DEFEATED MONARCHS IN THE PAST

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 180, 25 April 1919, Page 5

DEFEATED MONARCHS IN THE PAST

■ ■ y .. HOW THEY WERE TEEATJED. It is reasonable enough (writes Mr. Charles Lowe, in the "illustrated London News") to suppose that, when not devoting himself, as we are told he is doing, to the feverish writing of his memoirs, the fugitive Kaiser', in his Dutch asylum, may be spending his time ransacking historical records for cases parallel, or analogous, to his owu— though there must be few such—with the natural desire to know how similar sovereigns or soldier-chiefs have been treated by their conquerors and raptors. From his Bible itself he will learn that in Babylonia some captured tings were turned out iijto the fields like cattle to l'eed on grass; while Joshua's method was still more drastic. In his Gilgal war he was opposed by five kings, who took refuge in a cave at Makkedah. These lie ordered to be hauled out, hanged on separate trees,, and thrust back into their hiding-place, to the mouth of which great stones were then rolled, so that their bones are likely enough to bo lying there still. Mithridate3, .King of the Parthiiins,- committed suicide rather than capitulate to the Romans; lint it was different with the great Gallic chief, Vercingetoi;ix, who surrendered to Caesar after the siege of Alesia, a military feat Df a perfectly unique kind. . "Vercingetorix," wrote Plutarch, "went out of the gates excellently well armed, and his horse furnished with rich caparison accordingly, and rode round about Caesar, who sat in his chair of stat». Then, alighting from his horse, he took off his caparison and furniture, and unarmed himself, and went and sat down at Caesar's feet, but said never a word. So Caesar at length committed him. as a prisoner taken in the war, to lead him at'tenvnrds in his triumph at Rome"— where lie was afterwards done to death, though deserving a better fate. Our own King Edward 111 happened to have two enemy kings in his custody at the same time—John of France, and David 11, of Scotland, only son of Robert Bruce, who had been c-aptured by the English at Neville's Cross, near Durham. John was assigned as a residence the Savoy Palace in London; while David spent much of his ten years' captivity at Windsor, whe'ro his M 'ird successor, Jaines I, the poet-king, was also to languish for 18 years—but to he treated like tho prince and Icing he was, carefully educated, and -married to a noble English wife. In all these eases tho release of tlw captives was inly a question of ransom, -which was the medieval form of what is now known as "war indemnity.'' And so it had also been with Richard Lion Heart, who,' when returning home from a crusade, was captured by Duke Leopold of Austria, and committed lo a fortress, while treated- with every, honous, as became his high and noble character. Mary Queen of Scots, it is true, and also her grandson, Charles I, both lost their heads in England; L>ut in each ense questions of the infringement of public law and liberty, and of the rights of man and woman hnd been involved. England, however, has always been singularly humane and generous in her treatment of high military ov.tl political prisoners, as- witness cases such as those of Arnbi Pasha; Tliebaw, I\' ; ng of Burniah, who was simply deported to India; King I'rempeli, ngiiia; ami, above all, C'ete wayo, the Vercingetorix of the Zulus, who, after the final overthrow of his power at Ulundi, was brought as a captive to Loudon and treated with almost sovereign honours—before being,, lo somo extent, reinstated in his own country. But though the sovereign of a savage people, even Cetewayo had waged war in a comparatively honourable maimer; but as for the fallen Kaiser—no, the same cannot with truth bo said of him.

(The cable news in this issue accredited to the London "Times" has appeared in that journal, but only where expressly stated is suck news the editorial opinion of the "Timeß."]