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 times literary habits have been comparatively rare among princes, and of those who turned their attention in this direction—- more as a pastime than a study—few names would have survived in the literary world had it not been for their connection with royalty.
on the other hand, many of our queens have interested themselves in literature, and it is recorded how adelicia of louvaine—surnamed “the fair maid of brabant”—second queen of henry i., employed her days of widowhood in collecting materials for the history of her mighty lord; and eleanora of aquitaine was a popular troubadour{358} poet, her chansons having been famous long after her death. by hereditary right, too, she was reviewer of the poets of provence, and at the “courts of love,” when chansons were sung or recited before her by the troubadours, she sat in judgment, and passed sentence on their literary merits.
richard i. was a troubadour poet, and matthew paris tells how, when he was imprisoned at tenebreuse, he composed a poem, preserved in the bibliothèque royal. eleanor of provence, queen of henry iii., almost before she entered her teens, had written an heroic poem in her native proven?al tongue, and her taste for literature she seems to have imparted to her husband, for his reign affords the first example of a poet-laureate, in the person of one master henry, to whom by the name of “our beloved versificator” his majesty ordered “one hundred shillings to be given in payment of his arrears;” and several romances are said to have been written under this monarch’s supervision.
eleanora of castile, in addition to her many other accomplishments, was fond of literature, and gave it every encouragement. according to warton, she paid forty shillings to one richard du marche for illuminating a psalter, and at her request john de pentham translated from latin into french a treatise of religion, called “hierarchy,” which is preserved in the library of st. geneviève in paris. adversity appears to have had a sobering and hallowing influence on edward ii., the follow{359}ing lines having been written by him in latin during his captivity:—
“on my devoted head
her bitterest showers,
all from a wintry cloud,
stern fortune pours.
view but her favourite,
sage and discerning,
graced with fair comeliness,
famed for his learning;
should she withdraw her smiles,
each grace she banishes,
wisdom and wit are flown,
and beauty vanishes.”
it was, however, a different motive that prompted a royal plantagenet poet, edward, duke of york, cousin-german to king henry iv., to write the following amatory stanzas in praise of the attractive joanna of navarre:—
“excellent sovereign! seemly to see,
proved prudence, peerless of price;
bright blossom of benignity,
of figure fairest, and freshest of days!
your womanly beauty delicious
hath me all bent unto its chain;
but grant to me your love gracious,
my heart will melt as snow in rain.
if ye but wist my life, and knew
of all the pains that i y-feel,
i wis ye would upon me rue,
although your heart were made of steel.
and though ye be of high renown,
let mercy rule your heart so free;
from you, lady, this is my boon,
to grant me grace in some degree.”
{360}
but this act of indiscretion seems to have aroused the personal jealousy of king henry, for, on a very frivolous pretence, the duke of york was imprisoned in pevensey castle for three months, in the course of which interval his majesty’s displeasure had time to abate.
the following touching verses, which have been attributed to henry vi., were probably written during his long imprisonment in the tower:—
“kingdoms are but cares;
state is devoid of stay;
riches are ready snares,
and hasten to decay.
who meaneth to remove the rock
out of the slimy mud,
shall mire himself and hardly ’ scape
the swelling of the flood.”
and there are preserved two sentences said to have been written and given by his majesty to a knight who had the care of him. “patience is the armour and conquest of the godly; this meriteth mercy, when causeless is suffered sorrow.” “nought else is war but fury and madness, wherein is not advice, but rashness; not right, but rage, ruleth and reigneth.”
henry viii. prided himself on his literary attainments, a boast which was by no means unfounded. in 1536, offended at the manifesto of the pilgrims, he compounded a reply in which he expressed his astonishment that “ignorant people should go about to instruct him in matters of theology, who somewhat had been noted to be learned in what the{361} faith should be,” indirectly referring to his own book against luther, which had procured for him from the pope the title of “defender of the faith.” indeed, his majesty is said not only to have been a great reader, but to have been conversant with several languages; and, whatever his other defects, he was an accomplished student—his work “the glass of truth” alone being another proof of his theological attainments. he was among the best physicians of his time, and he acted as “his own engineer, inventing improvements in artillery, and new constructions in shipbuilding.”
