Female Warriors, Vol. I (of 2)

s of Tuscany-Turks in Hungary-Courage of a Jewess at Buda-Bravery of the Women of Temesvar, Erlau, Valpon, Agria, and Szigeth in Hungary and of Famagosta in Cyprus-Louise Labé-Mary of Hungary-Granu We

ara of Ernecourt (Thirty Yea

arious ports of Europe, under the command of audacious leaders, such as Balboa and Pizarro, whose daring spirit and enterprising disposition gave them authority over their companions

els of the New World about which all Europe was talking, in no way disgraced the name of Spaniard by any feminine timidity. In the camp before Mexico, which Cortez was besieging, 1521, it was their fortitude which kept up the spirit of the soldiers, who, repulsed in several assaults on the city, and suffering from famine, had become gloomy and despondent.

y answered him that "It was the duty of Castilian wives not to abandon their

a, who fought by the side of her husband through every camp

st romantic that could be imagined. She has written her own history in pure and classic Spanish, displaying as much

was sent to the Dominican convent, the prioress of which was her aunt. Here she remained till her fifteenth year; but during all these years she acquired so inveterate a dislike for the cloister that she contrived to make

ica, where she became a soldier. At different times she assumed one name or another; but that under which she was best known, and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, was A

like an Alsatian bully. She chose for her associates the most desperate and reprobate characters, and seemed to take a fiendish de

compelled to make her escape across the Andes, into another province. Her lawlessness once brought her under the hands of the hangman; and a reprieve arrived just as, with the noos

in Peru. The bishop, a pious man, tried to convert the young criminal, animadverting on the wicked life the latter had been leading, and exhorting her to repentance. The stubborn heart of Catalina, inured

e sobbed. "I

ceded her. During her journey through Spain and Italy the streets were crowded by wondering spectators. Pope Urban VIII. allowed her to retain her masculine costume for the rest of her days. It is not known in what year sh

and privileges. John de Padilla, a young noble, was at the head of this insurrection; but it was his wife, Do?a Maria Pacheco, who really conducted the confederacy. She was hi

consider his death as his deliverance from a weary life. But his capture proved fatal to the confederacy. Toledo, the head-quarters of the rebels, was soon invested by the king's troops. Do?a Maria used every means to secure her position. She even wrote to the Fr

telling them that Maria's influence over them was due entirely to witchcraft. The loss of three hundred men in a des

to the utmost extremities, she fled into Portugal, where many of her relatives

truggle, she never left him. Her courage aided greatly to turn the fortune of war. One day, while riding out with an escort of fifteen horsemen, she encountered Philip Strozzi, commander of her husband's enemies, reconnoitring the Florentine camp. Although he had a guard of forty-five men, Eleonora, with her accustomed bravery, attacked him, s

s actively engaged in the storming of Sienna. She urged Cosmo to have himself crowned king; but he was unable t

life to the encouragement of the fine arts, national education, and

hundred and fifty years Hungary was the scene of endless strife between the Crescent and the Cross. For a long time victory inclined to the side of the infidels. Women, as usual, took

erpowered the Turks, they were rushing into the town, when a Jewess tearing a strip of rag from her gown, lighted it, and fired off an immense cannon which the Ottomans in their flight had ov

d of this courageous act, ordered the Jewess'

latter led an army to the relief of her husband, and attacked the Turkish camp, but she was

of the townspeople supplied every deficiency. Old men and young girls, sword and spear in hand, aided in the defence. One woman was fighting beside her husband when he fell, pierced by a Turkish bullet. Her mother

sband's corpse, till his death has been amply avenged. This

l by the slaughter of three infidels she had satisfied her thirst for revenge. Then she raised the corpse of her

ol bravery with which these female warriors defended the various posts assigned to them. For several hours they held a bastion, the possession of

en, the town of Valpon set the Mussulman power at defiance,

she was about to hurl a big stone on the skulls of the infidels. Her daughter, seeing her fall, was filled with the thirst for revenge. Rushing to the breach, she fought with the desperate bravery of a lioness deprived of her cubs, slaying and

