169 



CHARLEMAGNE. 



CHARLES I. 



110 



CHARLEMAGNE, KARL DER GROSS, or Charles the Great, son 

 of Pepin le Bref, king of the Franks, and of Bertha, daughter o 

 Caribert, count of Laon, and grandson of Charles Martel, was born 

 about 742 in the castle of Salzburg in Bavaria, a country which Pepin 

 had conquered, as well as part of Saxony. Pepin died in 768, am 

 Charles and Karlomann, his sons, succeeded to the vast dominions of 

 the Franks. Charles had Austrasia and Neustria, with part o: 

 Germany ; Karlomann had Burgundy and South Gaul. Karlomam: 

 died in 771, leaving two infant sons, but Charles possessed himself o 

 his dominions; and Karlomann's widow, with her children, took 

 refuge at the court of Desiderius, king of the Longobards. Charles 

 was now sovereign of the whole Frankish monarchy, which extendec 

 not only over the present France, but also over nearly one-half o: 

 Germany. The Franks were still, in a great measure, a German 

 nation ; and the native language of Charles was a dialect of the Teu- 

 tonic. In 772 Charles began his wars against the Saxons, which 

 continued with various interruptions till S03. Witikind, the principal 

 chief of the Saxons, a cunning and brave barbarian, gave him full 

 employment for many years. The Saxons were Pagans, and Charles 

 and his Franks seem to have felt little scruple in massacreing them 

 by thousands, even after they had laid down their arms. In 774 

 Charles being applied to by Pope Adrian I. against Desiderius, king oi 

 the Longobards, who threatened Rome, hastened from Germany to 

 Italy, crossed the Alps by the pass of Susa, defeated Desiderius at 

 Pavia, and took him prisoner. He assumed the crown of Lombardy, 

 and confirmed Pepin's donation of the Exarchate of Ravenna and the 

 Pentapolis to the Pope, who on his part acknowledged Charles as 

 Patrician of Rome and Suzerain of Italy, with the right of confirming 

 the election of the popes. In 775 Charles proceeded again to Germany 

 against the Saxons. In the following year he returned to Italy to 

 quell some insurrections ; in 773 he went to Spain against the Sara- 

 cens, and conquered part of Catalonia, Aragon, and Navarre ; but on 

 recrossing the Pyrenees, his rear guard was defeated at Roncesvalles 

 by the Vaseones and the Saracens united. Several nobles of Charles's 

 court fell on that day, among whom was Roland, warden of the 

 borders of Brittany, 'Proefeetus Brittannici Limenis," who has become 

 the hero of many a romantic tale. In 730 Witikind having defeated 

 several bodies of Franks, Charles found it necessary to visit Germany 

 again in person ; and after several sanguinary campaigns, Witikind 

 was obliged to submit and receive baptism. The alternative of death 

 or Christianity wag held out to thousands of the Saxons, who gene- 

 rally preferred the latter; and Charles, by transplanting whole colonies 

 of them into remote parts of France or Italy, broke their strength. 

 Tassilo, duke of Bavaria, a feudatory of the Frankish monarchs, 

 having assisted or connived at Witikind's incursions, Charles invaded 

 Bavaria, and brought the duke before the diet of the great lords 

 assembled at Ingelheim, where Tassilo was found guilty of treason 

 and condemned to death. Charles spared his life, but had him con- 

 fined in a convent in 794. As for Witikind he lived the rest of his 

 days in peace, on his domains in the north of Germany, and his 

 posterity is said to be perpetuated in the House of Oldenburg, the 

 stock of the present reigning houses of Denmark and Russia. 



In the year 800 Charles being victorious everywhere, and master 

 of the best part of Europe, visited Rome, where ho was solemnly 

 crowned Emperor of the West by Pope Leo III., with the title of 

 Carolus I. Caesar Augustus. He was called by the historians Carolus 

 Magnus, from which the French have made Charlemagne; German 

 writers call him Karl der Gross. Nicephorus I., emperor of Con- 

 stantinople, sent an embassy to Charles by which he acknowledged 

 him Emperor of the West, with the title of Augustus, defining at the 

 same time the limits between the two empires, which seem to have 

 been the Raab in Hungary, and the mountains of Carniola down to 

 the Gulf of Istria ; and in Italy, the old boundary between the duchy 

 of Benevento, and the Greek possessions in Apulia and Magna Grecia. 

 Charlemagne had therefore Germany, the Netherlands, the Gauls, the 

 greater part of Italy and Spain as far as the Ebro, with the Balearic 

 Islands, Corsica, and Sardinia. From the Ebro to the mouth of the 

 Elbe, from the Atlantic to the mountains of Bohemia and the Raab, 

 and from the British Channel to the Volturno was the extent of his 

 dominions. He was on good terms with the Saxon kings of Britain. 

 The, kalifs of Baghdad sent embassies to him. Bohemia, which was 

 then inhabited by Slavonian tribes, he never subjugated. About 807 

 or 808, the first mention occurs in history of the Normans and Danes 

 making descents on the coast of France. Charlemagne seems to have 

 felt the danger of this new enemy, for he took great pains to fortify 

 the extensive coast-line of his dominions; he stationed armed vessels 

 in every harbour, and made Boulogne one of his principal naval 

 stations. In 813 Charlemagne named his third son Louis, called after- 

 wards Louis le Ddbonnaire, his colleague in the empire. He had lost 

 his two elder sons, Pepin and Charles; but he appointed Bernard, the 

 son of Charles, kin;; of Italy. In January 814, Charlemagne died of 

 pleurisy at Aix-la Chapelle after a reign of forty-seven years. He was 

 buried with great pomp in the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle. 



