Knights and their days

The Conquest was productive of a far more than average quantity of knights. Indeed, I think it may be asserted without fear of contradiction, that the first and the last William, and James I. were more addicted to dubbing knights than any other of our sovereigns. The good-natured William IV. created them in such profusion that, at last, gentlemen at the head of deputations appeared in the royal presence with a mysterious dread lest, in spite of themselves, they should be compelled to undergo a chivalric metamorphosis, at the hands of the “sea king.” The honor was so constantly inflicted, that the recipients were massed together by “John Bull” as “The Thousand and one (K)nights!”

William the Conqueror was not so lavish in accolades as his descendant of remoter days, nor was he so off-handed in the way of administering the distinction. He drew his sword with solemnity, laid it on the shoulder before him with a sort of majestic composure, and throughout the ceremony looked as calm as dignity required. William is said to have ennobled or knighted his cook. He does not stand alone in having so acted: for, unless I am singularly mistaken, the great Louis tied some small cross of chivalry to the button-hole of the immortal Vatel. William’s act, however, undoubtedly gave dignity to that department in palaces, whence many princes have derived their only pleasure. It was from him that there passed into the palace of France the term “Officiers de Service,” a term which has been appropriated by others of less elevated degree than those whom it originally served to distinguish. The term has led to a standing joke in such dwellings. “Qui vive?” exclaims a sentinel in one of the base passages, as one of these officials draws near at night. “Officier,” is the reply of the modest official in question. “Quel officier?” asks the guard. “Officier de service!” proudly answers he who is thus questioned; whereupon the soldier smilingly utters “Passe, Caramel!” and the royal officer—not of the body-guard, passes, as smilingly, on his way.

But, to return from Caramel to the Conqueror, I have to observe, that the cook whom William knighted bore an unmusical, if not an unsavory, name. The culinary artist was called Tezelin. The service by which he had won knighthood consisted in the invention of a white soup for maigre days. The hungry but orthodox William had been accustomed to swallow a thin broth “à l’eau de savon;” but Tezelin placed before him a tureen full of an orthodox yet appetizing liquid, which he distinguished by the name of Dillegrout. The name is not promising, particularly the last syllable, but the dish could not have been a bad one. William created the inventor “chevalier de l’office,” and Sir Caramel Tezelin was farther gratified by being made Lord of the Manor of Addington. Many a manor had been the wages of less honest service.

The Tiercelins are descendants of the Tezelins; and it has often struck me as curious that of two recently-deceased holders of that name, one, a cutler in England, was famous for the excellence of his carving-knives; and the other, an actor in France, used to maintain that the first of comic parts was the compound cook-coachman in Molière’s “Avare.” Thus did they seem to prove their descent from the culinary chivalry of William of Normandy.

But there are other samples of William’s knights to be noticed. Among the followers who landed with him between Pevensey and Hastings, was a Robert who, for want of a surname, and because of his sinews, was called Robert le Fort, or “Strong.” It would have gone ill with William on the bloody day on which he won a throne, had it not been for this Robert le Fort, who interposed his escu or shield, between the skull of the Norman and the battle-axe of a Saxon warrior. This opportune service made a “Sieur Robert” of him who rendered it, and on the coat-of-arms awarded to the new knight was inscribed the device which yet belongs to the Fortescues;—“Forte Scutum Salus Ducum,”—a strong shield is the salvation of dukes—or leaders, as the word implies. The Duke of Normandy could not have devised a more appropriate motto; but he was probably helped to it by the learning and ready wit of his chaplain.

The danger into which William rushed that day was productive of dignity to more than one individual. Thus, we hear of a soldier who, on finding William unhorsed, and his helmet beaten into his face, remounted his commander after cleverly extricating his head from the battered load of iron that was about it. William, later in the day, came upon the trusty squire, fainting from the loss of a leg and a thigh. “You gave me air when I lacked it,” said the Conqueror, “and such be, henceforth, thy name; and for thy lost leg and thigh, thou shalt carry them, from this day, on thy shield of arms.” The maimed knight was made lord of broad lands in Derbyshire; and his descendants, the Eyres, still bear a leg and a thigh in armor, for their crest. It is too pretty a story to lose, but if the account of these knight-makings be correct, some doubt must be attached to that of the devices, if, as some assert, armorial bearings were not used until many years subsequent to the battle of Hastings. The stories are, no doubt, substantially true. William, like James III. of Scotland, was addicted to knighting and ennobling any individuals who rendered him the peculiar pleasures he most coveted. Pitscottie asserts that the latter king conferred his favors on masons and fiddlers; and we are told that he not only made a knight of Cochrane, a mason, but also raised him to the dignity of Earl of Mar. Cochrane, however, was an architect, but he would have been none the worse had he been a mason—at least, had he been a man and mason of such quality as Hugh Millar and Allan Cuningham.

