St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 8/Books and Reading
BOOKS AND READING
BY HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE
Good Stories of the Fourteenth Century
The Scotch wars began under the first Edward, of whom you read in the last article,—he that was called Longshanks. He was a great man, beloved by his people,—a golden-haired, wise king, thoroughly English, a brave soldier, and a man of nobility of character and high purposes. He conquered Wales, and then started in to subdue the Scots, who were for having a king of their own, and were rather puzzled whom to choose among several claimants. Edward soon reduced the lords to submission, and Scotland seemed to be his, when Wallace, an outlaw knight, called the people to his standard, and defied the English king, A time of great struggle followed, Wallace proving a mighty captain and inspiring leader: but at the battle of Falkirk, the Scots were routed with terrible loss; a few years later, Edward beheaded the great Scotchman, and Scotland fell under English rule. Another Scot, however, who had fought with Wallace, Robert Bruce, managed to arouse the people once more, and, after years of fighting against the second Edward, he won the stirring battle of Bannockburn, making Scotland an independent kingdom and himself king.
Nothing much more romantic than these Scotch wars has occurred in history, and in two books, both a little old-fashioned but none the less mighty good reading, you can follow the story of the two heroes. The first is Jane Porter’s “The Scottish Chiefs,” whose particular hero is Wallace, and the second, Grace Aguilar’s “The Days of Bruce.” There are countless adventures and excitements in these novels, and a tender sort of love story runs through them. They give excellent pictures of the times, a real “feel” of the Scotch enthusiasm and devotion; and though they are rather long, they repay the time spent on them, For a shorter account of the same two heroes you can go to Alice S. Hoffman's “Heroes and Heroines of English History’ (Dutton), a delightful book full of breezy stories.
Two hooks of a somewhat similar kind are Laurence Gomme’s “Stories of English Kings,” and of “English Queens” (Longman’s), which are crammed with charming anecdotes and tales, from many sources, relating to the rulers of England. If you have these volumes you can turn to the particular king or queen you want to know about, and read the story of some romantic happening in his or her life,
Edward's son, Edward II, had none of his father’s virtues, and proved a bad king for England. He lasted twenty years, and was deposed by the barons, who had all hated him, and with whom he was constantly quarreling, He inherited the war with Bruce from his father, and the first half of his reign was mostly given up to it, and in “The Days of Bruce” you will sec how he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the victorious Scots. A book by Henty, “St. George for England,” touches on the end of his reign—he was murdered in prison soon after being deposed—and takes you on into Edward III's days, when the Hundred Years’ War began with France. It is n’t much as literature, but the story is interesting and the historical picture true and accurate, The boy hero sees heaps of fighting, and meets all the important personages of the time.
Edward III had a long reign, packed full of fighting, but the hero of his successful battles was his son, the famous Black Prince. There are a number of splendid stories agout this English leader, who seemed to he invincible. W. O. Stoddard has a stirring tale called “With the Black Prince” (Appleton), that no one ought to miss, and I have had a letter from one of my young readers, Edith Pierpont Stickney, of St. Paul, telling me that another fine book is “Cressy and Poictiers,” by J. G. Edgar, in Everyman's Library. This tale follows the adventures of a page of the prince all through the French campaign, in the two wonderful battles of the title, through the siege of Calais, and back to England, to the battle of Neville’s Cross, where the prince repulsed and turned back a Scotch invasion,
Another enjoyable book that is interested in this same Black Prince is Miss Yonge’s “The Lances of Lynwood,” in which the prince’s adventures in Spain are told, and many there were. Unluckily, during the hardships of this long struggle that had neither definite result nor real success, the poor prince contracted an illness, and when he returned to his own country, he had not long to live. It was his little son, Richard II, who became king when Edward III died.
Another story of the time of Edward III that you will like, is to be found in Maurice Hewlett’s “New Canterbury Tales.” It is called “The Countess Alys,” and is about the “at-home” England of that day, and not the adventuring prince, who, after all, was not the whole of England,though he lends himself so well to adventure stories that the writers like him for hero.
Richard II was only a baby when he became king, so that his uncles undertook to do the ruling for him, and it was not until he was twenty-four years old that he finally asserted himself, really becoming England’s ruler. But while he was still a child, the fierce revolt of the peasants broke out. There are several books that tell of these events, and of the Black Death that befell at the same time, or somewhat earlier. Henty has one of them, “The March on London” (Scribner’s), which is good, and there is a very exciting and picturesque story also specially written for young people, “Red Dickon the Outlaw,” by Tom Bevan, which was published in 1903, and ought not to be hard to get. Dickon is a thrilling character, and the story manages to make the peasants’ struggles and sufferings and courage very real to you.
