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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Armenia

ARMENIA (see ).—The years between 1914 and 1921 are, perhaps, the most important of any in the modern history of the Armenian people. The bloodless Turkish revolution of 1908, followed by the assembling of a representative Parliament, opened a period in which, for a time, racial animosities seemed to have disappeared from the greater part of the Ottoman Empire. Armenians hailed the change as the end of their troubles, and massacre and oppression became dim memories. They appeared content henceforward to be citizens of a reformed Turkey and anxious to bear their part in all the duties of citizenship. Some, indeed, went so far in their new-formed patriotism as to call themselves Osmanlis, seeking to make a national name of the term hitherto used only by Turkish Moslems—a term embodying in the past the very spirit of Turkish conquest and oppression. Nor was it merely the rank and file of the Armenian people who so readily accepted the prospect of a new Turkey. Leaders of Armenian revolutionary societies—organizations whose purpose was to achieve Armenian independence, the Hunchakists by constitutional means, the Dashnakists by violence—themselves believed that the Young Turk movement deserved well of the Armenian people, and that the revolution should receive Armenian support. We need not enquire too closely into the causes of this sudden confidence. The Young Turks possessed, as yet, little experience in organization; they were deficient in means: they therefore courted leading Armenians and the Armenian secret societies, from which sources, to some extent, experience and financial aid could be obtained. On their part Armenians held that any change which diminished the power of the Sultan ‛Abdul Hamid and his creatures was so much to the good; and their leaders felt themselves competent to use the Young Turks for Armenian ends, and to go with them only so far as Armenian interests required. It is, indeed, a singular fact that the Young Turks and the Dashnakists continue to find some degree of usefulness in each other to the present time.

Cilician Massacres.—But disillusionment on the part of the Armenian people in general was not long delayed. The first free Ottoman Parliament met on Dec. 27 1908: in April 1909 massacre broke out at Adana, in the rich Cilician plain. After the first outbreak troops of the Young Turk army were hurriedly brought from Salonika, and the affair seemed to have been stamped out by the promptitude of the Government. But after a few days it flared up again, in consequence, it is stated, of Armenians having fired on the soldiery, who thereupon took an active part in the work of killing and burning. From Adana massacre spread to various towns of the vilayet of Adana, and into northern Syria, particularly at Antioch, Kirk Khan, and Mar‛ash. Though thousands perished in the towns, a greater number were slaughtered in remote villages and on lonely roads; for it was the time when Armenians from the mountains were on their way to the annual harvesting on the fertile Cilician plain. It is believed that in all not less than 20,000 lost their lives in this unexpected and disastrous outbreak.

Origins of the Cilician Massacre of 1909.—The origins of these massacres remain obscure; that some form of official prompting lay behind them, however, cannot be doubted. Not

once but often it has been proved that Turkish authorities find no difficulty in preventing outbreaks of the kind if they choose; that, in fact, massacre is, at bottom, the result of official connivance more or less direct. The Cilician massacres have been charged to ‛Abdul Hamid and his satellites, as an effort by him to discredit the government of the Young Turks. They have been charged to the Young Turks, as an effort by them to discredit ‛Abdul Hamid, who had been deposed on April 9—just one week before the affair at Adana. Notwithstanding the vehement disavowal of complicity by the Government, and their ostentatious endeavours to compensate sufferers and provide for orphaned Armenians; notwithstanding the Turkish Commission of Inquiry, and the impartial hanging of Moslems and Armenians, time brings the guilt home more and more definitely to Young Turk leaders.

That the Armenians of Cilicia were blameless cannot be maintained. After the first fraternal demonstrations of the revolution they had adopted a manner toward their Moslem fellow citizens provocative and unwise beyond belief. They had indulged in Armenian national processions, displaying the flag of an independent Armenia; had publicly boasted that Cilicia itself was soon to become an independent Armenia; had insulted and beaten Moslems in the streets of Adana. To the fatal influence of these follies were added the economic facts that Armenian land-owners, already in possession of the richest areas of the Cilician plain, were rapidly increasing their holdings; and that the Armenian population prospered and multiplied while the Moslem population declined. The Moslems of Cilicia, indeed, were gloomily brooding over Armenian affronts to their patriotism, and economic Armenian encroachments on their position as the dominant and ruling race. These matters combined formed a mass of highly inflammable material.

Armenian Political Position.—As the Young Turk Government consolidated itself, and its control passed finally into the hands of the Subterranean Committee of Union and Progress, so the prospect of Armenians receiving equal treatment within the Empire disappeared. Armenian representation in Parliament was curtailed by means both direct and indirect. The total number of Armenians who might sit in the Chamber was arbitrarily fixed, irrespective of election results. The lists of voters were compiled under conditions that weighed against Armenians obtaining the vote in the proportion to which their numbers entitled them. In common with other Ottoman Christians the place of Armenians in the State became, in effect, that of undesirable aliens.

Turkish Wars of 1911-3.—The Italo-Turkish War of 1911-2 passed without changing the Armenian position. Nor did the first Balkan War, 1912-3, greatly affect the race except as to military service. During these wars it seemed, indeed, that massacre did not suit the policy of the Government, the desire being to stand well with the Powers. None therefore took place. In the Balkan War, however, military service fell heavily upon the Armenian subjects of the Empire for the first time. They were not permitted to serve forming Armenian units, but were distributed throughout the army; and the most laborious and dangerous duties are said to have been assigned them as a matter of policy. In these circumstances desertions were numerous, as might have been expected. But with none of the incentives usually prompting the soldier to high performance, with everything, indeed, against them, the Armenian elements, as a whole, earned the commendation of Nazim Pasha, the Turkish commander-in-chief, who declared in one of his

that the Armenian soldiers had performed their duty loyally and with courage.

Attempts by the Powers to ameliorate the political situation of the Armenian people were continued after the close of the Balkan War. Agreement with the Turkish Government seemed promising at the beginning of 1914, on the basis of an increased number of Armenian deputies for the Ottoman Parliament, and for the supervision of Ottoman officials in the “Six Vilayets” of Eastern Turkey-in-Asia by two European inspectors general to be selected by the Powers. There was also to be equal representation of Moslems and Christians on the councils of the vilayets of Van and Bitlis, in which districts the Armenian population was presumed to equal the Moslem. But the proposed reforms came to nothing. The Young Turk Government already had prevision of great events to come, and were temporizing in anticipation of developments.

The World War.—Between Oct. 29 and Nov. 5 1914, the action of the Young Turk Government resulted in war being declared on Turkey by Great Britain, Russia, France and Serbia. In committing their country to support of the Germanic Powers the Young Turk leaders saw, as they thought, the great occasion for recovering lost Turkish provinces and reestablishing the Ottoman Empire on the widest foundations, with corresponding advantage to themselves. They believed that with Germanic support they were speculating in certainties. They resolved to use the fortunate opportunity thus presenting itself for making an end of Ottoman internal difficulties as they saw them. Chief among these was the question of the Christian people, of Asia Minor, the Ottoman Greeks and the Armenians, who cherished national aspirations incompatible with Ottoman sovereignty. The “Turkification” of the whole population of Asia Minor the creation of a single homogeneous race for this great area was the underlying purpose.

Policy of Massacre and Deportation.—How the policy for dealing with the Armenian part of the question took form we do not know. Probably Tal‛at Pasha and Enver Pasha had as much to do with it as any—Tal‛at at least is credited with its application—but they only sought to follow, on a greater scale, the example set in past years by ‛Abdul Hamid. A preposterous and cynical scheme of compulsory colonization as part of the policy has been attributed to German theorists; but it was not even a mask except as affording greater opportunities for destroying the Armenian population. Described in a few words the policy was that of deportation coupled with extermination. The Armenian race was to be uprooted from the wide territories of Asia Minor beyond hope of continuance or return. From convenient areas those of the people able to march were to be deported to Mesopotamia and eastern Syria. Being an industrious and prolific race they might, in Mesopotamia, at least, do something toward creating a profitable, taxpaying province in place of one requiring incessant Ottoman outlay. Armenians from provinces too distant for deportation to be practicable were to be exterminated or driven to a fugitive existence.

Statistics of Armenian Population.—The following figures show the numbers and distribution of the Armenian race in Trans-Caucasia and Asia Minor, the destruction of which, or at least of the portion contained in Ottoman territory, was to be encompassed. In Russian Armenia the figures are those of the Russian census of 1916. For the Turkish vilayets they are, in the absence of any authoritative and reliable statistics, an exhaustive and impartial estimate for the period immediately before the war:—

The six Armenian Vilayets of Asia Minor in 1914.

The Policy in Execution.—It is unnecessary to follow in detail the execution of the infamous policy for the destruction of the Armenian population of Asia Minor. Suffice to say it was begun soon after the outbreak of war by concocting reports of Armenian revolutionary plots in support of the Allied Powers; and then, as far as possible, by a general disarmament of Ottoman Armenians. Though British operations in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, and Russian operations against the eastern vilayets, kept the Turks occupied in a military sense, they did not prevent Turkish activity against Armenians. During the spring and summer of 1915, indeed, when the fate of Constantinople and Turkey hung in the balance and inhabitants of the Imperial City daily scanned the Sea of Marmora for signs of an approaching British fleet, the Young Turk Government prosecuted their Armenian policy with the utmost rigour. But when the Gallipoli operations had plainly failed, and the outcome of the war was thought to be no longer in doubt, a Turkish defeat in Russian Armenia, attributed by Enver Pasha to the Armenians, was revenged upon the race by massacres of even greater ferocity. From first to last they were organized and carried out systematically. Massacres on the largest scale took place at Bitlis, Mush, Sivas, Kharput, Trebizond—wherever, in fact, a considerable and more or less defenceless Armenian population existed. The people were butchered in masses, butchered in groups, drowned in the Black Sea and in rivers, burnt in buildings—killed by whatever processes were found most ready and convenient. Girls were placed in Turkish harems. It should not be supposed, however, that no resistance was offered, that the Armenian people sold their lives cheaply. Although supposed to have been disarmed, weapons remained, and on numberless occasions, in untold villages and towns, a hopeless resistance inflicted severe losses on the attackers.