anne boleyn is said to have composed her own dirge after her condemnation:—
“oh, death! rock me asleep,
bring on my quiet rest,
let pass my very guiltless ghost
out of my careful breast.
ring out the doleful knell;
let its sound my death tell—
for i must die,
there is no remedy,
for now i die.
my pains who can express?
alas! they are so strong,
my dolour will not suffer strength
my life for to prolong!
alone in prison strange,
i wail my destiny;
woe worth this cruel hap, that i
should taste this misery!
farewell my pleasures past,
welcome my present pain,
i feel my torments so increase
that life cannot remain.{362}
sound now the passing bell;
rung is my doleful knell,
for its sound my death doth tell:
death doth draw nigh,
sound the knell dolefully,
for now i die.”
but passing from this queen’s tragic death to henry viii.’s last wife, catherine parr, it may be remembered that the celebrated devotional work, “the lamentation of a sinner,” obtained great popularity, and has been adjudged to be one of the finest specimens of english composition of that era. within the limits of about 120 miniature pages, it comprises an elegant treatise “on the imperfection of human nature in its unassisted state, and the utter vanity of all earthly grandeur and distinction,” at the same time an uncompromising attitude being taken up against papal supremacy; for, as her majesty tells us in the volume, she deplored her former attachment to the ceremonials of the church of rome. hence the royal writer does not forget to compliment henry on having emancipated the kingdom from this domination; and adds, “our moses, and most godly wise governor and king hath delivered us out of the captivity and spiritual bondage of pharaoh: i mean by this moses, king henry viii., my most sovereign favourable lord and husband.” catherine parr was no doubt gifted by nature with fine talents, for she both read and wrote latin with facility, and possessed some knowledge of greek.
it was also through the influence of catherine{363} parr that the princess mary was induced to undertake the translation of the latin paraphrase of st. john, by erasmus. she did not append her name to the translation, but dr. udall in his preface thus refers to her labours: “england can never be able to render thanks sufficient; so it never will be able—as her deserts require—enough to praise the most noble, the most virtuous, and the most studious lady mary’s grace, for taking such pains and travail in translating this paraphrase of erasmus on the gospel of st. john.” and when mary was doubtful as to whether the work should be published in her name or anonymously, catherine parr wrote “that in her opinion she would do a wrong to the work, if she should refuse to send it to posterity with the advantage of her name; because in her accurate translation she had gone through much pains for the public good.” mary, however, did not append her name to the translation, but granted dr. udall permission to mention her labours in the preface.
elizabeth’s knowledge and acquirements from an early age made her famous, and hentzner, the german traveller, mentions having seen a little volume in the royal library at whitehall, written in french by her, when a child, on vellum, and which was thus inscribed: “a tres haut, et tres puissant, et redoubté prince henry viii. de ce nom, roy d’angleterre, de france, et de irelande, defendeur de la foy. elizabeth, sa tres humble fille, rend salut et obedience.” when imprisoned by her sister mary, she wrote several poems, and it is said that mary queen of scots during her long incarceration{364} by elizabeth produced many pleasing poetic compositions.
when henry iv. of france abjured the protestant faith and joined the church of rome, elizabeth was greatly troubled at his apostasy, and to divert her mind she entered into a course of theological studies, and finally occupied her time by reading “boethius on the consolations of philosophy,” of the first five books of which she made a very elegant english translation. her majesty, too, showed her sympathy for the literary characters of her day, and when the antiquary lambarde waited upon her at greenwich palace to present his “pandecta of the tower records,” she received him most graciously, and after looking through the volume, “she commended the work,” writes lambarde, “not only for the pains therein taken,” but also “for that she had not received, since her first coming to the crown, any one thing that brought therewith so great a delectation to her”; and walpole[151] has chronicled her various other contributions to literature.