Although it has been often repeated that there were no knights, in the proper sense of that word, before the period of William the Conqueror, this must be accepted with such amount of exception as to be almost equivalent to a denial of the assertion. There were knights before the Conquest, but the systems differed. Thus we know from Collier’s Ecclesiastical History that Athelstan was knighted by Alfred; and this is said to have been the first instance of the performance of the ceremony that can be discovered. Here again, however, a question arises. Collier has William of Malmesbury for his authority. The words of this old author are: “Athelstane’s grandfather, Alfred, seeing and embracing him affectionately, when he was a boy of astonishing beauty and graceful manners, had most devoutly prayed that his government might be prosperous; indeed, he had made him a knight unusually early, giving him a scarlet cloak, a belt studded with diamonds, and a Saxon sword with a golden scabbard.” This, and similar instances which might be cited, is supposed by some to prove the existence of knights as a distinct order among the Saxons, while others think that it may amount to nothing more than the first bestowing of arms. Louis le Débonnaire, it is remarked, ense accinctus est, received his arms at thirteen years old. But this was in some degree “knighting,” for we read in Leland’s History of Ireland, of Irish knighthood being conferred on recipients only seven years old.

If William the Conqueror made many knights in order to celebrate his conquest, the gentlemen with new honors did not always obtain peaceable possession of the estates which were sometimes added to the title. Here is an instance in the case of the ancient family of the Kinnersleys. William’s commissioners had appeared in Herefordshire, and in course of their predatory excursion, they came before the castle of John de Kinnersly, an old man, who is described as a knight, albeit some assert that there were no more knights in England before the conquest than there was rain on the earth before the flood. The old man who was blind, stood at his castle-gate in front of a semicircle formed by his twelve sons. Each had sword on thigh and halberd in hand. When the sheriffs and other commissioners asked him by what tenure he held his castle and estates, blind John exclaimed, “By my arms; by sword and spear; and by the same will keep them!” To which all his lively lads uttered a vigorous “Ay, ay,” and the Norman commissioners were so satisfied with the title, that they did not venture to further question the same, but left the possessor of castle and land undisturbed in that possession which is said to be nine points out of the ten required by the law.

During many reigns, no man was knighted, but who was of some “quality,” and generally because he was particularly useful to his own or succeeding generations. These require no notice. Some of these introduced customs that are worth noticing, and here is a sample.

Among the lucky individuals knighted by Edward I., Sir William Baud holds a conspicuous place. Sir William gave rise to a curious custom, which was long observed in Old St. Paul’s. During his lifetime, the dean and chapter had made over to him some laud in Essex. In return, or perhaps in “service” for this, the knight presented at the high altar of the cathedral, a doe “sweet and seasonable,” on the conversion of St. Paul, in winter; and a buck, in equally fitting condition, on the commemoration of St. Paul in summer. The venison was for the especial eating of the canons resident. The doe was carried to the altar by one man, surrounded by processional priests, and he was to have nothing for his trouble. The buck had several bearers and a more numerous accompaniment of priests, who disbursed the magnificent sum of twelve pence to the carriers. The knight’s buck made the dean and chapter so hilarious that when they appeared at the doors of the cathedral to escort it to the altar, they wore copes and vestments, and their reverences wore wreaths of roses on their solemn heads! Indeed, there was a special dress for the cathedral clergy on either day; each, according to the occasion, being ornamented with figures of bucks or does. At the altar, the dean sent the body to be baked, but the head was cut off and carried on a pike to the western door, where the huntsmen blew a mort, and the notes proclaiming the death of the stag were taken up and repeated by the “horners” of the city, who received a trifle from the rosy dean and chapter, for thus increasing the noisy importance of the occasion.

There is something, too, worthy of notice in the fact that Richard II. was the first king who knighted a London tradesman. Walworth, who struck down Wat Tyler, and who was knighted by that king for his good service, was engaged in commercial pursuits. This lord mayor, however, derived very considerable profits from pursuits less creditable to him. He was the owner of tenements by the water side, which were of the very worst reputation, but which brought him a very considerable yearly revenue. Sir William pocketed this with the imperially-complacent remark of “non olet.” The dagger in the city arms is not in memory of this deed; it simply represents the sword of St. Paul, and it has decorated the city shield since the first existence of a London municipality.

Walworth then is not a very respectable knight. We find one of better character in a knight of ancient family name, whose deeds merit some passing record.

Sir Robert Umfreville, a knight of the Garter, who owed his honors to the unfortunate Henry VI., found leisure, despite the busy and troubled times in which he lived, to found the Chantry of Farmacres, near Ravensworth, where two chaplains were regularly to officiate according to the law of Sarum. If the knight’s charity was great, his expectations of benefit were not small. The chaplains were daily to perform service for the benefit of the souls of the founder, and of all his kith, kin, and kindred. Nay, more than this, service was to be performed for the soul’s profit of all knights of the Garter, as long as the order existed, and of all the proprietors of the estate of Farmacres. The chaplains were to reside, board, and sleep, under the roof of the chapel. Once every two years the pious will of the founder allowed them a renewal of costume, consisting of “a sad and sober vest sweeping to their heels.” Upon one point Sir Robert was uncommonly strict; he would not allow of the presence of a female in the chapel, under any pretence whatever—even as a servant to the chaplains—quia frequenter dum colitur Martha, expellitur Maria. The latter, too, were bound to exercise no office of a secular nature, especially that of bailiff. To a little secular amusement, however, the sagacious knight did not object, and two months’ leave of absence was allowed to the chaplains every year; and doubtless no questions were asked, on their return, as to how it had been employed.