Deportation, too, became an easy indirect means of destroying Armenian life. On the long routes of eastern Asia Minor by which movement took place; on the subsidiary roads leading to these routes; at the great concentration centres on which the columns of suffering humanity were directed, the Armenian people died of hunger, exhaustion, exposure, disease, in tens of thousands, perhaps in hundreds of thousands. Only a comparatively small proportion of those who set out reached the destination assigned them. The policy of transferring an Armenian population to Mesopotamia and Syria became in execution a wholesale means for destroying those who were despatched.

Estimated Loss of Armenian Life.—The Armenian policy of the Young Turks failed, however, in that part of Turkey-in-Asia lying between Erzerum and Bitlis and the Russian frontier. In this region, where the Armenian inhabitants were comparatively numerous, they were able to pass into Trans-Caucasia, or were preserved by the advance of the Russian armies. Within the stricken areas of Asia Minor, too, many escaped many more than are generally supposed. Kurdish tribes gave friendly shelter; even Turks were not without compassion; the nature of the country, itself, afforded opportunities for escape and concealment on a large scale. And in the Anti-Taurus mountains were Armenian fastnesses unreached by Turkish forces.

Armenian estimates of the losses suffered by their people as the result of the Young Turk measures are liable to be excessive. It is in the nature of things that they should be. But if we place the loss of life directly and indirectly caused by massacre and deportation since the year 1914 as being in the neighbourhood of three-quarters of a million we cannot be very far from the truth. In addition are what may be called the legitimate losses of war, and these, in proportion to the manhood of the Armenian race, were enormous.

As regards the Armenian population, not only of Asia Minor, but of Trans-Caucasia as well, from first to last Russia is believed to have sent 160,000 Armenian troops from Trans-Caucasia to her battle-fronts in Europe, of whom less than 30,000 survived. For operations in Asia Minor she subsequently raised an Armenian volunteer army, and swept into it refugees from Turkish territory. From 1914 to 1921 Armenians were

fighting incessantly in Asia—for Russia; for the French in Cilicia and Syria, where many thousands were embodied; and for themselves in Trans-Caucasia. Probably not less than one-sixth of the males of the whole race perished in warfare, in addition to loss by massacre and deportation.

Russian Policy.—A brief outline must now be given of the military operations of Tsarist Russia against the Ottoman Empire during 1914-6, for they deeply affected Armenia and the Armenians. For more than two centuries it had been the traditional policy of Russia to obtain possession of Constantinople and the waterway between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. In the last 40 years she had seen her line of approach through the Balkan Peninsula made impracticable. Correspondingly her line of approach from Trans-Caucasia had gained immensely in importance. She had further established her naval supremacy in the Black Sea over any Turkish force that could be concentrated in those waters. With this as her policy, and in these circumstances, Russia, both openly and covertly, opposed all measures encouraging the development of Armenian national sentiment and aspirations, not only among the Armenian population under her rule in Trans-Caucasia, but also in Turkish Armenia. Tsarist Russia, in fact, desired Armenians in Turkey to remain a discordant disintegrating element in the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the eastern vilayets, until such time as she should be able to make further annexations. An independent Armenia, it thus appears, was impracticable during the existence of Tsarist Russia.

When war broke out between the Allied Powers and Turkey Russia recognized that the supreme opportunity for achieving her dearest ambition had arrived. Following the decision of the British and French Governments to send a military expedition to the Dardanelles, she made a formal request to her Allies that her claim to possession of Constantinople and the Straits at the conclusion of the war should be admitted in advance. A week later the Western Powers agreed to the proposal, and the destiny of the greatest strategical position in the world, and with it the destiny of Armenia, seemed to be definitely settled.

Russian Invasion of Turkish Armenia, 1914.—Russian troops crossed the frontiers on Nov. 4 1914, two days after the declaration of war, and advanced towards the great Turkish fortress of Erzerum. But the movement had no weight; it ceased after a few weeks of indecisive fighting, and the Turks launched a daring counter-offensive against Ardahan and Kars, in Russian Armenia. This reckless movement was ended, however, by the battle of Sarikamish (Dec. 29 1914 to Jan. 1 1915) at which, and at the battle of Kara Urgan in the subsequent retreat, the Turkish army was almost destroyed. In revenge for the disaster, attributed by Enver Pasha and the Young Turks to Armenian elements in the Russian army, and to support and intelligence given by Armenians generally, exterminatory measures against the Armenian population of Asia Minor were redoubled at the beginning of April 1915. It was at this stage that the British and French Governments issued (May 24 1915) a declaration that they would hold Ottoman ministers personally responsible for the massacres.

Armenian Troops in the Russian Armies.—Here it may be remarked that when Russia mobilized in Aug. 1914 for the World War, her Armenian troops, numbering, it is said, more than 120,000 men, were despatched to European fronts. When war with Turkey demanded great armies in Trans-Caucasia these troops were not available. But as a matter of policy Russia raised an auxiliary volunteer army of Armenians, including many thousands of refugees from Asia Minor, for service against the mortal enemy of their race. To these and other Armenians in the Russian armies of Trans-Caucasia—natives of the region, inured to its climatic conditions, between them familiar with every road and mountain path, and animated by every incentive to fierce and resolute combat must be credited no small measure of the success which attended Russian arms against the Turks. Not without cause did Turkish leaders attribute their Caucasian disasters to their Armenian enemies.

Capture of Erzerum.—Stagnation followed on the Erzerum front for more than a year after the battle of Sarikamish. But during the spring and summer of 1915 a Russian army, operating in the neighbourhood of Lake Van, invaded and occupied the greater part of the Turkish vilayets of Van and Bitlis, peopled largely by Armenians. This southern campaign, however, had no serious importance except to distract Turkish attention and save an Armenian population. The one line of military advance from Trans-Caucasia into Asia Minor lay through Erzerum; and Russia was preparing for an unexpected spring upon this eastern bulwark of Anatolia. A great Russian army, including Siberian and Armenian troops, was concentrated within striking distance of the Erzerum position in the middle of winter. It advanced on Jan. 11 1916, and two weeks later had reached the outposts of the fortress, a march of some 80 m., with guns and supplies, through deep snow, at high altitudes, in temperatures often below zero. On Feb. 14-16 various commanding mountain forts, the main defences of Erzerum, some of them 9,000 ft. above sea-level, were taken by storm. The city was captured on Feb. 16—its fall a resounding disaster for the Ottoman Empire.

Invasion of Anatolia.—When the spring of 1916 came the Russians continued their operations westward, and by the end of July had captured the Black Sea port of Trebizond and the important military position of Erzinjan. They had reached a line about 30 m. west of Erzinjan, stretching from the Black Sea to the Euphrates and thence eastward to Lake Van and the Persian frontier, a line embracing the chief areas of Armenian population in Asia Minor. The line so held was nearly the same as that subsequently awarded by President Wilson as the western and southern frontiers of Armenia.

The Russian Collapse.—But this was Russia's farthest. She was weakening at home, where symptoms of upheaval were already appearing. On March 14 1917, a Provisional Government was proclaimed; the Tsar abdicated the following day; in September Russia was a republic, and on Nov. 17 Lenin and Trotsky seized the reins of power. The Treaty of Brest Litovsk, in which Germany imposed terms on her beaten and exhausted enemy, was signed on March 3 1918. The armed forces of Russia engaged in the war in western Asia lost their fighting value in 1917. The fleet at Sevastopol mutinied in June of that year and removed its officers; and the armies in Asia Minor were in process of disintegration at the same time. When the treaty of Brest Litovsk was signed these armies were only held together by the great personal influence of the Grand Duke Nicholas, viceroy and commander-in-chief in Caucasia, but had already voluntarily retired behind the Russo-Turkish frontier of 1914.

Treaty of Brest Litovsk.—In the Treaty of Brest Litovsk Turkish claims were not overlooked, in fact the treaty gave fulfilment to some of the wider ambitions which had developed in the Young Turk party. It provided, in effect, that between Russia and Turkey the frontiers should be those existing prior to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8; under this provision, therefore, the old provinces of Ardahan, Kars and Batum were to be returned to Turkey. Of these, Ardahan and Kars formed part of Russian Armenia, or Erivan.

Even prior to the signing of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk Turkey had been able to take advantage of the growing weakness of Russia. As early as Aug. 1916 she had recaptured the towns of Mush and Bitlis. But immediately after the signature of the Treaty she pushed her troops forward and between March 12 1918 and April 27 reoccupied in rapid succession Erzerum, Sarikamish, Van, Batum and Kars. The liberation of Turkish Armenia by Russia had failed, and the disaster involved the return to Turkish rule of a large part of Russian Armenia. The only hope for the Armenian people now lay in themselves in whatever of wise prevision, unity and sacrifice they could command.

Federal Republic of Trans-Caucasia.—Steps in the right direction had, indeed, already been taken. The approaching collapse of Russia became apparent to Trans-Caucasian people

early in 1917. On Sept. 20 1917 a Council of the Trans-Caucasian Peoples—of Armenia, Azerbäïjän and Georgia—assembled at Tiflis, proclaimed Trans-Caucasia a Federal Republic, and formed a Provisional Government. When Turkey, after the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, proceeded to overrun western Trans-Caucasia this Government attempted to negotiate a peace but found the endeavour fruitless. Not only were the Turkish leaders obdurate but the republic had no real unity among its parts. Azerbäïjän, with a Moslem population, though desirous enough of maintaining its independence, saw no great danger in Turkey recovering lost provinces at the expense of the Christian Armenians of Erivan; Erivan feared veiled annexation by Georgia under the guise of federation; and all three peoples were widely at variance upon questions of territory to which each thought itself entitled.

On April 13 1918 the Federal Republic broke off relations with Turkey and declared war, two days later the Turks occupied Batum, and on April 22 the Council of the Republic decided to proclaim its independence, but also to resume negotiations with Turkey for peace. With such waverings of policy the republic was likely to be short-lived.