Charlemagne may be considered the principal regenerator of 

 Western Europe after the destruction of the Roman empire. He was 

 ambitions, but his ambition was of an enlarged kind, and led to great 

 and useful result). He wan not merely a successful conqueror, but a 

 statesman and a legislator ; and his mind appears wonderfully enlight- 

 BIOO. DIV. VOL. II 



ened when contrasted witli the barbarism that surrounded him. He 

 was the first to enforce obedience and discipline among the turbuleut 

 Franks, and he effectually curbed the insubordination of his vassals, 

 which his father Pepin had been unable to subdue. He was the 

 founder of the Germanic empire, having transformed tribes of lawless 

 barbarians, such as the Saxons, the Bavarians, the Frisians, &c., into a 

 federation of civilised nations. His predecessors, Charles Martel and 

 Pepin, had checked the advance of the Saracens on the side of the 

 Pyrenees ; Charlemagne drove them back beyond the Ebro. His 

 overthrow of the Longobards in Italy has been viewed in various 

 lights by party historians. He has been considered by some as having, 

 by his alliance with the popes, favoured the encroachments of their 

 spiritual power over temporal affairs. But it ought to be observed 

 that in his lifetime at least he always asserted the superiority of the 

 empire over the church in temporal matters, that he crowned himself 

 king of Italy, and that even at Rome the laws were proclaimed in his 

 name ('Imperante Domino nostro Carolo'), and the coin bore his 

 stamp. Other writers have assumed that the overthrow of the Longo- 

 bards was a misfortune to Italy, because they have fancied that their 

 power was likely to effect that union of the peninsula which has been 

 the favourite visiou of the Italians ia all ages. But that union, had it 

 been possible, was more likely to be effected by a sovereign like 

 Charlemagne, who ruled singly and firmly over his vassals, and who 

 was acknowledged as emperor of the West and successor to the Caesars, 

 than by an elective king like that of the Longobards, who was every 

 moment at variance either with some one of the numerous dukes, who 

 ruled absolutely each his respective territory, or with the Greek empe- 

 rors, who still retained nearly one-half of Italy. Besides, it ought not 

 to be forgotten that the Longobards, even under their best kings, 

 always retained a broad distinction between themselves the conquerors, 

 and the Romans or conquered race. This humiliating and often 

 oppressive distinction Charlemagne abolished, and by so doing he in 

 fact emancipated the original Italian population from bondage. Those 

 who may wish to look further into this often mis-stated question will 

 find a sober and argumentative discussion of it in Manzoui's 'Discorso 

 storico sopra alcuni punti della Storia Longobardica in Italia,' which 

 accompanies his historical drama of 'Adelchi.' Charlemagne pro- 

 moted instruction by the only means then known, by founding monas- 

 teries and endowing churches with schools attached to them. He 

 enacted a series of regulations upon civil and ecclesiastical matters 

 which may be considered as forming a code of laws. He often assem- 

 bled diets of the great lords and bishops, and cousulted them upon 

 important matters, thus showing a deference to the opinion of the 

 only classes that had then any pretensions to education. Upon the 

 same principle, he favoured the clergy as being the only scholars of 

 that age. Alcuiu, Paulus Diaconus, and other learned men, were 

 honoured with his favour. He was easy of access to the humble and 

 poor, and showed himself just and merciful towards them. He was, 

 on the contrary, at times harsh and cruel to his enemies and to his 

 rebellious subjects, whom he treated in the same manner that they 

 treated their own enemies or dependents. His first wife was Hermen- 

 garda, daughter of Desiderius, king of the Longobardi, whom he repu- 

 diated after a twelvemonth, with the pope's approbation, to marry 

 Ildegerda, a German princess, by whom he had most of his numerous 

 children. After her death he married successively Fastrada and Lut- 

 ;arda. He had also several natural children. 



(Eginhard, Vita Caroli Magni, in Duchesne's Rerum Francorum, 

 Scriptorei, where are also Annales de Geitia Caroli Magni, and Fray- 

 menta de Rebu O'ettis Caroli Magni cum Hums et Slavis, both by 

 anonymous writers. Eginhard was a contemporary of Charlemagne, 

 and one of his favourites. See also Struve, Rerum Germanicarum 

 Scriptorel, torn, i., and the other numerous French and German 

 historians.) 



CHARLES I., King of England, the third son of James I. and 

 Anne, daughter of Frederick II., king of Denmark, was born at Dun- 

 ermline, in Fifeshire, North Britain, on the 19th of November 1600. 

 James's second son, Robert, having died in infancy, and his eldest, 

 Prince Henry, in his nineteenth year, in 1612, Charles became heir- 

 apparent to the crown. He was not however created Prince of Wales 

 ill the 1st (other authorities say the 4th) of November 1616. His 

 ;itle before this was Duke of York and Cornwall. 



Almost the only transaction in which Charles figured before he 

 ascended the throne was the extraordinary expedition to Spain made 

 it the suggestion and in the company of the Duke of Buckingham, iu 

 ;he year 1 623, to conclude in person the negociations for his marriage 

 with the Infanta Maria, a business which had occupied his father for 

 nearly the preceding seven years. The affair was probably prevented 

 rom being brought to the intended,conclusiou by this very journey. 

 After it was broken off, Charles and his father directed their views to 

 a French match, the uegociation for which was in progress when James 

 died, on the 27th of March 1625. The new king's marriage with the 

 ?rincess Henrietta .Maria, the youngest daughter of Henri IV., was 

 iolemnised by proxy, at Paris, on tho 1 1th of May. 



At the accession of Charles, circumstances and the minds of men 

 vere ripe for a renewal of that struggle between the popular and the 

 monarchical principles of the constitution which his predecessor had 

 with difficulty put down, when it broke out in the parliament assem- 

 >led in 1620. Charles began his reign by retniuiug as his chief adviser 



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