could then destroy the proofs, and sacrifice his confederate. Perez was therefore more rigorously imprisoned, and his wife cruelly coerced, after a noble constancy, into their partial surrender. The King was now at ease, his victim was defenceless, his honour could not be attainted, and with the death of Perez all proof of complicity would disappear. He was mistaken. Perez, with consummate duplicity, had surrendered much which associated Philip with the crime, but still withheld the most important papers. Elated by their ill-founded security, the tactics of his persecutors changed. They tempted Perez to confess the murder, upon the plea of the King's order, and deprived, as they conceived him to be, of all proofs, they hoped to condemn him, not only as guilty of the crime, but as guilty also of calumniating the King. Perez refused compliance; they resolved to compel him. To this end Juan Gomez was associated with Rodrigo Vasquez, and Perez was submitted to the extremest torture, when, with every limb dislocated by the rack, wasted by fever, and the threat of the renewal of his sufferings, pain and anguish wrung the desired avowal from his lips. And now all seemed won, animumque explêsse juvabit Ultricis flammæ, but in the very moment of success Philip's victim escaped his grasp. The treachery and the cruelty of the King became known; it awakened popular feeling, and a deep interest was excited in behalf of Perez throughout Spain. Philip read his condemnation in the looks of his courtiers: he heard it muttered as he paced in solitary grandeur the corridors of his palace. The treason of subjects against a king," said one of his nobles, "was common, but what king had ever before committed such treason against a subject?" The court preacher made it the subject of a discourse, and warned his audience of the danger of placing confidence in kings. "Put not your trust in princes was the solemn adjuration of Madrid. Perez nothing remained but death. He knew that Vasquez had represented to Philip that, having avowed For his guilt, deprived of all evidence to support his plea of the King's orders, he might now be safely executed. In this extremity his last resource was flight; but how to succeed? Torture had deprived him of the use of his limbs; he was alone, ill of fever, strictly guarded. He owed his liberation to his wife and his devoted adherent Gil de Mesa. Notwithstanding her approaching confinement, Juana Coello obtained permission to attend him, and on the 20th April, 1590, towards evening, Perez, disguised in his wife's clothes, passed the gates of the prison. Gil de Mesa was at hand outside the walls with swift horses, and, instantly placing Perez upon one, they never stopped until they had passed the frontiers of Arragon. The position of the actors was now changed; by the privileges of the Constitution of Arragon, the King and the subject before the courts of law were equal. Perez first sought by submission to appease the King's anger; he wrote from Calatayud, offered to exile himself to some remote corner of the kingdom, if only Philip would relent and spare his wife and children. But Philip's anger was increased by the evident pleasure his escape occasioned at Madrid. Sire, who is this Antonio Perez," said the court jester, Uncle Martin, "at whose escape all the court rejoices? He could not have been guilty. Cheer up then, and be merry with the others." Philip was unmoved, and threw into the public prison Juana Coello and her children. Petition and remonstrance were in vain; such sufferers had only for their advocates innocence and misfortune, and the appeal lay to Philip. Orders were now given to seize Perez, dead or alive; whereupon he threw himself into the convent of the Dominicans, as a safe asylum. Here he was demanded by the fiscal of Arragon, Manuel Zapata, to be sent to Madrid; but Gil de Mesa went to Saragossa and claimed the privilege of the Manifestados, the effect of which was to place him under the protection of the supreme council of Arragon. Before this tribunal the cause at last was tried, and, driven to his last resource, Perez now published his famous defence"Memorial del hecho de su causa." In this he avowed all, supporting his statements by the papers in the King's handwriting, which he had withheld, and every one of which was an overwhelming proof of Philip's dishonour, of his falsehood, his base dissimulation, and his complicity in Escovedo's murder. Perez was acquitted; and again the joy of Arragon was echoed, however faintly, in the palace of Madrid. The success of Perez whetted the desire for revenge. Unfortunately for Spain there existed, in the name of religion, a power by which liberty, mercy, truth, and justice, had been driven from her noble soil. power was the Inquisition; and, evoked That by Philip, it arose with all its horrid influence in his behalf. In the bitterness of torture, in the exasperation caused by the imprisonment of his wife and children, Perez had uttered expressions which the cruel and unscrupulous elasticity of the laws of that tribunal easily constructed into a charge of heresy. The inquisitor, Don Molina de Medrana, and the Marquis