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PREFACE
PREFACE
It has been remarked that to write of the private and domestic acts of monarchs while still alive savours of scandal and bad taste, but when dead their traits of character, however strange and eccentric they may have been in their lifetime, at once become matter of history. Adopting this rule, we have confined ourselves in the present work to dealing with royalty in the past; and, in a field so wide, we have, as far as possible, endeavoured to make each chapter concise and representative of the
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
ROYALTY AT PLAY The great Mogul Emperor was a chess player, and was generous enough to rejoice when he was beaten by one of his courtiers, which was the exact reverse of Philip II. of Spain, who, when a Spanish grandee had won every game in which he had played against the King, could not conceal his vexation. Whereupon the skilful but injudicious player, returning home, said to his family: “My children, we have nothing more to do at Court. There we must henceforth expect no favour; the King is o
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
FREAKS OF ROYALTY It is impossible to account, in many cases, for the strange and extraordinary freaks of bygone sovereigns on any other ground than eccentricity or madness. It is true that Charles the Fat used to excuse himself for the atrocities into which he plunged, by asserting that he was possessed of a devil, but this, of course, was in banter rather than sincerity. But, whatever the motives which prompted such peculiar vagaries on the part of certain monarchs, foibles of this kind, if no
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
ROYAL REVELRY Perhaps no chapter in the social history of royalty has given us a more vivid insight into the merry doings of the sovereigns of the past, in our own and other countries, than that which deals with their drinking and revelry. Indeed, moralists, at one time or another, have been more or less severe in their strictures on what they regarded as the undue freedom displayed at Court festivities, when not infrequently king as well as courtiers were in a state of deplorable incapacity. Th
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
ROYAL EPICURES Royalty in times past has had many an accomplished epicure, as learned in culinary lore as in the practice of the cuisine. Charlemagne took a warm personal interest in the management of his table, and Hardicanute, one of our Danish kings, was so great a gourmand that he was designated “Swine’s Mouth”—his table, it is said, having been covered four times a day with the most costly viands that the air, sea, or land could produce. It was Henry de Valois who brought into fashion aroma
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
CURIOUS FADS OF ROYALTY It is recorded how a certain Spaniard, who once attempted to assassinate a king, Ferdinand of Spain, on being put on the rack could give no other reason for his strange conduct but an inveterate antipathy which he had taken to the King as soon as he saw him:— Although, happily, such an exceptional case as this is almost unique, yet in a minor degree it illustrates a phase of character which is of almost universal application. Thus, for instance, going back to an early per
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
DANCING MONARCHS It is recorded that Nero, during a dangerous illness, made a vow that if he recovered he would dance the story of Turnus in Virgil; and the great Scipio Africanus amused himself with dancing, “not,” writes Seneca, “those effeminate dances which announce voluptuousness and corruption of manners, but those manly, animated dances in use among their ancestors, which even their enemies might witness without abating their respect.” Indeed, dancing has always been a favourite amusement
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
ROYAL HOBBIES Whether it be Nero constructing his hydraulic clocks, or Prince Rupert experimenting in his laboratory, or Philip of Burgundy contriving houses full of diableries , such as hidden trap-doors, undermined floors, and the like, we find the same habit illustrated among rulers of every age and country. When it was suggested to Dr. Johnson that kings must be unhappy because they are deprived of the greatest of all satisfactions, easy and unreserved society, he observed that this was an i
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
THE ROYAL HUNT It is said that before Alfred the Great was twelve years of age, “he was a most expert and active hunter, and excelled in all the branches of that most noble art, to which he applied with incessant labour and amazing success;” and Harold is represented in the famous Bayeux tapestry with his hounds by his side when brought before William, Duke of Normandy. Early accounts tell us how the privileges of hunting in the royal forests were confined to the King and his favourites, and his
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
ROYAL MASQUES AND MASQUERADES At Court in bygone years, on occasions of festivity, it was customary for the whole company to appear in borrowed characters, a practice which may be traced back as early as the reign of Edward III. Pageants of this kind were exhibited with great splendour, and at a costly outlay. The magnificent disguisings which took place in the reign of Henry VIII. have long been proverbial. The chief aim seems to have been to surprise the spectators “by the ridiculous and exagg
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
ROYALTY IN DISGUISE To avoid the dangers inseparable from war, or to seek a temporary concealment in political troubles, has caused many a monarch in times past to assume the most varied disguises, the circumstances connected with which forming some of the most romantic episodes in history. In “Candide, or the Optimist,” Voltaire tells in an admirable manner how eight travellers meet in an obscure inn, and some of them with not even sufficient money to pay for a scurvy dinner; but in the course
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
ROYAL GAMESTERS Gambling , under one form or another, has always been a fashionable diversion at Court. Plutarch tells a story of Parysatis, mother of Cyrus, who played with the King, her husband, for the slave who had slain her son, and, as she excelled at playing a certain game with dice, she won him. History abounds in anecdotes of this kind, and we know how popular gambling was in the old days of the Roman Empire. Augustus, for instance, had the reputation of being fond of gambling, and Domi
