Historical Mysteries - free ebook by Andrew Lang

WITH A FRONTISPIECE SECOND EDITION

LONDON SMITH, ELDER, &amp; CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 1905 [All rights reserved] Elizabeth Canning Elizabeth Canning. William Smith 1754 Pinx. Mac Ardell. Mezzo. London: Smith, Elder &amp; Co., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W....

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PREFACE

These Essays, which appeared, with two exceptions, in The Cornhill Magazine , 1904, have been revised, and some alterations, corrections, and additions have been made in them. 'Queen Oglethorpe,' in which Miss Alice Shield collaborated, doing most of the research, is reprinted by the courteous permission of the editor, from Blackwood's Magazine . A note on 'The End of Jeanne de la Motte,' has been added as a sequel to 'The Cardinal's Necklace:' it appeared in The Morning Post , the Editor kindly

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I THE CASE OF ELIZABETH CANNING

' Everyone has heard of the case of Elizabeth Canning,' writes Mr. John Paget; and till recently I agreed with him. But five or six years ago the case of Elizabeth Canning repeated itself in a marvellous way, and then but few persons of my acquaintance had ever heard of that mysterious girl. The recent case, so strange a parallel to that of 1753, was this: In Cheshire lived a young woman whose business in life was that of a daily governess. One Sunday her family went to church in the morning,

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II THE MURDER OF ESCOVEDO

' Many a man,' says De Quincey, 'can trace his ruin to a murder, of which, perhaps, he thought little enough at the time.' This remark applies with peculiar force to Philip II. of Spain, to his secretary, Antonio Perez, to the steward of Perez, to his page, and to a number of professional ruffians. All of these, from the King to his own scullion, were concerned in the slaying of Juan de Escovedo, secretary of Philip's famous natural brother, Don John of Austria. All of them, in different degre

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I

The ordinary historical mystery is at least so far clear that one or other of two solutions must be right, if we only knew which. Perkin Warbeck was the rightful King, or he was an impostor. Giacopo Stuardo at Naples (1669) was the eldest son of Charles II., or he was a humbug. The Man in the Iron Mask was certainly either Mattioli or Eustache Dauger. James VI. conspired against Gowrie, or Gowrie conspired against James VI., and so on. There is reason and human nature at the back of these puzzle

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II

They did hear; but what they heard, and what I have now to tell, was perfectly incredible. When 'some' years (two apparently) had passed, Will Harrison, Gent., like the three silly ewes in the folk-rhyme, 'came hirpling hame.' Where had the old man been? He explained in a letter to Sir Thomas Overbury, but his tale is as hard to believe as that of John Perry. He states that he left his house in the afternoon (not the morning) of Thursday, August 16, 1660. He went to Charringworth to collect rent

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IV THE CASE OF ALLAN BRECK

Who killed the Red Fox? What was the secret that the Celts would not communicate to Mr. R.L. Stevenson, when he was writing Kidnapped ? Like William of Deloraine, 'I know but may not tell'; at least, I know all that the Celt knows. The great-grandfather and grandfather of a friend of mine were with James Stewart of the Glens, the victim of Hanoverian injustice, in a potato field, near the road from Ballachulish Ferry to Appin, when they heard a horse galloping at a break-neck pace. 'Whoever th

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V THE CARDINAL'S NECKLACE

' Oh , Nature and Thackeray, which of you imitated the other?' One inevitably thinks of the old question thus travestied, when one reads, in the fifth edition, revised and augmented, of Monsieur Funck-Brentano's L'Affaire du Collier , [10] the familiar story of Jeanne de Valois, of Cardinal Rohan, and of the fatal diamond necklace. Jeanne de Valois might have sat, though she probably did not, for Becky Sharp. Her early poverty, her pride in the blood of Valois, recall Becky's youth, and her bo

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VI THE MYSTERY OF KASPAR HAUSER: THE CHILD OF EUROPE

The story of Kaspar Hauser, a boy, apparently idiotic, who appeared, as if from the clouds, in Nuremberg (1828), divided Germany into hostile parties, and caused legal proceedings as late as 1883. Whence this lad came, and what his previous adventures had been, has never been ascertained. His death by a dagger-wound, in 1833—whether inflicted by his own hand or that of another—deepened the mystery. According to one view, the boy was only a waif and an impostor, who had strayed from some peasan

