court jests and jesters, as well as by the king's guests. As for the days, they seemed perfectly endless, and well they might, seeing that it was no uncommon thing for him to get up at five and go to bed at midnight! No wonder he exclaimed 'I had rather beg my bread than live any longer on this footing.' Once again Fritz made an effort after a better state of things, and wrote to his father to apologise for any offence he might unwittingly have committed, and to assure him of his respectful duty. He had perhaps been wiser to have let ill alone, for the king only replied by taunts of his 'girlishness,' and hatred of everything manly – which is all rather funny, when we remember that the object of these reproaches was Frederick the Great – and in general was so unkind and unjust, that both Kalkstein and the other tutor Finkenstein resigned in disgust.

During this same autumn the discussion about the two English marriages was re-opened. As regards the king, he was as anxious as the queen for that of Wilhelmine with the prince of Wales, but, unlike her, he considered Fritz too young and unsteady to take to himself a wife. This did not please king George at all, and in answer to a letter from Sophia Dorothea, queen Caroline wrote that both marriages must take place – or neither. This reply put Frederick William in a towering passion. Wilhelmine should marry somebody, he said, and that at once. She was nearly twenty now, and had five younger sisters for whom husbands would have to be found. Indeed, he was not at all sure he should not prefer the margrave of Schwedt for a son-in-law, than the stuck-up English prince! So he stormed; and meanwhile the queen, Wilhelmine, and Fritz kept up a secret correspondence with the court of St. James.

About this same year (1729) the crown prince made friends with one of the king's pages, Keith by name, and also with a certain lieutenant Katte. These two young men had the same tastes as himself, and were with him during all his leisure hours. When Fritz could escape from the hated reviews or hunts, in which he was forced to bear his father company, he would hurry back to his own apartments, throw off his tight uniform, slip on a dressing-gown of scarlet and gold brocade, and begin to play on his beloved flute. In his rooms he often found his teacher Quantz awaiting him, and then for a time his troubles were forgotten in the soothing tones of the great flutist. One day both master and pupil were practising together a difficult passage, when Katte rushed in breathless.