Almenara, the royal commissioner of Arragon, preferred the accusation, and it was decided that Perez should be transferred from the prison of the Manifestados to that of the Holy Office. Philip rejoiced; the course was henceforth clear; suborned witnesses, secret trial, the most cruel tortures, death by fire-all through the agency of men who wore the vestments of religion, and justified these acts in the name of their Creator and Redeemer. But, notwithstanding the secresy with which the inquisitors attempted to transfer Perez from the prison of the Courts of Arragon to that of the Inquisition, the event became known, when the chief nobility, and the populace to a man, combined in his behalf. They stopped the carriage in the market-place, where Don Martin de la Nuza, Don Pedro de Bolca, and others, inquired of the officers what was going on? "Nothing which concerns you; go your way, Signor Cavaliers, and may God guide you," was the reply. A scene of violent recrimination and reproach ensued. They charged the alcalde of the prison of the Manifestados with base dereliction of his duty in thus surrendering his prisoner. They seized Don Juan de la Nuza, the justicia mayor, and sum moned him, amid cries of vengeance, to revoke the orders he had given. For some hours the justicia refused; rushed from the palace, and, amid cries but the people, headed by the nobility, of "Contra Fuero," "The Liberties of Arragon," Saragossa rose in insurrection. The Marquis of Almenara, the King's Commissioner, was thrown down, and, although saved at the moment, died soon after of his wounds. The Aljaferia was next attacked, and threatened to be burned down, with all its inmates, by a band under the direction of Gil de Mesa. The ViceArchbishop Bobadilla, now urged the roy, Don Jaime Ximena, and the inquisitors to release their prisoner; resolutely refused, nor was it until this their chief, Molina de Medrana, the flames were circling high in air, and the smoke arose in thick eddies that he yielded. The return to the prison of the Manifestados was a public triumph. These events occurred May 24, 1591. Philip's anger was great, for the defeat of the Inquisition was his own. But at war with England, with his subjects in the Low Countries, and engaged to support the League in France, it was people of Arragon. He dissembled to impolitic to provoke the courage of the gain time, declared his determination only justice and the maintenance of to uphold the Fueros, that he sought Perez-if the Inquisition said-" Go the laws, and desired not to imprison free." By these and more secret views the support of the council, of the means of influence he won over to his nobles, and the leaders of Saragossa. It was resolved to consent to the extradition of Perez, and to transfer him once more to the prison of Aljaferia. This was done on the 23rd Sept. alone, faithful among many faithless 1591. All seemed lost; but one man found, bade Perez hope. Collecting a band of trusty adherents, reanimating the spirit of many of the gentlemen of Arragon, and awaking again, by appeals nobility, Gil de Mesa attacked the esto their honour, the courage of the lowed by the loud acclamations of the cort and rescued their prisoner. Folpeople, Perez now quitted Saragossa. Philip appeared to receive the intelligratitude to the deputies, the justicia, gence unmoved, expressing only his and the nobles of Arragon, for their support. Bat the satisfaction uttered without faith was beard without erafidence: all men felt it to be the ominous calm which precedes the desoLiting tempest. They were right. An army of ten thousand men was slowly colected, and gradually drawn amand Saragossa: the Arrancese made but a feeble defence: their liberties and privileges were abolished for ever. The King's Commissioner, Don Francisco Borgia, and the Inquisition, next appeared. Within a few months Don Juan de la Nuza the justiciary, the Dake de Villahermosa, the Count d'Aran la, the Barons de Barbeles and de Purroy, were successively beheaded. Many of the leading gentry and common people were hung; and, after having ordered the confiscation of their estates, demolished their houses, filled the prisons of Arragon with victims, and driven more into exile, Philip pablished an amnesty-it resembled a proscription. One man alone was rewarded, Molina de Meirana the chief inquisitor. To the Holy Office Philip now offered what remained of the luxury of revenge. They commenced by summoning three hundred and seventy four persons before their tribunal; many fortunately had escaped, but one hundred and twenty-three were in their power. Of these seventy-nine were condemned to death, and perished in the flames of an auto-da-fe, which commenced at eight in the morning and lasted by the light of its fires and flambeaux till night had descended on the plains of Saragossa. The Constitution of Arragon was abolished, the prison of Aljaferia was converted into a fortress; Philip's power was supreme. It is only possible to indicate the close of the lives of those concerned in the murder of Escovedo. Perez escaped into France, but his life was frequently attempted by assassins hired by the Court of