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VII THE GOWRIE CONSPIRACY

The singular events called 'The Gowrie Conspiracy,' or 'The Slaying of the Ruthvens,' fell out, on evidence which nobody disputes, in the following manner. On August 5, 1600, the King, James VI., was leaving the stables at the House of Falkland to hunt a buck, when the Master of Ruthven rode up and had an interview with the monarch. This occurred about seven o'clock in the morning. The Master was a youth of nineteen; he was residing with his brother, the Earl of Gowrie, aged twenty-two, at the

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VIII THE STRANGE CASE OF DANIEL DUNGLAS HOME

The case of Daniel Dunglas Home is said, in the Dictionary of National Biography , to present a curious and unsolved problem. It really presents, I think, two problems equally unsolved, one scientific, and the other social. How did Mr. Home, the son of a Scottish mother in the lower middle class at highest, educated (as far as he was educated at all) in a village of Connecticut, attain his social position? I do not ask why he was 'taken up' by members of noble English families: 'the caresses o

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IX THE CASE OF CAPTAIN GREEN

' Play on Captain Green's wuddie,' [29] said the caddy on Leith Links; and his employer struck his ball in the direction of the Captain's gibbet on the sands. Mr. Duncan Forbes of Culloden sighed, and, taking off his hat, bowed in the direction of the unhappy mariner's monument. One can imagine this little scene repeating itself many a time, long after Captain Thomas Green, his mate, John Madder or Mather, and another of his crew were taken to the sands at Leith on the second Wednesday in Apri

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X QUEEN OGLETHORPE

( In collaboration with Miss Alice Shield ). ' Her Oglethorpe majesty was kind, acute, resolute, and of good counsel. She gave the Prince much good advice that he was too weak to follow, and loved him with a fidelity which he returned with an ingratitude quite Royal.' So writes Colonel Henry Esmond, describing that journey of his to Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine, whence he brought back 'Monsieur Baptiste,' all to win fair Beatrix Esmond. We know how 'Monsieur Baptiste' stole his lady-love from the gl

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XI THE CHEVALIER D'ÉON

The mystery of the Chevalier d'Éon (1728-1810), the question of his sex, on which so many thousand pounds were betted, is no mystery at all. The Chevalier was a man, and a man of extraordinary courage, audacity, resource, physical activity, industry, and wit. The real mystery is the problem why, at a mature age (forty-two) did d'Éon take upon him, and endure for forty years, the travesty of feminine array, which could only serve him as a source of notoriety—in short, as an advertisement? The a

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XII SAINT-GERMAIN THE DEATHLESS

Among the best brief masterpieces of fiction are Lytton's The Haunters and the Haunted , and Thackeray's Notch on the Axe in Roundabout Papers . Both deal with a mysterious being who passes through the ages, rich, powerful, always behind the scenes, coming no man knows whence, and dying, or pretending to die, obscurely—you never find authentic evidence of his decease. In other later times, at other courts, such an one reappears and runs the same course of luxury, marvel, and hidden potency. Ly

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XIII THE MYSTERY OF THE KIRKS

No historical problem has proved more perplexing to Englishmen than the nature of the differences between the various Kirks in Scotland. The Southron found that, whether he worshipped in a church of the Established Kirk ('The Auld Kirk'), of the Free Church, or of the United Presbyterian Church (the U.P.'s), it was all the same thing. The nature of the service was exactly similar, though sometimes the congregation stood at prayers, and sat when it sang; sometimes stood when it sang and knelt a

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XIV THE END OF JEANNE DE LA MOTTE

In the latest and best book on Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace, L'Affaire du Collier , Monsieur Funck-Brentano does not tell the sequel of the story of Jeanne de la Motte, née de Saint-Remy, and calling herself de Valois. He leaves this wicked woman at the moment when (June 21, 1786) she has been publicly flogged and branded, struggling, scratching, and biting like a wild cat. Her husband, at about the same time, was in Edinburgh, and had just escaped from being kidnapped by the Fren