at of defending our religion and our country comes befo

r husband, declared that she would accompany him to battle, there to receive death or glory. Dressing herself in a suit of his clothes, she armed herself and went with him to the field. No one displayed greater courage than she did. Without once quitting her husband, she slew every Turk who came within reach of her sword. She

of the Turkish batteries, aided to defend the city. Not only did they carry round food and ammunition to the soldiers, but,

g, and military exercises. The last named acquirement excited in the mind of Louise a wish to enter the army. At the age of sixteen she served, under the name of Captain Loys, in the campaign of 1542, which ended in the siege of Perpignan. Some say she followed her father, others her lover to the field;

. Her spacious and tastefully laid-out gardens became the resort of nobles, poets, savants, wits, artists, musicians, and men of genius of every kind; and at these re-unions the musical skill of La Belle Cordière showed to advantage. She

de la Folie et de l'Amour," a drama in prose, three elegies, and tw

from her habit of mixing with the soldiers she was styled (like the Empress Victoria) "Mother of the Camp." She was the daughter of Philip I. of Spain, and handsome even for a Spanish princess, majestic in her carriage, yet affable and charming in her

e soldiers to encourage them by her presence. In 1553, when Charles V. was besieging Metz, which was defended by the Duke of Guise, Mary caused a diversion, by invading Picardy, to pr

wonders of the age. Mary vowed that France should repent this deed. She kept her word; and more than once her conduct savoured of gross cruelty. Henry directed hi

herlands in 1555, and returned to Spain

ort, partly for commerce, but more especially for piracy. During childhood, Grace frequently accompanied her father on his expeditions. After his death, her brother being a minor, she took command of the galleys, and made several voyages. Her

for her apprehension. Troops were sent from Galway to Carrigahooly; but after a siege of more than a fortnight, they were compell

Graine-ni-Mhaile, with several galleys, sailed to London in 1575. She was received with great distinction by the queen, who offered to make her visitor a countess; but Grace declined this honour, and answered with much spirit, that both of them being princesses, they were equal in rank, and could not therefore confer titles or honours upon each other. But, s

h hospitality, Granu seized a little boy whom she found playing with an attendant near the sea-shore. Finding that he was the infant heir of Howth, she brought him to Connaught: refusing to restore him

re yet some remains of her monument to be seen there. Her name has always been familiar in the m

he dangers and privations endured by all for the sake of their faith. They displayed as much courage and fortitude as the men, whether, as the wives and daug

ts for freedom. Haarlem was one of the most important cities; and the Spaniards, resolved to capture it at any price, despatched twelve thousand men, commanded by Frederic of Toledo, to besiege the city in December, 1572. On th

alls. At the head of her corps she was constantly seen pressing forward to attack the Spaniards, or aiding in the erection of new defence

hall of the Haarlem Stadthuis transmits her glorious deeds to posterity; and her portrait hangs in the Treasure Chamber of the Municipality, amongst the commanders of St. John, th

the general assault made by the Spaniards on the 18th September, 1573, the women aided the soldiers by hurling down fragments of st

ility of John Knox was too powerful for the queen, though for some years she contrived to keep her throne. In 1565, shortly before her ill-starred marriage with Darnley, the Congregational citizens of Edinburgh, stirred up to rebellion by the secret machinations of the queen's "base brother, Mora

he confidence inspired by her popularity, and showed herself no whit behind the most distinguished of her predecessors in courage and ability." At the head of five thousand men she left Edinburgh, August 26th, together with her husband, the lords of the council, and her ladies-in-waiting. She w

it. The confederate lords, disappointed in their expectations of a general Protestant rising, were obliged to retreat from place t

time at the head of eighteen thousand men, to renew the war. The rebel lords, terrified at th

and the consequent insurrection of nearly all the Scottish nobles forced her once more to take the field in person. When the opposing armie

d by a few friends, made a last effort to recover her throne. The Earl of Murray (regent during the mino

im that Mary mounted her good hackney and rode into the battle like another Zenobia, to encourage her troops to advance, and would fain have led them to the charge in pers

