Women of England Part 17

In spite of the plea of her sick stepson, she resolutely determined to perish in the flames which were spreading through the castle from the fire started by the enemy in a breach of the castle wall.

This incident of the siege is described in an old ballad:

"Oh, then out spake her youngest son, Sat on the nurse's knee: Says--'Mither, dear, gie o'er this house, For the reek it smithers me.'

"'I would gie all my gold, my bairn, Sae would I all my fee, For ae blast o' the Westlin' wind To blaw the reek frae thee.'"

Next, her daughter appealed to her that she might be sewed up in a sheet and let down the tower wall. To this the mother a.s.sented. The maiden was thus lowered to the ground, only to be received upon the spear of the brutal captain:

"O then out spake her daughter dear.

She was baith jimp and small: 'Oh, row me in a pair of sheets, And tow me o'er the wall.'

"Oh, bonnie, bonnie was her mouth, And cherry was her cheeks; And clear, clear was her yellow hair, Whereon the red bluid dreeps.

"Then with his spear he turned her o'er; Oh, gin her face was wan!

He said--'You are the first that e'er I wish'd alive again.'"

Of the thirty-seven persons in the castle, Lady Towie, her stepson, her three young children, and her retainers, none escaped the holocaust; the roof of the keep fell in and carried them down into the flames. So perished one of the bravest and most spirited women of her times. The retribution which, in the later circ.u.mstances of the feud, was wrought upon those responsible for this ma.s.sacre does not concern us here. The heroism of Lady Towie's defence of Corgaff Castle has furnished a theme for other poets than the obscure bard whom we have quoted; the bravery to the point of rashness which she displayed endears her to the heart of the Scotchman who glories in the deeds of courage of his race.

One of the sweetest stories of devotion to be found in the history of Scotland's women is that which centres about the knightly house of Cromlix and Ardoch. Sir James Chisholm was born in the early part of the sixteenth century, and, as a youth, was sent to France for the completion of his education. Before his departure he had exchanged with fair Helen Stirling, of the house of Ardoch, vows of undying affection. This young lady, because of her beauty, had achieved wide local celebrity, and throughout the countryside she was called "Fair Helen of Ardoch." The two young people had been brought up in each other's society, and, as they grew in years, began to feel for each other that tenderness of sentiment which, while they were yet in their teens, led to mutual avowals of love. Their parents were not averse to the match, after the young people should have arrived at a more suitable age for marriage. The course of their love ran smoothly, until the separation came by Sir James going abroad. As their relatives were not favorable to a correspondence between the young people, the good offices of a friend were invoked. He received the letters of both parties, and saw that they were sent to their respective destinations. The correspondence went happily on; his letters were full of pleasing gossip about the belles and beauties of France, of society and manners, everything, indeed, that a young lover of reflective and poetic temperament would be likely to pen to the lady of his heart from whom he was separated by a distance which could be made communicable only by correspondence.

Almost a year had sped away when the letters received by Helen became less frequent and then stopped. She wrote again and again, but in vain; she received no replies. The agent of the young people then professed to write himself to her recreant lover, and informed her that he had discovered that the attachment of the young man for her had waned and that he was to marry a French beauty. His condolence was apparently so sincere and delicately phrased that when he proffered her his love there was in her breast some degree of kindly sentiment toward him, which, while of a very different nature from her feeling for the one who had discarded her, was yet such as to lead her to a.s.sent finally to his suit; not, however, before many considerations had been skilfully brought to bear upon her, not the least of which were the desires of her kindred.

The wedding day was set, and before the a.s.sembled guests, forming a brilliant gathering, the bride appeared in rich adornings, but pale, her bosom, heaving with sobs. The ceremony was performed. Then occurred a dramatic scene; some whisper seemed to reach the bride's ear; to the amazement of the guests, she turned upon her husband and denounced him as the blackest of traitors. She declared that her own letters and those of her lover had been kept back, and that she knew that her lover had landed in Scotland and would vindicate his honor.

She vowed in the presence of Heaven that she would never acknowledge as her husband the man she had just wedded, nor would she ever leave for him her father's roof. Amid shouts of derision, the false bridegroom hastily left the house. The young lover had indeed landed in the country, and was hastening to his beloved that he might prove to her that he had been grossly slandered and she grievously deceived.

The knowledge of the situation did not reach him in time to forestall the plans of his rival, and not until his arrival home did he find out the full facts of the case and have his mind entirely relieved of the thought of his love's perfidy. Legal measures were speedily taken for the dissolution of the hateful bonds, and the young lady was united to the one to whom, notwithstanding her acquiescence in the wishes of others, her heart had been true.

