KING WILLIAM III. AND MARSHAL LUXEMBURG, 1692-3. 1. THE great object of the foreign policy of William III. was to keep in check the ambition of Louis XIV. of France, called by his countrymen 'Le Grand Monarque.' Louis was the most powerful of the Roman Catholic sovereigns of Europe, and William was universally regarded as the champion of Protestantism against his aggressions. King William commanded the allied armies of the Protestant powers in person through many campaigns on the continent, and in 1692-3, he fought the battles of Steinkirk and Landen, in Belgium, against the French under the Duke of Luxemburg, Commander-in-Chief of the army of the 'Great King.' The external appearance of these two great generals is thus described by Lord Macaulay, who published his famous History of England' about thirty years ago, and died in 1859 2. 'William was now in his 42nd year. But both in body and mind he was older than other men of the same age. Indeed it might be said that he had never been young. His external appearance is almost as well known to us as to his own captains and counsellors. Sculptors, painters, and medallists exerted their utmost skill in the work of transmitting his features to posterity: and his features were such as no artist could fail to seize, and such as once seen, could never be forgotten. His name at once calls up before us a slender and feeble frame, a lofty and ample forehead, a nose curved like the beak of an eagle, an eye rivalling that of an eagle in brightness and keenness, a thoughtful and somewhat sullen brow, a firm and somewhat peevish mouth, a cheek pale, thin, and deeply furrowed by sickness and by care. That pensive, severe, and solemn aspect could scarcely have belonged to a happy or a goodhumoured man. But it indicates in a manner not to be mistaken, capacity equal to the most arduous enterprises, and fortitude not to be shaken by reverses or dangers. · 3. From a child he had been weak and sickly. In the prime of manhood his complaints had been aggravated by a severe attack of small-pox. He was asthmatic and consumptive. His slender frame was shaken by a constant hoarse cough. He could not sleep unless his head was propped by several pillows, and could scarcely draw his breath in any but the purest air. Cruel headaches frequently tortured him. Exertion soon fatigued him. The physicians constantly kept up the hopes of his enemies by fixing some date beyond which, if there was anything certain in medical science, it was impossible that his broken constitution could hold out. 4. "Luxemburg, now in his 66th year, had risen by slow degrees to the first place among the generals of his time. He was of that noble house of Montmorency, which united many mythical and many historical titles to glory-which boasted that it sprang from the first Frank who was baptized into the name of Christ in the fifth century, and which had since the 'Asthmatic, subject to asthma, a disease of the chest, accompanied by coughing. 'Mythical, fanciful, fabulous. eleventh century given to France a long and splendid succession of constables and marshals. In valour and abilities Luxemburg was not inferior to any of his illustrious race. But, highly descended and highly gifted as he was, he had with difficulty surmounted the obstacles which impeded him in the road to fame. If he owed much to the bounty of nature and fortune, he had suffered still more from their spite. His features were frightfully harsh; his stature was diminutive ; 1 a huge and pointed hump rose on his back. His constitution was feeble and sickly. In vigilance, diligence, and perseverance he was deficient. He seemed to reserve his great qualities for great emergencies. It was on a pitched field of battle that he was all himself.' 5. The battle of Steinkirk, and that of Landen (or of Neerwinden as it is more properly called) were disastrous to the allied armies under William, and from both he was compelled to retreat. At the lastnamed battle, after a desperate and long dubious struggle, the whole line had given way, and all was confusion. But it was only on such occasions as this that the whole greatness of William's character appeared. Amidst the rout and uproar, while arms and standards were flung away, while multitudes of fugitives were choking up the bridges and fords of the river Gette, or perishing in its waters, the king, having directed Talmash to superintend the retreat, put himself at the head of a few brave regiments, and by desperate efforts arrested the progress of the enemy. 6. His risk was greater than that which others. ran, For he could not be persuaded either to 1 Diminutive, small, encumber his feeble frame with a cuirass,' or to hide the ensigns of the garter. He thought his star a good rallying point for his own troops, and only smiled when he was told that it was a good mark for the enemy. Many fell on his right hand and on his left. Two led horses, which in the field always closely followed his person, were struck dead by cannon-shots. One musket ball passed through the curls of his wig, another through his coat; a third bruised his side and tore his blue riband to tatters. Many years later grey-headed old pensioners who crept about the arcades and alleys of Chelsea Hospital used to relate how he charged at the head of Galway's horse, how he dismounted four times to put heart into the infantry, how he rallied one corps which seemed to be shrinking: "That is not the way to fight, gentlemen. You must stand close up to them. Thus, gentlemen, thus." 7. "You might have seen him," an eyewitness wrote, only four days after the battle, "with his sword in his hand, throwing himself upon the enemy. It is certain that one time, among the rest, he was seen at the head of two English regiments, and that he fought seven with these two in sight of the whole army, driving them before him above a quarter of an hour. Thanks be to God that preserved him." The enemy pressed on him so close that it was with difficulty that he at length made his way over the Gette, the river in the rear of his position. A small body of brave men, who shared his peril to the last, could hardly keep off the pursuers as he crossed the bridge. 'Cuirass, a breastplate, 8. Never, perhaps, was the change which the progress of civilisation has produced in the art of war more strikingly illustrated than on that day. Ajax beating down the Trojan leader with a rock which two ordinary men could scarcely lift, Horatius defending the bridge against an army, Richard the Lion-hearted spurring along the whole Saracen line without finding an enemy to stand his assault, Robert Bruce crushing with one blow the helmet and head of Sir Henry Bohun in sight of the whole array of England and Scotland, such are the heroes of a dark age. In such an age bodily vigour is the most indispensable qualification of a warrior. At Landen two poor sickly beings, who, in a rude state of society, would have been regarded as too puny to bear any part in combats, were the souls of two great armies. In some heathen countries they would have been exposed while infants. In Christendom they would, six hundred years earlier, have been sent to some quiet cloister. But their lot had fallen on a time when men had discovered that the strength of the muscles is far inferior in value to the strength of the mind. It is probable that, among the hundred and twenty thousand soldiers who were marshalled round Neerwinden under all the standards of Western Europe, the two feeblest in body were the hunchbacked dwarf who urged forward the fiery onset of France, and the asthmatic skeleton who covered the slow retreat of England.' MACAULAY'S History of England. By permission of Messrs. LONGMAN and Co. |