sovereign stood and watched the battle, surrounded by her ladies and a few devoted adherents. Legend also points out another "Queen's thorn" on the hill behind the ruins of Cathcart Castle. According to a

s. In 1575, during the reign of the weak and frivolous Henry III., Montal, Lieutenant du Roi, in Limousin, whose soldiers had often been defeated by Magdalaine, resolved to besiege the heroine in her chateau. With fifteen hundred foot and two hundred horse he arrived before the gates. Magdalaine made a sally, and cut to pieces a detachment of fifty men; but on her return she found that the

heroine's death

e latter was captured by means of a pretended conference; but he contrived to write to his wife, Constance de Cezelli, bidding her to take the command and defend the town so long as there was any hope of success. Constance, according to his commands, maintained order in Leucates, and encouraged the soldiers by frequently appearing on the walls with a pike in

nd his wife to open the gates. But he braved all their menaces, and when they wer

ror, she would not allow the soldiers to avenge the d

cates, with a reversion in favour of her son. She held this office for twenty-s

thousand horse and twelve thousand foot, the military genius of Alexander Farnese, the Spanish governor, together with the vacillating conduct of the Dutch themselves, frustrated a

ished relatives Count Horn and Admiral de Montmorency. The Prince of Parma summoned Tournai to surrender, but Christine gave him a defiant refusal, and set so courageous an example to the soldiers that they made a resolute defence. The princ

friar. The Protestants in the city, not knowing what moment an insurrection would break out amongst the Catholic inhabitants, insisted upon surrendering the place. Christine finding herself deserted by both Protestants

st of applause from the Spanish army, with whom she had acquired a high

stine de Lalaing in the city, which, nearly thr

empt to sail up the Thames, several thousand volunteers were assembled at Tilbury, under command of the Earl of Leicester. "Vnto the sayd army," says Rich

follow her, she was attended only by the Earls of Ormonde and Leicester, the latter bearing before her the Sword of State. She was also followed by a page, who had the honour of carrying her "white-plumed regal helmet." The queen's costume was a mixture of the military uniform and the fa

rs in an oration well calculated to inspire them with enthusia

cient Romans. She rode in a triumphal chariot from her palace to St. Paul's cathedral, where the "ens

d, speaking of a skirmish which took place at Naworth, in 1570, between Lord Hursden and Leonard Dacres, says the l

n empire; but from the middle of the sixteenth century, the royal family of France became connected with its rulers, and assumed thenceforth a right to inter

situated between Verdun and Bar. She belonged to a good family in Lorraine, and from her earliest childhood she trained herself in military exercises and the use of arms. Her chief delight was hunting, and every kind

de unhappy by the loss of her beauty, "she was as pleased," says the Abbé Arnould, "to be marked with it as other women are afflicted on a similar occasion, and said that it would en

t. Belmont's military talents led the latter into a serious dilemma; for, being given the command of a fortress, he felt himself bound in honour to defend it for several days against the French. In those days there was, it would seem, a rigid code of the military law-doubtless first introduced

tes, despatched a cartel, signed "Le Chevalier de St. Belmont," purporting to be written by her husband's brother. They crossed swords,

St. Belmont; it is, however Madame de St. Belmont of that name who returns you y

ace in the vicinity, disappeared imme

es under her orders. At their head she made frequent raids into those parts of the country occupied by the French. She was always victorious,

she wielded quite as skilfully. Her first work, "Les Jumeaux Martyrs," appeared in 1651; other works of equal merit followed. After the death of her husband she gave herself

ase in male society than in that of her own sex, in which she felt embarrassed, awkward. While her courage rendered her famous throughout France and Germany, her charity

he smell of powder-all, in fact, that pertains to a warrior's life. When she was about two years old, her father took her to Calmar. The governor did not know whether t

ter of a soldier, and should

e given. Christina clap

ore!" sh

vus Adolphus took his daughter, soon after, to see a grand review. She di

I am resolved, where you s

lfilling this promise; and Christina, in her memoirs, regrets that she

gh Denmark and Germany, she proceeded to Belgium; and from Innspruck she went to Rome, wh