The maid of Ardoch's story has been variously told. The most familiar form of it is that found in Robert Burns's _Observations on Scottish Songs_. The romance has taken strong hold upon the hearts of the Scotch race, through a simple melody which has held the interest of the people for nearly three centuries. This ballad was written by the young lover himself on board the s.h.i.+p that was bearing him back to Scotland. The first verse is as follows:

"Since all thy vows, false maid, Are blown to air, And my poor heart betrayed To sad despair, Into some wilderness, My grief I will express, And thy hard-heartedness, O cruel fair!"

As fearless as the Scotch heroine Lady Towie in the defence of her castle was the Irish heroine Lettice, Baroness of Ophaly, in the famous defence of the castle of Geas.h.i.+ll in Queen's County. The one lived in the sixteenth, the other belonged to the seventeenth century.

The Baroness Ophaly was of the famous house of Geraldine, heir in general to the house of Kildare, and inherited the barony of Geas.h.i.+ll.

She married Sir Robert Digby, and after his death returned to Ireland.

She was a model mistress to her household and her tenantry. Although a woman of brilliant attainments, she was yet content to live in a quiet way, performing the congenial duties of administrator of the affairs of her household, and being held in affectionate regard by all those dependent upon her. In 1641, however, the quiet current of her daily life was broken in its flow; civil war devastated the land. The rebels thought to find in the defenceless situation of the widowed lady, with her brood of young children, an opportunity for plunder and ravage with little prospect of serious resistance. A motley throng appeared before the castle and demanded possession. They then presented to her a written order as follows: "We, his Majesty's loyal subjects, at the present employed in his Highnesses service, for the sacking of your castle; you are therefore to deliver unto us the free possession of your said castle, promising faithfully that your ladys.h.i.+p, together with the rest within your said castle _resiant_, shall have reasonable composition; otherwise, upon the non-yielding of the castle, we do a.s.sure you that we shall burn the whole town, kill all the Protestants, and spare neither woman nor child, upon taking the castle by compulsion. Consider, madam, of this our offer; impute not the blame of your folly unto us. Think not that here we brag. Your ladys.h.i.+p, upon submission, shall have safe convoy to secure you from the hands of your enemies, and to lead you whither you please. A speedy reply is desired with all expedition, and then we surcease."

To this demand she sent a reply temperate and dignified, but unyielding. It was as follows:

"I received your letter wherein you threaten to sack this my castle by his Majesty's authority. I have ever been a loyal subject and a good neighbor among you, and therefore cannot but wonder at such an a.s.sault. I thank you for your offer of a convoy, wherein I hold little safety; and therefore my resolution is that, being free from offending his Majesty, or doing wrong to any of you, I will live and die innocently. I will do the best to defend my own, leaving the issue to G.o.d; and though I have been, I am still desirous to avoid shedding blood, yet, being provoked, your threats shall no way dismay me."

The rebels took no notice of her answer, but kept up the siege. After two months, Lord Viscount Clanmalier brought to bear against the castle a piece of ordnance. Before using this formidable instrument, which was cast by a local ironworker out of pots and pans contributed for the purpose, Clanmalier, who was her kinsman, sent her a letter repeating the demand for the surrender of the castle. She replied to this missive, which was signed "your loving cousin," by saying that she had not expected such treatment at the hands of a kinsman, repeating her innocence of wrong-doing, and expressing her adherence to her position as stated in her former reply to similar demands.

After this answer had been delivered to his lords.h.i.+p he discharged the home-made cannon at the castle, and it promptly exploded at the first shot; to which fact was due the ability of Baroness Ophaly to hold the castle against all attack through the long months until the rebellion had waned and the besiegers withdrew. What she must have suffered during all the dangers of the siege, in which ingenuity was taxed to the utmost to effect an entrance within the strong walls, can never be stated; on the one hand was the terror of famine, on the other, death. When she was rescued from her perilous situation by Sir Richard Greville, she went to her husband's late property of Colehill and there spent the remainder of her life, dying in 1648.

Among the Scotch Covenanters, the names of Isobel Alison of Perth and Marion Harvie of Bo'ness take high rank because of their undaunted courage and the strength of conviction displayed by them. It was in 1679 that a band of hors.e.m.e.n slew Archbishop Sharp upon Magnus Moor and then dispersed. Four of them, among whom was John Balfour of Kinloch,--the redoubtable Burley of _Old Mortality_,--took refuge in the house of a widow of the vicinity of Perth. Here they remained hidden, to watch as to what steps would be taken in regard to their apprehension. Afterward they retired to Dupplin, thereby escaping seizure. On June 22d the battle of Bothwell Brig was fought and lost to the Covenanters. At about this time the first subject of this sketch, Isobel Alison, an obscure maiden, comes into the stream of historical occurrence. She was about twenty-five years of age, resided at Perth, and was of excellent repute. She had been trained in the strictest Presbyterian faith, and was well versed in the Scriptures.