The end came even sooner than was expected. On May 26 1918 the three states of the republic fell apart, each declaring its independence as a separate republic, and organizing a national Government of its own.

Armenian Republic of Erivan.—We now reach the point where the story of Armenia, hitherto the story of a dispersed people without a country, crystallizes into a story of an independent Armenian state—a state born to misfortune and bloodshed, surrounded by enemies, and inaccessible to its friends, a state whose survival and growth are matters more for hope than for confidence.

The territory of the republic of Erivan, excluding the districts in dispute with the adjoining republics of Georgia and Azerbäïjän, comprised the two Russian provinces of Erivan and Kars, possessing an area of some 17,500 sq. miles. By the census of 1916 these provinces contained, in round figures, a population of 1,510,000 of whom 795,000 were Armenians, 575,000 Moslems, and 140,000 of various other races. But the effective territory and population of the Erivan Republic were even less at the time its independence was declared, for nearly one-third of its whole area was in Turkish occupation under the terms of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk. De facto recognition, however, was accorded the republic by the Allied Powers.

Outside the confines of the state so indicated lay other territories claimed by it, but claimed also by Georgia or Azerbäïjän. Rather more than 2,000 sq. m. were thus in dispute with Georgia, and some 12,000 with Azerbäïjän. The census of 1916 gave the disputed areas a population of about 900,000 equally divided between Armenians and Moslems. Part of the area claimed both by Erivan and Azerbäïjän were the mountainous districts of Zangezur and Karabagh, peopled by Armenian highlanders, perhaps the finest representatives of their race. These, however, were separated from Erivan by an area in which a Moslem population predominated.

At best the territory occupied by the republic was an unfruitful region of treeless mountains and valleys containing little cultivated land, few resources, and a people reduced to the edge of poverty. Even in time of peace it had raised barely sufficient food for the needs of its thrifty population, but now when 400,000 refugees had poured into it, chiefly from Turkish Armenia, the question of supplies became more and more acute. The existence of the republic, indeed, was eventually affected by the difficulty of obtaining supplies, not only of food but of munitions and fuel.

But the republic was faced with many other difficulties, some external, others internal; the greater number immeasurably intensified by the country's unfortunate geographical position. Erivan was, in fact, an Asiatic Switzerland, though far more remote from the sea and more inaccessible. The only line of railway communication towards the western world ran through Georgian territory to the Black Sea port of Batum, the only roadway to the sea was also through Georgia to Batum. And

Batum at this time was in the hands of the Turks, and the Allies were still shut out from the Black Sea.

External difficulties were the active and veiled hostility of neighbouring states. Between Erivan and Turkey was the traditional hatred of Armenian and Turk, now inflamed to the desperation of a life-and-death struggle. Between Erivan and Azerbäïjän was the standing enmity of Armenian and Moslem, given definite point by the massacre of Armenians at Baku some 15 years earlier, and of Moslems by Armenians during the months following the declaration of Armenian independence. There was also the acute question of territory in dispute, accompanied by incessant border fighting. Between Erivan and Georgia trouble, at the moment, was chiefly upon opposing territorial claims. Another hostile external influence was, a little later, exerted by Gen. Denikin and his supporters, who aimed at destroying the independence of the Caucasian republics and reuniting them to a resurrected Russia.

Internal difficulties, apart from poverty and questions of the supply of food, clothing, munitions and medical stores, were caused, also, by the absence of administrative experience among Armenian leaders and the sinister influence wielded by the Dashnakists. This Armenian secret revolutionary society held an extreme socialism; it was thus to a large extent in sympathy with the Bolsheviks of Russia. At the same time it stood for an aggressive military policy by the Erivan Republic and the extension of territory at the expense of adjoining states.

British Expedition to Baku.—Operations which might have had far-reaching results for Erivan and other Caucasian states led to the occupation of Baku in the republic of Azerbäïjän, on July 28 1918, by a small British force. It had come from Mesopotamia through Persia, and thence up the Caspian Sea—a hazardous expedition intended to prevent, if possible, the despatch of German or Turkish detachments from Caucasia into Central Asia, and to open communications with the Caucasian republics. It had relied upon receiving local Armenian support at Baku, but this hope failed owing to the extreme war-weariness of the Armenian population. The Turkish troops which had already entered Azerbäïjän received reënforcements early in September, and then attacked the town and compelled the British force to reëmbark on Sept. 15.

Armistice of Mudros.—The Armistice of Mudros, signed on Oct. 30 1918, ended hostilities between the Allied Powers and Turkey. Better days seemed now to be in sight for the Armenian race. Turkey was crushed, the Young Turk Government had fallen into disrepute, the chief leaders were in flight, and it was the avowed purpose of the Allies to free the subject races of the Ottoman Empire from Turkish rule. The Armistice contained conditions that speedily relieved the position for Armenians. The Straits were opened, Allied warships reached Caucasian ports and Allied and American relief work was begun. Trans-Caucasia was to be evacuated by Turkish troops, an Allied garrison placed in Batum and elsewhere if necessary, and Armenian prisoners-of-war and interned Armenians released forthwith. Another clause provided for Allied occupation, in whole or part, of the six Armenian vilayets of Asia Minor in case of disturbances arising.

War Between Georgia and Erivan, 1919.—The collapse of Germany and the Armistice of Nov. 11 1918, marking the complete victory of the Western Powers, seemed to promise the eventual creation of an Armenian state containing a majority of the race. But with Turkish occupation ended the Caucasian republics fell out more seriously among themselves. In spite of Allied efforts to prevent hostilities war broke out between Georgia and Erivan in Jan. 1919; fighting also continued between the Armenians of Karabagh and Moslems of Azerbäïjän. At this time, too, the intrigues attending Gen. Denikin's movement went far to embroiling the republics. These unfortunate struggles did not, however, last long, nor were military operations undertaken on a serious scale, but the old causes of enmity remained, increased now between Georgia and Erivan by disputes regarding use of the Batum-Erivan railway, and the customs dues levied by Georgia on goods for Erivan.

Paris Peace Conference.—On Jan. 19 1919 the Peace Conference at Paris began its deliberations, from which, when Eastern problems could be reached, it was hoped that a satisfactory settlement of Armenian affairs might emerge. Each of the Caucasian republics was permitted a delegation to lay its claims before the Conference. Meanwhile the Supreme Council, acting as an executive body, despatched an Allied High Commissioner to Erivan to compose, if possible, the urgent differences between the rival republics.

Armenians of Erivan had agreed to join Armenians of Turkey in seeking the creation of a single Armenian state; the Armenian delegation at Paris therefore represented the whole Armenian race. The claim advanced by the delegation was, in brief, that to Erivan should be added the eastern districts of Asia Minor in which a considerable Armenian population had existed prior to 1914, and that these districts should include Cilicia as being the “Lesser Armenia” of mediaeval history.

But this comparatively moderate proposal bristled with difficulties, and traversed principles to which the Conference professed adherence. Ancient and mediaeval history offered feeble arguments for the recovery of territory from a race which could show effective occupation for the past 400 years. Nor did any juggling with ethnological figures assist the Armenian case, for the plain fact remained that in no vilayet of Asia Minor, even before the massacres and deportations, was there an Armenian majority over Moslems. The principle of self-determination by inhabitants would therefore, if applied, destroy Armenian claims.

The Armenian case stands, indeed, on firmer ground than doubtful historical sanctions and self-determination by a mosaic of local populations. Based on justice and high expediency it becomes a cause which no amount of theory can set aside.

Stated plainly the case for Armenia put forward by the delegation was that by race, language, faith, old history, services in the Allied interest, and barbarous treatment at the hand of the Ottoman Government over a long period, the Armenian people had shown themselves entitled to separate existence as an independent nation. And further, owing to their numbers having been artificially reduced by calculated and systematic massacre, justice required that their dead should be taken into account against the principle of self-determination within any Turkish territory to be allotted to an Armenian state. Expediency lay in the prospect that by the erection of an effective Greater Armenia a definite settlement of the Armenian problem would follow a problem likely, otherwise, to remain insoluble. And yet more, that an Armenian state, extending from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, would, with Allied aid, soon become a stable, self-reliant, civilized power in the midst of one of the chief danger-zones of the world.

The chief difficulty confronting the Armenian proposal was that the state to be created could not at first stand alone. It would require large financial and military support to set it on its feet and to maintain it during the earlier years of its existence—it was doubtful even if it could police its own territory at the outset. These difficulties were to be overcome, it was hoped, by placing the proposed state in the charge of a mandatory Power.

Throughout the year 1919 and the earlier half of 1920 the prospect of finding a Power who would undertake the onerous and costly task of mandatory grew less and less favourable. It had been hoped that America would accept the responsibility. The American people had shown much sympathy with the Armenian cause; politically America was disinterested and stood outside the jealousies of European powers; her prestige was great; her resources unimpaired; to the Armenian people she would have been their first choice as mandatory power. But the American Senate rejected the offer, fearing entanglement in Old World affairs. Great Britain, France, Italy, each felt unable to undertake the position—war had left them more or less exhausted; and their peoples would not incur the certainty of additional outlay of blood and resources. The Supreme Council

proposed that Armenia should be placed under the League of Nations; the League decided that the acceptance of mandates did not fall within its purpose. And when, at a later date, Armenia applied for admission to the League membership was refused her.

Treaty of Sèvres and Armenia.—The Treaty of Sèvres, imposed upon Turkey and signed on Aug. 20 1920, provided for the creation of an enlarged Armenian state and for the settlement of its boundaries. In Caucasia they were to be adjusted by direct agreement between the states concerned or, in failure of that method, by the Allied Powers. In Turkey they were to be defined by President Wilson as arbitrator; and the Treaty bound Turkey to accept his decision, but limited the area subject to award to the whole or parts of the vilayets of Trebizond, Erzerum, Van and Bitlis. The interests of Armenians remaining in Turkish territory were safeguarded under the Protection of Minorities clauses of the Treaty.