A very quaint and touching book that is set in the same period is by William Morris, called “A Dream of John Ball,” John Ball was a peasant of those days who first began to say that all men are equal, and should stand alike before the law. He preached this, at that time, astonishing doctrine all over England, and was the chief incitement to the revolt. In this story a working-man of modern England wakes up to find himself back in the age of Ball, and he has a series of adventures that take him to various parts of the kingdom, The book is short, and is admirably written, giving one unforgetable picture after another of the ways of living, the houses and inns, the people and their talk and their hopes. My copy is an old one, but I think it has been reprinted several times, and I ’m sure you can get it with a little trouble. Don’t miss it, for, aside from its value in this historic series of ours, it is too lovely not to know,
[ suppose most of you have read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s glorious story of “The White Company” that belongs to Richard’s reign, It comes later on, when the peasants have been driven to submission again, and when the wars in France have once more become all-important. It is there that the White Company goes, and besides the English leaders, you meet the great Du Guesclin and others of the French captains. There is some wonderful fighting in this book, which is written with all that charm and vividness Sir Arthur can put into his stories. You won't lay it down unfinished, if you can help it, and it will probably make you sigh for the good old times,” and wish you could put on armor and mount a charger and ride to gallant adventure—even if you happen to be a girl!
A book that shows quite another side of this same period of England’s life is by Annie Nathan Meyer, “Robert Annys, Poor Priest” (MacMillan). This tells how the poor priest was sent out into the world to learn what men and women had to suffer there. It covers the years between 1379-85, just about the same that saw the White Company set out, but ii is a different adventure on which the priest goes. He sees many things, and when he returns to his monastery after his wanderings, his heart is full of loving-kindness for the troubles of mankind, and of wonder and admiration for the goodness and unselfishness he has found.
One remarkable man in the reign of Richard II was Wyclif, and you will get a good account of him, though a short one, in Dean Hodges’s delightful book, “Saints and Heroes up to the Middle Ages.” Wyclif incarnates a lot of the spirit of the fourteenth century, and is one of the great men of all time. Another immortal of the latter half of the age was Chaucer, who gives in his many poems the sunnier and happier side of the life. Many of these poems have been turned into modern English for you young people, and you can’t do better than get a few of his stories, for that is what they are, and see just how things seemed to a great writer of the very time itself.
Then there is Shakspere’s play, “The Life and Death of King Richard II,” which those of you who are old enough to enjoy will find to be a touching presentment of this monarch. The play is set in the last years of the king’s reign, and brings in the great figure of John of Gaunt, brother to the Black Prince, who had long struggled to get the royal power into his own hands, and had ruled the young Richard with an iron hand during his minority. But that is over now,though Richard will soon have new troubles on his head. For the poor king, both by his wise and his wrong acts, had alienated most of his people. Young Bolingbroke, soon to be Henry IV, is on his way to the crown. The play moves swiftly on to the catastrophe, and to the murder of the king in prison—the last of the Plantagenets. The House of Lancaster now takes the throne, and our next group of historic stories will follow the fortunes of England under Henry IV and the gallant Henry V, as fine and brilliant a ruler as ever held scepter, though his time was short, for he died in the heyday of his youth.
AN ATTACK ON A CASTLE IN THE DAYS OF THE BLACK PRINCE.
Now that we are so far into England's story, you will see that some really modern ideas have begun to arise. Under Edward I, the Parliament becomes the same in form that it is to-day, and grows more powerful and more representative year by year, The poor man is beginning to think that he, too, deserves a voice in the laws of his land, and the English language as we know it has evolved from the mixture of Norman French and old Saxon. We can read Chaucer, the first true English poet, with a little difficulty, to be sure, but with complete understanding. The same ideas of honor and justice that rule us are beginning to grow strong and show themselves, and in the people whom we meet in the stories of this century there are several with whom we should feel quite at home to-day.
I hope if any of you know of good books about the times still ahead of us, you will write to me about them, I found Edith Stickney’s letter a great help, and want to thank her for the trouble she took. She mentioned several books we shall come to later, and the interest she takes in this series of articles is a real joy to me.