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
ROYALTY ON THE TURF That horse-racing was in vogue, and practised to some extent by the Saxons, may be deduced from the fact of King Athelstan having received as a present from Hugh the Great—father of Hugh Capet of France—several German running-horses, which, it may be presumed, was considered the most worthy present that could be offered, as it was accompanied by a proposal for the hand of Athelstan’s sister in marriage. This monarch’s estimation of the horse was evidently widely known, and it
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
ROYAL SPORTS AND PASTIMES In this country sports and pastimes of most kinds have generally had the patronage of royalty, many of our sovereigns having excelled in such modes of recreation. According to a story told by the old annalists, one of the most interesting events in connection with this game happened when Henry V. was meditating war against England. “The Dauphin,” says Hall, “thinking King Henry to be given still to such play and light follies as he exercised and used before the time tha
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
COURT DWARFS The custom of keeping dwarfs as retainers to ornament the homes of princes, and to provide amusement—which was much in fashion in the old days of the Roman Empire—has survived at most Courts until a comparatively recent period. According to Suetonius, Augustus, in order to forget the cares of State, would play with his dwarfs for nuts, and laugh at their childish prattle, whilst for his special amusement Domitian kept a band of dwarf gladiators. Charles IX. of France and his mother
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
ROYAL PETS It has often been remarked that persons of the most rough and unfeeling disposition have displayed extraordinary tenderness towards their favourite animals, illustrations of which are of frequent occurrence in the pages of history. And perhaps one of the most touching pictures of animal love is that given by Homer, who tells how, unrecognised by his wife, the way-worn monarch Ulysses, though disguised in squalid rags, is at once remembered by his noble hound, even in the last moments
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
ROYAL JOKES AND HUMOUR From the earliest times history records many an amusing anecdote illustrative of royal wit and humour, and it is related how when Leonidas, King of Sparta, was informed that the Persian arrows were so numerous that they obscured the light of the sun, he replied, “Never mind that, we shall have the advantage of fighting in the shade.” But, coming down to later times, if monarchs have occasionally indulged in wit at the expense of their subjects, they have themselves not inf
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
ROYALTY AND FASHION Some two hundred and fifty years ago, a fashionable colour was a peculiar shade of brown known as the “couleur Isabelle,” and this was its origin: Soon after the siege of Ostend commenced at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Isabella Eugenia, Gouvernante of the Netherlands, is said to have made a vow that she would not change her chemise till the town surrendered. Despite the fact that the siege lasted over three years, the ladies and gentlemen of the Court, in no way
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
ROYALTY WHIPT AND MARRIED BY PROXY Few of the old Court customs practised in past years were more curious than that of “whipping by proxy.” It appears that the office of whipping-boy doomed its unfortunate occupant to undergo all the corporal punishment which the heir-apparent to the throne—whose proper person was, as the Lord’s anointed, considered sacred—might chance to incur “in the course of travelling through his grammar and prosody.” One of the most celebrated instances of the observance o
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
COURT JESTERS AND FOOLS The fashion of keeping Court and household fools, writes Voltaire in his Age de Louis XIV. , was for a time the grande mode of all the Courts of Europe. Some sovereigns, however, discarded the practice, and when Charles Louis, Electoral Prince of the Rhine, was asked why he did not keep a Court fool, he replied: “Well, it is easily accounted for. When I am inclined to laugh, I send for a couple of professors from college, set them an argument, and laugh at their folly.” T
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
ROYALTY AND THE DRAMA It is affirmed that the ex-monarch Dionysius died of excess of joy at receiving intelligence that a tragedy of his own had been awarded a poetical prize at a public competition. Whatever the truth of this story, there can be no doubt that, even in its primitive form, the monarch, like his subjects, interested himself in the production and performance of the drama. At an early period in our own history the courts of our kings and the castles of the great earls and barons “we
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
ROYAL AUTHORS It has been remarked that nothing can explain the almost universal mediocrity of royal compositions, despite the great and manifest advantages enjoyed by their authors. The superior value set upon martial qualities in days gone by prevented, it is said, the rulers and leading men of the State from cultivating letters, although, it would seem, the reverse was the case in the old days of the Roman Empire, when, of the first twenty emperors, above one-half were authors. But in modern
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
ROYAL MUSICIANS From an early period there have been monarchs possessed of as much skill in music as their best bards, or minstrels. Thus, as it has been observed, if Alfred the Great could enter and explore the Danish camp disguised as a harper, “his harp playing must have been in the genuine professional manner of his time, otherwise he would have revealed to the Danish lovers of music that he was not what he pretended to be.” Indeed, the harp seems to have been a favourite instrument of our s
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
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 the
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