Renegade

Renegade is defined as one who renounces his religious faith and adopts another creed, more particularly one who renounces Christianity and becomes a Moslem; but in a wider sense the word is practically synonymous with traitor—that is, one who deserts to the enemies of his country. A few of the more notorious renegades of history may be named. Hippias, son of Pisistratus, fought with Sparta against his country Athens, and later joined the Persians. Onomacritus, the editor of Homer, another Athenian, added his persuasions to those of Hippias to induce Xerxes to invade Greece. Coriolanus led the Volscian armies against his native city Rome. Julian the Apostate was of course a renegade from Christianity. The Templars were accused, amongst other things, of being virtually renegades from their faith. The Algerine pirates surnamed Barbarossa (q.v.), who in the first half of the 16th century kept the Mediterranean coasts in a state of perpetual terror, were by birth Greek Christians of Mitylene. Henry of Navarre, fourth king of that name in France, renounced the Protestant creed after he ascended the throne. During the Thirty Years' War there was a prominent renegade leader on each side: Count Mansfeld (II.) deserted the emperor and the Catholic cause because the former treated him ill; Pappenheim, the commander of the celebrated dragoons and principal author of the sack of Magdeburg, went over from the Protestants to the Roman Catholics. Archibald Campbell, seventh earl of Argyll, was in 1619 declared a rebel for having entered the service of the king of Spain, a Roman Catholic prince at war with Britain. The 'pirate' Paul Jones, who during the war of American Independence ravaged the coasts of Scotland, was by birth a Scotsman. Mazepa, the Cossack chief, fought against his sovereign at Pultowa in the army of Charles XII. of Sweden. The Duke of Ripera, who won his laurels in the service of Spain (18th century), though he was by birth a Dutchman, is said to have embraced Islam and led the armies of Morocco against the Spaniards. Omar Pasha, who distinguished himself against the Russians in the Crimean war, was born a Christian in Croatia, but fled to the Turks and embraced Islam. Another pasha, Emin, the hero of the Equatorial Province of Africa, is a German Jew, who has become a Mohammedan. The redoubtable Osman Digna, who has occasioned so much trouble as the Mahdi's lieutenant between Nile and Red Sea, is stated to be the son of French parents, his birthplace Ronen, his real name George Nisbet (Scotch?). In literature, besides plays and novels and poems dealing with personages already named, Massinger's Renegade and Byron's Siege of Corinth may be quoted as works in which renegades play important parts.