While touching on the matters which occurred during the reign of that unhappy Lancastrian king, Henry VI., I will observe that we have foreign testimony to the fact of our civil wars having been carried on with more knightly courtesy than had hitherto been the case in any other country. “In my humble opinion,” says Comines, “England is, of all the dominions with which I am acquainted, the one alone in which a public interest is properly treated. There is no violence employed against the people, and in war-time no edifice is destroyed or injured by the belligerents. The fate and misery of war falls heaviest on those immediately concerned in carrying it on.” He alludes particularly to the knights and nobles; but it is clear that, let war be carried on in ever so knightly a fashion, the people must be the chief sufferers. The warehouses may stand, but so also will commerce—very still and unproductive.

Courteous as the knights of this age may have been, they were by no means incorruptible. There were many of them in the service of Edward IV., who were the pensioners of Louis XI., who used to delight in exhibiting their names at the foot of acknowledgments for money received. One official, however, Hastings, would never attach his autograph to his receipt, but he had no scruples with regard to taking the money. The Czar buys Prussian service after the fashion of Louis XI.

Henry VIII. cared more for merit than birth in the knights whom he created. He first recognised the abilities of him who was afterward Sir John Mason, the eminent statesman of five reigns. This king was so pleased with an oration delivered in his presence by Mason, at All Souls, Oxford, that he took upon himself the charge of having him educated abroad, as one likely to prove an able minister of state. He was a faithful servant to the king. Elizabeth had one as gallant in Sir Henry Unton, who challenged the great Guise for speaking lightly of his royal mistress. The motives for the royal patronage of these knights was better than that which moved Richard I. when he raised the lowly-born Will Briewer to favoriteship and knighthood. Henry VIII. was fond of conferring the honor of chivalry on those who served him well; thus of the Cornish lawyer, Trigonnel, he made a knight, with forty pounds a year to help him to keep up the dignity, in acknowledgment of the ability with which, as proctor, he had conducted the case of divorce against Queen Katharine. It was better service than John Tirrell rendered to Richard III., who knighted him for his aid in the murder of the young princes, on which occasion he kept the keys of the Tower, and stood at the foot of the stairs, while Forest and Dighton were despatching the young victims. We have a knight of a different sort of reputation in Sir Richard Hutton, Charles I.’s “honest judge,” at whose opposition against the levying of ship-money, even the king could not feel displeased. Sir Richard deserved his honors; and we may reckon among them the fact, that “when he was a barrister at Gray’s Inn, he seldom or never took a fee of a clergyman.”

The old crest of the Huntingdonshire Cromwells was a lion rampant, holding a diamond ring in its fore-paw. This crest has reference to an individual knighted by Henry VIII. In the thirty-second year of that king’s reign, Richard Williams, aliàs Cromwell, with five other gentlemen, challenged all or any comers from Scotland, Flanders, France, or Spain, who were willing to encounter them in the lists. The challenge was duly accepted, and on the day of encounter, Richard Cromwell flung two of his adversaries from their horses. Henry loved the sport, and especially such feats as this exhibited by Cromwell, whom he summoned to his presence. The king said, “You have hitherto been my Dick, now be my diamond;” and taking a diamond ring from his own finger, and placing it on that of Cromwell, he bade the latter always carry it for his crest. The king, moreover, knighted Richard, and what was better, conferred on him Romney Abbey, “on condition of his good service, and the payment of £4,663 4s. 2d. held in capite by the tenth part of a knight’s fee, paying £29 16s.”

It was in the reign of Henry VIII. that for the first time a serjeant-at-law received the honor of knighthood. This seems to have been considered by the learned body as a corporate honor, by which the entire company of sergeants were lifted to a level with knights-bachelors, at least. It is doubtless for this reason that sergeants-at-law claim to be equal in rank with, and decline to go below those said knight’s bachelors.

Of Elizabeth, it is sufficient to name but one sample of her knights. She created many, but she never dubbed one who more nobly deserved the honor than when she clapped the sword on the shoulder of Spielman, the paper-maker, and bade him rise a knight. This was done by way of recompense for the improvements he had introduced into his art, at a time when printers and paper-makers were considered by Romanists anything but angels of light.