President Wilson's Award.—The award defining the Turkish frontiers of Armenia was given by President Wilson in March 1921. It assigned to Armenia the greater part of the vilayets of Trebizond and Erzerum, and the whole of the vilayets of Bitlis and Van—in all an area of about 30,000 sq. miles. The award gave the territory essential to the creation and development of a self-supporting state. It included the greater part of the eastern districts of Asia Minor containing the bulk of the Armenian population in Turkey. It provided a coastline for the state of about 150 m., and included the historic seaport of Trebizond on which north-eastern Asia Minor depends for access to the sea. And while fulfilling these conditions it brought within Armenian territory as small a proportion of Turkish Moslems as might be.

Wrecking of the Award.—But however admirable in itself, President Wilson's decision took Armenia little further towards actual possession of the territory awarded under the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. The Peace Conference might assign the territory by treaty; the Turkish Government at Constantinople might accept and sign the treaty; and President Wilson might define the boundaries; but for Armenia to gain possession was another matter. It was on this difficulty—a difficulty to be overcome only by use of a great military force—that the fair prospect of an enlarged and independent Armenia was wrecked.

Even before the acceptance of the Treaty of Sèvres by the Constantinople Government the Turkish Nationalist movement had appeared in Asia Minor. Its chief purpose was to offer armed resistance to the execution of any treaty involving the transfer of Ottoman territory to Greece and Armenia. Whether the movement originated with the discredited Young Turk leaders or was a genuine movement recognized by them as a promising means to their own restoration to power, is not clear. But the movement grew rapidly in strength. Within a year the Nationalist Government, organized at Angora, was sovereign not only in Asia Minor, but had overshadowed the Constantinople Government and become the real rulers of the whole of Turkey. And as the movement gained in strength so the old Young Turk leaders reappeared—Tal‛at Pasha, Enver Pasha, Kemal Pasha, and others—promoting an alliance with Bolshevik Russia; urging Pan-Islamic ambitions, and apparently forming with their followers the extremist Left wing of the Nationalist movement. To suppress this rival Government, even had there been no secret concord between the two, was beyond the power of the Government at Constantinople. Nor were the Allied Powers in a position to enforce a treaty by a great new war involving vast expense. Still less was any single Power willing to undertake the task. Beaten and dismembered though the Ottoman Empire was, there still remained in Anatolia a reserve of strength, which, in combination with the great military difficulties presented by the country, and aided by Bolshevik Russia, was able to defy and thwart the decisions of the Peace Conference.

Greece, indeed, her own territorial gains at stake, and supported by the Allies, commenced military operations against the Nationalists in May 1920; and it seemed probable that the Armenian cause might benefit. The republic of Erivan

prepared to send troops into the territory assigned her by the Treaty of Sèvres, and desultory fighting occurred. Turkish strength in eastern Asia Minor, however, was too great for the small force Erivan could spare from other fronts to have any prospect of success, and no actual invasion of Turkish territory took place. Meanwhile Greek armies encountered little resistance and occupied a large area of western Asia Minor. These operations, however, in no way crushed the Nationalist power.

In Feb. 1921, Greece undertook yet greater operations; this time unsupported by the Allies, and in defiance of their wishes. She aimed at destroying the Nationalist forces and capturing Angora; but by the end of March her armies were driven back, and she found that an offensive on a vastly greater scale would be necessary to ensure success. To this yet more serious campaign she definitely committed herself in the summer of 1921.

Bolshevik Invasion of Caucasia.—To complete this historical sketch, it is only necessary to glance more particularly at the unhappy events in Caucasia and south-eastern Asia Minor during 1920-1, for in this period the tragedy of the Armenian race seemed to have reached its climax.

The Bolshevik occupation of Baku, at the close of April 1920, ended the independence of the republic of Azerbäïjän and established a Soviet Government in alliance with Moscow; it also brought Bolshevik forces into an area whence they could apply pressure to Georgia and Erivan. Bolshevik Russia and Nationalist Turkey were even now working together. Apart from strictly Bolshevik aims the common purpose existed of establishing direct communication between Russia, via Baku, and Nationalist Turkey. This could only be done through Erivan and Georgia by railway, or through Erivan by road; the republic of Erivan, in fact, completely barred both routes. In spite of Bolshevik propaganda in Erivan the people as a whole were strongly opposed to Bolshevism, and when in May Bolshevik forces in Azerbäïjän attacked Erivan they encountered a vigorous defence, and were repulsed. Moscow now endeavoured to negotiate a treaty of alliance with Erivan, but the terms offered were too severe. They included:—the right of transit through Erivan by rail for Soviet troops; the cession of the disputed districts of Karabagh, Zangezur and Nakhichevan to Bolshevik Azerbäïjän; and the control of the foreign policy of Erivan by the Moscow Soviet. Erivan refused, but in July was served with an ultimatum requiring it to evacuate the three districts just named.

The isolated republic had been in desperate straits for food, fuel for its railways, munitions and clothing for its troops; but supplies of munitions and uniforms, sent from England, reached the country just before the ultimatum was presented. For allowing the passage of these vital supplies through Georgia that republic, however, had insisted on retaining 20% of everything by way of toll.

While Soviet Russia applied pressure upon Erivan from the east, Nationalist Turkey did likewise from the west. The outcome was that the republic agreed to the occupation of Karabagh, Zangezur and Nakhichevan by Bolshevik troops, thus giving direct road communication between Azerbäïjän and Nationalist Turkey. With the very existence of Erivan thus threatened and conscious that the same danger hung over their own country the Georgian people might have been expected to make common cause with their Armenian neighbours. The danger, however, seemed to them less; they had open communication by sea and could, they thought, await developments. They mobilized troops on their frontiers; but gave no active assistance to Erivan.

Fall of Republic of Erivan.—By Sept. everything was in readiness for the next act in the tragedy. At the end of the month a Turkish Nationalist army suddenly attacked and captured Olti on the western frontier of Erivan. In the meantime Bolshevik forces in Azerbäïjän were massed along the railway skirting the northern frontier of the unfortunate Armenian Republic. An overwhelming Turkish advance was then made along the railway upon the great fortress of Kars in the heart of Erivan. Armenian troops checked the advance for a time, and

compelled a Turkish retreat, but it was only a temporary setback; Kars fell, and the advancing Nationalists captured Alexandropol in November. Bolshevik risings broke out in the capital and other towns; the resistance of the republic collapsed, and the city of Erivan was speedily occupied by Turkish troops. At this stage a Soviet Government was set up, and the republic of Erivan became, in name, a Soviet Republic in alliance with Moscow. But even so it was a republic much reduced in area. In agreement with Moscow Turkey took possession once again of the districts of Kars and Ardahan, from which the Allied Powers had ejected her in Nov. 1918; and to this territory was added enough to bring the railway from Azerbäïjän to Erzerum within Turkish possession. Only in the region of Karabagh was any vestige of Armenian independence preserved; there, indeed, the Armenian mountaineers repudiated Soviet Government and, so far, seem to have retained a precarious but independent existence.

With Turkish forces in occupation of Erivan, a state which had striven to form a Great Armenia by the acquisition of Turkish territory, massacre might have been foretold. It was hoped, however, that Soviet influence would prevent great bloodshed, but the hope had no real ground for existence. At Olti, Kars, Alexandropol, and then in the city of Erivan, massacres on a scale comparable only with those of 1915-6 took place; and if this policy was followed in the towns it was followed in the villages as well. The total loss of life cannot be estimated, but was certainly great. When the snow melted in the spring of 1921 thousands of Armenian corpses were revealed, heaped together, just as they had fallen in the closing months of 1920.

Cilicia and S.E. Asia Minor.—In Feb. 1920 Turkish Nationalist forces began serious operations against Cilicia, then in occupation by French troops as part of the French sphere of influence. They defeated various French detachments, captured the large town of Mar‛ash, and there, and elsewhere in Cilicia as opportunity offered, resumed a systematic massacre of the Armenian population. The position was the more disastrous because, relying upon French protection for the future, a great immigration of Armenians into Cilicia had taken place; it was credibly reported, indeed, that some 20,000 of the race perished in south-eastern Asia Minor during the spring of 1920. At this stage the Allied Powers, who had recently decided that Constantinople should remain in Turkish hands, threatened to reconsider their decision unless effective Turkish protection were given to non-Moslem elements of the population in Asia Minor. The warning seemed to have some effect at the time, though later developments diminished its influence.

A definite Nationalist policy lay in the Cilician operations, however haphazard and casual they may appear. The idea had been broached, chiefly among Armenians, of creating a Franco-Armenian State in south-eastern Asia Minor—of, in fact, reviving the Lesser Armenia of history, and placing it under French protection. The hope that this scheme would mature was one of the influences which brought a large Armenian population into Cilicia in 1919. Nationalist operations in this region were designed to thwart the project by exterminating the Armenians, and involving the French in irritating and costly hostilities in defence of the territory. Warfare on a small scale continued during the greater part of 1920; for not only had the French their hands full in Syria, but they were anxious to avoid pushing matters to extremes with the Nationalists. They hoped, in fact, for an arrangement.

Siege of Hajin.—One of the most unhappy affairs of the Cilician War was the siege and capture of Hajin by the Nationalists. The town, a remote Armenian stronghold among the Anti-Taurus mountains, was held by its inhabitants against all Turkish attacks until Oct. 1920. Ammunition, however, ran out; expected relief never came; and in the end the town was stormed, and the greater portion of the population, numbering several thousands, perished in the usual massacre.

French Negotiations with Nationalists.—At the beginning of 1921 the French and the Nationalists came to an agreement by which, in return for important economic concessions in

wide areas of Asia Minor, France was to vacate Cilicia. The National Assembly at Angora refused to ratify the agreement, on the grounds that it surrendered too much and obtained too little. They desired, in fact, possession of the port of Alexandretta which the French had retained. Negotiations, however, were continued. The hope that a Franco-Armenian State might be established in Cilicia had small prospect of realization unless a change should take place in French policy in these regions. (W. J. C.*)

title: 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Armenia


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240 Whiting, Abbot of Glastonbury, received a favourable character from the visitors. He had taken the oaths to the King without objection, or none is mentioned. He had acquiesced generally, in his place in the House of Lords, in Cromwell's legislation; he had been present at one reading at least of the concluding statute against the Pope's authority. In the last Parliament he had been absent on plea of ill-health; but he appointed no proxy, nor sought apparently to use on either side his legitimate influence. Cromwell's distrust was awakened by some unknown reason. An order went out for an inquiry into his conduct, which was to be executed by three of the visitors, Layton, Pollard, and Moyle. On the 16th of September they were at Reading: on the 22nd they had arrived at Glastonbury.