Spain. By his commanding talents and graceful manners he acquired great influence in the saloons of Paris, and enjoyed the pro tection of Henry the Fourth and of Elizabeth, the friendship of Bacon and of Loel Essex. An intriguing spirit and the change of policy lost him the favour of Henry, Elizabeth died. Essex expiated his ristness on the scaffold. Prematurely old by sufferings and Boentinusness, neglected by his former almirers, in the lowest poverty, Perez died abandoned by all bat a few refugees and his faithful wiberent Gil de Mesa, at Paris, Nov. 3, 1611. Philip died Sept. 13, 1598. The genius of the artists of Spain, the wealth of the clergy, and the resources of the state, were exhausted in the sumptuous solemnities of his funeral But, amid the pomp which velled the corruption of the tomb, the Elaze of Eght, the swell of organs, and the solemn requiem, there arose the thought of the atrocities of Alba, of the fires of the Inquisition, of liberty destroyed, of the murder of Escovedo, and the torture of Perez: and this man, splendid in ashes and pompous in the grave," was interred beneath a condemnation which God has pronounced, and before which all living desh must tremble. Long before that time premature deaths had overtaken the assas sins of Escovedo. Philip the Third released Juana Coello from imprisonment, and she obtained the partial resteration of her property; and after a tedious process the Inquisition withdrew, June 6, 1615, the charge of heresy, and the children of her husband were re-established in their civil rights. But the judgment against Philip and Perez no power can reverse. By falsehood and treachery they had compassed their designs, and by mutual falsehood and treachery they were stricken. The attempted self-justification, and the flatteries of historians, have fallen on men's hearts as the cold moonbeam on a plain of snow," for know ye not That leagued against ye are the just and wise, And all good actions of all ages past, Yea, your own crimes, and truth, and God in Heaven? ON THE IMMIGRATION OF THE SCANDINAVIANS INTO By JAMES THOMPSON, Esq. Author of the History of Leicester. HOW long the mixed Roman-British population occupied the district now known as the county of Leicester undisturbed, we do not know; but it would almost seem that for a century and a half they remained here, subject to the occasional irruptions of the barbarous hordes of North Britain. The Saxons and Angles-a people from the northern part of what is now the kingdom of Hanover, had been making inroads and settling in our land from about the year 450 to 550. The Angles seized upon this part of the country, and, it can scarcely be doubted, colonized our town and county, either subjugating the inhabitants and making them their slaves, or expelling them from the soil. I am inclined to think the former; because the surrounding territories were already occupied by earlier Germanic settlers. It requires no great mental effort to believe that between the years 600 and 700 all the villages in this neighbourhood having a Saxon or Anglian origin were established. The wide extent to which the Angles colonized our county may be inferred from the fact, that of the 400 and odd villages and hamlets now existing, about 317 have names clearly traceable to that people. Nor does the circumstance that the town was inhabited by a mixed race, the descendants of Romans, Roman Britons, and Roman auxiliaries, detract from the general inference that the mass of the people in this quarter were Anglo-Saxons; for it must be remembered that the Roman garrison, with its concomitant population, was withdrawn in the early part of the fifth century-that irruptions of barbarians from North Britain had, at times, probably, either slain many of the remainder or driven them away in terror from the place-and that we are not certain whether others were not themselves of Germanic origin. The Anglian or Saxon elements of the population must have largely preponderated, leaving very few traces of the earlier foreign colonists in the borough of Leicester. GENT. MAG. VOL. XL. But the Saxons were not fated to remain undisturbed themselves on the soil they had conquered. They had scarcely been settled here three centuries before a hardier and fiercer race invaded them in their turn. These were the seafaring people from the shores of Denmark-the Danes. The first notice of their hostile visits occurs in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the date 787, followed by another under the date 793, where they are described as "Northmen and heathens, destroyers of God's churches." They came across the sea in numberless boats, and were headed by leaders, called Vikings. They anchored at the mouths of the rivers, and lay about the islands on the coasts. They often sought the Wash in Lincolnshire, and usually followed the course of the large rivers, with their principal tributaries, into the inner parts of the country. It is not our purpose to detail their successive movements and occasional defeats. We have only to deal with broad and ultimate facts; and therefore it is enough to state that towards the latter part of the ninth century, about