Hume, referring to the chivalry of James I.’s time, remarks that the private soldiers were drawn from a better class of men than was the case in Hume’s time. They approached, he says, nearer to an equality with the rank of officers. It has been answered that no such rank existed as that from which they are chiefly drawn now. This, however, is not the case. There were then, as now, doubtless many of the peasant and working classes in the army; but there is not now, as there was then, any encouragement to men of respectable station to begin the ascent in profession of arms at the lowest round of the ladder.

One of James I.’s knights was the well-known Sir Herbert Croft. James knighted him at Theobalds, out of respect to his family, and personal merits. Some years subsequently Sir Herbert, then above fifty years of age, joined the Church of Rome, and retired to Douay, where he dwelt a lay-brother, among the English Benedictines. He died among them, after a five years’ residence, in the year 1622. His eldest son William was also knighted, I think, by Charles I. He is an example of those who were both knights and clergymen, for after serving as colonel in the civil wars, he forsook catholicism, in which he had been brought up by his father, entered the Church of England, and like so many other knights who in former times had changed the sword for the gown, rose to the dignity of carrying an episcopal pastoral staff, and was made Bishop of Hereford in 1661. It was a descendant of his who wrote the very inaccurate biography of Young, in “Johnson’s Lives of the Poets.” Wood, in his Athenæ, shows that the first Sir Herbert was a literary knight, who took up pen in the service of the communion into which he had entered. These were;—1. Letters persuasive to his wife and children to take upon them the Catholic religion. 2. Arguments to show that the Church, in communion with the See of Rome, is the true Church. 3. Reply to the answers of his daughter, Mary Croft, which she made to a paper of his sent to her concerning the Roman Church. All these pieces appeared in the same year, 1619, and they seem to have been very harmless weapons in the hands of a very amiable knight.

Among the most worthy of the knights created by James I. was Leonard Holliday, who served the office of Lord Mayor in 1605, and was dubbed chevalier by a king who is said never to have conferred the honor without being half afraid of the drawn sword which was his instrument. Sir Leonard did good service in return. In his time Moorfields consisted of nothing but desolate land, the stage whereon was enacted much violence and terrible pollution. In this savage locality, Sir Leonard effected as wonderful a change as Louis Napoleon has done in the Bois de Boulogne; and even a greater; for there were more difficulties in the knight’s way, and his will was less sovereign and potent to work mutation. Nevertheless, by perseverance, liberal outlay, and hard work of those employed in the manual labor, he transformed the hideous and almost pathless swamp into a smiling garden, wherein the citizens might take the air without fearing violence either to body or goods. They blessed king James’s knight as they disported themselves in the rural district with their wives and children. The laborers employed were said to have been less lavish of benedictions upon the head of him from whom they took their wages. They complained bitterly of the toil, and for a long time in London, when any great exertions were necessary to produce a desired end, promptly, men spoke of the same as being mere “Holiday work.”

James I. was not so perfect a knight in presence of a sword as he was in presence of a lady. He made more knights than any other king, not excepting William IV.; but he never dubbed one without some nervousness at the sight of the weapon with which he laid on the honor. Kenelm Digby states that when he was knighted by James, the sword, had it not been guided in the King’s hand by the Duke of Buckingham, would have gone, not upon his shoulder, but into his eye. James’s aversion from the sight of a sword is said to have descended to him from his mother who, a short time previous to his birth, was the terrified spectator of the murder of Rizzio. The same King used to remark that there were two great advantages in wearing armor, namely, that the wearer could neither receive nor inflict much injury. Indeed, as James sagaciously remarked, the chief inconvenience to be dreaded from armor was in being knocked down in it, and left without a squire to lend assistance. In this case the knight stood, or lay, in imminent peril of suffocation; the armor being generally too heavy to admit of a knight rising from the ground without help. If he lay on his face his condition was almost hopeless. The sentiment of chivalry was, after all, not so foreign to James as is popularly supposed. Witness the circumstance when Sully came over here as embassador extraordinary, James made the embassador lower his flag to the pennant of the English vessel sent out to receive or escort him. This, however, had been well nigh construed into an affront. The poets of this time too began to have a chivalrous feeling for the hardships of common women. The feeling used to be all for princesses and courtly dames, but it was now expressed even for shop-wives, behind counters. Thus the author of “The Fair Maid of the Inn” says:—

The ladies too, themselves were growing ambitious, and as fanciful as any knight’s “dame par amour” of them all. The Goldsmith’s daughter in “Eastward Ho!” who wants to be made a lady, says to her “sweet knight,” “Carry me out of the scent of Newcastle coal and the hearing of Bow bells!” and à-propos to titles, let me add that, in James’s time, it was, according to Jonson—

Southey commenting on this passage, said that the title was probably thought ominous, so many dukes having lost their heads.

In the second year of the reign of James I., he made not less than three hundred knights; and on another occasion he is said to have made two hundred and thirty-seven in six weeks. In France, when the state was in distress, knighthood was often a marketable commodity; but it probably was never more so there, than it was in England under the first James. No one was more conscious than he, when he had an unworthy person before him; and it sometimes happened that these persons had the same uncomfortable consciousness touching themselves. Thus, we are told that when “an insignificant person” once held down his head, as the king was about to knight him, James called out, “Hold up thy head, man, I have more need to be ashamed than thou.”