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text: User:Erasmo Barresi/December 2012

title: User:Erasmo Barresi/December 2012


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1539.] The Abbot was absent at a country house a mile and a half distant. They followed him, informed him of the cause of their coming, and asked him a few questions. His answers were 'nothing to the purpose;' that is to say, he confessed nothing to the visitors' purpose. He was taken back to the abbey; his private apartments were searched, and a book of arguments was found there against the King's divorce, pardons, copies of bulls, and a Life of Thomas à Becket—nothing particularly criminal, though all indicating the Abbot's tendencies. The visitors considered their discoveries 'a great matter.' The Abbot was again questioned; and this time his answers appeared to them 'cankered and traitorous.' He was placed in charge of a guard, and sent to London to the Tower, to be examined by Cromwell himself, when it was discovered that both he and the Abbot of Reading had supplied the northern insurgents with money. The occasion of his absence was taken for the dissolution of the house; and, as the first preliminary, an inventory was made of the plate, the furniture, and the money in the treasury. Glastonbury was one of the wealthiest of the religious houses. A


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242 less experienced person than Layton would have felt some surprise when he found that neither plate, jewels, nor ornaments were forthcoming sufficient for an ordinary parish church. But deceptions of this kind were too familiar to a man who had examined half the religious houses in England. He knew immediately that the abbey treasure was either in concealment or had been secretly made away with. Foreseeing the impending destruction of this establishment, the monks had been everywhere making use of their opportunities of plunder. The altar plate, in some few instances, may have been secreted from a sentiment of piety—from a desire to preserve from sacrilege vessels consecrated to holy uses. But plunder was the rule; piety was the exception. A confession of the Abbot of Barlings contains a frank avowal of the principles on which the fraternities generally acted. This good abbot called his convent into the chapter-house, and, by his own acknowledgment, addressed them thus:—

'Brethren, ye hear how other religious men be intreated, and how they have but forty shillings a piece given them and are let go. But they that have played the wise men amongst them have provided aforehand for themselves, and sold away divers things wherewith they may help themselves hereafter. And ye hear also this rumour that goeth abroad that the greater abbeys shall down also. Wherefore, by your advice, this shall be my counsel, that we do take such plate as we have, and certain of the best vestments and copes, and set them aside, and sell them if need be, and so divide the


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1539.] money coming thereof when the house is suppressed. And I promise you of my faith and conscience ye shall have your part, and of every penny that I have during my life; and thereupon,' he concluded, 'the brethren agreed thereunto.'

Had there been no discovery of treason, a less severe Government than that of Henry VIII. would have refused to tolerate conduct of this kind. Those who decline to recognize the authority of an Act of Parliament over the property of corporate bodies, cannot pretend that a right of ownership was vested in persons whose tenure, at its best and surest, was limited by their lives. For members of religious houses to make away their plate was justly construed to be felony; and the law, which was necessarily general, could not recognize exceptions on the ground of piety of motive, when such an exception would but have furnished a screen behind which indiscriminate pillage might have been carried on with impunity. The visitors had been warned to be careful, and practice had made them


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244 in means of detection. On the first day of the investigation at Glastonbury, 'a fair chalice of gold' came to light, 'with divers other parcels of plate;' all of which the abbot had concealed, committing perjury in doing so, on their previous visitation. The next day brought out more; and the day after more again. Gold and silver in vessels, ornaments, and money were discovered 'mured up in walls, vaults, and other secret places,' some hidden by the Abbot, some by the convent. Two monks who were treasurers, with the lay clerks of the vestry, were found to have been 'arrant thieves.' At length as much treasure of various sorts was recovered as would have begun a new abbey. The visitors did not trouble themselves to speculate on the abbot's intentions. He had not perhaps imitated the behaviour of the Abbot of Barlings; but, like the northern abbots, he had been hoarding a fund to subsidize insurrection, preserving the treasures of the temple to maintain the temple's defenders. The letter communicating these discoveries to the Government was written on the 28th of September. Another followed on the 2nd of October, stating that, since the despatch of the last, the visitors 'had come to the knowledge of divers


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1539.] and sundry treasons committed and done by the Abbot of Glastonbury, the certainty whereof would appear in a Book of Depositions,' which they forwarded with the accusers' names attached to their statements, 'very haut and rank treason.' The Book perhaps contained details and proofs of the connection of the Abbot with the Pilgrimage of Grace; at all events, those who desire to elevate the Abbot of Glastonbury to the rank of the martyr, confess, in doing so, their belief that he was more faithful to the Church than to the State, that he was guilty of regarding the old ways as better than the new, and that he had acted in the spirit of his belief. The Pope by his latest conduct had embittered the quarrel to the utmost. He had failed to excite a holy war against England, but three English merchants had been burnt by the Inquisition in Spain. Five more had been imprisoned and one had been tortured only for declaring that they considered Henry VIII. to be a Christian. Their properties had been confiscated, they had borne faggots and candles in a procession as san benitos, and Paul had issued a promise of indulgence to all pious Catholics who would kill an English heretic.


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The "Fuzziness" of Hoockla-Heen

HOOCKLA-HEEN half-crouched, half-knelt in the tall, dank grass. Not a motion passed over him, yet he had been there a long, long hour. In his hands he held a slender bow, with bone-barbed arrow strung in place; and he would have seemed turned to stone had it not been for the look of eagle alertness in his face. In fact, he was never more alive than at that very moment. His nostrils gave him full report of the green and growing things, of the budded willows and quaking aspens down by the edge of the low bank, of the great red raspberries thickly studding the bushes at his back, and over to the right, a dozen paces away and well hidden, he knew there must be a clump of the bright-colored but poisonous snake-flower.

His senses told him many things. He felt the moisture of the grass creeping and soaking through his moosehide trousers and chilling his knees, and by its breath on his brow he knew that the light breeze was hauling slowly around in the pale wake of the moon. And of the low hum of sound which rose from the land, his ears distinguished each component part—the rustling of the leaves and grasses, the calls of birds and squirrels and wild fowl, and the myriad noises of a vast insect life.

But chief of all was one sound which made his face grow tense with expectancy. Just before him a tangle of sticks and poles, laid together in rude order, dammed the swampy stream and formed a shallow pond. Through a break in the dam the water gurgled noisily. That, however, was not the sound which held him. From above he heard the faint, sharp slap of some object upon the earth, followed by the plump of a body into water. Then silence settled down again, and he stared steadily at the break through which the water slipped away.

But as he waited a new sound disturbed him. From far below came the low whine of a dog, and once the crackle of a broken twig. And although he felt vexation at this, his face gave no sign, while he centered his whole consciousness in his one sense of hearing. From above there came a low splashing, nearer than before, and from below the crackle of another breaking twig, likewise nearer.

It was if these approaching sounds were running a race, and he wished the one from the water to win. And win it did, for a ripple broke the surface of the pond and a small log floated into the opening in the dam. Shoving it along, he could make out a large, ratlike head, with little, round ears laid back and nearly lost in hair.

Hoockla-Heen bent his bow noiselessly and waited. The animal pushed and shoved at the log, trying to block the opening. Failing in this, it crawled cautiously out on the dam, exposing three feet and more of body, covered with fur of heavy chestnut-brown. A crackle of twigs from below, and the animal rose suspiciously on its hind legs to listen. Then it was that Hoockla-Heen felt the thrill of achievement, the consciousness of having done and done well, as the arrow sped through the moonlight, singing its shrill song and transfixing the animal, which knew its end in the sound.

The boy, for Hoockla-Heen could boast but twelve years, sprang upright and called out joyously. A like call came from below and a tremendous crashing of underbrush answered him; and as he stooped and lifted the beaver by its broad, flat tail, another boy broke out of the bushes and waded to him through the grass.

"And hast thou got that old gray nose at last?" the newcomer questioned, excitedly.

"Aye," Hoockla-Heen made answer, coldly, hiding his exultation under an impassive mask. "Aye, old gray nose, and small thanks to thee, Klanik, who flounder over the ground like a blind bull moose and make much noise."

"I came softly," the other boy replied, a little hurt by the censure.

"Yes, with a whining dog."

"Broken Tooth would follow me, but I sent him back," said Klanik. "Did you know," he went on, eagerly, "that the tribe is to journey down to see these white men of the Yukon?"

Upon that, Hoockla-Heen danced gleefully up and down. Klanik joined hands with him, and they circled round and round till, in sheer excess of joy, the dance was turned into a wrestling bout, and they were panting and straining to the utmost. Klanik finally slipped on the beaver's tail, and Hoockla-Heen, profiting by the advantage, forced him suddenly backward and pressed his shoulders into the soggy ground. Then they sprang to their feet, laughing, and started down the trail to camp with the burden of the beaver shared between them.

On the way Klanik told of what had taken place at the council. Kootznaloo, one of their bravest hunters, had wandered off the previous fall, and after a long absence had returned with incredible tales of the white men. He had gone down the White River farther than the tribe had ever ventured; he had gone to the great Yukon, and the wonderful city of Dawson. At the council he had spoken of the many furs the tribe possessed, of how highly furs were esteemed by the white men, and of his plan for the tribe to go down to Dawson and trade these furs for immense wealth in guns and blankets and scarlet cloths.

But Ya-Koo, the maker of medicine, had opposed him. As they all knew, he, too, had been among the white men once upon a time, and he could tell that the white men were very bad. This Kottznaloo denied; the white men were very good, he said, in token whereof had he not returned with a fine new gun?