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SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

THACKERAY IN THE UNITED STATES. By General James Grant Wilson , Author of 'The Life of General Grant.' With 2 Photogravure Portraits, 50 Full-page Illustrations, and numerous Illustrations in the Text. Two Volumes. Small demy 8vo. 18 s. net. TIMES. —'One cannot lay it down. The countless ugly, vivid images that were always jumping off the end of Thackeray's pen laugh everywhere. The sparkling fun, the tender sadness, flash back across the distance of fifty years.' THACKERAY'S LETTERS TO AN AMERI

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SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

SEA-WRACK. By Frank T. Bullen , F.R.G.S., Author of 'The Cruise of the "Cachalot,"' 'The Log of a Sea-Waif,' 'Deep Sea Plunderings,' &amp;c. Second Edition. With 8 Illustrations by Arthur Twidle . Cr. 8vo. 6s. SPECTATOR. —'Characteristic of Mr. Bullen's best work.' VANITY FAIR. —'A delightful volume.... The seafaring man is an open book to Mr. Bullen.' BRITISH WEEKLY. —'A powerful and characteristic volume.... The gold of buried argosies is tangled amidst his "Sea-Wrack."' DAILY CHRONICLE. —

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SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

A. CONAN DOYLE'S NOVELS. Author's Edition , in 12 vols. With an Introductory Preface and 2 Photogravure Illustrations to each Volume. Large crown 8vo. 6 s. each net. This edition of Sir A. Conan Doyle's Novels is limited to 1,000 sets, the first volume of each set being signed and numbered; and the volumes are not sold separately. The Author's future work will, in due time, be added to the edition. TRUTH. —'Sure to be speedily snapped up by admirers of this popular writer. The volumes are handso

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SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

THE ROLL-CALL OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY. By Mrs. A. Murray Smith (E.T. Bradley), Author of 'Annals of Westminster Abbey' &amp;c. THIRD EDITION. With 25 Full-page Illustrations and 5 Plans. Large crown 8vo. 6 s. TIMES. —'It is impossible to read even the first chapter of this highly interesting volume without forthwith realising that we have here a work of a totally different order from the cheap book-making which year by year selects Westminster Abbey for its subject. Such a book as the "Roll-Cal

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(ELLIS and ACTON BELL).

Including Views of places described in the Works, reproduced from Photographs specially taken for the purpose by Mr. W.R. Bland , of Duffield, Derby, in conjunction with Mr. C. Barrow Keene , of Derby. Introductions to the Works are supplied by Mrs. HUMPHRY WARD, An Introduction and Notes to Mrs. Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë' by Mr. CLEMENT K. SHORTER, the eminent Brontë authority. CONTENTS OF THE VOLUMES: 1. JANE EYRE. By Charlotte Brontë . With a Photogravure Portrait of Charlotte Bront

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ADDITIONAL MATERIAL and HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED LETTERS, SKETCHES, and DRAWINGS,

Derived from the Author's Original Manuscripts and Note-Books. —&gt; The 13 Volumes are also supplied in Set cloth binding, gilt top, price £3. 18s. 1. VANITY FAIR. With 20 Full-page Illustrations, 11 Woodcuts, a Facsimile Letter, and a new Portrait. 2. PENDENNIS. With 20 Full-page Illustrations and 10 Woodcuts. 3. YELLOWPLUSH PAPERS , &amp;c. With 24 Full-page Reproductions of Steel Plates by George Cruikshank , 11 Woodcuts, and a Portrait of the Author by Maclise . 4. THE MEMOIRS OF BA

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SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

THE NEW NATION: a Sketch of the Social, Political, and Economic Conditions and Prospects of the Australian Commonwealth. By Percy F. Rowland ; late Scholar of Hertford College, &amp;c. Crown 8vo. 7 s. 6 d. SIR JOHN GORST, K.C., M.P. , writes respecting 'THE NEW NATION':—'I cannot say anything which testifies more to the excellence of your book than that I read it through from beginning to end without any flagging of interest.' A SEARCH FOR THE MASKED TAWAREKS. By W.J. Harding King , M.R.A.S.

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