The indiscriminate infliction of the order caused great confusion. Knights-aldermen in the city claimed precedence of knights-commoners, and violent was the struggle when the question was agitated. Heralds stood forth and pleaded before “my lords,” as lawyers do, with reference to the party by which they were retained. One party considered it absurd that a knight who happened to be an alderman should take precedence of one who was only a knight. The civic dignitary, it was said, was no more above the chivalric, than a rushlight was superior to the sun. Such an idea, it was urged, by York against Garter, was an insult to God and man. The case was ultimately gained by the chivalric aldermen, simply because the knights-commoners did not care to pursue it, or support their own privileges. York thought that knights-commoners, though tradesmen, who had been lord mayors, and yet were not now aldermen, ought to take precedence of mere alderman knights. The commoners lost their cause by neglect; but it has been ruled that ex-lord mayors, and provosts of Scotland, shall precede all knights, as having been the Sovereign’s lieutenants.

James may be said, altogether, to have shown very little regard for the dignity of knights generally. By creating a rank above them, he set them a step lower in degree of precedence. This monarch is, so to speak, the inventor of the baronet. When money was required for the benefit of the Irish province of Ulster, a suggestion was made that they who supplied it liberally should have the hereditary title of “Sir” and “Baronet.” James himself was at first a little startled at the proposition, but he soon gave it his sanction upon Lord Salisbury observing, “Sire, the money will do you good, and the honor will do them none.” James thought that a fair bargain, and the matter was soon arranged. The knights were not pleased, but it was intimated to them, that only two hundred baronets would be created, and that as the titles became extinct, no new hereditary “Sirs” would be nominated. The successors of James did not think themselves bound by the undertaking of their predecessor. George III. the least regarded it, for during four or five years of his reign he created baronets at the rate of one a-month.

A particular annoyance to the poor knights was, that esquires could purchase the title, and so leap over them at a bound, or could be dubbed knights first, if they preferred to take that rank, by the way. But if the knights were aggrieved, much more so were their ladies, for the wife of a baronet was allowed precedence of all knights’ ladies, even of those of the Garter. The baronets themselves took precedence of all knights except of those of the Garter; and their elder sons ranked before simple knights, whose distinction of “Sir” they were entitled to assume, at the age of twenty-one, if they were so minded. Few, however, availed themselves of this privilege.

This matter went so much to the satisfaction of James, that he resolved to sell another batch of baronet’s titles, and thereupon followed his “Baronets of Nova Scotia.” All these titles were bought of the crown, the pecuniary proceeds being applied to the improvement of the outlying province of Nova Scotia. A sneer, not altogether rightly directed, has been occasionally flung at these purchased hereditary baronetcies. No doubt a title so acquired did not carry with it so much honor as one conferred for great and glorious service rendered to the country. But there have been many titled sneerers whose own dignity stood upon no better basis than that their ancestress was a king’s concubine, or the founder of their house an obsequious slave to monarch or minister. The first baronets, whether of Ulster or Nova Scotia, rendered some better service than this to their country, by giving their money for purposes of certain public good. They were not, indeed, rewarded accordingly. They were public benefactors, only on condition that they should be recompensed with an hereditary title. The morality here is not very pure; the principle is not very exalted; but a smaller outlay of morality and principle has purchased peerages before now, and the baronets, therefore, have no reason to be ashamed of the origin of their order. Least of all have those baronets of later creation, men who have made large sacrifices and rendered inestimable services to their country. On these the rank of baronet conferred no real dignity which they did not before possess, but it served as an acknowledgment of their worth in the eyes of their fellow-men. I may notice here, that when Sir Walter Scott makes record of the gallant action performed at Pinkie by Ralph Sadler, when he rallied the English cavalry so effectually as to win a battle almost lost, and seized the royal standard of Scotland with his own hand, the biographer adds that the rank to which the gallant Ralph was then raised—of knight-banneret, “may be called the very pinnacle of chivalry. Knight-bannerets could only be created by the king himself or, which was very rare, by a person vested with such powers as to represent his person. They were dubbed either before or after a battle, in which the royal standard was displayed; and the person so to be honored, being brought before the king led by two distinguished knights or nobles, presented to the sovereign his pennon, having an indenture like a swallow’s tail at the extremity. The king then cut off the fished extremity, rendering the banner square, in shape similar to that of a baron, which, thereafter, the knight-banneret might display in every pitched field, in that more noble form. If created by the king, the banneret took precedence of all other knights, but if by a general, only of knights of the Bath and knights-bachelors. Sir Francis Brian, commander of the light horsemen, and Sir Ralph Vane, lieutenant of the men-at-arms, received this honor with our Sir Ralph Sadler, on the field of Pinkie. But he survived his companions, and is said to have been the last knight-banneret of England.”

