The History of Female Warriors. Ellen C. Clayton
and the friends of Ayesha seized the palace one dark night, bastinadoed the governor, plucked out his beard, and sent him back to his master. Great, however, was the dismay of Ayesha when the Caliph encamped one morning before Bassorah; but, resolved not to give way, she rejected the proposals of Ali, and plunged both armies into a fierce engagement before very well knowing what she was about. But terrified at the horrors of war, to which until this day she was almost a stranger, the old woman besought Kaub, who led her camel, to throw himself between the combatants. In trying to obey her command he was slain.
The large white camel of Ayesha soon became the rallying-point of the insurgents, around which the fury of the battle concentrated. The reins were held alternately by the Modian Arabs, who chanted pieces of poetry; and it is said that out of the tribe of Benni Beiauziah alone not less than two hundred and eighty lost a hand on this occasion. The howdah, pierced all over with arrows, had something the appearance of a porcupine or a giant pincushion.
After the battle had raged for several hours, the Caliph, seeing plainly that it would go on so long as the camel remained alive, ordered his chiefs to direct all their efforts towards cutting down the beast. First one leg was cut off; but the camel maintained its erect position. Another leg was cut off; yet the animal remained immovable. For a moment the soldiers of Ali thought the camel was a sorcerer or a genie. But a third leg was cut off, and the camel sank to the ground.
The battle soon ended; all resistance ceased when the insurgents knew that their leader was taken. Ali treated his prisoner with that true chivalry which had already sprung up amongst the Arabs. He sent her home to Medina, escorted by female attendants disguised as soldiers, and while he lived she was not permitted to meddle in politics. After the murder of Ali she resumed her former position. Many years after, when Moawyah wished to make the Caliphate hereditary in his family, he purchased the influence of Ayesha by the gift of a pair of bracelets valued at one hundred and fifty thousand dinars, or nearly seventy thousand pounds.
The "Battle of the Camel," as it is generally styled by Oriental historians, was fought in December, A.D. 656, (A.H. 36.)
During the reign of Caliph Abdul-Malek the Islamites in northern Africa found a most formidable opponent in Cahina the sorceress, Queen of the Berbers. Under the lead of this pseudo-prophetess, the original natives of Barbary made a determined stand for many years against the Koran.
Cahina directed her followers to lay waste the lands that lay between Egypt and her dominions, telling them that it was the fruitfulness of those districts which caused the Arab invasions. Her commands were only too faithfully executed. Cities, towns, and villages were destroyed; fields desolated, trees cut down, and the entire face of the land changed from a beautiful garden planted with waving palms and lovely flowers, into an arid waste with scarcely a tree or blade of grass to be seen.
But this scheme ultimately proved the ruin of Cahina. The natives of the ruined districts joyfully welcomed the Moslems on their next invasion. Cahina again took the field with all her forces; but her ranks this time were thinned by desertion. She was speedily defeated and made prisoner with her principal advisers. Rejecting the proposals of the Arab general—the Koran or tribute—her head was cut off, put in a camphor-scented casket of great price, and sent to the Caliph.
Although Persia was one of the earliest conquests effected by the followers of Islam, scarcely two centuries had elapsed before it was divided into a number of independent states, ruled by Arab, Turkish, or Persian princes. Towards the close of the tenth century, Queen Seidet, widow of one of these independent monarchs, governed the state as regent for her son, who was a minor. She ruled with so much wisdom, and under her guidance the kingdom flourished so greatly, that she had every reason to be offended when her son, grown old enough to take the reins of government, appointed Avicenna, the family physician, to be his Grand Vizier, and committed everything into his hands. Avicenna treated the queen with so little respect that the latter retired from court, raised troops, and marched against her son, whose forces she easily routed. Not wishing, however, to deprive him of the throne, she merely acted as his chief adviser, and aided him with salutary counsels so long as she lived.
Sultan Mahmoud, founder of the Gaznevide dynasty, held Seidet in the deepest respect. While she lived he refrained from attacking her son's dominions; but after her death he annexed them without scruple.
In these days few persons, save students of Oriental history, have even so much as heard of Kharezmé, in Tartary; yet in the eleventh and twelfth centuries it was considered by surrounding nations as the most powerful state in Asia, and its court the most magnificent. At the beginning of the thirteenth century, it was actually, although not nominally, governed by Turkhan Khatun, mother of the reigning Sultan. In those days the Mongols, under the irresistible Jenghiz Khan, were advancing with rapid strides towards Europe. It was not long before they besieged the capital of Kharezmé. The city held out for twelve months against the Mongol hordes commanded by the three sons of Jenghiz Khan. The inhabitants, male and female, made a defence worthy of their ancient fame. Even the women aided in the numberless sorties made from the city. But at last, despite their bravery, the place was taken by storm. Men and women alike fought hand to hand with the Mongols, and retired from street to street, till scarcely any remained alive.
According to the lowest computation more than one hundred thousand Kharezmians were slain during the siege. The valour displayed by the women became so famous throughout Asia, that many Oriental historians, by way of accounting for it, gravely assert that the people of Kharezmé were descended from the Amazons.
Mr. Palgrave, who travelled through Arabia in 1862–3, says that it is customary amongst the Bedouin Arabs, when they go into battle, to have their army preceded by a maiden of good family, styled a Hadee'yah, who rides on a camel into the midst of the fight, encouraging the men to fight bravely by reciting pieces of extempore poetry, satirical or heroic, as best suits the occasion. Very frequently the Hadee'yah is slain. Such was the fate of a brave girl, noted for her eloquence and gigantic stature, who led on the Amjan Bedouins at Koweyt rather more than twenty years ago, against Abd-Allah, heir to the throne of Nejed. This "Arabian Bellona" was slain by the lance of a Nejdean warrior, and her death is said to have been the principal cause of the final rout of the Amjan army.
V.
Libyssa and Valasca, Queens of Bohemia—Wanda, Queen of Poland—Moors in Spain—Women of Tudmir—Female Knights of Tortosa—Alleged Origin of the word "Infantry"—Queen Carcas—Elfrida, Daughter of Alfred the Great—Igor, Grand Duchess of Russia—Richilda, Countess of Hainault.
EUROPE, during the two or three centuries after the downfall of the Roman Empire, bears a strong resemblance to Greece during the heroic age. In the Nibelungen, the Iliad of those days, we read of godlike heroes, Herculean warriors, giant princes, and Amazon queens. That was an age when might constituted right, when rulers led their own armies in the field, where the lead was given to the strongest or the most daring.
The Salique law seems in those days to have been very generally disregarded—if indeed it had been introduced as yet; for we read of more than one queen who ruled alone over the more or less barbarous kingdoms of Europe. Æneas Sylvius narrates how a warlike queen named Libyssa ascended the throne of Bohemia on the death of her father, King Crocus. Her husband, Przemislas, whom she espoused in 632, being originally only a peasant, was probably a humble, weak-minded individual, ruled by his wife; for the queen proceeded to enrol the greater number of her female subjects into a species of militia. They were trained, like the Amazons, to the use of arms and to ride on horseback. After the death of Libyssa, the narrator further says that the principal favourite of the queen, Valasca, with the assistance of the female troops, seized the throne, and held it until her death, which occurred seven years later. Resolved to form a nation of Amazons, Valasca passed a law that all male children should have their right eyes put out and their thumbs cut off, to keep them from using bow and arrows. And this barbarous order was rigorously enforced while Valasca lived, the men not daring to raise any complaint. The demise of this Amazon-queen soon restored everything to its natural order.
Wanda,