She had occasionally had the privilege of hearing field preaching, although field conventicles were not common in the country. Her sympathies with the persecuted ministers of her faith and her personal acquaintance with several of them enlisted her aid for the fugitives in hiding them from the authorities, whose search for them was relentlessly pursued. The work of b.l.o.o.d.y persecution continued for eighteen months, during which many of the Covenanters died in the maintenance of their convictions. But it was not until the end of 1680 that Isobel attracted attention by reason of her outspoken utterances against the tyranny under which the country suffered. It was not long, then, before she was arraigned for her sentiments, and, in the simplicity of her nature, volunteered the confession that she was in communication with some of those who had been declared rebels. The magistrates, however, charitably sought to s.h.i.+eld her from the effects of actions the serious purport of which they did not believe that she fully realized, and so dismissed her with a caution to be more circ.u.mspect in her speech. But she was not to escape thus easily; some busybodies speedily reported what she had said to the Privy Council, which issued a warrant for her arrest. Under a charge of treason, she was carried from the peaceful seclusion of her humble home, and immured in the prison at Edinburgh. At her hearing before the Privy Council, she acknowledged to acquaintance with all those for whom the authorities were seeking as a.s.sa.s.sins of Archbishop Sharp. When asked if she did not know that she was aiding those whose hands were dyed with the blood of murder, she replied that she had never regarded the death of the "Mr. James Sharp" as being murder. Her testimony was so self-condemnatory that, according to the law of the day, there appeared to be no recourse but to sentence her to hanging. She says: "The Lords pitied me, for [said they] we find reason and a quick wit in you; and they desired me to take it to advis.e.m.e.nt. I told them I had been advising on it these seven years, and I hoped not to change now. They asked if I was distempered? I told them that I was always solid in the wit that G.o.d had given me." She was then remanded for trial before the Judiciary Court. Leaving the thread of her story for a while, we will take up that of another young woman, who at about this time had come under a like accusation and was suffering imprisonment. She was but a poor serving woman, who had been a domestic at the house of a woman who had sheltered one of the same fugitives whose cause had gotten Isobel Alison into her straits. The story of her relations with the Covenanters, as told by her to the authorities, was a simple one. From the age of fourteen she had heard the field preaching of the Covenanters, and finally she had been informed against and arrested. Her demeanor during the ordeal of examination was firm and composed. The questions put to her she answered without hesitancy or reservation. The result of the examination showed her full sympathies with those who were under the taint of rebellion and treason. She justified their acts by affirming that the king had broken his covenant oath, and it was lawful to disown him.

She and her older sister in misfortune were brought together before the Judiciary Court, and both of the young women declined to acknowledge the authority of the king and lords. There was nothing remaining to do but to put them on trial, which was accordingly done. They both stood indicted for treason. The only evidence adduced against them was their own confessions, and because of the nature of these a verdict of guilty was rendered. The court postponed sentence until the following Friday, when they were condemned to be hanged.

Not a particle of proof had been produced of their having joined in concocting any schemes against either Church or State; they had simply let their tongues wag too freely upon the impersonal question, so far as it concerned them, as to whether a certain a.s.sa.s.sination was justified. The prosecution had been conducted by the king's advocate, Sir George Mackenzie, that "n.o.ble wit of Scotland," as he was styled by Dryden, but whom the Scotch people have branded as the "bluidy Mackenzie" of the popular rhyme. This same advocate who secured the sentencing of the two young girls for expressions of opinion upon a question which was purely one of casuistry wrote in one of his _Essays_: "Human nature inclines us wisely to that pity which we may one day need; and few pardon the severity of a magistrate, because they know not where it may stop."

During the period intervening between their condemnation and their execution, they were visited by kindly disposed ministers of the Established Church and others, who sought to persuade them out of their beliefs. But to no purpose; even the promise of a full pardon failed to move either of them from the steadfastness of their expressed convictions. In order to surround their execution with as much of ignominy as possible, it was ordered that five women, convicted of the murder of their illegitimate children, should be hanged along with them. In their last hour upon earth, the young women were sustained by the fort.i.tude of their faith. The attempt to make them hear the ministrations of a curate was frustrated by the two young women singing together the Twenty-third Psalm. Upon the scaffold they continued their religious devotions; and in the midst of their calm, confident declarations of faith in Christ and of their innocence of any real wrong, they perished.