So the discussion waged to and fro. Many who had never seen white men had agreed with Kootznaloo. Moreover, all of them were anxious to possess fine new guns like his. Hoockla-Heen's father, Kow-Whi, who was chief, had also declared in favor of Kootznaloo's project; and Ya-Koo, though he was medicine-man to the tribe, had been forced to give in. In two days, it had been decided, now that summer was come and the rivers running free, the whole tribe, men, women and children, would load their canoes and depart for the wonder city.

For some time after Klanik had finished telling of what occurred at the council the boys walked on in silence. The Klanik spoke again, gravely: "It is not to be believed that these white men are white, all over white—face, hands, everything."

"Aye," Hoockla-Heen answered, absently, "and their eyes are of the color of summer skies when there are no clouds."

Klanik looked at him curiously, for Klanik knew many strange things concerning Hoockla-Heen of which Hoockla-Heen himself was ignorant—things which Kow-Whi and Ya-Koo had commanded should never be spoken.

But Hoockla-Heen went on: "And their womenkind are fair and soft, and their hair is yellow, quite yellow, and often I remember —

He stopped suddenly and looked into the curious eyes of his chum.

"What dost thou remember?" Klanik queried, gently. "Thou hast never seen the white men and their womenkind."

"I remember —"

"Truly art thou Hoockla-Heen, the dreamer."

"Aye, I dream." Hoockla-Heen shook his head sadly. "Surely, I dream."

He put his hand before him as if to dispel some vision, and after that, till camp was reached, there was silence between them. But when Hoockla-Heen crept into his furs and pulled the bearskin over him, he could not close his eyes, and sleep was far from him. It was the old sickness, com-ta-nitch-i-wyan, come back to him again—the dream-sickness which he had thought outgrown. It was the sickness which, when a little boy, had made the children draw away from him in fear, and the tears come into the eyes of the squaws when they looked upon him. The dream-sickness—how it had made his childhood miserable!

Of course all men dreamed, and even the wolf-dogs; but they dreamed with their eyes shut, when they slept, and he had dreamed with eyes wide open, broad awake. And the men dreamed about things they knew, about hunting and fishing; but he had dreamed about things he did not know, and which nobody else knew. Haunting memories of things he could not express had come to him; and it seemed, if only he could think back, that all would be clear, only, try as he would, he could not think back.

At such times he felt very much as he did when he was sick of the river fever, and his head was dizzy, his eyes trembling and watery, and his fingers felt twice their natural size, strangely large and fuzzy. Ah, that was it, the very word—fuzzy! That was the way his head felt when he tried to think back.

Then, as he gradually outgrew and forgot it, the dream-sickness had left him. The medicine-man, Ya-Koo, had made public incantation over him, and besought the bad spirits to depart from him, and privately he told him to think back no more, lest misfortune should fall upon him. And he had obeyed, and the thing had gone from him. But now it had come back again. Was there ever such an unhappy boy? He clenched his hands passionately, and for hours stared blindly into the blackness above him.

Chief Kow-Whi's canoe led the procession of the tribe, and with him were Hoockla-Heen and Klanik. All day they had been sweeping down the Yukon, rounding one great bend after another, but they had not landed. They passed one place early in the day where men, white men, were firing off their guns excitedly. Kootznaloo paddled alongside Kow-Whi's canoe and explained that he thought it must be a custom of the white men, although he had never seen the like during the time he spent among them. But after a brief deliberation, not being sure that it was merely a custom, they decided not to venture in, but to run on to Dawson.

And all day Hoockla-Heen had had attacks of the dream-sickness; and when he had looked a long way off at the white men discharging their guns, he had suffered from an especially severe attack. The fuzziness had been almost overpowering. He was also worried by a feeling that something was going to happen—what he did not know.

He tried to tell Klanik about it, but Klanik had retorted, "Don't be a baby; nothing'll eat you." After that he kept quiet, although he was sure that he was not afraid. Instead, he was very anxious that the thing should happen whatever it was.

At midday the flotilla swung along a series of mighty bluffs and rounded an abrupt turn. Here the Klondike emptied its swollen flood into the Yukon, and here, suddenly, without warning, Dawson burst upon their astonished eyes.

As far as they could see, from river rim to mountain side, was a sea of tents and cabins. And this sea of dwellings spilled over the river rim and down into the water, where the bank was lined for a mile and a half with boats—boats, three and four deep, and scows, dories, canoes and huge rafts, all heaped high with provisions and the possessions of men. The suddenness and the vastness of it took away the breath of the old chief, Kow-Whi, and he could only gaze in speechless wonder.

Hoockla-Heen was almost suffocating with fuzziness. He reached up hurriedly and held his head with both hands. Oh, if he could only understand! What did it all mean?

Klanik cried out sharply to him for missing stroke with his paddle, and with an effort of will he controlled himself. They drove in close to the shore and by the barracks, where were the Northwest mounted police and where the British banner floated.

Hoockla-Heen pointed to it and said, "That is a flag."

"How dost thou know, dreamer?" Klanik demanded.

But Hoockla-Heen did not hear. They were drifting past a great barge loaded with huge animals, as large as a large moose. The sight frightened the women, and several of the canoes sheered out into the stream to give it a wide berth.

"And what manner of animal is that?" Klanik asked, mischievously.

"That is —" Hoockla-Heen hesitated a moment, and then went on confidently, "That is a horse."

"Truly, agreed Kootznaloo, whose canoe was alongside, "those be horses. I have seen them before, and they are harmless. But how dost thou know, O Hoockla-Heen?"

Hoockla-Heen shook his head and bent to his paddle as the canoes whirled in to a landing. When all had been made fast, they climbed the steep bank and came upon an open space among the houses. Flags were flying everywhere, but flags different from the one which floated over the barracks; and everywhere were men, firing guns and revolvers into the air and shouting like mad.

A great crowd filled the open space, and as the wide-eyed Indians took up their position on the outskirts the noise died away, and in the center, on a heap of lumber, a man rose and began to speak. Very often he pointed to a flag which flew above his head, and every little while he was interrupted by clappings of hands and great rolling shouts and volleys of gun-shots. At such times he would pause and drink water from a glass which stood on a box beside him.

"Oh! oh!" Hoockla-Heen cried, striving to clutch at the phantoms which were fluttering through his mind.

"Strange-looking boy, that, for an Indian," remarked a man in a draggled mackinaw jacket, who now and then pulled out a writing-pad and took down notes.

Hoockla-Heen glanced quickly at him, although he did not understand what had been said; but as he looked at him the dream-sickness came over him violently.

The man's companion, clad in a lieutenant's uniform of the mounted police, took the cigar from his lips and exclaimed, "by Jove, he's no ——"

But just then a red-headed boy touched a lighted punk to a string which braided together hundreds of small red tubes. These he threw to the ground. At once there was a tremendous flashing and spluttering and banging, and the Indians, Ya-Koo leading, surged backward in terror.

Hoockla-Heen alone stood his ground. A sudden lightness came upon him, as when the fog rises from the earth and all things shine clear and bright in the sun. The fuzziness had left him. "Firecrackers! he cried, dancing into the exploding mass. "Firecrackers! The Fourth of July! Hurrah! Hurrah!"

When the last cracker had gone off he came to himself, startled and blushing under his tanned skin. He looked timidly about him. His tribespeople had come back and were regarding him curiously. Kow-Whi, however, was looking straight before him, a sad expression on his face. But the lieutenant and the man who made notes had stepped up to him.

"What's your name?" the lieutenant demanded, seizing him by the arm.

"Jimmy," he answered, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Then the fuzzy sensation came back to him, and he fell to wondering why he had spoken that strange word. He did not know what the man had said. And what did Jimmy mean, anyway? Why had he spoken it?

"Jimmy what?" the lieutenant asked.

Hoockla-Heen shook his head. He did not understand the white man's speech. Besides, his tribespeople were pressing round him excitedly, and Ya-Koo was plucking at his sleeve for him to come away.

"How old are you?"

Again he shook his head, this time adding, "White River," as if it might help.

"Yes, um White River," Kottznaloo corroborated, glad of the chance to play interpreter. "Um White River, 'way up."

"White River, eh?" the lieutenant repeated, in sudden surprise. Then turning to his companion, "How old do you make him out, Dawes?"

Dawes considered, "Twelve or thirteen, I should judge."

The lieutenant pondered audibly: "Summer of '91—winter of '92—four years and eight make twelve —" He broke off suddenly, then cried out, "Dawes! Dawes! It's the kid, sure! Hold him! As you love me, hold him tight!"

Before Hoockla-Heen could realize what was happening, the lieutenant had jerked open his squirrel-skin shirt, the soft leather tearing down under his grasp. Ya-Koo tried to come between, but the lieutenant thrust him roughly back. There was a murmuring and a snarl from the tribespeople, a flashing of knives from the sheaths and a clicking of rusting guns. But Kow-Whi quieted them with a sharp word of command.

"Look at that! White, eh?" The lieutenant pointed at Hoockla-Heen's naked chest.

Dawes looked carefully and shook his head. "Pretty black, I should judge."

"Oh, that's the sun!" the lieutenant exclaimed, impatiently, at the same time ripping and tearing away at the shirt. "Under the arms, man! Under the arms, where it's untouched!"

"It is white!" Dawes cried, with sudden conviction. "What shall we do?"

"Do! I'll show you!" The lieutenant beckoned to the red-headed boy, who was looking on with huge interest. "Hey, you, boy! Run and fetch Jim McDermott. He's right over there in that bunch of men. I saw him not five minutes ago."

The red-headed boy darted off, and Hoockla-Heen watched him go, wondering at it all, and yet aware, that the thing which was to happen was happening.

Kootznaloo was jabbering excitedly to the lieutenant, who was nodding his head to every word and interjecting short, sharp questions.

"But I say, you know, I say, old man, what's up?" Dawes interrupted, pulling out his writing pad and poising his pencil.