james i. was fond of literature, and was an industrious reader, but as an author “he was only possessed of that mediocrity of talent which in a private person had never raised him to notice.” in 1599 was published his “basilicon doron,” containing advice to his son respecting his moral and political conduct; and in his work on “d?monologie” we find his majesty inveighing against the “damnable opinions of one scott, an englishman, who is not ashamed to deny in public print that{365} there be such a thing as witchcraft, and so maintains the old error of the sadducees in denying of spirits;”[152] and one of his first acts on ascending the english throne was to order all copies of scott’s “discoverie of witchcraft” to be burnt. his translation of the psalms was never finished, and as a poet it is generally agreed he was a failure. his collected works were published in 1616 by bishop montagu, together with earlier speeches and state papers. walpole, speaking of his literary abilities, says, “it is well for the arts that king james had no disposition for them: he let them take their own course. had he felt for them any inclination, he would have probably introduced as bad taste as he did in literature.” his unpublished correspondence with buckingham is described by wellwood as too disgusting to be read by a modest eye. the claims of charles, his son, have been ranked very high as an author; and if the “eikon basilike” had been his composition, this famous production—which is full of piety and wisdom, and in style pure and graceful—would give him a prominent place in the catalogue of royal authors. but, as it has been observed, “the silence of clarendon upon the subject in his history, and the explicit denial by both charles ii. and james ii., as vouched by two unconnected witnesses, bishop burnet and lord anglesey, would be decisive of the question, even if we could overlook the evidence of bishop patrick and dr. walker.” during his imprisonment at carisbrooke{366} charles expressed his feelings in poetry; the subjoined stanzas amongst many others having been attributed to him at this period, although they have been suspected to be a pious fraud:—
“tyranny bears the title of taxation,
revenge and robbery are reformation,
oppression gains the name of sequestration.
my loyal subjects, who in this bad season,
attend (by the law of god and reason),
they dare impeach and punish for high treason.
next at the clergy do their furies frown,
pious episcopacy must go down,
they will destroy the crosier and the crown.
churchmen are chained, and schismatics are freed,
mechanics preach, and holy fathers bleed,
the crown is crucified with the creed.
the church of england doth all faction foster,
the pulpit is usurped by each impostor;
ex tempore excludes the pater noster.”
charles ii. is said to have had some poetical talent, and, as sir john hawkins affirms, and as horace walpole thinks probable, the following lines were his composition:—
“i pass all my hours in a shady old grove,
but i live not the day when i see not my love;
i survey every walk now my phyllis is gone,
and sigh when i think we were there all alone;
o then ’t is i think there’s no hell
like loving too well.
but each shade and each conscious bower when i find,
where i once have been happy, and she has been kind;
when i see the print left of her shape on the green,
and imagine the pleasure may yet come again,
o then ’t is i think that no joys are above
the pleasures of love.{367}
while alone to myself i repeat all her charms,
she i love may be locked in another man’s arms;
she may laugh at my cares, and so false she may be,
to say all the kind things she before said to me;
o then ’t is oh then, that i think there’s no hell
like loving too well.
but when i consider the truth of her heart,
such an innocent passion, so kind without art;
i fear i have wrong’d her, and hope she may be
so full of true love to be jealous of me;
and then, ’t is i think that no joys are above
the pleasures of love.”
in the year 1766 lord hailes edited a curious account of the adventures of charles ii. after the battle of worcester, “unquestionably written by himself, and republished some letters to his friends, chiefly to arlington, there called henry bennet, together with a few made publick for the first time,”[153] one of the most amusing passages in the narrative being the subjoined:—
“as i was holding my horse’s foot, i asked the smith what news? he told me that there was no news that he knew of, since the good news of the beating of the rogues the scots. i asked him whether there was none of the english taken that joined the scots? he answered that he did not hear that that rogue charles stuart was taken, but some of the others, he said, were taken, but not charles stuart. i told him that if that rogue were taken, he deserved to be hanged more than all the rest for bringing in the scots, upon which he said that i spoke like an honest man, and so we parted.{368}”
there is little to note respecting the literary tastes of succeeding english sovereigns, with the exception of queen caroline, who was a great reader, and “frequently perplexed the divines of that period by her paradoxes on the subjects of fatality and free-will,” maintaining a correspondence with leibnitz on the most abstruse subjects.
the plaintive lines below, described as “more touching than better poetry,” have generally been attributed to the princess amelia, daughter of george iii., who will long be remembered “for the extreme passionate tenderness with which her father loved her,” and for her early death:—
“unthinking, idle, wild, and young,
i laughed, and danced, and talked, and sung;
and, proud of health, of freedom vain,
dreamed not of sorrow, care, or pain;
concluding, in those hours of glee,
that all the world was made for me.
but when the hour of trial came,
when sickness shook this trembling frame,
when folly’s gay pursuits were o’er,
and i could sing and dance no more,
it then occurred how sad ’t would be
were this world only made for me.”
