of it in 1689; and, in 1708, the Dutch, under the command of the celebrated General Cöhorn, or Kuhorn, the great engineer, assaulted and carried it after a short bombardment. About the latter end of the same year, it fell into the hands of our Duke of Marlborough and the allies. From 1795 to 1814, continued in the possession of the French government, republican and imperial. In the latter year, it was entered and occupied by the allied forces on the expulsion of Bonaparte from France; and in 1818, two years subsequently, it was annexed to the territories of Prussia, part of which kingdom it still continues.

THE MÜNSTER.

THE VEHMGERICHT, OR SECRET
TRIBUNAL.

Certainly the most prominent public structure in Bonn is the Parochial, or Münster-Kirche. Tradition assigns its origin to the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great; and the crypt is, undoubtedly, Roman in its construction: but the present superstructure, however, dates no further back than the twelfth century; and it is, most probably, a re-edification of the ancient church, constructed, perhaps, by that celebrated patroness of Christianity.

It was in the crypt of this venerable edifice, according to the most credible traditionary authorities, that the terrific tribunal, known, in the middle ages, as the Vehmgericht, or Secret

Tribunal, held its chief court, and issued therefrom those fearful mandates, which made even the proudest princes of the period quail and tremble.

From the date of the decay of the ancient institutions of Charlemagne, the German empire became a prey to intestine discord, until it was afflicted with almost every evil incident to an unsettled state of society. The power of the strong hand (Faustrecht) predominated; might grew into right in the minds of men; and no redress existed for oppression or wrong, provided the culprit could afford to set the insufficient laws, and the venal and weak authorities appointed to enforce them, at defiance. At this juncture, happily for the peace of the land, the great Elector and Archbishop of Cologne, Engelbert the First, made his appearance on the public stage (A. D. 1213-25), and set about effecting those reforms in the social condition which the disordered state of the times, and the general disorganisation of all classes, rendered absolutely necessary.

Of Engelbert's character, mention has already been made: he was truly the greatest man of his age and country. To remedy the general disorder which prevailed, not alone in his own dominions, but also over the entire empire, he projected, as a first step, the establishment of a secret tribunal; and then he obtained from the emperor and the pope, their sanction to his selfappointment as its chief-the grand inquisitor of the empire. This tribunal was termed the Vehmgericht. * He next entered into the strictest se

Subterranean Tribunal not unprobably derived from

cret alliances with the princes neighbouring on his diocess, and also with the great barons who were interested in the preservation of order; and bound them, by the most strongest oaths, to further the decrees and execute the judgment of the Vehmgericht, of which they were all constituted members by this compact. The original object of this tribunal was one of the most laudable description possible; it took extrajudicial cognisance of all murders, assassinations, rapes, robberies, sacrileges, and adulteries; and punished them accordingly. The culprit, or accused party, was cited before the secret tribunal by means of a summons, generally affixed to some conspicuous part of his bed-chamber; but often also conveyed secretly on his person, or offered to his sight, under circumstances of peculiar mistery, by the numerous emissaries of the tribunal. If the citation was answered by him, he was tried in secret, and privately punished, if he refused to appear, he was proceeded against as if he were present, and the guilt of contumacy was added to the other charges of which he might be accused. In the latter case, he very rarely escaped the doom pronounced against him; for the agents of the terrific tribunal were every where; and no place was deemed free from their allpervading power and presence. In the camp, on the high-roads, on the by-roads, in the heart of the most desolate solitudes, on the mountain peak, in the depth of the valley, yea, even in the midst of his own retainers and friends, fortified within his

Weem Ang Sax a subterranean
Uamba a Cove

vault, from the Gaelic

own strong castle, the culprit could never calculate for one moment on his life, once that the mandate for his destruction had gone forth from the Vehmgericht. Rank, station, courage, and daring, were no safeguards against a power which seemed omnipotent as well as omnipresent; and which was, moreover, never known to have permitted the escape of its victim. It was a desperate remedy; but the disease to which it was applied was of an equally desperate nature. In so far there is justification for it.

The existence of such a power, the circumstances under which it was exercised, and the invisibility of its agents and actors, were soon the source of terror to all evil-doers in the land but especially so to those who dwelt in the diocess of Cologne. The consternation it caused among them soon extended itself to every other portion of the empire; for the secret tribunal had established branches in every chief ecclesiastical city in Germany; and it was firmly believed, that no village even was without one of its agents. Perhaps it did not althogether suppress crime-perhaps it only caused it to be perpetrated less openly than before: but even so, however, it produced a salutary influence upon public morals; and made men more cautious of outraging the sacred bond which binds society together. This influence lasted for a considerable time; and Engelbert, though he fell a sacrifice to his zeal for order, lived long enough to witness the best results produced by its operation. Like all things merely human, however, it had its abuses, and in the lapse of ages, fell into contempt and deserved decay. The system

35370B

of secret accusation which it established was the source of many crimes, and of much of the worst description of injustice. When it was once discovered that a charge of the gravest nature, involving the most serious consequences, might be made against any man with impunity, the wicked and the wanton were not slow in availing themselves of the fearful power so carelessly permitted to their grasp. The result, therefore, often was, that many an innocent person perished before the tribunal had time to discover the falsity of the accusation, or an opportunity afforded it of rectifying its judgments. The progress of information, too, was altogether unfavourable to its continuance. It could only have existence in a country where civilisation was in a very low state among the mass of the people, or was solely confined to a few individuals, or small communities. As knowledge, however, increased; as the arts of life became more known, and oftener practised; and as the social compact grew to be better understood, the power of the Vehmgericht became every day weaker and more weak, and its influence less fearful and far less extensive. In the thirteenth century, it was dreaded by all men; in the fourteenth, it was spoken of as a thing still formidable; but, in the fifteenth, it altogether disappeared from their minds,-thanks to the invention of printing, and perhaps, also, to the first convulsive throes of that mighty moral earthquake, destined to effect such an entire change in the social condition of Europe during the early part of the succeeding century-the Reformation.