"McDermott, Jim McDermott!" the lieutenant answered hastily. "Old-timer in the country. A bonanza king, worth a couple of millions at least. Used to be an agent for the P. C. C. Company. In '94 came in with his kid and a party from the west coast of Alaska. The wife was to come in the following year by the regular way. Unknown country. First white people to come over it, and the last. Frightful time. Nearly starved to death. In fact, two did. They, being the weakest, were the very ones left in charge of McDermott's boy while McDermott and the others pushed out after game. I heard him tell the story once, how, after three days, when he had got a moose and returned, he found the two men stiff and cold and the boy missing."

"The boy missing?" Dawes's pencil was suspended in mid-air.

"Yes, missing; and never a sign. The camp was close by the river, and McDermott figured that the boy must have crawled to the bank and fallen in. Seems now, though, that some Indian must have landed from a canoe, found the two dead men, and carried the living boy away with him. Of course McDermott never dreamed of such an outcome—but here he is now."

Hoockla-Heen followed the lieutenant's eyes, and saw a tall, dark-bearded man. And wonder! Oh, wonder! Clothed in flesh and blood, it was one of the phantoms of his dreams! He felt suddenly very light again, and the fuzziness went from him.

"Da-da!" he cried; "O da-da!" and flung himself into the man's arms.

Then followed ten minutes of confusion, everybody explaining at once. Hoockla-Heen remembered nothing except that once or twice the man he had called "Da-da" stooped and kissed him, and that his clutch upon his hand kept growing tighter and tighter. Then the man said something to him and started to lead him away, still clutching his hand; but Hoockla-Heen did not understand, and stopped.

The man spoke to Kootznaloo, who said to Hoockla-Heen, "This man takes you to see a woman, white woman."

"Ask him if her hair be yellow," Hoockla-Heen commanded.

And when Kootznaloo had interpreted it, the man's face grew bright with gladness, and he stooped and kissed Hoockla-Heen again and yet again.

Kow-Whi was standing apart, silent, his eyes fixed steadily before him, as if he saw nothing of what was taking place. There was a dignity and nobleness about his demeanor, and withal a sadness which the dullest could read.

Hoockla-Heen turned his head and then ran back to him, his eyes filling with tears. There he hesitated, in doubt, looking first to one man and then the other.

"Tell him, and them, that they will see the boy again," McDermott ordered Kootznaloo to say. "And tell them that he shall always remember them, and they are welcome ever to a place by my fire and his. And further, that due reward, and great reward, shall be given."

The thing had happened. It was all right to Hoockla-Heen that he should go up the hill holding this tall, dark-bearded man by the hand. For he knew he was going to see the woman, fair and soft, the woman he often remembered, whose hair was yellow.

title: The "Fuzziness" of Hoockla-Heen


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246 Six weeks elapsed before the Abbot's fate was decided, part or the whole of which time he was in London. At the beginning of November he was sent back into Somersetshire, already condemned at a tribunal where Cromwell sat as prosecutor, jury, and judge. His escape in a more regular court was not contemplated as a possibility; among loose papers of Cromwell still remaining there is a memorandum in his own hand for 'the trial and execution' of the Abbot of Glastonbury. But the appearance of unfair dealing was greater than the reality. Lord Russell, whose stainless character was worthy of his name, was one of the commissioners before whom the trial was conducted; and Russell has left on record his approval of, and acquiescence, in the conduct of the case, in plain and unmistakeable language. Whiting was arraigned at Wells on Thursday, the I4th of November, with his treasurers, 'before as worshipful a jury as was charged there for many years.' The crime of which he was formally accused was robbing the abbey church; and there was no doubt that he was guilty of having committed that crime, to whatever the guilt may have amounted. But if the Government had prosecuted in every instance of abbey-church robbery, a monk would have hung in chains at all the cross roads


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1539.] in England. The Abbot of Glastonbury was tried and convicted of felony; his real offence was treason, as the word was interpreted by Cromwell. He was unpopular in the county, and among his dependents. 'There were many bills,' Lord Russell said, 'put up against the Abbot, by his tenants and others, for wrongs and injuries that he had done them.' He was sentenced to death, and the day following was fixed for the execution. He was taken with the two monks from Wells to Glastonbury; he was drawn through the town in the usual manner, and thence to the top of the conical hill which rises out of the level plain of Somersetshire, called Glastonbury Torre. To the last he was tormented with questions, 'but he would accuse no man but himself;' he only requested the visitors' servants who were present on the Torre to entreat their masters and Lord Russell 'to desire the King's Highness of his merciful goodness and in the way of charity to forgive him his great offences by him committed and done against his Grace.' The modern student, to whom the passions and the difficulties of the time are as a long- for gotten dream, who sees only the bleak hill-top on the dreary November day, the gallows, and an infirm old man guilty of nothing which he can understand to be a crime, shudders at the needless cruelty. Cromwell, for his share in this policy of death, was soon to receive as he had given; a few more months, and he too on Tower Hill would pass to his account.


text: History of England (Froude)/Chapter 16

title: History of England (Froude)/Chapter 16


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HE King's marriage could not be longer delayed. Almost three years had been wasted in fruitless negotiations, and the state of his health threatened, more and more clearly, that his life would not be prolonged to any advanced period. The death of the Duke of Richmond was a fresh evidence of the absence of vital stamina in Henry's male children; and the anxious and impatient people saw as yet but a single fragile life between the country and a disputed succession. The disloyal Romanists alone desired to throw obstacles between the King and a fresh connection—alone calumniated his motives, and looked forward hopefully to the possible and probable confusion.

Among the ladies who had been considered suitable to take the place of Queen Jane, the name had been mentioned, with no especial commendation, of Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves, and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. She had been set aside in favour of


text:
Author:William John Childs

Works

 * Across Asia Minor on Foot (1917)

Works about Childs

 * Fisher, John. "On the Baghdad Road: On the Trail of W.J. Childs. A Study in British Near Eastern Intelligence and Historical Analysis, c.1900-1930." Archives 24, no. 101 (1999): 53-70.

title: Author:William John Childs


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1539.] the Duchess of Milan; but, all hopes in this quarter having been abruptly and ungraciously terminated, Cromwell once more turned his eyes towards a connection which, more than any other, would make the Emperor repent of his discourtesy—and would further at the same time the great object which the condition of Europe now, more than ever, showed him to be necessary—a league of all nations of the Teutonic race in defence of the Reformation. A marriage between the King and a German Protestant princess would put a final end to Anglo-Imperial trifling; and, committing England to a definite policy abroad, it would neutralize at home the efforts of the framers of the Six Articles, and compel the King, whether he desired it or not, to return to a toleration of Lutheran opinions and Lutheran practices.

The opportunity of urging such an alliance on Henry was more than favourable. He had been deceived, insulted, and menaced by the Emperor; his articles of union had been converted by the bishops into articles of a vindictive persecution; and the Anglicans, in their indiscreet animosity, had betrayed their true tendencies, and had shown how little, in a life-and-death struggle with the Papacy, he could depend upon their lukewarm zeal for independence. Affecting only to persecute heterodoxy, they had extended their vengeance to every advocate for freedom, to every enemy of ecclesiastical exemptions and profitable superstitions; and the King, disappointed and exasperated, was in a humour, while snatching their victims from their grasp, to consent to a


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250 step which would undo their victory in Parliament. The occasion was not allowed to cool. Parliament was prorogued on the 11th of May, with an intimation from the Crown that the religious question was not to be regarded as finally settled. The treaty with Cleves was so far advanced on the 17th of July that Lord Hertford was able to congratulate Cromwell on the consent of Anne's brother and mother. The lady had been previously intended for a son of a Duke of Lorraine; and Henry, whom experience had made anxious, was alarmed at the name of a 'pre-contract.' But Dr Wotton, who was sent over to arrange the preliminaries, and was instructed to see the difficulty cleared, was informed and believed that the engagement had never advanced to a form which brought with it legal obligations, and that Anne was at liberty to marry wherever she pleased. Of her personal attractions


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Armin, Friedrich Sixt von

ARMIN, FRIEDRICH SIXT VON (1851-), German general, was born at Wetzlar Nov. 27 1851. He took part in the war of 1870-1 and was severely wounded at St. Privat. After having occupied different positions on the General Staff, he was appointed in 1903 Director of the General Department of War in the Prussian War Ministry, and in 1911 General-in-Command of the IV. Army Corps at Magdeburg. During the World War he led his corps as a part of the First and of the Sixth Army; he was appointed in 1917 Chief-in-Command of the Fourth Army in Flanders, where he succeeded, in the spring offensive in 1918, in taking Armentières and the Kemmel Hill. At the close of the war he retired from the army.


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1539.] Wotton reported vaguely. He said that she had been well brought up; but ladies of rank in Germany were not usually taught accomplishments. She could speak no language except her own, nor could she play on any instrument. He supposed, however, that she would be able to learn English easily and rapidly; and he comforted the King by assuring him that at least she had no taste for 'the heavy-headed revels' of her countrymen. Wotton could not be accused of having lent himself to a deception as to the lady's recommendations. It would have been well for Cromwell if he too had been equally scrupulous. He had been warned beforehand of an unattractiveness, so great as to have overcome the spontaneous belief in the beauty of royal ladies; but, intent upon the success of his policy, he disregarded information which his conduct proves him to have partially believed. Holbein was despatched to take the princess's picture; and Holbein's inimitable skill would not have failed so wholly in conveying a true impression of the original if he had not received an intimation that an agreeable portrait was expected of him; while, as soon as it was brought into England, Cromwell's agents praised to the King 'her features, beauty, and princely proportions,' and assured him that the resemblance was


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18 Nor deemed before his little day was done

One blast might chill him into misery.

But long ere scarce a third of his passed by,

Worse than Adversity the Childe befell;

He felt the fulness of Satiety:

Then loathed he in his native land to dwell,

Which seemed to him more lone than Eremite's sad cell.

V.

For he through Sin's long labyrinth had run,

Nor made atonement when he did amiss,

Had sighed to many though he loved but one,

And that loved one, alas! could ne'er be his.

Ah, happy she! to 'scape from him whose kiss

Had been pollution unto aught so chaste;

Who soon had left her charms for vulgar bliss,

And spoiled her goodly lands to gild his waste,

Nor calm domestic peace had ever deigned to taste.