“the poor soul quitted it,” and, as thackeray writes, “ere yet she was dead the agonised father was in such a state that the officers about him were obliged to set watchers over him, and from november 1810 george iii. ceased to reign.”
the following verses, entitled “the charms of silvia,” were addressed by frederick, prince of{369} wales, who cultivated a taste for literature, to his consort:—
“’tis not the liquid brightness of those eyes,
that swim with pleasure and delight;
nor those heavenly arches, which arise
o’er each of them to shade their light.
’t is not that hair, which plays with every wind,
and loves to wanton round thy face;
nor straying round the forehead, now behind
retiring with insidious grace.
’t is not that lovely range of teeth, so white,
as new shorn sheep, equal and fair;
nor e’en that gentle smile, the heart’s delight,
with which no smile could e’er compare.
’t is not that chin so round, that neck so fine,
those breasts that swell to meet my love,
that easy sloping waist, that form divine,
nor aught below, nor aught above.
’t is not the living colours over each,
by nature’s finest pencil wrought,
to shame the full-blown rose, and blooming peach,
and mock the happy painter’s thought.
no—’tis that gentleness of mind, that love
so kindly answering my desire;
that grace with which you look, and speak, and move,
that thus has set my soul on fire.”
in 1870, charles dickens was summoned by queen victoria to buckingham palace in order that she might thank him for the loan of some photographs of scenes in the american civil war, and on his departure she handed him a copy of her “leaves from the journal of our life in the highlands” with the autograph inscription, “from{370} the humblest of writers to one of the greatest.” in 1883, her majesty prepared for publication another selection from her journal, which she dedicated “to my loyal highlanders, and especially to the memory of my devoted personal attendant and faithful friend, john brown.” she took a very modest view of her literary work, for, on sending a copy to tennyson, she described herself as “a very humble and unpretending author, the only merit of whose writing was its simplicity and truth.”
leaving our own country, it may be noted that portugal has some claim to be proud of her royal authors, for diniz was a poet of exquisite taste, “and in the number, beauty, and variety of his songs he proved himself the greatest poet of his court,” having inherited, it is said, the poetic feeling and power of expression from his father, alfonso iii., who was no mean poet. indeed, the effects of the influence of diniz “pervade the whole of portuguese poetry; for not only was he in his ‘pastorellas’ the forerunner of the greatest pastoral school, but, by sanctifying to literary use the national storehouse of song, he perpetuated among his people, even to the present day, lyric forms of greatest beauty.”[154] it is also said that immense service was rendered by diniz and his poetic courtiers in developing the portuguese dialect into a beautiful and flexible literary language; and with the courts of love which he introduced into{371} portugal came the substitution of the limousin decasyllabic for the national octosyllabic metre.[155]
john i., surnamed “the great,” encouraged literature, and the “book of the chase,” one of the best specimens of early portuguese prose, was written for him under his own superintendence. of his sons, dom pedro wrote poems, and dom edward was the author of two capital prose works entitled “instructions in horsemanship” and the “faithful councillor.”
alfonso v., one of the exploring sovereigns, the subduer of tangiers, wrote much and ably on various subjects, forming an extensive library at evora; and the sagacious john ii. patronised literature, and encouraged ruy de pina, the greatest of all the portuguese chroniclers. and another sovereign who did all he could to promote the welfare of literature was john v., who founded the academy of history in lisbon, in 1720.