I suppose Washington thought that he had as much right as the English Protector to dub knights; which is not, indeed, to be disputed. But Washington went further than Cromwell, inasmuch as that he instituted an order. This was, what it was said to be, trenching on the privilege of a king. It was a military order, and was named after the agricultural patriot, who was summoned from his plough to guide the destinies of Rome; for the Romans had a very proper idea that nations created their own destinies. The order of Cincinnatus being decreed, the insignia of the order were sent to Lafayette, then in Paris, where the nobility, who could no more spell than Lord Duberly, trusting to their ears only, took it for the order of St. Senatus. A little uproar ensued. The aristocracy not only sneered at the American Dictator for assuming the “hedging” of a king, but they considered also that he had encroached upon the privileges of a pope, and, as they had searched the calendar and could not find a St. Senatus, they at once came to the conclusion that he had canonized some deserving but democratic individual of the city of Boston.

The commonwealth knights, whether in the naval or land service, had perhaps less of refined gallantry than prevailed among the “Cavaliers” par excellence. Thus it was a feat of which old chivalry would have been ashamed—that of Admiral Batten, when he cannonaded the house in which Queen Henrietta Maria was sleeping, at Bridlington, and drove her into the fields. But, what do I say touching the gallant refinement on the respective sides?—after all, the rudeness of Batten was civility itself compared with the doings of Goring and his dragoons. On the other hand, there was not a man in arms, in either host, who in knightly qualifications excelled Hampden—“a supreme governor over all his passions and affections, and having thereby a great power over those of other men.” With regard to Cromwell himself, Madame de Sévigné has remarked, that there were some things in which the great Turenne resembled him. This seems to me rather a compliment to Turenne than to the Protector. The latter, like Hampden could conceal, at least, if he could not govern his passions. He had the delicacy of knighthood; and he was not such a man as Miles Burket, who, in his prayer on the Sunday after the execution of the king, asked the Almighty if he had not smelt a sweet savor of blood?

The fighting chivalry of Goring, let me add, was nevertheless perfect. The courtesies of chivalry were not his; but in ability and bravery he was never surpassed. His dexterity is said to have been especially remarkable in sudden emergencies; and it was this dexterity that used to be most praised in the knight of olden times. Many other cavaliers were poor soldiers, but admirable company.

The fierce but indomitable spirit of chivalry, on the other hand, that spirit which will endure all anguish without relinquishing an iota of principle, or yielding an inch of ground in the face of overwhelming numbers, was conspicuous in other men besides the martial followers of Cromwell. I will only instance the case of Prynne, who, under the merciless scourge, calmly preached against tyranny; and with his neck in the pillory, boldly wagged his tongue against cruelty and persecution. “Freeborn John” was gagged for his audacity, but when he was thus rendered speechless, he stamped incessantly with his unshackled feet, to express that he was invincible and unconvinced still. If this was not as great courage as ever was shown by knight, I know not what to call it.

Against the courage of Cromwell, Dugdale and Roger Manby say more than can ever be alleged against Prynne—namely, that his heart failed him once in his life. It is said, that when he was captain of a troop of horse in Essex’s regiment, at Edgehill, “he absented himself from the battle, and observing, from the top of a neighboring steeple the disorder that the right wing sustained from Prince Rupert, he was so terrified, that slipping down in haste by a bell-rope, he took horse, and ran away with his troop, for which cowardice he had been cashiered, had it not been for the powerful mediation of his friends.” This passage shows that the legendary style of the chivalrous romance still was followed as an example by historians. Indeed romance itself claimed Oliver for a hero, as it had done with many a knight before him. It was gravely told of him that, before the battle of Worcester, he went into a wood, like any Sir Tristram, where he met a solemn old man with a roll of parchment in his hand. Oliver read the roll—a compact between him and the Prince of Darkness, and was heard to say, “This is only for seven years; I was to have had one for one-and-twenty.” “Then,” says the Chronicler, “he stood out for fourteen; but the other replied, that if he would not take it on those terms, there were others who would. So he took the parchment and died that day seven years.” This is history after the model of the Seven Champions.

The observance of knightly colors was kept up in the contest between commonwealth men and the crown. Those of Essex were deep yellow; and so acute were the jealousies of war, that they who wore any other were accounted as disaffected to the good cause.

I have remarked before, that Siri puts blame upon the Scottish men-at-arms, whose alleged mercenary conduct was said to have been the seed of a heavy crop of evil. The Scots seem to have been unpopular on all sides. Before the catastrophe, which ended king and kingdom, the French embassador, then in the north, was escorted to some point by a troop of Scots horse. On leaving them, he drew out half-a-crown piece, and asked them how many pence it contained. “Thirty,” was the ready-reckoned answer of an arithmetical carabinier. “Exactly so!” replied the envoy, flinging the piece among them with as much contempt as the Prince of Orange felt respect, when he threw his cross among the Dutch troops at Waterloo. “Exactly so! take it. It was the price for which Judas betrayed his master.”

