The Complete Writings-3 [58]
But the boy had a disinclination to go where he was sent. Reaching Rouen, and being nearly out of money, he dropped down the river to Havre de Grace, and began to learn to be a soldier.
Smith says not a word of the great war of the Leaguers and Henry IV., nor on which side he fought, nor is it probable that he cared. But he was doubtless on the side of Henry, as Havre was at this time in possession of that soldier. Our adventurer not only makes no reference to the great religious war, nor to the League, nor to Henry, but he does not tell who held Paris when he visited it. Apparently state affairs did not interest him. His reference to a "peace" helps us to fix the date of his first adventure in France. Henry published the Edict of Nantes at Paris, April 13, 1598, and on the 2d of May following, concluded the treaty of France with Philip II. at Vervins, which closed the Spanish pretensions in France. The Duc de Mercoeur (of whom we shall hear later as Smith's "Duke of Mercury" in Hungary), Duke of Lorraine, was allied with the Guises in the League, and had the design of holding Bretagne under Spanish protection. However, fortune was against him and he submitted to Henry in February, 1598, with no good grace. Looking about for an opportunity to distinguish himself, he offered his services to the Emperor Rudolph to fight the Turks, and it is said led an army of his French followers, numbering 15,000, in 1601, to Hungary, to raise the siege of Coniza, which was beleaguered by Ibrahim Pasha with 60,000 men.
Chance of fighting and pay failing in France by reason of the peace, he enrolled himself under the banner of one of the roving and fighting captains of the time, who sold their swords in the best market, and went over into the Low Countries, where he hacked and hewed away at his fellow-men, all in the way of business, for three or four years. At the end of that time he bethought himself that he had not delivered his letters to Scotland. He embarked at Aucusan for Leith, and seems to have been shipwrecked, and detained by illness in the "holy isle" in Northumberland, near Barwick. On his recovery he delivered his letters, and received kind treatment from the Scots; but as he had no money, which was needed to make his way as a courtier, he returned to Willoughby.
The family of Smith is so "ancient" that the historians of the county of Lincoln do not allude to it, and only devote a brief paragraph to the great John himself. Willoughby must have been a dull place to him after his adventures, but he says he was glutted with company, and retired into a woody pasture, surrounded by forests, a good ways from any town, and there built himself a pavilion of boughs--less substantial than the cabin of Thoreau at Walden Pond--and there he heroically slept in his clothes, studied Machiavelli's "Art of War," read "Marcus Aurelius," and exercised on his horse with lance and ring. This solitary conduct got him the name of a hermit, whose food was thought to be more of venison than anything else, but in fact his men kept him supplied with provisions. When John had indulged in this ostentatious seclusion for a time, he allowed himself to be drawn out of it by the charming discourse of a noble Italian named Theodore Palaloga, who just then was Rider to Henry, Earl of Lincoln, and went to stay with him at Tattershall. This was an ancient town, with a castle, which belonged to the Earls of Lincoln, and was situated on the River Bane, only fourteen miles from Boston, a name that at once establishes a connection between Smith's native county and our own country, for it is nearly as certain that St. Botolph founded a monastery at Boston, Lincoln, in the year 654, as it is that he founded a club afterwards in Boston, Massachusetts.
Whatever were the pleasures of Tattershall, they could not long content the restless Smith, who soon set out again for the Netherlands in search of adventures.
The life of Smith, as it is related by himself, reads like that of a belligerent tramp, but it was not uncommon in his day, nor is it
Smith says not a word of the great war of the Leaguers and Henry IV., nor on which side he fought, nor is it probable that he cared. But he was doubtless on the side of Henry, as Havre was at this time in possession of that soldier. Our adventurer not only makes no reference to the great religious war, nor to the League, nor to Henry, but he does not tell who held Paris when he visited it. Apparently state affairs did not interest him. His reference to a "peace" helps us to fix the date of his first adventure in France. Henry published the Edict of Nantes at Paris, April 13, 1598, and on the 2d of May following, concluded the treaty of France with Philip II. at Vervins, which closed the Spanish pretensions in France. The Duc de Mercoeur (of whom we shall hear later as Smith's "Duke of Mercury" in Hungary), Duke of Lorraine, was allied with the Guises in the League, and had the design of holding Bretagne under Spanish protection. However, fortune was against him and he submitted to Henry in February, 1598, with no good grace. Looking about for an opportunity to distinguish himself, he offered his services to the Emperor Rudolph to fight the Turks, and it is said led an army of his French followers, numbering 15,000, in 1601, to Hungary, to raise the siege of Coniza, which was beleaguered by Ibrahim Pasha with 60,000 men.
Chance of fighting and pay failing in France by reason of the peace, he enrolled himself under the banner of one of the roving and fighting captains of the time, who sold their swords in the best market, and went over into the Low Countries, where he hacked and hewed away at his fellow-men, all in the way of business, for three or four years. At the end of that time he bethought himself that he had not delivered his letters to Scotland. He embarked at Aucusan for Leith, and seems to have been shipwrecked, and detained by illness in the "holy isle" in Northumberland, near Barwick. On his recovery he delivered his letters, and received kind treatment from the Scots; but as he had no money, which was needed to make his way as a courtier, he returned to Willoughby.
The family of Smith is so "ancient" that the historians of the county of Lincoln do not allude to it, and only devote a brief paragraph to the great John himself. Willoughby must have been a dull place to him after his adventures, but he says he was glutted with company, and retired into a woody pasture, surrounded by forests, a good ways from any town, and there built himself a pavilion of boughs--less substantial than the cabin of Thoreau at Walden Pond--and there he heroically slept in his clothes, studied Machiavelli's "Art of War," read "Marcus Aurelius," and exercised on his horse with lance and ring. This solitary conduct got him the name of a hermit, whose food was thought to be more of venison than anything else, but in fact his men kept him supplied with provisions. When John had indulged in this ostentatious seclusion for a time, he allowed himself to be drawn out of it by the charming discourse of a noble Italian named Theodore Palaloga, who just then was Rider to Henry, Earl of Lincoln, and went to stay with him at Tattershall. This was an ancient town, with a castle, which belonged to the Earls of Lincoln, and was situated on the River Bane, only fourteen miles from Boston, a name that at once establishes a connection between Smith's native county and our own country, for it is nearly as certain that St. Botolph founded a monastery at Boston, Lincoln, in the year 654, as it is that he founded a club afterwards in Boston, Massachusetts.
Whatever were the pleasures of Tattershall, they could not long content the restless Smith, who soon set out again for the Netherlands in search of adventures.
The life of Smith, as it is related by himself, reads like that of a belligerent tramp, but it was not uncommon in his day, nor is it