james i. of aragon, who was born at montpellier on candlemas day, in his “chronicle,” written by himself—and forming one of the most remarkable literary works of an eventful age—gives a curious as well as an interesting account of his being named, and relates how his mother, do?a maria, “made twelve candles, all of one size and weight, and had them all lighted together, and gave each the name of an apostle, and vowed to our lord that i should be christened by the name of that which lasted longest. and so it happened that the candle which went by the name of st.{372} james lasted a good finger’s breadth more than all the others. and owing to that circumstance, and to the grace of god, i was christened el jerome.”
catherine ii. of russia wrote fairy and moral tales in the style of marmontel, at that time so popular, comedies, and a kind of adaptation of shakespeare’s “merry wives of windsor,” her friend, the princess dashkov, who was appointed president of the academy of sciences, having co-operated with her in these studies.[156] in the “romance of an empress”[157] many amusing anecdotes are given of this her favourite pastime, which, it is said, “was in some sort a necessity, almost a physical necessity” to her. when asked why she wrote so many comedies, she replied, “primo, because it amuses me; secundo, because i should like to restore the national theatre, which, owing to its lack of new plays, is somewhat gone out of fashion; and tertio, because it was time to put down the visionaries, who were beginning to hold up their heads.” in his “history of german literature,” kurtz includes the empress among the german writers of the eighteenth century, as author of an eastern romance, “obidach” (1786), and two years later we find her writing burlesque verses on the king of sweden. it was often asked how she found time to do so much, the answer being she rose at six o’clock.{373}
after his deposition, gustavus iv. of sweden, under the title of colonel gustafson, was occasionally heard of in various parts of europe. at the period of the french revolution in 1830, the pamphlet which he published on that event, and on its connection with swedish affairs, showed, writes dr. doran,[158] that “the ex-king possessed neither charms of style nor power of reasoning. but his literary pursuits were now his sole pleasure, and he wrote “reflections on the aurora borealis, and its connection with diurnal motion,” the small effect produced by which wounded him, it is said, almost as deeply as his loss of a crown.
another sovereign who in his retirement devoted his time to literature was the ex-king stanislaus leczinski of poland, whose works were published in a collected form, a few years after his death, in four quarto volumes, under the title of the “works of the beneficent philosopher.” but there was no special ability in his writings, which were “respectable but not great.” his collection of “traits of moral character for everyday life” was perhaps his most amusing and popular work, each trait commencing with “have the courage to ——,” and as a whole as practically useful as the golden rules of king charles. thus, as an illustration, stanislaus writes: “have the courage to pay your debts at once; to do without what you do not need; to know when to speak and when to be quiet; to set down every penny you spend, and to look at the sum-total weekly; to{374} pass your host’s lackey without giving him a shilling, when you cannot afford it, and more especially when he has not earned it; to face difficulties, which are often like thieves, and run away if you only look at them.” such are a few illustrations of his majesty’s traits of moral courage, but unfortunately some of them he neglected himself, and he suffered accordingly.
frederick ii. of prussia was an author, but only an average one. indeed, as it has been observed, “giving him the credit of all that passes under his name, with the single exception of the ‘seven years’ war,’ can it be pretended that of his numerous volumes one would ever have been known to posterity, or more than one ever have found a publisher at all, even in germany, had they been the works of a private hand? the excepted book has considerable merit, by far its greatest value being derived from the accidental coincidence of the sword and the pen in the same hand.” little praise can be given to his majesty’s verses, and his letters are only interesting because of the great men with whom he corresponded, and the stirring events in the midst of which they were written.[159]
a work which naturally created considerable notice was louis xviii.’s narrative of his escape from france, but in the preface a most candid admission is made, that the work had disappointed all who had expected literary merit in it, that it had destroyed the reputation of the king as an{375} adept in the niceties of the french language, the french critics asserting that it was “vulgarly ungrammatical”; and even the editor “admits that the performance does not place his most christian majesty very high in the list of royal authors, as the style is bad, the observations often puerile, and the sentiments far from noble.” the narrative is dedicated in affectionate terms to m. d’avary, in token of the royal authors lasting gratitude for his services upon the occasion of his escape. but this, whatever merit may be ascribed to it, will, like other similar productions, always be perused with interest from the royal pen which wrote it.
