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Updated: May 16, 2025
The next year, Charles being absent in Italy, the Saxons broke into insurrection, under the leadership of Wittekind, who now first appears in history. With him was associated another patriot, Alboin, Duke of Eastphalia. Charles returned in the succeeding year, and again swept in conquering force through the country.
The expansion of Slavs so far to westward may have been due to the fact that Wittekind, King of the Saxons, called Slavonic tribes to his aid against the Franks. Charlemagne and his Franks must have been rather a nuisance to their neighbours. Charles had a mission in life, and people thus afflicted are apt to be tiresome.
After the death of their father they ruled together, but in a few years Carloman died, and then Charles became sole king. This Charles was the most famous of the kings of the Franks. He was a great soldier. For thirty years he carried on a war against the Saxons. Finally he conquered them, and their great chief, Wittekind, submitted to him.
When questioned, they lay all the blame on Wittekind. He was the culprit, they but his instruments. But Wittekind had vanished, the protesting chiefs and people were in the conqueror's hands, and, bent on making an awful example, he had no less than four thousand five hundred of them beheaded in one day.
Hither came delegates from the humbled Saxons, promising peace and submission, and pledging themselves by oaths and hostages to be true subjects of Charles the Great. But Wittekind came not. He had taken refuge at the court of Siegfried, the pagan king of the Danes, where he waited an opportunity to strike a new blow for liberty.
So we went into the garden and discussed the formation next autumn of a new rose-bed. By the afternoon train came Adrian, impeccably vestured and feverish with excitement. Two evening papers which he brandished nervously, proclaimed "The Diamond Gate" a masterpiece. "Wittekind, my publisher, declares it's going to be the biggest thing in first novels ever known.
"Wittekind told dear Adrian that he thought it a perfect title." "Our dear Adrian," said I, pacifically, "was a man of enormous will-power and perhaps Wittekind hadn't the strength to stand up against him." "Of course he hadn't," exclaimed Doria. "Of course he hadn't when Adrian was alive: now Adrian's dead, he thinks he is going to do just as he chooses. He isn't! Not while I live, he isn't!"
For one thing, it saved the trouble of concocting a letter, and, for another, it was more likely to impress the recipient. It ran: * "I advise you strongly to go to Wittekind yourself and bite him." I was rather pleased at the humour may I venture to qualify it as mordant? of the suggestion. Even Barbara smiled. Of course, I was right. Let her fight it out herself with Wittekind.
"It merely meant writing in bits of scenes. Oh, Mr. Wittekind," she cried, reverting to an old grievance, "I do wish I could see exactly what he wrote and what Adrian wrote. I've been so worried! Why do your printers destroy authors' manuscripts?" "They don't," said Wittekind. "They don't get them nowadays. They print from a typed copy."
"Naturally." "The manuscripts of Adrian's novels might be worth a lot of money?" "Quite a lot of money." "So you don't think Mr. Chayne destroyed them?" "It's an act of folly of which a literary man like Mr. Chayne would be incapable." "And you've never seen any of it?" "I've given you my word of honour." "Then it's very extraordinary," said Doria. "It is," said Wittekind, stiffly.
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