Duke

Introduction.

In the year 918, on the death of Conrad of Franconia, King of the East Franks or Germans, Henry, Duke of the Saxons, was chosen to rule in his stead, the first of that line of Saxon monarchs who were destined to revive the Roman Empire in a new form and to bind it closely to the German kingdom.

In the year 1273, Rudolf, Count of Habsburg, was raised to the imperial throne, and the fortunes of the empire were linked with those of the House of Austria.

Between these two dates lies the central period of the Middle Ages, a period of great ideas, great men, and great movements, the time that saw the perfecting of the medieval order of society and the gradual building up of the nations of the modern world from the ruins of the ancient Empire of Rome.

End of Section 1 Section 2 of the Central Period of the Middle Age, 918-1273, by Beatrice A. Lees This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Pamela Nagami Chapter 1 The Saxon Emperors, 918-1002 Part 1 When in 911 the young king of Germany, Louis the Child, died, the German nobles chose one of themselves, Conrad of Franconia, to rule over them.

Seven years later, in the winter of 918, as Conrad lay on his deathbed, he owned that the task he had undertaken had been beyond his strength.

Calling his brother to his side, he bade him, says a contemporary chronicler, carry the insignia of royalty, the holy lance, the mantle and golden bracelets, the sword and crown, to his great rival, Henry, Duke of the Saxons.

Fortune, murmured the dying man, has passed over to Henry.

He was surrounded by great feudatories, all of whom he had offended bitterly.

Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, held in France Burgundy proper, with Artois and Franche-Comté.

Beyond it, Brabant, Limburg, Hainaut, and the wealthy cities of Flanders, and was on the point of excluding France from all communication with the rest of Europe except through his states, by seizing the Provençal dominions of René of Anjou.

The dukes of Bretagne and Bourbon, and the Count of Armagnac with his Gascons, were equally opposed to Louis, and there was not one of these potentates who would have scrupled for a moment to call in against him the English or any other foreigners.

Before his time, restoration after a period of eclipse had been the understood rule.

He set this principle absolutely at naught by bestowing the Percy earldom on a Neville and that of Pembroke on a Herbert.

When we add to these changes the well-known extension in Edward's reign of the system of benevolences and forced loans, the extreme infrequency of parliaments, and the trivial character of the business which they were allowed to take in hand, together with the frequent executions of those whom the king feared, including his own brother the Duke of Clarence, we shall readily understand what a vast breach in the constitution this reign really made, a breach which the reign of Richard III, inclined as he naturally was to support the weakness of his title and to put his crimes out of remembrance by popular concessions, was much too short to repair, especially as his necessities after a while drove him to collect money by methods hardly differing from the illegal ones which he had professed to abolish.

Accordingly, Henry VII, on succeeding to the crown, found himself very slightly fettered by constitutional precedents and would doubtless have been a violently oppressive governor if he had not been far more inclined to the sort of chicane natural to one whose early life had been passed in avoiding dangers and who, in many things, kept before his eyes the example of Louis XI.

Berwick's only reply was a solemn bow.

The king put on his hat, the duke put on his hat, and the cousins parted forever.

By this time the French, who had been driven in confusion out of Neerwinden, had been reinforced by a division under the command of the Duke of Bourbon, and came gallantly back to the attack.

William, well aware of the importance of this post, gave orders that troops should move thither from other parts of his line.

This second conflict was long and bloody.

A third time William tried to retake it.

At the head of some English regiments he charged the guards of Lewis with such fury that for the first time in the memory of the oldest warrior that far-famed band gave way.

It was only by the strenuous exertions of Luxembourg, of the Duke of Chartres, and of the Duke of Bourbon that the broken ranks were rallied.

King of Bohemia, read by Algy Pug.

The Duke of Bavaria, read by Jim Hedrick.

The Duke of Gotha, read by Michael Broomhill.

The Duke of Lutzelburg, read by Redrun.

Don Sancho, read by Adrian Stevens.

Don Matthias, read by John Peyton.

He looks at her intently.

She is frightened into silence.

And she, who owed her husband such a world, behaved towards him with the same arrogance as she showed to others, and in addition, jealousy both concerning other women, whom she feared, and concerning the king's beloved daughter, Mary.

She spoke to the Duke of Norfolk, her uncle on the mother's side, and one of the greatest peers of the realm, like a dog.

As he turned away, he muttered that she was une grande putain.

The most polite interpretation of the French word is strumpet.

When the Duke used such a word to his own niece, what sort of reputation must have been gathering about her? She had two more miscarriages.

After the second, the king's fury flamed out, and he told her plainly that he deeply regretted having married her.

He must have indeed been sorry.

Thomas Cromwell, in a letter, said that the evidence was so abominable that it could not be published.