The transit from religion to pleasure is, after all, but a short pa.s.sage from one department of life to another, and the story of the women of Scotland and of Ireland would not be complete without notice of some of that group of famous Irish women who were conspicuous upon the stage of Great Britain in the eighteenth century--women whose excellence served to raise the dramatic art to the point of prominence and dignity which it attained during that period. One of the earliest of that group who gave l.u.s.tre to the stage was Margaret Woffington.

The story of her life is a record of high achievement in the histrionic profession, although it is as well a record of frailty--a fact unfortunately too often true of actresses in the eighteenth century, when the standards of their art were supposed to absolve them to an extent from the ordinary demands of circ.u.mspection in conduct.

She had all the susceptibility of the Celtic temperament, and her warm Irish blood was easily made to surge through her veins in waves of pa.s.sion, although, when not indulging in a fit of temper, she was bright, vivacious, witty, and entertaining to a degree. Arthur Murphy, in his _Life of Garrick_, says: "Forgive her one female error, and it might fairly be said of her that she was adorned with every virtue; honour, truth, benevolence, and charity were her distinguis.h.i.+ng qualities." This much said for the weakness of her character, we can concern ourselves altogether with the strength of her genius. The circ.u.mstances of her birth were not fortunate, nor was there anything in them to predicate the distinguished place she was to fill in the public eye. The year of her birth is variously given. It was probably in 1714 that she first saw the light, in a miserable slum of the city of Dublin. Her father was a bricklayer, and died when she was but five years old. At that early age she had to take her part of the home responsibilities and earn money to aid in the support of her family; this she did by serving as a water carrier. The advent of a French dancer into Dublin at about this time marked an epoch in the life of Peggy. She brought with her a troupe of acrobats and rope dancers, and the exhibition she offered attracted large audiences. In order to afford a novel feature, which should at the same time affect local interest, Madame Violante, the head of the amus.e.m.e.nt company, arranged for an operatic presentation which should be partic.i.p.ated in by some of the bright Irish children to whom she had been drawn. The _Beggars'

Opera_ was then in the height of its popularity, and this was the play she fixed upon. Little Peggy Woffington, not quite ten years old, had the chief female part. From this simple introduction to the amus.e.m.e.nt-loving public started the train of development in the life of this young Irish girl, which was to make her the captivating actress, the beautiful and witty woman, who bewitched Garrick and Sheridan.

The novelty of the conception attracted much notice, and the opera was given before large houses. Other plays and farces were staged in the same way. While Peggy played princ.i.p.al parts on the stage, her mother sold oranges to the patrons at the entrance to the theatre. Matters continued this way until Peggy Woffington was sixteen years of age, by which time she had become noted for ease and grace as a dancer, although her coa.r.s.eness of voice and p.r.o.nounced brogue debarred her from any important playing part. Her opportunity came, however, when a favorite actress who was to take the part of Ophelia was, at the eleventh hour, incapacitated from so doing. There was no recourse but to permit Peggy Woffington to take it. Notwithstanding the difficulties under which she labored, her interpretation of the character was quite favorably received. She had been developing in grace of figure and of feature, and had ripened into a young woman of dazzling fairness, perfect form, with eyes luminous and black, shaded by long lashes and arched by exquisitely pencilled eyebrows.

She was just twenty years of age when she completely turned the heads of the Dublin theatre-goers by the magnificence of her impersonation of Sir Harry Wildare in _The Constant Couple_. Her first appearance in London was not at the behest of her art, but, unfortunately, as a result of the arts of an admirer to whose addresses she had given some favor, and who led her to go to the English metropolis with him under promise of marriage. This regrettable circ.u.mstance was soon followed by her repudiation of the man on finding out his real character. She was not long off the stage, and in 1740 the playbills announced the first appearance of Miss Woffington in England. She drew large houses, and greatly widened her reputation as a leading actress of her time.

To give the plays in which she took princ.i.p.al parts during her first London season would be to enumerate the best productions of the English stage at that time. It is said of her that before the season was half over, Miss Woffington had become the fas.h.i.+on. Among the many swains who followed in her wake and indited to her amorous missives and verses was Garrick. He pursued his lovemaking with all seriousness, and made his a.s.sault not solely upon the heart of the b.u.t.terfly beauty, but upon her mind as well. He saw that beneath all the audacities of her mind and irregularities of life there was a n.o.ble nature, which the circ.u.mstances of her birth and training had never permitted true expression. His intentions were entirely honorable, but whenever the subject of marriage was broached by him she managed to switch off the conversation to a lighter subject. Her coquettishness would not permit her to take seriously the addresses of the man whom she doubtless greatly admired and loved. When she was regarded by everyone else as without a moral equivalent for her artistic temperament, Garrick steadfastly refused to regard her simply as a vain, flighty, and vacillating person. He was rewarded by being the only man whom she ever seriously thought of marrying.