If the saints were unsainted in the time of the commonwealth, they found some compensation at the hands of Mr. Penry, the author of Martin Mar-Prelate, who chose to knight the most distinguished—and this not only did he do to the male, but to the female saints. The facetious Penry, accordingly, spoke of Sir Paul, Sir Peter, and Sir Martin, and also of Sir Margaret and Sir Mary.

Passing on to later times, those of James II., I may observe that Poor Nat Lee, when mad, said of a celebrated knight of this time, Sir Roger Lestrange, that the difference between the two was that one was Strange Lee, the other Lestrange. “You poor in purse,” said Lee, “as I am poor in brains.” Sir Roger was certainly less richly endowed mentally than the poet, but he had one quality which a knight of old was bound to have, above most men who were his contemporaries—namely, intense admiration for the ladies. This gallantry he carried so far that when he was licenser of books, it is said that he would readily wink at unlicensed volumes, if the printer’s wife would only smile at him.

Though not exactly germane to the immediate subject of Sir Roger, I will notice here that it was the custom for children, as late as the reign of James II., on first meeting their parents in the morning, to kneel at their feet and ask a blessing. This was an observance seldom omitted in the early days of chivalry by knights who encountered a priest. We often hear praises of this filial reverence paid by errant knights to the spiritual fathers whom they encountered in their wanderings.

Another social custom connected with chivalry was still observed during this, and even during the reign of William III. It is noticed by Dryden, in the dedication to his “Love Triumphant,” in the following words:—“It is the usual practice of our decayed gentry to look about them for some illustrious family, and then fix their young darling where he may be both well-educated and supported.” The knightly courage and the education were not always of the highest quality, if we might put implicit faith in the passage in Congreve’s Old Bachelor, wherein it is said, “the habit of a soldier now-a-days as often cloaks cowardice, as a black coat does atheism.” But the stage is not to be taken as fairly holding the mirror up to nature; and for my part, I do not credit the assertion of that stage-knight, Sir Harry Wildair, that in England, “honesty went out with the slashed doublets, and love with the close-bodied gown.” Nor do I altogether credit what is said of Queen Anne’s time, in the Fair Quaker of Deal, that “our sea-chaplains, generally speaking, are as drunk as our sea-captains.”

William III. knighted many a man who did not merit the honor, but he was guilty of no such mistake when he laid the sword of chivalry on the shoulders of honest Thomas Abney, citizen of London. Abney was one of those happy architects who build up their own fortunes, and upon a basis of rectitude and commonsense. In course of time, he achieved that greatness which is now of so stupendous an aspect in the eyes of the Parisians; in other words, he became Lord Mayor of London. The religious spirit of chivalry beat within the breast that was covered with broadcloth, and Sir Thomas Abney humbled himself on the day on which he was exalted. He had been “brought up” a dissenter, but he certainly was not one when he became sovereign of the city in the year 1700. He was none the less a Christian, and it is an exemplary and an agreeable trait that we have of him, as illustrated in his conduct on the day of his inauguration. The evening banquet was still in progress, when he silently withdrew from the glittering scene, hurried home, read evening prayers to such of his household as were there assembled on the festive day, and then calmly returned and resumed his place among the joyous company.

This knight’s hospitality was of the same sterling quality. Who forgets that to him Dr. Watts (that amiable intolerant!) was indebted during thirty years for a home? The Abney family had a respect for the author of “the Sluggard,” which never slept. It almost reached idolatry. I have said thirty years, but in truth, Dr. Watts was at home, at the hearth of Sir Thomas, during no briefer a period than six-and-thirty years. The valetudinarian poet, the severity of whose early studies had compelled him to bid an eternal vale to the goddess of health, was welcomed by the knight, with an honest warmth born of respect for the worth and genius of a kind-hearted man who “scattered damnation” in gentle rhymes, and yet who would not have hurt a worm. In the little paradise where he was as much at ease as his precarious health would allow, it is astonishing with what vigor of spirit and weakness of phrase the good-intentioned versifier thrust millions from the gates of a greater paradise. Such at least was my own early impression of the rhymes of the knight’s guest. They inspired much fear and little love: and if I can see now that such was not the author’s design, and that he only used menace to secure obedience, that thereby affection might follow, I still am unable to come to any other conclusion, than that the method adopted is open to censure.

He sat beneath the knightly roof, without a want unsupplied, with every desire anticipated; exempted from having to sustain an active share of the warfare in the great battle of life, he was beset by few, perhaps by no temptations; and free from every care, he had every hour of the day wherein to walk with God. His defect consisted in forgetting that other men, and the children of men, had not his advantage, and while, rightly enough, he accounted their virtue as nothing, he had no bowels of compassion for their human failings. It is well to erect a high standard, but it is not less so to console rather than condemn those who fall short of it. “Excelsior” is a good advice, on a glorious banner, but they who are luxuriously carried on beneath its folds should not be hasty to condemn those who faint by the way, fall back, and await the mercy of God, whereby to attain the high prize which they had for their chief object. I should like to know if Sir Thomas ever disputed the conclusions adopted by his guest.