VI.

And now Childe Harold was sore sick at heart,

And from his fellow Bacchanals would flee;


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252 perfect. The German commission was as expeditious as the Spanish had been dilatory. To allay any uneasiness which might remain with respect to the Six Articles, and to furnish a convincing evidence of the toleration which was practised, Dr Barnes was sent over as one of the English representatives; and he carried with him the comforting assurance that the persecution had been terminated, and that the Gospel had free way. His assertions were afterwards confirmed by unsuspicious and independent evidence. 'There is no persecution,' wrote a Protestant in London, a few months later, to Bullinger. 'The Word is powerfully preached. Books of every kind may safely be exposed to sale.' 'Good pastors,' wrote another, 'are freely preaching the truth, nor has any notice been taken of them on account of the articles.' Even the Elector of Saxony, jealous and distrustful as he had ever been of Henry, was so far satisfied as to write to him that he understood 'the sharpness of the decree of the Six Articles to be modified by the wisdom and moderation of his Highness, and the execution of it not put in use.'

All promised well; but it is not to be supposed that Cromwell was allowed without resistance to paralyze a measure which had been carried by an almost unanimous Parliament. More than half the privy council, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Bishops of


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1539.] Durham, and Chichester, were openly and violently opposed to him. The House of Lords and the country gentlemen, baffled, as it seemed to them, by his treachery (for he had professed to go along with their statute while it was under discussion), maintained an attitude of sullen menace or open resistance. If the laws against the heretics might not be put in force, they would lend no help to execute the laws against the Romanists. They despised Cromwell's injunctions, though supported by orders from the Crown. They would not acknowledge so much as the receipt of his letters. He was playing a critical and most dangerous game, in which he must triumph or be annihilated. The King warned him repeatedly to be cautious; but the terms on which he had placed himself with the nobility had perhaps passed the point where caution could have been of use. He answered haughtiness by haughtiness; and he left his fate to the chances of fortune, careless what it might be, if only he could accomplish his work while life and power remained to him. One illustration of his relation with the temporal peers shall be given in this place, conveying, as it does, other allusions also, the drift of which is painfully intelligible. The following letter is written in Cromwell's own hand. The address is lost, but the rank of the


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A.D. 1762 Comissioners,upon complaint made to them of any Damage done to adjoining lands, by erecting, or completing any of the said works, are to examine into such Complaint, and make and return an Estimate of the Dmage

VIII. And be it further enabled by the Authority aforesaid, That it shall and may be lawful toand for the said Commssioners, or any five or more of them, upon the Complaint of any Owner or Owners, Occupier or Occupiers, of any other Lands and Hereditaments adjoining to any Part of the Lands and Hereditaments by this Act veiled in the said Trustees, that he, she or they have received any Damage by the erecting or compleating of any of the Works thereto belonging, to examine into and hear every such Complaint, and shall make an Estimate of such Damage, and shall are return such Estimate with, and in the Manner they are herein before directed to return, the aforesaid Judgments and Decrees.

No private Buildings to be erected upon any of the Lands vested as aforesaid by this Act; and the profits arising from the said Lands are to be applied towards the Erection and Reperation of the respective Fortification;|text=And be it further enacted by the Authority aforesaid. That no private Building or Buildings shall be made or erected upon any of the Lands vested by this Act as aforesaid; and that the whole Profits arising or that shall hereafter arise from the said Lands, be and are hereby appropriated and applied for and towards the Erection and Reparation of the respective Fortifications of each Place, and to no other Use or Purpose whatsoever;

The premisses declared to be unalienable from the crown;

and all and singular the Premisses shall be and from the said Land are are hereby enacted and declared to be unalienable from the Crown;

and are not demisable, but during Pleasure.

neither shall any Part of the Premisses be demised or demisable, otherwise than during Pleasure only.

Comissioners exempted from the penalties of the several Qualifcation Acts of 25 Car.2. c.2. 1W. & M. c. 8. 13 & 14 W. 3. c. 6. and 1 Geo 1. c. 13.

X. Provided always, That no Commissioner who shall be employed in the Execution of this Act, shall be liable, for or by reason of such Execution, to any of the Penalties mentioned in an Act made in the twenty-fifth Year of the Reign of King the Second, intituled, An Act for preventing Dangers which may happen from Popish Recusants; or in one other Act made in the first Year of the the Reign of King  and Queen, intituled. An Act for the abrogating the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance, and appointing other Oaths; or in one other Act made in the Parliament holden from the Penalties of the in the thirteenth and fourteenth Years of the Reign of the late King William the Third, intituled, An Act for the better Security of his Majesty's Person., and the Succession of the Crown in the Protesant of Line; and for extinguishing the Hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales, and all other Pretenders, and their Open and secret Abettors; or in one other Act made in the Parliament begun and holden in the first Year of the Reign of King George the First, intituled. An Act for the better Security of his Majesty's Person and Government, and the Succession of the Crown in the Heirs of the late Princess Sophia, being Protestants, and for extinguishing the Hopes of the pretended Prince of Wales and his open and secret Abettors.

The Commissioners are not disqualified, by having such, from sitting in the House of Commons, or their election therby become void.

XII. Provided also, and be it enacted, That such Commissioners as his Majesty shall nominate for the Purposes in this Act, or any of them, shall not, by reason thereof, in any Sort be disabled or disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons, or their Election thereby become void; any Law or Statute to the contrary thereof in any wife notwithstanding.}}

An Act for the more easy and speedy Recovery of small Debts, within the Town and County of the Town of Kingston upon Hull.

 * Preamble.
 * Commissoners appointed.
 * They are constituted a Court of Requests.
 * Three impowered to hold a Court on Wednesday in every Week.
 * Their first Meeting.
 * Business of other Courts held in the Guild Hall,&c. not to be impeded by their Meetings.
 * Power and Business of the Court.
 * Casting Vote upon any Question where there is an Equality, to lie in the Mayor, senior Alderman, or Commissioner who stands first on the List.
 * Method of Election of new Commissioners in the Room of such as shall die, or refuse to act.
 * The Order and Rotation in which the Commissioners are to be summoned to attend the Court.
 * Any Commissioner, though not summoned, or sanding in Rotation, may sit and do Business in the Court.
 * Creditors may sue for any Debt under 40 s. in the said Court; and on Application to the Clerk, who shall summon the Debtor, upon Proof of Service of the Summons, the Commissioners are to enquire into the Demand, and pass final Judgment thereupon.
 * And in the Course of their Enquiry may administer an Oath to the Witnesses and Officers of the Court.
 * Debtor not appearing, Court may hear the Cause on the Part of the Plaintiff, and pass Judgment thereon, with Costs.
 * Plaintiff not appearing, or being nonsuited; Costs to be awarded to the Defendant.
 * Upon Order of the Court for Payment of Money, Execution is to be awarded against the Body or Goods of the Party.
 * Upon Execution issued against the Body of the Party, the Confinement is not to exceed 3 Months.
 * If the Service, or Effects of the Execution, be prevented or evaded, the Court may award another Execution.
 * Upon the first Default of Payment of any Money decreed to be paid by several Payments, the Court may award Execution for the whole Debt, with further Costs.
 * The Debt and Costs to be marked on the Back of the Precept; and on paying in the fame to the Clerk of the Court, before Execution takes Effect, with the Fees due to the respective Officers, &c.
 * Execution is to be superseded.
 * No Person exempted from the Jurisdiction of the Court on account of being an Attorney or Solicitor.
 * Where Execution shall not have its due Effect, through the Neglect or Connivance of the Officer, such Officer is liable to pay the Debt.
 * Commissioners to take the following Oath, to be administered by the Clerk, and registered.
 * John Baxby Gent, constituted Clerk of the Court; with Power to appoint a Deputy.
 * John Mimby appointed Serjeant.
 * Vacancies of Clerk and Serjeant how to be filled up.
 * Fees allowed to the Clerk and Serjant.


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254 person or persons to whom it was sent is apparent from the contents:—

'After my right hearty commendations, the King's Highness, being informed that there be two priests in your town, called Sir William Winstanley, which is now in ward, the other called Sir William Richardson, otherwise Good Sir William, hath commanded me to signify to you that, upon the receipt hereof, you shall send both the said priests hither as prisoners in assured custody. His Grace cannot a little marvel to hear of the Papistical faction that is maintained in that town, and by you chiefly that are of his Grace's council. Surely his Majesty thinketh that you have little respect either to him, or to his laws, or to the good order of that town, which so little regard him in a matter of so great weight, which, also, his Highness hath so much to heart; and willed me plainly to say to you all and every of you, that in case he shall perceive from henceforth any such abuses suffered or winked at as have been hitherto, in manner in contempt of his most royal estate, his Highness will put others in the best of your rooms that so offend him, by whom he will be better served. It is thought against all reason that the prayers of women, and their fond flickerings, should move any of you to do that thing that should in anywise displease your prince and sovereign lord, or offend his just laws. And, if you shall think any extremity in this writing, you must thank yourselves that have procured it; for neither of yourselves have you regarded these matters, nor answered to many of my letters, written for like purposes


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1539.] and upon like occasions: wherein, though I have not made any accusation, yet, being in the place for these things that I am, I have thought you did me therein too much injury, and such as I am assured his Highness, knowing it, would not have taken it in good part. But this matter needeth no aggravation, ne I have done anything in. it more than hath been by his Majesty thought meet, percase not so much; and thus heartily fare you well.
 * 'Your Lordship's assured

Between the minister and the King the points of difference were large and increasing. The conduct which had earned for Cromwell the hatred of the immense majority of the people, could not but at times have been regarded disapprovingly by a person who shared so deeply as Henry in the English conservative spirit; while Cromwell, again, was lavish in his expenditure, and the outlay upon the fleet and the Irish army, the cost of suppression of the insurrection, and of the defences of the coast, at once vast and unusual, were not the less irritating because they could not be denied to be necessary. A spirit of economy in the reaction from his youthful extravagance was growing over Henry with his advancing years; he could not reconcile himself to a profusion to which, even with the addition of the Church lands, his resources were