My Web Site Page 211 Ovations 04

Ovations

Sitemaps

But it is out of the kind heart of Muscovy, and from the troubled, humble and penitent soul of Russia that the real peace movement of her land has arisen. For many centuries calamities have been pouring upon her plains, profusely pouring--drought, famine and invasions without number; now Rurik and his Northmen to start the empire out of its prehistoric lethargy; their dynasty of conquering blood still sharing in the rulership of the land to-day; now the Tartars, remnants of whom with their high cheek bones are still visible in the Baltic provinces; particularly and always and ever poverty beyond description; poverty, disaster and conquest, like triple demons to humiliate the soul of Russia and keep her dumb for many centuries, except for the beauty of her unending song.

The plot, as Oates invented and detailed it, was on the most magnificent scale imaginable. The pope himself was at the head of it. The pope, he said, had laid the subject before a society of learned theologians at Rome, and they had decided that in such a case as that of England, where the sovereign and a majority of the people had renounced the true religion, and given themselves up to avowed and open heresy, the monarch lost all title to his crown, and the realms thus fallen from the faith lapsed to the pope, and were to be reclaimed by him by any mode which it seemed to him expedient to adopt. Under these circumstances, the pope had assumed the sovereignty over England, and had commissioned the society of the Jesuits--a very powerful religious society, extending over most of the countries of Europe--to take possession of the realm; that, in the prosecution of this plan, the king was to be assassinated, and that a very large sum of money had been raised and set apart, to be paid to any person who would kill the king; that an offer of ten thousand pounds had been made to the queen's physician if he would poison him. The physician had insisted upon fifteen thousand for so great a service, and this demand had finally been acceded to; and five thousand had actually been paid him in advance. Besides the murder of the king, a general assassination of the Protestants was to take place. There were twenty thousand Catholics in London, for instance, who, according to Oates's account of the plan, were to rise on a preconcerted night, and each one was to kill five Protestants, which it was thought they could easily do, as the Protestants would be taken wholly by surprise, and would be unarmed. The revolution being thus effected, the crown was to be offered to Charles's brother, the Duke of York, as a gift from the pope, and, if he should refuse to accept it on such conditions as the pope might see fit to impose, he was himself to be immediately assassinated, and some other disposal to be made of the kingdom.

Immediately after war was declared between Germany and Russia the Porte ordered the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles closed to every kind of shipping, at the same time barring the entrances of these channels with rows of mines. The first boat to suffer from this measure was a British merchantman, which was sunk outside the Bosphorus, while another had a narrow escape in the Dardanelles. A large number of steamers of every nationality are waiting outside the straits for the special pilot boats of the Turkish Government, in order to pass in safety through the dangerous mine field. This measure of closing the straits was suggested to Turkey by Austria and Germany, and was primarily intended against Russia, as it was feared that her Black Sea fleet might force its way into the Sea of Marmora and the Aegean.

This page is Copyright © Poki Mogarli. All Rights Reserved. My Web Site Page 211 is a production of Poki Mogarli and may not be reproduced electronically or graphically for commercial uses. Personal reproductions and browser or search engine caching are acceptable.

Ovations provided by My Web Site Page 211 are included only for information. The entertainment value of My Web Site Page 211's ovations may vary on the basis of your personal needs. Poki Mogarli and My Web Site Page 211 take no responsibility for the content provided by other Web sites. Links are provided "as is" without liability or warranty.