The cairn

Chapter 289: Pride and Humility.

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About This Book

A compact miscellany of short essays, anecdotes, prayers, poems, and biographical sketches that collects reflections on grief, maternal love, benevolence, virtue, taste, and historical episodes. The pieces alternate personal memories, moral aphorisms, humorous and touching anecdotes, and brief portraits of public figures, often framed as letters, epitaphs, or short narratives. Recurring themes include the effects of sorrow and joy, domestic affection, charity, the vicissitudes of fortune, and the consolations of faith and art. The tone moves between intimate recollection and light moralizing, presenting varied, self-contained vignettes meant to instruct, console, and amuse.

Pride and Humility.

On the marriage of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, with Mary the sister of King Henry VIII. and widow of Louis XII. of France, he appeared at the tournament given in honour of his bride, with an ingenious device, delicately alluding to the event which had brought him within the pale of royalty. To the trappings of his horse, which were one half of cloth of gold, and the other of cloth of freize, was appended the following motto.

Cloth of gold, do not despise,

Though thou art match’d with cloth of freize;

Cloth of freize, be not too bold,

Though thou art match’d with cloth of gold.