<p><SPAN name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"></SPAN></p>
<h2> CHAPTER XV——OF THE PUNISHMENT OF COWARDICE </h2>
<p>I once heard of a prince, and a great captain, having a narration given
him as he sat at table of the proceeding against Monsieur de Vervins, who
was sentenced to death for having surrendered Boulogne to the English,
—[To Henry VIII. in 1544]—openly maintaining that a soldier
could not justly be put to death for want of courage. And, in truth, 'tis
reason that a man should make a great difference betwixt faults that
merely proceed from infirmity, and those that are visibly the effects of
treachery and malice: for, in the last, we act against the rules of reason
that nature has imprinted in us; whereas, in the former, it seems as if we
might produce the same nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection
and weakness of courage, for our justification. Insomuch that many have
thought we are not fairly questionable for anything but what we commit
against our conscience; and it is partly upon this rule that those ground
their opinion who disapprove of capital or sanguinary punishments
inflicted upon heretics and misbelievers; and theirs also who advocate or
a judge is not accountable for having from mere ignorance failed in his
administration.</p>
<p>But as to cowardice, it is certain that the most usual way of chastising
it is by ignominy and and it is supposed that this practice brought into
use by the legislator Charondas; and that, before his time, the laws of
Greece punished those with death who fled from a battle; whereas he
ordained only that they be for three days exposed in the public dressed in
woman's attire, hoping yet for some service from them, having awakened
their courage by this open shame:</p>
<p>"Suffundere malis homims sanguinem, quam effundere."<br/>
["Rather bring the blood into a man's cheek than let it out of his<br/>
body." Tertullian in his Apologetics.]<br/></p>
<p>It appears also that the Roman laws did anciently punish those with death
who had run away; for Ammianus Marcellinus says that the Emperor Julian
commanded ten of his soldiers, who had turned their backs in an encounter
against the Parthians, to be first degraded, and afterward put to death,
according, says he, to the ancient laws,—[Ammianus Marcellinus,
xxiv. 4; xxv. i.]—and yet elsewhere for the like offence he only
condemned others to remain amongst the prisoners under the baggage ensign.
The severe punishment the people of Rome inflicted upon those who fled
from the battle of Cannae, and those who ran away with Aeneius Fulvius at
his defeat, did not extend to death. And yet, methinks, 'tis to be feared,
lest disgrace should make such delinquents desperate, and not only faint
friends, but enemies.</p>
<p>Of late memory,—[In 1523]—the Seigneur de Frauget, lieutenant
to the Mareschal de Chatillon's company, having by the Mareschal de
Chabannes been put in government of Fuentarabia in the place of Monsieur
de Lude, and having surrendered it to the Spaniard, he was for that
condemned to be degraded from all nobility, and both himself and his
posterity declared ignoble, taxable, and for ever incapable of bearing
arms, which severe sentence was afterwards accordingly executed at Lyons.—[In
1536] —And, since that, all the gentlemen who were in Guise when the
Count of Nassau entered into it, underwent the same punishment, as several
others have done since for the like offence. Notwithstanding, in case of
such a manifest ignorance or cowardice as exceeds all ordinary example,
'tis but reason to take it for a sufficient proof of treachery and malice,
and for such to be punished.</p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />
1 of 2
2 of 2
Previous
Next
Update Required
To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.