This mention of the metropolitan knight and the poet who sat at his hearth, reminds me of a patron and guest of another quality, who were once well known in the neighborhood of Metz;—“Metz sans Lorraine,” as the proud inhabitants speak of a free locality which was surrounded by, but was never in Lorraine.

The patron was an old chevalier de St. Louis, with a small cross and large “aîles de pigeon.” The guest was the parish priest, who resided under his roof, and was the “friend of the house.” The parish was a poor one, but it had spirit enough to raise a subscription in order to supply the altar with a new ciborium—the vessel which holds the “body of the Lord.” With the modest sum in hand, the Knight of St. Louis, accompanied by the priest, repaired to Metz, to make the necessary purchase. The orthodox goldsmith placed two vessels before them. One was somewhat small, but suitable to the funds at the knight’s disposal; the other was large, splendidly chased, and highly coveted by the priest.

“Here is a pretty article,” said the chevalier, pointing to the simpler of the two vessels: “But here is a more worthy,” interrupted the priest. “It corresponds with the sum at our disposal,” remarked the former. “I am sure it does not correspond with your love for Him for whom the sum was raised,” was the rejoinder. “I have no authority to exceed the amount named,” whispered the cautious chevalier. “But you have wherewith of your own to supply the deficiency,” murmured the priest. The perplexed knight began to feel himself a dissenter from the church, and after a moment’s thought, and looking at the smaller as well as the simpler of the two vessels, he exclaimed—“it is large enough for the purpose, and will do honor to the church.” “The larger would be more to the purpose, and would do more honor to the Head of the Church,” was the steady clerical comment which followed. “Do you mean to say that it is not large enough?” asked the treasurer. “Certainly, since there is a larger, which we may have, if you will only be generous.” “Mais!” remonstrated the knight, in a burst of profane impatience, and pointing to the smaller ciborium, “Cela contiendroit le diable!” “Ah, Monsieur le Chevalier,” said the priest, by no means shocked at the idiomatic phrase. “Le Bon Dieu est plus grand que le diable!” This stroke won the day, and the goldsmith was the most delighted of the three, at this conclusion to a knotty argument.

George I. was not of a sufficiently generous mind to allow of his distributing honors very profusely. The individuals, however, who were eminently useful to him were often rewarded by being appointed to enjoy the emoluments, if not exercise the duties of several offices, each in his own person. At a period when this was being done in England, the exact reverse was being accomplished in Spain. Thus we read in the London Gazette of March 29 to April 1, 1718, under the head of Madrid, March 21, the following details, which might be put to very excellent profit in England in these more modern times:—

“The King having resolved that no person shall enjoy more than one office in his service, notice has been given to the Duke d’Arco, who is Master of the Horse, and Gentleman of the Bedchamber; the Marquis de Montelegre, Lord Chamberlain and Captain of the Guard of Halberdiers; the Marquis de St. Juan, Steward of the Household, and Master of the Horse to the Queen; and one of the Council of the Harinda, the Marquis de Bedmar, the Minister of War, and President of the Council; and several others who are in the like case, to choose which of their employments they will keep. To which they have all replied that they will make no claim, but will be determined by what his Majesty shall think fit to appoint. The like orders are given in the army, where they who receive pay as General Officers, and have Colonels’ commissions besides, are obliged to part with their regiments.”

This regulation seriously disturbed the revenue of many a Spanish knight; but it was a wise and salutary regulation, nevertheless. At the very period of its being established, Venice was selling her titles of knighthood and nobility. In the same Gazette from which the above details are extracted, I find it noticed, under the head of “Venice, March 25,” that “Signor David, and Paul Spinelli, two Geneva gentlemen, were, upon their petition, admitted this week by the Grand Council, into the Order of the Nobility of this Republic, having purchased that honor for a hundred thousand ducats.” It was a large price for so small a privilege.

I have treated of knighthood under George II., sufficiently at length, when speaking of that king himself; and I will add only one trait of his successor.

It was not often that George III. was facetious, but tradition has attributed to him a compound pun, when he was urged by his minister to confer knighthood upon Judge Day, on the return of the latter from India. “Pooh! pooh!” remonstrated the king, “how can I turn a Day into night?” On the ministerial application being renewed, the king asked, if Mr. Day was married, and an affirmative reply being given, George III. immediately rejoined, “Then let him come to the next drawing-room, and I will perform a couple of miracles; I will not only turn Day into Knight, but I will make Lady-Day at Christmas.”

There was a saying of George III. which, put into practice, was as beneficial as many of the victories gained by more chivalrous monarchs. “The ground, like man, was never intended to be idle. If it does not produce something useful it will be overrun with weeds.”

Among the men whom James I. knighted, was one who had passed through the career of a page, and notice of whom I have reserved, that I might contrast his career with that of a contemporary and well-known squire.