the year 900, the Danes became masters of this district, the town itself falling into their hands; and that they occupied both, with occasional interruptions, until the conquest of England by the Normans. We have also existing evidence of Danish occupancy, like that remaining relative to the Anglo-Saxons, namely, the traces of their rural settlements. On an analysis of the names of the villages of this county, it is found that eighty-seven are of Danish or DanishNorwegian derivation. It seems that all ending in by or thorpe are of this class: the syllable by in the old Norse language meant at first a single farm, afterwards a town in general; the word thorpe in the same tongue designates a collection of houses separated from some principal estate. Now there are in Leicestershire sixty-six places ending in by, and nineteen in thorpe. From a glance at a map of Leicestershire, any one will perceive that the grouping of the settlements of the 4 D Northmen is not accidental and undesigned. Take, for example, those in Framland. The very name of the hundred, given to it undoubtedly by the Anglo-Saxons, would seem to designate the district; for, as in some parts of England to this day strangers are known as "frem folks," it is not unlikely the people living in this county, when the Danes settled in it, would give to the district the name of the frem land, or the land of the foreigners; and assuredly it and the contiguous ground on the south bank of the Wreke (now in East Goscote) would well deserve the designation, the largest proportion of bys and thorpes in the county being here met with. The district was chosen by the pirate-foreigners, and appropriated by them, and for a good reason-it suited their purpose admirably, and would remind them of their home scenery. The great avenue to the heart of England for the Northmen was formed by the rivers Humber and Trent, the latter emptying into the former near Burton in North Lincolnshire. When they had conquered that county (which would appear to have been their earliest achievement), they would find the Trent to answer the purpose which the Midland Railway now serves to the midlands as a highway of communication. Having further made Nottingham and Derby their own, they seem to have next entered the Soar where it empties itself into the Trent, and stealing on in their light barks, bivouacking on the banks when they halted, they reached the embouchure of the Wreke. Having turned into this stream, with its fair sloping banks and its elevated ridges, they were tempted to make it their own. Hence we find, a few miles up the stream on the left bank, the village of Rearsby, and on the same side, a mile or two hether on, Brookesby and Rotherby, pute to Hoby on the right side of 1 stream, and a little further on, Baby and Kirby, with Asfordby on the other side, and yet nearer to Melto, Sysonby and Kettleby; and, following the Wreke in its continuation with the Eye, there are Brentingby, Freeby, and Wiverby, with outlying thor peo This, I take it, is alike the line and very much the order of the Scandinavian inroad into our county. The Soar and the Wreke were their turnpikes, and, these settlements being established, it is not improbable the feeders of these rivers on both sides were next entered by subsequent parties of these adventurers. On a rivulet branching from the Soar is Sileby; on other rivulets emptying into the Wreke are Shouldby and Saxulby on the north side, and Barkby, Barsby, Gaddesby, Ashby Folville, and Little Dalby, on the south side. Nor do I doubt that nine hundred or a thousand years ago these brooks, however shallow and narrow now, would be then, in most cases, periodically navigable by the canoes of the Northmen, leading to the larger streams as our village lanes do to the highways, and affording to them channels of communication either for hasty flight or for concerted action with their compatriots of the district. The remark made with reference to the Wreke groups of settlements will be found also to apply to the Soar and its tributaries south of Leicester, where we find Blaby and Kilby, Lubbesthorpe (the village of Lubba) and Enderby, Normanton (Northmantown) hall and Elmesthorpe, and Kirkby, Primethorpe and Ashby Parva, Arnesby and Shearsby, all near to rivulets; but when we approach the more purely AngloSaxon shires of Northampton and Warwick, and leave the streams in connexion with the Soar and the Wreke, we find the bys are also left behind. We then enter on a country where the Northman would have found himself over-matched, and where his bark could not safely carry him through the meadows occupied by the stout Saxon thanes and farmers. It may here be appropriate to show the relative position occupied by the neighbouring counties to our own, with respect to the character of their populations. To the north of us are Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Here (according to a table given in the highly valuable and interesting work of the Danish antiquary, Worsaae*) we find altogether 47 Danish-Norwegian places, namely, 36 in the former, and 11 in the latter. In Lincolnshire and The Danes and Northmen in England. |