Her mode of life was not conducive to the furtherance of her health, and at the comparatively early age of thirty-seven years her friends saw a change both in the demeanor and the appearance of the witty woman. The seeds of an internal disorder had been sown, but, with her usual recklessness, she failed to heed the premonitions of nature until the malady was too far advanced for cure. At about this time the famous John Wesley was stirring London with his preaching. She attended his chapel through curiosity, and afterward from conviction.

She was clearheaded and honest enough to see the force of the religious truth which he presented, and was brought quite under the influence of the great preacher. As a result of the awakening of her religious nature, she determined on the reformation of her private life, although she does not appear to have linked with that the purpose of quitting her profession. She resolved, however, not to remain before the public until they tired of her. As she herself expressed it: "I will never destroy my reputation by clinging to the shadow after the substance is gone. When I can no longer bound on the boards with elastic step, and when the enthusiasm of the public begins to show symptoms of decay, that night will be the last appearance of Margaret Woffington."

She was not destined to remain before the public until they wearied of her; on May 3, 1757, she appeared as Rosalind in _As You Like It_. The circ.u.mstances of the tragic close of her dramatic career, as quoted from a contemporary writer in Blackburn's _Ill.u.s.trious Irish Women_, were as follows: "She went through Rosalind for four acts without my perceiving she was in the least disordered; but in the fifth she complained of great indisposition. I offered her my arm, the which she graciously accepted; I thought she looked softened in her behaviour, and had less of the hauteur. When she came off at the quick change of dress, she again complained of being ill, but got accoutred, and returned to finish the part, and p.r.o.nounced in the epilogue speech,--'If it be true that good wine needs no bush, it is as true that a good play needs no epilogue,' &c., &c. But when she arrived at 'If I were among you, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me,' her voice broke, she faltered, endeavoured to go on, but could not proceed; then, in a voice of tremor, screamed, 'O G.o.d! O G.o.d!' and tottered to the stage door speechless, where she was caught.

The audience, of course, applauded until she was out of sight, and then sunk into awful looks of astonishment--both young and old, before and behind the curtain--to see one of the most handsome women of the age, a favourite princ.i.p.al actress, and who had for several seasons given high entertainment, struck so suddenly by the hand of death in such a situation of time and place, and in her prime of life, being about forty-four."

Such were the circ.u.mstances attending the last appearance of Margaret Woffington, who, notwithstanding she died in the prime of life at the age of forty-seven, had been for twenty-seven years the delight of the play-going public. The three years she lingered as a mere skeleton of her former self were spent in trying to awaken the consciences of her late theatrical a.s.sociates. Some of these scouted her new spirit as hypocrisy, and insinuated that religion was her recourse only when beauty and spirits had been lost. But the One who judgeth the secrets of men's hearts is not so uncharitable in His judgment of His creatures. It may be believed that the influence which she received from the chapel meetings of John Wesley was the beginning of a genuine religious life and character, and that it brought from her Maker that commendation which was ungenerously denied her by her a.s.sociates.

These brief sketches of the lives of some of the daughters of Scotland and of Ireland ill.u.s.trate the princ.i.p.al characteristics of the women of the Scotch-Irish race. Among all the nations of the world no women hold as high a place for pure morals and high courage. The spiritualizing effect of the profound religious feeling of these people--although in the form of their religious faith the Scotch and the Irish are for the most part so diametrically different--accounts in a large measure for their conservation of the facts and forces of the religious life. The soil of both Ireland and Scotland was bedewed for centuries with the tears of affliction and of persecution; the blood of martyrs who cheerfully laid down their lives at the dictates of religion and that highest social expression of the religious instinct, the n.o.blest piety of the human race--patriotism. Out of all the oppression, rapacity, confiscation, which the two peoples experienced in different forms and different degrees, arose an unworldly ideal, a sense of the invisible realm. The st.u.r.dy Calvinist matron of the Scottish Highlands is no more religious, no more the product of the travails of her country, no more under the inspiration and exaltation of high principle, than her less fortunately placed sister of the Green Isle, whose religion is at the opposite extreme of the forms of Christian faith. The women of both peoples can point with tearful joy to the history of their s.e.x as a scroll of fame and a record of n.o.ble achievement.